Pre-Workout Energy

A big question for many people is "What do I eat before I workout"?  Each person is different...some people can barely stomach a sip of water before a workout and some people need a larger amount of food before a workout.  I fall into the latter category most of the time.

I have complied a list of pre-workout snacks and meals to fuel your workout.

One of my favorites is a slice of whole wheat toast with peanut butter and sliced banana. This is a great mix of simple and complex carbs that will release steady energy to your body during your workout. The bananas and the toast are easy to digest so you don't get that sick feeling.

If I only need a small snack before a workout, I will mix greek yogurt, walnuts, berries, honey, and a few chia seeds. The yogurt is easy on your digestive system while the chia seeds and and berries give you that nice steady energy. The nuts provide essential fats and keep your blood sugar levels steady while you train.

If I'm in a big hurry, I'll blend up a quick smoothie.  My favorite: spinach, berries, almond milk, a handful of uncooked oats, and a scoop of protein powder.  This typically isn't enough for a long, hard workout, but holds me through a shorter less intense training session.

A delicious treat before workout is a small sweet potato. I microwave it until soft and mix in a bit of almond butter and cinnamon.  It's almost like a sweet potato pie.  So good!

For a more savory pre-workout meal, I will make a quick egg white scramble.  Sometimes I add veggies and a tiny bit of cheese.  Other times I will add black beans, avocado, and salsa.  You really can't mess this up.  I'll have a piece of whole wheat toast with this to be sure I get enough carbs.  This meals gets me through the days I have a longer workout or heavier lifting.

Of course, you can't go wrong with the old standards like oatmeal, apple slices with almond butter,  sliced chicken breast with rice, or a turkey sandwich.  There are so many good combinations for pre-workout fuel.

A good rule of thumb is to remember that:
1) A pre-workout meal should be eaten about 2 hours before your workout.
2) A pre-workout snack can be eaten 30-60 minutes before you train.
3)You want a 5 to 1.6 gram carb to protein ratio.  That basically means eat a tiny bit more carbs than protein.
4) Hydrate

The carb thing is always controversial ...some people think that you should avoid carbs before a workout, but I think they are essential.  I'll be back soon with post-workout nutrition tips and a give away! 

Healthy Shopping at Costco

Many people are under the impression that you cannot buy healthy foods at Costco. While there are a lot of less healthy choices there, I buy a majority of my healthy foods there. This is what my list consists of on most trips.

*For the past two years we have bought half of an organic cow, so I only buy beef at Costco if we run out. During spring and summer I have a lot of spinach and mixed lettuce (which is super easy to grow) in my garden, so those are things I depend on Costco for in the winter.  If you do not have some of these items in your Costco, ask the manager. They may be able to stock it if there is enough requests. It's couldn't hurt to ask. Hope this list helps!

Be Stronger than your Cravings

Cravings. We all get them.  We get cravings for salty. We get cravings for sweet. I personally will crave chocolate, doughnuts, or Whataburger. I'm not hungry, I just want it and I want it now. Sometimes I will give in, but most of the time I have a plan to beat them. I am much stronger and smarter than that voice in my head that says "You worked hard today, you deserve it" or "You had a bad day, this will make you feel better".
If you are having cravings, but you know you are not hungry, try some of these things:

1) Drink water. I'm sure you have been told this before, but it's true. When your body is becoming dehydrated,  it will tell you it's hungry. It's lying! Try a full glass of water or green tea instead of that snack.

2) Get busy. I don't mean 'get busy' (wink wink). You can if you want, that's none of my business....but I mean distract yourself. Sometimes when you are bored, your body will say "I'm hungry".  Again, your body is sometimes a big liar!  Find something to distract yourself. The craving will pass.

3) Wait 20 minutes.  Cravings generally pass within 8 - 10 minutes. So while you are waiting, get busy ;)  The craving will pass.

4) Eat often. I mentioned in an earlier post that I eat 6-8 times a day. Just this morning my husband teased me about eating my second breakfast. Try to fill your body with proteins and good fats. Bananas, avocados, and almonds fill me up quickly and satisfy me.

5) Find alternatives.  I keep plenty of fruit and veggies in the house. I prepare them ahead of time so that they are easy to grab.  Sometimes, if I have a super busy week, I will buy the veggies and fruits that are already cut. I make a veggie dip out of Greek yogurt to dip my veggies in. That seems to satisfy my need for crunch and salt.  If I'm craving sweets,  I will have a cup of hot cocoa or I will slice a banana and top it with a tiny bit of chocolate syrup or melted almond butter.

6) Don't keep those foods in your house.  You better believe that if I had potato chips and ranch dip in my pantry, I would eat the whole thing....so I just don't buy it.

7) Don't always deny yourself.  Save your craving foods for a special treat for yourself.  My kids call them "sometimes foods".  If I really really want chips and dip, I will buy individual sized bags of chips. If I want ice cream, I will get the tiny containers of ice cream.  Moderation is the key my friends. If you deny yourself these things completely, then you are more likely to 'cheat'.

8) When a craving hits, brush your teeth,  When I get a craving and I know I'm not really hungry, I will brush my teeth. I will brush them, floss them, and waterpick.  After I have gone through all of that work, I don't want to get my mouth dirty by eating.

9) Get enough sleep.  When you are tired and your body is craving sleep and rest, it will try to trick you into eating.  If we don't get enough sleep, our cravings and appetite increase.  Your body is looking for a way to get more energy, so it makes a lot of sense that it would crave sugar and carbs to try to get that energy.

I hope these help you understand and fight some of your cravings.
Before I sign off, I really want to thank all of you for your great comments, emails, and FB messages. It means a lot to me that so many of you take the time to write about how some of these blog posts have helped you. That's EXACTLY why I started this blog....to help other women like me:) Love you all!

What's the Deal with Clean Eating???? (aka The Not So Secret Secret)

For the MOST part we eat clean at my house.  Note that I said :FOR THE MOST PART...so don't call me out when you see me stuffing a juicy burger in my face.  Ha! Yes, people have called me out when they have seen me eating, gasp, junk food!  Everything in moderation is what I say. Our day to day eating is pretty much 'clean eating', but we will celebrate too. I actually celebrated from Thanksgiving until January 3rd by filling my body with anything that was offered, many trips to Starbucks, and a nightly martini.  It was fun, but my belly, intestines, skin, and mood paid for it too.
What is clean eating????  I could be totally wrong, but I will tell you what it means to me:
     To me, clean eating is eating as close to nature as possible. Fresh fruits and veggies, fresh meats, non-processed foods, very little fats, and eating as much made from scratch as possible. If I cannot pronounce an ingredient, we try our best to avoid it.  This is not to say that we NEVER eat Blue Bell Ice Cream or Taco Cabana, just not regularly.  I do not use all organic foods either, but eat organically where we can afford it. Honestly, we cannot afford the $7.99 chicken at whole foods to feed 5 very hungry people, but we do the best we can. A huge part of this is growing vegetables in my small garden and eating what I am growing each season.
     Clean eating did not happen overnight for us.  It was a process that happened naturally and took place over a few years. It started simply with just trying to cook everything from scratch. Then it was baby steps: replacing white pasta with whole wheat pasta, switching from white potatoes to sweet potatoes or mashed cauliflower, adding almond milk slowly to our diet, making air popped popcorn instead microwaved, using olive and coconut oils for cooking, slowly eliminating sugar from my morning coffee.
   I started to get to a point where I was getting very frustrated. I did strength training, cardio, and yoga regularly and I was eating what I thought was a good diet, but I was not seeing any results. How irritating it was to work SO hard and not see any changes. How frustrating it was to run a race and have stomach cramps and no energy at the end. How disappointing to try to strength train, but never see any muscle tone. 
     I was ready to give up and just go back to our old way of eating, but instead I walked up to the intimidating, strong, and beautiful fitness competitors, elite athletes,  and fitness models at the gym and asked them for advice.So picture the awkward and dorky me walking up to these fitness goddesses "Uh...Um...I noticed you are in great shape and stuff...uh...so, what are you eating?" (insert a dork-tastic voice).   I heard the same thing over and over :

1) The way you eat is 80% related to your physical performance, endurance, and they way your body looks.
2) I was not eating enough!!! (Stunned silent at this one)
3) Eat more fats (what the????)
  I took what they said to heart and made some bigger changes. I cut out all alcohol. I cut out refined sugars. I replaced anything white (flour, rice, pasta, bread) with brown and whole. I added healthy fats in the forms of avocado, almonds, walnuts, olive oil, salmon,  and soy and almond milk.  (And NO...soy milk will not give your sons BOOBS). I started cooking most of our foods using recipes from Clean Eating Mag. I also ate more! I ate MUCH more!
     I did not change my workout routine, but friends starting commenting within weeks about how more lean and toned I looked. They kept asking me what my secret was and if I was taking fat burners (NO WAY WILL THOSE EVER ENTER MY BODY).  No secrets, just clean eating, no alcohol, and avoiding refined sugars and flours.  (Except, you know, the way I ate everything over the holidays). An added bonus was what clean eating has done for my kids. They are sleeping well, eating well, and doing better in school. I have seen a huge turn around in their attention spans and the teachers have even commented on the improvement.
   I'm not going to lie to you.  This is hard and takes discipline, but I think that making it a slow process and allowing myself some "bad foods" sometimes is what worked for me. 

This is how I started our clean eating journey: Before I shop I plan a 2 week menu using Clean Eating Magazine and make my list from there. When I come home from grocery shopping, I wash, chop, and prep all of my fruits and veggies. It is a lot of work, but it is so much easier just to be able to grab a handful of veggies and throw them into my eggs in the morning or throw some chopped fruit into my kids lunchboxes.

 Although I am a photographer  , you will probably see a lot of iPhone pics on here. I had to take this one from my Instagram account:

I have gotten requests to show what I eat in a day, so I will get to that in the next blog post.
Is there any interest in seeing an example of my menu and grocery list?

Until the next post, THANK YOU so much for all of the kind words and encouragement. YOU will all motivate me and keep me in check. I hope that in return, you can take away a little something from this blog.