Derval O'Rourke: Daniel Davey's tips for achieving health goals, plus my recipe for chia pudding

Don’t fall for the “quick fix”, “detox” buzz words in 2023. Quick resets are not sustainable over time and always end up in disappointment.

Derval O'Rourke: Forget about the quick fix. Picture: Bríd O'Donovan

Happy New Year! I hope you had a lovely break with family and friends. I switched off and feel ready for the new year ahead.

But before we all go setting goals and targets it’s a great idea to take advice from the experts.

For this column I chatted to Daniel Davey, a two-time author who works with an array of people to help them achieve their health goals. He’s one of the most knowledgeable and practical people I know so it was a pleasure to hear his thoughts.

It’s 2023, Now what? What’s the plan? Let's do something that gives you a real chance for sustained improvement with your health in 2023. Don’t fall for the “quick fix”, “detox” buzz words. Quick resets are not sustainable over time and always end up in disappointment.

Instead of a single focus, like weight loss consider these things:

• Your kitchen setup - A tidy kitchen that has all the tools, ingredients and things you need to create nourishing meals is vital for efficiency and building a positive mindset towards good food habits. Plan what meals you are going to make that week, what ingredients do you need? and when are you going to eat (Before or after you exercise?).
• Your food prep system – Your food prep system should be easy and organised. Cooking in advance or batch cooking may sound like a lot of work but saves you so much time in the long run and you’re less likely to be hungry and reach for unhealthy snacks if you have your meals planned out in advance.
• A list of healthy recipes – Having a list of tried and tested recipes is a great tool to have at the ready. On days you haven’t had a chance to prep, make one of your healthy options and you could even have the list of ingredients saved to your phone to grab on the way home!
• Building a positive mindset - If you think of practical things you can commit to, be consistent with and still be doing next year, that is something you can call a success. Taking on 10 things for the next 3 weeks and soon realising it’s not sustainable will have you back where you started and maybe even more disillusioned than ever.

Improved mindset

Here are 5 key things I want you to think about this January, consider these things and I can assure you that taking this mindset can have an immeasurable impact on your ability to be consistent with your nutrition, health and lifestyle.

1. Think about food and nutrition in a positive way. Allow your thoughts about food and how food makes you feel to grow and evolve as you continue to learn about food and what works best for you.

2. Knowledge does not necessarily translate into best practice. Healthy eating is a habit. You have to put conscious effort into creating habits and routines in your daily life if you want to see consistent positive daily outcomes.

3. Nutrition is one of many pieces of a jigsaw that fits together to make a healthy lifestyle. No component works in isolation.

4. Building a positive relationship with food is an absolute necessity for long-term, sustainable healthy eating habits. A guilt-driven and negative relationship only creates a vicious cycle of negative emotions and a short-term focus on your goals.

5. Create values for your home around food and cooking. If you live with a partner, family or friends, try to get them involved and to buy into these values. These can be based around:

• Cooking and sharing meals together
• Eating seasonal foods
• Supporting local producers

To finish, make sure the content you’re consuming online helps rather than hinders your new year’s healthy plans. One of my favourite Instagram pages is Daniel Davey’s and he has lots of additional resources on his site daveynutrition.com.

Wellness tip: Make a date with a friend. You’ve hibernated and shown the couch how much you love it all through Christmas. Time to get out and catch up with friends!

Exercise tip: Squats - I definitely need these! Feet shoulder width apart, squat down to a sitting position, hold and come up slowly. To simplify this, put a chair under you. Do this 10 times and repeat for 4 sessions. Feel the burn!

Tummy-loving chia pudding

recipe by:Derval O'Rourke

Add some extra fresh fruit and/or toasted nuts for added flavour and crunch

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 5 hours 0 mins

Total Time

 5 hours 0 mins

Course

 Main

Cuisine

 Irish

Ingredients

• 200g 0% fat Greek yoghurt

• 20g chia seeds

• ¼ tsp cinnamon

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1 tbsp desiccated coconut

• ½ scoop Vanilla protein powder - optional

• 5 strawberries

• ½ cup blueberries

Method

1. In a bowl, whisk the yoghurt and protein powder together until smooth. Add in the chia seeds, vanilla extract, cinnamon and coconut and mix well.

2. Add in the blueberries and gently mix.

3. Slice the strawberries. Layer two-thirds of the sliced strawberries on the bottom of the mason jar

4. Pour the yoghurt mix into the jar and top with the rest of the sliced strawberries.

5. Cover and place in the fridge to set for a few hours or overnight.