Tag: Food

Sunday Nutrition: Challenge Week 2

On By Jenni C.In Family, fitness, Food, Goals, Health, Healthy Living, Life, new mom, Nutrition, postpartumLeave a comment

Ok first off, I know today is Monday. Sunday went by way too quick for me. However, since today is the holiday to celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and I actually did not have to go to work, I spent the extra day to meal prep. I was so glad to have a 3 day weekend. We need more of these.

Surprisingly, the first week of my nutrition challenge went well. I wasn’t starving, and I did not have tortuous sugar cravings. I only had minor cravings for cupcakes but I was able to get over it. I stuck to meal plan and actually ate the food I prepared, and I liked it. I’m not new to clean eating, so that helps. I really like just have fresh, real food available. It makes me feel so much better.

My postpartum workouts are also going pretty good. I still feel like crap, but the good kind. I am slowly working to rebuild strength and endurance, and the good part is that I actually feel coming along. I am continuing to trust the process. My big challenge will be will I actually decide to go for my first run. It will come soon, I promise.

So I am kicking off week 2 of the challenge by meal planning, and setting a goal to get to yoga at least 2 days this week. I really need to work on mobility.

The good part, my scale says I am down 4 pounds since last week, so something is working! Just keep swimming.

So what’s on deck for this week:

Breakfast: Oatmeal with half a banana, and 1 tbsp of peanut butter, egg muffins

Lunch: Spaghetti squash with veggies, chicken meatballs, tomato basil sauce or Spinach mushroom turkey burger with brown rice, and sauteed veggies

Dinner: Grilled chicken or salmon, or mahi mahi, with quinoa and sauteed veggies.

Snacks: Greek Yogurt, blueberries, rice cakes with peanut butter, turkey with avocado, or carrots and hummus

Today was a very good day, lets keep it going!

Sunday Nutrition: Challenge Week 1

On By Jenni C.In fitness, Food, Goals, Health, Healthy Living, Life, new mom, Nutrition, postpartum, PregnancyLeave a comment

This was absolutely the fastest weekend ever. Sunday night always seems to come so quickly and I am no where even prepared to return to work tomorrow. It looks like it is going to be another long week.

On Sundays we meal prep so I spent the day menu planning and cooking our meals for the week. I was actually excited about it. It’s pretty fun to cook when I actually have a plan about what I am cooking.

This week I am starting a 4 week nutrition challenge with the crew at my crossfit gym. I need to start making some serious progress toward trimming this baby weight. It’s starting to annoy me. I figured a challenge with coaching, and a support team would be a great way to restart healthy eating. Since I cook the food for the hubby and I, he also gets to do the challenge by default. He swears that I am starving him, trust me, he is not starving.

I love when my nutrition is under control. I have been saying it for years, when my nutrition is on point, and I workout daily, I feel at my best. I used to suffer from chronic migraines, once I figured out the changes I needed to make in my diet by cutting down on sugars, and excess fats, in addition to a consistent sleep pattern, the migraines stopped. I know when my body feels healthy and I love that feeling. When I am able to balance out food, exercise, sleep, water intake, and decrease stress, life is great. I am on a mission to make everyday a great one. It won’t be easy but I am determined to make it happen.

So what am I doing for this nutrition challenge? Well the goal is to keep a balanced diet of 40 percent carbs, 30 percent fats, and 30 percent protein every meal, Drink tons of water, and get a good balance of sleep every night. I am tracking my meals using the My fitness pal app. I am really bad at food tracking, logging in every meal takes forever. I had started this challenge last year, then I became pregnant toward the end of the challenge. Food aversions threw everything out the widow. I am really excited to start again without being pregnant!

The key to success for me is not getting hungry. When all my food is planned out for the day I do great. I don’t crave extra food. When I am hungry…well that is when everything goes right down the drain. So my goal for the next 4 week is just not to be hungry and sleep when I can.

Postpartum weight loss is a marathon not a sprint.

The goal is to lose weight, build muscle, and rebuild endurance.

So what meals are on deck this week?

Breakfast: Oatmeal and egg muffins

Lunches: Beef fried cauliflower rice with a sweet potato side or Paleo BBQ shredded chick over brown rice with a veggie side

Dinner: Ground Turkey burger with a veggie or sweet potato side or Chicken breast and veggies.

Various snacks for the week: Greek yogurt with blueberries, cinnamon, and a touch of honey, almond and cashew nuts, turkey and avocado slices, carrots, apple and peanut butter

Let’s get started with week 1! Cheers to positive lifestyle changes.

Just because I’m hungry

On By Jenni C.In Finding meaning, Food, Hawaii, Life, Moving, New York, Paradise, random, Relocation, Self Discovery, single girl1 Comment

Who would have ever thought that I would actually find a real place on this earth where spam is a delicacy. Yes spam, is the national treasure of food out here in Hawaii. I cannot honestly remember the last time I ate spam, and I really don’t even remember what it taste like. I do remember my mom making it for us a handful of times as a very young child, but now I am thinking if it was really that good then wouldn’t we have kept eating it into adulthood? So i am guessing that spam that I ate as a child, probably has not changed in flavor much so no need to eat it again right? I can’t believe that its actually on the menu at restaurants, and served at good ol Mc Donald’s. Yes Spam, its easily accessible and a food that is very much well liked in the Hawaiian culture. I could swear sometimes it is even sold out in the grocery store, a popular item, yes indeed! I will let you know when I make that leap back to my childhood memories, and engorged myself in a delicious meal of spam again, I highly doubt it will be anytime soon.

With that said let me just tell you that the rest of the food in Hawaii is amazingly good. Some of the food here, I have never seen on the mainland. And please remember I am coming from NY, where diverse food is naturally easy to find, and whatever you have a taste for, you just get up and go get it. However, Hawaii has a lot of diversity from the pacific islands and eastern countries that I have never came across in NY. I must say that it is some good eating for a cheap price.

The thing I lover here is that all the plates (you know: steak plate, shrimp plate, mixed plate, regular plates, and mini plates) all come with scoops of rice and macaroni salad. Yup gotta love them carbs! I am believing that the Atkins and southbeach diets are non existent in this state, and may just be mainland fads that have not made the journey off the coast of California, through the pacific ocean to land here. So if you are a carb lover this is the place for you! Why not eat spaghetti with a side of rice and maccaroni salad (no I’m serious). In Hawaii you will experience great eating from the south pacific, the best fresh fish, and excellent pupus (appetizers as they say on the mainland). I have become a lover of the bbq beef, meat jun, and chicken katsu. Manapua, which seems to be an everyday potluck or work place lunch favorite is also really good. Here you will find lots of noodles mixed with everything.

Now I have tried poke, which is essentially seasoned raw fish. At first taste I must confess that I  did have the sudden urge to take it home, throw some oil in a pot and cook it up. Hey it was already seasoned. But to get accustomed to eating raw fish is something that still takes time to get used to. Forcing my tastebuds to adjust is never an easy task.  In Hawaii, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Philipino, and native Hawaiian foods are everywhere! Now I have tasted the kaliua pork and poi. Yeah that poi just has no taste so don’t be afraid to try it, it won’t hurt you.  Not a big fan of the Kaliua pork, but I do have a friend on the mainland who loves it, and she is probably going to be upset when she comes to visit. I will have to tell her the truth that I do not like it, and still don’t know how to cook it. Yeah, I haven’t told her that one yet. But if you like to eat, then you will like the food in Hawaii. It is a non mainland flavor, that spices up your everyday desire to eat!!! And hey you can even get a spam plate at 7-eleven, maybe that’s what I’ll do today!