Your "Ah-Ha Moment" Starter Kit

       If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that you cannot force anyone to eat healthy and get in shape. You can preach clean eating and exercise to a person until you are blue in the face, but if they are not ready to hear it, you will be wasting your breath. In fact, unless a person is receptive to the concept, they may actually resent any person suggesting to them how to live healthier. People feel judged and I don't blame them. One's health is a very personal thing.


       For a long time, I felt the same way, judged and annoyed by people who appeared to be health "nuts". My own insecurities made me feel they were snobbish if they offered me any advice. Comparing myself to someone who was in shape made me judge myself too. It's just not fun being around people who are in shape when you are not. 


       It went on this way for a long time. I pushed away people trying to help me and became discouraged with myself. If I did not have the body I wanted, I felt I must be lazy or unmotivated. I thought maybe it was bad genes or bad luck. Either way, I blamed myself for being overweight and unhealthy. This self loathing kept me in a repeating pattern of trying and failing, trying and failing.


       Then I had my "Ah-ha moment". Ok, I think Oprah has the trademark on this phrase but she certainly didn't invent it. It is that moment when the proverbial clouds part and a moment of clarity comes that leads to a profound, and often life-changing, realization. My "Ah-ha moment" came while reading, "Your Best Body Now", by Tosca Reno. I realized being out of shape was NOT my fault. After all, no one taught me how to eat healthy (not my parents' fault, no one taught them either), the grocery stores are 90% filled with unhealthy foods, we are surrounded by effective marketing for unhealthy foods, and down-right deceptive labeling ploys by food companies trying to fool us into buying their unhealthy foods with words like "all- natural", "reduced- fat", etc, and the endless informercials selling us the fitness gimmick of the week (that don't work). 


       Realizing that being generally unhealthy was not my fault was extremely empowering. Once I stopped judging myself I felt liberated. This realization helped me ask for help and accept it gratefully when offered. No one could judge me anymore because I couldn't take it personally anymore... to me, we were all screwed up :). I also don't like being a victim, which is how it feels when you are not in control of what is hurting you. Not wanting to be a victim of poor health was a big motivator, among many, for me. 


       I hope that you are reading my blog because you have had, or are looking for, your "Ah-ha moment" when it comes to your health. Whether you have or have not, I hope at some point you will be asking yourself, "So where do I begin now that I have had my life changing realization?". 


These are my recommendations for a healthy living "Ah-ha Moment" starter kit:


- "Your Best Body Now", by Tosca Reno (available at Barnes and Noble on-line or Amazon.com)


- a subscription to "Oxygen Magazine" ( www.oxygenmag.com )


- a subscription to "Clean Eating Magazine" (www.cleaneatingmag.com )


- three sets of dumb bells (light, medium, and heavier weight)


- pair of sneakers



"Your Best Body Now" is a great read and roadmap for the average person looking to be healthy. Reno provides a lot of great information for the lay-person on how to eat healthy and exercise at any age (no gimmicks here). The two magazines are to provide you with further clean eating and fitness information on a monthly basis to keep you motivated and trying new things throughout the year. Oxygen provides fitness routines and healthy meal ideas and Clean Eating is all about,well, eating clean including recipes and meal plans. The weights and sneakers you'll need for exercising :)


I wish you well on your health quest. I'd love to hear if you have other "starter kit" recommendations :)

I’m not perfect…I’m just trying to figure out this whole health thing, just like you. Thanks for letting me share my experiences with you J   

Please consult your doctor before beginning or changing your diet and exercise regimen.

Turn your Rut into Results!

       Every now and then we hit a wall in our quest to be healthy. It happens. It actually happens a lot which is why a lot of people give up or ride the never ending roller coaster of weight on, weight off. It also happens to EVERYONE. Even the fitness models that cover the likes of "Oxygen" and "Women's Health" magazines have those days, weeks, or months when their motivation is shot and the fall into a "rut". It happens to everyone and for a lot of reasons. Here are a few and how you can combat them.


       You may be feeling unmotivated because you have stopped seeing the rapid results you saw when you first started working out and eating clean. When you first begin to eat clean and exercise you deliver the biggest wake up call to your body and it responds by rapidly trying to adapt to keep up with you. This is especially true if you went from being completely sedentary to active, or from fast food and soda to clean eating and water. It's awesome watching this huge transformation, pounds melt away and muscles develop, energy increases, and self-confidence rises. Big results keeps us excited about our quest and keeps us focused on our goal. When you don't see huge changes in your body anymore it's easy to get discouraged, but also easy to fix and find your motivation again. 


       You may not be getting big results anymore simply because your body is bored. If you haven't changed your routine in a while, your body also will not change. You see, your body only changes (adapts) when you push it beyond what it's used to. Try this:
              -Replace the exercises you do with new ones. I like the book I reviewed earlier in my blog, "The Women's Health Big Book of Exercises" to help me find different ways to work body parts. As an example, for four weeks I might use the same basic three exercises to work out my triceps. After four weeks I open my book and find three different ways to work out my triceps and do those for the next four weeks, and so on. 
              -Try increasing the weight you lift. 
              - Take a break from weight lifting all together and try taking some exercise classes (Zumba, spinning). Get some fun exercise DVD's (how about one of those DVD's that work you out while you learn latin dances? I have one, I tried it, I had a lot of fun, but won't be doing it in public anytime soon, lol). 
              - If you are a person that primarily does cardio, add weight training. If you primary do weight training, add more cardio. 
              - In some cases, you may be over-training. Take a week off but make sure you start again the next week.
              - evaluate your diet. There may be a vice you have had a hard time giving up that might tip the scales in your favor again. I personally struggle with my love of red wine. I don't know if I will ever give it up completely (yes I do, I won't). However, I know that when I want to kick a few pounds and see some new results, it's as easy as avoiding red wine for a while. 


       Everyone faces challenges in our personal lives that just deflate us. Maybe you've experienced a loss or are down because someone you love is hurting. I can tell you, having experienced this recently, that it is hard to focus on fitness when you'd rather curl up in a ball. I think the most important thing to do at times like this is just get your self through "the door". I mean literally walk (or crawl) through the door into your workout space. I think you will find that once you get in the gym, and start moving a bit, you will feel a little better and will have some success. It's important to keep those appointments you made with yourself to workout. The more workout appointments you miss, the harder it is to get back into a routine. You may not have your best workout when you feel this way but you will have done something. Sometimes I use what's bothering me as motivation in my work outs.... kinda like "Rocky" lol...


       Then there is the dreaded injury that might be zapping your motivation or discouraging you. I have had some problems here, as many have. I got banged up from time to time in my old profession and many times found myself unable to workout the way I had been. Talk to your doctor and find out what you can do safely and do it. If you hurt your upper body, maybe you can still work out your lower body or visa versa. Just try to keep doing what you CAN do to keep yourself going in the right direction. You will feel better if you don't allow yourself to give up completely. Give your injured part adequate time to heal so your recovery isn't any longer than it needs to be, but keep doing what you can safely do. Find the silver lining... maybe the cast on your leg is a good excuse to work on the biceps you always wanted. Maybe an injury means you can't work out at all. This may be a good time to research new clean eating recipes or take a few healthy cooking classes, or read my blog :). There is usually some way you can stay on track. 


        Sometimes we just get bored or lose interest in being healthy for reasons we can't put our fingers on. Many people have a love/hate relationship with healthy living (especially exercise) so it makes sense that the way to get out of a healthy living rut might be the same as getting out of a romantic rut...you gotta spice things up! Making things new and exciting again always rekindles our motivation. Find new fun ways to exercise. Maybe take on a new sport, try outdoor activities, get a workout partner, change gyms, get some new workout gear, take some healthy cooking classes, attend a seminar, or try a health spa retreat. The important thing is to give yourself variety :) 


Maybe you have ways of dealing with your healthy living ruts. I'd love to hear them!

I’m not perfect…I’m just trying to figure out this whole health thing, just like you. Thanks for letting me share my experiences with you J   

Please consult your doctor before beginning or changing your diet and exercise regimen.

Simple and Clean Individual Turkey Meat Loaves

My two favorite words when it comes to cooking are "simple" and "clean". I like "cheap" too, so this has the best of all three. The kids also enjoy having their own individual meat loafs. They cook a little quicker this way too. "Quick" is yet another favorite cooking word :) I usually make more than I need for dinner so I can pack lunches for the week too (this recipe is only for 4). My kids still like to dunk meatloaf in ketchup, so I buy the organic stuff. Compliment this main course with your favorite steamed veggie and enjoy :)

Simple and Clean Individual Turkey Meat Loaves

1 1/3 lb ground lean turkey (1 package)

1/2 small yellow bell pepper, chopped

3 chopped scallions

1/2 cup 100 % whole wheat breadcrumbs

1 egg and 1 egg white beaten

1 TBSP extra virgin olive oil

First: preheat Oven to 425 degrees F

Second: put turkey in a medium sized mixing bowl and make a well in the center of the meat. 

Third: add bell pepper, scallions, breadcrumbs, and eggs to the well and mix with the meat until combined. 

Forth: Shape mixture into 4 even oval shaped loaves and place in rectangular glass baking dish (spray or coat dish with olive oil first). drizzle olive oil lightly over top of meat loaves. 

Fifth: Roast the loaves for about 20 minutes or until cooked through

tips:                    -if your kids won't eat scallions, trying pureeing an onion for flavor instead.

                          -Remember to use only 100 % whole wheat bread crumbs (sans high fructose corn syrup). If you can't find it try making your own breadcrumbs from 100% whole wheat bread (sans high fructose corn syrup).

                           - Ground chicken doesn't seem to work as well as turkey.

I’m not perfect…I’m just trying to figure out this whole health thing, just like you. Thanks for letting me share my experiences with you J   

Please consult your doctor before beginning or changing your diet and exercise regimen.

Take your Healthy Living "To the House" :)

Living healthy can mean having to adjust just about every aspect of our lives. We have to consider if we are making the healthy choice in our diet, our activity levels, and how we manage  the toxins in our lives. Up to this point on my blog, I have written about staying healthy through clean eating and exercise. By living this way we are avoiding toxins in our foods and turning our bodies into the efficient and "able" machines they were designed to be. Now I’d like to talk about the third sister of the “getting healthy family”, reducing environmental toxins.

Unfortunately we live in a world that is so full of toxins, it would be impossible to rid ourselves of them all. Toxins are in our food, in our water, in our air and in our bodies too. I know people that have gone crazy just trying to eliminate all of it. It can’t be done. All we can do is reduce the toxins we are exposed to in order to be as healthy as we can be.

The toxins I am primarily writing about today are the ones we don’t always think about because they are a part of our day to day lives. They are the organic chemicals found throughout our homes in common household products like cleaners, glues, paint, fertilizer, pesticides, cosmetics, and other beauty products, just to name a few. I want to focus on these because they are surrounding us where we should feel safest, in our homes. According to the EPA the air pollution in our homes is 2 to 5 times greater than the air pollution outdoors, due primarily to these organic chemicals...so much for your refuge and sanctuary from all things bad :( .

What effect are these toxins having on our health? According to the EPA, some of these toxins can cause damage to the liver, kidney, and central nervous system, while others are just strong irritants. They affect your immune system and your metabolism. Some of these organic chemicals have been known to cause cancer in humans as well. As if all this wasn’t bad enough, these chemicals wreak havoc on our environment.

The good news is that we can control what toxins come into and are used in our homes. It’s as simple as replacing these toxic chemicals with “green” products. Luckily, these are becoming popular so you likely know what they are. Green products are naturally derived, non-toxic, and are environmentally friendly. Feeling the pressure from people like us, many of the bad chemical companies are also now producing green cleaners, such “Green Works” , by Chlorox.

Like with food, we should be reading the labels of the things we bring into our homes. Just because something is labeled “natural” or “green” doesn’t mean we should always take it on face value. Thanks to the internet, it is very easy to “Google” the ingredients on any label to see how safe they are. I am constantly surprised by the misleading labels I find on products. Sometimes marketing companies use words like “natural” to make their products seem healthy, when they, in fact, are not.

Some say these “green” cleaners don’t clean as easily as the chemicals we are used to. I think that in a lot of ways it is our need for things to be easier that is hurting us the most. It seems sometimes that we are trading convenience for health in our cleaners, food, and just about everything else. However, I have to say I have been using green cleaners for a while now and they work as well, and in some cases, better than the chemical stuff. Even if you have to use a little more “elbow grease”, what’s wrong with a little more exercise? I’ll trade the exercise for gagging on chemicals any day!

I do like finding ways to clean up, and do other things, around the house the green way. I haven't mastered it yet. I have discovered some cool DIY cleaners that are just as effective (and sometimes cheaper) than the store bought stuff. I love using a mixture of 3 parts distilled white vinegar (super cheap) to 1 part Seventh Generation dish soap for cleaning countertops, my showers, and toilets too. You’d be surprised how sparkly all my surfaces get! Just mix it in a spray bottle and clean. I know that some people add baking soda instead of dish soap and some substitute lemon juice for the vinegar. Either way, this solution is a very effective and green cleaner. Distilled white vinegar is great for mirrors all by itself in a spray bottle (probably the best streak free clean I’ve ever seen).

There are green ways to replace your fertilizer too. Ever grow herbs or lettuce that just wasn’t up to snuff?  Maybe it was too wilted for you to want to eat or a bunny got a bit greedy in your patch? Take those herbs (assuming you haven’t used chemicals on them) and put them in a bucket of water. Let them steep for a day or two. Strain the leaves out of the water and put this water (essentially tea) you made into a spray bottle. Spray directly onto the soil at the base of your plants.

How about a green alternative to bug repellant? Just mix the following in a spray bottle: 3 ounces witch hazel, ½ teaspoon lemongrass oil, ½ teaspoon eucalyptus oil, and ½ teaspoon citronella oil. Shake well before application.

Just remember, when you concoct something and put it in a bottle, make sure you mark the bottle with what is in it to avoid confusion J

With a simple key-word search, you can find many more DIY green solutions on the internet. Do you have any favorites you’d like to share? I’d love to hear from you!

I’m not perfect…I’m just trying to figure out this whole health thing, just like you. Thanks for letting me share my experiences with you J   

Please consult your doctor before beginning or changing your diet and exercise regimen.

-        http://www.epa.gov/iaq/voc.html

-        Country Living Magazine, May 2012