I think the time has come for some good ole healthy eating. I always that little “click” before I can step forward into action.. Maybe sniffing a delicious mango was that “click”… or was it the belt of my jeans that needed a different hole. Whatever. A click is a click and can’t be ignored! Let’s do it! This simple salad is chock full of vitamins and fiber and very few calories.

Recipe:

1. Cleaned 1 mango and sliced it into juliennes.
2. Cleaned 1 handful of mange tout and sliced it on the diagonal into juliennes.
3. Wash 1 handful of mint leaves and Italian parsley leaves and break into a bowl.
4. Cut 1 large spring onions on the diagonal into strips and add to the herb leaves. Add a handful of haricot mungo sprouts, the mango slices and the mange tout strips to the salad.  Add 1 lemon grass stick, harder outside removed and finely chopped to the salad.  Mix lightly with your fingers.
5. Drizzle the salad with some olive oil, a bit of nuoc nam sauce, lemon juice, chopped fresh ginger and a  teaspoon of acacia honey anf season with salt and pepper.
6. Finish off with a sprinkling of dry roasted almonds and lastly black sesame seeds.

Those who bask in summer at the moment, will enjoy the salad as is, but for us in the North, it is probably a little too cold.  So I enjoy it with a big pot of green tea. You can always drink a tisane(herbal/flower infusion). Along with the salad it will be great for digestion.

…walk, walk and walk..

…load up on fruits and vegetables…

…eat more  fish..

• drink enough water every day…about 6 to 8 glasses.
• eat smaller and varied portions.
• have an extra light hand on the salt, sugars, butters and creams.
• Cut off fat from your meat.
• when and if choosing bread, then choose whole wheat…whole wheat rice, grains, lentils, wild rice, quinoa..
• and….

…laugh…

And lastly something I received from a friend.  I don’t know where it originated and some of you might already know it…but here it is, hope it cracks you up like it did me..

“The Bathing Suit (by a middle-age woman unknown).

When I was a child in the 1950s, the bathing suit for the mature figure
was-boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered.  They
were built to hold back and uplift, and they did a good job.

Today’s stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a
figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice, she can either go up front to the
maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away
looking like a hippopotamus that escaped from Disney’s Fantasia, or she
can wander around every run-of-the-mill department store trying to make
a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of fluorescent
rubber bands.

What choice did I have?  I wandered around, made my sensible choice and
entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room.  The first
thing I noticed was the extraord ina ry tensile strength of the stretch
material.
The
Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to
launch small rockets from a slingshot, which gives the added bonus that
if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you would be
protected from shark attacks.  Any shark taking a swipe at your passing
midriff would immediately suffer whiplash.

I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder
strap in place I gasped in horror, my boobs had disappeared!

Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit.  It took a
while to find the other.  At last I located it flattened beside my
seventh rib.
The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups.  The mature
woman is meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed
bump.  I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a
full view assessment.  The bathing suit fitted all right, but
unfortunately it only fitted those bits of me willing to stay inside it.
The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom and sides.  I
looked like a lump of Playdoh wearing undersized cling wrap.

    As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the
prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, “Oh, there
you are,” she said, admiring the bathing suit.  I replied that I wasn’t
so sure and asked what else she had to show me.

    I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of
masking tape, and a floral two-piece that gave the appearance of an
oversized napkin in a serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard-skin bathers with ragged frills and
came out looking like Tarzan’s Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a
rough day.

I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in
mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would
have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fitted, it was a two-piece affair with a
shorts-style bottom and a loose blouse-type top.  It was cheap,
comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it.

My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured.

When I got it home, I found a label that read, “Material might become
transparent in water.”

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water
this year and I’m there too, I’ll be the one in cut-off jeans and a
T-shirt!

You’d better be laughing or rolling on the floor by this time.  Life
isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain, with
or without a bathing suit!”

Until next time,

from the middle aged, dieting, but laughing diva.