Lifestyle, NOT DIET

I have...

many, many, many addictions. One of them, as it is one for most girls, is Pinterest. I LOVE Pinterest. New DIY bookshelf? Sure, why not! New braid to try for medium-length hair, umm yes please! Fitness motivation?! GIVE ME, GIVE ME, GIVE ME!

Today I typed into the search bar, 'fitness motivation'. Loads of pictures, quotes, recipes, and workouts popped up. A lot of these stood out to me for a couple of reasons. Some of them were so unbelievably true. For instance, 'Abs are made in the kitchen'. How true is that? You can run miles upon miles everyday, and eat healthy. Without the workout focused on your abs, they will still show through! If you run and run, but then eat processed, high sugar foods those pretty little muscles will never be shown the light of day! 

What also stood out to me was these two pictures shown below: 

How true are both of these pictures?! 

I am going to start with the second one, because I already started to dance around the subject. Nutrition is so important. It feeds not only our stomach, but our brain too! So many people are consuming all of these foods they think are healthy, but if you flip the box over you can't even pronounce the ingredients. That should be your first red flag. 

This is the nutritional info for one of my biggest pet peeve products out there, Light & Fit Vanilla Yogurt. What catches consumer's eyes is the "110 calories" and the "0% fat" on the front of the container. Flip that puppy over and you see the picture above. Under ingredients the first one that popped out to me was, aspartame citric acid. If you copy and paste that into google the very first link that pops up is, "aspartame is not the only thing in diet cola that can kill you". AWESOME! Put some of that on my plate and let's call it a day! Caramel Color, type that into google and one of the first links was, 'Coke Changed Caramel Color to Avoid Cancer Warning'.. Are we getting the picture yet? 

Nutrition is everything, it's what will keep you energized, you moving, and most importantly keep you alive! Feeding yourself with delicious, but cancer causing foods may help you get the body you want now, but your body will eventually be defeated by these ingredients.. Instead nourish your body with the natural foods Earth is giving us. Fill your insides with greens, and colorful fruit! Learn how to cook with these items, learn how to love them. Once you start you will love the way you feel. I promise you'll never want to go back! 

Now onto the skeleton picture.. I am not going to go on and on about how society has really had an impact on women and how they feel they should look. I'm not going to do this because I think most of us think this way, and because men also feel this pressure. What I will say is that girl's want to be skinny, and what they aren't finding is the line that is drawn between skinny and healthy. 

 SKINNY

HEALTHY

I will be the first to admit, that I had these goals of being skinny. Truth be told, I was already skinny, and I was working to be disgusting instead. I had this unrealistic view of what constituted as attractive. Now, I can truly say that I am working to get muscle. I want to feel the burn, and I want to see the definition. Eat healthy, eat clean, and stop counting calories. Diets don't work because you will gain the weight right back, but lifestyles will have lasting gains. 

I have one thing left to say, "Skinny girls look good in clothes, fit girls look good naked". 

Quick Summer Dinner? I Think So!

I don't know if the whole country is going through a heat wave, but we sure are up here in what usually is the frozen tundra of New York. It's been reaching temperatures close to one hundred, and without AC at home I just about die. With that said, thinking about consuming a heavy meal makes me want to run for the hills. I would much rather eat a whole watermelon with a spoon and call it a night. I honestly wish I could do that, but I need to get some other nutrients in my body. 

Last night I decided tuna mixture with A LOT of different stuff would be best. It was so satisfying, so delicious, and so easy to make! 

Ingredients

- 1 or 2 cans of tuna, the amount you use will depend on how many people you are feeding. Last night I used one can and it was plenty enough for two people. ( I use Wild Planets because there is a lower amount of mercury) 
- handful of organic baby spinach, roughly chopped
- 4 to 5 organic grape tomatoes, halved
- 2 tbsp of pumpkin seeds ( I use these for an extra crunch and great taste)
- 2 stalks of celery, sliced
- 1/4 cup of red or sweet onion, chopped (I used sweet)
-1/2 of an organic orange sweet pepper
- 6 large organic black olives, sliced
- 1/2 tbsp of gluten & soy free vegenaise (It's the one with the green lid)

Directions

1. Open and drain the tuna then place in a medium-sized bowl. If you use the brand I use, the tuna comes in thick pieces, therefore I needed to cut mine up. 
2. Prepare all the rest of the ingredients by chopping them, then place them in the bowl with the tuna. 
3. Add the 1/2 tbsp. of vegenaise and mix together. (You can add more if you wish) 


TA DA! You're done. You can eat this how you want. I ate mine on two corn thins, because I have yet to find a gluten free wrap that I like. My boyfriend ate his in a whole wheat wrap. 

A Simple & Satisfying Breakfast

I don't know about the rest of you, but sometimes I wake up starving in the morning. This tends to happen when I ate an early dinner and didn't eat anything after that. This morning I woke up so hungry I immediately woke up and wanted to consume everything in site. I contained myself, and opted for making one of my favorites that honestly takes less than three minutes. Are you ready? A Banana-Cashew smoothie! I can't tell you just HOW much I love this quick, yet very filling breakfast. I always need to balance sweet and slaty, and this does just that. Here's what ya' do! 

What You'll Need...

1/2 cup of organic whole raw cashews, unsalted

1 medium - large banana

Directions...

These are really hard to follow so pay close attention, just kidding! 

1. Put your ingredients in your blender and blend until smooth and creamy. 

-I have a Ninja, so I use the smallest one. I take out the blade, grab a spoon and dig into the goodness! 

***This is perfect for the person who wakes up in just enough time to get ready for work and head out the door. With eleven grams of protein, this breakfast will leave you full and satisfied. This is even good for after a workout, your muscles need protein for recovery and growth and this has just that! Usually on the days when I have this my meal two is smaller because I still am full. Today's meal two was a straight-up carrot juice, so I can see my handsome boyfriend's face more clearly.***

The End of the Detox

Well...

My detox came to an end and I must say that although it felt good and my body felt rebooted, I don't think I will be doing a 3 day juice detox for awhile.. I lead a pretty active life, and not having food in my system made that quite challenging. I think the next detox I do will definitely be one of the others in the book that consists of food. 

All in all though, I was pleased with how my body felt and feels afterward. I ended up losing four pounds, which I don't really care about the weight, but if I lost four pounds of toxins then I am very very pleased. Now my mind and body are refreshed and I am ready to fill the rest of my summer filled with lean, green, and clean eats and drinks. 

Today my meals are fairly light as I come off of the detox. For breakfast I had a juice 1 cup of watermelon and one lime. If you love watermelon as much as me, your insides will jump for joy at this juice. It is so delicious and I feel like the flavor alone gives me a boost of energy. For lunch I will do a small salad with a ton of green veggies on top. For dinner I will cook up some quinoa (the biggest staple food in my gluten free life) with steamed yellow squash that I got from a coworker, as well as some steamed broccoli. To add some flavor to this meal I will sauté some onions in a little bit of organic, low-sodium, gluten free chicken broth.. A personal touch I like is to add a handful of raisins. In one bite I get something crunchy, soft, sweet, and salty. It's the perfect combination to appease my stomach. 

Later under recipes I will have the full recipe, along with instructions on how to get this simple, yet delicious summer meal. 

My Three Day Juice Detox

I am a sucker...

for buying new books that have to do with health (my boyfriend picks on me and says that a huge part of the reason why I get them is because I like how they look on my shelf). When I decided to do my first three day all juice detox, or some people call it a cleanse, going to buy a new book for it was the first thing on my to-do list. Off to Barnes & Noble I went, and I left with the book titled, "DETOX FOR THE REST OF US" by Carole Jacobs (the capitalization is not a grammatical error, it's actually capitalized on the cover). I really liked this book for a couple of reasons, the word choice was simple and to the point. In other words, I didn't have to sit there with a dictionary next to me as some nutritionist threw all these words that were complex and looked like a foreign language. The second reason why I really liked this book was because it wasn't just a book about a juicing detox, there were 14 other detoxes included. 

My decision to do my first 3 day juice detox came from getting sick three different times in a matter of two weeks. Enough was enough, I wanted a clean immune system. When I talked to my boyfriend about it, he decided he wanted to do it with me. Let me tell you, doing it with someone and having the support of someone v. watching that person eat is SOOOO much easier. 

I think a lot of people decide to do a detox because they want to lose weight. After reading enough about it I quickly became educated that yes, you will lose weight the duration of the detox, but you will quickly gain it back. My purpose of doing this was to rid myself of whatever toxins accumulated inside my body, NOT to lose weight. 

The definition of a detox is removing toxins, so to do this I wanted to do it right. 

-What I had to do to prepare...
I started to prepare my body about three-four days before the detox was to begin. I read that if you didn't do this your body could go into complete shock, and make it harder to complete the detox. To prepare I ate a lot less throughout the day than I usually would, and my foods mostly consisted of vegetables, a little fruit, nuts, and seeds. My meals were usually green smoothies, or steamed veggies with a little lemon and pepper drizzled on top. I really wanted to do the detox right, because I wanted it to work. Cutting down on what I was eating really helped me beat the thought of hunger while on the detox. If I was eating as much as I normally would those three days before I don't think I would have been able to mentally get through it. 

My boyfriend and I also made sure that all food, other than what we would be juicing, was eaten beforehand. The last thing we wanted to do was walk into the kitchen and have the box of Puffins sitting on top of the fridge staring at us, or that oh-so-tempting bottle of cabernet screaming 'drink me, I'm delicious!' 

To prepare the actual produce we went to our local grocery store, with our grocery list intact and began filling our cart with the ingredients needed to complete the detox. WARNING: this can get expensive, especially because we only juice organic produce. We primarily eat only organic items, and juicing was no different for us. The pesticides that produce is sprayed with are cancer causing toxins, to me juicing not organic produce would completely defeat the purpose of a detox. Our total bill for our groceries came to right around 160 dollars. If you're doing this yourself you can figure it will cost you about 80 bucks for 18 juices. Personally, I didn't think this was too bad. I was actually prepared for it to cost a lot more, so it was a pleasant surprise. 

Before we went shopping I looked over the recipes and made sure that all the fruits and vegetables were in season. If they weren't I went to Google and searched the most closely related piece of produce (nutrients speaking). The only fruit I had trouble with on my most recent detox, which started today,  was a tangerine. Tangerines are usually found in the winter, so instead I went with a clementine. Luckily, I only needed one. 

After the groceries were purchased, we went home and began a long process of washing, drying, and bagging all of our juices. This process took us about 3 hours. We labeled each bag, and made two bags for each juice (one for each of us). For example, our first juice of the detox is call 'Watermelon Straight-Up', we took two bags and labeled both with "Day 1 Juice #1" we then put the recipe on the bag so we didn't have to keep going back to the book. This made it easier come morning to juice all of our juices for the day in the correct serving sizes. For each different day we used a different color marker to label the bags, it made searching for them in the fridge easier. We bag all 36 juices right after we shop, in order to make the three days easier. 

This morning we woke up about an hour earlier than usual. We juiced all 12 juices for the day (6 for each of us) and stored them in pint sized mason jars, labeled the lids with purple numbers 1-6 for me, and green for him. We found mason jars to be the easiest way to store them because they were the perfect size, we can use them as glasses later, we can use them for organizing our pantry, and they are really reasonable to buy. 

Tomorrow we will juice day two's juices and again store them in the mason jars for the day. 


-During the detox...
First of all, if you workout on a daily basis I recommend you plan to take the three days off or plan ahead for three really light days of physical activity. The first detox I did was still during winter so I opted to take the days off because it was too cold for my liking to take a walk. This time around I plan on taking walks to soak up some sun and warm air. :)

During the detox you need to beat the mental side of you that is going to keeping egging you on to eat. It is definitely easier doing a detox in the summer compared to the winter. Our first detox we did was in March, and it was still pretty chilly. Our bodies naturally want us to eat more to keep warm. In the summer, especially on really hot days I almost never get the feeling of hunger, I just eat because I need to. Instead I want to chug ten glasses of water in one sitting. (Drinking water while on a detox is important I drink at least 90 oz. of water a day while on the detox.) With that said, this detox thus far has been ten times easier. I don't know if that's because of the heat, or because now I know what to expect. 

What I can definitely tell you is this: the first day is the hardest. It is a huge mental game, your brain is telling you to eat, because that's what you have been accustomed to. It's hard to get through the actual mental thought of not eating for three whole days. The first time we did the detox I found myself really tired by the middle of the day. I can already tell that I am doing way better than last time because I don't have the urge to jump to food at all. The first time I did the detox I was thinking about peanut butter an hour in. 

The second day it gets better, your body is starting to get used to an only liquid diet, I found myself being less tired, and when I reached the middle of the second day I kept telling myself I am half way there, it would be a waste to stop now.

The third day is honestly a piece of cake, in fact you feel more energized than ever. It's almost as if you woke up a whole new person. The craving for food is completely gone, and you feel like you can climb ten mountains. I am so excited for my third day during this detox because it's supposed to be 85 with clear skies, and I already told my boyfriend we are going hiking! 

After The Three Days...
I think a lot of people just want to shove their faces with pizza the day after all is said and done. For me, I didn't just not eat for three days for nothing. I did it to feel better. When I did the last one I eased back into eating. I ate lightly for two days afterwards, but I didn't limit myself to only vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. I plan to do the same thing this time around. For breakfast, I will have egg whites scrambled with vegetables, for a snack I'll probably have a grapefruit, for lunch I will do a small salad loaded with unlimited green veggies, and for dinner I will add a little meat into the mix and boil an organic chicken breast with some greens. Don't waste those three days, eat healthy and jump into days filled with rich nutrientes. 

My Tips For You...
1. Plan accordingly! In other words, don't plan to do a detox when you have three birthday parties or a dinner party during that time frame. Not only is it hard saying no to the food being presented in front of you, but you don't want to feel rude saying no.

2. Go out and do something! Whether it be shopping, going to the beach, or a spa day. Do anything that will get you away from the house, and away from the couch where the only thing you will think about is food. My first time doing the detox I was watching Mad Men for the first day and it was the worst decision I could have made. 

3. Try to find someone to join you! It really is so much easier having someone doing it with you. You two can support and encourage each other through the whole thing. 

4. My boyfriend disagrees with me on this next tip, but tell people. Telling people will encourage you to finish strong and prove that you did it. He says that if you don't finish you won't hear the end of it. 

5. Get through every ounce of food in your house before you begin, and when you go shopping for the ingredients don't buy anything other than what you need for your juices.

6. If you're a lover of anything wine like I am, get rid of it. There are some days when I have had a really stressful day at work and all I can think about is going home, pouring myself a Cougar Town size glass of wine. 

7. Don't Pinterest. Almost every board I am connected to has something to do with food, and all you will want to do is trying making those no bake cookies. 

8. Find a good book. When I find a good book, I get lost and don't want to leave. I could spend hours reading without wanting to move.

9. Plan a treat for yourself when you get off the detox. My treat is a new bottle of nail polish, because I am OBSESSED. 

10. Plan your meals for the three days before you begin and the two days after you finish. 


Here Are Some Pictures Of My Detox Thus Far...

First Post!

I want to thank anyone who is stopping by to read my blog! Check out my 'About Me' section for a brief synopsis about what I hope to do and accomplish with all of this! 

Until later, 

xoxo

@tiumeghan92