Author: Oana

Healthy Living Challenge: Day 23 – Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Published by

We are not Catholic but I believe my child benefits from being immersed into the Irish traditions since she will most likely live her childhood here. So yesterday we attended a day of fun activities at the Belfast City Hall including, as you can see above, face-painting, tattoos, arts and crafts, snake petting and traditional storytelling. Emma loved it all, especially the storytelling time, the magic of the fairy stories, the flute playing and the good craic. This morning I decided to celebrate, healthy style, the occasion myself. I made myself a lovely smoothie with pear, avocado, pineapple, fresh basil leaves, coconut milk and spirullina powder, to make it nice and green. I served it into a Murphy’s stout mug :-). Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Healthy Living Challenge:Day 22 – Dieting Book Feast!

Published by

Okay, my friends, I haven’t been ignoring you or slacking off with my healthy living task. On the contrary, my scales have been a stable 68.4 kilos this week and I did a lot of research in order to provide you with some valuable dieting material, just in case you were inspired by my posts. The first read I want to bring to your attention is Anna Richardson’s Summer Body Blitz Diet. Wow, Anna is a girl after my own heart with her dieting book! She has only 5 rules to stick to: 1. NO WHEAT; 2. NO DAIRY; 3. NO SUGAR; 4. NO CARBS(after 6 p.m, that is!); 5. NO ALCHOHOL. Of all the dieting books I peeked at in the last few weeks, her philosophy is the closest to the way I have been trying to lose the weight(plus she mentions a summer body in the book title, the very thing I am aiming for :-). She also has a section made of simple-to-follow yet delicious recipes and a “Fast Food” section that …

Healthy Living Challenge: Day 21 – Pinocchio…belly

Published by

Dear friends, I am more than half way through my challenge and I have my good days and my bad days. Yesterday was a great day in everything except my wheat avoidance. I had a busy morning cooking a healthy meal for my family but in the process I made a couple of nutritional mistakes. I left it for too long to have a snack in the morning. Then what was supposed to be my snack (a lovely veggie omelette) became my early lunch. Then by three o’clock I was in work. And hungry. And I had a slice of bread. The scenario sort of repeated itself later in the day and by the evening I was feeling and LOOKING very bloated. And I knew it was the bread. And I thought of poor Pinocchio who every time he told a lie had an inch nose growth :-). I was the very same, an inch belly growth with every slice of bread. Needless to say, rye bread supplies have been replenished in the house and …

Healthy Living Challenge: Day 20 – Health on a plate

Published by

Today it was “leftover” day in our household. I had made my turkey burgers and quinoa salad from yesterday evening so all I had to do is make a fresh salad of organic lettuce and tomato and my dinner was ready. I am always experimenting with my food so last night I  added a thin slice of Gruyère cheese into the burgers and it melted when warmed up today. Delish! I had also more confidence in making the quinoa salad second time around and realised that a cup does us just fine and nothing goes to waste, which I hate seeing. Hubby enjoys my food more than ever, he had always been a healthy eater but he just loves trying new things and he got spoilt in the last three weeks. Well, this is day 20, there are exactly 20 more days left of this healthy living challenge and I am heading for the kitchen to make myself a fruit snack as I got hungry again after out very healthy dinner at 6. Talk tomorrow! …

Healthy Living Challenge: Day 19 – A New Woman on Mother’s Day

Published by

Oh, yeah, and my weight keeps dropping!! It must have been the post-traumatic shock, the fact that the insurance company decided the car bumping on Thursday was actually my fault (hubby says it’s my crappy phrasing when relating the incident) and the fact that I didn’t sleep much since, replaying it in my head but the good news is that I am down to 68.1 kilos as from this morning!! Wow, three kilos in less than three weeks, I never imagined when I started this healthy living, wheat-free challenge that I will see results this quickly! I have started to see results in the way my jeans fit and in my face. I still have a wee pouch belly hovering over my jeans line and my arms are still chubby but my aim is to get a flat belly and beach-ready arms by the end of May. I am still nauseated every time I think of the traffic incident and for the first time since I started my healthy living challenge I had to have …