Monday, April 27, 2015

Easy Recipes to Cook Once and Eat Twice

This week I have three great recipes for you to try with an added bonus of an abundant resource for recipes. You could try a different recipe every day and it would take you months to get through them all.

With summer right around the corner, I thought grilling recipes and salads would be great. If you are like me, I do not like cooking inside once it gets hot out, I would much rather grill and have salads and such. With the warm weather around the corner, here in Utah, once again, grilling is what we are doing. However, do not be afraid to take out that slow cooker.

The first one on the list is: Mediterranean shrimp quinoa salad. This is a great easy salad to put together. You can do shrimp, chicken, no meat, whatever you would like. For the veggies, you can leave them raw, grill them, combinations, try different ways of preparing them, this will give the salad a different taste each time.

I have become a lover of steak over the last five plus years. With that being said, I am not a huge fan of plan steak, I like mine marinaded and with a dipping sauce. This might make me, not a true steak lover, but I am OK with that. The nice thing with this marinade, is it does not have to be marinaded for a  long period of time, 20 minutes can be long enough. Lime and rosemary steak.

I honestly have not tried this salad yet, but it looks really tasty. I have it on my Pinterest page, a great place to follow me for recipes. Cranberry avocado chicken salad, instead of the canola oil in the dressing, use extra olive oil or avocado oil. This would also be an easy way to batch cook chicken, grill a whole chicken or extra chicken one night and the next day or two, use the extra chicken in this salad, cook once, eat twice.

A great resource for recipes that are Primal/Paleo, super delish and most are easy without crazy ingredients. I have found many meals we truly enjoy from this site and when I am looking for something new, this is one of the places I go.

I hope you enjoy these meals. When making any of them, think about making extra for lunches, or cooking extra protein and having it for several meals instead of just one. This will make your cooking much easier and more efficient and gives you more than one meal. Around here, lunches are typically leftovers. Yummy

Saving the world one stick of butter at a time.
God bless,
Jenn

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Summer Body Lovin Challenge, Recipes


I hope you are all enjoying the challenge so far. What have you learned about yourself? What are you going to take with you once the challenge is over? Truly, my hope for you is beyond the challenge, that you are able to learn, grow and implement changes that can become a part of your lifestyle, beginning with the challenge and then beyond.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from my clients and others trying to make a lifestyle change is, what to cook. I need recipes. I need ideas of food to make instead of the same thing over and over.
Well, I hope to give you good recipes, resources to find recipes and healthy food you can enjoy. Each week for the remainder of the challenge, I will send you three recipes. Pick at least one and give it a try. This will give you a chance to try new recipes and have some in reserve to try later.

To begin with, lets start with breakfast:
First up Chocolate Muffins I made these the other day and I thought they turned out tasty. One of the things you will find with this recipe, is that it has beets in it. Keep an open mind, maybe start with less is you are nervous about the flavor. This is a perfect way to hid veggies you might other wise not eat and have all their benefits.

Next on the list is a fritta. The great thing about frittas is their versatility. The base is always the same, eggs. From there you can add whatever you would like, cheese, cream, meats and veggies. It can be different every time you make one.

Finally we have protein pancakes. Just like with the muffins, these are another great way to add veggies and fruit for their health benefits. You can also make a large batch of these for breakfast for the week, makes for quick and easy meals.

You can always have bacon and eggs or bullet coffee, butter and coconut oil blended into coffee, add eggs for a complete on the go breakfast.

If you are someone who is not hungry in the morning, never fear, fast through breakfast. You need to do what works best for your body. Just be sure when you are ready to eat, it is something healthy and nutrient dense. Do not binge on sugary foods.

A tip, when you eat breakfast, or any meal for that matter, you want to base it on fat, protein and veggies along with some in season fruit. By keeping the sugar low in all of your meals you keep your insulin levels low, which will help with weight lose and/or maintenance. Weight lose is more about insulin levels than the number of calories you eat. Breakfast is a great place to start with low insulin levels by avoiding excess sugar. Some fruit, honey, real maple syrup are OK, just do not go over board on them. A healthy amount of fat and protein at each meal will keep your insulin levels low and stable, give you more energy through out the day and keep you full for longer periods.

Saving the world one stick of butter at a time.
God bless,
Jenn




Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Summer Body Loving Challeng

Well, you might have figured it out, but summer is around the corner, or maybe where you are it is here already or early. Summer means, shorts, tanks tops, short sleeved shirts, swim suits, backless dress, all the fun summer clothes. That entails us preparing our bodies, beginning know.

I know there are countless challenges out there to slim down by summer, get in shape by summer, whatever they are.  These are well and good, but what is more important to me, is that you love your body, you are comfortable in your skin, you concur your demons, or at least face them as I did mine with my bikini competition. Weight lose is a side effect, not the goal. Being healthy and loving your body and self is the goal.

So, by summer, I want you to be comfortable in your skin or at least begin to be, be able to say you love your body, you are proud of yourself. I want you to be able to confidently go out in your short shorts, bikini, summer dresses, tank tops, strut along the beach or pool side because you have worked hard, to love yourself, accept your body, flaws and all for where you are and know you have done all you can to be healthy for yourself, not me, not some fake model in a magazine or a photo shopped model who does not look like that in real life. Lets be real women and men and love our bodies and all their imperfections, all their glory, the amazing feats they do every day. The standard of beauty is no standard at all, who can compete with something not real? Lets be real.

Lets begin our challenge on Monday, April 13 and end it on June 15, that is eight weeks, a good amount of time to make a lot of progress and see changes in the body.

To begin:
We will start with the first part of the sugar challenge, no sugar. This will include no alcohol, fruit, any type of sugary foods, artificial sugars and sweeteners. Some honey is OK, do not exceed a table spoon a day. Really try to not eat grains either, remember these are sugars to the body. Two weeks of going grain free is very doable. This will help kick start our bodies out of depending on sugar for fuel and relying more on fats and protein. Be sure to concentrate on fats first, butter, coconut oil, fatty cuts of meats, whole eggs, avocados, some nuts and seeds and then on protein and healthy carbs from veggies, once the two weeks is up, you can go back to some fruit.

The second part, picking one to three areas of your body you do not like, that should be easy for most of us. I want you to take a picture of yourself, share it with us, you can hid your face, on my face book page however you are comfortable sharing. We are going to work on loving these body parts, seeing them for what is really there, not what we have made up in our heads that might not be the truth. We are going to work on accepting these parts of ourselves we do not like and track the progress. You will have a whole community to help support you, to help you see what is really there, not what you have made up in your head. We need to learn to see ourselves through the eyes of others, not our misconstrued self. 

After the first two weeks, of the sugar challenge, deciding the one to three areas of our bodies we want to work on and our pictures, each week will entail different challenges to help you grow, accept yourself, love yourself, challenge yourself to grow as a person and by the end, see yourself in a whole knew light. You will be confident in who you are.

Are you ready to join me? Lets begin.

Saving the world one stick of butter at a time.
God bless,
Jenn