About

Hi, and Welcome to Simple Nourished Living

I’m Martha. This site is where I share the mostly light, easy and delicious recipes, occasional indulgent ones, and other tips and hints that help me balance my love of food and desire to be happy, healthy and slim.

I’ve LOVED food for as long as I can remember. And I’ve struggled with my weight for almost as long.

Thanks to Weight Watchers I was able to lose 30 pounds and become a Lifetime member. (For more on my journey to becoming a WW Lifetime member.)

 

My Cooking/Food Philosophy

My fascination with food and cooking began early. I still recollect my first batch of muffins containing orange juice, cornflakes nuts and raisins, I made back in the late 70s from a recipe in Seventeen magazine, and the fun I had baking giant homemade Oreos for my cousins. I feel most at home puttering around in the kitchen. I love reading cookbooks, collecting old recipes, experimenting with new ones and remaking the simple comfort foods of my childhood to be lighter and healthier.

Cooking doesn’t have to be as overwhelming and complicated as contemporary culture would suggest. Maybe it’s an age thing, but with each passing year I find myself more focused on keeping things easy and effortless in the kitchen and in my life. These days I’m most interested in simple, practical home cooking with as few ingredients as possible.

I try to keep it mostly healthful. But, I don’t believe in dietary deprivation or extremism. Food is meant to sustain us, but also to bring us pleasure. So, occasionally I cook recipes with generous amounts of fat and sugar, when nothing less will do. It’s all about finding the balance. “Everything in moderation….including moderation.”

In October 2013 I set out to use my slow cooker every day for a year to make Weight Watchers friendly crock pot recipes. And though I lost momentum at the halfway mark, I still continue to use my slow cooker several days a week. It’s an amazing device that can do so much to simplify life in the kitchen. It’s a busy cook’s best friend.

When I’m not experimenting in the kitchen, I share my other passion as a Private Yoga Instructor, where I specialize in helping adults over 50 discover the powerful benefits of gentle yoga. In my free time I love to relax with family and friends, take long walks with my golden ‘Francie,’ read and hang out on my yoga mat.

It’s taken me years decades to find my personal recipe for living happy, healthy and slim. For a long time it felt like a struggle that would never end. It took patience, time and persistence for me to find my way to lasting weight loss success. I had to let go of the “diet” mentality that kept me stuck and adopt the  “healthy lifestyle” and “all things in moderation” wisdom demonstrated by my beloved Nana, who lived to be 93 🙂

There are tons of weight loss blogs out there and lots written about losing weight, but nearly not enough about the unique challenges and struggles of keeping it off, which is where this blog comes in.

If I can do it, so can you! I hope you find the information and recipes here helpful in reaching your goals 🙂

I believe that the key to lasting weight loss is for you to do it your way 🙂

Disclaimer/Please Note: I began including nutritional information and Weight Watchers POINTS PLUS  values on my recipes in September 2012. I’m a longtime Weight Watchers Lifetime Member who believes strongly in their message that it’s not about dieting; its about embracing a healthy lifestyle. I love that fruits and vegetables are now zero PointsPlus foods on the new PointsPlus program. But this site is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. What I write here is about my personal experience on the plan. The views expressed are my own and do not reflect the views of Weight Watchers and the truth is that I don’t religiously count/track Weight Watchers Points Plus myself. I became a lifetime member in the dark ages back before points and never fully transitioned to them. Do I know how to calculate points? YES! Do, I do it with any regularity? NO! It takes too much ongoing effort for a lazy person like me. I’ve been living at maintenance for several years now and when I feel myself getting out of control I transition to the Simply Filling technique until my weight stabilizes. It’s what works best for me.

Hi, I’m Martha’s brother, Peter.

My journey has been a little different than Martha’s, but I have experience my own weight issues in the past. Nothing that I would classify as major (except for my exit physical from the US Navy way back in 1991). At the time I was young and away from home for the first time – and as many young people do when their in college – I packed on a few extra pounds.

Quite a few extra pounds to be exact. About 40 extra pounds… yikes!!

Thank you fast food, a little too much alcohol and not enough exercise.

But, after getting my discharge (honorable of course) I moved back home and started jogging and eating much more healthy food. Eventually I really got into running and managed to get up to about 6 miles-a-day. Luckily for me, I’ve never had much trouble losing weight. I guess you could say I am good at self-discipline, but that doesn’t mean it’s always been easy.

Through the years and as I grew older, I’ve yo-yo’ed within a 10-15 pound range of my ideal weight. It’s not a scientific “ideal weight” – just the weight I feel most comfortable with myself. In fact, I don’t even have a specific number in mind that I “should weigh.”

I really am all about just feeling comfortable.

Martha started Simple-Nourished-Living long before I became interested in joining her. I did have the technical experience that she needed when she first got going with this blog, but the content was all hers.

As the site grew and I became clear in my own mind that I really do lean towards living a “healthier lifestyle,” Martha invited me to become her partner here on Simple-Nourished-Living.

As you’re aware, most of the content is written by Martha, but I pop-up every now and again with some easy recipes myself. I still tend to do all the technical and “behind-the-scenes” work that’s required to keep a website as large as this one moving along.

We have some fun and exciting content ideas for the coming months, so I hope you keep checking back to see what we’re up to.

All the information presented on Simple Nourished Living is for informational purposes only and do not constitute medical, nutritional, dietary, therapeutic, or any other medical advice. This blog is NOT a substitute for any advice given to you by your physician. Always consult your physician or health care provider before beginning any weightloss, nutrition or exercise program. Use of the programs, advice, and information contained in this website is at the sole choice and risk of the reader.You can read our full Disclaimer/Disclosure here.

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