The Mediterranean way

So the new year started with a bang…. we all made some resolutions. But who actually kept to them? I read somewhere that more than 80% of new year resolutions fail by the time that we reach February!!! So I have decided that this year I will not make any new year resolutions, but rather work on a lifestyle change. The mediterranean way.

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It is so easy to fall into the take-away-ing, couch potato-ing , sloth-ing ritual. Every Sunday night you vow no more take-aways, more moving, less screen time but it just doesn’t seem to stick past Monday morning breakfast when you have already checked your phone like a gazillion of times. And so you fall into the old ritual again.

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Here is to health…. cheers!!

Last year my husband and I started a serious health redo. After reading up on some health stuff, we decided to do a 28 day juicing challenge. WOW!!! now that took inner strength!!! The first 2 days went great, you feel awesome and then…. the side effects hit me – very hard. I suffered from headaches, back pains, nausea and I had no energy.

I almost stopped the whole challenge. But I had my super-man of a husband by my side encouraging me every step of the way. He was the lucky one. He suffered from some mild headaches but nothing to serious. All these side effects are part of your body detoxing and cleaning itself. It’s actually a good thing, although it really didn’t feel that great at the moment. It luckily only lasted about 8 days. 🤢

I know a lot of people do not back the juicing thing, but I found that our bodies really needed it. After the 28 days we were cleaned and cleared from the inside out. We had so much energy, my skin looked sooooo gooood, and we lost SO MUCH WEIGHT!!! The 28 days of juicing sparked something magical inside of us and besides we were ready for some solid food. 😁

Be gone, bad habits!!

We decided that we will not go back to our old ways, I mean the last 28 days tested us mentally and physically! After all that hard work you can not just let it go to waist. We tried the Banting diet for about 2 months then we tried the Keto diet for another two months. Both of them are very similar and although we kept losing weight on both of them, we suffered from some uncomfortable side effects like bad muscle cramps just to name a few.

No matter how we tweaked the recipes and ingredients, the cramps just didn’t want to stop. Personally I think our gym schedule and diet didn’t like each other to much. Clearly our bodies needed different nutrition. I’m not saying that these diets are bad. They might work wonders for you, but for us, it was just not cutting it.

We had to change to natural, clean and fresh eating. You know like the way that we are supposed to eat. Unprocessed, unsalted, non preserved clean REAL food….

The Mediterranean way

We decided to try the Mediterranean diet. I honestly think you can not call this a diet. This is a lifestyle changer, a way to life! In my opinion it is the way that all people need to life.

Here is a little back ground into the Mediterranean diet. It’s based on the villages in and around the Mediterranean area but a little Italian village south of Naples called Pioppi is officially recognized by UNESCO as the home of the Mediterranean Diet.

A scientist, Ancel Keys lived and worked with the locals to draw up the traditional Mediterranean diet. The people in Pioppi live a good, healthy long life. They are know as the “people who forgot to die. “

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Health Benefits

The health benefits is endless, and pretty amazing!! It offers the people following this a longer live and often without chronic diseases like type-2 diabetes or cancers and to add another bonus you loose weight while enjoying 3 meals packed full of vegetables and low-sugar fruit. If you think about this, it actually makes sense. We are not putting any over processed, insecticide sprayed, hormonal influence or sugar loaded food into our systems. It is all clean and natural, less bad stuff to interfere with our ability to live a healthy long life.

This way of living ensures a clean natural way of eating. It is a high fat diet (Don’t worry the good kind of fat) and low in sugar. There are loads of fresh vegetables, nuts, legumes and fish. And if you like your red wine, this is definitely for you! As you are allowed one glass with dinner per day. It limits red meat, starchy carbs and of coarse any sweet treats. The trick to all this is to blend the allowed food with getting enough sleep, 30 minutes of exercise or just even a brisk walk every day and most important, enjoy your meals with your loved ones.

What to avoid:

• A big no no is anything made with any form of sugar. Check out my previous post on ways to quit sugar. https://livingdelish.com/the-sugar-free-buzz-how-do-you-quit-sugar/ Here you will have to learn how to read labels and check the ingredients in every product. And take note: sugar has many sneaky names. It is worth it to look into the different names of sugar so that you know what to look out for. Even Honey, syrups and fruit juice in a no no….
• Any packed, refined carbohydrates and definitely no bread, cakes, pastries, biscuits….😥 Yeah, I know, I know…. But here is where you will have to shift the way you think to understand and remember why you are following this lifestyle. At the end of the day you want to improve your health and well-being.
• All seed oils like sunflower oil, canola or even soya bean oil. These oils are over processed oils, which contradicts with the whole natural pure eating plan you are trying to follow.
• Red meat…. you do not have to cut it out completely. But you need to limit it. All our family members are big red meat fans, so this was something new for us. We limited our red meat consumption to once a week and when we do enjoy it we prefer grass-fed animal meats. We try not to eat any processed meats but we focus more on whole meats.

• Loads of olive oil. You will need to try and consume “extra virgin” or “virgin”. These are the least processed oils and has some fantastic Antioxidants and Anti-inflammatory properties.
• Fish is eaten on a regular basis. This is a good thing since fish is packed with Omega-3 fatty acids. (Brain fuel 😉 )

What to enjoy:

• 3 full meals per day. You can eat until you are full!!! So definitely no starving! You should try your best to have vegetables with every meal that you eat.
• Crazy about nuts? Well you are allowed a small handful every day. But these needs to be unsalted.
• Whole grains. This means you can still enjoy some bread or pastas, but make sure that you read the label and confirm that there are no extra added sugar and it is truly whole grain.
• Chicken can be eaten at least twice a week.

Where to start

After reading up on this lifestyle change, I was well equipped and very uncertain where to start. I’m sure like everyone else out there – starting something new it’s only reassuring if you have a proper guideline. I started preparing a meal plan making sure that we include everything that we can eat, and avoiding all the no-no’s.

Generally we eat a late breakfast and do not eat lunch, almost like a bit of fasting period between dinner and breakfast, and breakfast and dinner. This gives our systems enough time to process the food that we ate. Luckily after the juicing diet we were usually not very hungry and this was an easy thing to do.

I think as humans we tend to overeat. We really do not have to eat so many times a day. Therefore at home, we eat when we are hungry. And when we eat, we eat until we are full.

Here is an example of one week of a typical meal plan in our house:

This is just a guideline. There are certain things that our family is not to fond of therefore I work my way around it. Above all, the most important thing to remember is that the food that you choose, needs to be as natural as possible. Food must be your nutrition, your fuel and the key to a healthy long life.

The Mediterranean way is all about “enjoying real food, made in a real kitchen by a real person.”