health.

The other day Mr Peck bought me a book called "Clean & Lean Diet" by James Duigan.

Very interesting reading. He says that a lot of what we eat is toxic and has little nutritional value because of all the chemicals in our food and nutrient depleted soils fruit & vege are grown in... and I pretty much agree.

Duigan says you should try and buy organic as much as possible [a little more expensive usually and very very limited in my local supermarket :(  I may have to do some specialty trips to Babina in Newcastle to stock up on flour and other things and maybe the Fruit Barn in Jesmond - boy I miss that place!!], cut down on sugar (avoid foods that have sugar in the top 3 ingredients) as well as wheat and gluten [apparently intolerance to wheat makes you bloated below the belly button - my problem!].

The first part of the book goes through Duigan's main ideas on nutrition and then goes into recipes and workouts to get you clean & lean in 14 days. You pretty much go on a detox diet. 

I haven't really gone into it full swing coz I don't particularly have the desire to lose weight, rather get clean and also tone up. The exercises are really good for the toning part and I have taken on some of his nutrition advice - or will when I can get the right ingredients!

Duigan says that most breakfast cereals are full of sugar and really not good for you. Most celebrities and athletes do not eat cereal for breakfast because it is of little to no benefit. He says you should actually eat vegetables and things like that.... kinda hard to stomach. But one of his other suggestions is to eat oatcakes with things like avocado. Also, berries are super good, and nuts as well.

So, today I made some Oatcakes to see what they are like and decide if I could eat them for breakfast. (because I went to look at the cereals in my pantry and everyone of them [including weet-bix interestingly] has sugar in the top 3, if not 2 ingredients.)

I just tried one before, and I gotta say - not bad! So easy to make too.  

Clean & Lean Diet said you can buy them from health stores [they are available at Bibina] but I don't have any of those close by so it was easier to make them... I just searched for a recipe on the net.