Today I was having a conversation with a girl in college about dieting, exercising and just generally losing weight. My recommendation was that she stop eating in hall - but she said she'd rather keep eating in hall but eat less. Then she also said she only has two meals a day (skips breakfast), so if she ate less and did not snack she should lose weight. It made me realise how much my diet before Christmas has changed me in terms of my attitude to dieting - i.e. I'm not really one for diets (even though I do want to lose more weight at some point, on top of the 8 kilograms I lost before Christmas), but now I'm all for eating healthy and making sure my body gets what it needs.

There's quite a few things I've started doing which have made me appreciate healthy, wholesome food. First of all, we started getting a delivery of fresh, organic fruit every week. We get a big bag of fruit delivered to us every Friday, and the selection is different every time. Thanks to this, I've started eating fruit I never had or liked before; for example, grapefruit. I had no idea grapefruit was so nice, eaten out of its skin with a spoon. I've also started to like oranges, which I always dismissed as too messy. Pomegranate remains too messy, so I donate it to my lovely Russian.

Secondly, we drive to the big Tesco once or twice a week and stock up on fresh vegetables (this week: mushrooms, mange touts, green beans, tomatoes, courgettes, aubergine), fresh meat & fish (usually chicken, pork, prawns and some kind of fish), blueberries (I'm obsessed), yoghurt and various other things. I read labels religiously, and try to make myself lunch every day (if I'm not in town - in which case I get something from the lunch place these guys have started in my department). M cooks us a delicious dinner every evening (oh yes, I'm spoilt), sometimes with a bit of help from me (did you know fresh guacamole is super easy to make and delicious?).

Thirdly, I've bought a variety of books on the GI diet and healthy eating. I definitely recommend the first GI Diet book (to get you started and get an idea of what this whole GI thing is) and the Food Doctor's Every Day Diet (it has a lot of good ideas and recipes). SuperFoods is really interesting, and will make you think about what's missing in your diet. We've tentatively started to eat soy products because all of these books recommend it, and it's been good so far.

So, what do I eat in a normal day? Keep in mind that at this point in time, I'm not dieting per se, but just trying to eat healthy. Today I had the following:
Breakfast of All Bran with one banana, a handful of blueberries, cow's milk and a cup of tea. Every morning I also have about half a glass of sweetened soy milk with barley grass powder, and take my supplements (vitamin E, Omega 3, calcium - am thinking of adding Spirulina and Kelp to this).
For lunch I had a wholemeal pitta with spinach (I use frozen which you can cook in the microwave in two minutes, super easy), cherry tomatoes, hummous and a poached egg. For dessert I had a small bowl of low-fat vanilla yoghurt with a handful of blueberries and a small grapefruit.
Mid-afternoon snack was an orange and a handful of nuts (brazil nuts, walnuts, almonds and cashews).
Haven't had dinner yet, but to give you an example last night we had grilled fillet of fish (Hoki, a kind of hake) with shallots, green beans, a small bowl of cottage cheese with beetroot, and half a massive grapefruit each.

I guess healthy eating is one of the things that I've thought a lot about in the last few months, also because it's part of this drive I feel to take care of myself instead of letting myself go to the stress of this life. It's one of the very few things I can be focused on right now, and I take great enjoyment in eating well. Without even mentioning the fact that I feel so much better for it - awake, alert, and full of energy! I think the fact that now whenever I eat in hall I get really bad stomach cramps is a sign that hall food really wasn't good for me. The other thing I've noticed is that every time I eat chips (or anything made with normal potatoes) I get so spaced out I almost fall asleep.

I guess healthy eating will be one of the few things I'll take away with me from this place.