Cooking Can Be Simple

Cooking is not complicated

So often I hear the lament that being healthy is hard work! "It takes too long to grocery shop, chop vegetables, make a meal and squeeze in exercise.” Forget about it! You end up getting take-out, calling in for a pizza, eating on the run and the yoga mat sits in the corner. Does any of this sound familiar? (I can be guilty on the exercise end of things even though I am an avid walker).

Let’s flip that around in 2017. How about making 2017 the year of EASE? Loving and being good to your body is a treat and a joy. Making and eating beautiful food is a sensory experience. Exercise sharpens your mind and gets your skin glowing. Hard work on the other hand is getting on your hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.

Let’s be honest. You cannot be living your most successful and authentic life in business and personally if you are not in peak wellness. If you don’t set any other goal in 2017, make this the year you set your priorities straight. The health and wellness of YOU and your family and loved ones needs to come first! You have one beautiful body that houses a brilliant mind and soul. Allow it to work in peak condition with ease. This is what my “Design Your Beautiful Life” is all about. I advocate finding and using tools that will de-stress your life without resorting to damaging and addictive behaviors with too much alcohol and other substances, pills, sugar and emotional eating.

De-Stress Tools:

Grocery Shopping Tools: Eating Clean means shopping the perimeter of the store for fresh produce (treat yourself to flowers), Greek yogurt, wild fish and anti-biotic free poultry and meats, bulk foods. Add in one or two aisles for frozen fruits and veggies and canned tuna and gluten free pasta.

Cleaning Tools: Make your own cleaning products with one or two simple ingredients that can clean your whole house. No more shuffling thru cabinets to find specific ones-which are probably full of chemicals. Try this. In a spray bottle add 50% water and 50% white vinegar. Add 10 drops of lemon or wild orange essential oils for extra cleaning power (and a better smell) to clean all of your home surfaces except for wood.

Exercise Tools: Find one or two online video sites where you can get a 30-60 minute workout at home if you need. One of my favorites is www.doyogwithme.com

Personal Care Tools: Take an epsom salt bath and add in a handful of baking soda for softer skin and a couple drops of lavender essential oils to melt your stress away. Do a 3 minute meditation of deep breathing exercise.

Cooking Tools: cook once, eat multiple times. It is just as easy to cook extra brown rice, quinoa, beans and lentils to use for dishes thru-out the week. Nothing is easier than a rotisserie chicken from the deli. Eat the meat for one or more meals, then cook the carcass for the start of a delicious soup for later. Tale advantage of the plethora of already cut-up produce in the market. Markets like Whole Foods will grill fish for you. Frozen fruits are great for smoothies and frozen veggies can be a real time saver.

Dinner in about 30 minutes

Lemongrass Cilantro Rice

1 cup brown rice

2 cups water

1-2 inch piece of fresh lemongrass, chopped

2 T. fresh chopped cilantro

Add brown rice to water and bring to a boil, add lemongrass and reduce to simmer.

Cooks in about 30 minutes. Toss with fresh cilantro

While rice is cooking, do the following

Baby Bok Choy and Broccoli Stir Fry

Bok Choy

Broccoli florets

1 inch piece of fresh ginger, sliced

2 cloves of garlic

coconut or olive oil

Sesame oil

Heat oil in skillet. Add the rest of ingredients and stir fry. It only takes a few minutes, you still want the veggies crisp.

(you can easily add meat to this dish).Finish with a few drops of sesame oil.

Clean Healthy Eating + Less Stress = Success with ease

Sharon Otness is the founder of “Design Your Beautiful Life”. She is a certified holistic health counselor, lifestyle director for BellaMia Magazine and interior designer living in Seattle, WA. Her holistic approach to emotional health and wellness allows her to help women of all ages meet the challenges of food, ultimate vitality, and creating santuary in a fast-paced world. Sharon is passionate about supporting clients through depression, anxiety and life transitions so they can discover the balanced and amazing life they were meant to live, full of meaning, love and without self-deprivation or guilt.