June “Clean Eating” Challenge: What do I eat!?

Since my last post, I have received some great feedback on people interested in my June Challenge. Which makes me ecstatically happy!

The first and most frequently asked question is, “what the heck can I eat?” I know limited your intake of processed foods, sugar and flour seems like you are left with no options, but it is not true in the least! You can still enjoy the foods you love, just perhaps prepared in a different way.

With Summer unofficially here, fruits and veggies are in season, grill are out, fresh light food is easy to come by. All you have to do is omit the junk.

So, I thought I’d help all of you out by offering up some clean and delicious recipes and snack ideas. I promise you it is not as hard as you think and you will feel and see the rewards even in one month:

Breakfast

Oatmeal: I usually make a cup of organic quick oats with fat free milk, a few shakes of cinnamon, a bit of vanilla extract and fill that bad boy up with banana and berries. This keeps you full for a LONG time. I usually don’t feel like I need to eat again for at least 4 hours.

Eggs: Anyway you want ’em. Have some eggs! Full of protein, it will keep you plugging along through your day. If you want to get fancy, add a bit of cheese and heaping amounts of veggies. I personally love spinach and tomatoes. And keep those egg yokes in!

Greek Yogurt: 0% plain greek yogurt has about as much protein as an egg and with 0% fat, how can you go wrong? Some don’t love how tart the yogurt is, so try sweetening it up with some homemade fruit puree ( add some very ripe fruit to a food processor with a bit of coconut water to get it moving ) vanilla extract, cinnamon and other spices.

Lunch

Grilled Chicken and Veggies: This is self explanatory and it doesn’t have to be chicken. I personally am getting a bit tired of the same ol’ chicken, but it is crucially important to maintain high amount of protein this month, especially if you are exercising frequently. Add what ever protein of your choosing. This is an easy meal to throw together at the beginning of the week and split it up for lunch.

Soup: I know, soup in summer? Am I nuts? Maybe, but I love me a good soup any time of year. It is filling and unless you are eating it outside at noon in July, you won’t suffer. Add a salad and make it an extra hearty meal. Try using your slow cooker for the soups. It is a time saver and don’t we all want to save time? I love this Split Pea Soup Recipe.

PB&B: While I am omitting flour and some of you are planning to as well, you can still have bread. What? Game changer? Thought so. If you are new to this clean eating this, Ezikiel Bread will be your best friend. It is bread made out of sprouted grains. Some find it a little to hearty for their tastes but I love it, especially with some all natural nut butter. You can find Eziekel Bread in the frozen section of your health food store. I add sliced bananas to this for some added protein and as an athlete and runner, bananas keep me going. Ezikiel Bread also makes wraps and english muffins. All wonderful!

Dinner

Kabobs: The other night I made some kabobs with beef marinated in clean BBQ sauce, peppers, tomatoes and onion. Since we unfortunately dont’ have a grill nor the outdoor space to put one, I threw them in the oven for a half an hour and it was AWESOME. The perfect Summer dinner

Roasted Sausage and Veggies: Sausage is tricky to find clean. You really gotta read the ingredients, they love putting sugar in there. It is available though, I opt for the chicken sausages to make it leaner. Chop up whatever veggies you enjoy and some chopped potatoes, sprinkle with some olive oil, salt and pepper and let the magic happen in the oven for about 45 mins.

Stir Fry: This is my go to meal when I’m low on time. Grab some beef stir fry strips at the market and some broccoli and bok choy. Mince 3 cloves of garlic, heat some oil in a pan, throw in the garlic and cook the beef about 2 mins. Set the beef aside, add some minced shallots and cook down your veggies so the bok choy are slighted wilted and the broccoli is still crisp. Add reduced sodium soy sauce, throw the beef back in, top with some fresh ground ginger and you are good to go! You can serve with brown rice or, if you have some time, try this fantastic Cauliflower Fried Rice.

Snacks

Nuts, any nuts!

Raisins

Rice cakes with nut butter

Veggies and Hummus

LaraBars

As we all continue on this journey, I’ll be here to help. Just send me an email with any questions and keep checking the blog for helpful tips and receipes. You can do it!!!

And just a reminder, I’m still hoping for some more donations for my GoFundMe account to get me started on my yoga teacher training/fitness training journey. Any help and love you can send me would be greatly appreciated!

Namaste!

Clean Eating June Challenge!

I hope all you fab fit people had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

I also hope you aren’t kicking yourself for having one too many burgers and sweets. Holidays shouldn’t be defined by splurging, including but not limited to, bucket loads of sugar, but alas, they are. And hell, ain’t nobody going to tell me I’m not going to enjoy several glasses of margaritas on a hot summer day every once in awhile!

The post splurge feeling sucks. Especially if you keep up a healthy diet on the regular, your body will attack and remind you that you fueled it with crap. 

In the past, I had the awful habit of binging on (most) weekends, especially during the holidays and starved myself the following three days, thinking, in my mind, that that would even out the high calorie intake and my body would be restored to optimal health. How I wish I could go back in time and slap that Sarah. 

There are no shortcuts to living a healthy lifestyle. It takes time, dedication and serious work. Sometimes we need to take a step back and really discover what it really is that has us repeating our bad habits. 

About three years ago, I was introduced to clean eating. What is clean eating? Depends on who you are talking to. For me, it means eating real, unprocessed food with no added sugar and that includes alcohol. I heard nothing but good things and it wasn’t really a diet, it was a guide to becoming healthier You are feeding your body the healthiest of foods in it’s most natural state. It’s simple! I went “clean” for about two months and at the time I was not weighing myself, as the scale is the devil, but I noticably lost weight and soon had to buy new clothes with a smaller number. 

Three years later, I still eat 80% clean and try to keep my processed snacks/sugar/alcohol for the weekend. Of course, slowly, I’ve found myself adding more sugar to my diet. It is easy to have it sneak in and I must admit, I have a serious sweet tooth. 

When I first started eating clean, five days in I had a total sugar meltdown. All I could think of was running down to the bodega and grabbing my favorite strawberry sour straws. Why can’t I treat myself!? AGH! I woke up the next day terrified after my 5 days of no sugar post apocalyptic breakdown and realized I had a problem and was apparently not alone. The average American eats 19 teaspoons of added sugar a day. That’s 570 teaspoons a month and about 6,840 teaspoons a year. What are the side effects of this problem? You name it: diabetes, heart disease, depression, migraines, auto immune diseases, elevated triglycerides, low (good) cholesterol and oh yeah, weight gain. 

So to kick the Summer off right as well as starting my newest chapter in life, I am going to go CLEAN for the June with the exception of two cheat days ’cause, we can’t let a diet get in the way of living our life (Plus I’m hoping the Rangers win the Stanley cup and will definitely have a celebratory beverage or two WHEN that happens).

Want to join me and feel extra fabulous in that bikini/trunks?

Here’s how you do it:

Clean out the fridge and cabinets and buy clean!: This is annoying and tedious, but it is important to go through the food you have and see if it is CLEAN or needs to be tossed. Packaged foods are the biggest culprit. Unless you regularly shop at health food stores and diligently read labels, most of the packaged food you will have will not be clean. The ingredients should list no more than 5 items and none of which can have sugar. That includes (high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, dextrose, fruit juice concentrate evaporated cane sugar, agave, stevia, and more. Sugar is in everything, especially packaged things like bread. ALWAYS check the ingredient list and cook/bake whenever possible.

Food Prep: Essential to maintaining a clean eating lifestyle long term. I used to cook 75% of all my meals for the week on Sunday. This is super helpful because it is not easy to find clean eating “fast food”. “If you fail to plan you plan to fail”. Think of your favorite meals, almost all of them can be altered to made clean. Chop up carrots and celery to munch on. Make a fruit salad. Prep will save you time and keep you on track. If your lunch and dinner are already planned for the day, you have no reason to grab that burger and milkshake for dinner.  

WATER WATER WATER: You will need to make sure to drink tons of water. You should aim to drink no less than 2 liters of water per day and certainly more of if you are exercising. Keeping your body hydrated is essential to optimal health. *For very active people, I suggest Nuun an elecryolyte tablet that uses natural ingredients while still replenishing the minerals lost through perspiration. Also tasty, that helps (At JackRabbit!)

Swap Happy Hour for Spin Class: The most difficult obstacle I encountered while eating clean was my social life. I found myself staying home to avoid the temptations of having beer and bar food all around me. Unfortunately, our society is used to going to a bar to catch up, date, or just because it’s Tuesday and there are $3 drafts. While hitting the bar is great and I enjoy it like the best of them, it is time to break that habit. Why not get a workout it AND hang out with your friends? You can catch up after class and bitch about how brutal the instructor was over fresh pressed juices afterwards. 

I’ll be providing more tips as we go along. I myself will be cutting out flour as it is a simple carbohydrate, like sugar, and I also have a problem with it. If this is your first time eating clean, don’t omit flour, it will be too much of an undertaking and I want you all to succeed! You can surely try it in July should you want to continue. 

I always suggest to give yourself one cheat meal/day a week. If you feel like doing less, go for it, you’re a star, but this isn’t supposed to be misery, it is supposed to be a step in the right direction. 

As always, contact me with any questions and I hope you can join me on this Clean Eating June Challenge!

 

Weekend Juicing Recipes!

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful week. 

This time of year is a bit hard for me. I have the worst time getting out of bed. I always seem to fall for that temptress the snooze button and before you know it, I’m jumping over cats trying to eat, put on clothes and do something with this dry, miserable hair all simultaneously while already being late to work. 

After spraining my toe in yoga on Monday (I know, who does that, ME, of course, and this is not the first time) running this week has been rather weak. With only 8 miles on the clock thus far, I put myself to bed “early” (midnight) to get up and run before work, something I’m used to doing most of the year. That did not happen. It was so warm under the covers and damnit the cats were cuddled with me, I just couldn’t do it. 

When I finally woke up I felt very frustrated with myself. I won’t be able to run after work because of social obligations, FUN social obligations, I must add, and my lunch break will be taken up with yoga. Argh! 

I’ve found, and I hope you have too, that the juice that I have in the middle of the day really boosts my energy and I find myself bouncing off the walls, in a good way. So, I am planning to ween myself off of my daily breakfast smoothie for a juice to see if this can help peel me away from the snooze button and on the road. I am a firm believer that there is no better way to start the day than a solid four mile run. 

Is it just me or is it just SO hard to wake up these winter mornings?

Here are some morning juice recipes that I will try and I hope you will do the same! 

Red Ruby

1 cup of pitted cherries

1 large beet or 3 small beets

2 carrots

1/2 apple

 

Morning Zinger

1/2 cabbage (green or purple)

1 orange

1/2 lemon

2 carrots

Thumb size of ginger

 

Muscle Refresher (*watermelon juice consumed before a workout has proven to reduce muscle soreness!)

2 cups of watermelon

1 apple

Thumb size of ginger

 

Green Goddess

1 cucumber

1 apple

6 leaves kale

1 cup spinach

2 celery stalks

Optional thumb size of ginger