Don’t Take Things Personally

Don’t take things personally.

Someone once told me that when someone treats you badly–whether they are avoiding you, yelling at you, or spreading nasty rumors about you–it is more about something going on inside of them than something to do with you. While these actions may hurt you and stir up feelings of anger, it is best to breathe and let it go. 

Sweet Potato Black Bean Quinoa Salad

 

Yesterday, I made this meal that I found on Anne’s blog, fANNEtastic food. Her recipe is here, as well as a much nicer picture of this meal. The best part about this recipe is that it’s not actually a recipe at all! She made it up, and you can add any amount of any ingredient that you want. The main ingredients are:

Sweet Potatoes
Avocados
Black Beans
Quinoa

It is such a quick and easy recipe–I love it! The quick and simple directions can be found on Anne’s blog. I didn’t add any salsa to mine–just some sea salt and curry powder. Try it out! Fun fact: did you know that sweet potatoes are not necessarily orange? Yesterday at Whole Foods I picked up 3 organic sweet potatoes because I knew I was going to try out this meal. When I cut into the first potato my heart sank because I saw it’s pale yellow color and thought that it was a regular potato. After a little research, I figured out that it actually was a sweet potato, just not the kind I am used to! With that being said, I will still buy the orange ones from now on because I enjoy the orange color so much

The Beauty of Sharing Workouts

Another successful workout day for me means another blog post about a successful workout for you! (You lucky dog, you.) Today, I borrowed the following workout from Julie. I am a big fan of sharing workouts. Sometimes your own workouts become stale and all you need is a different way of putting exercises together and it becomes a whole new exciting workout. Below is the graphic Julie made for her workout:

Jumping jacks, crunches, push ups, squats. Such basic exercises. Basic, but effective. For yesterday’s workout, I split my cardio up and put strength training in between. Today, I did something similar with the workout above.

Treadmill: 15 minutes
50 reps of Julie’s workout
Treadmill: 5 minutes
40 reps of Julie’s workout
Treadmill: 5 minutes
30 reps of Julie’s workout
Treadmill: 5 minutes
20 reps of Julie’s workout
10 reps of Julie’s workout

I felt so successful with this workout because 1) I was a Sweaty Betty by the end and 2) I really enjoy when workouts flow. Sometimes I go into the gym and have no idea what I want to do so I just throw a bunch of exercises together without a sequence. Although I leave feeling a little tired, I don’t feel as if I got in a good workout because it didn’t flow well. I am also still a really big fan of splitting up my cardio! I highly recommend it. Not only does it make time go faster, but it also gives your legs a bit of a break. I have noticed my leg muscles becoming extremely tight lately and pulling on my knees due to the bike commuting I do, so more than 15 or so minutes at a time on a treadmill becomes a little rough on my legs. I just have to build back up slowly!

Have a great day! I hope the pollen isn’t affecting you as much as it is affecting poor little me

Speed Through Your Workout

Sometimes it’s hard to get to the gym because all I can think about is the cardio I should do, and how much I don’t want to be on the treadmill or elliptical for 30 straight minutes. Even if I have a TV in front of me and Forgetting Sarah Marshall is playing. Love Jason Segal.

Today after sleeping through my alarm (well, snoozing it three or four or nine times), I had a wonderfully energizing day with my friend M, who was visiting from Baltimore. The only thing getting in my way were my awful allergies–so much wind and pollen today! After M left, I popped another allergy pill, folded my laundry while I let it kick in, and then headed down to the gym in my building. I had to wear my wonderfully plaid puma romas to work out because I realized that I left two pairs of sneakers at work and one pair at the man friend’s house. Bad planning.

Because I already have tight enough calves as it is, I chose to use the elliptical to avoid running on the treadmill with inappropriate footwear. As the foot pretty much stays in place on the elliptical, I found that to be a safe and reasonable option. To make my workout go faster, I did the following:

5 minutes on the elliptical
Strength Training
10 minutes on the elliptical
Strength Training
10 minutes on the elliptical
Strength Training
5 minutes on the elliptical

My strength training included exercises such as: goblet squats, sumo squats with shoulder presses, chest flies, chest presses, and single-leg Romanian Dead Lifts. Splitting my cardio up like that was a great way to speed through my workout–I highly recommend it!–and switching between cardio and strength had be sweating by minute 7! Love it.

Happy Mother’s Day!

 

What are your dreams?

Okay, readers. I have a big question for you. I bet you guessed it already since it’s the title of this post.

What are your dreams?

I’m not asking about what you dream about at night, although if you feel the need to share, by all means, shoot for the stars. What I really want to know though, is what your dreams are in life. What are your aspirations? What do you hope to be, wish to do, want to be like?

I will share some of my dreams with you:

• Become a Certified Yoga Teacher. Over the past couple of months I have experienced the mental and physical benefits of yoga and not only do I want to incorporate more of that into my life, but I also want to be able to share yoga with others. First, I will start by attending more classes. I need to acquire the funds for a teacher training before I actually do it.
• Eat Clean 80/20. I have had some digestive issues in the past. In addition, I have a condition that predisposes me to high glucose and insulin levels in my blood. Therefore, eating clean is not just about me being trim and looking good. It’s also about how I feel. I want to feel good. I want to radiate health and happiness. I don’t want to have a bloated and gurgly stomach after eating certain foods, and I don’t want to be pre-diabetic like I was in my freshmen year of college ever again. However, I am realistic. I know that there will be times that I want to splurge and have a cupcake or a grilled cheese or…a Pumpkin Spice Latte! I am going to allow myself that 20% of the time. I would like to eat clean 80% of the time.
• Become a professional blogger. I am so inspired by (and envious of) the bloggers I follow who are able to make a career out of it. Not that I want or need to be paid to enjoy blogging, but honestly, how cool would it be to be able to make a living out of what I am doing right now?
• Write a book. This is a far-fetched dream, as I know how hard writing a book is. However, I would love to do this some day! Maybe I should just start now…..
• Be a runner. I have these visions of myself in my head…running all over the city, building a stronger, leaner body. I can hear my feet pounding the pavement or snapping tiny twigs on the trails of Rock Creek Park. I want to run the occasional 5k, 10k, and half marathon. I am not going to say that I dream to be a marathoner. Sure, it would be nice to say I completed one, but I am right now just aiming to become a regular runner. I want to have another reason to build up my sneaker collection These are the sneakers I got for my birthday last year. Nothing like a colorful pair of sneakers to motivate me to get my butt moving! My best friend thinks these remind her of wildberry poptarts
  

Signing off now! I have to go chase some dreams.

*Please credit all photos back to me.*

Follow Me on Bloglovin’!

 

Goals Galore

If I asked you how to lead a healthy lifestyle, what would your answer be? I guarantee you that some of the first answers out of people’s mouths would be to eat better and exercise.

Eat better.

Exercise.

We throw these ideas out there like they are as simple as tying your shoe or brushing your teeth, and I believe that the reason so many people have such a hard time eating better and exercising is because these are extremely b r o a d (see what I did there?) goals. The majority of us know how to eat better. We know how to eat healthy. In one of my posts from a week or two ago, I explain what healthy food is in a nutshell. But how we apply that to our own individual lives is a completely different story.

Here are some tactics I am planning on using to lead a healthier life for myself. I plan to set a few goals at a time and once I reach those goals, I will set new ones. All small goals will lead to the larger, broader goal.

Goal 1: Incorporate more exercise into my life.
Tactic: Plan out my exercise times for the week by assessing my agenda and writing down those times. I tend to do better at following through on plans when I write them down.

Goal 2: Eat and drink less acidic foods and beverages.
Tactic: Limit coffee to 2-3 times a week. I usually have coffee once a day, but I have been reading recently that we want to watch the pH balance of our bodies by ingesting less acidic substances. Coffee is highly acidic. I also want to be able to live off my body’s natural energy fueled by a sufficient amount of exercise, nutritious foods, sleep, and stress management. 

From Preach to Practice

I am a health coach and personal trainer. I give nutrition consultations. I graduated with a B.S. in Exercise Science and will graduate in 3 weeks with my M.P.H. in Physical Activity in Public Health. And yet…AND YET…I am far from perfect when it comes to a healthy lifestyle. Yes, I do pretty well. When I’m on my game I exercise 5-6 times a week and correctly portion out my meals, making sure to pay the required amount of attention to each food group. I probably go through 2 bags of lettuce those weeks.

But when it’s not those weeks? Oh boy are we in trouble. I just ate a mini bread pudding right before I started to write this blog post.

I would like to note that I am of the school of thought that it is perfectly fine, acceptable, and actually necessary to indulge once in awhile. What I am talking about  is not the act of simply indulging one meal or day. 

Why is it that even though we know the keys to a healthy lifestyle, we still don’t implement them? What are our barriers? What is holding us back from that healthy lifestyle that we envision in our heads and keep saying we will start? How many times can I tell myself “eating clean starts tomorrow” or “back at it in the gym tomorrow!” Even if those two things do happen “tomorrow,” why can’t we I maintain these habits that I preach to others so often about? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t tell anyone anything they don’t want to hear. I don’t stand on the corner and yell “GET YOUR GREENS PEOPLE.” But I can sit down with a nutrition client, evaluate their daily dietary and physical activity habits, and lead them down the path of health happiness. I know what I’m supposed to do. Why don’t I do it? 
If you know what you’re supposed to do, but you don’t do it, why is that?

Behavior changes are HARD. Let’s list some reasons why:

• Time
• Money
• Boredom/Disinterest

Want to know the secret to some of these commonly-listed barriers? A lot of them are mental. Let’s go through them once more:

• Time: We are all busy. I often think that I just don’t have enough time to work out in a day. Some days, this may be true. But if you sit down and take a hard look at your schedule, I bet you can find at least a half hour each day to get some exercise in. Substitute exercise for the time that you spend in front of the T.V. or computer; Eat lunch at your desk and use your lunch break to get a jog or a quick lift in; wake up 45 minutes earlier. If I take a look at my schedule each day I can actually find several half hour or hour-long periods in which a work out would fit perfectly. I actually found that, one week, I wrote down “exercise” during a two-hour period that I had nothing scheduled and…wouldn’t you know it?..I got a great work out in that day. We take the time to write down doctors appointments, coffee dates with friends, and meetings with co-workers. Why don’t we take the time to write down something just as important, if not more important, for our mind and body health? Write it down, people, write it down. 
  

  Taken from mindingwhatmatters.wordpress.com

• Money: This is a big one for me. As a graduate student, I am currently living paycheck to paycheck. I’m not complaining. This is what you just have to do sometimes and in reality it could be a whole lot worse. However, often times I make the excuse that I am not eating a healthy meal because grocery shopping is expensive…so instead I will just buy out for lunch a couple times a week. That math doesn’t add up. In the $34-50 I can spend at the grocery store each week replenishing my fruits and veggies supplies to go along with my ingredients at home that last longer, I can get a weeks worth (or more!) of meals–breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In DC, the average price per meal is $10…on the low end. So I am saving around $100 by sucking it up and grocery shopping. When I refuse to spend the time to prepare a healthy meal at the beginning of the week, I am being lazy, for one. Second, I am more comfortable with spending $10 at one time…several times a week…than $50 at one time…once a week. This math doesn’t add up, friends. Let’s go to the grocery store and find our veggie friends.

• Boredom/Disinterest: The other day I hopped on the treadmill and hopped off after approximately 1 minute and 17 seconds. Why? I was SO bored. Sometimes I can stand the treadmill. Sometimes I am really in the zone. Sometimes I’m just not. BUT this just in: exercise comes in many forms and it doesn’t have to be boring. I didn’t want to be on the treadmill that day. Even if I forced myself to stay on, I wouldn’t have had the best workout anyway. Choose an activity that is mentally stimulating and do that. Also, know that variety is good. Some days I feel on top of the world when I do cardio. Other days, cardio is my worst enemy. On those days, I lift or choose a high intensity circuit. (These are the weeks that I’m on my game.) Yesterday, my friend came back into the gym office dripping in sweat. Did you work out? I asked. No, she said, I just played basketball. Hey silly, that’s a work out, too.
  

Soak that all in and look forward to my next post about how I plan to turn my healthy lifestyle preaching into my healthy lifestyle practice. Goal setting galore! Happy Sunday.