Seeing as it is now the second day of August, I see no better time than today to start my “blog a day” challenge for myself this month. HA! Those who know me well know that I am A: faaaar from punctual, B: could win awards for my disorganization, and C: have the brain of a hoarder (no method—all madness) so this is in keeping with my personality. My immediate game plan is to blog once a day, but don’t hold your breath. =)
Aside from my outlandish daily blog plan, my goal for August for me and Sam is to STICK to our meal plans! Usually every Sunday we try to plan out our dinners for the week, lunches for him, lunches for me, and breakfast options and then grocery shop according to the list. Apparently, when I make these fantastic lists, I must be clearly fantasizing about being a stay at home wifey who doesn’t have an undying love for DVR’d reruns of The Big Bang Theory or the attention span of a two year old. What I don’t account for is needing to leave the house at 7am for a class and waking up at 7:05, sprinting through the house leaving the idea of making breakfast and lunches a figment of our imaginations. I also don’t anticipate how tired I will be after teaching 3 fitness classes and spending 3 hours in traffic and how in that moment, I would rather sleep on the freeway than have to make dinner. So on those days that I have a late night class and Sam throws out the idea of grabbing In-n-Out instead of either of us cooking, I jump at the thought. Every. Single. Time. While we scarf down double-doubles, all the carefully purchased groceries for our carefully planned meals grows older and goes bad and ends up forgotten until we go grocery shopping again on Sunday and throw it out to make room for our new future garbage. I’m tired of us throwing away money, and I’m scared for my arteries. I’m pretty sure my veins are just pumping red bull and In-n-Out spread by this point.
This Sunday, instead of browsing Pinterest and picking out our meals based on the healthiest looking foods and trying to make us eat brussel sprouts out of curiosity, I wrote out my schedule, the times I’ll be getting home and figured it from there. I planned Crockpot meals for my late nights or Sam opted to grill, and pre made some breakfast food for the days that we sleep in (like today). So far we have stuck to the plan 100%. However, it’s only 3 days in but it’s a strong start! The only thing that has been off the wall, have been MY meals. I have been teaching 3-4 classes a day at about 8 different gyms on top of training clients in there, I start to forget to eat until I’m starving and have class to teach so my food has been a little off… I can completely understand when my clients tell me they get so wrapped up in their families that they just “forget” to eat. With all that I have been and am going to put my body through, I need to be putting only the absolute best nutrition in it to make it through my schedule. I’ll save that for another day. Here are two of the EASIEST recipes I have used to make our meals healthy and QUICK!
Taco Ranch Chicken
-1 packet Ranch dressing mix
- 1/2 packet low sodium taco seasoning
-1 ½ cups low sodium chicken broth
- 4 chicken breasts
I throw everything into a Ziploc bag on Sunday and let it marinate till it’s ready to cook either in the crock pot on high for 4 hours, or grilled. Both super easy, low cal, low fat, high protein. Only downfall is that it’s a bit high in sodium—time to start chugging water.
Turkey Meatballs
-1 lb lean ground turkey
-chopped onion to taste
-1/2 chopped bell pepper
-¼ cup oatmeal
-1 egg
Season to taste
Side note--I usually chop up a ton of onions and bell peppers up and store it because we use it in so much so this is one of the easiest things I make. I dump everything in a bowl, mix it up and either form 1 oz balls or a meatloaf, depending on what’s on the menu. The meatballs have a million different variations; this is just Sam’s favorite. We have thrown everything from cheese to bacon in them so make it yours. It’s good with pasta, brown rice, extra healthy points when on top of spaghetti squash. These also freeze really well for a last minute dinner.
As for veggies… we are not adventurous. Sam is about as picky as a five year old and I get nauseas if something smells old or foreign…Asparagus is our friend. He grills it, I steam it, roast it whatever. We can eat it everyday and not get tired of it. Frozen broccoli and green beans are the only other things we can eat so we stopped trying to be fancy and just eat what works.
