Time to embrace the sunshine and glow from the inside out! Here are our teams top tips to keep you feeling energised, body positive and celebrating summer with delicious and nutritious food.
1. Dive into some summer fruits:
Summer is a great way to enjoy a variety of fresh seasonal fruits. It’s a good idea to change things up at this time of year because it gives your body a different composition of vitamins and minerals. Eating in season fruits usually means they are fresher and higher in their nutrients too. Before you think it, fruit is healthy for us and not ‘too high in sugar’. Fruit contains natural sugars and fibre, which the body processes pretty slowly.
What are the summer fruits available here in Australia?
Below are what constitutes one serve
1 x Medium Fruit:
• Banana, Mango or Orange
2 x Small Fruits:
• Apricots, plums, peaches or nectarines
1 cup of:
• Berries, papaya and paw paw, lychees, pineapple, rambutans, cherries, grapes, pineapple
OR
• Roughly 6 x passionfruit or limes
Ways to enjoy fruit in a creative way:
• Fruit kebab sticks dipped in yoghurt
• Frozen: Grapes and bananas particularly!
• In smoothies: With milk, yoghurt, ice and honey
• In your salad: mango with spinach & avocado OR blueberries with kale & almonds
• Stewed or grilled with home made muesli or with overnight oats for breakfast
2. Eat well balanced tasty salads
Crisp, cold salads are a great way to get a good couple of serves of crunchy vegetables in your day! If you want to glow from the inside then eating a rainbow of colourful veggies will help you do that by delivering antioxidant nutrients like Vitamin E and C, helpful for clear skin, immunity and shiny hair and nails. We aim for half of each main meal to be veggie based (approx. 1-2 cups) and then using some sneaky vegetables at breakfast or on dip plates when entertaining.
Following this guide means you’re able to get your recommended 5 serves of veggies per day!
One serve = ½ cup of cooked veggies or 1 cup of salad vegetables Our Favourite Salads:
• Kat enjoys adding leftover roasted vegetables to salad leaves, her current favourite is: Baby spinach, roasted turmeric cauliflower, grilled red capsicum & eggplant, chickpeas, tahini and lime dressing
• Michelle’s loves using Mediterranean flavours like rocket, pear, walnut, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese with balsamic dressing & olive oil.
• Ash is all about the rainbow often using shredded purple cabbage, cucumber, kale, red and yellow capsicum, kale (de-stemmed and rubbed with lemon) + couscous or quinoa with a protein (tofu/legumes/oily fish/chicken or lean cooked beef) finished with a handful of roasted pepitas or sunflower seeds and fresh lemon/sesame oil.
You can find Ash’s recipe here:
3. Eat well whilst out and about OR pre plan your snacks and meals
If we aren’t a little focussed or organised there are high chances that hot chips on the beach or a greasy kebab could end up miraculously in our hands! We like to check in and ask ourselves if I eat this, how will my body feel at the end? Take a moment to think and make a conscious choice about what you want to order.
We always suggest to our clients that they go prepared for their day with smart snacks – we do the same! Remember if its hot and your don’t have a cooler bag most likely it will have to be non perishable items.
Some snack suggestions are things like nuts, chickpea snacks, a piece of fruit, healthy oat based muesli bar (sugars <10g/100g and fibre of 3g/bar) or popcorn.
If you do end up out for longer than planned and are with a group/family it’s easy to get drawn into group mentality of having ‘all of nothing’. Life is all about enjoyment, but instead of having none and feeling restricted or tossing in the towel and thinking ‘stuff it’, choose the middle road. What does this mean? How about 1 scoop of delicious ice cream – not two? 😉
To be honest we have so many healthy options available now, it may just mean you need to do your homework before you leave the house! Google has it covered.
We often spend a lot of time in Manly & Cronulla. Nearby there are MANY healthy salad shops, opportunity for fresh poke bowls, sushi/sashimi, fresh Smoothies, take away grilled fish and salad or a Mexican burrito bowl. Just take a moment to LOOK.
4. Stay hydrated
Did you know cold water is absorbed more effectively than room temperature. How about freezing half your drink bottle before you head out?
Remember sugary drinks will only take your blood sugars on a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Bored of water? How about you try some kombucha? Not too high in energy and perfect for colonising healthy gut bacteria. Otherwise some nice bubbly soda or mineral water does the trick too.
Need a coffee hit? Iced coffees can be loaded with ice cream and sugar, instead ask for a cold brew with a dash of milk.
5. Enjoy being active outdoors
Sunshine offers the perfect excuse to celebrate outdoor activities or moving incidentally. Riding a bike is a great way to get around and explore. If you live near the water – even better! How about some ocean swimming, learn to surf, snorkelling or a beach run at early light or sunset?
Hoping you all have a wonderful summer! Ash, Kat and Michelle ☺
