Quick and Easy Mexican Chicken →

Here is another healthy, easy and kid-friendly dinner recipe for you. I just found this one last week and have made it twice. The first time I served it over rice with a side of steamed broccoli and the second time I served it as a filling for tortillas with avocado, Greek yogurt (to replace sour cream), diced tomatoes and lettuce leaves. It was well received by all of my family both times. The only change I made was to cut the chicken into strips and place it in a ziploc bag with the oil and seasonings and let it marinate for about 30 minutes before cooking. I hope you enjoy it!

Artificial Sweeteners

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I'm going to touch on a highly debated subject today. If you come to a different conclusion than I do after giving it some good thought and doing some research, so be it.

The topic: artificial sweeteners. My stance: avoid them.

I haven't always felt this way. There was a point in my life when I consumed artificial sweeteners on a regular basis. That was when I was trying to battle my sweet tooth and my weight but still eat sweets every day. That was when I would diet really hard and restrict my calories really low, then break and binge. That was when I had horrible self esteem, horrible eating habits and was incredibly unhealthy. That was when my weight yoyoed and I came to be at my heaviest weight ever. That is also why the results and conclusions drawn from a study published in the journal Obesity make perfect sense to me.

Age, education, socioeconomic index, exercise, and dieting were greater in AS [artificial sweetener] users, who were more likely to be female and OW/OB [overweight/obese]...Total calories, calories from carbohydrates and sucrose, and alcohol consumption were lower among AS users (P < 0.0001), whose sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption was one-fourth that of nonusers...Percent of calories from protein, total fat, and saturated fat were significantly higher in AS users (P < 0.0001).

We observed a classic, positive dose-response relationship between AS beverage consumption and long-term weight gain. Such an association does not, by itself, establish causality. But it raises a troubling question, which can be answered only by further research: are ASs fueling—rather than fighting—the very epidemic they were designed to block? Further research is needed to evaluate the possible impact of AS use on the risk of obesity—and its metabolic sequelae—in the next generation, as well as our own.

A review done in the Yale journal of biology and medicine has this to say about the topic:

A rise in the percent of the population who are obese coincides with an increase in the widespread use of non-caloric artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame (e.g. Diet Coke) and sucralose (e.g. Diet Pepsi), in food products....While people often choose diet or light products to lose weight, research studies suggest that artificial sweeteners may contribute to weight gain.

So to recap: those who use artificial sweeteners consume less sugar but more calories from other sources than those who don't and, therefore, are still more likely to be overweight or obese even though they are also more likely to diet and exercise. That way of dieting is what I never want to go back to. Replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners just so that you can have sweets without the calories from sugar is a bad idea. When your body tastes something sweet it expects there to be sugar released into the blood stream, but no sugar comes, so you crave something sweet again. If you are addicted to sugar, switching out regular sweets for ones sweetened with artificial sweeteners isn't going to do you much good. (Trust me, I know. I've tried it!) You aren't going to break your craving cycle that way, and you may even make it worse.

Preload experiments generally have found that sweet taste, whether delivered by sugar or artificial sweeteners, enhanced human appetite...Aspartame also increased subjective hunger ratings compared to glucose or water...artificial sweeteners, precisely because they are sweet, encourage sugar craving and sugar dependence.

Did you catch that? Artificial sweeteners cause you to want to eat more and cause you to crave sugar! I used to think that artificial sweeteners were healthy but again a review in the Yale journal of biology and medicine has this to say:

Whether due to a successful marketing effort on the part of the diet beverage industry or not, the weight conscious public often consider artificial sweeteners "health food". But do artificial sweeteners actually help reduce weight? Surprisingly, epidemiologic data suggests the contrary. Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain.

The American College of Sports Medicine states that "while artificial sweeteners are thought to be safe, there is no health benefit to consuming them".

I have said it before and I will say it again: eat whole foods! Artificial sweeteners are not whole foods. In fact, they aren't even foods at all — they are chemicals. It's interesting how several of them were discovered:

We owe the discovery of several artificial sweeteners to a few brave scientists who violated the code of laboratory hygiene and tasted their samples, often inadvertently. Saccharin, the oldest artificial sweetener , was discovered by Constantine Fahlberg at Johns Hopkins in 1879 while working on coal tar derivatives.

A scientist in a lab using chemicals accidentally licked his fingers and discovered that the mixture of chemicals on them happened to be sweet, and voila, artificial sweeteners were born. Gross! What was the intended use? Should that really be ingested? Again, gross!

Not only that, but the other ingredients that are associated with artificial sweeteners are artificial colors, artificial flavors, and highly refined carbohydrate sources. None of that is good for you! Even if it does somehow help you lose weight, what is it doing to your insides?

I know what it used to do to mine and it wasn't pretty. I used to have severe stomach problems that were something like IBS symptoms. It was awful! The more I have gotten away from processed foods and started eating whole foods[^gf], the fewer symptoms I have had.

Rid your body of foreign substances! Stop ingesting artificial foods because they aren't foods at all! And read food labels carefully because they are now hiding the stuff in everything. I was surprised to learn that it's even in Pedialyte.

If you are wondering how to get your sweet fix if you can't have artificial sweeteners, the answer is: sugar, honey or maple syrup in moderation. Everything in moderation.

In my next post I will talk about cutting back on sweets, whether they be naturally or artificially sweetened. The American College of Sports Medicine believes that "You can reduce your salt and sugar intake by eating fresh fruits and vegetables, limiting the sauces and toppings you put on food, and reading the labels on prepackaged items." I tend to agree. It is possible to reduce sugar and overall caloric intake without artificial sweeteners!

[^gf]: I also switched to a gluten free diet which has helped a lot.

Golden Pancakes

I have started my figure contest preparation diet and wanted to share one of my go-to breakfast recipes. It's a clean, protein packed pancake recipe. It's not one that I found online, but rather in the book Eating for Life by Bill Phillips. I am going to give you the recipe as written, however, I omit the sugar substitute and syrup (I don't use any type of artificial sweetener, ever, but more on that later) and, of course, I don't use fat-free cottage cheese. I use reduced-fat cottage cheese instead. I usually just spread them with a thin layer of peanut butter and top with sliced strawberries. Yum!

Ingredients: 1 cup uncooked whole-grain oats (non-instant) 6 egg whites 1 cup fat-free cottage cheese 1/4 tsp vanilla extract 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon 2 packets sugar substitute 1/2 cup sugar-free maple syrup 1/4 cup mixed berries

Directions: Lightly coat a nonstick skillet or griddle with cooking spray; place over medium heat.

In a blender, combine oats, egg whites, cottage cheese, vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar substitute. Blend on medium speed until smooth, about 1 minute.

Pour batter, about 1/4 cup at a time, onto hot skillet. Cook pancake until bubbly on top and dry around edges, about 3 minutes. Turn and cook other side until golden brown, about 2 more minutes.

While pancakes are cooking, microwave maple syrup until warm, about 20 seconds.

Place a portion of pancakes on 2 separate plates. Top with warm maple syrup and mixed berries. Serve and enjoy!

It's not all Aesthetic

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My previous post may have led you to believe that I exercise only for aesthetic reasons, and I want to debunk that thought.

Do I exercise for aesthetic purposes? Yes. Do I exercise only for aesthetic purposes? No!

I mostly exercise for a sane mind. Ask my husband or children. If I don't exercise I'm cranky, moody, sad, angry, impatient and tired but let me have thirty minutes of movement and I shine.

I like myself better AFTER I exercise than before. I just can't seem to get my mind to a good place until I have kicked up my endorphins for the day. Therefore, my ideal time to workout is first thing in the morning. That way my family doesn't have to deal with me until after I have gotten my mind in a good place through exercise. If I wait until later in the day, I have a hard time getting myself motivated because so many other things come up, I am grumpy all day because my workout is hanging over my head, and nothing seems in order to me so I am less likely to be patient and more likely to feel anxious.

Exercise makes me a better mom, a better wife and a better person in general. The emotional and mental benefits of exercise are more astounding than the physical!

That being said, the physical health benefits of exercise come in as a close second reason for me to workout every day. I exercise to avoid weight gain which helps me avoid numerous illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease. I was given a precious life and I plan to take good care of my body so that I can live to the fullest for as long as possible. I want to age gracefully and stay independent for as long as I can. I plan to be in the gym past my 90th birthday! How many of you will be with me?

If you aren't active now, get active, because I want to see lots of other 90+ year-olds of sound mind and body populating the gym with me in 60 years!

Oatmeal Zucchini Snack Bars →

I found these granola bars last week while searching for a recipe that my children would eat that contained zucchini. These were a huge hit! I did not put coconut in my version, but otherwise I followed the recipe as written. They are moist, flavorful and have a vegetable hidden in them. What's not to love?

By the way, I have had several people tell me that they can't get to the recipes that I am posting about. If that is true for you, just click on the title of the post. It is a link to the recipe. Enjoy!

Exercise During Pregnancy

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I am going backwards from my previous post and I know that this post won't apply to everyone, but I feel like it is important information for me to share with those who it does apply to. Today I want to talk about working out during pregnancy. 

The number one point I want to get across today is this: Do not be afraid to exercise during pregnancy! I don't believe there is anything else you can do better for yourself or your growing baby than to stay active (other than seek proper medical care and take your prenatal vitamins)! The women that I have known to continue exercising during pregnancy have gotten their pre-baby bodies back faster and more completely than those who didn't. 

Many of my female personal training clients ask me how to get rid of the stubborn fat (or sometimes loose skin) on their bellies. I usually start answering that question by first asking a few questions myself such as: have you had kids? How many? Did you lose the baby weight after each one? How long have you had this extra layer that you wish to lose? And did you exercise during your pregnancies? The less exercise that they did while pregnant, the longer it has been since having the last baby and the longer it has taken to lose the baby weight, the less likely it is that I will be able to answer that they can get rid of it at all. I have had to tell several women that the only way to get rid of it is through surgery. 

Six days before my due date and 16 days before the birth of my first daughter, my husband and I ran a 5K. &nbsp;

Six days before my due date and 16 days before the birth of my first daughter, my husband and I ran a 5K.  

Don't let that be you! Stay active, or get active (slowly and with the advisement of your doctor) while you are pregnant! Walk, run, take kickboxing and strength training classes, do yoga, lift weights, whatever you enjoy, keep doing it! 

Don't let anyone scare you into thinking that you need to stop doing some kind of physical activity while you are pregnant. I had an amazing OBGYN and midwife for my two pregnancies that told me to listen to my body (which boils down to: stop if it hurts or causes contractions), stop doing any kind of exercise that had me laying flat on my back after the first trimester and stop doing anything that could be dangerous for the baby in event of an accident (water skiing, contact sports, baseball, etc). But that was it! I still ran, I still lifted weights, I still taught group fitness classes, I still cycled — and my reward was a very much unchanged body after just a few months post partum and the ability to begin exercising again shortly after giving birth. I'm not the only one that this is true for. I have met other women that have given birth just a few hours after teaching a cycle class or have taught and taken classes or even run marathons all the way up through their due date and have bounced back beautifully!

This picture was taken just under a year after the previous picture. My daughter was 11 months old. 

This picture was taken just under a year after the previous picture. My daughter was 11 months old. 

I also believe that my workouts helped prepare me for labor and delivery and that they made it easier. Of course everyone's experience is different, but my deliveries were relatively short and sweet. The pushing phases of my two pregnancies lasted 20 and 5 minutes, respectively. I partially credit heavy weightlifting and strong muscles. I am also thankful for the mental toughness that I learned through exercising. I learned to push through the pain to achieve results in the gym and that translated well to the labor and delivery room. There are so many other great reasons to exercise during pregnancy as well.

If you are pregnant or just had a baby, get active as soon as possible! You won't regret doing it, but you may regret NOT doing it.

Black Beans and Quinoa →

I am so excited to share this recipe because it is a meatless recipe that still has lots of protein and my kids loved it! I made it thinking that I would have to prepare something else for them, but they both devoured it. I have made this several times before, but until now had never served it to my children. My husband and I love the recipe as written, but this time I omitted the cayenne to make it more kid friendly. Give it a try for meatless Monday.

Exercising with Kids

Now that I have touched on the topic of kids, I will continue in that vein for a bit. Today I want to talk about exercising with kids at home. I know that finding time to exercise is hard for a lot of people, especially those with young children. Finding that time is so important though, both for you and for your kids! You are their role model, so they will probably end up doing what you do. Exercise and enjoy it so that they will too!

I can not emphasize enough how important daily exercise is, even if that exercise is merely a short walk. If you can do more than that, great! Now that the weather is nice, you can take that walk with your kids. If they are really small, put them in a stroller and head out after dinner. That may be a good way to wind them down before bed. If they are older and can keep up, have them walk or ride their bike with you while you walk.

My YMCA membership has been invaluable to me since having children. I love that I can take them in for an hour each day, get an hour of sanity-saving quiet, a workout, and my kids have fun with others their age. A gym membership that includes childcare is definitely worth the money if you can afford it.

If you can't, you may have to figure out how to exercise at home with the kids around. It can work if you really try. I started working out at home during my oldest' nap time when my youngest was two weeks old. I would look up at-home workouts on YouTube, push play and start moving. My baby would watch and often laugh. Rarely would I have to quit my workout before I was through. I still do this sometimes when I don't feel like going out to the gym. I wait until "quiet time" and use that time to unwind with some exercise and a shower.

On those days that I can't workout while they are asleep, I turn to HIIT workouts. These are workouts that are intense, but are of short duration (usually no more than 30 minutes). I can usually distract the kids with something long enough to get in a 20 minute HIIT session. I have even distracted them with the workout itself by teaching them how to do the moves. It's very cute to watch an 18 month old mimick squat exercises and a two year old attempt push-ups.

Have you ever tried exercising on the kids' playground? It's a great place to mix up your workouts! The kids can play and you can get a workout at the same time.

Maybe you just can't see yourself getting in any exercise with the kids at home and awake. Then maybe you need to get up a little earlier or stay up a little later. One way or another, I encourage you to make the time.

And if you don't have kids, I'm not going to say that you don't have any excuses, because I'm sure you do, but wether you have kids or not, excuses don't cut it. Exercise is important enough for your health (and my sanity!) to make sure it gets fit in every single day.

My Biggest Nutrition Related Pet Peeve

I am sure that this post is going to rub some of you the wrong way, but I am willing to risk it for the health of our future generation.

Two of my biggest pet peeves revolve around food and kids. The first pet peeve is when incredibly health conscious parents that eat very well and exercise religiously feed their children something other than (and much less healthy than) what they themselves eat. The second is very much like the first in that it drives me nuts when parents wanting to become healthy, lose weight and eat better continue to buy junk food and blame it on their kids.

Why anyone would want to pass their bad habits onto their kids is beyond me. If you are trying to be healthy, don't you want your kids to be healthy too? If you are trying to cut out chips and soda and cookies, shouldn't your kids cut them out too? If it's not good for you to do, why do you think it IS good for your kids? They will develop a taste for what you feed them, so if you start them out on convenience foods, that's all they are ever going to want. If everything you give them as a baby has added sugar, they are going to shun anything that isn't sweet.

Start your kids off on the right foot by not even having junk food in the house. If you are trying to be healthy, just don't buy it!

Kids can have fruit, smoothies, peanut butter, raw veggies with dip, and other healthy whole food snacks just as you can. They don't need little bags of crackers or cookies or fruit snacks. Don't let them convince you that they do. Show them that you enjoy eating healthy foods and they will learn to enjoy it to. Tell them that you are being deprived because you have to give up snack foods and they will think they are too. Set the right example!

If you are making a big change in your eating habits, it's going to be hard for your kids to get used to it at first, but they will get used to it. It's like I've heard so many times before: if they get hungry enough, they will eat! Don't cave and give them junk because they are holding out. That will just reinforce the trend.

This also doesn't mean that they can't ever have junk food. They will have it sometimes wether they get it from friends at school or while at a friend's house playing or if you choose to let them have a treat every once in a while. That's fine and practical, just don't make it a daily occurrence.

And don't get me wrong, I struggle with figuring out what to feed my kids too. I have a 3 year old and a 15 month old and I swear that something they love one day, they refuse to eat the next. And they like different things. Something that one really likes, the other hates. It's not easy figuring out what to feed them.

A good starting point is to know how much of each nutrient that your kids need. As far as actually getting those nutrients into them, the following are some good resources:

I ran across a chart that gives two meal plans that will allow kids to get all of the nutrients that they need in a day.

As far as getting kids to eat vegetables, personally I love to bake vegetables into my foods. I put zucchini in baked oatmeal and carrots in pancakes. Just this morning I added some zucchini to our pancakes and I plan to try making fruit popsicles with puréed carrot this afternoon.

My major point is this: don't short change your kids' health while trying to better yours. If you shouldn't be eating it, they shouldn't either.

Low Fat? No Way!

How many of you buy low-fat foods? If you do, why? Do you even know, or is it just one of those subliminal messages that everyone seems to hear and heed? Since 1977, it has been a government recommendation to limit our fat intake to no more than 30% of our daily calorie intake. The current guidelines still put a strong emphasis on reducing fat in the diet, especially saturated fat, and cholesterol.

I used to eat low and non-fat foods. I used to think they were healthier than their full-fat counterparts (well, they do have less calories). But remember that little talk we had about the quality and the quantity mattering? Keep that in mind, will you?

In my last year of undergrad at Virginia Tech I had to do a semester-long research project on a topic of my choice. I chose to study how cholesterol levels in the body are affected by dietary fat intake. What I found was quite interesting and has now come out in mainstream media. Here is an excerpt from an article published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:

The approach of many mainstream investigators in studying the effect of consuming saturated fats has been narrowly focused to produce and evaluate evidence in support of the hypothesis that dietary saturated fat elevates LDL cholesterol and thus the risk of CAD. The evidence is not strong, and, overall, dietary intervention by lowering saturated fat intake does not lower the incidence of nonfatal CAD; nor does such dietary intervention lower coronary disease or total mortality.

The major point: eating fat (including saturated fat) does NOT have an adverse effect on cholesterol levels in the body, nor does it increase the risk of heart disease. Sounds backwards, right? I know! It just goes to show that we have to constantly be open to change and educate ourselves based on new research. If you want to read more about the science behind my conclusions, check out this article and the studies that it links to.

The other thing I have learned is that fat doesn't make you fat, but sugar (and carbohydrates in general) may! Here is another excerpt from the aforementioned article:

To assist the public in following the guidelines for a lower intake of dietary fats, the food industry reformulated commodities and processed foods. Despite these changes in the food supply, the results of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data-collection studies in the US indicate that the replacement of dietary fat with dietary carbohydrate failed to reverse the trend of an increasing incidence of obesity in the population. Although a reduction in dietary fat is logically matched to increased dietary carbohydrate, the role of carbohydrates in weight gain is unclear. However, carbohydrates increase blood glucose concentrations, which stimulates insulin release, which in turn promotes the growth of fat tissue that can cause weight gain. Increased obesity is associated with the metabolic syndrome and hypertriacylglycerolemia, a recognized atherogenic risk.

So we have replaced fat intake with carbohydrate intake, but we are still seeing rises in heart disease, high cholesterol levels, obesity, metabolic syndrome, etc. Hmmmm...

I love this article by National Geographic that shares the story of how sugar came to be abundant in our lives and why that's such a bad thing.

That brings me back to quality versus quantity. If you look at most low-fat foods in comparison to their full-fat counterparts, you will notice two things:

  1. They are a bit lower in calories.
  2. The fat that was removed was replaced by sugar or artificial sweetener (they usually have to sweeten the low-fat foods to make them palatable).

When you replace fat with sugar, the food becomes less satiating. That means that instead of feeling satisfied after just one serving, you will want to reach for a second in order to feel full. Having that second serving and feeling full results in more calories consumed than if you had eaten just one serving of the full-fat food. Plus, it's going to spike your blood sugar levels and then you will feel a crash in energy once the sugar is cleared from your blood stream.

Am I saying that everyone should follow a high fat, low carb diet? No. I truly believe in moderation in all things. Just promise me that you will think about why you are reaching for the box labeled "low-fat" and compare its nutrition label to the full-fat version next time. Fat is not our enemy. Choose the satisfying calories over the empty ones, even if that means that you have to consume a slightly larger quantity of them.

Green Beans, Chicken Breasts and Red Skin Potatoes →

Most of you may have already heard of, seen and/or made this recipe by now. It's been going around Facebook for months if not years. If you haven't made it yet, you should! It took me a long time to try it out from the time I first heard about it. Now I make it on a weekly basis because it is perfect for me to pop in the oven on the evenings that hubby and I have to pass the baton right at dinner time. Does it taste like a gourmet meal? No, but it's good for something that takes less than ten minutes to throw together and only uses one dish! I make my own Italian dressing mix (omit the salt) and I usually use butter, but not nearly as much as this calls for! I probably only use about 2 or 3 tablespoons. I have also done half butter, half olive oil. I prefer fresh green beans to canned. They turn out crisp tender, which is perfect!

A Day of Food

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One of the most asked questions I receive while discussing nutrition with others is, "so, what do you eat on a daily basis?" Today I am going to answer that question for all of you.

Most days I get up and go for the coffee first. I usually have one cup of coffee with two teaspoons of sugar in it while I'm cooking and with my breakfast. Most of the time I go with the old familiar healthy staples of oatmeal (made from old fashioned rolled oats with some cinnamon and a splash of coconut milk to top it off) and scrambled eggs. Two or three hours later I will have a handful of nuts and an apple, banana or homemade granola bar. If I do a weightlifting workout, I will have a whey protein shake (a couple scoops of chocolate whey protein mixed with water) post workout. For lunch I often have tuna salad (with real mayo, brown mustard, dill and pepper) over some mixed salad greens and a sweet potato or a piece of fruit. My afternoon snack usually consists of peanut butter and rice cakes alongside my second cup of coffee with another two teaspoons of sugar. Dinner varies, but is often chicken stir fry with plenty of veggies and brown rice. And I usually have an evening snack of another piece of fruit or (more likely) a piece of chocolate or some stovetop popcorn.

Is my diet perfect? No. Could I stand to eat more veggies and drink more water? Yes. My main goal right now is cutting down on sugar and refined carbohydrates. I have a major sweet tooth that I don't want to pass to my children. I am also trying to put on a few pounds of muscle, so my protein intake is pretty high. My largest focus is eating whole foods and not many processed foods. I think I'm doing pretty well at meeting all of those goals.

You will notice that my diet is not at all low fat (whole eggs, nuts, peanut butter, mayo). I'm going to address my take on fat in my next post.

2-Ingredient Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken →

I'm always on the lookout for easy and yummy crockpot recipes. I love being able to throw something in the crockpot early in the day so that I don't have to worry about fixing dinner when I get home from work or before I have to go out to work in the evening or right after my girls wake up from their naps and are cranky! This one is a cinch and is delicious atop some tortilla chips and romaine lettuce and garnished with avocado and a spoonful of plain Greek yogurt. You can also skip the chips and just wrap it up inside a couple of big lettuce leaves or a tortilla. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

Whole Foods: the Only Way to Eat

Go open the door of your pantry. What do you see? Does it look like the bulk foods section of the grocery store or the cereal isle? Now go to the refrigerator. Does it look like the fresh produce section or does it contain Bologna, American cheese, tubes of blue yogurt, coffee creamer, etc? How about the freezer? Does it look like you have visited the local butcher lately or the heat-and-serve meal isle of the grocery store? If you answered that your pantry looks like the bulk foods isle, your fridge like the produce isle and your freezer like you have been to the butcher shop recently, you are definitely on the right track!

If you want to eat, feel and be healthy from the inside out, you have to eat whole foods. I really think that changing the way we eat in America will solve many of the health problems plaguing this nation. We need to eat real food not prepackaged, processed chemicals.

Fill your pantry with whole grains like rice, oats, quinoa, and millet and with fresh potatoes both sweet and white. Stock up on nuts, beans and seeds of all varieties and dried fruits. Pack your fridge with fresh fruits, lots of colorful vegetables, eggs and a little bit of full fat cheese, milk, and yogurt. Store some frozen fruits and vegetables and all kinds of meats like fish, chicken, pork, beef, bison and turkey in your freezer. Take some time to cook your meals and then sit down and enjoy them with your family. Not just once a week, but every day. I think that if we all did that, we would be in better shape and better health in no time! I know that it can be time consuming and requires planning and preparation, but isn't your health and the health of your children worth it?

Do me (really yourself) a favor and next time that you are grocery shopping, look at the food label on each of the products that you pick up and if it has more than five ingredients, put it back on the shelf. Just doing that will significantly cut down on the number of processed foods that you consume and drastically reduce the number of chemicals going into your body.

If you need recipe ideas, check out my recipe of the week posts and try doing internet searches for certain ingredients. I love to use allrecipes.com to find recipes that have already been reviewed and rated by hundreds of other people. Eating whole foods really doesn't have to be all that hard. There are plenty of foods that are whole and also ready to eat. Most fresh fruits are ready to eat. Pair an apple with a handful of almonds and you have yourself a whole foods snack. Need a quick lunch? Pick up some prewashed lettuce, top with some canned tuna, cherry tomatoes and a simple vinaigrette dressing. How about a banana to go with that salad? Dinner can be put together in about 10 minutes and then baked for an hour while you play with your kids if you throw some fresh green beans, chicken breasts and cut up white potatoes into a baking dish together, drizzle with some olive oil or top with a few pats of butter and season with (homemade) italian dressing mix.

It really can be simple. It just takes the will to change your current methods and the determination to stick with the planning and preparation for the sake of your health.

If you want more meal ideas and more insight into what I eat every day, stay tuned!

Nutrition for Weight Loss

It seems that most people are at a loss when it comes to knowing what to eat in order to lose weight and tone up. I get asked quite often "what and how much should I eat to start losing weight?" I want to take some time to talk about that topic.

First, I have to say that the current trend says that the numbers don't matter and you can eat however much you want without counting calories as long as you are eating the right foods. I do not agree with that. The numbers do matter and people seem to lose weight and keep it off consistently if they take time to track their daily intake until they are familiar enough with the foods they typically eat to instinctually know how much they can eat and continue to lose or maintain their weight. Is it fun? No. Is it time consuming? Yes. Does it aid in weight loss? Yes.

I believe that what and how much you eat play a part in your health, body weight and body fat percentage. Don't believe me? Take a look at this study done by a university professor that shows how he lost weight on a snack cake diet. Am I telling you to eat like he did to lose weight? NO!!! I'm just making the point that calories matter. But the nutritional value of the food also matters. Other studies show that high junk food (read high sugar, low nutrient, processed food) intake leads to many chronic diseases such as cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes.

So, in order to be healthy on the inside and the outside, we need to look at the amount that we eat and what we eat. Now let's dive into what that looks like. The following is part of an email that I sent to a client outlining my ideas:

The people that I have known to successfully lose weight and keep it off have had a mentality shift when it comes to food. They don't think of foods in terms of what they can or can't have, but rather, in terms of what will best fuel their body and help them stay healthy from the inside out. They don't diet. They change their eating habits forever. The biggest specific things that successful clients do is cut out added sugar and processed foods. That means eating whole foods, cooking almost every meal eaten, and not having much use for sugar, maple syrup, jelly, honey, agave, etc. even being in the house. They all typically eat very clean all week and then give themselves one meal a week where they splurge (eat out, have a glass or two of wine, eat dessert). The successful diets that I have seen first or second hand have been high in protein, moderate in carbohydrate and low to moderate in fat. They include lots of lean meat, vegetables and complex carbohydrates along with some fruits, nuts and other healthy fats. They are typically low in dairy other than cottage cheese and Greek yogurt.

The clients that I have seen lose and maintain their weight loss have been very strict with their new dietary plans and weight training workouts in the beginning and then have seen a major shift in their metabolism to where they actually need to start eating more calories again. Many of them actually have a hard time eating enough to keep up with their body's caloric needs at some point.

So what do I mean by high protein? I mean that about 20% of your total daily calories should come from protein. What about moderate carbohydrate and moderate fat? About 50% of your total calories should come from carbohydrate sources and 30% from fat. That means that if you are aiming for 1,600 calories a day, you would need to eat 80 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs and 53 grams of fat. If you get a tracking app such as MyFitnessPal or LifeSum, it will make all of this so much more simple! If you need help figuring out how much you should eat to lose, maintain or even gain weight, you can easily look it up online, use a tracking app, or you can contact me and I can point you in the right direction. And if you really want more specifics, look out for my next few posts. I am going to go into more detail about healthy foods and diets. And I am also going to answer the next most popular question I get which is, "well, what do you eat?".

Exercise: Do What you Love

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If you want exercise to be a habit that sticks, you need to find something that you enjoy doing. If what you do for exercise is not enjoyable to you, you won't keep doing it for very long. So if you are just starting out and think that you don't like anything, try out lots of different things. There are so many choices out there! And don't give up after just one try. For example, if you try a Zumba class at the local gym and you don't like it, try again with a different instructor on a different day and see if you feel differently, but if you don't then move on to something else.

All of the people that I have worked with and been surrounded by in my life that have been successful at making exercise a daily part of their lives have enjoyed the exercise that they do. One of my former clients wasn't very active until she decided to try and train for a triathlon. Now she exercises six or seven days a week and sometimes multiple times a day and SHE LOVES IT! She can't get enough. She got hooked on triathlons. I have several friends that used to run a lot just because they thought that was the best way to keep their weight in check but they didn't really enjoy it. They started lifting weights instead and they discovered that their bodies changed dramatically, they liked the way they looked better than when they were just running and they really enjoyed lifting weights much more than spending hours on the treadmill each week.

I have other friends that I only see in the cycle room at the gym because that is their thing. They love to cycle. If the weather is warm they are outside riding and if they can't be out on their road or mountain bike, they are in the studio taking a spin class. I know still others that are completely addicted to Zumba classes. They take a Zumba class five or six days a week. What these people are doing isn't as important as the fact that they are moving their bodies every single day. So invest some time in discovering what type of movement you enjoy and then keep on enjoying it on a daily basis.

You can find all kinds of different classes at your local gym. These classes include kickboxing, weightlifting, ballet, yoga, pilates, hip hop dance, tai chi, cycling, running, plyometrics, and on and on. Even if you aren't into the gym scene and would rather get your movement in at home, you have plenty of options. Research workouts on YouTube and you will find tons of free videos to lead you through whatever types of exercise you are into.

The most important thing is that you are moving some every day. I have been reading a great book by Dan Buettner entitled The Blue Zones that gives evidence to the fact that some of the healthiest and longest lived people in the world spend a lot of time walking every day. Taking a long walk with your family or a friend after dinner in the evening just may be the healthiest thing you could do for yourself each day.

Make Ahead Mexican Breakfast Casserole →

I came across this recipe when searching for something to make on a Sunday and then eat for breakfasts the following week. I wanted something with protein, complex carbs and vegetables. This fit the bill and it is delicious! I have made it several times with varying ingredients and found that my favorite is with ground turkey sausage and sweet potatoes. Preparing it with ground beef and white potatoes tasted ok, but wasn't nearly as flavorful. My husband and one year old love this recipe as well. The three year old is a little more picky, but she will learn to like it eventually!

mexican breakfast casserole