We've Moved!

Hey ladies!  If you're wondering where I've been, well, it's a long story!  But, good news!  I've picked up where  I left off on a new blog: fitnessinreality.blogspot.com!

Learn about fitness for real, find workouts, tips, tricks, hints, and join a bunch of other women who are looking to live a fit and healthy life, all while dealing with reality.

Follow on Instagram @fitnessinreality for daily motivation, laughs, and workouts.

Promise you'll make the move?  Okay!  See you soon!

Good Morning Ladies....

Today is a new day and time for a new challenge.  Like many of us, I am a creature of habit.  I have a routine I stick to almost every day.  When my first baby was born I felt so out of control.  I was use to being on my own, making my own decisions and basically doing whatever whenever I wanted to do it.  So when my daughter was born my entire universe shifted.  The only way I knew how to make the stars align again was to form a schedule/routine. Eight years later our routine is pretty much the same.  

With all this in mind I began thinking how I haven't challenged myself lately.  Being a mother is a challenge, don't get me wrong, but I need to do something that scares me, something that gets me out of my comfort zone.  

So here is our challenge...try something new! 

Try something that will make the butterflies in your stomach dance.  Do something a little scary.  Do something on your bucket list.  Do something to push your limits to see what your made of.  Experiencing new things helps us grow.  It helps build our confidence and make us stronger.  Push yourselves ladies and let us know how it goes.

New Snack Ideas!

First Snack Idea:

I love Greek yogurt.  It's an acquired taste, has a chalky aftertaste.  I love it because it has so much protein.  However, if you buy the fruit flavored kind, you wipe out all that protein with sugar content.  Yay for protein, boo for simple carbs.

Here's a solution: Add low-fat or fat-free cottage cheese to it.  This boosts the protein content of this snack.

Try half a carton of fruit or vanilla (which has less carbs than the fruit kind) Greek yogurt and 1/4 cup cottage cheese.  Top with 1/2 cup sliced fruit, maybe some flax or chia seeds for crunch and added nutrition, and you've got a protein packed snack, with flavor, without so many processed sugar carbs.  Win!  I would suggest staying away from granola, unless you can keep it under 1/4 cup.  Store bought granola is packed with sugar.  Try making your own.  I'll put a granola recipe on my things-to-find-that-turn-out-well list.

I buy Kroger brand Greek yogurt and love it.  All flavors are delicious.

Another use for Greek yogurt is to sub it in for sour cream, whole milk, and mayonnaise in any situation.  It's a no brainer for less fat and more protein in any meal.

Second Snack Idea:

Lindsay inspired me to try this, when I saw her eating it last week.  Rice cake with avocado.  It was super delicious and filling, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I think I ate it for my snack for 4 days in a row.  Yum!  After that I got creative (which for me means trying one other topping) and put almond butter and strawberries on one.  Yum, again!  I saw this picture and thought it would inspire you to try one of these options.  Give it a shot.  Rice cakes are a low-calorie vehicle for delicious foods that make you feel full and satisfied instead of deprived.  Fill them with flavor and nutrients.

Rice Cake Ideas
Apple with raisins and coconut on fruit jam 
Strawberries and berries on greek yogurt sprinkled with Chia seeds
Broccoli and mozzarella on marianara (think healthy pizza)
Nuts and dried fruit on cottage cheese  (also black bean corn salsa or similar)
Pistachios and avocado (that needs waaaaayyyy more avocado)
Peanut butter, dark chocolate, and banana slices (when you're craving dessert. so always.)

Third Snack Idea:

Control your snack portions in small containers like this ice cube tray.  Satisfy your craving for certain tastes with a small, limited amount of a variety of tastes, textures & food groups.  Even throw one square of candy in there.  Brilliant!!  Set one up each  morning and limit yourself to it.  This alone would probably save me about 500 calories a day.  No joke.

Don't give up - summer is just around the corner!

Have a delicious & healthy week!!

A New Goal & Recipes

Hello ladies!  Happy Monday!  Have you worked out?  No?  Me neither.  I believe I'm going to start this day with a nap.  The Olympics took a lot out of me.  I'm a trained night owl, and I can function as such, but really I adore sleep, and 12 AM is too late for me on a regular basis.

Saturday I ran 3 miles.  I'll be honest; It hurt.  I came home and did the 5 Tibetans.  I really cannot spin any longer.  My poor old brain gets addled.  I did each move 21 times, or at least close to it.  All I can say is, I did it.  Maybe if I can memorize the moves and the sequence I won't have to open my eyes and break my concentration so much just to follow the video.  Perhaps then I will love the 5 Tibetans.  Perhaps not.

Then I did two 10 minute Tara Stiles yoga workouts from YouTube.  One was flexibility, and the other was hip flexibility.  It felt so great!  I love the faster pace and the fact that if there's music it's so subtle that it doesn't distract.  My new goal?  Doing the splits.  Seriously.  Awesome.  Check back in...a while.

I learned a long time ago that women carry their stress in their hips.  Not kidding.  So any type of move that loosens your hips (husbands are going to love that one) and stretches your core will help you feel less stressed.  It helped me Saturday; the change in my mood was almost immediate and my body felt so good the rest of the day.  This morning I can feel the tightness creeping back in.  I must loosen my hips more today. :)

And finally here are a couple recipes that I tried recently that turned out well, and I promised to post.

I've been looking for a healthy granola bar recipe for a while, one that doesn't turn into granola, all crumbly and dry, and I found one!

This is the link.  This is the recipe:

Soft and Chewy Granola Bars Recipe

 

 

Why we love this recipe. These granola bars are so much better than what you can by at the store, especially since you can substitute for your favorite dried fruit or nuts.

What you need to know. While these are very simple to make, there is a 2-hour wait for the bars to firm up enough to cut. Feel free to add your favorite dried fruit, nuts or chocolate to these – it’s completely up to you. Since we use a 1/3 cup of honey, we like to splurge on higher quality honey. 

Created By: Joanne and Adam Gallagher

Yield: 12

You Will Need

• 2 1/2 cups (230 grams) old fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 cup (80 grams) whole almonds, coarsely chopped
• 1/3 cup (113 grams) honey
• 1/4 cup (56 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1/4 cup (50 grams) packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup (60 grams) dried cranberries, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (67 grams) mini chocolate chips

Directions

Prepare Oven and Pan

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C). Line bottom and sides of a 8-inch or 9-inch square pan with aluminum foil. Then lightly oil or spray with cooking spray.

Toast Oats and Nuts

1. Add oats and almonds to a small baking sheet then bake 5 minutes, stir and bake another 3 to 5 minutes until lightly toasted. Transfer to a large bowl.

Prepare Granola Bars

1. Combine butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla extract and the salt in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally until butter melts and the sugar completely dissolves.
2. Pour butter mixture in to bowl with toasted oats and almonds. Mix well. Let cool about 5 minutes then add cranberries and a 1/4 cup of the mini chocolate chips. Stir to combine. (The chocolate chips will most likely melt a little. This is fine, they turn into glue and help to hold the bars together).

I free-formed this recipe.  My typical problem is that there is never enough moisture.  So I added a couple tablespoons of tahini paste (ground sesame seeds) or you could add the same amount of peanut or almond butter.  I added another tablespoon of butter, and threw in some raw quinoa, flax seed meal, chia seeds, and sunflower seeds, all these ingredients adding up to about 1/2 a cup total.  Thus the necessity of the added moisture.  

NOTE: LET THE BUTTER MIXTURE COOL OUT OF THE PAN FOR THE RECOMMENDED 5 MINUTES.  Being totally impatient and wanting a snack 10 minutes ago, I did not wait, and ended up with my chocolate bits being nearly totally melted.  Which wasn't totally bad because it is still chocolate and it was added glue, as the recipe states.  Obviously I did not read past "stir to combine".  But I would have liked some chunks of chocolate.

That being said, these were absolutely delicious!  They felt rough and chewy, sweet and salty, complex and satisfying all the way from smelling to being in my tummy.  I made them in a 9x9 pan and cut them into 25 1.5" cubes.  If you put them in a 9x13 you could make them more bar-shaped.  I was tickled with the cubes.  Delicious.

Second Recipe: Mashed potato waffles, from Joy the Baker.  Super delicious, moist and yummy.  I cut the butter out ('cause I'm crazy like that) and reduced the cheese melted on top to a few sparse shreds.  They were super fab.  Everyone enjoyed, and they were more vegetable than white flour.  I've seen and made variations using sweet potatoes (yams). These are delicious and orange so they have more vitamins, which makes them a better substitution.

Have an awesome day, and work in a workout in some way or another!!

Yoga: Core Flow & The 5 Tibetans

Hey Gals!

I saw an article today called 10 Ways to Refresh Your Relationship With Exercise.  We've discussed this a lot lately because I think we're all trying to create a habit of exercise and get out of the doldrums, mostly for our mental sanity.  I was intrigued by a link that is included in this article about The 5 Tibetan Rites.  What?  So, naturally, I followed the link and this is what I found:

The 5 Tibetan Rites are a form of yoga, not necessarily Tibetan, that focus on a continuous flowing sequence of movements, rather than the Indian style of holding static positions.  The moves are similar in both styles, while the breathing is opposite of Indian yoga.  While outlandish and unrealistic claims have been made of miraculous reverse aging and extraordinary healings (exactly the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo that makes us averse to kooky yogis) there are real benefits to this form of exercise, mainly increased energy, stress reduction, and an enhanced sense of calm, clarity of thought, increased strength and flexibility, resulting in an overall improvement in health and well-being.  Hmmm, sounds like the benefits of any & all exercise...

The link took me to a YouTube Channel by Jenny Harps that has a few videos about Tibetan-style yoga.  One thing I liked is that several of them are 20+ minutes long.  I love Tara Stiles Yoga the mostest but her videos are much too short for my liking.  Another thing I liked is that the routines are gentle and not overly complicated.  In addition I like that she is middle aged, healthy, and real looking.  What a relief.

Here is the link to her 5 Tibetans video. This one comes with the standard moves, then goes through a modified routine that enhances the 5 moves to make them more challenging and strengthening.

And here is a link to her Core Flow video.  I like how this engages and stretches your core, and is 25 minutes long.  I did find myself thinking "move faster" in the long and empty silences filled with her breathing into a microphone, but that's just me.  I solved this by following her advice and doing the moves more times than just 5, up to 21 times.  21? Random, I know.  Must be a magic number.

I have this vision of me getting up at 6 am, doing The 5 Tibetan Rites, scripture reading and praying, all before the girls wake up.  Seems like it might make for a really smiley & peaceful morning, with me all centered and everything.  Wouldn't that be something?

Oh, the new things we learn each day!

Balanced Diet & Dismantling eating "Raw"

As if we needed any more evidence to eat a well-balanced seasonal diet, I found this great article on Fiterazzi, about the Raw Diet, the 80-10-10 diet, and something called Ayruveda.  Find the article here.

This article, written by Sara Ketabi who is an avid Ayruvedic, discusses the concept of balance in our diets and the benefits of eating oils, proteins, fiber, and natural sugars together for the optimal digestive and nutrient absorption benefits.

She also discusses the dangers of eating so much raw food out of season and in such ridiculous quantities.  Some of them are: feeling cold, wak, forgetful, moody, anxious, instable.  Lack of whole grains can cause hair loss, digestive problems, illness, low blood sugar, & low blood pressure.  Eating all raw is not beneficial to everyone, and just like all things, what works for some may not work for you.

Ayruveda (an ancient medical treatise summarizing the Hindu art of healing and prolonging life) I'll admit, is a little out there for me.  It seems complicated and over-thought.  I do like the aspect of this system that tells us to listen to our bodies.  I don't totally subscribe to the belief that because I'm a certain Dosha (Pitta), I should eat less of foods that are "heating" like sour fruit, eggs, spicy foods, & onions. And chew fennel seeds after dinner to "cool my acids down".  Oh, and walk in the moonlight.  Uh-huh.  If you're mildly curious about your Dosha, take this quiz and see what it says.  It is interesting, informative, and  you may get a good chuckle out of it, which is also good for your health. (speaking of: Anyone watching Jimmy Fallon? I think I've added a good 5 years to my life from laughing the past two nights.  Hilarious.)

As we saw in the "Cake & Skinny Jeans" review, we should definitely listen to our bodies, and favor exercises, environments, & foods that we enjoy, lift our spirits, and get us moving.  Focusing on limiting or over-doing foods creates an imbalance that is hard to correct and feels miserable.

Anyway, I'd never heard of the 80-10-10 diet, but I had heard of the 80% Raw diet, which are the same thing.  I love fruit, and have often thought it's all I want to eat.  But I truly hate when my body is out of whack.  In fact, I just barely got it back into whack, and I'm doing my darndest to keep it there.

Feed your body, keep it happy, exercise to stay even-keeled.  Simple, right?

Becoming an Accidental Food Blogger

I think I'm morphing.  If you look at my pinterest page the majority of my pins are food, heavy on breakfast & dessert.  Help!  Before I know it I'll be posting pictures from my Nikon camera showing my pudgy hands cradling ingredients staged in colorful bowls with embroidered towels & flowers, writing about the 5th dish using 2 cups of cream I've made in a single week.  It seems like a happy & comfortable place to be...

But...in my searches, before I get derailed at dessert, I have been finding these amazingly delicious and healthy recipes. I've added links at the bottom of the blog in my "Nutrition Faves" to some of these.  The sheer volume of clean healthy food recipes is astounding.  I am relatively new to blogging & pinterest, so I'm sure this is not new information to most of you.  But I am super impressed at the lengths people, mostly women, go to to prepare healthy food for themselves, their families, and to share.  Women are ingenious and creative.  I love it.  I will share a few of my favorite recipes next post.

But alas, my kitchen is not blog-worthy.  My cupboards are a heaping unorganized disaster, and I have one scratched glass bowl in which I mix everything.  It also moonlights as my serving bowl.  And truly, I do not want pudgy hands.  Although it's gettin' close...

What I really want is this:

Or this:

Are you not totally impressed with the women Olympians?!  I get so inspired by their drive and determination!  I cry when they win, whoever it is, and just get so darn happy for them all.

I find myself wanting to have that drive and push, to see where my body can take me and test the limits of what my body is capable of.  I find myself focusing on healthy food, searching for healthy recipes, and wanting to work out.  Actually wanting to...crazy, I know.

Today I went cross country skiing, the kind you see in the picture above, just sans the gun.  I'm telling you this is the sport I'm most impressed with, obsessed with, and most want to do.  If I could live in any other country it would be Norway so I could ski as transportation.  It is all out, body screaming, heart pounding, sucking-wind fun in the snow!  The most aerobic sport in the Olympics.  

This is how they usually finish: 

This is what draws me in, this is what makes me excited, this is what I yearn to do.  To push until I can't push any more.  Thanks body, you can rest now.  Totally awesome!

I'm still obsessed with food.  Still oogling recipes and adding desserts to my pinterest page, still excited to make another delectable dessert or fun new flavor of pancake.

But in my heart & soul I'm an athlete, and I oogle as many healthy food recipes & clean eating food lists as the other kind; I still shop the perimeter of the grocery store, and I still instigate changes that will help me be more healthy.  I exercise to feel my my heart pounding and my lungs filling and my muscles straining.  To feel alive.  To feel challenged & happy.

And I ski like crazy during the Olympics, because as women we have the ability to inspire each other.  And it makes me feel that much closer to awesomeness.