A little less sugar, a little more health

We are now roughly on day 9 of our no sugar, no bread challenge and its been great so far! The biggest change for me has been that I used to eat toast every morning, which I now had to replace. So my first option was full cream Greek yogurt with honey (no sugar, no flavoring, no sweetener) But I found that it wasn't keeping me full for long enough, so I decided to add some muesli to it to bulk up my breakfast. As you might know, almost all muesli's have tons of sugar in, and the ones that dont, have sweetener (which is recommended to stay away from during this challenge). I know my mom makes her own muesli, and its never looked very difficult, so I got Googling and realized there are plenty of sugar free recipes to choose from, and that you can really roast any nuts and grains together to make a delicious muesli. I have posted one of the ones I liked below, but you can change it up and add more nuts or fruit or anything really!

Enjoy!


MAKE YOUR OWN: PLASTIC-FREE, SUGAR-FREE MUESLI

Ingredients:

3 cups coconut flakes
2 cups oats
1/2 cup brazil nuts
1/2 cup peanuts
1/2 cup raw almonds
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
80ml macadamia oil (or other high quality, flavourless oil- I use coconut oil)

Method:

[I soak my almonds and pumpkin seeds overnight to activate them and make them more digestible, and then dry them out before chopping and adding to the mix. If you can’t be bothered with this step or are short of time, just skip it.]

Roughly chop the brazil nuts, peanuts and almonds. Combine in a bowl with the coconut flakes and oats. Stir in the oil and mix well until everything is well coated.

Line a baking tray with baking paper. Spread the mixture evenly over the paper and bake at 100ºC for 30 minutes, until golden. Leave to cool.

Store in a glass jar. It will keep for a few weeks, but I think it is better to make small batches and more often to keep it fresh.

Enjoy!

Source Treadingmyownpath.com

A healthy start to the New Year

I have never been a big sugar lover or had a huge sweet tooth (excluding a few delicious desserts and treats..) but I have always known how much added sugar there is in everyday non-sweet foods and continued eating them. That's why at the end of 2015 when I saw a 21 day no sugar, no bread challenge, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to cut these foods out so that I would really realize how many of the everyday foods we eat, are actually filled with sugar. Because sugar and bread play a pretty large part in our lives, I have never really wanted to admit how bad they are, but I figured 21 days is short, and maybe that will be the start of cutting some of those pesky foods out more permanently.

The challenge starts today for me and a few Facebook friends who have willingly decided to start the year on a healthy note. (You could start this challenge any time, as long as you do it for 21 days. It is just easier when you have a few people doing it with you and encouraging you to stay strong)

The basic rules are:

No bread or crackers,
No foods with (added) sugar,
No food with refined carbs

That means that if it comes with sugar in from the start (fruit, honey etc) its allowed. If its man made and the sugar has been added (sucrose) its NOT allowed

Some examples of foods you might not know have unnatural, added sugar in are: Fruit juice, flavored yogurt, protein bars, most low fat foods, and most sauces (tomato sauce, BBQ sauce etc)

The 21 day challenge says that you can add some natural sugar if you really need to during the 21 days, but it is better to try cut it out completely. If you really need something sweet, use Stevia or honey.

So for the next 21 days:

Replace bread with veg or sugar free/Greek yogurt in the mornings
Stop sugars (or have stevia)
Read ingredients on food labels, where is the sugar & carbs coming from?

So I hope you will join me in this challenge and share it with your friends so we can all start the New Year on a healthy note

I will be posting some recipe ideas also ASAP


You can see more on the Challenge that made me decide to do this Here


Here is a short article on the effects of sugar on your body written by fitness guru Kayla Itsines

http://www.kaylaitsines.com/blogs/news/65473923-what-does-eating-refined-sugar-do-to-your-body?utm_content=buffer2af1b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer