Meals and Exercise Tips for Busy People
Each week I have the priviledge of speaking with one of our areas most respected fitness experts, Dayna Deters, from Daynadetersfitness.com. Here are Dayna's tips from this weeks show on "It Matters....With Kelly Cordes" on AM 1240 WJON.
Fitting in Exercise and Meal Planning for Busy Lives
We live in a busy world. We wake up... do the same routine in and out... and the last thing that we make time for is ourselves. But in reality, the first thing we need to do is work on us to make it better, healthier and happier. We only have one life to live and this life is precious! Taking the time and energy to take care of ourselves is hard, but also necessary! So I’m going to share some tips and tricks to help you find some YOU time without taking too much time.
For my family, Sunday night is family time. We gather in the kitchen to make food for the whole week. Usually we cook up an evening meal big enough to provide leftovers for the next few days.
Our family will make chili and turkey burgers, brown extra lean ground turkey, boil eggs, and I will make my Determinite Egg Muffins. (some of these recipes can be located on my website at www.daynadetersfitness.com/recipes).
We will store all food in glass containers or plastic (just don’t microwave in plastic), for easy grab when we are on the go.
While we're making and baking our food, we prep extra raw vegetables and store them in the fridge. We will put them in extra-large storage baggies, put in some almond or flax oil with no salt seasoning and shake the bag and store them in the fridge.
Next we cut up carrots and celery, broccoli so as the week goes on, we can have them as snacks with peanut butter or eat them raw.
Organic Peanut butter is affordable, nutrient-dense, and helps you stay full. Just make sure you are checking the labels because some can have extra ingredients in there, it should be just peanuts.
The cost of being healthy might cost little bit more than you are used to... but being creative and making good choices are ideal. I have done a little research by getting a cart full of processed and boxed foods, and another cart full of fruits, veggies and lean meats, almond and coconut flour and protein powder and the comparison was almost the same. So it can be done.
What drives up price is availability, and you can get around that by buying frozen or canned goods, which are sometimes nutritionally similar to their fresh counterparts. Because frozen and canned goods are usually preserved at the peak of freshness, you're often getting them with maximum nutritional value.
My tip is: Buy what's in season.
In our house, we'll often combine the two strategies:
We buy a lot of blueberries when they're more abundant and less expensive, and then freeze them so we can eat them year-round. Or buy a big bag of frozen blueberries and strawberries.
Try these "good for you" foods:
- Frozen raspberries
- Frozen green beans
- Frozen cherries
- Frozen blackberries
- Canned tomatoes
- Frozen peppers in the organic section, for stews, chili’s and stir-fry’s.
I see this happening from time to time...People will tend to lose weight and then a year later some people will gain it back and then some. Many people just return to their old habits, so keeping it consistent and make sure you are taking necessary baby steps to get you to your goals and attain for life long. So no carb diets (If it is a diet it is no good) YOU NEED TO MAKE IT A LIFESTYLE CHANGE. Diets are never a good idea.
Meal planning with ease
I have added a new category on my Pinterest.
This can help you with recipes to make meal planning easy. It is so much better to have some guidance on where to start. Here are some examples for meals.
Start with breakfast
1. Overnight oats are easy to make-you can make 3-4 of them at a time so it’s an easy grab for a busy morning.
2. Can’t have oats? Try Chia seeds instead. I have recipes on my site or Pinterest for overnight oats.
3. Egg bakes are good too.
4. Egg muffins-fruit filled or veggie filled they are on my website.
5. Greek yogurt and nuts with a hint of flavor from a GMO free protein powder, or add 1 tablespoon peanut butter.
6. Smoothie, protein powder-spinach- ice-unsweetened almond milk and ½ cup berries.
Lunch-
1. Chicken Pita: 3 oz. chicken breast,
2. 1 slice reduced fat cheese, lettuce, tomato, 1 Tbsp. salsa; 1 c. cantaloupe
3. Tuna Sandwich: 4 oz. canned tuna with 1 Tbsp. hummus, lettuce, tomato, onion on 2 slices whole wheat bread, I kiwi
4. Salad: mixed vegetables, 3/4 c. kidney beans, 1 Tbsp. low-fat cheese, 2 Tbsp. ground flaxseeds, 1 Tbsp. dressing
5. Turkey Chili.
6. Bake, grilled, steamed, or broiled chicken with 1 medium sweet potato and 1 cup broccoli.
7. Tacos with ground turkey with bib lettuce leaf as your shell and load up the veggies!
Again check out my website for great recipes you can make and take with you for work or a busy day!
Snacks—
1/2 c. low fat cottage cheese with 1 c. sliced strawberries
4 oz. plain nonfat yogurt mixed with 1 Tbsp. protein powder and 1/2 c. fruit
15 almonds; 1 kiwi
1 hardboiled egg; 1 oz. whole grain crackers
I do a ton of protein bars! I make them because they are lower in sugar and higher in good ingredients. It is simple to make them; once you do once--you will be able to whip them up in 5 minutes and bake for 20 minute.
I have a really great Brownie Protein Bars recipe.
But right now for my snacks I have been making my Healthy Carrot Protein Cake…I’m obsessed this one right now!
Dinners:
We are typically done with work around 6pm so it is literally a crazy fast night for us—so made easy food is ideal for us.
1. Stews in the rockpot-
2. Turkey Chili-
3. I will prepare the ground turkey in advanced for tacos—my daughter loves the bib lettuce so we go a lot of veggies and protein at night.
I will even make an egg bake pizza which takes 10 minutes to make when we are in a hurry.
Lastly, I have a Stove top Spicy Mexican Bake recipe on the site and we make this once a week because it is super-fast and easy.
Next thing to do is get some exercise to keep the motivation going, it will not only aid you in your weight-loss but will help you mentally as well. If you think you are tired from work, go and get a short bust of exercise and I will bet you that you will feel even better than you would have before work, so find an exercise routine you enjoy.
That might mean putting a favorite yoga video on your computer and in your DVD player so you don't have to go searching for it.
Or maybe it's signing up for a workout class or workout with a friend.
Make Exercise a Priority
To the best of my ability, I try to make exercise a priority. Same as I wouldn’t skip dinner, I try to keep the mindset of not skipping exercise. It is an important part of your day and important to keeping your body strong, resilient, and healthy. It also helps me release stress and sleep better at night.
I work at a desk job, and let be honest, blogging isn’t the most “active” of hobbies – so I need to make exercise a priority or it would get lost in the busy day.
Commit to a specific schedule
When you fail to plan you plan to fail. Don't try to haphazardly fit your workouts into your schedule without any rhyme or reason. Don't think you're guilty? If you've ever told yourself "I'll workout as soon as I get some time", you were in direct violation of this key principle.
In order to set yourself up for success, you will need to take the time to literally write down your workout in a schedule. In order to be effective, you will need to keep that appointment for YOU and not cancel on yourself.
Therefore, right in the midst of all of your appointments, "to-do" lists, etc., should be a written plan for your weekly workouts, so that you will never be in the dark as to when you committed to yourself to go.
Utilize the weekend
Take advantage of the fact that it only takes 3-5 days per week to put together an effective, results-producing workout. One trick to help you pull it all off is to work out on the weekends. One of the benefits to this course of action is that your schedule is more flexible and under your control during this time. When the hectic weekdays roll back around, you will only be responsible for working out 1-3 days during the work week.
Keep your workouts as a high priority
One of the biggest mistakes that many people who have scheduled a workout program into their schedule make is allowing it to be bumped off of their schedule to easily.
Although things will occasionally come up that will cause you to have to reschedule the workout you had planned, you must be vigilant in making sure that only the most important emergencies are allowed to temporarily take you off of your plan.
In the event that one of those important emergencies does happen and you can't make it to your workout, reschedule with yourself to make it up on the next possible day that you are available to do so. Go in the morning if possible or workout so nothing gets in your way!
Get your HIIT On
I have talked a bit about HIIT in the past – High Intensity Interval Training. HIIT exercise is 10 to 20 minutes of interval training that builds strong muscles in a short amount of time. This type of exercise is challenging, but it is one of the only exercise methods I have used that I have actually seen a change in people’s body. I don’t spend an hour and ½ to two hours working out, I try to be as active as possible throughout my day and start my day up with a quick HIIT workout.
One of my favorite HIIT systems to use is my POP Challenges –I have included a couple on my site one you can start with is the:
“POP” Squat Challenge
(18X) Regular Squats
(18X) Pulse Squats
(14X) Front Kick Squats
(8X) Regular Squats
(2X) 360 Jump Squats
(12X) Alternating Side Lunges
(4X) 360 Jump Squats
(12X) Alternating Side Lunges
(12X) Regular Squats
(4X) 360 Squats
Repeat 1-3X for a fun fast workout!
Enroll others in your goals
Don't go at this alone. Let the important people in your life know what you are up to. You love interest, spouse, parents, children, co-workers, and close friends will often pitch in and help you to meet your fitness or weight loss commitment to yourself if you make them aware and ask for their support.
If any of them are into exercise or trying to lose weight themselves, don't hesitate to form a buddy system with them as you move forward with your program.
Take Advantage of a Lunch Break
I will take short 1/2 hour walks on my lunch break, getting up and moving helps me in more ways than one. I get to stretch my legs and get some movement into my day – but it also helps clear my head and get me ready for the next half of the day. Even a fifteen minute or ten minute walk is better than none – so give it a try, you might just love it!
Squeeze Mini-Exercise Sessions In
If you have the capability, fit in mini-exercise sessions. By this, I mean – take five minutes every hour or two and pump out 10 push-ups; then a couple hours later, 20 lunges; then, 30 squats; then, 40 jumping jacks; you get the idea. Or you can do 1 round of a POP challenge and every hour after do another round.
While this might not be a full on sweaty or intense workout all at once, you will still be moving and building muscle. I use these mini-exercise sessions when I am traveling, or when I know that after work I will not have time to do my exercise of choice.
Don't beat yourself up
No matter who you are, there will be times in your workout program that you just aren't able to keep it up as you would like due to outside demands. Don't be too tough on yourself on this.
Remember that it is what youdo consistently over a long period of time, not what you do in spurts, that truly counts. Just make sure that you get back on the horse full force as soon as you can and continue to press forward, doing your best to avoid slacking off again.
No matter what goals you have for health, fitness, or weight loss, you CAN fit an effective exercise program into that hectic schedule of yours and be amazingly successful at getting the exact results that you want!
~Dayna Deters
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