This Barley, Pumpkin & Kale Soup from Claire is without a doubt Super dooper delicious!

Ingredients for Barley, Pumpkin & Kale Soup

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 cups of chopped pumpkin
2 cups of mushrooms, sliced
2 medium potatoes, chopped
1 litre vegetable stock (I used Kallo organic cubes)
100grms Barley, washed
Salt & Pepper
2 large Kale leaves, finely shredded
Few Celery leaves & stalk, chopped
1 teaspoon curry powder.
Method to prepare Barley, Pumpkin & Kale Soup
Saute onions in olive oil then combine all ingredients in pot and allow them to simmer for about 40mins, or until pumpkin and barley are cooked through

Meatless Monday’s are brought to you by Claire from Claire’s Veggie Wonders  in collaboration with Carla from DrDietRight! YAJ US!

The post Meatless Monday – Barley, Pumpkin & Kale Soup appeared first on DrDietRight.

I have been practicing WT since I was 13, which means I have been practicing it for 15 years give or take. I was always fascinated by Martial Arts. I think it started with movies; I used to love watching Karate Kid and Bruce Lee and in fact any film which included any sort of Martial Arts, even those cheesy Martial Arts films where little kids would beat up a whole army of Ninjas  However I was always fascinated by Kung Fu so I was delighted when I found a school close by which taught Wing Tzun. With time I started training abroad, started to teach, and met Sifu Emin Boztepe who has now been my instructor for over 3 years.

Well, although I do try to keep an exact schedule for my training, today’s life makes it difficult to just assign a permanent specific portion of the day for training no matter what . Sometimes I get stuck at work, sometimes I have private lessons which could be at any time of the day, other times I simply have lots of work to do at home… I do have two dogs after all and those need to be walked!  So I have to be adaptive. I try to do at least half an hour a day training alone, mostly non aerobic such as punching bag, kettlebells or fast skipping rope. I do usually take 2 days off during the week however it could be any day. I do not have a rule that says Sunday is always off, for example. I guess you could say I train as much as I can whenever I can!

The post FITspiration – Jonathan – Wing Tzun Instructor appeared first on DrDietRight.

You have probably noticed that this blog is ON FIRE at the moment with new sections, more articles and tons of new exciting things and this is because I have decided to dedicate more of my time to Health and Fitness!

As part of my launch I am now 3 fitness services. Group outdoor Fitness, A 4 week fat burning program, and an at the Gym Training service.

I’m so excited to actually meet my followers and workout with them. I’m 100% certain that many people who follow my page are becoming healthy eaters but may need a little help with the exercise side of things.

Outdoor Group Workouts

Walking outdoors alone can be boring and sometime we just need a bit of a schedule and commitment to keep us on track. Working out with a group of amazing people, outside, having fun is a great way to keep motivated when it comes to exercise.

Four Week Fat Burning Program

My 4 week Fat burning program is designed for people who want to see serious results. Obviously this requires serious dedication and commitment. Groups are small and lessons are 3 times a week for 12 weeks. We will be using metabolic training techniques to get the metabolism working. I think this is an excellent way to really burn fat and get into a routine of working out! Can’t wait to go on this journey with 8 amazing people!

Gym Training

I offer this service and truly believe in it. Sometime we have a gym membership but just don’t have the confidence to try things out at the gym. I can join you for a session or two to help you work out a super effective and efficient gym workout. In some case we will even know our way around the gym but would like some feedback and new ideas! Even Pro’s need guidance and push sometimes.

If you are interested and would like to learn more check out my Classes Page

**To join you must sign up and let me know what you are interested in. Once I have a number of users I will send out an email with further details and a starting date.**

The post Fitness Classes in Malta Launched! appeared first on DrDietRight.

If you are anything like me, you are probably curious about all these new fitness trackers that have recently (or not so recently) emerged onto the market. I can look and look, read 100 reviews but I can never decided on which one is for me! Here is a list of four different wearable exercise monitors, each with their own pros and cons.

Fitbit One

The Fitbit One is arguable one of the most popular and favourably-reviewed exercise monitors on fitness websites. This tiny black object is barely noticeable when clipped to a belt or bra strap, and can also be worn on a wristband.

It tracks how many steps you take in a day, flights of stairs climbed, distance traveled  the number of calories you burn, and even lets you know how much sleep you’re getting. On the subject of sleep, it also has a vibrating alarm, allowing you to wake up without disturbing your partner.

The Fitbit is very easy to use; just one button leads you to all of the aforementioned data. Battery life is also very generous.
Setting it up is very simple. A USB plug-in attaches to your computer, allowing you to wirelessly sync the Fitbit to a customised dashboard. The Fitbit website also allows you to input information that the device can’t measure, like

This helpful little device sends out emails when you reach certain milestones, like when you’ve walked 10,000 steps on one day or climbed more than 10 floors. A little positive reinforcement goes a long way.

It’s cost: $89.99. Check out the FitBit one on Amazon 

Nike+ Fuel Band

A sporty-looking bracelet that blends in seamlessly with casual attire, the Nike+ Fuel Band can be worn all day. It has a step counter and a calorie counter, although the data that is measured is not as detailed as the cheaper Fitbit. According to various reviews, it simply isn’t very accurate.

The device also comes with a social networking dimension. By exercising, you accumulate ‘Fuel Points’, which can be posted on the Fuel Band website, allowing you to compete with other people.
Setting up the device requires minimal effort. You can set your goals by choosing the number of Fuel Points you’d like to accumulate, based on your lifestyle.

Users have reported that wearing the device can lead to small changes in exercise habits, since acquiring the set number of Fuel Points is a fun challenge. However, for people looking for more detailed statistics about their

exercise routine, there are better options.

It cost’s  $150. Check out the Nike+ Fuelband on Amazon

Motorola MotoActv (Personal Favourite!)

The Motorola MotoActv is a fitness tracker for professional athletes, particularly runners. The device, which is in the shape of a touchscreen watch with an Android operating system, tracks your movements through GPS as well as a pedometer.

Aside from its highly detailed data, the MotoActv’s main selling point is the MP3 player, which plots your physical activity on a chart and tells you how your rhythm changes during a particular song. This allows you to come up with an energizing playlist to keep you moving and motivated during your routine.

If you’re running or doing some other outdoor exercise, enabling the GPS feature allows you to plot your route on a map and see where you were at a specific time of your workout.
Aesthetically, the device is a little bulky (some would argue ‘manly’). It can be worn as a watch but also comes with a belt clip. It is both sweat and water resistant, while the screen is tough enough to withstand knocks and scrapes.

It comes with comfortable headphones, and being Bluetooth enabled means that syncing it with other devices is incredibly easy.
Price: $250. Check out the MotoActv on Amazon

Jawbone UP

The Jawbone UP pledges to use diet, sleep and exercise data to give you recommendations on how to improve your fitness.

A neat feature of the UP is an idle alert that goes off when you’re spending too much time on your ass, a certain number of minutes that you calibrate yourself.

An in-built barcode reader allows the wearer to input nutritional information of food eaten during the day. Alternatively, this can be done manually by entering the ingredients.
The UP scores highly on wearability. It’s comfortable, slender, and could easily pass for a bracelet. It’s also water resistant so you don’t have to take it off in the shower.
Its ease of use is another plus point. You simply download the related app from the iTunes store, make an account, and you’re ready to start recording your movement.

The main potential drawback of the UP is that, technologically, it isn’t exactly up to date. It doesn’t have Bluetooth, which means you have to connect it with a wire, and while you can connect it to an iOS device, you can’t connect it to a computer because there’s no desktop software to accompany it.

That said, the battery lasts for over a week.

You can even name your device, if that’s what you’re into!

Price: $126.00 – Check it out the Jawbown UP on Amazon

 Conclusion

Ever since the invention of pedometers, fitness enthusiasts have been able to monitor just how much they move. Nowadays, if you really want to get into the specifics of your daily routine, there are a whole host of wearable fitness trackers that measure a myriad of different data aside from step count, such as calorie intake, calories burned, and even sweat rate.

These devices are often linked to smartphone apps and/or the product website, meaning that you are able to keep tabs on your progress like never before.

While you certainly don’t need an expensive device to get fit, if you have the money to spend then one of these devices could help you to get fitter faster.

One final caveat: Fitness trackers will not provide you with a 100% accurate picture of how many calories you burn during a specific workout. The difficulty in tracking precisely how the body moves leads to a considerable margin of error. Instead, these devices are best used to provide a general picture of your health and a benchmark to help you reach your goals.

The post Which Fitness Tracker should I buy? appeared first on DrDietRight.

Losing weight can be a very painful process especially when you measure weight loss on scale. Basing your weight loss goals on the number you hope to see on a scale is the wrong way to go about it.

Why I hate scales.

What a scale shows:

• The scale shows your weight.

What a scale does not show:

• How you look physically
• What size clothes you fit in.
• What body type you are.
• How tall you are
• How much muscle you have
• How much body fat you have

In short, the problem with going by the number on a scale is that this really doesn’t tell you much about how you look.  A good example is this image from an inspirational blog I follow called Gokaleo. In both photos she weighs 16o pounds (72.5kgs) but as you can see her body looks SO different. This is the the weight of Fat vs the weight of Muscle.

How you should measure weight loss/Fat loss

I will be honest with you I have not weighed myself in over 10 months. At one point I was weighing myself weekly and I used to get so depressed that I decided that it was best not to look at the scale anymore and just keep focused on my true goal which was/is looking toned and eventually fitting into smaller clothes.

How to measure weight loss?

The best way to see how your body is changing is to measure yourself with and inch tape and with calipers. Measure yourself with an inch tape to see inch loss and measure yourself with calipers to measure your body fat. Taking these measurements once a week and keeping a record of them will really help you see your truthful improvements.

Inch tape

• Measure your chest
• The smallest part of you waist
• Your hips (largest part of your bum)
• The top of your thigh.
• The bottom of your thigh (just above the knee)
• Then go back to your waist and measure over your belly button

Your body fat

Some scales give you your body fat, but the most accurate way to know is by using calipers.

• Using a caliper, pinch the skin just above your hip and squeeze the caliper over the top.
• Take note of the figure then read the chart that will indicate your body fat %

Calipers  do not cost a fortune. You can purchase calipers directly from me for €5.00

*Note: I use the word weight loss in this post because I know that most of my followers understand weight loss to be fat loss. There is a difference and this post should outline the difference between the two*

The post How to measure weight loss. Measure yourself don’t weigh yourself! appeared first on DrDietRight.

I often receive emails asking me: ‘what should I eat’ and ‘When should I eat?’

Questions like these are very difficult to reply to when I know very little (nothing) about you! I will be posting some meal guidelines up on the site in the next couple of days for you to download

Seeing that this week is focused on nutrition, I wanted to share my personal meal plan with you, in other words, what I eat and when I eat!

Before  I share what I eat it is important to be very clear about a couple of things:

• This is my personal meal plan designed for ME and my nutritional needs ( I am still working on fine tuning this my meal plans – trying to add 6th meal)
• I follow a clean diet, something I have been following for over 12 months (it takes time to adjust to this way of eating)
• I exercise up to 6 times a week (sometimes twice a day) my nutrition is adjusted accordingly
• I eat 5 times a day (because this works for me. I hope to make it 6!)
• I eat a lot of protein because I’m trying to build muscle to burn fat

I can not explain my food plan until I share my fitness plan.

My fitness Plan

After being away from the gym for about 3 months I lost a lot of muscle so I had to start again from scratch (OMG really annoying) I have just completed a 1 month weight based program which was purely based on strength training. Now that I am can squat 50 kilos, for the next 6 weeks my program will be based on weights and plyometrics. These are very tough workouts and I will definitely need to up my food intake to keep this training up. My week consists of Gym and Basketball. I do four weight sessions of  30-40 minutes in the gym a week as well two/three 1.5 hour basketball sessions a week. Some days I will do gym in the morning and basketball in the evening. Normally Wednesdays and Saturdays are my rest days. Rest days are usually active rest days which means I will try and go for a short leisurely walk rather than just sit around on the sofa

My Food Plan

In terms of food intake it really depends on what kind of training day it is.

If  I am doing gym in the morning my day looks like this:

Meal 1 (pre workout)

• Pure Protein with some coffee and cinnamon

Meal 2

• 1/3 cup of oatmeal
• Omelette 1 egg and 3/4 egg whites
• Veggies

Meal 3 (Lunch)

• Tuna or Chicken salad or stir fry (1 slice of wholemeal bread)

meal 4

• Protein powder

or

• Apple and hand full of almonds

Meal 5

• Chicken, Fish, Turkey
• Veggies

If I don’t have gym in the morning but basketball  in evening then my day would look like this:

Meal 1

• 1/3 cup of oatmeal
• Omelette 1 egg and 3/4 egg whites
• Veggies

Meal 2

• Apple and hand full of almonds

Meal 3 (Lunch)

•  Chicken salad or wrap

or

• Chicken /Tuna with rice and veggies

meal 4

• Protein powder

BASKETBALL SESSION

Meal 5 (Dinner)

• Chicken, Fish, Turkey
• Veggies

Meal 6

• Tea with 1 square of dark chocolate

I do 1 cheat meal a week, which is normally a pizza or burger which I order in. 

Some meals sound boring but if you think about the picture I share on facebook and on this blog you will realise that it is far from boring. My food goal is to make sure I eat, complex carbs, protein and veggies in every meal. That is my formula.

The post My day in food – What I eat and When I eat appeared first on DrDietRight.

You want to lose weight and I can tell you the formula! The formula to lose weight is:

80% Nutrition, 20% exercise.

The Problem

Unfortunately most peoples diet is generally one that is jammed packed with nothing but simple carbohydrates, (starch,sugars).  These foods do nothing to help us physically. They provide us with sparks of energy, but even this is pretty useless as the energy surge will generally leave us in a slump shortly afterwards.The worst part is, that when simple carbohydrates are not burned,  they are stored in our body as fat.

Getting that 80% Nutrition part of the formula is crucial to weight loss. Eating a balanced diet is crucial to weight loss. If you get your nutrition right the rest becomes a lot easier. But where do you start!

A clean diet / healthy diet is really much simpler than most people think. Commercial ways of life and clever marketing have conditioned us to to reach for pre-made packaged products. The ‘easy’ solution is not the right solution.

A simple rule I follow is, with every meal I must eat: Protein, Complex Carbs, and Veggies. 

But the problem with this formula is, that is is very difficult to eat the correct amount of protein you need daily.  The reason most people do not eat enough protein is because  eating real natural proteins like eggs, fish, chicken, turkey, in the quantities necessary to ‘get enough protein’ is virtually impossible for most of us. As a rule of thumb, you need to eat  x grams of protein that are equivalent to x kgs you weigh. (So if you weigh 80 kgs you need 80 grams of protein daily) So imagine how much chicken you would need to eat if, 100 grams of chicken contains 31 grams of protein!

The solution!

Protein Powder helps you get the amount of protein your body needs daily! A lot of people think that protein powder is either a magic formula you drink to replace meals to get skinny, or some kind of muscle man formula to build big bulky muscles so you can tear down building. This is completely incorrect!

Protein powder is not a magic weight loss drinks. You still need to eat proper food, but adding protein powder to your diet helps you eat enough protein. Technically you should consider it as a supplement.

Protein powder (protein shake) is part of my diet. I have been using protein powder for the last 4 years. One meal of my 4-5 meals a day is a protein shake. When I am training twice a day I will take two shakes a day. I like vanilla protein powder because I can mix it with all kinds of things, like berries, bananas, coffee, cinnamon and even peanut butter. I even make ice-cream and cakes using my protein powder.  Protein powder works well as a quick way to get the required amount of protein you need into your diet and thank god they taste a lot better than they used to 15 years ago!  Check out the protein powder available on this site.

I’m sure you have seen some advertising about protein powders that have been marketed as magic weight loss shakes and I will explain why they say this and what they really should be saying:  Adding protein to your diet helps us gain/maintain muscle and this is important because MUSCLE BURNS FAT!  Wallah, welcome to fat loss!

Now available:

If you are interested in purchasing Whey Protein from me – please check out this page (*currently only available for people located in Malta and Gozo)

The post So you want to lose weight? appeared first on DrDietRight.

Week 2: No Starchy Carbs

This week’s challenge is all about reducing the amount of sugar in your diet.

Welcome to week 4 of the 6 week challenge to healthy eating. This week we will aim to eliminate starchy carbs from our diet and introduce more complex carbohydrates instead.

If you would like to know more about what carbohydrate you should be eating: Sign up here

The post Week 4 – 6 Week Challenge to Healthier Eating: No Starchy Carbs appeared first on DrDietRight.

Who said you can’t eat sweets? These Banana, Oats & Goji Berry Cookies are clean and delicious and take no time to prepare and bake!

Ingredients need for Banana, Oats & Goji Berry Cookies
Banana
Oats
Goji Berries or Raisins
Agave Syrup
Coconut Oil
Cinnamon
Flaked Almonds to put on top

Method for Banana, Oats & Goji Berry Cookies:
-Mash & mix all together
-Pour spoon full of dollops onto the tray
-Pop in he oven for about 15 mins

It does not get easier than this!

Meatless Monday’s are brought to you by Claire from Claire’s Veggie Wonders  in collaboration with Carla from DrDietRight! YAJ US!

The post Meatless Mondays – Banana, Oats & Goji Berry Cookies appeared first on DrDietRight.

This week’s fitspiration is Shirley. Shirley is a yoga instructor and macrobiotic nutritionist. I’ve known Shirley for many years now and she was the one who helped me realise that food is seasonal and best fresh!

Can you explain what following a macrobiotic diet means in brief?

Macrobiotics is the art of balancing food and life using the eastern philosophy of yin/yang and 5-transformation theory. In a nutshell, this is living and eating according to nature; understanding that you are a smaller version of nature, and that whatever happens ‘outside’ of you also happens ‘inside’ you. This way you are always changing with the environment and through balancing your food using different cooking styles, tastes, textures and colours, also making the body more flexible and adaptable.
How long long have you been a macrobiotic nutritionist and how long have you been practicing yoga?

Yoga came before macrobiotics in my life. I started practicing yoga 13 years ago when I was in a major turning point in my life. Then about 3 years later, my partner mentioned macrobiotics as something he had experienced when on a yoga retreat in Spain. It was something totally new to me, but while reading my first book about Macrobiotics, I really loved its’ philosophy and felt that it was speaking to my heart. I haven’t looked back since.

You live an active lifestyle, what activities do you do on a weekly basis?

On a weekly basis I cycle for a minimum of 90 minutes twice to three times a week, train with weights another twice to three times a week and practice yoga another four to five times a week.
What does is your daily nutrition plan (meals per day)?

I eat three square meals a day….breakfast is a wholegrain dish with some steamed veggies or fruit, lunch is the main meal of the day with wholegrain as the main item together with two vegetable dishes, a protein dish which consists mostly of either vegetable protein or fish and some pickles. Dinner is usually a left-over of lunch or something else like a soup which I would have also prepared at lunch time but not consumed. I bake my own gluten-free, yeast-free bread from sprouted whole-grains so that also plays a part in my daily diet.

If you could give 5 tips to people who want to make a lifestyle change what would they be?
My 5 tips to people who want to make a lifestyle change would be:

• Eat more natural foods like fresh vegetables and seasonal fruits
• Eat whole-grains like rice, barley, millet, corn, quinoa etc rather than flour products like pastries, bread and pastas
• Make the time to shop for your food, cook it and eat it
• Make exercise part of your daily routine
• Make time for your favorite hobby and for sleep

If you would like to reach out to Shirely about macrobiotics or yoga sessions, you can do so by checking out her website www.yourhealthybalance.net

The post Fitspiration: Shirley Macrobiotic Nutritionist and Yoga instructor appeared first on DrDietRight.