Her Unique Glow

I’m OBSESSED with food – but not just any food – good, nutrient dense, delicious and home cooked meals that satisfy me in every way possible. I’m so passionate about sharing all my food, health and wellness tips with you so that you can fall in love with good quality, yummy food all over again!

This week, I wanted to share 5 tips on how you can change your diet right NOW so that it’s serving you in the best way possible and fuelling your body optimally. These tips are super straight forward, no fuss and really simple to implement into your life today – so let’s get started!

1) Get more greens in!

Greens (ie: green vegetables) are a fantastic source of fibre, nutrients, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients. That means not only are they going to fuel your body with a variety of nutrients to support your health, but they also encourage flow of your digestive tract and boost the health of your microbiome (intestinal flora that is essential for true and optimal health).

I personally LOVE greens, the taste, texture – EVERYTHING – but I know that if you’re not a huge fan, that eating more greens is easier said than done.

Here are some easy tips to get more greens in your diet:

• Add greens to every meal – including breakfast!
• Add greens to smoothies.
• Use a good quality greens powder.
• Have a bowl of steamed green veggies with your dinner.
• Have a salad as the base for your meals.
• Juice greens.
• Hide greens in your meals – for example, grate courgette into your morning oats.

2) Drink more water

This is possibly in my top 3 health tips of all time!

I know that food is the most commonly associated thing when it comes to diet, but the word ‘diet’ also refers to the drink we consume. That’s why water is SO essential when it comes to having a healthy diet that supports your total wellbeing. We literally can’t function without water – our bodies need water to survive, so having sufficient amounts is vital.

How much water you need is totally dependent on you as an individual but on average we need about 2-3 litres of water a day and the majority of that should be in the morning/early afternoon.

Here are some easy tips to get more water in your diet:

• Carry a large bottle around with you throughout your day to keep you accountable.
• Track your water intake using a phone app.
• Add fruits and herbs to give your water some flavour.
• Whenever you’re craving food, drink a tall glass of water first (sometimes our cravings for food actually come from dehydration).

3) Cook more

I know cooking can be a pain – especially when we’ve had long days and just want a quick fix for dinner, but home cooking is an amazing way to transform your diet. Why? Because you know EXACTLY what’s going into your food and you can make the best choices possible using high quality and nutrient dense ingredients. When you cook from home you can monitor the sugar, salt and preservative contents of your food to make sure you’re doing the best you possibly can for your body.

I don’t believe healthy cooking should be a chore or lengthy and complicated in any way! That’s why I share so many recipes with you so that you can try them out and add them to your weekly meals.

4) Meal prep and meal plan

This is a major tip to help make sure your diet stays on track but that will also help you when it comes to cooking more!

Meal prepping is exactly what it says on the tin – it’s prepping your meals as far in advance as you can. For example:

• Making a big batch of your dinner so you can portion it out and have it throughout the week.
• Making extra food so you can freeze it as a go-to meal.
• Cleaning, chopping and preparing all your fruit and veg so that it’s a quick and handy snack.
• Preparing your veg so that the cooking time is lessened throughout the week.
• Portioning out your snacks to grab them when you need them.

Meal planning is also great when you’re looking to ‘healthify’ your diet. When you know exactly what you’re going to make during the week it saves on time, money and you avoid buying foods that you don’t need.

5) Cut out all the junk food

This is a biggie – stop buying and consuming all that junk food. Junk food is exactly what it says it is – JUNK. It doesn’t fuel your body at all and can in fact have negative impacts on your body as junk food is usually high in salt, refined sugars, preservatives and additives.

If you know that you love certain junk foods like chocolates or crisps then meal prep alternatives for yourself that you can eat. For example: make a batch of bliss balls at the beginning of the week if you love sweet treats or roast some chickpeas with some spices in the oven for a savoury snack. Know what you crave so you can prepare healthier alternatives in advance so you don’t grab those quick fix junk foods.

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