A Healthier Lifestyle One Step at a Time

It was about two years ago that I looked at my family’s health and decided it was time to stop going on fad diets. They didn’t work and cost us a fortune. Instead I had to do the hard thing and create a healthier lifestyle.

Enter the FAD

In the past I would hear about some new diet, then go through the pantry and chuck out all the food that wasn’t in alignment with its rules.  I would be super passionate and begin acting like a crazy person talking to anyone who would listen about how amazing this new diet was, how skinny and fit I was going to be, and how my life was going to be so much better. I’d either join the gym again, start some new classes, or enrol for some personal training sessions and start punishing my body with a crazy training schedule.

Then the FIZZLE begins

Usually after about 10 days the motivation would start to dwindle.  The conversations in my head would start with things like, ‘I probably don’t really need to go to that many classes’ or ‘I’ve been so good with my eating that I deserve to have that apple pie and custard’ or ‘If I have some ice cream I can just work a little harder in my next gym class’. Except there wouldn’t be another class, I’d abandon the whole thing and plunge back into old habits until I stumbled onto the next diet craze.

The problem underneath this merry-go-round of eating and exercising was that I was coming from a place of not liking myself and treating food and exercise as either good or evil.  I was in a cycle of reward and punishment for the choices I made. In that space, I was NEVER going to get healthy.

A new day DAWNS

And then I had a revelation, I realised that food had to be more about nourishing my body and enjoying what I was eating instead of feeling that I was making good or bad choices. Exercise had to be about feeling stronger and more energised instead of just a method of beating the calories out.  I had to use food and exercise as a way of loving and pouring into myself, not as a system of punishment and reward.

Let’s face it we would never talk or treat our friends the way we do ourselves, and I knew that had to change.  It was time to start being friends with myself again.

So, instead of finding a fad diet and setting unrealistic goals I decided to make small changes in small steps… this was a lifestyle change not a quick fix.  I wasn’t going to go through the pantry and chuck out the bags of chips or the chocolate, they could stay there and if I really wanted them then I could have them.

The goal was to not feel overwhelmed or to feel like our whole world had to change but to take it day by day with no pressure or unrealistic, unattainable goals.

Change for GOOD

The first change was breakfast: I felt this would be the least challenging and easiest to sustain. There is less time to get into personal debates about what to eat, habits are easier to form on a brain that’s not quite awake yet, and our mornings are generally so hectic we quite often just have something on the run.  If I prepared some quick healthy go to foods then it should be an easy way of feeling like we’d started the day on a positive healthy note.

I knew the keys to success here would be convenience, not feeling like we were missing out on anything, and of course, deliciousness.

As I mentioned earlier one of my ‘go to’ naughty meals is apple pie so I thought surely I can come up with some healthy delicious apple pie tasting breakfast ideas so we can feel like we were starting the day having something indulgent but still nutritious  

First was to create the perfect Apple Pie Spice mix so I could easily add this to my recipes….let’s face it if it’s quick and easy it’s more likely to keep happening.  After some experimenting, this is my favourite mix. You may find the recipe here.

Then I thought about breakfasts that would be easy to prepare, simple to grab on the run, and full of family friendly apple pie yumminess.

I came up with three simple to easy to make breakies:

Apple Pie Breakfast Bar

Apple Pie Smoothie

Apple Pie Overnight Oats

These simple little recipes started a small revolution in my kitchen and in the life of our family.  We now all look at food in a very different way and I’ll explain how our journey continued in my next story: A Healthier Lifestyle One Step at a Time (Step Two: Cracking the Code on Cravings by Creating Healthy Snacks).