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Cleaner Eating Challenge, Day 4

Yesterday was Day 4. Does this look like sacrifice people?  I keep waiting for it to get harder, but I think it’s actually getting easier.  I know my ‘weak’ times, and I avoid missteps by planning ahead and having healthier, cleaner alternatives to the quick, easy, mindless snacks I would have typically been grabbing for during those times of day.

So everyday, all year round, starts with a Christmas mug-o-coffee.  That’s a given.  After my workout, which was TurboFire 45 (the most funnest workout ever!) I had my Shakeology (yawn…haven’t we done this before?).  Hey, I’m a creature of habit, what can I say?  I think we all stick with what works.  This is one of the fast, convenient foods that takes the place of junk alternatives or food that requires a little more prep time.

I love a good salad!  This one was delicious!  It was romaine, tomatoes, reduced fat feta cheese, sweet peppers, onion, avocado, craisins, almonds plus homemade dressing (1 T. olive oil & 1 T. balsamic).  I threw this in a “to go” container and ate it while I was waiting for the kids to finish a class.

I was a little hungry when I came home, so Ezekiel toast, almond butter and 1/2 banana to the rescue!  I made a tasty chicken, pea pod, pepper, pineapple (lot of p’s!) for dinner and had mine with a side of quinoa instead of rice.  It was so filling!  I love warm pineapple!  Something about it just makes me happy.  🙂

I was way low on calories so I had a bowl of popcorn for a snack after dinner.  I even popped it in a little oil and put a little real butter on top.  Everything in moderation, right?  My calories still came in slightly on the low side for the day, but I didn’t feel hungry at all.  Eating 5-6 smaller meals during the day is really key to keeping your metabolism going as well as staying on top of your appetite.  You know how they say that if you ‘feel’ thirsty, you’re already getting somewhat dehydrated.  Well, if you ‘feel’ hungry, that’s when you grab for food that’s not always your best choice.  Keep yourself hydrated and fed throughout the day to avoid disaster!  And download a slick app like My Fitness Pal to help you track your calories throughout the day.  If you don’t know how many calories you should be shooting for each day, go to www.freedieting.com and use the handy calorie calculator to figure out your daily calorie goal.  Once you get the hang of it, it’s a piece of cake…well maybe that’s a bad comparison!  It’s a piece of fruit! 😉

Stir fry recipe here:

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Clean Eating Challenge, Day 3

Yesterday morning I awoke to such a glorious smell…I lept out of my bed with delight and anticipation of the coming glories of the day. Well…not exactly, but you get the idea. Anyone who knows me also knows that there sure isn’t any ‘leaping out of  bed’ in the morning. Mornings and I have never really gotten along. But, yesterday was a little better. The night before I had plopped all the fixin’s for apple cinnamon steel-cut oatmeal into my crock pot, and that wondrous little machine cooked my breakfast for me while I slept! The kids really enjoyed the oatmeal, too.  As a matter of fact, 5 out of 6 Hunts agree: this recipe is a winner! You can make Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal, too!  Click here if you’d like the recipes.

For lunch I had some Un-refried bean burritos (I told you that recipe makes a ton!) with avocado slices, reduced fat cheese and homemade salsa. I had Shake0logy for an afternoon snack and some fuel before my workout.  I lifted pretty heavy, and today I’m walking a little funny, I’m not gonna lie to you.  That just means I did it right.  🙂

For dinner I grilled up some Costco Extra Lean Turkey Burgers (only 200 calories) and made baked sweet potato french fries.  I used sweet potatoes from the farm. They were SO delicious!  I could have eaten a lot more just because they tasted so darn good, but I didn’t need to.  This was a very satisfying meal!  Sometimes, if I just take my time and enjoy every little bite, I find that I’m content with just 1 serving.  I once heard that it takes your brain about 15 minutes to register that your stomach is full.  Do me a favor and DON’T shove the food in quickly in an attempt to fool your brain.  It’s not a smart strategy.

Later on, I needed a little snack so I toasted up some Ezekiel bread, spread it with natural almond butter and had an organic dark chocolate square on the side.  I really was totally satisfied all day.  It’s amazing what mindful eating does for your daily diet.  It’s funny, because I now know what my ‘weak times’ are.  When the kids start reaching for snacks in the afternoon, that’s when I would typically grab a handful of whatever it is they took out of the pantry:  a few chips, crackers or pretzels.  Not that any of those things would put me over the edge, but it’s processed food that my body doesn’t need, especially if I had planned ahead and ate accordingly.  🙂  Day 3 is done…only 27 more to go.  I’ve got this!

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Clean Eating Challenge, Day 2

    So Here is what yesterday looked like.  I did a jumping, kicking, sweating, calorie-torching workout in the morning which I believe made me feel a little hungrier throughout the day.  So in short, Day 2 was a little more challenging than Day 1.

I started the day with Santa Claus and coffee; I seriously need some giant coffee mugs that aren’t so seasonally inappropriate. So, I was getting ready for my workout when I realized that there is no way I would make it through the entire thing without food.  So I quick grabbed a half of a banana that one of the kids left on the counter and sloppily spattered it with some natural almond butter.  I also had a glass of water, but by the end of the workout, I was grossing myself out with my growling and sloshy stomach noises.  I came up and made myself a quick Shakeology to take the edge off.

For lunch I made one of my favorite salads:  Greek salad complete with chick peas, pickled beets, farm tomatoes and onions and a little leftover grilled chicken breast. I make my own dressing with 1 T. of olive oil, 1 T. of red wine vinegar and a few shakes of oregano. I don’t miss store-bought dressing.  Seriously!

For a snack I cut up a honey crisp apple and mixed up some chocolate PB2 for dipping.  That one always hits the spot.

So on to dinner.  I had some Un-refried beans that I had done up in my crock pot.  I love this recipe.  It makes a ton and it’s so easy to slap some beans in a tortilla for quick tacos/bean burritos.  They freeze well, too! The kids like to put them on tortilla chips with some cheese and make nachos.  I made mine with whole wheat tortillas, some slivers of avocado, a little reduced fat cheese and homemade salsa. They were super deelish!

Click here for the UN-refried beans recipe.

For a snack later on, I had some green tomatoes on the counter that I dipped in egg whites, then in a cornmeal/seasoned breadcrumb/garlic powder mixture and cooked them up in a tsp. of olive oil until they were tender on the inside and crispy/golden on the outside.  I set them on some Ezekiel toast triangles, and they were quite tasty! My darling husband begged to differ.  His palate is not as refined as mine, I guess. 😉

Before I went to bed last night I put steel-cut oats into my crock pot with some cut up apples and cinnamon.  Oh boy…I can’t wait to tell you about that!

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Keeping it Clean!

So, I decided to participate in a 30 Day “Cleaner Eating” Challenge group and see how I do.  This picture represents all of my meals, snacks and caloric beverages for the day.  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but then again, it was only day one after all.  I won’t have a problem with breakfast or lunch.  I almost always grab a smoothie or Shakeology in the morning, and have a salad for lunch, plus a healthy snack or 2 in between.  It’s dinner that will be a little more challenging.  I have 4 kids with varying tastes to cook for and I’m not sure they’re entirely on board with this whole clean-eating concept.  I think there will be times that I’ll be making myself something different for dinner, but I’m going to try hard to find some kid friendly recipes, too.

So “What is clean eating?” you ask.  Maybe you didn’t ask, but I’ll answer anyway.  Clean eating is based on removing all processed foods from your diet and focusing more on veggies, fruits, whole grains and lean proteins. So for me that means: no white flour, rice or sugar, no processed/refined foods, no fast food, no preservatives, limited alcohol, limited dairy. Make sense? I’d say I was about 80% of the way there before the challenge. Now I’m all in. 🙂

Yesterday I had to go go go…so I needed quick and easy meals and snacks.  I had my Shakeology for breakfast.  Then I made a quick microwave egg, slapped it on some Ezekiel bread (look it up…it’s good stuff) with spinach and tomato.  I grabbed a small apple and a string cheese for  the road.  For dinner I grilled up some chicken breasts and had quinoa and steamed broccoli and cauliflower for sides. Surprise surprise…even the kids loved it!  My problem was that after dinner I was still about 350 calories away from what I should be getting for the day.  So I toasted up another slice of Ezekiel bread, spread it with some natural almond butter and threw in a square of organic dark chocolate (REALLY dark).  I was pretty close to may calorie goal, and full.  I called it a day.

And there you have it.  Day 1 is in the books, and it was a snap.  Check with me in 30 days and see if I’m still ‘snapping’.

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Best Friends Forever…For REAL!

If you know me well, you’re either one of the ladies in these pictures, or you know that these are some of my favorite people in the whole world.  This post is dedicated to them.

I have known a few of them since I was about 4 years old, in preschool.  Others I met along the way, but we’ve all been friends for at least 30 years.  That’s crazy right!?  I am so lucky to have these wonderful girls in my life, I literally thank my lucky stars for them every day.  When I am with them, I am all me.   There’s no need to pretend to be anything else, because they would know better anyway.  I can count on them to be there in the best of times and the absolute worst of times. And Lord knows we’ve had our shares of both!  

I look so forward to the times we spend together.  We’ve had a lot of adventures.  Our most recent adventure was a 40th birthday celebration trip to Jamaica. Despite the unfortunate snorkeling incident it was the most fun I’ve had in…well…honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed that hard for that long!  Talk about an ab workout: four solid days of giggling!  Sure, the all-inclusive trips to the bar might have played a role, but I think we’d all like to think that we were the funniest 8 ladies that ever stepped foot on the island.

We go camping with our whole families every summer, and it’s such a blast the kids start counting the days til we go again the very day that we get home.  Our husbands might have a different analysis of the annual camping trip, but they are good sports about it, because they know how important it is to us.  

When I decided to take up this new fitness business, guess who were the first to congratulate me, offer support and ask for my advice?  As a result, 6 of us are embarking on a 30 day fitness challenge together, along with some other amazing  friends and family members. I know that with support from each other…success is not only possible, but inevitable.   And when it happens (not if it happens) there will be great joy and celebration!  In other words…party!  Which means…I’ll get to hang with my bff’s very soon!

These ladies are blessings in my life.  I feel so lucky, at my young age :), to be in such a great place in my life right now.  This fitness business has really made me sit back and take stock of who I am, who I want to be, where I am and how I made it here.  I made it here with a little help from my friends…no doubt about it.  And not a day goes by that I don’t think of them and appreciate them for the impact they’ve had on my life.  I love them as dearly as you could love a friend.  And now I’m feeling a little weepy, and oh…here come the tears…

Do you have a best friend, how bout 8? Call one or two today, and tell them how much they mean to you.  Grab the tissues first.  🙂

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Realistic Goals

So a very good friend of mine is getting set to begin a 30 day fitness challenge that we set up.  She’s nervous.  She’s afraid she’s going to sabotage herself, as she says she’s done before when she realizes she just doesn’t think it’s possible to EVER reach her goals.  Well here’s why:  her goal is to be “thin”.

What’s wrong with that goal you ask?  Well…listen…there’s a better goal to have, and if you trust me, you’ll see it’s better than “thin” or “skinny”.  Those are simply unrealistic, unhealthy goals to have when you’re starting your journey.  Aim for fitness, and aim for health.  That’s it!  Make it a daily effort, for the rest of your life; not a 30 day challenge…and then back to where you were before.  See every day as a new opportunity to make better choices, and before you know it, it’ll be your habit.  It’s not going to happen overnight for sure!  But once your mind is on board, your body will start to notice.

We all have very busy lives.  We all have the same number of hours in a day.  We all have the same choices at the grocery store.  Make health and fitness a priority in your life, and you’ll start to make choices that will make you stronger and more resolute each day.  You might need to wake up a little earlier (I’m still working on this one myself).  You might need to plan your meals ahead.  Your health is important, right?  It’s worth the effort right?  Keep in mind that you’re not going to change in leaps and bounds…it’s going to take baby steps.  All the little things you do will add up and they’ll change you.

Aim for strength, both mental and physical.  They sort of go hand in hand.  Once you see yourself becoming stronger, you begin to feel stronger.  Once you feel stronger, you realize…it’s not about being thin, or skinny.  It’s about being your best you.  You’ll be proud, satisfied and confident.  ‘Strong’ looks different on everybody, but it looks perfect!

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Dear Johnny and Andy,

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but those names you called me back in high school…kinda left a mark.

High school can be hard enough as it is.  It’s the time when we’re trying to figure out where we fit in, who we are, how we see ourselves.  Body image is such a big part of that, probably a little more so for girls than boys.  No matter what your insecurities are, when a name is given to them, by your peers…it just confirms them, and hits you where it hurts.

I was skinny, gawky, and awkward in high school.  I had short hair (sometimes), and hadn’t quite yet “developed” (if you know what I mean).  As a result, I was given a few nicknames that weren’t so very flattering.  I was called:  “floor-boards”, “chicken legs” and my least favorite…”boy-girl”.  REALLY?!  I had a thick skin and a good sense of humor…but still!  Nobody wants to be the butt of someone’s mean-spirited jokes.  I imagine there are worse names to be called, but those were mine.  And I didn’t like them one bit.

Nowadays we hear so much about bullying- both cyber and actual.  There are always going to be jerks and name-callers.  I’m sure they’re dealing with their own insecurities, and this is the way they deflect attention from themselves, perhaps. Either way…moving beyond the names is a challenge.  I have always been very self conscious.   I hate mirrors.  I don’t really like to have my picture taken, etc.  But I feel like it’s getting better.  I’m really pushing myself out of my comfort zone these days, and I’m breaking down some of those poor self-images.  It’s amazing how much better you begin to feel about yourself, when you’re focusing on helping others.

It also helps that my sweet husband said this in regards to my high school nicknames the other day:  “Man, I really gambled on you back then.  I’d say I had 20 to 1 odds that you’d turn out so good-looking (with nicknames like that).  I guess when you gamble big, you win big.”  He was being funny of course.  I think he liked me just the way I was…even back then, chicken legs and all.  🙂

So there!  Take that Andy and Johnny!

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Find a Reason

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4 My Dad

In October, two years ago, I ran the Chicago Marathon for the 4th time.  It was my slowest time, but the best run of all.  I approached the whole training season a little differently than I ever had before.  I wasn’t planning to run at all, having recently sprained BOTH of my ankles.  Despite lots of physical therapy, I just didn’t think they’d hold up through all training and the marathon itself.  And then I got a phone call that changed all of that.  I found out that my dad had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.  I was shocked, sad and scared.  What can you do when you get news like that?  Well…you could freak out!  You could donate money.  For me, the first thing that popped into my head was to run the marathon (on 2 bad ankles), rally support from friends and family for my dad, and raise some money for Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s research foundation (a.k.a. TeamFox).  It made sense in my head.

So training was interesting with the ankles, and even more interesting given that it was a REALLY hot summer and my asthma decided to kick into high gear.  Yikes!  I approached every run totally differently than I ever had before.  I started leaving my Garmin (gps) at home, and just went out there to focus on WHY I was doing it.  My reason was bigger than my ankles, bigger than my asthma, and bigger than me.  I focused so much on that reason, that the rest didn’t matter.  I had four months of training to really think, and come to terms with my dad’s diagnosis.  I dealt with a lot of emotions and feelings.  Anyone who runs knows that it sort of becomes a form of therapy.  I needed that.  Don’t we all!?

So marathon day came.  I had no garmin, no watch, somewhat healthy ankles and TWO inhalers!  It was another hot marathon day.  Ugh.  Despite using my inhaler every 20-30 minutes, I made it!  It wasn’t a personal record, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a personal triumph.  Again, I thought of my dad and my reason for the entire race.  This was the culmination of all of my hard work and therapy!  I felt awesome!  People commented on the message I had Sharpied on my legs and cheered me on.  My reason carried me through, and reaching the finish line was sweeter than ever, despite it being my slowest time.  I felt good!

I have a new goal now, a new reason.  It’s bigger than me!  I feel good knowing that friends and family members are joining me on my new mission!  Health & fitness can be contagious.  I highly recommend getting this bug, it’ll make you feel good.  And feel free to infect other people, they’ll thank you for it later. 🙂

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My Mom was a Health-nut BEFORE it was Cool!

I used to get irritated with my mom when she would pack me a whole wheat bread sandwich, an apple and a bag of carrot sticks for lunch.  Especially when my friends sitting next to me had their Wonder bread, factory bag of chips and Twinkies.  It was hard to be me, or so I thought.  At home it was the same.  Ask my mom today, and she’ll tell you that you have to have something green with every meal.  This is how I was raised, and it has stuck with me!  She was and IS a very health-conscious person.  Both of my parents were pretty active when I was a kid.  My mom did some running and a few 5K’s .  My dad would get on these kicks where he’d ride his bike for several hours and come back to swim some laps.  He would play catch with me in the yard, etc.  I think these things shape us as kids.  I’m trying to do the same with my four kids, as much as possible.  They see me and my husband working out and making health a top priority in our lives.  I hope it will be for them, and their kids, too.  And so on.

I mean…look at these 2!  They are in their 60’s!Image