Hall - Tiffinys Lighten Up Cookbook

Published in 2012 by Hardie Grant Books

Hardie Grant Books (Australia)
Ground Floor, Building 1
658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121
www.hardiegrant.com.au

Hardie Grant Books (UK)
Dudley House, North Suite
3435 Southampton Street
London WC2E 7HF
www.hardiegrant.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Copyright text Tiffiny Hall 2012
Copyright recipes Hardie Grant Books 2012

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the catalogue of the National Library of Australia at www.nla.gov.au
Lighten Up
eISBN 9781742738567

Publisher: Pam Brewster
Cover concept: Tanya De Silva-McKay
Text design: Kerry Klinner

Food photographer: Mark Roper
Stylist: Georgia Young
Food preparation: Peta Gray
Portraits of Tiffiny Hall by Peter Collie and Marina Oliphant

Contents

Hey Health Ninjas! Ive got news for you: a great physique starts in the kitchen, not the gym. When you see a fit and toned body, I bet you think of slogging it out with the barbells and treadmill, but a gorgeous shape is only about 20 per cent due to movement. The other 80 per cent and thats the majority! comes from nutrition. So your best body needs diverse and delicious nourishment 100 per cent of the time, which is where the recipes Ive brought together in this book come in.

Since writing my two other books, Fatloss for Good and Weightloss Warrior, Ive had so many readers ask me for recipes that fit with my eat naked philosophy. Lighten Up is my answer: its packed with high-protein, low-carb recipes that will nourish the warrior soul, and excite your palate (without straining your wallet!). Because I believe that food is about more than just calories, theres taste, texture, adventure and sharing of experiences. I dont want you eating solo, on a diet, miserable and struggling. My recipes are meant to be enjoyed with friends and family, to help you achieve fatloss for good, with maximum wellbeing. Im going to show you that its easy to create and enjoy low-calorie, healthy food bursting with flavour.

Lighten Up is all about sharing the beauty of food, and through respecting food, your body will become beautiful too.

Working on The Biggest Loser as a trainer, I know for certain that food can build you a prison or a palace to live in. When emotional stress, negative influences and destructive people encroach on your life, the weight stacks on. But weight is fluid: it can go away, but alsoall-too-oftencome back. If you concentrate solely on the kilos, the fat will return. What you need to do for lasting fatloss is to try some mind tricks to regain perspective. Heres an example. When we are dieting, all we can think about is ice-cream. That ice-cream cone is soooo big, its in your face and blocking your vision and your perception of the world. Its literally all you can think about. Ice-cream, ice-cream, ice-cream! your mind chants. If you mentally heave that ice-cream away, you regain a little distance, but you can still see it blocking your vision and the effort involved in pushing it away only makes you more anxious.

Now heres the thing, and Im going to be honest with you. Your food addiction will never leave youno matter how hard you push. The answer isnt to push the addiction away, but to grab hold of it and place it where you have a clearer view of it. Then you can regain your perspective and you can see past the craving.

You may never be cured of your food addiction, but you can learn how to coexist with it. You will know its there, but you will be in control of it.

EAT OUT LOUD

The best way to disarm emotional eating triggers is to EOLEat Out Loud. Keep a food journal: write down what you eat and drink, when and where you eat and drink, and how you were feeling when you ate. Log the exercise you do, and what you chew. Doing this will inhibit calorie amnesia and also illuminate your triggers. Perhaps you dont eat enough? Or you eat too much after exercising? Maybe you eat sweet foods only in meetings? Perhaps you snack when youre bored or in front of the TV?

By learning your emotional eating triggers, you can put in place strategies to avoid them, and you will be better able to steer towards your goals and values, and away from anxiety.

How you see yourself is the person you will become.

LOVE YOURSELF, LOVE FOOD

A healthy relationship with food starts with a healthy relationship withyourself. When you focus your life around wellness, you grow good energy in your relationships and in your home.

If youre in a negative relationship with yourself, your food rapport will be self-destructive. Food will become an addictive drug. If you have a positive relationship with yourself, then your love of food will be nourishing. Food will become a medicine that heals and helps your body.

THE THREE-HOUR DAY

If you are a perfectionist with an all-or-nothing attitudethen try my three-hour day. Treat every three hours as a new day. Forgive yourself for a slip-up and start again in three hours time. One relapse doesnt mean you have to throw away the whole day. Doing this will prevent binging and self-destruction, and also cap the guilt. A treat will never make you fat, but a binge will.

Theres no such thing as perfection. If we set ourselves an unrealistic standard well feel weve failed and the negative cycle of self-loathing and weight gain will continue. We must accept ourselves, as we are, in any given moment. Through bad times and good times (a kilo of weight gain, a spate of pimples, a new relationship or burgeoning career), our self-love must be as unconditional and accepting, as free, fearless and limitless, as the love we are capable of giving otherswithout demands, comparisons or competition. You are a gift to your body; you can make it stronger or weaker simply in the way you communicate with yourself. To change your circumstances you must first change your inner voice. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day, make sure you stand guard as a warrior at the gates to your mind.

No-fat or low-fat diets

If you want to get rid of the fat on your body, put some more in your mouth. Its true: good fats help you lose weight. We need polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats to help us think and grow, and to absorb essential vitamins and antioxidants from our food. Fat makes food taste wonderful and helps us feel satisfied. Healthy fats help our hearts and feed our brains.

No-fat or low-fat diets trigger the starvation response, increase insulin levels, and cause hormone-related hunger and cravings.

When you cut out fat completely, your blood sugar spikes and plummets rapidly. Because fat slows the release of carbohydrates into the bloodstream, eating fat and carbohydrate together is the way to maintain stable blood-sugar levels. Moderate amounts of insulin are necessary to make muscles grow, but large amounts of insulin prevent fat burning, instead promoting body-fat storage. When your blood sugar spikes, your pancreas releases a lot of insulin to bring your blood sugar back to normal levels.