Healthy Diet

MunchFit X 1Rebel

| tigeresskirby

Today I woke up to a very exciting email from 1Rebel. The London-based boutique gym have teamed up with MunchFit to offer fitness food at their St Mary Axe site and it launched TODAY!

Using the freshest, high quality ingredients the team have developed meals for three different training goals; BURN (fat loss and shredding), BALANCE (weight management) and BUILD (muscle gain).

1rebel-munchfit
Source: 1Rebel Email

With the meals designed to accelerate training results and have a direct impact on energy levels, it all sounds like a very smart idea. The team are even on hand to offer advice around which meals you should opt for in order to see the best results. I don’t know about you but I’m eager to see what’s on offer!

1rebel-munch
Source: 1Rebel Email

Physalis- The Fruit That You Need To Discover!

| tigeresskirby

You know when you find something that’s absolutely delicious and good for you and you get a little bit too excited? That’s me right now, telling you guys about my favourite fruit. I’ve been a fan of physalis for a while, but to my surprise not all that many people know about it. Well if you haven’t heard of physalis before, you have now…

It’s not exactly a household fruit. In fact, the first time that I came across physalis was actually, typically, as a decoration on my dessert. My gran told me that they were called Chinese lanterns and I went on calling them that for years. That was until I grew up, stumbled across them in the fruit aisle on my food shop and realised they’re not called Chinese lanterns at all. Their real name is physalis.

OK, so they kind of sound like a disease but I promise you that they are absolutely delicious. If you have a sweet tooth, I recommend that you swap your bag of sweets for a bag of these as a healthy alternative! Honestly, they’re that good (ish). Super sweet and super yum, as well as having a number of health benefits such as helping to improve eyesight, protecting the kidney and liver, aiding healthy pregnancy and helping to relieve arthritis pain. I picked mine up at Sainsbury’s for £1 per bag. Give them a try and let me know what you think!

physalis-2

Why NOT To Count Calories

| tigeresskirby

Calories. A word that many of us dread, count or say far too often in one day. The basis of what you should consume on a day-to-day basis, right? 2,500 for men and 2,000 for women if I remember correctly. But what do calories really say about the quality of your diet? In my opinion, not very much.

Although I’ve never been a calorie counter, others counting calories had never bothered me. That was until the day one of my friends told me that she would have to be sick (yes, sick!) if she ate my 650 cal pasta salad, simultaneously pointing to the nutritional information on the packet. Well, you can imagine my horror. Not only had my friend just insulted my meal whilst openly suggesting that she has an unhealthy disorder- which she doesn’t, by the way- she had made me question whether what I had thought to be a relatively healthy meal was really any good for me at all. What’s more, my super-healthy-calorie-counting friend then proceeded to demolish her 450 cal mini portion of chip shop chips…

Of course, what was I thinking? Only 450 calories in a (mini) bag of chips is way better than a nutrition-packed 650 cal pasta salad. Pfft, best get down to the chip shop every day- four bags and I’m still under my recommended daily calorie intake. Wooohoo!

The truth is, that it’s not so much about the calories, but about the nutritional value of you food. Two meals with the exact same calorie count can have very different impacts on your body. 

Not only that, but we all burn calories differently- some quicker than others- and the amount of calories that we burn also depends upon how active we are. Did you know that roughly, it takes around 25-30 minutes of running to burn just 300 calories? With 2000+ calories a day to burn, we’d all best get moving! 

Don’t get me wrong, calories aren’t all bad. They can be used to help guide how much food you are eating and therefore influence the maintenance of healthy consumption levels. However just remember- it’s not always about how much you eat, but about what you eat. Perhaps next time I hear somebody complaining that they’re not going to eat something because it has ‘too many calories’, I’ll send them in the direction of the local chip shop.