How to do cereal the Paleo way..

Breakfast: Whilst it’s well known to be the most important meal of the day, it’s something most people don’t find the time to enjoy, or at least, enjoy properly. It’s well known that having a good breakfast to start your day is key in managing and maintaining a healthy body, but when work and other commitments get in the way, it is easy to forget how important it really is.

For most of my childhood, breakfast consisted of sausages and boiled egg with soldiers (the best). I also went through various pancake stages when Waitrose used to do the homemade ones (so middle class it hurts). When I turned 14 and suddenly became extremely aware of boys and what I looked like, I eat what seemed to be the best weight loss option, aka Special K, which was fucking horrific in terms of actually being healthy but seemed to have some kind of crack like ingredient in it that made me desperate to eat about ten bowls a day. This has never been tested or proven but I’m convinced there’s something in that theory because every single friend I have who eat it said the same thing. Just a warning… I then moved onto porridge, and finally, to the relief of my trainer, I (Re) discovered eggs, salmon, and avocado. Whilst the porridge wasn’t necessarily terrible for me, it was really heavy and always made me feel bloated and a bit pregnant afterwards. I would have these super starchy, heavy, ‘healthy’ (special K, occasionally Shreddies) breakfasts and wonder why I felt SO exhausted and sluggish all morning, and until I started having healthier breakfasts with more protein I genuinely had no idea the food had something to do with it.

FYI – If you don’t have the right ratio of protein/carbs etc in your meal (ie – not enough protein), your body produces a hormone that makes you really sleepy, so that explains that symptom. You don’t need coffee, you need protein! And maybe coffee as well, depending on how much sleep you’ve had.

However, as is often the case with everything I love (songs, food, etc) whenever I find a food that I love, and is healthy such as the eggs and salmon, I obsessively eat it non stop for however long it takes me to get so sick of it that I can practically never look at it again. I had basically had eggs for breakfast every day for about 2 years, and I was fucking sick of it. I realized I needed to find healthy alternatives – not only for my taste buds, but for my metabolism. As your body’s metabolism can slow and get lazy if you always eat the same thing, I decided to try and switch it up a bit – and try not to eat the same thing every single day. Particularly since starting the Paleo diet last year, I really had to try and be more exciting.

Although there are obviously millions of other breakfast alternatives that are Paleo friendly, such as fish, meat and nuts, green juices and so on, which I will do another post about, I decided to keep this one just for Paleo friendly cereals – because let’s face it, cereal is fucking great. However, 90 percent of cereals are definitely not great FOR you – like Special K, they’re loaded with sugar and dreadful ingredients that you definitely don’t want in your body. Discovering healthy cereal has been FANTASTIC for me, for my metabolism, gut health, and also just because freaking YUM. Below are my favourite healthy alternatives to the shitty cereals, in no particular order – hope you enjoy!

• Primrose Kitchen’s Carrot, Apple and Cinnamon Muesli

I LOVE this one… I mostly try and avoid muesli as the majority of them are full of sugar (moment on the lips, forever on the hips hunnay) but this one is made without gluten wheat or artificial sugar. I think it’s also a great idea to add vegetables in. The chia seeds and psyllium husks make it great for breakfast, and it tastes amazing. There are also other flavours if apple isn’t your thing! It’s really reasonably priced at just under £6, this will last most normal people a couple of weeks, however I go through about 2 packs a week because I eat it like it’s my last meal on this earth and I’m hungry in the mornings. Find it at Whole Foods, Planet Organic or on the website :

http://primroseskitchen.com/shop/muesli/raw-carrot-apple-cinnamon-muesli-400g

• Bench Pressed Oats (Oomf!)

If you like porridge and oats but want to switch it up and add some protein in there too, this is the brand for you. Healthy, gluten free oats infused with whey protein. Bingo! Porridge without the mid morning energy slump. WERK those muscles…

http://giveitsomeoomf.co.uk/

• Roots and Bulbs – Quinoa Granola

This always gives me loads of energy before a workout – really nice with almond milk, coconut yogurt, or even blended berries (you can make a good acai bowl with this one!). It’s not like your usual granola – which can only be a good thing, as it tastes good AND isn’t packed with shitty ingredients and hoards of sugar. Find it in store or visit…

http://www.rootsandbulbs.com/

• The Living Food Kitchen – Buckwheat Granola

This is fucking DELICIOUS, especially with almond milk. However, although there is no added sugar, make sure you stick to a small serving (50g or less) because there is still quite a lot of natural sugars. This one is great for a snack when you are craving something sweet but don’t want to fuck up your diet! Again – find at Whole Foods, Planet Organic or…

http://www.thelivingfoodkitchen.com/sprouted-buckwheat-granola-18.html

• Paleonola

Paleonola do amazing granolas without the crap. I discovered this one at Whole foods (bit of a theme going on here!) where they have a whole section full of paleo friendly granolas, but this might be my favourite.

http://www.paleonola.com/shop_ep_53-1.html

• Whole Foods ..

Whole Foods also have a large range of buckwheat, rye and gluten free oats, which they sell in huge bags of pure oats in the gluten free section. These are inexpensive and will last you for absolutely ages. I believe the best store for these is the Piccadilly one, but they all deliver!

Let me know how you get on with these, if you’ve tried them, even if you hated them!

Bon appetite!

Waist train, lose gains

Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend who told me she has bought a ‘waist trainer’. To those of you that don’t know what this is, it’s essentially a corset which is supposed to serve the purpose of giving you a smaller waist. If you remember Keira Knightly in Pirates of the Caribbean (I believe it was the first one) fainting due to her excessively tightly laced top, you have the right idea. Khloe Kardashian recently uploaded an Instagram of herself wearing her waist trainer, an idea she apparently got from the seriously bizarre Blac Chyna (Tyga’s baby momma aka the only woman with a faker ass than Nicki Minaj).

 

 

It is becoming increasingly unavoidable to check your social media site of choice whether that be Pintrest, Twitter or Instagram without multiple accounts or photos coming up of girls who look like they are straight up from a Drake video. Everyone is obsessed with asses and getting a curvy, hourglass figure, with butts bigger than planets and waists tinier than my little sisters wrists. The situation is fuelled further by image obsessed celebrities, particularly creepy rappers who appear to be solely motivated by women’s bottoms. (Jason Derulo is great, but ‘you know what to do with that BIG FAT BUTT? REALLY JASON?)  The world has gone curve crazy.

 

So when a friend of mine – who already has a body that makes Kim Ks look bad – told me that she had bought a ‘waist trainer’ corset, I was SO BAFFLED. ‘Doesn’t it hurt?’ I asked.

 

 ‘Kind of, I had to take it off the other night because it was so uncomfortable’, she replied. ‘It kind of feels like you can’t breathe’.

 

After she confirmed my suspicions, I decided to check out the hype further.

 

I literally cannot get my head around why anyone would do this to their body, if they had any idea of what it does to you. Corsets went out of fashion for a reason – they can literally kill you!

 

A waist trainer works something like this: crushing your ribcage and stomach slowly and rather uncomfortably so that your appetite and actual bones shrink down a few sizes. It’s so unnatural and wrong! If you were meant to have a tiny waist, you would have been born with a tiny waist. We have got to stop aspiring to be like these women who have bodies that are totally different to ours! Know your own body type and own it! And celebrities who know they have a huge influence on younger girls and their body image should be fucking ashamed to promote something which is so bad for you all in the name of vanity. They could be promoting healthy eating and working out, which would be a much more sensible message to put out there for young women and girls. But they’d much rather get their ten percent and instead show off a totally unhealthy and damaging piece of equipment all over the web, which effectively promotes laziness and not much else.

 

  – THIS IS SO BIZARRE 

What is the problem with going to the gym and putting in some work to reach your goals, please explain to me!! Shame on you, Khloe Kardashian! First it was workout rants and squat photos, which is all very well and good, but now this? Whyyyyyy!!

 

Much of me thinks this is part of a much wider issue which many people (particularly escorts on Instagram….bitch you ain’t no model….we know you’re selling pussy stop lying) seem to be affected by, which is basically laziness, aka paying for multiple surgery operations to make it look like they workout a fuckload but really don’t. It’s sad! Because if you do that, you’ll never actually get any of the benefits that you should from exercising, such as a stronger body, a happier and healthier mind, stress relief…the list goes on.

 

Also let’s be honest, does anyone want to look like Blac Chyna (or whatever she is called) when they’re 80? Unless you’re going to go into a weird kind of porn industry, I would vote no.

 There are plenty of examples of women who (literally) work their asses off to have small waists and amazing butts. These are the women to aspire to for this kind of training! My favourite people to follow on Instagram for these tips are:

@lyzabethlopez (she created @hourglassworkout and honestly her bod is just the best thing ever

@alexandrabring

@michellelewin

Also, if you get a chance, check out Brett Contreras, who has a page on Facebook, and a whole book on how to build your body and butt up, which I bought, and my ass is thankful!

 If waist trainers and corsets were beneficial to work out with, don’t you think you might have seen them in the gym or at sweaty betty? I think there’s kind of a reason they’re only sold on dodgy internet sites halfway across the world…

I think curves are amazing…I just don’t think they’re worth crushing your body to gain.