No biggy, though. What I realized is: I initiated my health transformation longer ago than I claimed. The good thing about it is that you may learn from my experience and hopefully you’ll start to do the right thing quicker than I did.

Around 2008, halfway through my fourties, I went through a minor mid-life crisis. It may sound ridiculous but one of the reasons was my condition. My “dad bod” – my beer belly if you will – was bugging me. In part because that’s no pretty sight of course but, more importantly, belly fat is an indicator that you may be prone to vascular and heart diseases and even cancer. The cancer tidbit I learned later. Along with many more interesting facts when reading about the health consequences of one’s diet.

Luckily a checkup revealed that apart from being midly overweight I suffered no real issue. Nonetheless, I decided not to take chances and to start sporting. My choices: tennis and fitness, high intensity interval training. The group I joined at the local Basic Fit and the trainers team helped me enjoy the experience. Not to mention my friendly tennis partner. I went from no sports to training three times a week. And it felt great!

Did this improve my Body Mass Index? No. Hardly any noticeable improvement booked. BMI may not be the greatest indicator but scale and mirror don’t lie. Other the years I could see that my progress was at least very slow.

Fitness buddies and instructors kept saying that the change I was looking for was “20% sports, 80% diet”. Problem was: “what about the diet part?” You hear lots of theories, tips and tricks. Who do you believe? How do you start?

It took me a few years to decide to make a change to my life and to find how to implement it. Nowadays I am around where I want to be. Compared to the start referred above I lost about 10 kilos and I never felt better in my body and mind.

My message: if you want to lose weight and get healthier, don’t expect sports alone to make a big dent! Think about a good diet plan. If my blog posts don’t help, go to a dietitian or look for sources that you feel comfortable with.

A few suggested sources to inspire you:

Plant-Based Dietitian Julieanna Hever. Julieanna regularly posts recipes and interesting information about intermittent fasting.

No Meat Athlete. These guys’ podcast is great and their website is full of additional stuff to help you sport – even run ultra marathons – and eat plant-based food.

If you’re French-speaking listen to the BomBomCast. Unfortunately no news since a year from Yasmina and Bénédicte, the founders of BomBomLife. I completely subscribe to their ideas and enjoyed their podcast.

For my Dutch-speaking followers, one of the thought-leaders in the Netherlands as far as plant-based food is Isabel Boerdam, “the hip vegetarian” (de hippe vegetariër). She has been able to establish the annual “week without meat” here, a recurring event that is widely supported by various brands. She / her company publishes recipes on a very regular basis.

Hope this helps. Any thoughts, tips or tricks to share? Please do so!

Here’s a simple and great recipe, thanks to the France Inter radio show “On va déguster” and Alan Geaam, the Lebanese Chef of restaurant Qasti in Paris (in French). In a few simple steps you prepare a batch of basic hummus that you can accommodate in many ways, and also creatively integrate in many dishes.

A silky smooth home-made hummus in four steps

1. Put a pack of dry chickpeas (e.g. 400 grams) into a pan filled with water to soak for at least 8 hours. Add baking soda and/or sea salt. I usually leave to that in the evening and leave them the night.
   
2. Rinse the chickpeas and fill the pan with fresh water, then leave them to simmer for two to three hours (as you can see, the peas have swollen a lot, the weight is now doubled).
   
3. Get your mixer, about 100 grams of tahini, squeeze a fresh – preferably organic – lemon, (organic) olive oil, salt and pepper. Don’t forget the secret ingredient: ice cubes!
   
   Depending on your quantity of chickpeas and taste, experiment with the quantity of each ingredient. I prefer more ice cubes and less olive oil to make the mix silky smooth.
4. Pour the warm chickpeas on top of the ice cubes, add the rest of the ingredients and blitz the whole thing. Taste to add pepper, salt. That’s it!
   

Be creative and follow your inspiration and taste. If you feel like it add fresh garlic cloves, basil leaves, red pepper, add spices like cumin, paprika, curry. Spice it up by mixing harissa or – in my case here – sambal through the hummus.

How to use hummus? As a dip with vegetables or crackers. Replace butter with hummus on bread and add toppings like spinach leaves. Mix it with (flaxseed) oil and use it as the base for a salad sauce.

Chickpeas and hummus are great nutrients. And it’s cheap! It’s full of plant-based protein, it helps fight inflammation and feeds your guts with good bacteria.

Don’t take my word for it. Here are a few sources to read if you want more information about the benefits of hummus:
10 Reasons Why We Should All Be Eating More Hummus
12 Surprising Health Benefits Of Hummus That Make It Even More Irreplaceable
Is hummus healthy – and can it help with weight loss?

Enjoy! Tips, tricks, comments? Let them flow!