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Top Ten Feel-Good Tips for February
I am not a nutritionist, but in my job I do read a lot about food and I have a pretty good grasp of healthy eating.
When I look back at old photographs I can see the results of my lifestyle, particularly what I ate and drank, and I’m glad to say that now I understand nutrition better, I’ve never felt better. I’ve never been a naturally skinny person and have battled to control my weight from the age of ten.
As a young adult, I used to
always opt for ‘diet’ versions
of everything – something I
never do anymore. It just
resulted in my body craving
sugar and fat.
We often get requests from people asking us to add more nutritional information to recipes, particularly featuring the salt and sugar content. Whilst, I understand that everyone’s dietary needs are different, it’s important to look at the whole picture and view your consumption over a week, rather than meal by meal. We all know that eating a sticky toffee pudding with every meal is not a good idea, but one a week is fine. What’s most important is to think about getting an overall balanced diet, not eating too much and exercising regularly.
There are lots of little things that can make you feel great. Here’s my top ten (please note, this works for me, but is not for everyone, if you have specific medical issues, always check with your doctor).
- Eat from a small plate. Think about the plates our grandparents used, they were much smaller than most modern crockery. Fill half your plate with veggies or salad, a quarter with meat/fish/vege protein and the other quarter with carbohydrate.
- Snack on a few almonds and blueberries. These will fill the gap between meals and help avoid those blood sugar crashes that makes us reach for biscuits.
- Change to foods that release energy slowly – porridge for breakfast, wholemeal toast and veg soup for lunch and a meal with protein and carbohydrate for dinner.
- Enjoy a treat, but make sure it’s something you love (Dairymilk for me!) and only have it once or twice a week.
- Try to cook from scratch as much as possible. Processed foods contain so many hidden nasties.
- Dance! However you like – Zumba, disco, ballroom; revel in your favourite music and have a good old boogie.
- Drink 8 glasses of water a day – your skin will love you for it. Ice-cold water tastes much better, so keep a jugful in the fridge.
- Get as much fresh air as possible and walk, as fast as you can, as much as you can. It’ll make you feel great!
- Meet with friends, have a chat and a good laugh.
- Create. It could be a batch of cookies, a handmade card, a knitted scarf – whatever you enjoy doing. You’ll feel a huge sense of satisfaction.
And if you’re feeling in the mood for making that batch of cookies, here you are. This delicious recipe is perfect to share with family and friends.
Recipe: Honey Flapjack Cookies
This recipe is taken from Good Food, Fast – a fabulous cookbook packed full of recipes that take 30 minutes or less.
It’s available now for just £7.00.
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Capture the mood To create an image that is more than a copy of the scene, start by simplifying the forms, looking for interesting shapes and patterns. As the painting evolves, pay less attention to the photograph and use the marks you have already made. As you move away from the original subject, the painting becomes less literal, more personal and more creative. Here the artist has experimented to find a way of achieving a particular effect.
1 Using the 2B pencil, make a basic outline drawing to plot the main elements of the landscape.
2 Mix ultramarine blue and cerulean blue, and, using the No.12 brush, lay the wash for the sky, leaving the white of the paper to stand for the clouds. Add more water and take the wash down over the headland. Add yellow ochre to the mix and apply this colour over the water, using the same brush. Dab the edge of the cloud with damp sponge to soften it. Sweep a damp brush across the lower sky and headland to thin the wash, leaving a pale film of colour.
4 Use a mix of sap green, burnt umber and Payne’s grey for the headland (No.6 brush). Use yellow ochre mixed with a little burnt umber for the beach area. Darken with more burnt umber and Payne’s grey and apply along the base of the headland. Mix a darker ultramarine/cerulean/yellow ochre wash by adding more of each. Add a drop of gum arabic to increase the paint’s gloss. Apply this colour over the sea (No.6 brush), taking it around the silhouette of the breakwater, and pulling it down the sheet in parallel ribbons, leaving slivers of the base colour showing through. Leave to dry.
5 Darken the sea colour by adding ultramarine and burnt sienna and use this mix to paint the shadow of the headland. Using the small No.3 brush, lay parallel lines to suggest the wavelets on the water’s surface. These should be narrow and close together because they are in the distance. Load the No.12 brush with the same dark wash and take broad strands of this colour down the paper.
6 Wet the No.3 brush and, starting near the horizon, lay narrow, horizontal bands of water. This causes the paint to open up gradually, producing stripes of lighter colour. They should be close together near the horizon. Make broader marks that are wider apart as you move forward to create a sense of recession from the foreground towards the horizon. Change to the No.12 brush near the bottom of the picture. Apply the water freely so it floods and one band runs into another. Lay the bands so the paint gradually opens up to create interesting textures and patterns.
7 Mix a wash of burnt sienna and yellow ochre and use the No.4 brush to lay this on to the beach below the groyne. Use the tip of the brush to dot more colour on to the wash to suggest the shingle. Leave to dry.
8 Load the No.3 brush with water, hold it over the paper and tap it with your forefinger to spatter droplets of water on to the beach. Then spatter wash on to the same area. Use a cotton bud to lift some of the re-wetted wash, creating very light areas to suggest lumps of chalk.
9 Mix raw umber and Payne’s grey and, with the 7mm (¼in) flat brush, paint the uprights and planks of the breakwater. Vary the amount of Payne’s grey in the mix to create a variety of tones. Leave to dry. Then wet the edge of a piece of stiff card, and apply to the breakwater to create a wet line. Re-wet the card and repeat to create parallel wet lines. Blot with tissue to lift the colour.
10 Wet the 19mm (¾in) flat brush and work into the white water breaking over the breakwater, creating flame-like shapes. Use plenty of water to dissolve the washes around the white paper – don’t blot it but allow the dissolved paint to flow into the white area, creating softly graduated tones. If you like, suggest fields on the headland and two figures and a dog on the beach.
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