Arugula!

So last week I went to dinner and a show at Anthology in Little Italy. I ordered the arugula salad and it was to die for! So I went to Trader Joes the next day and recreated the salad myself…so easy. I never buy arugula because I didn’t think I liked it…love it! Arugula is great because its not only low in calories but it is high in vitamins A and C. So I will post the recipe to my version of the Arugula salad. You should try it. It is great as a meal or with a main dish.

2 cups Arugula (you can add more or less if you like depending on how many your serving. 1/2 cup is only 2 calories. Awesome!)

1 small tangerine (the nice thing about living in San Diego is that you can pick these from your grandma’s tree…Fresh!)

12 roasted almonds (they used smoked almonds which were amazing…couldn't find any at Trader Joe’s so I bought Tamari Roasted Almonds…so good)

8-12 sliced green olives

2 T of grated parmesan cheese

Dressing:

1 T olive oil

1/2 lemon (juice)

pepper and sea salt (dash)

chopped garlic (just a little…goes a long way)

I chopped up a little garlic and added the olive oil and lemon juice to with a dash of pepper an salt. Then added to the top of my salad.

So this was my favorite new salad last week. I probably had it like four times. I guess I’m going to have to go explore new restaurants for new recipes.

Lunch

So I just finished cooking up a storm. I prepared a few different meals for the day and weekend. I had 2 chicken breast sitting out so I baked them with 1 T of olive oil, fresh garlic and pepper. They were about 7 oz each which is roughly 200 calories each (according to the nutrition label on the package). I cooked up about 2 cups rice pasta which is about 400 calories (1 cup is a serving portion). I then sautéed garlic, onion, mushrooms and spinach in about 1 T of olive oil, added a can of spicy diced tomatoes (as I’m writing this I just realized I’m suppose to stay away from spicy food for the next few days…dang!). I then cut up one of the chicken breast and added it to the mixture. There was enough for 3 servings. So with the pasta and sauce, each serving came out to about 300 calories (roughly…I am always trying to stay under 500 for lunch and dinner so that is why I say roughly when I am under =) You can add a little parmesan cheese to the top as well.

I’m not suppose to have spicy foods or wheat right now because I am doing a series of colonics (TMI?!). Its part of the cleanse that we did with our program, but I was sick and didn’t get them in. I went for my first yesterday. A little uncomfortable… I will write about colonics later when I am finished with this series and can give more insight to what I am learning about them.

I forgot to mention that I made another dish with the other chicken breast (or actually only used half and saved the other half for later). I had a cup of brown rice in the refrigerator so I cut up about 10 grape tomatoes, steamed 1 cup of broccoli and added these to the rice, cut up the other half of chicken and toped it off with 2 T of sliced almonds. This will probably be my lunch tomorrow. I’m guessing this is about 325 calories (again less than 500 cal for my lunch =)

Meals and Snacks

So I started my morning off at 5:30 am with an apple (small) and 20 oz of water. Water is so important in the morning. We just spent the last 6-8 hours resting and we are dehydrated. You should have a full glass of water first thing in the morning (especially before your morning coffee or tea).

I then went to the gym and did an hour of strength training with the CPY group. It included a ton of squats, lunges, pushups, tri’s and bi’s. Fun Stuff! The best part was I was done by 7am and ready to get my day started.

I then came home and prepared breakfast. This is probably my favorite part of the day. I love to take the time and prepare my meals. It makes me appreciate the food that I put in my mouth even more. I understand not everyone has the time to cook every morning so its best to PLAN for your meals that day. Make sure you have 3 meals and 2-3 snacks planned out for that day. You don’t want to get caught hungry and then not have a snack or a lunch. This is where people either skip meals or make unhealthy choices.

So my breakfast (around 8:30 AM )included to hardboiled eggs (140 cal), a slice of Ezekiel bread (80 cal), 2 teaspoons of almond butter (33 cal), 1/2 banana (40 cal) and a cup of peppermint tea.

My midmorning snack included 1/2 cup Greek yogurt (60 cal), 3/4 cup frozen mixed berries (70 cal) and 1/2 cup Kashi go lean crunch cereal (95 cal). Mmmm this is one of my favorite snacks and only 225 calories! (I try to keep my snacks to 200 calories).

For the rest of the day my meals includes a salad with spinach and herb lettuce mix, cucumbers, tomato, green pepper, mushrooms, 1/2 c sliced grapes, 1 oz turkey, 2 T sunflower seeds and 2 T fat free balsamic vinegar dressing. (Lunches are about 500 calories, but this came out to about 350 cal)

I missed my afternoon snack because I had a later lunch. So for dinner, I had grilled chicken (5-6 oz), 3/4 cup brown rice, 1 cup cooked spinach and caramelized onions, and a tomato, cucumber, spinach herb salad with oil and vinegar. I probably had a little over 500 calories for dinner, but since I spared some at lunch and didn’t have my snack it worked out. I wouldn’t suggest skipping snacks and making up for them at dinner. Meals should be distributed evenly throughout the day, but sometimes this happens.

This is just an example of another days meals. I will try and post as many as possible to give different ideas so that your meals don’t become boring.

Meal Plans

Once you figured out how many calories you should consume each day to maintain or lose weight, then you can begin to build your meal plan. I have been on a 2000 cal/day plan for the past 3 1/2 weeks and it seems to work for me. I happen to be working out everyday and sometimes twice a day. So I am burning a ton of calories, maintaining my muscle mass and losing weight. If you aren’t working out that much then you need to adjust the calories for weight loss (remember 1 pound of fat is 3500 calories) or get your butt moving! Just getting moving and walking can be the first step to incorporating an exercise plan into your daily routine. We all have the time, its just a matter of finding it in the day. Take away 30 minutes of TV, or instead of taking a long lunch walk for half of it, get up 20 to 30 minutes earlier. Part of wanting to really make a change in your health and wellness is COMMITTING! So commit yourself to exercising in some form everyday for 20 to 30 minutes. Once you get in a habit of doing it, it will become part of your daily routine.

So the more frequent meals you have throughout the day, better! Think of your body as a fire that needs fuel to keep burning. Food is your fuel! You wan to keep your metabolism burning throughout the day, from morning till evening. Breakfast is the MOST IMPORTANT meal of your day! You’ve probably heard that a million times. It’s so true. You just spent the last 6-8 hours resting your body, now it’s time to jump start your metabolism for the day. How do you do that? By fueling the fire. I will talk about this later on, but when you fuel the body it is pointless to give it fuel that has no substance. Your body needs energy to work efficiently. So if you are fueling it with empty calories, it is pointless. You will be fine for a satisfied for a little while, but then your body will burn out. You need to get rid of the foods, drinks that are not fueling your body efficiently and give it some real sustainable food (I will give you examples later).

So instead of boring you, I will go into an example of my daily food intake (based on 2000 calories). If you are interested in knowing what your daily food intake should be and how to distribute the calories efficiently throughout the day you can ASK ME.

Workout Day:

5:30 AM - 1/2 apple (30 cal) or 1 banana (80 cal) or 1 scoop Metagenic Rice protein shake (95 cal), 16-20 oz of water (we just spent the last 6-8 hours resting and our bodies are dehydrated, so HYEDRATE!)

6:00-7:00 AM- Circuit Training with Group (8/10 on intensity level, most days; includes weights, plyometrics, abs)

7:30 AM – Breakfast (400 calories) I have a lot of different combo recipes I use to make sure I get my 400 cal breakfast in. This morning I had…

2 whole eggs (140 cal)

1 egg white (30 cal)

1/2 green pepper (10 cal)

1/2 cup mushrooms (10 cal)

1 cup spinach (10 cal)

1/4 cup onion

garlic clove

1/2 cup diced grape tomatoes (25 cal)

1 T Feta cheese (15 cal)

1/2 apple (30 cal)

1 T almond butter (95 cal)

So I took about a teaspoon of olive oil (I’m not super picky with counting the calories on this unless I’m using a ton, you can also use a spray to sauté) and sautéed my veggies in a pan and then added my eggs to the plan and toped it off with the tomatoes and feta and a dag of hot sauce. I didn’t add salt, but a bit of pepper. I cut the apple into slices and dipped it into my almond butter. This whole breakfast is about 400 calories (its not exact, but I usually give or take a few calories each meal to even out in the end).

10:30 AM (200 cal snack) Usually 1 cup grapes with 3 teaspoons slivered almonds, or low fat string cheese with 1/2 fruit

12:30 PM (500 cal lunch) Usually a wrap with 3 oz of protein, veggies, whole grain tortilla, hummus with some veggies on the side (I will post more lunch options later). Yesterday I went to Chipotle and had the chicken bowl with no rice and little black beans, tons of sautéed veggies, lettuce and salsa.

3:00 PM (200 cal snack) veggies and hummus or cucumber, lettuce, hummus wrapped in turkey meat

6 or 7PM (500 cal dinner) 3 oz of protein, salad loaded with colorful veggies with olive oil and vinegar, topped with almonds or sunflower seeds for crunch.

I can have one more snack, but usually I’m full. I drink lemon water throughout the day and herbal tea. If I feel I’m hungry, usually I drink water first. Sometimes we are just thirsty and not hungry. I also try to get a second workout in during the week, but even one workout is enough.

Fuel

Food is the fuel that our bodies use to function. Metabolism is the break down of food for our body to use. Calories are the amount of energy each food breaks down. The amount of food (energy) each of us needs varies depending on age, gender, activity level and so on. There is no magic number, but we can use formulas like the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) to help us determine the amount of calories we’d burn at rest and then add in for activity and subtract for weight loss. Sounds complicated? Its not, I’ll help you out with getting the right numbers. Also important to remember is that 1 pound of Fat is equal to 3500 calories. This will be helpful to remember later when we are planning meals and workouts and how many calories our meal plan should be.

How we eat plays a role in how hour body stores/uses energy. When we eat more frequently and on a regular schedule our body knows there is no need to store food for later. Our bodies will use what it needs and eliminate what is not needed, through bowel movements. It is very important to have regular bowl movements (one to two per day). This is a good sign that we have a healthy digestive system.

So Back to BMR….

BMR is the amount of calories our body needs based on height, weight, age, gender and activity level. Its not 100% accurate, but a good starting point for determining the amount of calories we should consume each day.

Here is how you calculate your BMR:

Females (BMR) = 655 + [4.35 x (weight in pounds)] + [4.7 x (height in inches)] – [4.7 x (age)]

Males (BMR) = 66 + [6.23 x (weight in pounds)] + [12.7 x (height in inches)] – [6.8 x (age)]

Next calculate your Daily Calorie Burn (DCB):

DCB = BMR x Daily Fitness Multiplier

Daily Fitness Multiplier:

1.2 Desk Job

1.25 Walk/stands a lot

1.3 Very Physical Job

Next calculate your Total Daily Calorie (TDC):

TDC = DCB + 600 (I use this calculation because I am working out 6 days a week which includes one intense hour morning workout and one mellow afternoon morning workout. So the 600 accounts for those workouts as far as calorie needed to fuel by body each day)

Last, calculate for a safe weight loss = TDC – 500 (remember that 1 pound of fat = 3500 calories. So a safe weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week depending on the individual)

Example of my TDC:

Female BMR: 655 + 4.35 (148) + 4.7 (67) - 4.7 (31) = 1468

DCB: 1468 x 1.3 = 1908.4

TDC: 1908.4 + 600 = 2508.4

Calories for Safe Weight Loss: 2508.4 - 500 = 2008.4/day

So this is the number I used when planning my meals these last 3 weeks. Calculate what your calorie intake should be and account for exercise and weight loss if those are your goals. Next I will show you a food plan that is easy to follow and efficient in fueling your body so that you burn fat.

Commit to Change

The first step in living lean is committing to change. What are your goals? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to tone up? Is your blood pressure high, cholesterol high? Are you taking medication to keep blood pressure and cholesterol lowered? Are you constantly tired? The list goes on. We all have different goals. The ultimate goal should be living a lean, healthy lifestyle. This does mean we all have to be skinny minis or that we have to have washboard abs. The ultimate goal we should be focusing on is being healthy IN our body. The heart is one of the most important organs in our body. We should focus on being healthy within and the rest will follow.

So lets make that next step to Living Lean. I will walk you through the program I have been doing for the past 23 days. If you have any questions, please ask!

Here are a few guidelines to follow:

1. Verbally Commit yourself to a Healthier You! If it means writing it down, then do it. I hear so many people say how they want to be healthier and lose weight and eat healthier, but don’t actually make that commitment. Accountability is going to be so important in this process. Find a friend and commit with them.

2. Write down your goals. I would suggest setting both long and short term goals. Get a calendar and set a new goal for each week. My sister puts a sticker on her calendar each time she goes for a 4 mile walk. Seeing the more stickers each week on her calendar is motivating for her to keep going.

3. Plan, Plan, Plan! This is so important especially when it comes to food. I found that when I don’t plan for the week, I tend to eat out more and consume way more calories that my body needs. I now go to the grocery store once a week and plan my meals for the week. It takes a little bit of time but if you COMMITTED TO CHANGE this you can do it! I will put up options for people on the go as well.

I will put more guidelines up as I go. Please ask any questions along the way and send me your goals. If I don’t know the answer, I will find it for you.

Namaste,

Generator

Mindfulness

Have you ever taken a full 20 minutes and eaten in silence while taking the time to be present with every bite that you place in your mouth? We (our live lean group) did this on our first meeting together. We were given a pile of veggie and turkey wraps for lunch and asked to take one, find a place to sit and eat in silence for 20 minutes. We were asked to savor each bite and really be present to the taste, texture, smell of the food we were consuming. It was a little awkward at first because you are sitting in a room with 30 other people eating in silence. It was a pretty cool experience though. I realized that after eating just a half of a turkey wrap in 20 minutes, I was satisfied. I didn’t need to go back for more. This little exercise of mindful eating made me realize how I am always eating on the go and when I do I tend to overeat. So I have been using this “mindful eating” technique with most of my meals. I am taking the time to prepare my food and enjoy each and every bite. Try it sometime, it works!