This week was extra special! It was my birthday followed by my husbands. The person that I am I had to celebrate it to the fullest!
It’s really easy to dread any upcoming celebration when you are trying to lead a new lifestyle. I was brainstorming for weeks trying to figure out what to do for our birthdays, the healthier way!
I had a lunch party for my cousins and really also a way for me to show them that healthy foods can be just as delicious!
The menu:
Honey Dijon citrus whole roast chicken
Seafood salad with chili, lime and coriander dressing
(I simply cooked the seafood with the sweet chili sauce and added in lime and coriander. Tossed that with salad greens!)
Cilantro brown rice
( Warm brown rice + 1 tbsp olive oil + salt + coriander + lime)
Sweet and spicy ground beef lettuce wraps
Fresh salsa and guacamole ( one of my friends made this!)
Cheese platter and flavored waters
Brownies ( I will add this recipe at a later date as it did not turn out exactly as I wanted, some liked it some didn’t so…..)
Every dish was wiped clean! YAY! I also gave the sweet chili sauces as birthday party favors 😀
Since our birthdays were on a weekday, well mine was, I had the lunch party on a Sunday before. I felt so pleased being able to feed my family what I was eating on a daily basis and what was making us feel so good! It wasn’t a no carb thing nor was it a huge table full of death warrants, it was something I could feed my guests, guilt-free!
Moving onto the mandatory midnight cake cutting ritual, I was really hell bent on not eating a cake at midnight!! I mean I know it was my birthday but c’mon it just didn’t make sense! I have recently discovered my love for unsweetened fat free greek yoghurt and I thought why not a parfait? My husband and I put it together and it looked as great as it tasted!! We scrapped it off! It was full of goodness rather than refined sugars and butter. I didn’t think it would do the job but it clearly did as I repeated the same parfait for Zayed’s birthday, candles and all!
You can layer is however YOU want! Add any fruits YOU want! So no sieving through prepackaged yoghurt bowls of the things you don’t like! It is also a great mid day snack!
What do you need?
Unsweetened fat free greek yoghurt, you can also use natural yoghurt
Sugar free granola or any sugar free muesli or cereal
Fruits of choice
Acacia honey or any good quality honey
Easy to make, full of nutrients and great for your body!
I know this is getting quite long but here’s the last part of the ‘homemade’ birthday celebration! I made my husband brunch in bed!
Whole wheat banana pancakes and fruit platter!
It was the perfect weekend brunch and it allowed us to ‘cheat’ without feeling devastated about it! I mean if you call 1/2 cup of flour cheating! 😉 He was ecstatic saying that he wanted to eat really slowly as he was afraid to finish it! Success!
There’s no reason to be scared about falling of the wagon during a celebration nor is there a reason to make yourself believe that it is okay to fall of the wagon because it’s your birthday! I worked out twice on my birthday and went to my favorite japanese restaurant for the the miso black cod! I couldn’t be happier with the way I felt, this isn’t a fad diet or a crash diet, this is my life!
Happy birthday to us!
fklifestyle 