“Dichi”

A most gracious and wonderful person who is sorely missed

Her favourite quote was:

Always face the Sun, then the shadows will always be behind you!

Please: live your life the way she has. To the full.

Diet for free

I hope you have all enjoyed your festive break and are looking forward to the next one.

You really can diet for free, and do it without suffering hardship on your taste buds.

The secret is not to worry about what we eat between Christmas day and News Year day, instead we should think about what we eat between News Years day and Christmas day.

“Five a Day”, you will have seen some people promoting this as the new way to diet, yet it has been around since the dawn of time. We have always been hunter gatherers, we used to wander across the land picking and eating as we went on our travels.

We still pick and eat all the time, unfortunately we do it while we sit in the traffic, while we sit on the bus, while we sit in the office, while we sit in front of the television. As children we would be adventurous, we would go places and do active things.

And what we pick on are the worst things we could eat. When we were children the family would share a bag of crisps, and that bag was only one sixth of the size of today’s “Grab Bags”. Nowadays, quite a lot of people will think nothing of eating two or three “Grab Bags” in one go.

You can find all kinds of people promoting all kinds of diets left right and centre. you can even order your nutritious meals that have been specially prepared by a top Chef, mind you, that will cost you quite a pretty penny.

When I was a child the answer was staring me in the face every day, and it was insanely simple.

The only thing that you need to do is this. Copy what my parents did. It is the very same thing that your parents, or grandparents did.

When we were children we would get up in the morning at least an hour before we had to leave the house. After the usual fight for the bathroom we would get our breakfast, a bowl of cereals with milk.

At Eleven o’clock we would have “elevenses” which was a single piece of bread and butter and jam folded in half, or a piece of fruit.

Then in the middle of the day we would have our lunch, a couple of small potatoes, a spoonful of peas, a spoonful of boiled carrots, and a small piece of chicken, or two fish fingers.

At Tea Time, usually around four o’clock, we would have a slice of bread and butter, with jam. Or we might have had a small piece of cake to keep us going until supper time.

Supper time would be around six thirty to seven pm, and would comprise of a light meal of a couple of small potatoes, a spoonful of peas, a spoonful of boiled carrots, and some cabbage, or broccoli, along with a single burger, or a pair of fish fingers, or a small piece of chicken.

In the old days we had our “five a day” of vegetables that were loaded with the vitamins and minerals that we needed to have, and all without realising it. We had our daily dose of protein, and our daily requirement of carbohydrates. And, because we had the odd Burger, and our Sunday Roast, we had the correct amounts of Fats and Oils that we needed to keep our skin and body functioning properly.

It is by having so many fatty products every day that we have become such a nation of lethargic, lumbering, Cholesterol calamities.

And we had our exercise by walking to where we wanted to be, we only took the bus when it was a long journey, that is to say that the journey would take longer than thirty minutes to walk, each way, which is about two miles each way for a normally fit human being.

Thus, if you adopt the meals strategy as laid out above your cost per head for the meals will drop by at least forty percent, and probably more than that, as you will only need one “Grab Bag” per week maximum for the whole family. And you will very quickly find that what you spend on that one big sandwich in the shop can usually get you a whole days meals.

And it doesn’t matter whether you are a family, or single. It is so easy to get the right measures onto your plate by using a spoon, just purchase tinned peas, carrots, potatoes, they are already cooked.

Most work places have microwaves if you want something hot, the beauty of a lot of tinned food stuffs is that they can be eaten cold, just add your precooked fish fingers, or chicken burger (note: Single), nuggets (maximum of two) and your meal is now go anywhere, with the advantages of less packaging, and all at a lower cost.

If you buy in chicken breasts, then cut them into ordinary burger size portions (about 5cm diameter x 1cm thick, max) before you freeze them. Believe me,  your shopping bill will fall instantly, and this will allow you to enjoy the Sunday Roast even more.

All the best to the new you.