When you soak in a hot bath for an hour, you are mediating! You just might not realise it. The art of meditation is simply to be with your own thoughts, without any external influences. Lying alone in a bath is a perfect example of this. I am an advocate of minimalism, and meditation. I find them to be the perfect way to de-stress. Kind of like tidying a room in your house. Once it’s done it feels much better, the angles are nicer and it’s easier to move around.
Sitting and enjoying your own company will allow you to reduce all those stress hormones, which ironically, increase your metabolism thus burning more calories. However this website is not concerned with weight loss at all costs, it’s about losing weight in a healthy, easy and sustained way. Getting stressed on a regular basis is not at all good, and has been linked to all manner of negative health issues, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.
Clutter in the kitchen.
It’s often said that a cluttered house represents a cluttered mind. For example, if we have too many ‘things in the fridge’, we feel like we cannot make a choice about what to eat. Not to mention the dilemma we make for ourselves when we buy too much food and then feel like we have to eat it all before it goes off. Often having less choice actually makes it easier to make a decision. The idea being that if we have less to choose from, we don’t feel like we would be missing out on one thing by picking something else. The opposite being the anxiousness (aka stress) of trying to choose from a huge range of goods which are all very similar… Which one do we choose? How do I know I’m getting the best one? Or the best deal? The simple fact is that if we reduce the variables, it makes things simpler, and who doesn’t want that in today’s world of information overload!
I have extended my simplistic lifestyle to encompass several meals that I eat in heavy roatation, that I know the nutritional values of, so I can monitor what I’m putting in my body, and so I ultimately don’t feel guilty when overindulging at the weekend. Several of which I’ll explain below. These recipes are low in fat, high in lean protein.
Some examples of lean and satisfying food to eat during the weekend. PS. I actually use these recipes.
Lentil, chickpea, turkey salad.
- Some lentils and chickpeas, tinned ones are great, mix to taste
- Chuck in a packet of diced turkey pieces.
- Squeeze the juice of half a lemon
- Grate in some ginger
- Chop up some coriander and mix in
- Get a tin of mixed beans / kidney beans / berlotti beans / butter beans, any will do really. Blitz half in a food processor with an onion, leave half whole.
- Add the blended beans to:
- A tin of passata or chopped tomatoes.
- Pour in the whole beans
- Add some spices if you like. Turmeric for example, is a natural anti inflammatory substance, and therefore good at fighting all sorts of ailments. So Indian spice mixes are good here.
- Bring to the simmer.
- Done!
- Add some precooked turkey or chicken if you can’t bear to be without meat. This is the one dish I think is better without, but that is just my opinion. So add/remove ingredients based on what will satisfy you best.
- Get some prawns, or a piece of monkfish (or both)
- Fry in some good quality olive oil or groundnut oil with a good heaped teaspoon of garam masala, some onion, chilli, ginger and garlic.
- Pour in a tin of chopped tomatoes and cook until the fish is cooked.
- Eat without rice or couscous. You won’t even miss it.
Simplify your mind. Simplify your life. Simplify your weekly diet.
