Taste the Rainbow - Diversifying your Fridge

Diversity
Google defines diversity as “a range of different things”. Picking the same color shirt off the rack every time you go to Express is pretty boring, and so is cooking the same meal every night.  Diversity is a concept I employ in my life every day. Whether it be my food choice, music choice, or men. After a year and a half of clean eating, I have learned the key to staying on track is being creative in the kitchen.

Not only will diversifying you fridge help when it comes to trying new recipes, it will also help your body get the vitamins and nutrients it needs. Next I will list some of the colors available to you in your local produce aisle.

Taste the Rainbow – ROY G BIV

• Red – red apples, cranberries, strawberries, tomatoes, red peppers, and pomegranates. Since red is my favorite color I tend to be a little partial to this group. I like putting roasted red peppers in my scrambled eggs in the morning. It definitely helps spice up the egg whites.  
• Orange –oranges, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and carrots. My favorite out of this category is the sweet potato. I bake them with a little olive oil and sprinkle with cinnamon. I end up eating everything except the skin because my coworkers may judge me if I tried to eat that.
• Yellow – pineapple, bananas, yellow peppers, summer squash. I am a believer that fresh pineapple is the best thing put on this earth. (The bright yellow was a little hard to see)
• Green - kale, spinach, kiwi, broccoli. These veggies can be cooked in larger batches and ready to eat with lunch or dinner. Spinach is great in an egg white omelet for breakfast.
• Blue – so apparently this is no true blue fruits and veggies as they all seem to be grouped with the purple group.  See Violet.
• Indigo – skip
• Violet (purple) - blueberries, eggplant, plums, prunes.  I mix blueberries and a little flax seed in my Greek yogurt to give it a natural flavor boost. 

For a more complete listing of fruits and vegetables as well as a breakdown of the vitamins and nutrients each category contain visit the website below:

http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/fruits-vegetables.shtml

Food of the Week:

This week I will advertise the very versatile Greek Yogurt.  You can buy Greek yogurt plain, flavored, or with fruit on the bottom. My favorite is the Chobani plain Greek Yogurt. It is very creamy, and easy to mix. I buy the 32oz container because I use it for a lot of different recipes: 

•  I mix it with a little Stevia, fresh or frozen (not in syrup) fruit, and sometimes walnuts. It provides protein, carbs, and healthy fat.
• I use it as a mayonnaise substitute in chicken and tuna salad.
• I recently baked a sweet potato with a little cinnamon and mixed it with the sweetened Greek yogurt and walnut mixture. It actually makes a really good dessert.
• I also tried it in a Creamy Taco Soup recipe from the Muscle and Fitness Hers website.

Recipes of the Week

This is going to be a challenging weekend for the majority of the football loving fitness junkies out there. If you are attending a Super Bowl party, I don’t really have many options for you unless you pack some chicken breast in your purse. My only advice is to stay away from the Queso dip. That cheesy, meaty, salty, delicious goodness could get you into a lot of trouble on Monday morning (on the scale as well as in the bathroom).

If you are hosting a Super Bowl party, you will be lucky enough to cook up some healthy snacks that you can treat yourself to while watching either the biggest game of the year, the commercials, or Beyonce’s half-time show. There is something for everyone on Super Bowl Sunday. The great people at bodybuilding.com have put together some healthy chicken wing recipes for your Super Bowl party. You can enjoy food and the game without the guilt.

Status Update

This time I decided to include a before and after pic. The before pic is a Girls Vacation in Las Vegas in January 2011 and the after was last weekend at a basketball game (Go Gators). Instead of telling you what the scale was saying 2 years ago, I will just say the after is 71 pounds lighter. My focus now is to lower my body fat percentage.  

Story of the day: I was told that “nobody wants bones but a dog” and “if I get too thin I will be out of competition with the other shapely women in my building”. To summarize that conversation in a few words “don’t lose that donk”. I like to think that I am thicka than a (fun size) snicka so as much as I want to decrease my body fat; I can’t accept losing some of my more womanly features. Therefore I have added back in some lower body training days to help tone what the cardio doesn’t burn off.

Some of my favorite lower body exercises include:

• Front Squats (love these) 
• Deadlifts 
• Leg Press
• Pistol Squats on the TRX
• Weighted walking lunges

When performing lower body exercises the most important thing other than form is music selection. Don’t think you are going to push through that last squat listening to baby making music. I usually listen to alternative rock on lifting days and hip hop during cardio. The key here is…the more ignorant the music the better the cardio.

Accountability
I wanted to share one of my biggest goals for the upcoming year with you guys because I need to be held accountable. It’s easy to tell yourself you want to do something, but if you never ask for help there is no one to:  1. Help you during tough times 2. Keep you motivated 3. Keep you from disappointing yourself. That motivation buddy may be the difference between you living your dream or adding another item to the failure list. Therefore I am asking you (my friends) to keep me motivated in these next 5 months.

I have decided to do a fitness photo shoot at the end of the summer so I am increasing my training and being a lot stricter on my diet (except for 15-19 Feb; Happy Birthday to me). I did this at the beginning of my weight loss journey, but with a more hectic schedule and tighter budget things get a bit harder.  So I am asking for your support. J

In my next blog I will include some starting body fat and weight numbers. Also, I will be updating you on my progress every couple weeks. If I start acting like Aretha Franklin from the Snicker commercial, just remember I am sugar/cake deprived.  I tasted a Caramel Sugar Mama Cupcake from GiGi’s on Tuesday, and it was better than…..a back massage after a long day, and so that you guys understand what I am giving up for the next 5 months click on the link above for a view of the sugary goodness. 

Let's Get Started: Stocking your Fridge for Success

(Not So) Average Girl

I want to start by explaining how I came up with the name for this blog. My friends will tell you that I am far from average. Some words that have used to describe me are unique, peculiar, silly, and different (sings 2 Chainz hook). I am sure all those names were spoken out of love or at least I hope so. 

I am a performing arts type of girl. My friend and I took gymnastics one summer, and realized I was scared of heights so that ended very quickly.  You could always find me in the choir room, dancing and singing on stage, twirling my flag on the practice field, or shaking my butt to the drum corps newest cadence during football games.

I was never on any sports teams in school. I am not an athlete. I am not a personal trainer. I am not a fitness competitor. I am not a nutritionist. Therefore, I am just a girl struggling to maintain a healthy lifestyle…..basically, the average girl.

Now for the Good Stuff….Nutrition! 

When I started my nutrition plan, the grocery store was overwhelming. Reading nutrition labels was like solving calculus problems. You spend hours trying to comprehend the problem, and when you work your way through it the final result is incorrect. It’s the same for nutrition. You finally get your mind around calories, calories from fat, and total fat then they throw in carbohydrates and what seems like a hundred different kinds of fats. Soon you end up saying forget it (this is a PG blog), and grab a DiGiorno Pizza or Publix (for us lucky Southerners) fried chicken for dinner.

Click on the link below for a GREAT website that will help you understand what you should be looking for when you read your next label:

Nutrition for Everyone

After you have had time to research the differences between complex carbs and simple carbs you are ready to take on the grocery store. Below you will find a list of a few things to get you started:

Protein

Tilapia

Salmon

Tuna in Water

Chicken Breast

Ground Turkey (make sure to choose the Extra Lean option)

Egg Whites

Shellfish

Greek Yogurt

Veggies

Spinach

Broccoli

Green Beans

Zucchini

Carrots

Bell Peppers

Greens (Turnip, Collard, Kale) –don’t let your grandmother or a soul food restaurant prepare them

Cabbage

Mushrooms

Sweet Potato – baked with a little olive oil and cinnamon is delicious

Fruits

Apples

Bananas

Berries

Nuts

Almonds

Walnuts

Pistachios

Carbohydrates

Oatmeal

Brown Rice

Whole Wheat Bread

Beans

This is not a complete list of healthy foods, but it will get you started and at least guide you to the correct sections of the grocery store.

Let’s get to cooking!

The ingredient of the week is Quinoa. First, it is pronounced KEEN-wah. I don’t want you to have to go through the same embarrassment I did the first time I went to the grocery store looking for it. This link will give you a great description, health benefits, and cooking instructions.

What is Quinoa?

Only comment I have is the first time I cooked Quinoa I used it as a side dish, and cooked it in water only * Insert disgusted face here*. It was quickly placed in the garbage can. I encourage you to try it alone first because you may actually like the “pure” version. For the rest of us, it’s really good when cooked in broth. To cut down on the sodium of the broth, buy the low sodium versions and use a mixture of broth and water when cooking. For example, for 1 cup Quinoa you will use 2 cups of liquid (1 cup water, 1 cup broth).

The recipe this week comes to you from Oxygen magazine just in time for Mardi Gras. I will highlight the Quinoa Jambalaya. The link to the recipe is below:

Oxygen Magazine's Quinoa Jambalaya

I hope you like it.  Please leave your recipe review below, and list any changes you made while cooking. I tried it a while ago, and I really enjoyed it. Now, if only I could find a healthy version of the King Cake!


Next Week: "Taste the Rainbow: Diversifying your Produce"

My Fitness Journey in a Nutshell

Thanks for taking the time to read my first post.  Quite a few people have asked me about my weight loss journey so I decided what better way to get the information out than to start a blog. I want to start with my background…..

These jeans are rather tight……

I have always been a “thick” girl as black women like to call it, and I have lost weight at various points of my life but I always gained some of it back. My lowest clothes size was a size 12 around my sophomore/junior year of college. The summer before my final year of college I came home to help take care of my aunt and run errands for my grandmother. That meant day after day of fast food lunch, energy drinks, sodas, and sweets. By the end of the summer I was back into a 14. Then the stresses of Senior year kicked in along with the weekly phone calls about my aunts medical setbacks. I was stressed, depressed, and continuously putting on weight.  When graduation came around, I was not so easily squeezing into a 16.

Workplace weight gain…..

I started my new job a month after I returned home from Gainesville. Much like the majority of cubicle dwellers, my lunches consisted of high sodium frozen dinners or chicken tenders and fries from the cafeteria. There was also mid-afternoon Oreo's for a snack, and Mt. Dew for caffeine when that 2pm dragging feeling started. Since cooking dinner was not a priority, dinner most nights was a turkey sandwich, chips and yet another Mt. Dew. Towards the end of summer 2010 I was buying clothes in an 18, and I hit my highest point of 232lbs!!! I had officially hit chunky monkey status.

But I was working out…...

The entire time I was putting on weight I was still active. While in college, I was running stadiums and in the gym doing cardio and strength training. During the summer I was home, I was on the track in the mornings running. When I started working, I was in my buildings gym 4 days a week. Sometimes I was doing an hour of cardio a day. From August 2010 to January 2011, I had lost a total of 5 lbs. I was at a loss for words. I was always in the gym. I was punching faster and kicking harder than anyone else at kickboxing, but my weight wasn’t moving.

Help was on its way……

Fast Forward to June 2011. I met a guy at a work conference that owned a nutrition store. He started telling me about low carb diets, whey protein, and eating 5-6 small meals a day. That weekend I bought my first tub of whey protein (shout out to my friends at Absolute Nutrition-Madison).  I posted on Facebook that I was going to start a low carb diet, because it’s not real until you post it on Facebook right, and a fellow Gator came to the rescue with the nutrition plan she used to get into competition shape.

Now I am starting to see results….

The next week I started my nutrition plan. Sodas? Gone! Fried Food? Gone! Fast Food? Gone! Sugar?...you get the point. My meals now consisted of lean protein (Tilapia and grilled chicken breast), and veggies. I started cooking everything I was eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Snacks were usually fruit, nuts, and veggies. I continued my same workout routines, but this time it was combined with clean eating and protein shakes. I started losing 2 lbs a week. By March 2012, I had lost 60 lbs and wearing a size 10. Healthy eating has now become a necessity for me, and I LOVE challenging workouts. I feel like a beast when I successfully make it through workouts. My alter ego is Warrior Princess. She takes over when I walk through the door of the gym. Seriously!

What’s next for me……

The scale hasn’t moved since March 2012, but I am still doing my strength training and I am now in a size 6/8. I am now a self-proclaimed fitness junkie, and I subscribe to Oxygen, Women’s Health, and Fitness magazine. I also purchase Fitness Rx and Muscle and Fitness Hers every month. These are some great magazines for recipes and workout ideas. My fitness priority now is lowering my body fat percentage.  I take a group training class at my local gym that I LOVE, but I am still having nightmares of that Christmas Eve workout.  I am going to start incorporating some of my old strength training back into my routine. I was introduced to weights in HS, and I have fallen in love with the iron. It probably sounds crazy, but the squat rack is my serenity and I really want a heavy squat.

Here’s the takeaway…

This was the introduction to my blog, and I wanted to provide you guys with my background story hoping that you can relate and realize that you are capable of the same journey with the same results. It just takes hard work and discipline. You will probably never see another post this long. Future posts will consist of recipe ideas, workouts to try, and a quick status on how my new journey is progressing. I hope you enjoyed my first post. Remember bikini season will be here before you know it….unless you live in South Florida where its bikini season 90% of the year. 

 Next week: grocery lists, recipes and more.......