Author: Oana

Healthy Living Challenge: Day 8 – Dieting and socialising

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I am sure you missed me yesterday, everybody, I did miss you too but last night we had a rare night out seeing old neighbours and friends. We were lucky enough to find a babysitter for Emma, our friends managed to put ALL their four kids to bed by 9.30 and we had a lovely evening eating Chinese and debating whether Oscar Pretorius killed Reeva Steenkamp. Chinese, you say, I can hear you ask, almost hopeful…Is that supposed to be good for you when dieting? Eeeerm, nooo…But we tried what we thought would be the least damaging to our waistlines and ultimately, our health. We got two portions of chicken and black bean sauce and two portions of boiled rice to share between the four of us. We drank water and tea. And we still managed to have a good time. Bottom line? You can still see friends and socialise at the weekend as long as you keep your portion size under control, choose the least fatty/sugary options from the menu and…you find a pal …

Healthy Living Challenge:Day 7-Healthier Alternatives

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I am using the few minutes left of Emma’s afternoon nap time to pass on my own burger recipes. Burger, you will say, isn’t this supposed to be one of the highest in saturated fat dinners you could have? Actually no, not when you make yours out of lean breast meat turkey, add a little bit of Cheddar cheese and absolutely no extra oil or fat. Alex loves them and I started making them in the summer in Greece because there were so many fresh flavours I could add to my burgers! Mint, fresh peppers, feta, hot chillies, fresh eggs…could you actually keep that a secret from Alex, he doesn’t really like eggs :-). Once we were back in Ireland I had to come up with other flavoursome ingredients to satisfy our tastes buds. It helped to find people who love good food and blog about it, like Things My Belly Likes, writing about their own versions of a tasty turkey burger so after taking some more ideas, adapting and blending I came up with …

Healthy Living Challenge: Day 6 – Book Giveaway

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Good news on all fronts, friends! My weigh-in this morning, after only 6 days of the health challenge? A kilo lighter than last weekend!! I know for sure that this is due to not having had almost any bread this week and giving my body time to get rid of all the sticky gluten from my gut. I had cravings for it, I won’t deny it, but usually I tricked my taste buds by having one bite of bread when it got really bad. I also ate much more fruit (some I love, some-like bananas- I had to almost force them into me) and veggies and drank loads of healthy teas and water. I don’t expect to be losing a kilo a week for the rest of this challenge but it is definitely an encouraging start! Another thing I wanted to make you aware of is that I am trying to increase my exposure on Facebook so I have set a wee challenge for this week: to get to 100 likes. Once I reach it, …

Healthy Living Challenge: Day 5 – Another Dimension

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I am only now starting to realise how much I know about dieting and nutrition. Since hubby went on a dieting bender three years ago I have been accumulating- willingly or not- a lot of information about dieting. It happened mostly because I did the cooking and the portioning (at some point he lived for entire months on microscopical 100g portions of lean meat and wholegrain rice !!). Then when we travelled to see his family I noticed his brother eating an equally strict but slightly more varied diet, including “good” fats like peanut butter, tahini and fruit. Needless to say they  were both the beaux of the beach wherever we went and got all the attention but many times I wondered at what cost. Well, I got my answer this weekend when hubby had what I called a “48-hour body shut down.” He had felt tired and slightly run down for a month with a couple of bouts of cold but then we attributed it to work stress. What I never expected was for  …

Healthy Living Challenge:Day 4 – Visiting like-minded friends

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Half-term means one thing for for Emma and mummy: catching up with friends!! Today we visited with my lovely friend Iva, from MotherNatureLovesYou.com. I have known Iva for a good few years now and we have both started blogging at about the same time. Iva blogs about food and last year she has decided to adopt a vegan lifestyle and is doing really well! After a healthy cuppa of detox tea and some much needed banter, we took the kids out for a walk. Today we were blessed with sunshine again but it was a bit nippy so we didn’t last too long outside. Having lunch with Iva, and her lovely three boys, was like being in veggie heaven(or shall I say, haven ;-)? We feasted on mixed salad of red and white cabbage, red pepper, onion and cucumber with home-made falafel in pita pockets. Filling, crunchy, fragrant and low-calorie! Tonight I decided for a throw-everything-in-the-pot kind of dinner. I love Sainsbury’s recipes, you know, the ones you can pick on the way out of …