I’m a firm believer in the power of using food and diet to fight ailments that are all too common in today’s world – I’m talking depression, anxiety, low moods, brain fog and lack of lust for life. In my personal journey I’ve experienced stages where I had all of these symptoms and even been diagnosed with ‘depression’ (I put this word in quotation marks because I don’t actually believe in this kind of diagnosis, but that’s a story for another day). Having been in dark times myself, I do everything in my power to never go back there again, and altering my diet, lifestyle and mind has allowed me to achieve what I consider to be the ultimate measure of success – waking up everyday happy to be alive and excited for the day ahead.

The energy you put out into the world is the energy you get back. So let’s start putting out vibrations of gratitude and happiness for our relationship with food. It’s something to be celebrated, loved and cherished as not only does it literally give us life, but what we eat will become us. I mean what better connection can you get!

First things first, when making lunches (or any meal for that matter), ditch any ideas you have about the ‘bodybuilder style’ of meal prep. Just because you work in an office (or on the road, or well, anywhere!) and you don’t have hours to make lunch, doesn’t mean food has to be tasteless, boring or dry. On that note, food NEVER has to be tasteless, and when you start eating healthy, you’ll find healthy food to be so much more attractive and more enjoyable than any takeaway you can buy. In fact tasteless food is probably the fastest way to ‘fall off the bandwagon’ or ‘cave in’. I put these in inverted commas because with my food philosophy I don’t believe there is a wagon to fall off… there just simply is no wagon!

If healthy food didn’t taste good, I too wouldn’t be motivated to eat it. That’s the kind of thing you stick to for a day or two, maybe a week, but after a while you have no desire to stick with it and you lose the willpower to eat well. All this does is land you right back at square one, not feeling great, with average eating habits and feeling like you need to kick start your health journey or go on some kind of challenge or diet – oh hello, just another wagon to fall off! With all that aside, what you do want is something that just becomes a habit which you don’t even have to think about.

Saying goodbye to ‘the wagon’

The reality is to make healthy habits stick, you need to make sure there’s no wagon to be on or off. You want healthy practices to become your autopilot so you don’t even need to think about it… you just do it. Just like you brushing your teeth in the morning or when you put on socks before shoes. You don’t actively question every morning which you should put on first – you’re just on autopilot.

Herby chicken and eggplant bowl from Made

SO, WHAT DOES MY PLATE LOOK LIKE?

Every meal I eat follows the same pattern. Yep… EVERY MEAL! And in this book I’m going to show you how to do it too.

What I want for you is that no matter where you are, what you’re doing or who you’re with, you can enjoy a meal that will make you feel amazing.

There’s not one part of me that thinks you can’t enjoy yourself out and about if you don’t have food prepared or a specific food you like to buy. I myself, eat out a lot! And I can always find something to eat.

That said, if you are preparing your own food, I want you to enjoy it and look forward to it every day. After all, you have to eat multiple times a day, and you will for the rest of your life, you may as well enjoy it. Every time you eat, it’s also an opportunity to send nutrition to your body – to have your hormones work correctly, to have energy, to be in a good mood, to be excited about life, to wake up every day energised and productive, I could go on…

And that’s it!