Fit Friday

Topic Thursday

5 Healthy Late-Night Snacks

Having a small, planned snack in the evenings can actually help you sleep better. Choosing the right snack is key to satisfying your hunger without giving you sleep-disturbing indigestion or morning bloat and regret. Here are five favorite evening snacks.

Remember to munch on them mindfully (I suggest turning the TV off while you nosh) and consuming them at least an hour before bedtime to prevent any stomach issues.

• Dried Tart Cherries: Tart cherries contain melatonin, which is also known as the sleep-inducing hormone. Their sweet-tart flavor may satisfy your evening sweet tooth while giving you an antioxidant boost and possibly helping you catch some zzz's. Just make sure to measure your portion and keep it to about a quarter cup serving to avoid a calorie overload.
• Nuts: Nuts are a great snack any time of day because their combination of protein and healthy fat helps quell hunger while providing plenty of nutrients. They are great to have in the evening as well because they will satisfy the urge for a crunchy snack and you don't need to eat many to get that feel-full effect. Just a quarter cup serving will keep hunger at bay all night without leaving you with that stuffed feeling before bed or making you wake up bloated in the morning.
• Popcorn: Popcorn is a complex carb, so it contains serotonin, which is a hormone that helps you relax. It's a great snack to munch on in the evenings because you can have a lot of it (3 cups popped) for only 100 calories if you skip dousing it in butter. It's great if you want an evening snack that will last longer than a couple of seconds. Plus, the fiber in it will help satisfy your hunger and ward off cravings.
• Banana: If you get an evening craving for something sweet with a soft, creamy texture, you won't find a better bedtime snack than a banana. It's also a natural source of melatonin and it's a great snack for when you are feeling lazy because it doesn't require any work to prepare. As an added bonus, the potassium in the banana may prevent you from waking up during the night with sore, cramping muscles after an intense workout.
• Oatmeal: If you love the feeling of going to bed with a full belly without being too full, try a small bowl of oats. The stick-to-your-ribs power of its high-fiber content coupled with the relaxing and satisfying effect of the carbohydrates makes it a perfect evening snack. To kick up the flavor, add a drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

So whatever kind of snack you crave in the evenings- tart, chewy, crunchy, salty, sweet, creamy, or warm- there's a perfect option for you that won't keep you up all night or feeling guilty. Happy Snacking!

Wellness Wednesday

Sometimes you just gotta have that coffee...if you find yourself needing a little pick-me-up, here is a great list of lower calorie drinks from Starbucks.  Drink up!

Tasty Tuesday

Here is a great recipe for you or your kiddos and it will help to knock out a sweet tooth craving!

Frozen Nutty Banana Nibblers

Ingredients
5 medium ripe bananas
1 tbsp. all natural creamy peanut butter
2 oz. nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt
Directions

1. Peel one banana and mash it with the peanut butter and yogurt. Set aside.

2. Peel the other four bananas. Slice into half-inch thick slices. Smear the banana, peanut butter, and yogurt mixture on half the banana slices and top with the other halves, making banana sandwiches. Place on a wooden cutting board or a plate and freeze for at least two hours
   
   Makes four servings (about seven pieces per serving).
   

Miscellaneous Monday

Fit Friday

Here's a great Post-Thanksgiving Workout!!  It's time to work off that pumpkin pie!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Enjoy this day and give Thanks for all of your blessings!!!

Wellness Wednesday

This day before Thanksgiving, here is a great reminder to tell yourself!!

Tasty Tuesday

Here is a great subsitution for regular stuffing this Thanksgiving!  Give it a try!
Chicken Sausage Brown Rice Stuffing with Celery and Mushrooms

Skinnytaste.com
Servings: 14 • Size: about 3/4 cup • Calories: 106.9 • Fat: 3.2 g • Carbs: 16.4 • Fiber: 1.3 •
Protein: 3.6 g • Sugar: 1.0
Sodium: 220 mg (without salt)
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups brown rice
• 3 1/2 cups water
• 1 chicken bouillon (I used Knorr)
• 5 links raw sweet Italian chicken or turkey sausage
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 6 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 16 oz sliced fresh mushrooms
• salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste

Directions:

Cook brown rice in water and chicken bouillon according to package directions.

While the rice is cooking, in a large heavy saute pan cook chicken sausage on medium heat, breaking up the meat into small pieces as it cooks until the sausage is cooked through and is browned. Set aside on a dish.
Add olive oil to the pan and add the onion, sauté one minute, add the celery, salt and pepper to taste; cook about 12 minutes, until celery is soft.

Add the mushrooms to the pan, more salt and pepper if needed and cook, stirring 5 minutes, then cook covered for 2 minutes, or until the mushrooms have released their juice and are cooked through. Add the sausage and the cooked rice to the pan and mix well.
Makes 10 1/2 cups.

Motivation Monday

The time to start is now...no more excuses.  There will never be the 'perfect' time...you just need to make the time you have perfect!!

Fit Friday

Here is a fun lower body workout that you can do anywhere--my favorite as no equipment is needed!

Tasty Tuesday

With Thanksgiving next week, I thought I'd give you a couple recipe swaps to try this year to save on some calories and fat!  Even just swapping out one of these for the regular version will help!

Cinnamon Sweet Potatoes with Vanilla

 

Can't decide between mashed potatoes and candied yams? You don't have to. No, you don’t need both. This low-fat recipe, using a single tablespoon of butter, healthfully marries the two traditional thanksgiving dishes in what we think is a match made in tuber heaven.

 

3 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into approximately 3" chunks
1 C reduced-sodium chicken broth
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2/3 C fat-free milk
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Put potatoes and broth in large pot with tight-fitting lid and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook until potatoes are fork-tender, about 25 minutes.

2. Add cinnamon, milk, and butter.

3. Mash in food processor or with handheld masher until smooth. Add vanilla extract and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

TIPS: You can make these up to 5 days ahead, and they reheat beautifully. If they're a bit dry, just stir in water.

Makes 8 servings. Per serving: 125.1 calories, 1.7 g fat, 1 g sat fat, 24.9 g carbs, 8.8 g sugar, 3.4 g fiber, 3 g protein

Fast and Fancy Green Beans

Fast and Fancy Green BeansSkip the crunchy onion-topped calorie-laden casserole classic for this low-fat recipe that dresses the beans in olive oil and cider vinegar. Basil and almonds add unexpected flavor that will trick your taste buds into not missing the extra fat.

1 clove garlic, minced or crushed
2 tsp olive oil, divided
1/4 C water
24 oz petite (or regular) frozen green beans
20 lg fresh basil leaves, gently torn
1/3 C blanched slivered almonds, toasted
1 tsp cider vinegar

1. Put garlic and 1 teaspoon of the oil in large pot and cook over medium heat until just beginning to turn golden brown, about 2 minutes. 2.Add water and beans, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until heated through, about 10 minutes.
3. Place 1 cup of the beans in small food processor along with basil, almonds, and vinegar. Pulse until mixture is thoroughly chopped and sticks together. Stir in remaining 1 teaspoon oil.
4. Stir pureed mixture into remaining beans to coat. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
TIPS: Prepare the pesto-like pureed bean sauce up to 3 days ahead, if you like. Cook the rest of the beans and combine them with the sauce a couple of hours before serving. This lush veggie tastes as good at room temperature as warm—a boon when you're trying to get everything on the table at once.
Makes 8 servings. Per serving: 73.1 calories, 4.2 g fat, .4 g sat fat, 7.7 g carbs, .2 g sugar, 2.9 g fiber, 2.8 g protein

Layered Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ingredients

Cheesecake Filling:
2	(8 oz) packages 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1 cup	Low fat cottage cheese
3/4 cup	Egg beaters (or 1 egg and 4 egg whites)
1/2 cup + 2 tbs	Baking stevia OR 1 1/4 cup sweetener of choice that measures like sugar
1 tsp	Vanilla extract
1 cup	Pumpkin
1/2 tsp	Cinnamon
1/2 tsp	Pumpkin pie spice (more or less to taste)
Gingersnap Crust:
11/2 cup	Gingersnap cookies
2 tbs	Baking stevia OR 1/4 cup sweetener of choice that measures like sugar
3 tbs	Light butter

Method

The estimated time to make this recipe is 4 Hours or overnight.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9-inch springform pan with non-stick cooking spray. To make the crust, place cookies, sweetener, and melted butter in a food processor, and pulse until cookies are broken down into a very fine crumb. Press crust down into prepared springform pan. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes and remove from oven. Turn oven down to 325 degrees.

 

2. Meanwhile, to make the filling, place the first five ingredients into a blender, (the cream cheese, cottage cheese, eggs, sweetener, and vanilla extract). Blend until the mixture is smooth.

 

3. Pour a little more than half of the filling over the gingerbread crust. Pour the remaining cheesecake filling into a bowl, and mix in the pumpkin puree and spices. Carefully pour the pumpkin cheesecake filling over the first cheesecake filling layer. (I used a spatula to gently smooth out the filling out once I poured it over the first layer).

 

4. Bake cheesecake in preheated oven for 45-50 minutes. (Note: The center will almost be set, but it will appear a bit ‘jiggly’…Don’t worry, it will continue to set up in the fridge!) Allow cheesecake to cool at room temperature, then refrigerate for 4 hours, or overnight. Serve with whipped topping if desired! Enjoy!

 

Breakdown

12	Servings (slices)
185	Calories Per Serving
9 g	Fat
15 g	Carbohydrate
1 g	Fiber
6 g	Sugar
7 g	Protein

*All calories are per serving

Topic Thursday

Ahh...one of my favorite topics--DIET SODA.  If there was one item I was able to rid our stores from, it would be diet soda.  So many people are fooled by thinking that since it doesn't have any calories, it's okay for them...that couldn't be farther from the truth!!!  Health is NOT determined by calories (which is a topic for another day).  Look at this article for even more research on the damages of diet soda.

7 Side Effects of Drinking Diet Soda

Why you need a diet drink detox—stat!

Deceivingly "Diet"

Pop quiz! What’s the single biggest source of calories for Americans? White bread? Big Macs? Actually, try soda. The average American drinks about two cans of the stuff every day. “But I drink diet soda,” you say. “With no calories or sugar, it’s the perfect alternative for weight watchers…. Right?”

Not so fast. Before you pop the top off the caramel-colored bubbly, know this: guzzling diet soda comes with its own set of side effects that may harm your health—from kickstarting kidney problems to adding inches to your waistline.

Unfortunately, diet soda is more in vogue than ever. Kids consume the stuff at more than double the rate of last decade, according to research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Among adults, consumption has grown almost 25%.

But knowing these 7 side effects of drinking diet soda may help you kick the can for good.

Kidney Problems

Here’s something you didn’t know about your diet soda: It might be bad for your kidneys. In an 11-year-long Harvard Medical School study of more than 3,000 women, researchers found that diet cola is associated with a two-fold increased risk for kidney decline. Kidney function started declining when women drank more than two sodas a day. Even more interesting: Since kidney decline was not associated with sugar-sweetened sodas, researchers suspect that the diet sweeteners are responsible.

Messed-Up Metabolism

According to a 2008 University of Minnesota study of almost 10,000 adults, even just one diet soda a day is linked to a 34% higher risk of metabolic syndrome, the group of symptoms including belly fat and high cholesterol that puts you at risk for heart disease. Whether that link is attributed to an ingredient in diet soda or the drinkers’ eating habits is unclear. But is that one can really worth it?

Obesity

You read that right: Diet soda doesn’t help you lose weight after all. A University of Texas Health Science Center study found that the more diet sodas a person drank, the greater their risk of becoming overweight. Downing just two or more cans a day increased waistlines by 500%. Why? Artificial sweeteners can disrupt the body’s natural ability to regulate calorie intake based on the sweetness of foods, suggested an animal study from Purdue University. That means people who consume diet foods might be more likely to overeat, because your body is being tricked into thinking it’s eating sugar, and you crave more.

A Terrible Hangover

Your first bad decision was ordering that Vodka Diet—and you may make the next one sooner than you thought. Cocktails made with diet soda get you drunker, faster, according to a study out of the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Australia. That’s because sugar-free mixers allow liquor to enter your bloodstream much quicker than those with sugar, leaving you with a bigger buzz.

Cell Damage

Diet sodas contain something many regular sodas don’t: mold inhibitors. They go by the names sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate, and they’re in nearly all diet sodas. But many regular sodas, such as Coke and Pepsi, don’t contain this preservative.
That’s bad news for diet drinkers. "These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it - they knock it out altogether,” Peter Piper, a professor of molecular biology and biotechnology at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., told a British newspaper in 1999. The preservative has also been linked to hives, asthma, and other allergic conditions, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Since then, some companies have phased out sodium benzoate. Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi have replaced it with another preservative, potassium benzoate. Both sodium and potassium benzoate were classified by the Food Commission in the UK as mild irritants to the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes.

Rotting Teeth

With a pH of 3.2, diet soda is very acidic. (As a point of reference, the pH of battery acid is 1. Water is 7.) The acid is what readily dissolves enamel, and just because a soda is diet doesn’t make it acid-light. Adults who drink three or more sodas a day have worse dental health, says a University of Michigan analysis of dental checkup data. Soda drinkers had far greater decay, more missing teeth, and more fillings.

Reproductive Issues

Sometimes, the vessel for your beverage is just as harmful. Diet or not, soft drink cans are coated with the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA), which has been linked to everything from heart disease to obesity to reproductive problems. That’s a lot of risktaking for one can of pop

*Prevention Magazine

Wellness Wednesday

We could all use a diet 'clean-up' but many times we think we have to do all or nothing from the get-go.  So not true! In order to be successful you need to make small changes so it's not such a shock to your system.  Here is a mini-challenge...5 weeks for better eating.  See if you can do at least one of these weekly challenges!  What do you have to lose? 

Motivation Monday

Many of us have those days where you have to talk yourself in to exercise or talk ourselves out of skipping a workout.  On those days I do give in and skip, I always regret it and many times when we skip exercise, our eating habits take a turn for the worse as well.  I know that once I get started with my workout I will feel better and I will be so glad I did my workout.  Always remember the feeling you get after a workout...that way you can convince yourself not to skip when we have 'one of those days'.

Fit Friday

Here's a fun total body workout that you can do anywhere--NO equipment needed which = NO excuses!

Topic Thursday

Let's talk Veggies!  We all know we should eat them and we all could do a better job of getting more servings in per day.  But let's take a look at WHY our body needs them so much.  It's easy to say 'they're good for you' but below you'll get a closer look as to why they are. 

Wellness Wednesday

Often times we think that if we want to lose weight that we'll have to make drastic changes to everything we do.  In all actuality, if you start by making a few small changes, you will be well on your way.  So let's take a look at a few every day changes that you can make to get you closer to your goals!

Tasty Tuesday

Today let's talk spice mixes!  We like using them to add some flavor to our dishes but many of the store bought mixes have tons of sodium and some even have MSG...yuk!  You can make your own spice blends at home for a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the sodium, etc. 

Here are some recipes for Ranch, Taco Seasoning and Seasoned Salt.  You can use all 3 in a variety of ways!


Homemade Ranch Seasoning

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp dried parsley
• 1 tsp dried dill
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/2 tsp pepper

Directions

• Add each of the dried spices to a bowl and gently stir.
• Store in a resealable plastic baggie or small ball canning jar with tight fitting lid  in your spice cabinet.
• To make the ranch dressing, whisk together 1/3 cup light mayonaisse or plain greek yogurt with 1/4 cup milk (more or less depending on the consistency you want) with 1 Tbsp of the homemade ranch dressing seasoning mix.  Season with salt, to taste. Use immediately and can refrigerate for up to 3 days.
• Makes about 4 Tbsp worth of mix. Or use the ratios above and mix up however much you’ll need!

Homemade Taco Seasoning

Ingredients

• 1 part chili powder
• 1 part ground cumin
• 1 part garlic powder
• 1 part onion powder
• 1/4 – 1/2 part crushed red pepper

Directions

1. Mix all the spices together and store in an airtight container. I store mine in the freezer!
2. Use sparingly. Or liberally!

 

Seasoning Salt

 

Makes 3-1/2 cups

Ingredients

1/2 cup each...

• table salt

• ground black pepper

• onion powder

• garlic powder

1/4 cup each...

• chili powder

• paprika

• dried parsley

• crushed red pepper flakes

• cayenne powder

• ground cumin

Directions

Mix all spices in a medium bowl until well combined, or pulse a few times in an electric food processor.

Pour into an airtight jar, label with ingredients and store in a cool, dry place away from sunlight.

Stored properly, this spice will keep for up to three months and can be used in a variety of meat and vegetable dishes (steak, ground beef, chicken, pork, fish, potatoes, sauteed seasonal vegetables, etc.).

For a quick chicken/meat marinade, add 1 tbsp. seasoning salt to 3 tbsp. olive oil, stir and turn meat to coat evenly. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 day.

Enjoy!

 

 

Motivation Monday

Often times we get so wrapped up with illusions of what we 'should' be and forget about appreciating what and who we are.  Positive body image is so important!!  You need to know that your body doesn't define you.  Here are some steps to take for a more positive body image.

Fit Friday

Today on Fit Friday, we're gonna stretch-it-out.  Many people skip this important step after their workouts.  Stretching is imperative to reduce muslce soreness, help with your flexibility and it will make your workouts and day-to-day activities easier.  Here are some stretches that will target your main muscle groups.  Add these to  your routine today!

Topic Thursday

Today's Topic hits close to home for all of us, we all have them and wish we didn't sometimes...CRAVINGS...aghh!  Many times when we crave foods that aren't good for us, it's because our body is lacking some important nutrients.  Check out the table below to find out what your body is missing when you just gotta have some chocolate!!