Alice Liveing - Clean Eating Alice Eat Well Every Day: Nutritious, healthy recipes for life on the go

CONTENTS

For those of you familiar with my story, youll know that I spent the majority of my teenage years buying in to dangerous quick-fix diets.

This entailed restrictive eating, cutting out food groups and believing that slogging away on a treadmill was the only way to keep fit and lose weight. The world we now live in constantly encourages us to believe that we need to make drastic changes and restrict ourselves in pursuit of a healthy physique.

The food industry is full of conflicting statements that can leave you totally perplexed as to what is actually good for you and what isnt. If you believed every report written, its likely youd end up allowing yourself a controlled list of foods you could count on one hand. Having been there, and been baffled by the amount of confusing information there was, I know how hard it is. Every diet has a different angle, whether it is cutting out carbs, low-fat or juicing, and I was left searching but failing to find anything that simply promoted a sustainable, balanced and inexpensive approach to achieving a year-round healthy lifestyle. The key for me was to find a way of life that allowed me to eat delicious, easy-to-make food all of the time. The emphasis had to be on fresh and accessible ingredients and dishes that worked for everyday life, be it quick lunches on the go, post-workout breakfasts or simple but delicious dinners. What I wanted to showcase were all the physical and mental benefits of being healthy.

In my first book, I shared how I began on my own journey, developing a way of eating and a lifestyle that meant I no longer found myself going round and round on the diet roundabout, which messed about not only with my body but also with my mind. Those of you who have followed me through Instagram will know that that is simply not the case any more. I have transformed both mentally and physically, becoming the strong, healthy and confident woman that Id always dreamed of being. And now, I am championing what I feel is a much-needed breath of fresh air into what I think is an incredibly saturated market. One of the most valuable things I learnt on my journey was that, to create the most lasting and impactful change, you must first start with the right environment in which to make that change. You have to know that you want to commit to eating to fuel both body and mind, and this book is designed to help you take the first steps and then go on to make it a permanent way of life.

After talking you through my approach, I will examine the basics of nutrition to help you understand what bodies need and why, so that you can make educated choices for yourself rather than having to religiously follow a plan.

After that comes the food section of recipes. Then I will help guide you on how to build the perfect plate, with the right balance of foods to fuel you both mentally and physically.

We could tell ourselves that we are going to begin our journey every single day, and yet that very rarely happens. Life gets in the way, birthdays happen, holidays happen, and suddenly we are a month, two months, a year later and have made no change. Now Im not going to sit here and wag my finger at you; believe me when I say I am the first to discourage that prescriptive style of helping you achieve your goal. But what I will say is that there really is no better time to start than now. Were creatures of habit, and change is going to feel weird. The first week, month or few months may feel difficult, and require a little hard work, but I believe that is only because you are undoing years of daily habits that have brought you to where you are today. While Im not going to fob you off by saying that creating a total lifestyle change is going to be a walk in the park, what I will do is help you implement some everyday tools and techniques that will allow you to create a seamless transition into healthier, happier living.

These tools arent miraculous exercises or superfoods that will somehow transform your physique, but rather are small lifestyle changes that I feel are essential in establishing the most stable platform from which you can then progress your journey. It is all about making your own decisions and understanding what food is good for you and how to make sure you eat right every day.

For the first week, I am not going to encourage any changes within your diet or exercise regime, I just want you to focus in on yourself and encourage you to become aware of your daily habits. Becoming more aware of, and tuning into, your body seems silly, but can often be key in understanding why you may be held back from achieving your desired goal. For example, many studies have shown the benefits of getting a good amount and quality of sleep and the correlation this has to weight loss, and yet this key aspect of our lifestyle is so often overlooked by many diets. I want to encourage you to not focus solely on diet or exercise, as I feel that they are only small pieces of a bigger picture. Try thinking about a few of the questions below, and perhaps keep a diary for this week to help you better understand your body and mind, and how they may be affecting your choices:

What and when are you eating?

How does this make you feel?

Are you drinking enough water?

Are you getting decent sleep?

How much are you moving throughout the day?

Are you feeling stressed?

Have you exercised today?

If so, how did that make you feel?

Move

I am not a hardline personal trainer who is going to insist that you work out for hours on end or go to the gym every day. That isnt always healthy, nor is it sustainable and most of all, it isnt a realistic approach to exercise. And I am a realist; I know how busy life can be and that fitting in exercise is something that can often fall to the bottom of the list when other things take over. My advice here would be not to panic about having to take exercise, but just get started by gradually increasing your daily activity levels perhaps by walking to work a few days a week, going for a brisk walk in your lunch break or generally being more active throughout your day. All of this will mean you increase your energy expenditure without even stepping into a gym.

To make exercise a part of your routine, you need to find an activity that you enjoy. I began weight training and I found instantly that it was something I felt engaged in and so I was motivated to get stronger, but I know this doesnt happen for everyone. Whether it's Zumba, aerobics, swimming or cycling, if you want to achieve long-term change it is important to find a way of getting moving that you love, then incorporate that into your week in a realistic timetable. I hope with my first book,