First Post for a new year

Happy New Year

A new year and a time for re-evaluation and making plans for the year ahead.

Thank you for joining me for another year of thoughts, research and recipes.

I have decided to make a change this year and post every second week instead of every week.

This is to enable you to have time to read the post and respond if you would like. I would love to hear from you.

Email me any questions in relation to my posts or recipes. My vision for this blog was for it to be somewhat interactive as well as informative. If I write about a topic that you would like to know more about, let me know.

I have also created a Recipe page where I have copied across all of the recipes so far. If I write a post that contains a recipe, I will also copy it to the recipe page.

Live Clean n Prosper has always been about sharing information we have learned or as we learn about it. For this reason, Scott’s studies will continue to be a catalyst for some of my posts. Along the way, we are also learning more about our own health, bodies and diet.

A couple of points that I think are important are;

  • It’s not about finding the ‘right diet, it’s about changing your lifestyle. Short-term diets don’t really last and we don’t learn how to make sustainable change.
  • The trick is to find what suits you and your situation; don’t just follow the latest ‘fad’ in the media. What works for one person, doesn’t always work for someone else.
  • I also think the 85-90% rule is important. Sticking to your meal plans and exercise routines 85 to 90% of the time allows for enjoying the occasional day of binge TV and take away.
  • Most important of all, is finding time to relax and have some ‘me’ time. I learned the hard way many years ago. That not spending enough time to look after you, leads to poor physical and mental health.
  • Last but not least – If you get off track, just make a new goal and start again.

So with that all in mind, here we come 2018!

Till the next post,

Live clean n Prosper

Menu planning has its advantages

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So today I’m going to write about menu planning.

Towards the beginning of this month, I wrote about memory loss. I shared that I found the use of a calendar, a diary and my phone calendar essential.

Well, I have also found menu planning very useful. We have been a bit slack over the last month or two, so I decided to get back to it. On Saturday morning, drinking a cup of coffee, with a few of my favorite recipe books.

Menu planning, in our view, has many advantages.

Using my recipe books to choose the meals, we find we eat a wider variety of meals.

Without a menu, we found we tended to eat the same types of meals every week.

There are many books available with recipes for quick, easy, healthy meals. I find it inspiring to look through them and get ideas for an interesting dinner.

When creating the menu, I don’t choose what we eat on what day. Instead we found that creating a list of 6 different meals works best. This leaves 1 evening open for dinner out or with friends.

I bookmark the recipe books, so that either one of us can make a start on the evening meal. I’m lucky in the fact that Scott also enjoys cooking.

Planning the week’s meals means that we buy less groceries.

No more buying something that we ‘might’ use and have it sit in the pantry for weeks, or go bad in the fridge. We only buy what is required for the recipes on the list. Usually we manage to choose meals for the week that have some common ingredients.

Doing the weekly shop this way actually saves us money. As our food is always fresh and we buy very little foodstuffs in boxes.

My favourite Recipe book at the moment is a vegetarian one called ‘A Modern Way to Eat’.

So this week’s menu is full of interesting, tasty meals, mostly vegetable based.

Looking forward to some tasty dinners.

Till the next post,

Live clean n Prosper.

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