Sorry, no. I'm not about to announce I've started eating meat. I decided to blog this rather than post in the forums because it's more of a statement than a discussion piece and we don't actually have a generic healthy eating thread as far as I can tell. I'm excited about this though, so I wanted to share it somewhere.

For 11 months now, I have been trying to eat a proper balanced diet. One with enough calories, that isn't high in sugar (I don't have a sweet tooth though, so as long as I make what I can from scratch rather than shop bought meals, this part is not too hard), that has a healthy balance of carbs and protein and that includes a portion of fruit, veg or seaweed with every meal, including snacks. The improvement in my health was actually very slow compared to claims by the media, but maybe the fact that my alcohol intake is still far higher than it should be masked the results for a while. I'm definitely visibly healthier these days though.

My worry however, has been JP. His diet was better than it was when we first met; he basically lived on pizza and little else, but it still wasn't perfect. I would make him salmon one night a week, and we have Japanese night on a Thursday (his absolute favourite food because he loves fish and seafood), but other than that, he tended to go for things in breadcrumbs, pizza or burgers and chips. He did however, start snacking on grapes, pistachio nuts and satsumas most days, and he'll have his meals with the veg or salad I make for my own meals. He even buys a salad for his lunch at work every day, so his diet wasn't a complete disaster. It just could be better.

I knew the answer was simple enough. We just had to stop buying the pre-packaged processed food and start buying fresh meat from the deli and cook everything from scratch. The problem is that neither of us have hours to spare to prepare elaborate meals, and I'm not only a poor cook, I'm a vegetarian so don't know the first thing about how to prepare meat.

Then a week yesterday, I saw an advert on the TV. Apparently the Daily Mail was giving away Weight Watchers booklets all week, with recipes in. The ones they featured in the advert looked like the kind of thing JP would eat, so I picked up the Mail on my way home from work (I swear I've never bought the Daily Mail before!!). I was really surprised to discover that not only were the recipes easy enough that even I could make them, we also already had just about everything they listed in the ingredients. It was all things we either had in for Japanese night, or that I've been buying ever since I decided to eat better last Feb. All we needed was the fresh fish, prawns, chicken and steak. Of course, I'm increasing the portion sizes for JP because he doesn't need to be on a weight watchers diet, but the meals are all pretty well-balanced so I can trust that he's eating well!

It's only been one week, but every night last week we sat down together with a proper meal (I just substitute tofu, eggs, beans or sometimes quorn for the meat), that never took more than 30 minutes to throw together and JP is really enjoying every one! He doesn't miss the processed meals at all. He was just eating them because he didn't know what else to have!