Getting and keeping a healthy diet

This is the time of year that fitness and health are on everyone’s minds; there is a furore of ‘New year, New You’ campaigns and books aplenty on tackling our diets and our health regimes. Increasingly, we all know that what we eat has an incredible bearing on our health…and January seems like the perfect time to act on this knowledge…but it can be hard to know where to begin.

We all need inspiration to take our resolution through January and turn it into a daily habit, and what better than a recipe book filled with advice, ideas and, most importantly, healthy recipes that are easy to make and incredibly tasty too?

One of the brightest new talents to emerge from 2015 is food blogger, and now author, Ella Woodward. Ella’s story is an inspiring one – she overcame severe illness on her own initiative by diet alone. But what is more remarkable is that she transformed herself from someone who was, as she put it herself, “a complete sugar monster… [who] didn’t know how to cook” into one of the most popular food writers on the planet. How? Simply by creating and sharing her astonishingly inventive and mouth-wateringly flavoursome recipes that have genuine and powerful health benefits.

In short, if she is not already, Ella is soon to become your diet-saviour.

Last year, Ella released her Deliciously Ella to a rapturous reception. The book is beautifully presented, full of colourful photographs that both impress and inspire. It is packed with straight-forward recipes that capture Ella’s ethos: healthy eating should be easy and enjoyable – and getting healthy should not be about deprivation or compromising on flavour.

Her hotly-anticipated new book, Deliciously Ella Every Day, once again manages to be that holy grail of healthy-eating cookbooks: it brims with recipes that are both extremely good for you and unbelievably delicious. You will be endlessly surprised by the way she combines flavours and makes improving your diet fun, fascinating and simple.

If you want to take your new resolve to eat better, be good to your insides and feel energised in 2016 – Ella Woodward’s recipes are a fantastic place to start.

Of her last year, Ella wrote the following for us:

But of course there are other great Healthy Eating titles to choose from. Here are three more of the best Health Food cookery books out there – the ones that definitely deserve a place on your bookshelf.

All three of the following will help you keep up the good intentions and get your diet whipped into shape, the delicious way:

Lean In 15: 15 Minute meals and Workouts to keep You Lean and Healthy by Joe Wicks
This book will enable you to do the impossible: eat more, exercise less and still lose weight. It is crammed with recipes that teach you how to combine foods and train wisely for the optimum weightloss.

Davina's Smart Carbs  by Davina McCall

This fantastic book will show you how to eat carbohydrates again, the healthy way. Its recipes will enable you to avoid cravings and prevent energy slumps too. You can lose weight and keep it off while still eating those carbs you thought you had to avoid.

The 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet 

From the author of the bestselling 5:2 Fast Diet comes this fascinating book examining how our modern diets are adversely affecting out blood sugar levels. Learn how to take control of your health, lose weight and avoid the long list of illnesses associated with rising blood sugar levels with the help of this essential guide.