Try This Hearty and Healthy Vegetable Soup

You can’t beat a thick soup on a cold winter’s day. In this vegetable soup use whatever you can find in your vegetable drawer and add fennel to give it a nice tang and cumin to add extra warmth. The mixture of different coloured vegetables adds a great selection of vitamins, minerals and fibre to your diet.

Here’s a good tip: If you like a thick, smooth soup puree it all in a blender; if not, puree half the soup and add it back to the pan to make a lumpy but thick soup.

Hearty Winter Vegetable Soup

Serves 2

Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

1 onion

1 stick celery

1 clove garlic

1bsp olive oil

1 carrot

1 medium potato

Other vegetables of choice (in the picture I used a small chunk of aubergine, a small chunk of fennel and a parsnip)

1 stock cube ( I use chicken stock as I am not vegetarian, but vegetable stock is good too)

1 tsp cumin

Mixed herbs

Method

Chop the onion and celery finely, crush the garlic and fry all of them together in a saucepan in the olive oil until soft.

Dice up the other vegetables into small chunks, add to the pan with the stock cube, the herbs and the cumin.

Cover with boiling water and simmer for 30-40 minutes. Sample one piece of each kind of vegetable you have used to check if it is done.

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Yes, there is such a thing as healthy fat!

There’s a misconception that all fat is bad. In fact, what are known as “essential fats” really are essential – they are, indeed, healthy fat. Their benefits include speeding up your metabolism, strengthening your immune system and helping your body fight degenerative disease.

Don’t avoid these foods because they’re “fattening”. They are healthy, real foods, full of nutrients. Processed fats, on the other hand, offer your body no nutritional value and many low-fat products are actually much higher in sugar than the full-fat alternatives..

Healthy fat – the Goodies

• Oils found in avocado, nuts, seeds, eggs and oily fish.

• Extra virgin olive oil (must be cold pressed i.e. not heated during production, which kills its nutrients).

• Coconut oil is an incredibly nourishing oil and its nutritional value is unaffected by being cooked at high temperatures.

• Other great oils are cold pressed rapeseed oil and hemp oil.

The Baddies

• All the fats in processed foods, pastries and cakes.

• Hydrogenated fats, also known as trans-fats, which are very highly processed and a threat to your health (their carcinogenic effect is well documented).

How to use healthy fat

• Extra virgin, cold pressed olive, rapeseed, or hemp oils are best used cold – drizzled on salads, bread, pasta, or vegetables. They are not ideal for cooking – when you heat them, you destroy their taste and most of their health benefits. Buy the best you can afford, looking for a dark coloured bottle (so light doesn’t damage the oil).

• Coconut oil is the healthiest cooking oil, brilliant for pan frying or stir-fries. It’s not compromised when heated to high temperatures and doesn’t make food taste ‘coconutty’. You can also dollop it in a smoothie, spread it on toast, or use it as moisturiser.

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Vlog: Minds in harmony to achieve lasting weight loss

YOU’LL probably have heard people trying to make a decision who say “I’m in two minds about this.” Well, they’re spot on – because we all have two minds, the conscious and the unconscious. If you want to make those important lifestyle changes which are the scret of lasting weight loss then you need to have those two minds working in harmony.

In my new video below I explain the difference between your two minds. The way they work is quite different.

The conscious mind is the one you think with. The unconscious mind is the one you feel with.

Your conscious mind can focus on only a small number of things at any one time whereas your unconscious mind can pay attention to an infinite number of things all at the same time.

Most importantly, your conscious mind gives instructions while your unconscious mind follows instructions.  Being in rapport with your unconscious mind is the key to good health and well-being.

Because all of our repeated behaviour is generated by our unconscious it means that if we want to change behaviour we must enlist its help. Everyone knows how difficult it is to change our eating habits by conscious willpower alone.

It feels like it’s an impossible task. That’s because you can’t just change behaviours consciously, you have to enlist the help of the unconscious.

This is what the Slimpod programme does. It harnesses the power inside your unconscious mind and makes weight loss easy and sustainable.

Please leave a comment below and let me know about your success with Slimpod. Or if you have any questions about Slimpod, feel free to ask.

 

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Slimpod working with the NHS: My dream’s come true

I’m VERY PROUD to share the following news about Slimpod working with the NHS! Many of you will be aware that last June we started a big trial with the NHS Tameside and Glossop Hospital Trust (that’s me pictured with Angela, one of our NHS success stories).  I’m delighted to say that as a direct result of the success of the trial, the Chief Exec Karen, has decided to improve the health and wellbeing of her staff by radically changing the food environment at the hospital.

She’s starting by providing healthier food and removing sugary food and drinks from the restaurant. She will be the FIRST hospital Chief exec in the UK to do this and I’m SO PROUD to be directly involved.

I’m telling you all this now, because today this fabulous story about Slimpod working with the NHS  is in the news and on Good Morning Britain. I’ve see coverage around the world online!

On the back of this I’m using my position on the All Party Parliamentary Group for Obesity and the National Obesity Forum to start a national campaign urging all hospitals in the UK to improve the health and well-being of their staff by following Karen’s lead!

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Slimpod working with the NHS: The success stats

Here’s the remarkable results achieved with Slimpod working with the NHS in Tameside:

• 87% of participants lost weight while listening to the Slimpod over the 3 month project.
• 90% reported behavioural change and said that they had reduced snacking – most of those have lost interest in sugar completely.
• Over three months the participants lost 314 lbs.
• The seven case studies who have agreed to talk about their experiences in public have actually lost 206 lbs between them in six months.
• At least three quarters of participants have carried on with the Slimpod after the initial three months as they say it is an easy way to take control and lose weight.

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Here is a pic of Karen, Slimpod star Sammie Axton and myself when we started the trial last summer.

Thought I’d also introduce you to Angela, who’s the Head of Service Transformation at Tameside Hospital. She’s one of our Slimpod stars at the hospital and has dropped FIVE sizes from her waist and is about to come off diabetes medication.

This is Angela’s story about Slimpod working with the NHS:

“ My motivation to join the Slimpod trial was to get my health back on track. I was diagnosed with type 2 in 2013,  a hereditary problem in the family. It was out of control and making me tired and miserable. That would make me inclined to reach for a sweet snack, which is the last thing I should have been doing.

“The first changes I noticed were small ones…I stopped taking the lift and started to use the stairs, I stopped snacking…I cut down on the portions…I wanted to exercise more! I didn’t originally weigh myself so I’ve done it by dress size. It’s been amazing. Over five months I’ve dropped FIVE sizes in trousers  and two sizes in tops.

“My family and friends can’t believe the transformation. I’ve joined an exercise class every Wednesday, I’m so much happier and I have more confidence. Best of all my blood sugar levels are so low now my doctor says he will consider taking me off the medication by February. I know the weight will stay off because my lifestyle has changed.”

Slimpod working with the NHS has been my dream for eight years and I thought I’d share my excitement with you. 

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