It is SO much easier to just Pin recipes and snack ideas rather than write it all out here.
SO.. if you would like some (lots of) ideas for snacks and meals, just stop by my Pinterest page here and have a look at the "In the kitchen" board. It has more ideas than you can shake a stick at!!
Happy Eating!
Monday, September 8, 2014
The 411 on Food
As I searched through my recipes (and my pantry!) to document the types of things I am eating now, I realized that my pointers about food aren't just about WHAT you eat. It is how you eat, how you think about eating and how you think about food. I know I've mentioned this before, but it is SO important!
PORTION CONTROL
My first eye opening experience was with portion sizes. Our household was so completely out of touch with appropriate portion sizes, it wasn't even funny. A serving of spaghetti in our house was an entire dinner plate heaped up with sauce and as much garlic toast as you could stuff into your face. Cereal was a huge overflowing bowl with a cup and a half (atleast!) of milk! Mashed potatoes was served in mountainous proportions!! Crazy. Many of us know that a lot of the time, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and many times, we are preparing servings based on what we FEEL we WANT to eat rather than an appropriate amount that our body can digest and use. Fitness Pal on my Android phone helped me to really get in touch with portion sizes. Instead of eating an entire ziploc sandwich bag stuffed with chips, I realize that a small handful, more like a little less than 1/2 of the ziploc, is more appropriate. Training your brain to recognize reasonable portions leads the rest of the body in a favorable direction!
FUEL VS FEEL
My husband and I still ask each other "what do you feel like for dinner"? The difference now, though, is that when he asks me that, I do a mental rundown of what I have eaten that day and determine what I think my body needs. For the first time in my life, I am looking in the fridge or the pantry for protein or carbohydrates or whatever else I know that my body needs to keep running well. In the morning, I concentrate on vitamins and protein to get my motor running and try to snack lightly throughout the day to keep it running. Some days I might concede that I FEEL like eating something, but my mind does a quick run down to make sure it is inline with the fuel my body needs at that time. Obviously, I am not a machine and sometimes I just want to eat something that FEELS good to eat... they don't call it comfort food for nothing! But the majority of the time, I am waging the FUEL VS FEEL battle to ensure I keep moving throughout the day.
PREP
I am slowly (and painfully) learning that the extent to which you prep, is a direct reflection on the extent to which you are successful. It is so important. Some (easy) things that you can do to make eating healthy easy during the hustle and bustle of life are:
1. Rinse fruit and portion out things like crackers, dry cereal, chips and popcorn into grab n go baggies
2. Have lots of prepared snack foods that you can grab like string cheese, yogurt, graham crackers, applesauce in single serving cups etc.. I LOVE the 100 calorie snack packs simply because I can just reach in and grab anything and know that it will be an awesome snack when I am hungry during the day.
3. For me, liquids are HUGE. If I don't think about what I am going to drink during the day, I end up with a huge pop sitting in front of me. I like my drinks to be really really (really) cold, so I try to make sure I have cold water in the fridge overnight for work the next day. I need one water bottle filled with ice for later in the day and one water bottle with my morning vitamin drink and lots and lots of ice.
Slowly but surely, even though I will never be a super healthy eater, I am finding ways to fuel my body with healthier food and it is becoming the rule rather than the exception!
Good luck, be encouraged, be determined and be healthy!!
PORTION CONTROL
My first eye opening experience was with portion sizes. Our household was so completely out of touch with appropriate portion sizes, it wasn't even funny. A serving of spaghetti in our house was an entire dinner plate heaped up with sauce and as much garlic toast as you could stuff into your face. Cereal was a huge overflowing bowl with a cup and a half (atleast!) of milk! Mashed potatoes was served in mountainous proportions!! Crazy. Many of us know that a lot of the time, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and many times, we are preparing servings based on what we FEEL we WANT to eat rather than an appropriate amount that our body can digest and use. Fitness Pal on my Android phone helped me to really get in touch with portion sizes. Instead of eating an entire ziploc sandwich bag stuffed with chips, I realize that a small handful, more like a little less than 1/2 of the ziploc, is more appropriate. Training your brain to recognize reasonable portions leads the rest of the body in a favorable direction!
FUEL VS FEEL
My husband and I still ask each other "what do you feel like for dinner"? The difference now, though, is that when he asks me that, I do a mental rundown of what I have eaten that day and determine what I think my body needs. For the first time in my life, I am looking in the fridge or the pantry for protein or carbohydrates or whatever else I know that my body needs to keep running well. In the morning, I concentrate on vitamins and protein to get my motor running and try to snack lightly throughout the day to keep it running. Some days I might concede that I FEEL like eating something, but my mind does a quick run down to make sure it is inline with the fuel my body needs at that time. Obviously, I am not a machine and sometimes I just want to eat something that FEELS good to eat... they don't call it comfort food for nothing! But the majority of the time, I am waging the FUEL VS FEEL battle to ensure I keep moving throughout the day.
PREP
I am slowly (and painfully) learning that the extent to which you prep, is a direct reflection on the extent to which you are successful. It is so important. Some (easy) things that you can do to make eating healthy easy during the hustle and bustle of life are:
1. Rinse fruit and portion out things like crackers, dry cereal, chips and popcorn into grab n go baggies
2. Have lots of prepared snack foods that you can grab like string cheese, yogurt, graham crackers, applesauce in single serving cups etc.. I LOVE the 100 calorie snack packs simply because I can just reach in and grab anything and know that it will be an awesome snack when I am hungry during the day.
3. For me, liquids are HUGE. If I don't think about what I am going to drink during the day, I end up with a huge pop sitting in front of me. I like my drinks to be really really (really) cold, so I try to make sure I have cold water in the fridge overnight for work the next day. I need one water bottle filled with ice for later in the day and one water bottle with my morning vitamin drink and lots and lots of ice.
Slowly but surely, even though I will never be a super healthy eater, I am finding ways to fuel my body with healthier food and it is becoming the rule rather than the exception!
Good luck, be encouraged, be determined and be healthy!!
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
A Triathlon, A 5k and the 180's.... Oh My!!
My friend, Caitlin and I at the Finish Line
What a month! As I mentioned in my last post, things aren't moving as quickly as I would like, but what a difference a month can make! I'll touch on the highlights..
I competed in a triathlon! It was a shorter-than-sprint distance (.25 mile swim/10 mile bike/2 mile run), but it felt like the Ironman to me!! My goal was to finish in less than 1hr 30min and within 15 min of my much, much (much) more fit friend, Caitlin. I reached both of those goals by finishing in 1:22:ISH and 12ISH minutes behind Cait. Sweet!
The next weekend, I completed a 5k with another friend, Anne. It wasn't a competitive race, but Anne and I had a goal - under 45 minutes. While I'm sure she could have shaved atleast 5-10 minutes off of her time if she just would have dropped the dead weight (me) and gone on at her own comfortable pace - but she was awesome and stuck with me and we finished in 37 minutes! Not too shabby! I can now run 2 miles comfortably (in about 25-28 min!), bike 10 miles comfortably and will start swimming at the local community center once lap swim starts up! All in all, I'm getting in way better physical shape. The weight is taking FOREVER to come off, but I'm getting there. I've tried a couple of diet/nutrition things (drinks, mostly) and have found that they really can speed up the weight loss! Unfortunately, we can't justify spending that kind of money ($100+/month) just so I can have faster gratification. Nope, I'm going to have to wait.
Purple faced, but "glowing"!!
I have finally FINALLY ventured into the 180's for the first time in WAY. TOO. LONG! It has taken long enough, sheesh! But I'm still going and plan to be in the 170's soon!!
Wanted to impart a little advice for those who may be following - looking for some practical advice on how to drop the pounds when you work, have kids, no time and/or money....like me.
CRAIGSLIST. CRAIGSLIST. CRAIGSLIST!!! I got a super sweet, heavy duty elliptical machine FOR FREE, an exercise bike FOR FREE and there are ALWAYS treadmills, weight benches and free weights on there FOR FREE! Keep your eyes peeled and get yourself something to keep you busy through the lonnnnng winters! We turned half of our unfinished basement into my gym! I have my treadmill (that I've had for EONS), my FREE elliptical and my FREE bike all in a row, and then a big mat (was our kids karate mat that they no longer use) out in front of the machines for abs, stretching, dumbbells and medicine ball workouts. Tonight I did a quick 30 minutes (15 min elliptical, 15 min bike) while my son was down there with me working off some extra four year old energy! It is going to be HUGE in helping me to get into shape!
Secondly, become familiar with calories. Seriously. I have found that thinking in terms of what my body needs instead of what I "feel like" eating is key. We so often eat with our eyes to fulfill our emotions instead of thinking in terms of fueling our bodies to enable it to function properly! A bottle of pop has over 200 calories - a single fast food meal can have THOUSANDS of calories! Weight loss is about putting in less than you work off. My goal is usually around 1580 calories per day. When I exercise, this is MORE than enough to keep me satisfied throughout the day. When I don't exercise, that means I can't indulge in that extra pizza or dessert.
Lastly I wanted to encourage those of you who, like me, find it really really difficult to eat healthy. It isn't how I was raised and I do not like a lot of vegetables (if you don't count corn as a veggie, I really don't like ANY veggies!). Despite this, I have found things that I can eat that I know are healthy and that don't taste like dirt (literally. Vegetables taste like dirt to me). Below is a list of my favorite go to's throughout the day. I understand they probably aren't the healthiest foods. Tough. It is what I can do. Hopefully, if you are struggling in this area, you can find some things that might work for you!
Good Luck! Keep putting one foot in front of the other!!
My fave morning go to's:
Grapes
Apples (with or without peanut butter)
String Cheese
Whole Wheat bagel with peanut butter
Egg sandwich (egg on piece of whole wheat bread with a little butter)
Scrambled eggs in a cup (I'm a busy Mom - and eating them from a cup is surprisingly easy!)
Bananas
Honey Nut Cheerios
My fave lunch go to's:
Progresso Chicken Noodle Soup
Subway Turkey on wheat (6")
Sandwhich (turkey or peanut butter)
Dinner leftovers
My fave dinner go to's:
Grilled chicken and rice (using Montreal Chicken seasoning)
Pancakes
Spaghetti
Meatloaf
Now that I look at that list... it is TINY!! haha!! I will figure out more and post them soon!!
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