Color it appetizing like a boss

Time for Q&A: Which of the pictures below is more attractive? 

or

If you were thinking what I was thinking, the bottom one looks way more appetizing and attractive to me. Why? The plates contain mostly the same things- chicken, grain, and a vegetable. What is the primary difference between the two? *cough* color! Say color!

Another tip I learned from *FWDGF is to make your food look appealing! If something doesn't look good, you don't want to eat it. Isn't this what Dr. Seuss was trying to tell us with Green Eggs and Ham? Even if it's good for you and may taste allright, the appearance of a dish can make or break it. So the best way to make food look more appetizing is to add color to it! I mean, look at the first dish. It's so...bland...and yellow. When I look at it, I think blah and boring.

If my husband read this, he would probably laugh out loud because my taste in food was the epitome of bland and boring when we got married. I would never eat a vegetable and I always ate my food plain. When I went to get a hamburger, I ordered just the patty and the bun! But after reading FWDGF, my whole perspective on eating changed. I started to dress my dishes, add color, even throw little garnishes on the side! If you give enough attention to making your dinner, how much happier will you eating it?

In general, adding more color is always a good rule, because most of the colors in the the grocery store come from produce. So again, it's all about getting those fruits and veggies on your plate. When it comes to the meat and grain section of your plate, I have a rule of opposites. If my chicken has a red sauce, I try to give my pasta a white or cheesy sauce. Or if my chicken has a white sauce, I try to spice up the pasta by adding red or green (like topping it with fresh green beans, asparagus, or tomatoes). And sometimes I just do spaghetti, so my meatballs and pasta are both covered in red. But if I do that, I make sure to have a bright green salad on the side.

So it's really simple. Make your food look attractive. Now go color your life healthy!
*French Women Don't Get Fat

Boring scientific note: Plants are pretty much helpless when it comes to predators. Lets be honest, there's a lot of things that can go wrong when you're a plant. Scorched by the sun, eaten by insects and infected with bacteria are just a few. Therefore, since a plants lacks legs to run away from these hazards, it produces it's own defensive system with phytonutrients. These are chemicals of nature that protect the plant from UV rays, bacteria, and sometimes ward off insects. When humans eat plants, we call those phytonutrients antioxidants! Think about it. The UV rays from the sun are damaging to a plant because it creates free radicals. And inside us, we know that free radicals exist from the natural process of metabolism. So that is why phytonutrients (aka antioxidants) battle free radicals inside of us- because they already had practice from inside the plant! 

Enjoy the journey like a boss

Who's ready for Halloween?!?!?! I am so excited! We always do little family themed costumes and since there's only 3 of us, it's usually pretty easy. This year Dave and I are going to be bank robbers and Cage will be a money bag. It's going to turn out super cute and I'll be sure to post a picture or two. Last year we were fishermen and Cage was the fish. What are you dressing up as for Halloween?

Another exciting event for us in October is called General Conference. Twice a year, the prophet and his apostles (our church leaders) broadcast a two day conference, in which they give inspiring talks. In one of these talks, an apostle told a story about bicycle riding with his wife. This particular guy and wife were avid bike riders and quite enjoyed the sport. They were never in a hurry, they never entered into races, they never tried to see how fast they could go- they always just enjoyed the ride. One time, he made the mistake of suggesting to his wife that if they pushed themselves harder, they could go faster and make great time. His wife, gently but sternly turned around and said to him (I paraphrase), "It's not a race. Just enjoy the journey."

Well I don't know about you, but I can think of DOZENS of situations that applies to. But in this post, I'll be applying it to exercise. In the words of this great apostle's wife: It is not a race. Enjoy the journey. A big part of being happy and healthy is enjoying what you're doing to be healthy. I meet a lot of people that say, "I hate exercise so I don't do it" ...what? No no no no no no no no no no no- I could insert a lot more "no's" here, but I think I've made my point. Find some sort of exercise that you don't hate and I promise there will be at least one. So if you hate running, then don't run (this should be common sense). Do something else! Try swimming, walking, zumba, yoga, bike riding, weight lifting, dancing, roller blading, basketball, tennis etc. Go to Google and search "different types of exercise activities" and there will be enough ideas there to send your brain into over-stimulation mode. Now, don't get me wrong, all exercise requires work, so you don't get out of doing that. You can't be lazy and healthy at the same time. But at least get some enjoyment out of what your doing. At the end of an exercise activity, you should be saying, "I'm GLAD I did that"!

Now I turn the time over to Mr. Sean T for some words of advice about intense workouts.

Actually I decided he's a little biased and unrealistic, so I'll give the words of advice. When I say intense workouts, I mean things like P90X, Insanity, and any other programs similar to those. And you need to know that what I'm about to say is opinionated (so don't get mad!) but it comes from actually participating in the Insanity program.

I am going to preface this by saying that I know many people who have tried these programs and truly do love it. That is really great for them, I mean it. They have found an exercise activity that they enjoy. But if you are swayed by the "quick fix to weight loss" thought or by the killer abs on the people in those videos, then please listen to what I have to say! If you are the kind of person who usually struggles in discipline and motivation with exercise, has a significant amount of weight to lose, or hates to workout, think very carefully before wasting your $200 on this. These are very high-powered, high energy (and high sweat volume!) workouts. They. are. HARD. And this is coming from someone who ran for 5 hours straight. You may get excited when you first purchase it and promise to do all 60 days. But after the first week, I was so ready to quit. It's not a workout I enjoyed. Unless you've actually done these workouts, it will be impossible to tell you how incredibly difficult they are. But they are evil. And like I said, some people really enjoy constantly pushing themselves, having that sore muscle feeling, and dripping pools of sweat (that is no exaggeration). It's like adrenaline for some people, the best kind of adrenaline. :-) But be honest with yourself. If that doesn't sound like you, chances are you won't want to continue once you start.

Now, don't get me wrong. These programs work. I loved the results (I couldn't stop staring at my arms!). But I was so excited to just be done with it. I disliked every minute of those workouts and it wasn't worth my unhappiness, when I would rather run anyway. Also, these workouts are not for someone who has never exercised and wants to start. Please please please ask a doctor about this program before you dive into it. The workouts are all about constantly increasing your heart rate and if you've never exercised before, that's something your body will not be able to handle. Honestly, the ads may make it seem like this workout is perfect for quick weight loss, but that is false. These workouts are usually for people who are already fit and want to be more fit.

I do have some advice for those people who will enjoy these types of programs:
1) Listen to your body. If it's telling you it can't do anymore, PLEASE take a break. If you push your body way past it's limits, you're not being healthy, you're being harmful. I made the mistake of pushing myself too hard during one of the cardio workouts (when I knew I had low blood pressure) and passed out. What good did that do my body? Absolutely nothing.
2) Do it with a partner. Even for people who are incredibly self-motivated, you will at times want to quit. That's just how hard it is. So get someone to join you, who will encourage you (even make you) get up the next day and do it again. Partners are the best for any type of exercise. Chances are, the day you don't feel like exercising, he/she will. And vice versa. Get yourself a team and work together!

So overall, do what you love. Don't try to convince yourself into an activity that you'll hate and eventually will quit. Now that doesn't mean sit on the couch and get your enjoyment from watching TV. Get up, try different types of activities until you find one you like and want to stick with. Just freakin' ENJOY yourself and ENJOY the journey- the journey to a happier, healthier you.
By the way, no comments about how I'm a freak of nature because I love to run. Thank you ;-)

Boring scientific note: Your heart is a very special muscle and you have to take care of it. It is constantly working to pump blood to the rest of your body. And the reason it needs to pump blood is because your red blood cells carry oxygen, which your cells need to live. Without oxygen, cells die (and that's painful!) Your heart muscle also pumps blood and oxygen to itself, that's how cool it is! Because even if the heart can pump blood to other organs, if it doesn't get oxygen itself, it's cells will die. When you start any type of exercise, your heart requires more oxygen. Why? Because it's doing more work, so those heart cells need to stay kicking. If you begin exercising at a vigorous level that you are not used to, your brain tells your heart, "You need more oxygen!" The brain is kind of a bully that way. The heart freaks out, because it doesn't want to make the boss mad. So it starts pumping faster. But even though it pumps faster, that doesn't mean its pumping better. The insanely fast heartbeat, means that the heart is pumping too fast for it to efficiently get enough blood out to the body, and to itself. It's like when you're under pressure and you try to do a task quickly, but it ends up being sloppy. So that's why if your heart suddenly is thrown into a high-intensity workout, it can't keep up. Eventually, it can't pump the blood right, so oxygen doesn't get to the heart cells, and that causes chest pain. By the way, that's a signal to STOP! So it is really important to start workouts at a low or moderate intensity, before you try a vigorous activity. It will build up your heart muscle so that it can pump fast, but efficiently. Nobody just woke up and decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. They had to work up to it. And so do you.

Snack like a boss, part 2

Ok, so to finish off this subject, I'm going to make a list of some of my favorite snacks. With fruit, I just eat it straight, since they taste so sweet anyways. But I've never been a big veggie eater, especially since the time my parents nearly force fed me green beans (but now in adulthood, I'm a big fan of green beans). So I had to figure out how to not only eat them, but eat them 3 times a day! I figured out different ways to season the vegetables so that they appealed to me. In my opinion, it was better to eat veggies with a few added calories from the seasoning than to not eat them at all. In time, I began to need less and less added flavor, and now I eat most veggies like I do fruit- plain and straight up.

So here's a list of common snacks that I recommend:
-Fruit with yogurt
-Banana muffins (see recipe below)
-Carrots with a little ranch on the side
-Celery with peanut butter
-Bean salad (see recipe below)
-Avocado/Tomato salad (aka the best veggie snack ever. Click for recipe)
-Chili Cucumbers (see recipe below)
-Cheese and crackers (careful on the amount of cheese you use. It may be more fat and calories than you need)
-Raisins with yogurt
-Cooked green beans with a little garlic salt
-Cooked carrots with a little honey

If that's not enough to get you started, I don't know what will be!


Banana Muffin recipe

These are the best because they are made of mostly fruit! No flour, and most of the sugar is from the fruit itself! Cage and I either make these for breakfast or munch on them for an afternoon snack. This recipe will make seven regular sized muffins.

Ingredients
-1 1/2 mashed banana
-1/2 cup milk
-1 egg
-1/2 tbsp baking powder
-1 1/2 cups oats
-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
-1/2 tbsp sugar
-raisins

Heat oven to 375. Mix all the ingredients together, throw in muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes or until the edges turn brown and the middle of the muffin is firm.

This recipe adapted from http://greenlitebites.com/2009/03/07/banana-oatmeal-cups-with-chocolate-chips/


Bean Salad

Dave's mom is a fabulous southern cook. One day she made this salad for dinner and I ate it for the next three days! It was so flavorful and I couldn't get enough of it!

Ingredients
-1 can of black beans
-1 can of pinto beans
-1 can of corn
-1/4 cup onion finely diced
-1 tsp cumin
-Italian dressing
-cilantro, finely chopped

Rinse and drain the cans of beans and corn. Mix with the onions and cilantro (I don't know the exact amount of cilantro. I just add enough til it looks right, probably about 1/4 cup). Add the cumin. At the end, I pour Italian dressing into the salad. Just enough to cover all the ingredients and give it a bit of flavor. This salad is so yummy!



Chili Cucumbers

This is super simple and I eat this on a day where I don't want to put much effort into my snacks. Essentially, slice a cucumber up. Mix together 2 tbsp of olive oil with a few drops of lime juice. Brush the cucumber slices with it. Sprinkle with garlic salt, pepper, and chili powder. Delicious and simple!

Boring scientific note: There are two types of vitamins. Fat soluble and water soluble. Fat soluble vitamins are vitamins K, D, A and E. All the others, like C and B, make up the water soluble category. So...why do you care? Well, fat soluble vitamins can be stored in your body because they move into fatty tissues. Remember, we all have fatty tissues so this is not a bad thing necessarily. Water soluble vitamins do not stay in your body for more than a few days, so they are not stored. This means that your dietary intake of water-soluble vitamins needs to be more frequent than your intake of fat soluble vitamins. Fat soluble vitamins (boy, I am sick of typing the word "soluble") are found mostly in your animal meats and fats, though they can also be found in produce as well. However, water soluble vitamins are found MOSTLY in produce and not very often in meats and fats. So it's what I've been saying all along- you need plenty of produce every day. Otherwise, those water soluble vitamins get flushed out of your system and don't get replenished as often as they need to be. Although fat soluble vitamins are important, the daily intake is not as essential compared to the others. It's funny, in my religion there is a revelation called the "Word of Wisdom" and we use it as a guide to keeping our bodies clean and strong. Well I always thought it was strange that the WoW said to consume meats sparingly. But now as science is revealing more and more about the human body and the food that goes in it, it's all starting to make a lot of sense. Turns out God knows what he's talking about! 

Snack like a boss

 If you've messed up your healthy lifestyle lately, here is something to make yourself feel better-- everyone does at some point. But that doesn't mean that it's over for you and you failed! Last week was a bad week for me. I feeling a bit depressed and sick due to some bad news. It was hard for me to get up off the couch, so I did zero running. And even though I know that my body needs nutrition even more when I'm feeling crappy, I didn't give it that. In fact, I think for the first half of the week I didn't eat anything. And the second half, when I actually felt like eating, it was cookies I wanted. Not a great week. But we get back up on that health-horse and keep going! You have to know that even the healthiest of us are going to have bad days/weeks. So when we mess up, we acknowledge we did and make the next week ten times better! No pouting allowed, that just makes you feel more depressed and then you want to eat more cookies (take it from someone who knows). And interestingly enough, I am craving vegetables like crazy right now! My body is so not used to 3 straight days of cookie eating and I think it is just crying out for something green and beautiful.

Speaking of green and beautiful, let's talk about healthy snacks. We all know that every human being needs to snack, especially between those long hours between lunch and dinner. If you deny your hungry body food for that long, you feel like a shark in a feeding frenzy by the time dinner is served. You will overeat and be stuffed, instead of feeling satisfied with a good meal. So if you think that snacking is bad for you, to NOT snack can be worse! On the flip side, if you are snacking on... let's say... cookies for example, you're not doing your body any favors. So the key to snacking is putting the right food in your body to satisfy it.

My rule for snacking is mostly this- choose the produce before anything else. Now everybody is a little different, but the average person needs 2-3 servings of fruit per day and 2-3 servings of vegetables per day. I know that seems like a lot, but I'll show you what I do and you'll be amazed at how easy it is to incorporate that much produce into your diet!

The picture above represents a typical grocery shopping trip for me and I do it about 3-4 times a week. So if you've read my meal blog, you know that you should be eating fruit with your breakfast meal and vegetables with lunch and dinner meals. Ok, so that's 1 fruit and 2 vegetable servings out of the way! Mid-morning I have another serving of fruit for my snack. Mid-afternoon I have another serving of vegetables for a snack. And then before bed, I have another serving of fruit before bed (usually with yogurt). That's 3 fruit and 3 vegetable servings in less than 24 hours! You can dooooooooo it! If you're a bullet-point person, I put the schedule down below.

- 7 am: Breakfast (w/ fruit serving)
- 10 am: Snack (fruit)
-12:30 pm: Lunch (w/ veggie serving)
- 2 pm: Snack (veggie)
-4 pm: Another snack (can be produce or something else healthy)
-6 pm: Dinner (w/ veggie serving)
-8 pm: Bedtime snack (fruit)

Obviously, I switch up the schedule based on how that day goes for me. Sometimes I really want something avocado-y for a bedtime snack. Sometimes I want an apple mid-day. But you get the point- make your snacks about produce and you'll get in your daily servings of fruits and veggies. You'll notice that in the schedule at about 4 pm, there is a scheduled time for another snack. I usually need about two snacks in the afternoon, because that stretch to dinner is so freakin' long some days. So this extra snack doesn't need to be produce (though it usually is), but it should be healthy and somewhat unprocessed. Sometimes it's a yogurt with a bit of granola. Other times it's a few crackers with cheese. Don't eat the cookies here (sorry for all the cookie references, it's just fresh on my mind right now) and don't break out the ice cream. Keep it simple, keep it healthy. Chances are, if you think it's unhealthy, don't eat it. If you think it is healthy, go for it.

Oh my servings. When I was studying nutrition, I remember looking at all my textbooks and them saying things like "1/3 cup of fruit juice is a serving of fruit", but only "1/4 cup dried fruit is a serving". Oh my heck, why do people in the health industry think eating needs to be so complicated? It was ridiculous. So, once again, I went for simplification. 1 cup of fruit or vegetable is one serving. And this means that if you're eating a fruit/veggie that is the size of small apple, that's a whole serving by itself. See, not too bad.

I prefer not to use fruit and veggie juices as my servings, because they have so many added ingredients to them. Also juices are less likely to fill you than the actual fruit it represents. Juices really ruin produce for me. When it comes to your eating, fresh is always always always better (that's not just my opinion, it's science). And don't forget that water is a filler! So if you're already munching quite a bit, supplement water for the snack.

I have so much more to tell you guys, but this post is already quite long! I have a few snack ideas and recipes that I will share with you next time.

Boring scientific note: So here's the really cool thing about produce- they are so PACKED full of vitamins and minerals that your body spends more energy using those vitamins to break down other foods. For example, a couple of the B vitamins are a necessity for metabolism. You see, all food gets broken down into glucose and then that glucose must be somehow turned into energy. The way this usually works is that the glucose molecule kind-of gets bumped and kicked around by other molecules until it's molecular shape has completely changed. While it's getting beat up by these other molecules, the glucose is emitting ATP, and if you remember high school biology, ATP is what the body uses for energy. And some of the molecules in charge of kicking around glucose are the B vitamins! Without these vitamins, metabolism cannot be completed. It's like an assembly line. If you are making a car, you put it on the assembly line and everybody is in charge of adding something to the car. If the person in charge of adding an engine to the car isn't there, the car-making cannot continue. Same with metabolism. Each molecule on the assembly line is in charge of changing the glucose into ATP in some special way. And if the B vitamins aren't there to do their job, the metabolism process CANNOT go forward and you will not get ATP (energy) in the end. It's a really complicated process and I tried to explain it the best I know how. But I did score a 97% on my biochemistry final, so just trust that I know what I'm talking about.