Phytic Acid and Meal Plan for the week

I loved this quote! It's a good reminder if you slip up
 one meal, just get back on trackthe next time you eat.  

Nuts, Seeds, Grains and Legumes and Phytic Acid

We are on day 11 out of 21 of the Reset in our house.  Right now we are on Step 3 which means we are not eating nuts, seeds, or grains. (Most grains and legumes are cut out completely during the Reset). The point of cutting these out on the Reset is to because sometimes they can be hard on the digestive system, especially if they are not properly prepared.  Nuts, seeds, and grains contain phytic acid; when humans digest this it prevents us from absorbing important nutrients like calcium, magnesium, zinc, and iron.  In addition to stealing minerals, phytic acid also inhibits pepsin and amylase, which are digestive enzymes.  To read more about it, you can click here.  Another reason we cut out nuts it because a lot of mindless eating occurs with nuts; they are the type of snack that if you eating them while multitasking before you know it you have eaten the entire bag.  We do bring them back in Step 4 because in moderation and when they are properly prepared they have other nutritional benefits.  

Meal Plan for the week

Here is our meal plan for the week.  Most of these recipes are from the Reset book that Marnie and I wrote (over 100 recipes):  

Sunday Dinner: Pork chops with apples and onions with a side of broccoli

Monday Breakfast: eggs over easy over sweet potato hash

Monday lunch: leftover pork chops

Monday Dinner: Salmon with tomato and fennel

Tuesday breakfast: sausage pepper onion mushroom  frittata

Tuesday lunch: leftover salmon

Tuesday dinner: Grilled steak with asparagus and steamed carrots

Wednesday breakfast: frittata

Wednesday lunch: leftover steak and veggies

Wednesday dinner: Shrimp scampi over zucchini noodles

Thursday breakfast: frittata

Thursday lunch: leftover shrimp scampi

Thursday dinner: Thai chicken soup

Friday breakfast: smoothies

Friday lunch: Thai chicken soup

Friday dinner: Bolognese over spaghetti squash- add spinach to bolognese

Saturday breakfast: scrambled eggs with spinach and tomatoes

Saturday lunch: leftover Thai chicken soup

Saturday dinner: leftover bolognese

Sunday breakfast: 2-3 hard boiled eggs and raspberries and blueberries

Sunday lunch: curry chicken salad over a green with tomato and avocado

Thanks for reading!

xx Ali

4 Tips to stay on track

It can be hard to stay on track when the weekends come around.  Most people are taken out of their routines and therefore do not plan meals the way they do during the week.  When the weekends roll around there are more social gatherings, driving your kids around to different activities, or going to different family outings.  Here are a 4 tips I use for staying on track on the weekends:

1. 
   Meal Plan: Meal plan for the weekends.  A lot of people  meal planning for the week, but forget about the weekend.  If you know you have a busy day Saturday and will not have time to make lunch or dinner for that night, make a slow cooker meal on Friday (or any day you have 10 minutes to chop some vegetables and meat up and throw some other ingredients in).  For example, yesterday while Griff was napping I chopped and assembled all of the ingredients for chili in under 10 minutes and 6 hours later not only did my house smell really good, I knew we had lunch and dinner for Saturday.
2. Pack Snacks: Here are some snack ideas:

• avocados (and a spoon and knife)
• almonds with sea salt
• dry roasted cashews
• chopped up vegetables (my favorite is cucumber with sea salt)
• hard boiled eggs
• Lara bars (my favorite is lemon).  There are only 3 ingredients in these bars. Avoid all other bars!  If there is an ingredient in there you cannot pronounce, don’t eat it!
• Always have 1 or 2 water bottles with you (sometimes you may not be hungry, you may be thirsty)

3. Eat 3 meals:  Life gets busy! Whether it is sleeping in too late to eat breakfast or pack a lunch or your kids are running around and you never found 1 minute for yourself.  Try and prepare breakfast and your lunch the night before; put it in a container in the fridge so you can just grab it.   When the morning comes all you have to do it grab it. You can even set an alarm or reminder on your phone to grab it before you leave the house.   The point of eating ALL three meals is that you won’t get over hungry by the time 4PM rolls around where you then attack everything in the fridge, your local Starbucks, or wherever it is that you go.  Dinner goes back to meal planning.  If you didn’t make dinner and  you have stuff in your fridge, but you have zero motivation to cook anything, just get up and cook yourself some eggs.  Who doesn’t like breakfast for dinner??
4. Don't drink too much alcohol: Some people (myself included) eat more when they drink.  I find that whenever I start to feel tipsy I start worrying that I am going to be too drunk and feel like crap the next morning.  When that happens I convince myself that it would be best if I ate more. Another challenge is when dessert comes out at the end of a party or a dinner I tell myself it is ok to have some cookies, why not?  When I go back and self reflect I realize the nights where I feel like I had full control and didn’t cheat or feel like crap the next morning were when I did the following: started the night off with hot water with lemon, once my salad or raw bar came I then ordered my drink of choice.  After that making sure to alternate between water and alcohol.  Another important tip is not to mix alcohol, even if you start off drinking red, stick to red throughout the whole night.  

Intervals on the treadmill

I decided to do speed on the treadmill on Monday because I had done booty bar at Precision Pilates on Sunday and I knew I was going to take Yoga at Mantra Yoga.  I put Griffin in the daycare at the Manchester Athletic Club Monday most days and he loves it!  He goes for about 2 hours and plays with the other kids the entire time.  I love all of the staff there, he has been going since he was 7 weeks old.  Here is the workout I did (it took me about 40 minutes):

10 min warm up 
5 min 8.5 mph, each minute 1%,2%,3%,4%,5% 
1 min recovery jog 7.5mph 
4 min 8.6 mph, each minute 1%,2%,3%,4% 
1 min recovery jog 
3 min 8.7 mph, each minute 1%,2%,3% 
1 min recovery jog 
2 min 8.8 mph, each minute 1%,2% 
1 min recovery jog 
1 min 9.0 mph, each minute 1% 
1 min recovery jog 

The following were all done at 1% incline
1 min 9.2mph 
1 min 7.5 

45 seconds 9.4 
45 seconds 7.5 
30 seconds 9.6 
30 seconds 7.5 
15 seconds 9.8 
15 seconds 7.5 
Walk 2 minute cool down

You don't have to go at the same speed as me, go at your own pace.  My goal was to start at half marathon pace and finish around 5k race pace.  

If you REALLY hate doing intervals on your own and want motivation I would highly recommend doing RunFit at The Manchester Athletic club.  It is such a great workout and the instructors are very knowledgable and motivating.  

Good luck! 

Chia Seed Pudding

Cashew milk

1 cup soaked cashews.  Let cashews soak in water for 1-3 hours.  Drain well until water runs clear. 

4 cups coconut water

3-4 drops stevia or 1-2 tablespoons maple syrup 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Blend in Vitamix or another high powered blender

Chia Seed Pudding

Mix 2/3 cup chia seeds 

3 cups cashew milk 

Mix in large bowl then put in separate smaller bowls.  Refrigerate for at least 6 hours.  

Optional: add goji berries, fresh berries, cocoa nibs, shredded coconut.

Our meal plan for the week

I find that whenever I meal plan we eat a lot healthier and we end up spending a lot less money.  Writing the plan can take time, but in the end you end up saving money.  I started this list in the Notes section of my iPhone and added to it throughout the day.
After you meal plan and grocery shop the next thing is to start prepping.  Some meals are best if cooked that day, but it makes it so much easier if you chop all the vegetables ahead of time.  I pick two prep days, Sunday and Thursday.  I did a lot of the prep last night while I was cooking our beef tacos.  Here is our meal plan for the week: 

Chia Seed Pudding with Strawberries

Monday Breakfast: chia seed pudding with strawberry puree

Monday lunch: leftover beef tacos with avocado and cherry tomatoes

Monday Dinner: Sweet and sour salmon with green beans

Tuesday breakfast: chia seed pudding with strawberry puree 

Tuesday lunch: leftover salmon

Tuesday dinner: Chicken fajitas (lettuce wraps)

Wednesday breakfast: frittata 

Wednesday lunch: chicken fajitas leftovers

Wednesday dinner: Garlic shrimp with roasted asparagus and roasted potatoes

Thursday breakfast: bacon spinach tomato frittata 

Thursday lunch: leftover shrimp and potatoes

Thursday dinner: Slow Cooker Chili (freeze half for next week)

Friday breakfast: bacon spinach tomato frittata 

Friday lunch: chili

Friday dinner: Chili with avocado and green onion

Beef Tacos in lettuce wraps with cherry
 tomatoes and avocado

Saturday breakfast: scrambled eggs with spinach and tomatoes

Saturday lunch: tuna salad in lettuce wraps

Saturday dinner: mustard steak with broccoli and sweet potato fries

Sunday breakfast: hard boiled egg and banana

Sunday lunch: Tuna salad over a garden salad

Here is my grocery list! Not sure if this would be helpful to you, but I thought I would add because I write my grocery list in order of how things are at the Whole Foods I go to.  I already have a lot of the items to make these meals in my pantry, so you may not see things like coconut milk, olive oil coconut oil, coconut aminos, chia seeds, coconut water, and spices.
Sweet pots

Onions

Garlic

Spinach

Bib lettuce 

Cherry Tomatoes

3 Red pepper

3 Yellow pepper

Raspberries

Strawberries

Asparagus

Green beans

Carrots

Celery

Potatoes

Green onion

Avocado

Broccoli

Banana

Cashews

Eggs

Bacon

Shrimp

Chicken

Salmon

Skirt Steak

My pathway to optimal health

Happy New Year everyone! One of my New Year's Resolutions is to start blogging again. My goal is to write about different nutrition topics, post meal plans, post my favorite recipes, post workouts, explain how I fed my son and why he is an adventurous eater at 14 months, and any other topics that you suggest. Here is my story on how I got to where I am today.

Me and my son, Griffin summer 2015

After graduating from Colby-Sawyer College with a degree in Exercise Science, I began my profession as a personal trainer. After five years of training at Manchester Athletic Club, I brought my career to Equinox in Boston where my knowledge and enthusiasm for exercise and nutrition blossomed. After working with Marnie Lawler, who is a certified Nutritional Therapist, I was able to heal my ongoing issues which then inspired me to earn a certification as a Nutritional Therapist from the Nutritional Therapy Association.

My passion for health and well-being stems from my own experiences.  Through childhood and adolescence, I struggled with anxiety and depression, an eating disorder, severe gastrointestinal issues, and focusing in school.  Growing up, my parents strived to feed my family a healthy diet.  The majority of our meals were cooked at home, and we were not allowed to have soda, junk food, or sugary cereals.  Everyone in my family was very active and my parents thought the best way to support an athletic lifestyle was to consume carbohydrates (they were mostly refined); at the time, they believed they were embracing a healthy diet.  During my high school years, my anxiety and depression became debilitating and, in search for a sense of control, I developed an eating disorder.  I was also finding it difficult to focus in school and as a result was losing motivation to succeed.  I talked to my doctor about how I was feeling and was prescribed medication.  At each yearly check-up, I would report to the doctor that my struggles were only worsening, which just lead to increased doses and/or stronger medications.  Never once did the doctor address diet, and by the time I entered college I was on four different medications that did not seem to be helping.  It was then that my journey to self-heal began.  I replaced my medication with exercise.  I found that a dedication to daily workouts allowed me to gain some better control over my anxiety and depression, my digestion, my overall focus, and my relationship with food.  

Fall 2015 6K at Franklin Park.  It's amazing how great you feel
during competing when you eat well.

While exercise was an essential piece to my puzzle, my journey to feel truly healthy was not yet solved.  After college- though many of my struggles had been improved with exercise- I was still finding myself eating when I felt anxious or depressed.  In turn, I started putting on some weight and my clothes were no longer fitting.  I thought the solution was to further increase my exercise, so I became motivated to begin competing in marathons and triathlons.  After placing in my age group within the first few races, I was hooked.   I became very competitive in my endurance events,  but during the years of competing I suffered several injuries as a result of over-training.   During a bike ride with Marnie, they got to talking about nutrition and how she had used nutrition to heal a lot of my own family’s issues.  I ultimately discovered the final link to optimal health was to improve my nutrition.  I worked on my diet, and after several years, I was able to more effectively improve my anxiety and depression, heal my gut, clear up my complexion, improve my energy, prevent injuries, and improve my race times.  After achieving such astounding results, I was inspired to pursue my own certification in Nutritional Therapy so I too, could help others heal themselves through nutrition.  I now enjoy teaching people how they can feel better every day by nourishing their body with real food and exercise.  

Importance of fats when it comes to injuries

 When you are an athlete you tend to get injured no matter what the sport you are playing.  For endurance athletes it usually tends to be overuse.  Prostaglandin function is when the body inflames and anti inflames in order to maintain homeostasis.  Prostaglandins are hormone like substances the body cannot do without.  They occur in nearly all body tissues and fluids and are made from elongated forms of essential fatty acids and are synthesized in cell membranes.  To control the inflammatory function the body needs to inflame and anti-inflame; the body inflames to heal before it anti-inflames.  This is occurring all of the time when you are training, especially high volume training.  In order for normal prostaglandin function to occur the body needs omega 3-fatty acids, omega-6 fatty acids, and saturated fat.  Omega-3 and 6 fatty acids help the body to anti-inflame and saturated fats help the body inflame.  Both of these processes are crucial to the healing process.  Most Americans are trying to avoid all fats in their diet all together and they are ending up injured all the time, have chronic headaches and migraines, or end up with an anti-inflammatory disease.  It is crucial for endurance athletes especially to consume all three types of fats because when they are training they are using mostly fat as fuel.  Here are examples of all three types of fats:

• Omega-3
• grass-fed beef
• anchovies
• salmon (WILD!)
• blue fish
• lake trout
• sardines
• mackerel
• herring
• flaxseed oil
• wheat germ
• walnut
• hemp
• Omega-6
• Organic avocados 
• soaked and sprouted nuts
• Cold pressed olive oil
• black currant seed oil
• flax seed oil
• evening primrose oil
• Saturated fats
• grass-fed butter
• coconut oil
• grass-fed ghee
• grass-fed beef
• organ meat
• dairy
• shellfish

Some things to consider are:

• Most people tend to overeat omega-6 fatty acids.  It is very important to consume equal amounts of all three in order for proper healing to occur.  
• Industrialization is another contributing factor to fatty acid deficiency.  Grain fed is completely void of omega-3's, whereas grass-fed beef is not.  
• Adultered Fats: hydrogenated fats, highly processed vegetable oils (CANOLA OIL!), partially hydrogenated fats.  Trans fats are the by-products of hydrogenation and are very toxic.  They interfere with proper prostaglandin formation. 
• Supermarket oils: Living fats and oil are very sensitive to light, heat, and oxygen and become rancid very easily.  The more unsaturated it is, the more unstable it is.  Unstable oils are the most important to our health in terms of essential fatty acids. They should not be heath or exposed to any light.  Therefore supermarket oils that are in clear, plastic containers shelved under bright light and not refrigerated are not supporting life.  
• Flax seed is cooked into everything now.  You can find them in crackers, breads, used as oils for cooking, etc.  This is an oil that is not stable under heat.  Avoid all of these products and only consume flax that has not been heated.  
• Cooking is a factor that contributes to essential fatty acid deficiency.  
• For example, cooking fish destroys most of the omega-3 oils.  It is important to incorporate some raw fish in your diet.