Sunshine days call for sunshine food ☀️☀️☀️
May sunshine starts to invite habits that we associate with long days and more time outside. We swap our winter warming dishes and roast dinners for mediterranean alternatives, bbqs and salads. The craving for lighter food is physiological – staying cool requires energy and if we are in the midday sun anything heavy means that our digestive system has to work really hard- making us feel sleepy and lethargic.
The sun also brings with it an increase of vitamin D which lifts the mood so we are less likely to reach out for comfort food. With heat, often comes sweat and with this – dehydration! Salad and summer food are often made up of ingredients that have high water content – feeding and hydrating us simultaneously 🙂 What an amazing body we have!
It is common with salads to not eat enough to really fill us up or for the calorie intake of the salad alone to be quite low. If you are training hard and working out regularly, then you may find salads that have healthy carbs like rice, pasta, beans or potatoes in to be a better option for you. Alternatively, you can increase the good fats (sprinkle of nuts, seeds or olive oil) or have additional protein on the side if you want to lean up.
Rice has been a favourite product of the gym world for decades! It is low in fat, low in cholesterol and includes protein and minerals such as potassium which help the body reduce toxins. You can vary this recipe as you like but here is our favourite variation.
Method for Summer Tuna Rice Salad (serves two)
- Cook your favourite type of rice, then drain and rinse with cold water.
- Cook any vegetables you want to add, they can be fresh or frozen. We just cook sweetcorn from the freezer.
- Chop half a cucumber, a handful of tomatoes and 2 sticks of celery (finely chopped works better)
- Add 1 tin of tuna to the rice with 1.5 tablespoons of light mayo and a teaspoon of mustard.
- Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl and season to taste.
Cooking time: 10 -20 minutes depending on choice of rice and 5 mins to chop veggies and throw together. Really delicious to follow with my favourite…
Oat milk Frappe (or any milk of your choice)
Method for this sunshine treat
- Make a double expresso
- Add 4 ice cubes to the expresso
- Shake up 100ml of your favourite milk in cocktail shaker or water bottle. You can be energetic here, just be sure the lid is on 😉
- Pour over ice cubes and expresso and watch foam rise to the top. Sit back, relax and wait for the caffeine to arrive!
If you are on a health drive and want to eat better and move more then check out our online video library for fitness and yoga videos. Happy eating and happy moving everybody!
Love and light,
Victoria xx
