Feel Good Friday - #WorldHealthDay

What a palava life has been lately. Laurence and I recently had to move apartments due to water damage - a.k.a the hot water tank in the airing cupboard leaking all over our apartment. Fun times. As they say, though, every cloud has a silver lining; think of all the calories I burned from lugging all of our crap up and down 4 flights of stairs!

Anyway, on that note (and seeing as today is World Health Day) I thought I'd do a quick post about developing healthy habits and my goals for this summer. I've gained quite a bit of weight since going to college and moving out, and after trying - and failing - multiple times to adjust my diet and exercise habits, I decided to quiz my mum about it seeing as she's successfully lost weight recently, and kept it off, whilst still enjoying herself.

 I've mentioned in a previous blog that I tried Slimming World, which worked for a week and then culminated in a massive binge. So it's bye bye Slimming World and hello a proper healthy lifestyle. My mum lives by the 80/20 ethos: eat real, healthy foods 80% of the time, and the other 20% of the time you can loosen the reigns a bit more and have something you enjoy. This sounds great for me due to the fact I'm in college and nights out/takeaways inevitably will happen - life stops for no diet!

It's week 1 of a new me, and it's a learning curve. There have been times this week where I haven't eaten as healthy as I'd have liked to. The big move inevitably put a spanner in the works - it's hard to eat healthy when you can't find any of your food! That being said, we made our own meals from whatever we could find, and didn't bow to getting a takeaway. I also had a night out but this time, I didn't go mental with drinks and unhealthy food, and that's a good enough starting point for me. 

Previously I tried to do too much too soon and ended up just binge eating because what I was doing wasn't sustainable. Now I'm fuelling my body with good wholesome foods, and listening to what my body needs. If I'm hungry, I eat. If I'm full, I stop eating. If I just really really want a bit of chocolate or a dirty pizza, I'll have it, but not as much as I used to, and not as often. 

I thought I'd share a few tips that I've learned - and I'm still continuing to learn, seeing as it's a whole new world for me (I sound like I'm in Aladdin). If you have any tips please do tell me them!

Snack, don't starve

Shock, horror: snacks are OK to have. Unless you're having a sharing bag of crisps, or ice cream, or pizza as a snack, snacking can be good. I prefer having 3 slightly smaller main meals and 3 snacks rather than 3 massive meals and no snacks. Some of my favourite snacks include Googly Fruits (organic freeze dried strawberries, like you'd get in the Red Berries Special K - amazing - you can get them from Molloys Pharmacies), oatcakes - my mum is a huge advocate for oatcakes - some fruit with peanut butter (Pip & Nut squeezy packs are my fave), or veggies with hummus.

Just a few healthy meals I've made lately: Goat's cheese and red pepper hummus tartlet, Quorn chicken and Halloumi salad.

Don't let a 'bad' meal/day ruin your life

This took me so long to get a grasp on. Before, if I had one 'bad' food/meal, the whole day would then turn into a junk-fest, and I'd promise to 'start again tomorrow'. This doesn't work. I do advocate having a 'cheat' meal of some sorts if you're exercising too, but hoovering up every food in sight just because you had one slip up is not a healthy habit and it just leads to a vicious cycle. Now, if I have something unhealthy, I draw a line under it, realise I'm human and it happens, and carry on as normal. I don't binge, I don't feel bad about it, because why should I? My body is a temple *clicks fingers sassily*

By the way, I've put the word bad in quotation marks because I don't think calling foods good or bad is a healthy mindset, and you shouldn't feel guilty about eating something that's 'bad' or 'off-limits'. You do you. 

Plan, plan, plan

I'm a planner - I've practically started planning my own funeral already - so this kind of came naturally to me. There's nothing I love more than lying in bed planning my meals/meal prep for the next day, and yes, I'm boring like that. Saying that, I need to get better at converting my plans to actions, because I rarely actually use the plans I've written. I find a lot of the times I'll eat unhealthy foods is when I haven't planned, so I aim to change that. 

Get your walking shoes on

I know, I hate exercise too, but I've realised I only really hate the thought of it. I got up at 8 a.m. this morning and did a 5.3km walk with my mum, and I actually really enjoyed it. The hardest bit for me is getting up and committing to doing it, but as soon as I'm walking I get into the swing of it. I even ran for a bit! I ended up burning about 500 calories and felt great for doing it. Our walk took us an hour and 20 minutes because we had the dogs with us, but even 30 or 45 minutes a day would suffice.

Little changes give big results

You don't need to be running a marathon every day, or eating nothing but kale and avocado, or buying expensive supplements and gym memberships. All you need is a pair of walking shoes, access to Aldi or Lidl for cheap fruit and veg, and some willpower. Try some health challenges each day/week and see how small changes really do make a big difference! Here are a few examples of challenges to try:

• Aim to drink 2L of water 
• Make a healthy meal you've never made before
• Make a food journal
• Take a 'before' photo
• Eat 3 portions of greens in a day
• Try a new exercise
• Make a workout playlist
• Write down your goals
• Cut down on sugary food and drink 

Trying a few different challenges can switch things up and make things a bit more fun, rather than repetitive and boring.

Just before I end this post, I'm going to list a few of my health goals so that I can revisit this post and do an update.

1. Lose 18 pounds

2. Get fitter so I'm not making dying whale noises by the time I reach the top of the stairs

3. Aim for at least 30 minutes of exercise a day

4. Try and do a strength workout 3 times a week

5. Drink more water

6. Aim to eat fruit and veg at every meal

So there we go! I'll be posting updates every so often, and hopefully this is the start of losing some pounds and feeling healthier. Hope you enjoyed this post.

Saving Without Starving: Student Meal Ideas

Since I'm now a ~proper student, I know all too well how tempting it can be to eat a Pot Noodle and a packet of crisps for your dinner. I'll admit there have been a couple of times all I've had for lunch is a bowl of popcorn, but I suppose it could be worse. So far I haven't totally succumbed to the beans on toast and pizza student stereotype. Well, yet.

It doesn't have to be so hard to eat well on a tight budget, you just need to be savvy about it. Since moving out I've learned a few tips and tricks to make my money and my weekly food shop stretch a bit farther. I'm quite lucky in the sense a) my boyfriend has a car so we can shop around for the best deals and b) because we do our food shop together everything is split in half so it doesn't seem as expensive. However, even if you don't have a car or an other half you can still be a smart shopper.

Disclaimer: Laurence and I are both vegetarian so it is significantly cheaper for us to shop as we're not buying meat, but I've seen lots of butchers advertising meat deals where you get loads of meat for €20 and you can always freeze it if you can't eat it all in time!

1. Learn to cook.

It seems pretty self explanatory, but if you hate cooking or don't know how to, you may struggle more to use the food you've bought. Being able to cook can be a real life saver when you're staring in your fridge and there's a single tomato, some cheese and an egg left. I find YouTube great for cooking tutorials, or even those little Facebook videos by Tasty and other such pages, for quick easy recipes. Or you can go old school and get some cookery books from the library. #retro

Just a few of my favourite meals. Left to right: Apple pie porridge, tofu stir-fry, smoothie bowl.

2. Shop later.

Best tip ever: go to the supermarkets 15 - 30 minutes before they close. It may seem weird and you might have to force your arse off the sofa to go out to the shops but this is the time when the supermarkets reduce loads of their stuff. Last week our weekly shop came to €6.50 and that got us 3 packets of asparagus, peaches, bread, carrots, tomatoes, a bunch of flowers, chillies, olives and even some sandwiches. So we got about 2 weeks worth of fruit and veg for under a tenner! And where did we get all that stuff for so cheap? You'd never guess... Marks and Spencers. That's right. If you go in close to their closing time, the staff have gone around twice reducing fresh food including fruit, veg, desserts, cakes (!), bread, and ready meals. I've seen lettuce for 10c, a punnet of tomatoes for 30c, asparagus for 30c, etc. You can get some lovely treats there for a fraction of their normal price and what's even better is their fruit and veg lasts ages and is really nice quality! Of course if you don't live near an M&S you can also try Tesco, Lidl and Aldi.

3. Stock up on staples.

No, not the ones you use to attach two pages together, the cupboard type. We manage to keep our food shop so low because we have a lot of staples in our cupboards such as rice, pasta, etc. and of course we buy eggs and bread as we need them too (usually every few days because Laurence seems to live on eggs and bread). I recommend getting some cheap pasta and rice from Tesco (their pasta is around 49c and they do all sorts of snazzy pasta shapes which makes dinner more interesting) and try and get creative.

4. Pick a different cuisine each week.

I hate eating the same thing over and over again so I love to experiment in the kitchen. One thing I like to do is choose a cuisine (for example Italian, Mexican or Spanish) and cook something related to that cuisine as a fun dinner. So for Italian it could be pizza or spaghetti, for Mexican usually burritos, and for Spanish something like a paella or patatas bravas. Again, cookbooks and the internet are great for inspiration for these types of meals and it keeps things exciting.

5. Freeze!

If you're lucky enough to have a proper freezer and not a shitey little box freezer in your fridge - which is what we have at the moment and it's a nightmare - I recommend buying a bag of frozen veg or if you find lots of fruit or veg for really cheap get a bunch of them and freeze them. That way you won't have to keep buying fruit and veg and eating it quickly to ensure it doesn't go off before you finish it, you'll have it all in the freezer ready for you to use in curries, soups, stir fries or smoothies.

Just before I moved up to Athlone I was lucky enough to win a €25 voucher for Dawn Fresh in Sligo, and this was such a massive help to get me started for college. I was surprised by how much stuff I got for €25 considering it was a greengrocers and all the fruit and veg was really good quality. Because it's just Laurence and I we ended up freezing a fair bit of the fruit and veg so it wouldn't go off and it worked out perfectly. I definitely recommend checking out Dawn Fresh if you live in Sligo, they are great value.

6. Plan & prep

Get yourself a nice notebook just to meal plan. Meal planning makes the difference between sticking to your budget and spending €20 on 3 Pot Noodles and some cans of Dutch Gold. Write down what food you have in and then plan your meals around your ingredients. If you don't meal plan you're more likely to buy random stuff while you're out and then have to try and make a meal out of a packet of Doritos and a few slices of EasiSingles. By prepping your meals ahead of time not only do you save money but you also save time. If you have your lunch ready to go for college you won't be tempted by buying a meal in the canteen, and you can pick something to make for your lunch that you really like.

7. Treat Yo'self 

If you have a little extra cash at the end of each week you could  use it to buy yourself  a treat in your next food shop. It could be a tub of ice cream, your favourite pizza or a spice box from the local chipper - anything. You won't feel as hard done by if you still get to treat yourself, even while keeping the purse strings tight.

Sample: What I Eat In A Day

Breakfast: For breakfast I'll either have an omelette with some leftover veg and toast, pancakes (so cheap to make), fried potatoes in a tomato-y sauce with eggs on top, homemade granola and yoghurt, and sometimes I'll even have soup for breakfast if I'm feeling really lazy. On the weekends I'll have something more decadent like unhealthier pancakes, French toast or a vegetarian fry-up.

Lunch: My typical lunches are leftover dinner, curry with rice, a homemade noodle bowl, or just a plain old wrap or sandwich. I try and make my lunches the night before while I'm making dinner so it doesn't feel as much of a chore and I can just pop it in the microwave the next day. Pasta salad is also a great option as you can put anything in it and eat it cold.

Dinner: Again, quick cheap meals with loads of veg in such as soups, curries, stir-fries, noodle bowls, pasta dishes, burritos... the list goes on. It's also helpful to make things you can also eat for lunch the next day in case you're feeling lazy, and it reduces food waste.

So those are just a few tips in case you're stuck in a food rut. I hope this was a bit helpful not just for students but even for those of you who are just on a tight budget!