Preparing for success

The #1 excuse I hear from people who veer off their initial nutritious path is I don't have time to eat healthy.

I agree with you that it takes about 3 minutes from the time you place your order, pay and pick up your food from you local burger hut and you have a meal ready to devour and you put forth little effort.

So very tempting!  I won't get in to all the disgusting ingredients found in most of those places but I will tell you how to save money and time.

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, it is the day most of us enjoy a big meal and relax.  I view Sunday just like it is on the calendar- the beginning of the week.  I thaw my bag of frozen chicken breasts ($6.99 on average).  Mid afternoon I begin to grab my aluminum foil sheets from SAM'S (often seen at the salon... they're the perfect size!).  I trim my chicken breasts of fat, and cut them a little bigger than the size of a cassette tape- or a deck of cards for you young ones!

I grab a sandwich size tupperware, flip it over and fold my aluminum foil sheet over it to mold your "baking basket".  You can drizzle the aluminum foil with some Extra Virgin Olive Oil for some added omegas or you can bake it dry.

As far as flavor- I have a whole drawer of Mrs. Dash spices.  They're salt-free and there is a wide selection. I grab my 13x9 baking dish, I place two 4oz servings of chicken into the aluminum foil basket and sprinkle both sides of the chicken with 1 flavor seasoning.  I do this and usually end up with about 6-8 baskets, which is sometimes a tight squeeze in my dish.  I love the fiesta lime seasoning so sometimes I do 2 baskets in that.  Bake at 350* for 40 minutes.

Each 4 oz serving costs you about 58 cents, packs approx 130 usable calories and 22g of protein. For this meal, I would add 1/3c of drained black beans for 100 calories, 6g protein and 5g of fiber and a small green salad with a vinaigrette dressing like Newman's Own light balsamic (45 calories/2 tablespoons) and you have a healthy light lunch your body will convert to fuel instead of fat and you prepared it all in one day!

I have 8  sandwich size toss 'n go containers that I just store my meal in but if you're like my sister who is in her 40's and still gets refuses to eat food if it touches other food, there are also some with compartments.  You can also get some cheap storage solutions like this at the dollar store, just be aware of any BPA coating.  (Both Johnson & Johnson and Glad are PVC/BPA free products.)

Your mom was right….

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. 
It is a common misconception that in order to lose weight skipping meals will help speed the process.  Absolutely FALSE!
You know when you’re running low on something like toilet paper you start to conserve and use less at a time?  Your body does the same thing.  It realizes that it is getting little to no food so it begins to go into starvation mode.  Your body wants to hang on to as much food as possible because it doesn’t know when it will be supplied nourishment again.  In turn it burns less calories.   
Do you realize that when you eat, all these internal systems gear up to chew, swallow, digest, absorb and distribute your food.  The trick is to eat small meals multiple times a day.  By small I am not talking a $1 sausage biscuit which has about 300 calories.  Yes, that is small  in size but its like fixing your Ferrari with duct tape. Most of the ingredients aren’t usable fuel so your body will store most of it as fat, send the rest to waste and then be hungry again.   
Best breakfast foods:

• Eggs
  Whole eggs, egg whites or a mixture of both. By only using the whites you’re not eating as much cholesterol (both good 7 bad) but you miss out on some extra B12 vitamins. I can’t handle plain egg whites.  I do 1 whole egg and 1 egg white, if I decide to do 2 egg whites I place a 1/4 of a slice of cheese which equates to about 20 calories. 
• Old fashioned oats
  Fix 1/4 cup with milk or sweetened almond milk just like you would the packaged stuff.  This container lasts a lot longer and you can (sparingly) throw in some extras like nuts, brown sugar, honey, almond butter, natural peanut butter.
• 100% Whole Wheat English Muffin
  I usually toast 1/2 of one and spray some 0 calorie Parkay butter on it.  Other times I’ll use that half, put my 2 egg whites and cheese on it.
• Yogurt
  Greek yogurt has a weird texture but it also packs more protein than regular yogurt.  Look for something with minimal calories with low sugar.  A lot of times I will get the original greek yogurt (that also doubles as a sour cream substitute) but I add a tablespoon of chocolate protein powder and mix it around.
• Cereal
  Cheerios: not the honey nut, just the plain cheerios in the yellow box.
  Shredded Wheat: not the frosted kind.  I'm no fun.  But your thighs will thank me!
• Coffee!!!
  One of my necessities that is also a great metabolism jumpstarter.  Coffee in itself is low in calories but adding creamer and granulated sugar is where it is dangerous.  I’ve been adding 1 or 2 artificial or natural sweetener packets to my coffee.  Skim milk just doesn’t do it for me.  My weakness is Coffeemate Coconut Crème creamer but it is hard to find. 
• Fruit
  If you’re going to eat fruit eat it in the first half of your day.  The natural sugar it has often stores if you don’t eat it early so your body has time to burn it but it is also high in fiber, loaded with nutrients and makes it an easy go to for a post workout snack. I’ll post a list of low calorie fruits on another post- some actually negative calories =)

Before you walk out the door make sure you feed your body.  Sometimes I am just not hungry so a scoop of Syntha-6 protein in 8-10 oz of milk will work.  Feed your body to lose weight.  Awesome, right?

Starting Today…

I encourage you to become aware of what you put in your body- what you use as fuel.  I know some people who prefer to write a log.  Putting pen to paper and documenting your intake makes it seem more real.  Maybe like the people who pay for things with cash so they can monitor their spending……
However for most people, including myself, I prefer an app on my phone.  There are many out there but my favorite is “My Fitness Pal”. 

It’s library of foods is great, it is easy to use, it tracks water consumption AND there is a handy barcode scanner so you can scan a product real quick and enter your serving size.  It remembers your frequent meal foods which is great because I often have the same things for dinner, just prepared differently.  Last thing: it’s free.  I like functional and I really like free. 
Download it, try it.  Give it 2 weeks and decide if you like it or not.  If you aren’t as big as a fan as I am of Fitness Pal email me and I will highlight something else.  I want you to succeed.  I want you to enjoy food and feed your body with nutritious fuel to help your transformation to fit and healthy.  It doesn’t matter if its 7 am or 10 pm, start now.