What should I eat in Winter?
Winter food to support you
🍜 Not sure what type of foods are best to nourish your body?
or what on earth the Macrobiotic Diet is?
This Winter Self-Care Blog What Should I Eat? is part of my Winter Self-Care Routine. Check out my previous blogs under this topic for a comprehensive Winter Self-Care Routine including a Winter Self-Care 🧘♂️Yoga Sequence and 🍴Recipe + a guide to Journaling
By now you should have a good idea of the powerful healing benefits of Winter and I hope you have your Winter Yoga Sequence underway along with my recommended Winter routine. Don’t panic if you haven’t as you can find all the details on my previous blog posts.
Winter Self-Care Foods to nourish and support you
The Macrobiotic Diet was created by #Micho Kushi, who recommended sound practices for developing balance in your life and strengthening one’s health. Macro means big, biotic means alive. So macrobiotic just means big (whole) live (not processed) food. The foods included whole grains, a variety of vegetables, beans and bean products, sea vegetables, soups, pickles, desserts, condiments, and nonaromatic teas. Occasional foods included fish, eggs, lean meats, fruit, and some alcohol.
It is not recommended to eat highly refined sugars, processed foods, nightshade vegetables, and dairy products. People are all different and do have different nutritional needs, and likes, so it is important to focus on food being whole, organic, if possible, not refined or processed, and alive.
It is important that you eat whole foods, so don’t peel your vegetables, or snip the little roots off. Each part of the plant feeds different parts of you. Skin feeds the skin. The little roots feed your nerves, tops are for your brain and head. If you do eat dairy then have whole milk, not skim milk. Your body is smart and will look for the fat component that is missing. You will crave this fat to make your body feel like it has what it needs. I can not tell you how many people that I see in the clinic who are proud of the fact that they have skinny cappuccinos, yet always crave chocolate.
This is where I would say, buy a good vegetable brush, and buy ORGANIC food that is not contaminated with pesticides.
Great foods to improve your health in winter and those we should have more of are below:
Miso
Bone Broths
Beans – adzuki, kidney, and black beans
Legumes - split peas, brown lentils
Brown Rice
Buckwheat
Oats
Soba noodles
Sea vegetables - kombu
Salty condiments
Winter vegetables, like root vegetables, carrots, turnips, parsnips, beetroots. (Leave the skin on and little roots if you can) Whole food means whole food so you need to eat all of the vegetable if possible.
Winter Cooking
In winter we use longer slower cooking times, so those slow cookers are especially good for cooking thick hearty soups, stews, and casseroles.
The type of soups for winter needs to be stronger in flavour so use tamari, seaweed and miso paste.
Vegetables are cut up into larger pieces for the longer cooking times.
Buckwheat
Brown Rice
Fried rice
Sautéed vegetables
Baked dishes
Soba noodles
More oil and stronger oil like sesame oil and sunflower oil
More seasoning like sea salt, pepper and dashi.
A typical day of food in the life of a macro eater for winter
Breakfast: leftover grain (usually cooked again to turn it into a soft porridge), greens, maybe some roasted seeds or nuts, some rice syrup. Miso soup is common at breakfast time, it’s better than a coffee and not only gives you good B Group vitamins but also is a natural probiotic and improves and increases digestive enzymes.
Lunch: leftovers from the night before, sometimes refreshed, plus some lightly cooked greens.
Snack: carrot juice or apple juice, popcorn, nuts, and seeds, or any leftover dessert.
Dinner: freshly cooked balanced meal, having enough for leftovers.
Our days are so busy but don’t think that you need to spend the day in the kitchen, a good hour once a day should be plenty of time to do all your meal prep. I often make a few dishes on the weekend that will last for 2-3 days, and I do place some leftovers in the freezer, especially things like adzuki beans, or pre-soaked and cooked chickpeas.
Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts on my Winter Self Care, What Should I eat? and most importantly how you feel before and after you eat some of these foods in the comments below. Tell us what you have cooked or share your recipe!
Lisa x 🙏
Winter Self-Care Retreat
😷 Due to COVID we are unable to have a face to face Winter Self-Care Retreat
BUT
I’m holding an at home Winter Self-Care Retreat, designed in easy and achievable sessions
All the Details are below and I hope to see you all there, Lisa
Winter Self-Care Retreat
WHEN: Saturday 7th August 2021
WHERE: At Home via Zoom
Learn how to nourish your yin energy throughout winter thru yoga, nutrition, self -massage and breathing techniques.
Learn to create relaxation for your-self, self-care, self-heal, self-focus.
Join me for a morning of self-care to support you during this winter season and lockdown.. You can take the time to relax and just forget about the outside world for a moment, and spend the time exploring some deep yin yoga moves designed just for you. You get:
Session # 1 - Yoga Corrective Moves
Session # 2 - Winter Food and What to Eat (ps. much more than what’s above ☝🏼
Session # 3 - Self-massage and Winter Points
Session # 4 - Relaxation and Breathing Techniques
This day will allow your body to experience deep relaxation, reset and restore and leave you feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Get the break that we cannot have at the moment but leave feeling like you have had a holiday.
💚 You will feel relaxed
💚You will have time to spend on yourself
💚 You will learn how to benefit from this powerful Winter Season for deep healing
💚 You will learn specific Winter Yoga Moves
💚 You will learn what to eat in Winter, ingredients and methods of cooking
💚 You will learn how to give yourself a self-massage
💚 You will learn powerful Winter meridian points and how to focus on them
💚 You will learn Winter relaxation and breathing techniques
You can attend all 4 sessions OR any of the sessions individually OR any combination of the sessions. For the maximum benefit I recommend that you attend all 4 sessions. You deserve to feel fantastic.
🎫 Bookings and prices are all HERE.
Spaces limited so I can provide the maximum amount of attention to you during the Retreat.
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