My Healthy Eating Choices Plan.

Evidently the title of this post doesn’t feature the word ‘diet’; I prefer not to use this term due to the fact that there’s a major stigma that diets are about starving or depriving our bodies of certain food groups. I haven’t adopted the ‘veganuary’ trend of this new year nor a vegetarian lifestyle. Simply to state I am continuing the healthier eating choices plan which has been a recurring pattern in my life over the course of the past couple of years. As stated in previous blog posts detailing what I have eaten or accomplished on a particular day, I have briefly highlighted my dislike for most meats or some form of meats. Aside from having preferances for meats, fish and seafood I am not fussy with any other food groups. I bulk my meals with plant based ingredients to compensate for the limited amount of meat ingredients.
I will not claim to be strictly obedient when it comes to eating choices, eating quinoa and kale everyday works for some people but for me I would rather stick to the more simplistic healthy food options: there’s nothing wrong with eating fruits and vegetables in their original form.

From my personal experience I am a firm believer that having a treat a couple times of week and having a hearty meal on alternated days helps me to maintain a healthy well balanced diet. Entirely cutting out vital food groups or specific foods does nothing but cause cravings, which ultimately could cause you to break your ‘diet’. I managed to lose two stone over a 3 month period regardless of having a takeaway and big bag of doritos on weekends. At the time I only exercised for 20 minutes per day, although I had the benefit of having a very active job.

The way forward is a healthy BALANCED eating plan. You can still have some fats and carbohydates, just in smaller amounts and less often.

Much alike others I am on the journey to being healthy, prehaps sharing my plans will help you to incorporate sensible habits into your own life.

Breakfast: In the attempt to eating sources of dairy which improve digestion, I have been eating ‘Activia’ plain yogurt with various fruits and natural sweetners. For example, frozen blueberries with unsugared cornflakes, honey and persimmon, kiwi and dried fruits. Having yogurt based dishes is surprisingly filling and helps me to ensure that I get a head start for consuming at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day. To accompany the Yoghurt dish I brew a full teapot of green tea. As Korea has a big tea culture similarly to Japan, great quality loose tea leaves are sold in supermarkets. Sencha green tea, which is second in strength to Matcha, has a slight bitter taste as well as earthy prominent tone. It’s just nice to start the day with impactfull detoxificating tea than with regular black tea that comes in tea bags.

Directly after breakfast I take multiple vitamins to avoid having the deficiencies I had this time last year. I had almost no B12 and Vitamin D detected in my blood samples which caused me to constantly feel tired and nauseated. I’m quite concerned that issue could happen again and it takes a month or more to fully recover from it. Everyday I take the following supplements:

• 500 MCG of vitamin B12
• 900mg of an ‘all in one’ multivitamin
• Vitamin C powder sachet X2
• 1,200mg of Omega 3
• 500 MCG of Vitamin D3

Around midday I will drink a small carton vegetable juice called ‘V19’: consisting of 19 compressed vegetables. It’s not the most pleasant of tastes much alike drinking cold tomato soup but if it’s healthy, it’s not exactly a difficult task to intake it.

Lunch: The time of day for this second meal differs alot depending on how busy we are at home or if we have had to go out for the day. Most of the time we try to eat around 2 o’clock of the afternoon: not too early or too late into the daytime. Lunch is also the meal in which my choices are very irregular. I struggle to find something that is light enough for me to want to eat dinner later on, but at the same time satisfying. Lately I have been opting for vegetable or cream soup, with a a piece of fruit for dessert. By this stage I will also have some chestnut soya milk and cacao nibs tea. Boiled egg salads with low-calorie dressing acts as a substitute for the meat and fish that I don’t eat everyday. I intend to prepare a multitude of salads in order to willing continue with the eating plan.

Dinner: Buying frozen chicken breast is an affordable way to have protein. I usually add chunks of chicken breast, onion, garlic, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, basil, black pepper, vegetable stock and a green leafy vegetable to a wok with a tomato based pasta sauce. Occasionally I will add pasta to the chicken dish, maintaining a dominant vegetable to pasta ratio. Sometimes we will have a stew on days when we don’t feel like eating chicken (or if we have forgotten to defrost the chicken in time for dinner, my bad). Stir fries with egg noodles rather than ramen is low in calories, if you crave something salty the soy sauce from the stir fry will eradicate your urges to snack on crisps.

Snacks: I find that I don’t snack as often as I once did, and if I do it’s usually some kind of fresh or dried fruit. Raw food snacks can be quite expensive in Korea even if the demand for them is increasing. If you are interested in some appropriate snacking items, I wrote a post about Healthy Snacks – when I visit London next month I surely won’t forget to buy some of the items documented in this post.