Sally Bee's blog: How to get the balance right
Eventually this will help you look at food in a different way and will enable you to eat a balance for health over a week, even including special occasions and blow-outs.
Many of you who followed our Brazilian Bikini Diethave been in touch to say you're continuing with the plan and so our healthy eating expert Sally has come up with a handy maintenance chart for you to use throughout the rest of summer - and always.
Sally says:
We all know the principles of eating a well balanced diet. We need to eat less fat, sugar and salt and more fruit and vegetables, chicken and fish. But it’s one thing to know this and another to be able to put it into practice.
I develop all my recipes around the healthy balance principle, but as hard as I might try, you are not going to be able to eat my dishes at every meal, every day! (Although of course I’d love it if that was possible!)
During this summer's Brazilian Bikini Diet, we’ve had over 1.3 million of you download the eating plan which fills my heart with joy. That’s 1.3 million of YOU who decided to eat for health and enjoy weight loss as a side effect.
Since the shows I’ve had a gazillion emails from people asking for my help. It seems that one of the biggest problems is not knowing how to balance food over the day. I understand that it can be really easy to lose your way with food, especially when you are busy working or on holiday or dashing around like a crazy women...(well maybe that’s just me!)
So, to that end I have developed a little chart for you. You can download it, print it off and stick it up on your fridge or in your purse for easy access.
The idea is to simply write what you are eating in the relevant box. The key on the left explains the colour codes, it’s really straightforward, but if you have any queries, feel free to drop me a line so I can help.
You’ll notice that the carbohydrate section is split into two; orange and brown. Put all your wholegrain carbs such as brown rice, nutty bread or wholewheat past in the brown section and all white carbs (white bread, pasta, rice) in the orange section. One glass of fruit juice in the morning can be written in your green box, but any more that are consumed throughout the day need to be added to one of the pink boxes as these will count as sugar instead of a fruit/veg portion.
Once you have filled in your charts for a few days, you’ll be able to stand back and glance over them and get a real feel for how you are doing.
Ask yourself...
• Am I drinking enough water?
• Am I filling up my green sections or is my pink overflowing?
• What am I lacking?
• Where will I try to improve tomorrow?
As it’s all about balance, this applies to a collection of days too. So don’t worry if on one day you are particularly short on your green boxes and have overfilled your orange ones, if this applies to a special occasion or day out. This is your life and it is to be enjoyed. Just make sure that you are aware the balance has been lost for a day and concentrate for the following days on filling all the boxes in a healthy way.
Eventually this will help you look at food in a different way and will enable you to eat a balance for health over a week, even including special occasions and blow-outs.
I believe that we all have the ability to eat for better health and my hope is that this chart will empower you to take control for yourself, especially if you have completed four weeks on the Brazilian Bikini Diet and now wish to continue with living a healthier lifestyle.
Just a wee note – don’t forget that portion sizes are important too, so hover your hand over your plate!
Enjoy and Bee Healthy xx
Get Sally Bee's diet and recipe Brazilian Bikini Diet plan