This was shared by my dear friend, Amy, who did a complete 180 with her health once she committed to a healthy lifestyle. This couldn’t be more true. So before you convince yourself that there just isn’t enough time to eat right and workout, think about how bad you really want it. If you aren’t making an effort to make it happen you just don’t want it bad enough.
Butternut squash fries are delicious, nutritious and a great alternative to the white potato. They are slightly sweet, light and nutty.
All you need is a butternut squash, sharp knife, extra virgin olive oil and salt.
First you cut the squash in half and clean out the seeds. Remove the skin, which is pretty tough (it’s a great tricep workout). Cut into “fries”, obviously. For crispier fries cut smaller pieces, mine were fatter and softer. Drizzle and toss with extra virgin olive oil (not much or they will be soggy, about 1/2 a TBS) and add 4-5 pinches of salt.
Arrange on a baking sheet. Bake at 425 degrees for 20-25 minutes or to desired crispiness, flip them half way through baking.
Serving size- 1 cup
110-120 calories, 4-5 grams of fat (varies depending on how much evoo used).
Like I said, these are really tasty but take more time than I like for meal prep. I recommend making these on the weekend for a special meal. I suggest keeping meals as simple as possible during the week so it’s easy and effortless to keep your nutrition on track .
Spaghetti Squash with Meat Sauce
Ingredients:
1 Spaghetti Squash
1 lb of Lean Ground Turkey
1 Red Bell Pepper (chopped)
1 Green Bell Pepper (chopped)
1/4 Medium Red Onion (chopped)
1 Jar of low sugar or no sugar added pasta sauce
1 TBS Garlic Powder
2 TBS Italian Seasoning
1 TBS Ground Sage
Red Pepper Flakes (use your own discretion)
To cook squash:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Puncture Squash several times with a fork and place on a shallow pan.
Bake for one hour, let cool. Use a sharp knife and cut in half. Use a large spoon to remove seeds; Squash will already begin to separate into shaghetti like strands, so be gentle. Once seeds are removed, use a fork and scrape the inside from top to bottom separating creating spaghetti like strands.
For the meat sauce:
In a large skillet, combine ground turkey, peppers and onions. Add the spices and cook until turkey is browned and veggies are tender. Drain excess fat and water.
Place meat back in skillet and add pasta sauce. I generally add extra garlic powder, black pepper and red pepper flakes to the sauce, feel free to season to taste.
This will make four decent size portions ready to grab and go! I recommend eating it along with a side salad or mixed veggies. I hope you enjoy!! Let me know if you have any questions.
It’s Sunday, time to relax and prepare for a new week. Have you thought about what you will do to maintain your fitness this week? Get to the grocery, turn off the tv and get in the kitchen. Turn on some music and make food preparation fun and relaxing. You will sleep better tonight knowing your refrigerator is packed full of foods to keep you on track all week. I will be making spaghetti with pasta sauce and turkey sausage later. Stay tuned!
So, I have been racking my brain about the best way to utilize the power of “the blog”. I know that you all are very interested in quick take away tips, recipes and a sprinkle of motivation here and there. I definitely want to deliver these things, they are important. However, I also think that there is a stronger need to help open up minds and eyes to the permanent changes that need to be made in our everyday lives. To ensure that the fire that has been ignited doesn’t fizzle out when everyone finds something new and more interesting to focus on than the ramblings of a fitness freak with the poor execution of sharing actual recipes (I’m pretty sure most recipes rely heavily on actual measurements; something I have failed to master). I’m talking about sharing more hard hitting things that hopefully make you stop, think and become part the fitness journey as a whole, not just cooking up a few new healthy options here and there. My goal with this blog is not to share recipes and the best types of exercises; I will be honest and say that you can find that information on just about any end cap at your grocery store. No, what I really want to do is set the foundation for a permanent change for those of you who chose to follow along. A permanent change that will have you sitting up in front of your computer at midnight a year from now, spreading the exact same message to everyone you know because you have lived the journey and you can’t wait to share how great you feel as a consequence. I want to be the person logging on and learning new things from you; how you stay motivated, what foods and exercising are giving you results and making you feel better. I want to empower you to change your habits, use yourself as a guinea pig and share with everyone you know how it has changed your whole perspective on life, health and fitness. I am always living the journey, so do me a favor and just trust me when I say that if you commit to becoming a healthier version of yourself now, you will be the person I just described - and who doesn’t want to feel better, be more postive and help others all at the same time?
Groceries for the week. Roughly $100 and I’m guaranteed 6-7 days of clean eating. Proteins, fruits and vegetables are your friend…stock up.
I’m sure everyone has heard this plenty times before, but let me repeat it just for good measure….breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so don’t skip it. If you have a hard time getting up early enough to prepare a hearty breakfast like Grandma used to make, prepare it in advance to ensure that you are kick-starting your metabolism and setting the precedence for healthy eating all day.
Here is an example of one of my favorite breakfast delicacies. I call it my egg scramble. It’s a great way to get vegetables in your body first thing in the morning too!
Here it goes..
Ingredients: Measurements vary depending on how many portions you want to make. These amounts usually make 4 portions for me, but feel free to make your own variations.
1/2 each -Red Pepper & Green Pepper (I use a food processor to chop if finely)
1/4 Red onion (again, chopped in the food processor)
4 large handfuls of baby spinach
1 large carton of 100% liquid egg whites (you can use real eggs too, I prefer egg whites)
1/2 lb - Ground Turkey Sausage (or pre-made jimmy dean turkey sausage (4-6 patties/links)
Spices - (I like things spicy) - Chili Powder, Garlic Powder, Black Pepper, Cayenne Pepper. (I have never measured but I usually use generous amounts of each)
Step 1 - Lightly coat a large pan with extra virgin olive oil or Pam. Add peppers and onions.
I let them cook a couple of minutes and then add the baby spinach. (tear it into small pieces)
I add a light dust of each of my spices listed above. I let spinach cook down for a couple of minutes and then add the carton of egg whites.
Personally - I pretty much coat the top with chili powder, and then another decent dust of the other spices (just a few shakes of the cayenne though!) but use your own favorite hearty spices or amounts you see fit for your taste buds (this isn’t an exact science, sorry)
Once the eggs begin to solidify a bit I add the thawed turkey sausage (for this batch I used sausage links to save time)
Keep turning and scrambling so it cooks evenly!
And below is the final product! Delicious and nutritious. Total cook time is no more than 15-20 minutes once you have chopped your peppers and onions in the processor!If you want to be super “clean” be sure to use ground turkey or turkey sausage and not the pre-made Jimmy Dean kind. But I will admit I use the pre made quite often.
The last step, putting them in containers so they are easy to grab and go in the morning!! Trust me, you won’t miss the McDonald’s egg mcmuffin if you make this!
Please, I encourage you guys to try it and post comments, take pictures or send me messages for feedback!
Side note - this is not all I eat for breakfast. I eat until I am full, much like people would typically do at dinner time. That being said my breakfasts are huge. I also eat at least a serving of oatmeal and whatever else it might take to feel me up depending on the morning; but I will share that in a different post. You would be surprised how little you eat the rest of the day and how much energy you have using this reversed way of eating. So eat up!
Over the past year or so people have consistently approached me to ask how I “became so fit” or what I did to lose weight. When it first started happening I had to pause, look around and make sure they were talking to me. I wasn’t always “lean”, “fit”, “healthy”, “athletic”, or whatever term you choose to use. When you spend the majority of your life looking around comparing your body to others and pining over “those thin thighs”, it takes a long time to adjust to a new body. Anyway, after the shock that someone was asking for my advice went away, I was left racing through my thoughts trying to come up with the best, most insightful answers I could conjure up on the spot. It was a little overwhelming, but I loved it. I loved sharing my experiences. And I did. A lot. At every social gathering I was in the corner with someone asking me questions as I beamed with joy that I could actually offer some help and guidance. What I quickly realized is that explaining “how” I became a “fit person” wouldn’t help them at all if they didn’t understand “why” they needed help in the first place. I mean, you can’t fix something if you don’t know how it is broken in the first place, right? A mechanic can’t fix a car that won’t start without first knowing why it won’t start, right? Okay maybe that’s a bad analogy given the reputation of mechanics, but you get the point. So, what do I consistently find is broken when people asking me for fitness advice? One word. HABITS.
We all know what habits are and we all have bad ones in some respect or another. For most, they lie in the one area that keeps you from that svelte frame ladies pine over or that lean mean muscle machine body for men. You can probably tell where I am going with this; yes, admit it, your eating habits (gasp). Our daily consumption of food is built around habits. Everything from what time of day you’re hungry to the foods that you crave. Your body has been programed and your brain has been wired to respond, be it good or bad, to the types of foods you feed it daily.
Let me put it into perspective this way, I don’t remember putting on deodorant this morning, but when I smell my under my arms I know I did…why is that, because it’s a habit. I don’t even think about it when I do it. Happens like clockwork. For people fighting the bulge, chances are the same goes for their eating habits, they don’t even think about the foods in their diet because it is normal for them. Whether it’s the habit of going through the drive thru or snacking on “healthy” wheat thins at your desk all day, they are habits. The beautiful thing about habits is that they can be broken.
This is where the “how” comes in. People are so accustomed to their current way of doing things it is overwhelming to think about changing it. It seems almost impossible to do it any other way. But just like adapting to a new software program at work or class schedule for the semester, you adjust and adapt. Your current way of eating, your lifestyle, it didn’t happen by accident, it happened through repetition. So how do you reverse that? Well you make adjustment and you give your mind and body time to adapt. It may not be easy; it may not be fun at first. I won’t sugar-coat it and pretend it is. But guess what, it works. The problem is, most people give up before the chemicals in the body and brain have time to adapt (I don’t want to get too scientific here so just trust me on that). I’ll give you a quick, personal example. Once upon a time I said I would NEVER give up cream and sugar in my coffee; I’ve been drinking it black for the past two years and love it. Now, the taste of sweet coffee makes me cringe. So just let this be your mantra until these adaptations occur and your new habits are formed; I created the habits I have now, I can train my body to form new habits.
So pick one bad habit in your diet (and you know what they are) and either replace it with a good one (i.e. veggies and hummus instead of chips and dip), or try eliminating it altogether. Once you’ve successfully conquered one demon you’ll be surprised how easy it becomes to kill off the others.
The quicker you start making subtle changes in your habits, the quicker you are on the fast track to a healthier life. What will be the end result? Well instead of grabbing those fruit flavored candies for a snack, you grab an actual piece of fruit. Not because you cognitively know it’s the better choice, but because it’s a reflex…
I’m 26 years old and within my short time on this earth I have seen dramatic changes in our culture and learned lifestyles. I too remember when we only had a phone connected to the wall. I remember sitting on AOL chat at the age of 14 and being blown away by the capability of chatting with someone in real time. My sister wrote actual letters from summer camp. Things moved slower and not everything was at our fingertips like it is now (literally, right down to buying groceries with the click of a mouse). What has happened besides technology over this short span of 10-15 years? Convenience. We crave it. Even worse, we rely on it. To quote a great movie of our time, The Shawshank Redemption, “The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry”. If we can’t get if fast and now then we don’t want it, or worse we get pissed off about it. Why? For what? And the most important question, at what cost? Nope, convenience doesn’t come for free; you pay for it one way or another. These days we pay for it in pounds, and no I’m not referring to currency, I’m referring to pounds on your body. I’m referring to the fast food phenomenon of our time. The eat quick, eat cheap lifestyle we have been driven to believe is the only option for our busy lives.
By no fault of our own society has hammered into our skulls that faster and cheaper are better, working hard and long hours is what we are supposed to do, and time taken out of the day to actually take care of our health, well there just isn’t any because American Idol is on. As I sit here and think about all of the ways that we have been spoiled and brainwashed by our cultures marketing efforts I actually have to laugh that I, ironically enough, have a degree in marketing.
Where was I going with this again? Ah, yes, the dreadful reliance on convenience and what it has done to our way of eating. We are all so dependent on it that people look at me like I have an eyeball in the middle of my forehead when I tell them that every meal I eat (exceptions here and there) I have prepared for myself, at my home, with groceries that I took the time to go purchase. Is it always convenient? Well, to me it is because I know what it has done for me, but for the average fast food dependent person; hell no. Is it worth it? Absolutely. So I ask myself, is it possible to break this habit…is it possible to have a paradigm shift in the mind of the average American that food should not be one of the many conveniences we encounter in a day (as if cars, cell phones, the internet, and the plethora of tote-able gadgets that always keep us connected to the world and work aren’t enough). And to take that a step further, that our everyday food convenience, unlike new technology, is of no benefit to us internally. That it is actually poisoning us. I think it is, and it’s my goal to spread that message to anyone that will listen. To help wake people up and let them know there is another way, a better way, a healthier way to approach eating. If I’m lucky maybe something will stick with someone, somewhere…hopefully…
In its inception, convenience was supposed to improve our quality of life. We look around now and see the back lash; the aftermath of these once genius marketing ploys that drive you into the local Arby’s (probably literally if they could) for their new, bigger and tastier roast beef as America’s health declines. Is convenience worth it as we continue to be the laughing stock of the world with our bulging bellies and overuse of electrical carts in public? Is this perpetual cycle of shelling out money on medications as pharmaceutical companies get richer and we become fatter and more reliant on them convenient? Medicines that we have to take to try to get our bodies to regulate themselves the way they would naturally if we fueled (fyi -food is our fuel) them correctly…(that is a whole different post!). The point there is that it’s been proven that a healthier diet will allow people to stop taking medications, but for most people it’s just easier to pop a pill and wash it down with a coke and a Big Mac. Even worse, our society is OK with that! We have to change that.
One thing that I’ve learned is that convenience isn’t a factor when it comes to something that means something to you, something that is important. Shouldn’t your health and the way you feel be number one? We are bound to living in this convenience driven culture, but taking care of the one body that you have been given should never be a matter of convenience. So, take a look at your life, figure out what is keeping you from taking better care of yourself and start making some changes. If you need help in that department its okay to reach out for it, it’s actually imperative that you do. Just do something soon, because unlike everything else, your life isn’t going to conveniently change itself.
Using my own personal battles, experiences and lessons learned throughout my journey with fitness, I hope to offer motivation, insight, guidance, and tips and tricks to Living Life Fit. - Ashley Meadows
