Yummy broccoli!

In the past year I have learnt a great deal about nutrition and healthy living, but how do you go from having all this knowledge to actually living it? For most people, making a complete lifestyle change is quite overwhelming and usually ends in failure and going back to the previous unhealthy lifestyle. It is so much easier to go back to what you are used to.

I think it’s about making small and reachable goals for you. It is about slowly changing “what you are used to” and setting realistic goals.

One attempt in goal setting I already failed when I started writing this blog! In my first post I said I would write every Friday about my weight loss. Guess what happened? I didn’t write every Friday. That first week we had changed day-care for my 2 year-old and, of course, he fell ill and I therefore had no time or energy (being 6 months pregnant!) to write anything. The second post was written three weeks later.

The goal I had set didn’t work for me, obviously.

The same goes when changing your lifestyle. You need to set realistic goals and goals that work for you! But don’t worry, if you find out it doesn’t work for you, then just readjust your goal and try again!

Having the knowledge is not enough either. We all know what we should eat, but we don’t. Why? Because we go about it the wrong way.

Here’s how I go about it! My first step is to try out new recipes. I have always known that I need to incorporate more vegetables in my diet, but I never knew how. I thought I needed to learn everything about every vegetable and how to cook all of them. This is of course not true and would be way too overwhelming for me. And let’s face it; no one knows all the vegetables!!

Here is my advise to you. Start with one vegetable that you know and like. For me it was broccoli. I like broccoli, I know how to cook it (in boiling water for about 5 minutes) and it’s really healthy! At the moment broccoli is my super food!

Here is one of the recipes I tried the other day. It was yummy!

Pesto Tomato and Broccoli Pasta

Ingredients

2 cups (500 g) of any pasta you like

1 cup (250 ml) pasta water

2 large garlic cloves, minced

1 tbsp. olive oil, extra virgin

1/4 cup (60 ml) + 2 tbsp. pesto (this time I bought the finished product, but you can of course make it yourself)

2 cups (500 g) grape tomatoes cut in halves

4 cups (1000 g) small broccoli florets

1/3 cup (85 g) sun dried tomatoes, thinly sliced

1/2 cup (125 g) Parmesan cheese, shredded

Season with salt and pepper

Directions

1. Cook pasta as per package instructions, reserve 1 cup of pasta water, drain and set aside.
2. While pasta is cooking, get all ingredients ready. Preheat large deep skillet on medium heat and add olive oil and garlic. Sauté for 30 seconds, stirring frequently. Add 1 tbsp. pesto and tomatoes and stir for a few minutes. Move to one side of the skillet and make sure the empty side is positioned directly over heat. Add 1 tbsp. pesto and broccoli, stir and cook for 4 minutes.
3. Remove skillet from heat and add remaining 1/4 cup pesto, sun dried tomatoes, seasoning, pasta and pasta water. Stir gently and let flavours marinate for a few minutes. I also like to add half Parmesan cheese in this step and the other half right before serving.

Enjoy!