Hot June! Menu Plan Monday

 

Wow. I just walked into the house and I think I melted my shoes a little! I'm trying to get back into the swing of posting these menus since I do plan my menu every single week without fail. I got a couple emails last week about recipes from last summer so let's see if I can get better at posting! I have a lot of ideas so I am excited to get back on it!

I have overnight oats on the menu for breakfast but I've decided to switch up to something more like chia pudding with oats. I'm trying to increase both my servings of daily dairy and protein and this little adjustment allows for that, plus a half serving of whole grains. I wish I could eat my yogurt "unsweet" but I'm not there yet. It would be healthier if I could let the carbs go. I'm keeping my regular recipe on the menu but here is what I'm eating this week:

Overnight Chia Oat Pudding

Ingredients:

1/4 Cup Old Fashioned Oats
1 Tablespoon Chia Seeds
1 Tablespoon Honey, Maple Syrup or Jam (I like Smuckers Strawberry Preserves)
1 Cup Nonfat Greek Yogurt, Plain
1/4 Cup Blueberries (or strawberries, half a banana, peaches, orange segments etc.)

Instructions:

Layer into pint jar. Stir it all together.  Cover and refrigerate overnight. 

Eat and enjoy!!

Nutrition Facts
Serving size: Tablespoon
Servings: 1
Amount per serving
Calories	320
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 5.8g	7%
Saturated Fat 0.7g	3%
Cholesterol 0mg	0%
Sodium 75mg	3%
Total Carbohydrate 45.5g	17%
Dietary Fiber 8g	28%
Total Sugars 20.5g
Protein 23.3g
Vitamin D 0mcg	0%
Calcium 304mg	23%
Iron 3mg	15%
Potassium 413mg	9%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calorie a day is used for general nutrition advice.
Recipe analyzed by

Enjoy this week's menu.  Let me know what you like!

Meal Plan Monday

Meal Plan Mondays . . . A million years ago I used to participate in a group of blogs that posted meal plans and/or menu plans on Mondays. Ever since, I've planned my menus and shopped on Sundays and prepped some of my meals then too. Since returning to "outside" work a decade or so ago, this habit has saved me. When we return to school each fall, you can see the shift in the menu.

 

My lunches and breakfasts are either the same each day or built on the same day (because I kind of like that and it saves SO much time and effort). As well, our evening meals are quick or pre-prepped most nights. Tonight is Mac and Cheese. A while back, I switched to my version of a WW recipe because it's faster, simpler and much better for us and no one knows the difference. I encourage you to try is and see if you like it. SO much healthier and easier than the version I made for years, without heating up the oven!

 

Anyway, without further ado, here's my plan for this week, week 4 of our monthly rotation(ish). I've already shopped it and remembered how much my kids love mac and cheese.

Meal Planning Made Easy

 Meal Planning Made Easy 

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If you have ever been part of an organized weight-loss program, you know they place a lot of emphasis on meal planning. I'll extoll the virtues of that another time. For now, I'll share how I set up my menus and a little of the thinking behind it

I'm told, "you crave what you eat." It's true for me so that's the foundation of my menu planning. If you are struggling to lose, you might try, of all things to be more boring!  Here are the bedrocks of my meal planning:

• Eat mostly the same breakfast every week day. Caveat - I only plan breakfast for myself. The kids eat what they want to for breakfast. They also make their own lunch or buy lunch at school.
• Eat the same -- or the same foundation -- for lunch every week day. 
• Plan 3 meals a day; if you skip one  -- maybe unexpectedly eat out --put it in a "leftover" spot.
• Plan at least 2 "leftover" meals a week. 
• Use set "days," like "Taco Tuesday," to guide your planning. 
• Plan healthy meals; save indulgences for eating out and holidays
• Plan a week at a time
• Repeat menus from month to month (seasonally) - no one in my  has EVER* noticed!
• ONLY cook main dishes the whole family will eat. No time for cooking 2 meals!

Why, you may wonder, do I eat virtually the same breakfast and the same lunch 5 days a week? 3 reasons:

1. It greatly simplifies cooking and packing 
2. It's cost efficient, and . . .
3. It saves so much time

For the past two school years, I've subscribed to this plan and never regretted it. I've discovered that saying is true; by Friday I can't wait for the breakfast I know is delicious or the neatly packed lunch nestled under my desk. Here's your challenge: go ahead and try it for yourself. If you don't love how much time and energy it saves, I'll eat my hat! Okay, I'll eat it for the whole week!

As for "set days," it is my main way to simplify decisions. It turns out, my kids have subconsciously absorbed it the plan and it kind of throws them when I serve something "weird." Here are my "days" -

• Meatless Monday (although I do sometimes serve fish)
• Taco Tuesday 
• (Eat out on Wednesday)
• Pasta Thursday
• Fishy Friday

Yes, I get that it's about half the week, but it really makes life easy.  Make your own days to suit your family's sensibilities. When I do my planning, for those 4 days, I have a limited choice field, and, as well, I find those four categories are the ones that stand out when I read recipes. It eliminates "decision fatigue" and ensures a variety of foods through the week. 

Finally, this month's menu is also next month's menu. When something doesn't taste great or work for any reason, I replace it on the menu right away. Next month, it's all cleaned up and ready to go. Repeating the month's menu is a HUGE timesaver. If you are really crazy, like me, you can even save your shopping lists, but that's for another time. 

How do you plan ahead? How often do you repeat menus?  What benefits do you see? I want to hear from you! 

*As soon as I completed this draft, my son said, "Veggie Tacos AGAIN??? Where's the MEAT? " So someone DID notice that I repeated the monthly menu, haha. For the record, I'd only served Veggie Tacos twice before, but he'd just returned from three weeks on the farm and was missing all the farm-fresh meats and milk!

Menu Plan Monday

 

Menu Plan Monday 

Summer Week 1

Well, hello there! It seems like years since I sat in this space. Okay, it has been years. No excuses, just life. 

So here we are again, and I'm starting with "Menu Plan Monday." I have learned a few things over the last couple years and the main one is this: For me, planning is the key to success in healthy eating. Here is the short list of reasons:

• Having a plan means I have appropriate groceries in the house
• Menu planning avoids decision fatigue. "Decision fatigue" leads to impulsivity. Impulsivity leads to fast food!
• It saves money.
• It saves time because I am not duplicating my efforts.
• It helps me keep track of what's in the freezer and allows me to use those items.
• It simplifies food logging and/or calorie tracking
• Most important to me: It saves so much time! 

This week, I'm here alone with my 14 year old daughter and it's summer break for teachers, so I've made changes to my plan that incorporate her tastes and avoid overheating the kitchen in mid-day. 

In my next post, I'll talk a bit more about how I plan and my basic planning guidelines. For now, here is this week's menu; I hope it is helpful to you in your healthy eating efforts.

5 Reasons I Love Camp Gladiator

#choosechange

It's been a while. As it turns out, being a first-year teacher is an all-consuming activity. Still yet, I'm having success with my weight loss! I will write more about that next time.

Today, I want to talk about Camp Gladiator. First, the disclosure: No one asked me to write this and I am not receiving any type of compensation for doing so.

On my 57th birthday we went to a favorite restaurant that I literally only visit twice a year and when we left, there were people outside doing a promo for Camp Gladiator. They didn't actually stop me, they stopped Sunshine. She's 17, she's athletic, she's gorgeous; it made sense. In the end, I became their customer in what could only be described as a moment of temporary and complete insanity.

Camp Gladiator, "CG," is a boot-camp style fitness program. It's a total body workout in a "camp" format that runs in 4 week sessions. Each workout is 60 minutes and you can go an unlimited number of times to any location. The locations are outdoors. You bring your own equipment, water, a mat and a pair of dumbells. They recommend 2 to 3 workouts a week with 30 minutes of "activity" on the off days. These are the basic facts.

Here are 5 reasons I love Camp Gladiator:

1. The trainers are the best. They are carefully vetted in a multi-step process and they are superstars. They know their stuff and they are true professionals. My trainer, Brandy Babbs, is passionate, kind, encouraging and tough. 
2. It truly is "go-at-your-own-pace." People will be cheering you on, folks will encourage you to work hard, sometimes you'll be part of a team, but your pace is your pace. Since I'm at least 20 years older and quite a bit heavier than most of the people in my workouts, this is very valuable for me. 
3. Everyone is welcome, truly. There are beginners in every workout and there are CG enthusiasts who've been to over 200 workouts. It's an encouraging environment and judgment free.
4. It's excuse free. It's everywhere, all the time, except Sundays. Where ever I am, whatever I'm doing, there is always a workout nearby at a time I can attend. It may not be my preferred time -- I go at 5:00 AM -- but it is a time I can attend and still "do my life."
5. Finally, I love CG because of the modifications. I have terrible knees. I have had very little cartilage in my knees for over 20 years. I know what makes them worse and what makes them stronger. Because their trainers are pros (see reason #1), they are also expert at helping me make modifications so I still get a really good workout without further damaging my knees.  

Is it for everyone? No. I would not recommend it for elderly people or non-ambulatory persons. Otherwise, yes, if you are committed to fitness and really want to change your life. It's not for the "faint of heart" -- but that's a condition you can change. 

Give it a shot. If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, get off the couch and do something! Let me know how it goes!

Yep, I'm still here. The world's slowest loser. In a weird spate of good news, however, I happened across my weight from last January and I weigh exactly what I did then. So at least I'm not going up.

I have a plan. I have a process. I have a support group. Now I have to get to it!

I am still fighting the good fight, with a little less enthusiasm than before. When the new year came and went, I made a conscious decision to stop flogging myself for everything I did not do last year and focus on the here and now.  What I have is right now. I know what helps me lose weight. Now I need to get back to doing it.  I am headed to the kitchen right now to create my favorite egg and vegetable breakfast and to the store after work to refill the produce drawer.

There is never a time that is the right time to give up on myself. My last blood work was all good, thanks to a healthy lifestyle in spite of obesity. Losing weight is the last thing I have to do in order to say I've done all I can to be healthy.  I will not give up.

That's it for today; simply a time of coming clean but also looking at the clean slate. Happy New Year, everyone.  

Is it Time to Break Up?

If your playlist doesn't occasionally move you to tears, dump it like a bad boyfriend. Just break up. You need a playlist that will support and inspire you!

I'm so old that my first playlist was on a Sony Walkman, the cassette kind. That's right folks, I used to run to a mix tape. I'd run around Memorial Park in Houston singing, "Let it Be Me" at the top of my lungs. I didn't mind all those looks I got; I was inspired! I picture Phoebe when I imagine myself back then.

For the last couple of years, I've been exercising in front of the TV since I exercise at home. However, since I've gone back to running, I've realized that it just doesn't distract me enough. And it doesn't make me want to move my feet. When doing hard things, we need inspiration.

I decided to use beats per minute (BPM) to help me build my playlist. The easiest way I could find to do this was with an app. After admittedly minimal research, I chose Tempo Magic Pro.  I like it because not only does it analyze your BPMs, it can adjust them without ruining the song. You can actually y adjust them while they play! I have a lot of music on my iPod, so I don't tend to adjust the BPMs that much, I just look for songs that have the beat I need.  Using BPMs made it easier for me to add intervals to my playlist. When a faster song comes on, I match my footfalls to the beat. I push hard through that fast song knowing I can change tempo with the next one. It keeps me pressing forward. In case you also want to move beyond the mix tape, here are a couple of tips:

• Your playlist should reflect you. 
• Add your favorite songs first. 
• Search your device for songs of a certain BPM. What you find might surprise you! I added "Timber" by Ke$ha because I just love the beat, 
• Add inspiring songs. Don't underestimate sentimental value; I added Carrickfergus to my cool-down because it reminds me of a heart-warming time in England and a group of people dear to my heart. 
• Add some just fun or silly songs or old songs
• Order your list and see what's missing. I decided I wanted a longer warm up, so I front loaded a couple of slower songs. 
• Try to start and end on an inspiring note.  
• Shape your BPMs like a bell curve if you're building an interval mix.

It's your turn! Break up with that bad boyfriend playlist and get a fresh start. Shake it off. You know you've hit it when you're running along and you tears are running down your cheeks while you sing, " I am a woman on a mission. Nothing CAN stop me, I'm stronger than ever! I'm gonna see it through." 

Here's my current playlist. Be warned, some of the songs are a bit "colorful." If you will take a minute to share your  playlist with me, I'd love to pick up some new inspiration. On your mark, get set, go!

1. Fight Song - Rachel PLatten BPM 88
2. Proud - Heather Small - BPM 103
3. Let's Get it Started -The Black Eyed Peas - BPM 102
4. I Want Candy - Biggest Loser Workout Mix - BPM 144
5. On a Mission - Miss G - BPM 90
6. We are the Champions - Queen - BPM 63
7. You Gotta Be - Des'ree - BPM 94
8. Shake if Off - Taylor Swift - BPM 160
9. All About that Bass - Meghan Trainor BPM - 135
10. I Won't Give Up - Jason Mraz - BPM 91
11. Timber - Ke$ha - BPM 130
12. Everything is Awesome - Lego Movie - BPM 141
13. Good Girls - 5 Seconds of Summer - BPM 142
14. Beautiful - Christina Aguilera - BPM 75
15. Mountaintop - The City Harmonic - BPM 63
16. Carrickferghus - Loreena McKennit - BPM 60