Beautiful Behaviors - April 2017

Do you guys have any favorite salad recipes? @aleahurst 's chickweed inspired me!

@fibonacci227 - lettuce has so little flavor (for my taste) that I'm on the search for more interesting salads! Have you ever tried cutting up about 6 strawberries on a salad? It makes the salad so pretty and good. My homemade dressing is NOT low fat, but has good fats. My other go to is about 6 wild violet blooms. They look pretty and are surprisingly tasty.

@jessiquoi - I'm so proud of you! Yay! That's me cheering. Can you see me jumping?

Today, I will sit outdoors in whatever sunlight we have for about 20 minutes and dig my toes into the grass. Vitamin D, earthing, and gardening. Yeah!

Oh. Wait. I'm taking serrapeptase in the a.m. on an empty stomach. It seems to help, but I'm still in the wait and watch state on that.

I now use spirulina daily and need to remember to not use it at night. It keeps me awake!

Love to all.

Lea

Quick update because I'm gonna spend time with my loved one
Worked out both Saturday and Sunday. Today I completed 113 minutes of Shoulders and Treadmill incline. Went to the gym by myself the past couple days because the bf had to work.
Thought for the day: Ain't nobody got time for fat. lol We have time, 10 minutes, 20 minutes or 2 hours. What ever time you have to walk, stretch, pick an activity, get out there. Enjoy your active life. Good night

This weekend was not a great one food wise. Saturday was open house in a lot of the local businesses, so we made it a Mommy son date with my 6 year old. We had cappuccino (happened to be sugar free) and nutty bars at the first place, then doughnuts and diet Mt dew at the next. After that we had big bowls of soft serve ice cream, and once we went to my mom's, I added cherry topping and a pecan bar, and tasted some of the buttermilk from her last batch of butter. I did help shake the butter, and still went for my run, but I felt pretty sick afterwards. Sunday we had coffee and toast with the homemade butter for breakfast, the. Went to my mom's, and had some jello salad and leafy salad, then made pancakes with rich syrup for lunch. Had a generous helping of those then later had more hello salad and some ice cream. Today is a new day, and I'm trying to start making up for it.

@ParanormaLauren, I followed your Pinterest board! So many good recipes- I'm excited to try them out.

@fangcat623 A plan is the way to go. You might have had a rough couple of days but your attitude about moving forward is what will get you where want to be. Good for you for looking forward and not back.

@wellthenwhat Weekends with lots of activities can be a challenge. I hope that you enjoyed all those treats! Not only is today a new day, it's a new week!

@ParanormaLauren I can't wait to try some of those recipes!

@happysherri You are a workout MACHINE! You are really inspiring me to up my game with strength training. I will be taking it slow to prevent injury, but I want to be tough like you!

@jessiquoi Congrats on getting through the first few days. I hope you will find things in this new way of eating that give you pleasure so that you can stick to it and see real results when you go for your next bloodwork.

@aleahurst You use so many interesting ingredients! I'm going to have to get more creative. You talked about split peas... Did you boil dried ones? Or canned? Or do you grow them yourself? (I know nothing about split peas, except that I've eaten them in soup.)

@fibonacci227 I love to make a salad dressing of pureed artichoke hearts with a bit of oil (usually olive), vinegar (balsamic or cider, or lemon juice sometimes) and Dijon mustard mixed in. It's sharp and has a strong flavour so a little goes a long way. I do a batch on the weekends and it keeps in the fridge for ages.


I had a great weekend. Made it through a toddler B-day party on Saturday with only a few indulgences and was well within my calorie target for the day.

I didn't get as much meal prep done yesterday as I'd planned because two long bike rides in two days left me pooped! (But yay bike rides!) I did get all my snacks done for the week, and I have lots of frozen soups and chili in the freezer, and it's a quiet week so I'll have time to cook dinners.

I have a job interview today that I wasn't expecting. My construction project is done and my last day at work is this coming Friday, but our client's Office Manager just quit, so things might work out kinda perfectly for me. (Though a little part of me was looking forward to a little downtime between jobs since I'm getting some severance pay.) And surprisingly, the nerves have not driven me to raid my Hershey's kiss stash!

Hey, hey beautiful people!

I either ate really healthy (pad thai dinner and salmon dinner) or reeeaally bad this weekend (banana split with all the fixings for girls night). No regrets! I completed a 4.6 mile, 1800ft elevation gain hike in 4 hours on Sunday. My buddies and I kept falling through the snow and I'm sure I burned a ton more calories trying to climb out of the snow and keep warm. It was beautiful and insane! I felt like a beast.

Skinny Chicken Pad Thai was a success. My zoodles cooked waaay down and we (2 people) ended up eating more of the chicken than intended, but I was ok with this since it helped me reach my protein goals for Friday. I poached the 3 chicken breasts (sliced thinly) in .5 cup of water with half an onion and three cloves of garlic. I added three medium zucchinis (spiralized) with another .25 cup of water after the chicken was cooked through. The zuchinni released a lot of water once cooked down. After I added the peanut sauce, I lost patience and added a teaspoon of cornstarch to thicken the sauce rather than wait any longer. I garnished the dish with a ton fresh cilantro, red pepper flakes and lime wedges.

Skinny Peanut Sauce- I basically winged this and it can be adapted to taste. I have substitutes in here, but I starred the necessities. Water could be added to reach your desired viscosity.
*4 tbs of PBfit of P2B. Probably use just 1tbs if your going with regular nutbutter. The powered pb has way less fat.
*1 tbs of Brags liquid aminos (or low sodium soy sauce)
*1 tsp of fish sauce (or Worcestershire sauce)
*1/2 tsp of sesame oil
1 tbs garlic chili paste (or siracha)
*2 tbs of honey
dash of powdered ginger
red pepper flakes
dash of pepper
dash of white pepper.

@str8bowbabe and @fibonacci227 one of my super low fat meal staples happens to be the "cabbage soup diet" recipe with added protein (chicken, ground turkey, salmon, beans, etc.). I skip oil in the recipe and poach the veggies with water. Keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn. I keep it versatile by using different hot sauces, changing the broth type (chicken, veggie, beef), fresh herbs, or adding Italian or Mexican spices. It's essentially salad in soup form. I make a huge pot once or twice a month and portion it out for lunches or lazy dinners. I've never done the crash diet itself, but I find the versatility and the volume of the soup super satisfying. I do think its important to add a protein source to help make it a complete meal. http://divascancook.com/wonder-soup-recipe-weight-loss-soup-7-day-diet-cabbage-soup/

Some of the other salad add-ins I use include: cottage cheese (instead of a dressing, meat or cheese), boiled egg or egg or easy (like the runny yolk) with bacon, nuts that I toast and portion out, sunflower seeds, fresh herbs and shredded brussel sprouts. I also like making a taco salad with ground turkey taco meat. :-)

@ParanormaLauren I just started following your board on pinterest! I'm super jazzed to try it out some of these veggie recipes!

Keep up the beautiful work everyone!