This is tasty little treat I made most days over the Christmas break. It is so simple and you can serve it with any type of protein you like for a light summer meal.

Here are the ingredients for 1 person;

Baby spinach – as much as you like
1/2 punnet of cherry tomatoes – washed
1 medium sized spanish onion – chopped into thin wedges
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Toss the cherry tomatoes with salt and pepper to taste, drizzle over a small amount of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Place in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes. 

While they are in the oven, make the spinach dressing;

Place some balsamic vinegar into a bowl, add a small amount of mustard to taste, add salt and pepper to taste.
Start whisking and slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Make sure to drizzle slowly and whisk quickly so the oil doesn’t separate form the vinegar. Taste periodically until there is enough oil to suit your taste. A general rule of thumb is to put a ratio of about 3:1 oil to vinegar. 

If you have whisked and drizzled correctly, you should end up with a thick, syrupy  consistency and it shouldn’t need mixing prior to serving, unlike a traditional vinaigrette which need to be shaken to mix the oil and vinegar before serving.

Use a small amount of this dressing to toss through the washed spinach leaves.
Toss the onions and tomatoes through the dressed spinach. Simple!

A couple of things to add:

For more bulk, add diced pumpkin or sweet potato that has been roasted at the same time in the same way as the onion and tomato.

For something a bit naughty and tasty, add some Persian Fetta to the spinach at the last moment.

Yum!

Well the new year has arrived and I am sure a lot of you made New Years resolutions that included health and fitness.

So, what to do now?

I’ll give you a few suggestions to help you on your way.

1) Get a tape measure and measure your waistline on your belly button. Make sure the tape is straight so you get an accurate measurement. Just relax and don’t hold your tummy in.

If you have got someone who could do measurements for you, measure your hips at the widest part and your arm at the mid point between your shoulder and elbow.

Write these measurements down and re-measure at the start of every month this year. I want everybody to atleast measure their wasteline, it is not hard and it is a much beter indicator of weight loss than scales, which brings me to point 2.

2) Put your scales in the bin. I am serious, dispose of them forever. They are the stupidest indicator of weight loss if you are training correctly. Meaning if you are performing resistance exercises to strengthen muscles, bones and joint as well as speeding your metabolism and creating a more toned look. A number on a small metal box means nothing. How you look in the mirror means everything. What you weighed when you were 16 and not training properly and had a great natural metabolism means nothing now. How your clothes fit means everything now. Get it? How do you look, how do you feel, are your clothes tighter or looser on you?

3)  Clean up your diet today. Christmas and New Year are a notoriously bad time of year for eating and drinking, but they are over! I understand indulging during that period, but a few too many people are trying to hang on to it by carrying on the party food and drink.

Now is the time to get rid of all the junk food that is left in your cupboards and start the new year afresh. In February we will have SUGARFREEFEBRUARY but for now you should aim to give up all the sugar in your diet. This means no more alcohol, no junk food, no sweets. You get the idea. Your stomach will thank you for it!

4) Get back to training. It can be hard to get back into the swing of things after 2 weeks of leisure and bad diet, so my suggestion to you is to ignore the lazy little person who is sitting on your shoulder telling you to stay in bed every morning and drag your butt out to do some exercise.

I am going to bring it back to calories as I know you all have way too many in storage at the moment. 1 class = approximately 600 calories. Turn up to 1 class and burn 600, turn up to 3 and burn 1800 or turn up to 5 and burn 3000. 1kg of fat = 7700 calories.

It is not hard to figure out what is right and what is wrong, get back into the swing of training, clean up your diet today, measure yourself today so you can have something to work towards at the end of the month and throw your scales away so you don’t have any useless numbers messing with your head!

If 2009 was the year you thought about, 2010 is the year to do it!

Our first X-fitness class for the year and I think it was a great one to get everybody kickstarted!