Build Your Best Body - day 5

     I was lucky enough to have a special helper tonight. She is even helping me type this post. My sweet little momma, age 8, asked to help me cook today!!! We cut-up veggies to make several salads to last a few days. The salads had a nice mix of sliced carrots, a handful of sprouts, diced tomatoes, shredded kale, canned black beans, and spinach leaves. Nora helped rinse and separate the beans into the 3 salads. 

Now....let's just hope daddy does not go in there and eat all of our salads. 

           Here she is....learning how to use the juicer. She was being super careful. First we juiced the greens on HIGH and then all other veggies on the LOW(er) setting. Today's juice had a whole lemon, a piece of ginger, two apples (one red and one green), tons of medium carrots, a handful of kale, some dandelion, and a medium beet. Below are the veggies prior to juicing. 

Hey!! she even got to drink her own glass. She says, "It's sweet!". 

Build Your Best Body - day 4

Build Your Best Body - day 3

We make sure to have the fruit basket always filled with fun, easy to eat fruits. This idea actually came from my mom. When we go to visit her in New York, and all through our childhood, we've always have a FULL basket of fruit. Now we just adopt that idea and we too have a basket full of fruit on the dining room table....for snacks. 

Running tonight and taking a juice to drink with me right after my run, as a 'recovery drink'. This one has 10-15 carrots, a thumb of ginger, a bunch of dandelion, one lemon, two small apples, parsley, kale and one small beet.

And pouring out some yumminess to drink before running tonight.Now I am sitting here typing this and sipping away at my juice. 

I thought it was really cold out and layered with two pants... went back inside and changed into one pair.....but....once we drove to gymnastics it had started snowing. First snow of the season. The wind picked up and I got really chilly, so I drove back home to again, put on two pants. All this running around ate up my running time, so I ended only running 2.4 miles. A bit disappointing, but a few miles is better than none. Plus, tonight was absolutely gorgeous. Where we live is very dark and we could see every star in the night, with the exception of some fast moving clouds covering them here and there due to the extreme wind. I think I will get up in the morning and do two more. It's Zumba day tomorrow, so I don't want to be too much in pain....but two easy miles might not be that bad.

Build Your Best Body- day 2

I am packing my lunch for today. I have a juice I made yesterday. Also I have a green salad, three mangoes, one tangerine, one avocado a hearty veggy salad and a fruit salad. This  pretty much held me all day. I ate the last 2 avocados when I got home at 4pm, and boy are they filling. 

Dinner was two sautéed carrots, 1 head of garlic chopped, 1 small chopped onion, two small chopped zucchinis, and 1 celery stalk, chopped. I sauteed the garlic and onions separate so I could really get them crispy, added a great flavor to the other, less-cooked veggies. 

Made juice from 15-19 small carrots, 1/4 of a cabbage, 1 lemon, 4-6 kale leaves, a bunch of dandelion, 4 celery stalks, and half a beet. I split this with my husband who also makes and drinks juice daily. 

It's a delicious drink....a bit bitter from the lemon, but also sweet from both the apples and the carrots. 

Prepared my salads for the next three days...if my family does not get to them first. One of the nice side affects from doing this is that one of my kids now likes eating salad. My 11 year old saw my salads in the fridge and asked if he could have one. Of course....!!! you mean I don't have to twist your arm to make you eat veggies?? 

My friend Jenna came over to do some yoga this evening... I've got some work to do... :(

Build you best body - day 1

I went in a 5.5 mile run and a one mile walk the morning.....came home and had 

Breakfast. Breakfast was coffee with soy no sugar, yes, I am STILL drinking coffee. I also had 2 mangoes, 2 tangerines and one huge glass of juice. The juice was made with about 15 carrots, 1 thumb-sized ginger, a handful of parsley, 1 cucumber, 1 apple, 5-6 celery stalks, and 1 lemon. Tasted delicious. 

During lunch I used the little energy I had left to cut up a ton of 

veggies and fruit for the week. I ended up eating 2 more mangoes to satisfy my growing hunger. From what you can see below, I made hearty veggie salads, some green salads and some fruit salads. * The Hearty salads had broccoli, carrot, celery. 

* The green salads had mushrooms, tomatoes, shredded kale, spinach and green peppers. 

* The fruit salads had cubes apples, blueberries, a little lemon juice squeezed on top, about 2-3 shredded mint leaves 

At around 5 pm I was famished again. I sautéed veggies in a pan. I used 1 ENTIRE head of garlic, 2 tbsps. olive oil, one onion cubed, half a green pepper sliced,1lbs sliced mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste and a 1/2 tsp of soy sauce. This was totally delicious!!

Made another juice bomb. This time I used 12-15 small carrots, giant handful of dandelion, thumb-sized ginger, one lemon, 2 apples, 5 celery stalks, 1 bok choi bunch and 1/2 large beet. Believe it or not I could not eat any more. I was satiated, so the juice I will have tomorrow. I made double this amount. My bunny gets to have the other half. 

My latest obsession....fruit and fruit smoothies

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Getting ready for my daily morning juicing routine - celebrating 1 year of daily juicing this June ....this year 35lbs lighter....

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Nora starts helping with nightly cooking

One of my New Years resolution is to cook healthy meals every night and so far its been great. It sounds like a lot of work at first, but I love cooking and I make enough for tomorrow's work lunch, so in the end it saves me time and loads of money. When Luke was 3 years old he was already cutting zucchini, peppers, and garlic like a pro using a butter knife. Here Nora wanted to help out and had a blast slicing an entire head of garlic. I peeled them and gave her a butter knife. I just love how focused she is in these pictures....but what I most love are her little hands and how careful she's being.

Soup Diet....AN UPDATE

Okay, so it's been a week since I started my conviction to make and have 3 servings of soup a day.  I've had a hard time trying to make each recipe very different than the last so as to not get boring. But I have a few very positive changes I've noticed. 

1. I have so much energy. I am naturally very energetic, but man am I flying lately.

2. I am not needing coffee. I usually go through a caffeine "need" at around 2pm every day.  I have not even thought about it. 

3. When sleeping, my arm had been falling asleep for over a year, even during times when I would not be laying on it. I have not had that happen AT ALL this whole week. I have slept like a baby all week. It could be that because the soups are so filling that it allowed me to cut down or stop eating bloating foods such as pasta and bread. 

4. My face looks less bloated. You would not notice...but I can tell. 

5. I am less hungry for sweets or other bad foods. I just feel a normal sense of satisfaction....

so, where from here....?

I will continue to make my soups daily, freeze them for later and think about how we are what we eat....I do not want to be junk.....I deserve better. 

Today I made a soup with split peas, potatoes, yam and cauliflower and then blended the whole thing. It was absolutely delicious.....I froze 1-person servings and drank one serving for lunch. Now what can I do next?  Any ideas?

My Shift in Food Thought......Soup to the rescue!

The soup craze began when I started to get a little sick, was again addicted to coffee or fearing the dreaded "coffee headache" and was not able to wear my favorite ring. I realized then I needed to start taking care of myself more. I've always been more instinctual when trying to figure out what is right for my health. You will never catch me memorizing, and following to the letter someone else's idea of how to be healthy. I think ultimately it's trust thing. I do not trust others more than myself in terms of what is good for ME. 

Now I've never been that unhealthy to begin with. I don't drink soda ever, I grill, I rarely eat meat, I don't ever drink juice of any kind unless it's pressed or juiced from a juicer, etc, etc. To me the issue has always been nervous eating. With all the natural chaos that a normal day with two kids brings, comes a lot of high-pressure moments. Food has somehow provided a sense of relaxation. My goal is to totally stop associating with food emotionally in any way. For example, celebrations do not need to always be associated with foods.  I'm slowly learning that "good times" can be surrounded by other celebratory items. Hugs, paying attention to what one is saying, playing with kids, focusing on just BEING with family, dancing, taking pictures.

So out of all this I decide to make soup. I was searching online and there are easily millions of recipes just for low-fat vegetable soups. You have a whole spectrum from hot, cold, red, creamy, heavy, light, chunky...and the list goes on. I then thought, what would happen if I just ate soup for a while just to clean out my system? I love soup and from the looks of the recipes, are super-easy to make. So for 2 days now I've had amazing mixed vegetable soups for breakfast, lunch and dinner with an assortment of beans and I immediately felt better, have not needed coffee, and now feel full of energy! I do eat other things in between by the way. One day I made thick banana-milk shake in between, but I just make sure 70% of my intake was soup. 

Now, amazingly, I do not have to think about food for it's incredibly filling and because most of it is frozen I just need to defrost. Also, you don't get bored because I made all sort of flavors. One has potatoes, hominy and cabbage and another might be less dense and have assorted beans, onions and kale. Amazingly, when I get a craving I just defrost and eat or make a tea, decaf coffee, or a decaf earl grey. The great things are that it's super healthy, absolutely yummy, filling and never boring. 

Would love to know any healthy diet changes you have made...have a great day!!