berries | Fitness on Toast

Posts tagged 'berries'

THE BREAKFAST POT !!!

17/04/2015

Easter has been and gone, and whilst I stayed on the straight and narrow, it was a tough old time! This recipe is inspired by my love of sweet things, and helped me keep control in the mornings, which kept me on track for the rest of the day. It’s naturally sweet (from berries, fruit and a sprinkling of cinnamon), has a low GI, healthy fats, plenty of protein, is filling, and is super-delicious. It takes hardly any time at all to make – 5 minutes tops, depending on how fastidious you want to be with your presentation! It serves as a great breakfast pot, dessert or indeed cheeky snack. My ‘recipe’ is by no means the final word; get creative, bring in colourful fruits to suit your emotions, and make your pot reflect your mood 😀 Click MORE for the ingredients list, and some more pics of my little compilation 🙂

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CELEBRATING THE ‘HOTEL BREAKFAST’ AT HOME !!!

23/02/2014

There can’t be many amongst us who dislike the fabulousness of a hearty ‘hotel breakfast’ spread – at a time when your body desperately needs fuel to power up, gather mental alertness, and prepare you for the day ahead, the trusty hotel delivers in spades! By starting the day correctly with a healthy meal, you’ll underpin the rest of the day and your body will be less likely to panic for food or overeat later. Also, by stabilising blood sugar levels early on, regulating energy and appetite, you’re more likely to avoid the classic irritability and lack of concentration.

Becoming a morning person is all about getting into a tolerable routine and what better way to do it than by bringing a little excitement to the ritual; a hotel-like breakfast. Rather than stressing your way out the front door on an empty stomach and demolishing a coffee and croissant on the go (both responsible for eventual blood sugar dips), take some time to wake up at the breakfast table, sip a green tea, read the paper, and enjoy a colourful, restorative, tasty meal in the same way you might do on holiday! It can (and should) be a fabulous meal like any other to really enjoy and look forward to. There is a huge amount of choice too; breakfast doesn’t just have to be bran flakes out of a cardboard box… If your reason for not having breakfast is because you’re time-poor, check out my healthy muesli which only involves the time it takes to add milk to a bowl! However, my breakfast this Sunday morning was made up of a selection of healthy dishes but in rather smaller portions – a good source of protein, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats and plenty of vitamins and minerals. A bowl of porridge topped with some yummy berries, a hard-boiled egg, smoked salmon and avocado, a small glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a cup of green tea. I’m loving grapefruit at the moment so managed to add a half as well.

See more photos and nutritional info below… Faya x 🙂

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“WILL FRUIT MAKE ME FAT ???”

05/11/2013

In moderation, and the right type, no! I’m marking the change of seasons with some yummy winter berries. This healthy dessert should satisfy your sweet tooth (guilty!), whilst offering plenty of nutritional value too. I’m regularly asked whether ‘fruit will make you fat because of the sugar content’; true, too much of any type of sugar is bad news. However chomping on the right fruit (like these berries) means you’re not only eating fructose (the lowest-GI form of sugar with a glycemic index of 19, versus a glass of apple juice at 30, table sugar at 65, and glucose at 100), but also enjoying other benefits like fibre (helps digestion) & plenty of vitamins and minerals. By chewing solid food and metabolising it slowly (rather than drinking it straight into your bloodstream) you suffer less of a blood sugar spike. I’d rather have a delicious, beautiful, tasty, bowl of fresh berries with nutritional value including some protein (thanks to the yoghurt, plenty of calcium & vitamin-B too) than a dry cardboard biscuit that claims to be ‘low in sugar’.