The 10-Day Healthy Mindset Reset

Firstly, I just want to say that after the events of the night of the 22nd May in Manchester, it feels incredibly frivolous to be writing a blog post about pizza. It feels frivolous to do anything aside from think about the poor children affected, their families, the emergency services and any witnesses to what happened. What did happen was truly awful and I’d just like to send all my thoughts and love to all of the above. Life as we know it must resume as we can’t live in fear and let the bad people win.  So here’s something that will hopefully put a smile on your face and give you 10 minutes of escape. Sending love and positive vibes to each and every one of you. Stay safe and spread love. 

I love pizza. Always have, always will. My dream evening scenario is me, sitting in bed, with a Domino’s pepperoni, sweetcorn and red onion pizza, watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. It doesn’t get much better than that. Actually throw in some Domino’s cookies too. THE DREAM. Of course the aforementioned scenario is completely cool when it plays out once a week, once every two weeks, once a month – you know, balance and all that. But when it was something that I was considering doing almost nightly not only did it make a large dent in my bank account, it meant I needed a healthy eating mindset shift.

So that’s exactly what I’ve been attempting to do, basically ever since I got back from my L.A/N.Y.C trip. Getting back into the swing of things and establishing a routine again when it comes to everything – from doing the clothes washing to writing posts – always takes a while, but this time I was lagging in all areas. So along with doing what felt like a million and one loads of washing and getting back on top of my blog post writing (she says as she writes this post at 6am on the day of publishing it – PAH!), I purchased two books to inspire me to get back into my kitchen and fire up that stove again.

Amelia Freer’s ‘Nourish & Glow: The 10 Day Plan’: Amelia’s books always do exactly what they say on the tin. They provide a tonne of nutritional advice, along with a lot of information on the psychological background that comes along with food and eating habits and recipes to boot too. They become one of my go to’s when it comes to needing a kick up the arse when it comes to firming up a healthy diet again.  This book focuses on a 10 day plan (that comes with vegan alternatives to every meal FYI), which I must admit that I haven’t followed to the letter, although I hope to in the future. Instead over the past 10 days I’ve taken her principles and used some of her recipes, mixed in with others from different cookbooks and online sites I’ve found. I haven’t ordered a takeaway pizza – WHOOP! – and instead I’ve cooked most of my meals at home and fell back in love with our kitchen. See? I told you her books always give me a kick up the arse.

Madeline Shaw’s ‘A Year of Beautiful Eating’: Along with Amelia’s book, this is the other one that I’ve been using the most in recent weeks. I own, love and use all of Madeline’s recipe books, but this one is fab because the recipes are set out seasonally. So as you flick through the book you start at spring and end up at winter, with each chapter focusing on breakfast, lunch, dinners, snacks, sides and baked goods that feature ingredients that are in season that season (take a shot every time I say season – LOLZ). Highlights include the fact that she has recipes for sweet, baked goods (a lot of healthy eating cookbooks tend to ignore these completely or be a little light on them), and packed-lunch friendly recipes. My favourite so far is a creamy prawn curry that I’ve even made for mates when we had them over and it went down a treat and takes just 10 minutes to cook.

The main thing that I’ve taken from my short experiment is that not only is cooking relaxing, but it forces you to switch off and take some phone-free time for yourself. We all need a bit more of that, right? Yeah, it’s a bit of a ball-ache to write a list, go to the shops, pack it all away; but the feeling you get when you serve up a home-cooked meal and someone says that it tastes good is bloomin’ awesome. More practically I’ve learnt that having a good food processor, or some kind of blender, is essential. They come in so handy for baking, making sauces, soups, pastes – when I eat well, I end up using mine at least once, if not twice a day. The same goes for knives and non-stick pans. Invest a bit of money in all of those and you’ll feel like Delia in the kitchen in no time.

To go with today’s post there’s a vlog and yep – it’s a long one again. It isn’t cinematic length like the last, but it’s almost 20 minutes, so it’s one to pop on whilst on your commute (and listen to the new ‘At Home With…’ episode!). It features some meal planning tips, shopping list hacks and a little trip to the supermarket – ROCK ‘N’ ROLL. So for me it’s a homemade chilli for dinner tonight, but come the weekend – it’s PIZZA TIME. #Balance 

Photos by Lauren Shipley

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