KeeleyBolger

No time to cook from scratch every day and still want to eat cake? You can master healthy eating – it’s just about being kind to yourself, Madeleine Shaw tells

Nutritionist Madeleine Shaw is on a mission to improve our attitude towards food, especially in how we deal with so-called diet setbacks.

“The worst thing you can do is be hard on yourself and negative,” says the 26-year-old.

“It’s almost like that stress on your body counteracts any of the good stuff you’re doing. For me, it’s not just about the food you put on the plate but the attitude you have to food and yourself.

“I want to start a revolution of people being kinder to themselves.”

And that means putting that extraslice-of-triple-chocolate-cake-shaped blip into perspective.

“You’ve got to tell yourself that this one meal isn’t really going to change things,” she explains. “One piece of cake doesn’t really put on loads of weight. Tell yourself that and then get back to eating healthy with your next meal.”

Being kind to yourself extends to expectations around cooking food from scratch, too. It’s a great thing to do in theory, Shaw agrees but whipping out the pans for every meal isn’t always realistic.

“It’s very difficult to make all your food,” says the foodie and yoga fan. “On a busy day like today, I’ll buy food out but you can make good choices if you’re grabbing something for lunch; there’s always choice.”

She believes with a bit of planning, nutritious fussfree meals can be achieved even during busy spells and has devoted her new book, Ready Steady Glow, to just that.

Divided into “fast weeks and slow weekends”, many of the meals take 20 minutes or less to make but there are more timeconsuming recipes too, for those who want to “make that stew, do some baking...”, as well as a section detailing her basic yoga routine and handy weekly meal plans.

Being busy is something Shaw can wholeheartedly appreciate. A year on from releasing her debut healthyeating book, Get The Glow, life has moved up a notch. Up until her teens, she admits she ate a “typical magazine diet of Diet Coke and low-fat yoghurt” to stay slim but found herself riddled with digestive problems and energy slumps.

Things changed when she moved to Sydney aged 18 to study and started working at a healthy cafe.

Shaw admits her changes didn’t happen overnight but inspired, she trained as a nutritionist and returned to the UK with renewed zest, eager to share her knowledge via her food and lifestyle blog.

She now has 217,000 followers on Instagram and 39,000 on Twitter and as well as writing, does talks and supper clubs, and has collaborated on a string of projects, including a special healthy menu for Brown’s Hotel.

So embedded is Shaw and fellow health blogger Ella Woodward’s positive message that comedian Bella Younger has even poked fun at their approach in her popular spoof account Deliciously Stella, where typical posts about the benefits of munching on nutritious trail mix are accompanied with a picture of a bowl of assorted sweets, crisps and chocolate.

“I love it!” says Shaw with a laugh. “Bella is a fan of healthy eating. It’s amazing how well she’s done in such a short space of time.”

Pictures: PA. Madeleine Shaw wants us all to be less hard on ourselves about what we eat.