Meal Planning

I am so back, guys! Meal prepping tonight for the week entailed: boiled sweet potatoes painted with sea salt and coconut oil, and boiled chicken breast with tomatoes, tomato sauce, as whole peppers. Boiling chicken breast for three hours will get you some shredded, slow-cooked goodness. And how can you go wrong with sweet potatoes? For a little extra treat, melt a 35-calorie piece of Laughing Cow light cheese on the peppers. Yum.

Trying out Freshness

I realized that my cooking always involves spices with salts. Calories are one thing, but sodium will creep up on you and cab lead to all sorts of health problems.

So, I've been trying out new things, such as fresh ingredients instead of spice. Blending two tomatoes with fresh basil, onions, olive oil, and a garlic clove made for a really good sauce. I cooked lean beef using the sauce and stuffed some pretty peppers with that and sliced zucchini. I topped the peppers with fat free white cheese and baked for 20 minutes. It came out good, so this week I'll be making more sauces and posting the best recipe!

11 Healthy Food Swaps

11 Healthy Food Swaps

This info-graphic is awesome, and Mind Body Green is one of my new favorite blogs. I've never tried nut-cheese, but am very curious now, especially because almond milk is so delicious.

Polenta/turkey breast stuffed peppers

Have you ever had polenta? It's good, and it's a healthier alternative to pasta.

Tonight, I pan cooked some ground turkey breast and polenta with a white wine sautée. I added some seasoning, stuffed in some peppers, and baked for ten minutes. More details tomorrow! Healthy and yum. 

Exercise Calms Anxiety? Uh Duh

It really does, guys!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/how-exercise-can-calm-anxiety/?src=me

Who's ready for another recipe?

My fridge is full of yummy dinner items, one of which I will be making tonight. I am going to start providing recipes for you all again so I can fill your tummy with healthy and delicious foods. It's been an overwhelming few months, full of moving, buying a house, and more. It's time to get back on the blogging grind!

Another note on anxiety

My therapist says that instead of feeling emotion, I feel anxiety. This makes perfect sense, but I still struggle with controlling it.

When I am in an anxious state, I forget about all the health and wellness tips I follow when I am out of it. I wake up in the morning anxious, and my first instinct is to
"sleep it off", as opposed to working it off with exercise. This has worked for me plenty before, but for some reason, it's a challenge to remember to do so.

I read this helpful article today, which can be found here: http://www.anxietynomore.co.uk/anxiety_worrying_thoughts.html

It's a good reminder that, when an anxious state, you have to trust your experience and not your mind. It's simple science that our bodies release adrenaline like crazy when we are anxious. We go into an unnecessary survival mode. I think that happens because we are trying to escape whatever it is we don't want to deal with, and so we form irrational thoughts. For me, it's my mom's death two years ago.

It's a vicious cycle. The more I write and talk about it, the more I realize how many people are dealing with anxiety.

For anyone that does, try to embrace it instead of fighting it. That is the only way to manage the condition.