New Recipe, I Dub it: Garlicky Avocado Eggs, MMM!!

Garlicky Avocado Eggs

 

Makes 1 Serving, 1 meal

 

Ingredients:

 

1/2 of a medium sized haas avocado

1/4 of a sweet valadia onion

1 pinch of salt

1 tsp of pepper

2 tbsp of new EVOO garlic wishbone dressing

3 eggs

 

Finished product has: 420 calories, 282.5 calories from fat. 6.75g saturated fat, 1.25g polyunsaturated fat, 13.5g monounsaturated fat, 14.5g carbs, and 18.25g protein

 

I put everything into a frying pan first before adding heat so I can have everything cooked evenly; not having one ingredient more cooked than another. I cut up the onion and avocado first into roughly 1/2 inch cubes. After the onion and avocado are in the pan I add the 3 eggs, then the Wishbone EVOO Garlic Basil dressing, and finally the salt and pepper. Once all the ingredients are in the pan, I set the heat on high. Takes between 5 to 10 minutes for it to cook thorough.

 

And that is all, your meal is served!

 

 

I love this for many reasons. First off being it is tasty. Second off, I swear I have always felt like out of my four ancestry heritages that I know of, that I have always felt the most relation and closeness to the Italian in my blood (also am German, Lithuanian, and Polish..I suspect there may be another, I intend to look into a DNA test maybe from ancestry.com (random note)), having said that I love, love, and did I mention LOVE my herbs, seasonings, and spices. And the mix of all the seasonings in the EVOO dressing with the salt, onion, pepper, and avocado gives this dish a delicious taste and texture that makes me fantasize that I am living within the Mediterranean, or perhaps Southern Italy. Plus the combination of fats and proteins keeps me full for a good five hours at the least. Which is good to keep my energized to "plow" through my day. Hope you all like the Garlicky Avocado Eggs.

 

 

Stay Forever Healthy. Forever Fit. Forever Loving Yourself.

Eating: It's ALL a Mentality

So, many of you know that I want to be taken seriously within the field of both fitness and nutrition. Thusly, many of you know I am not just studying to become a personal trainer (certification test August 9th), but while I am studying I am changing my lifestyle. See, I believe that part of the reason why we as a society are not successful when we "diet" is simply because we call it "diet." (Granted, most people do not realize the true definition of diet really means simply, what a person chooses to eat. It does not necessarily have anything to do with food restriction.) However over the years, the word "diet" has become a very negative one indeed. All these negative connotations. Furthermore, people associate a diet with a temporary, part time gig. Most of us think "oh, well, I am just dieting until I hit "X" pounds. Then I can go back to eating as I like." WRONG, WRONG, and did I mention WRONG? This kind of mentality is EXACTLY why so many people get trapped on the "yo-yo diet" bandwagon. I am here to say (or write) that loosing weight is not only an ENTIRE LIFESTYLE change, but a PSYCHOLOGICAL and MENTAL mindset change as well. If one only does the physical work, WITHOUT looking into one's mind and soul, kiss your hard work goodbye because I can guarantee if someone is trying to become healthy just by doing a "temporary fix,"  or only "going hard" at the gym until they hit their goal weight, as soon as they stop the "temporary" all the weight WILL creep back on (and then some).

Take eating sweets for instance. Everyone likes them. No one sees the hard or the issue with them. We all think we deserve "cheat days" on Friday and Saturdays. NO and NO. Most of us have to change our psychology and mentality when it comes to food. As part of my path to weight loss, I have cut out to very big things: alcohol and sweets (except for the sweets picture below, and IF I choose to have any of the sweets pictured, I restrict it to one per day). These are the following sweets 

I allow myself: Dole Dippers (only the strawberry or banana varieties (banana without the peanuts sprinkled on top) 60 and 100 calories per package, Luigi's Italian Ice (for budget conscious people, in yesterday's red plum insert, there was a $1 off 1 coupon for Luigis Italian Ice, or go to Red Plum's website to print off a .50 off 1 coupon. You can pick up the lemon or cherry flavors at Dollar Tree for only 50 cents or FREE depending on which coupon you have) which is 80 calories per 4oz cup, there is a new product out called Whole Fruit (organic, also, a month ago there were $1 off 1 for these as well, pick them up at WalMart with this coupon if you have it for a good price) where it is frozen juice and 60 calories per one pop, and finally bomb pops popsicles for 40 calories per popsicle. Honestly, I do not even always have one once a day. This is because I took time, real time, to take a hard look at myself psychologically and mentally. And I realized a couple things. Here's what I took time to think about:

 WE ARE CONDITIONED TO SEE SWEETS AS REWARDS

Think about it. When we were kids, what was the number one thing our parents would take away from us first if we misbehaved or would not eat our dinner? SWEETS. If as kids we behaved, how would our parents reward us? SWEETS. In our society, sweets are seen as the modern-day forbidden fruit. What if as a society we changed our perception on sweets completely? Before we put that chocolate or cake in our mouth, we should all think "why am I eating this? Am I hungry? Am I stressed? Am I just eating this because everyone else around me is?" If eating due to hunger, first and foremost to know, no sweet of any kind is going to satisfy TRUE hunger, it will satisfy "appetite" (which is the psychological of eating and food, not the true biological need to eat to survive, which is true hunger). Also, instead of rewarding and punishing children with sweets, what if we do other things? Reward with maybe doing a family outing to a park, or if it financially allows, an amusement park. Or maybe if wanting to reward with food, allow the child to "choose" between 2 or 3 healthy meal options of your choosing? As punishment, perhaps a time out, or not seeing the movie they wanted to see for that day? If we stop making sweets seen as a reward or a forbidden fruit our whole perception on sweets will change, perhaps as far as to not feeling such an immense need for sweets because it is known that if the "forbidden" factor is taken away from anything in life (food or otherwise), that particular item or thing will instantly lose its appeal to many people.

WE MAKE EXCUSES UP WHEN IT COMES TO FOOD

"Oh, I can eat a 1500 calorie meal once or twice a week, as long as I eat healthy the rest of the time, it won't have any long term effect on me."

"I deserve this."

"A weekly cheat day isn't bad."

There are many more examples I could put down here on mental thoughts we tell ourselves when it comes to eating something we maybe know we shouldn't. Firstly: why do we come up with these kinds of excuses? Simple, to psychologically protect ourselves. We look for ways to protect ourselves all the time, whether be from our own mental to struggle, or to protect us from public's perception. Psychologically protecting oneself at times is a very good thing to do (i.e.: going through traumatic experiences). However, when it comes to food and eating, this is one example of how psychologically protecting our image or ourselves does more harm than good. And honestly, having a weekly cheat day or two, or having an occasional fatty 1500 calorie meal DOES in fact do harm. Granted, it is chronic, not instant harm, but the harm is still there. Arteries, as example, will begin to clog if these are habits people do once to twice a week. We are mentally protecting ourselves when saying things like "a weekly cheat day isn't bad" because it is something we desire; if we were to tell ourselves differently, that "having this once or twice a week cheat day is bad for my health, and it will cause me to gain weight gradually over time," none of us would ever do cheat days. Our mentality as a society when it comes to food has certainly changed a lot over the course of human history. Eating now has become almost purely something done for pleasure, whereas years and years ago, eating occurred for survival. This change in perception? Absolutely another reason why obesity is becoming such a prevailing issue. And yes, while exercise is absolutely important to do with weight loss, it is only 20% of the equation. The other 80% is what we choose to put in our mouths and digest. I love the saying (because it is absolute fact) "you can't out-run a bad diet." It is true; yeah, you may work out at the gym for three hours, but if you are then going home and inhaling half a box of oreos and half a sheet pizza, you just negated all the hard work you put in, so you got to ask yourself: why in the world would you want to do that to yourself? If we were to think of eating for survival versus pleasure and socialable, there would be dramatic drops in societies weight collectively.

These two points are the points I thought about the most when reassessing how I eat and what to eat. Honestly, I can say since changing my mindset almost three weeks ago, I can tell you I do not really miss alcohol or sweets. I have just been keeping my eye on the prize which equates to a few things: being taken as a serious professional in the world of nutrition and fitness, becoming the best personal trainer I possibly can be, and to have an overall healthy LIFESTYLE. Changing psychologically how one looks at food and fitness, is how one can achieve a lifelong change. Without that psychological component, one's change will never be that of something permanent.

A final example: this is what I ate for lunch or dinner the past couple days (image below). I basically

call it my own version of guacamole. It is obviously mashed avocado (1/2 of one), 1/4 of a sweet vadalia onion, 1/2 a tomato, and a serving of blueberries. Whole thing? About 210 calories. Before I actively made a decision to change myself psychologically, this never would have been enough in my mind to keep me satisfied. But, because I decided to take the mental step to change my whole lifestyle and view of diet and exercise, this was plenty and all I needed to be full. Full of healthy fats and complex carbs. I would recommend this to anyone for a meal. Avocados naturally have a very meaty and almost nutty taste to them, so my desire to have that meaty taste was satisfied.

All in all I leave you all with this final thought; if you want to make real lifelong changes for a healthy lifestyle that will last you all your days alive, remember this one key point: PSYCHOLOGICAL AND MENTAL CHANGE truly is majority of the battle.

Love yourself. Love Health. Love Fitness.

xoxo - Sarah

Lets Get Honest

Tonight is going to be an interesting topic. It is a mix between personal and Weight Watchers. Why a mix? Because of the fact the two go hand in hand. Today, at 12:15, I attended my first weight watchers meeting. Thoughts? Mixed. I have a 3 month membership so no matter what, I am not one to give up or quit, so I will be sticking with it these next few months. However, the entire dynamic felt incredibly odd to me.

First off, I was thinking ten minutes into the meeting, why am I here? Because truthfully, I felt I could do a better job running a weight watchers meeting than the woman whom was running it. She was a nice lady, which was not the downfall. To me, even thought I read her nametag that said "30lbs lost in 1991," which do not get me wrong, that is great and awesome for her, but it made me wonder: a lot. This is because at the end of the meeting, another woman and myself stayed after to talk with her because this had been our first meeting. She stated being a personal trainer, but her story sounded like what one hears a lot of the time. She needed to loose weight after having her child. But, other than that, she did not tell a whole lot else about her journey or issue with weight. Perhaps this is why I felt no real connection with her; granted, I will give her meeting a second and third try. If no connection (just like dating) occurs by meeting number 3, I will give a different day a go. Besides doing weight watchers 25 years ago, and being a personal trainer (though even with this, she didn't say anything about actively being a personal trainer at the moment, so not sure if she keeps up with her certification) I felt like she had no other real credentials or background. I like taking advice and knowledge from professionals, not just random people who decide to run a meeting.

Secondly, what put me off in a big bad way was the two of them were playing the "age" card due to the fact that the leader looked to be about fifty, and the other woman new to weight watchers declared she was seventy. Now granted, I will say, I get that my persona and being an "old soul" at 27 is very much not the norm; and the a decent amount of people within my age group still have much growing to do in the "mature" department; however, people should be sensitive (especially when making verbal judgments in front of those they do not know) when making verbal judgements about "young people." First the leader made an off-hand comment about how "losing weight is easier for people who are like twelve," looking right at me as she said this. Now, I know I may look slightly younger than I am, but comparing me to a twelve year old? That is unprofessional, and somewhat rude to state. Just because I am 27 and not 70 you assume it is easy for me to lose weight? (<-which is exactly what I was thinking in my mind) And secondly, aren't you NOT supposed to judge someone as a leader for weight watchers? I could be going crazy here, so anyone correct me if I am mistaken, but I thought that was supposed to be weight watchers golden rule? I wanted to tell her that firstly, it is NOT easy for me to lose weight due to my metabolism, and secondly: I have what is known in lamer terms as "the fat gene" meaning it is programmed in my genetics to unfortunately gain weight very easily, meaning I have to watch what I eat twice as closely as someone without this issue. Then, the ageist comments continued between the two because the member was saying she found the wrong personal trainer for her because he was 23/too young/basically because of his age, could not create the proper kind of exercise for her. Now, I also fully believe that it certainly takes time, just like when trying to find a good psychologist who meshes with you, it ends up becoming a trial and error process: absolutely. However, was age really needed to be brought up into why "he was not good for you?" And the conversation just continued because the leader was agreeing with this woman that this trainer's age could be the issue. No, no, and no. Age has nothing to do with whether or not a 23 year old can properly train a 70 year old; what REALLY determines that is one's experience, what that trainer decided to specialize in, and so on. I have YEARS experience with the aging population, most of my jobs have been strictly with the aging. Therefore, I know I would know EXACTLY how to properly prescribe exercise to a 70 year old woman just starting out. So, in sum people any form of "ISM" is not okay, and ageism on either side of the spectrum (judging someone in terms of being too "young" or "old") is never okay. And it especially should not be coming from the leader of the weight watchers group.

Third issue is where my personal background comes into play. I have in fact, been thinking exactly why I put on weight? Where does my issue specifically lie? Because here's the thing: the points system, learning how to exercise, making goals for yourself is again all very important things, none of which I am discrediting, however, between a mix of personal experience, academic courses, and professional experiences; I in total have about 15 years of experience in this field (of losing weight, getting fit, etcetera). So I am sitting here, politely listening to the leader, thinking: I know how to eyeball portions, I know how to track my calories (doing it now for past two weeks and have done so in the past), and I know what combination of diet and exercise I exactly got to do for myself to make the weight come off. Then the next question to myself: why am I here? Well, I knew I wanted to give something different a try because my health, which results in a well-rounded healthy life is everything and means everything to me; this time loosing weight is the last time for me. I want to be a respected professional in the fitness field, so I know I got to take some weight off. So, besides just wanting to try something new, I thought there is not too much else in terms of why I am there. Which then made me think to myself: So what is it in my life, perhaps on a psychological level that made me gain weight? Because certainly, a lack of knowledge, and not knowing "how" is not the issue here. Which is how I made a personal revelation. This weight? Goes much deeper, way deep into the depths of the unknown. THE SUBCONCIOUS. Without going into any in depth detailing, this is events in my life:

Raped: age 18

Abused (emotional and possibly physical): age 19

Assaulted (due to a guy I didn't even have any emotional feelings towards): age 20

Abused (again, emotional): age 21

Does this sound personal? Perhaps. Why am I sharing this for anyone to see? Two reasons, firstly, I am SICK AND TIRED of feeling as if I have to keep it to myself; like I am the one to blame for what happened to me. I am sick as a woman having to feel ashamed and scared because of what I went through. I am tired of my intense disgust towards men that is affecting my HEALTH (mental and physical). We are taught in society that when domestic violence occurs we have to keep quiet, it is not something we should openly share with others, that it is something to feel shame about, and that we "may have asked for it." No, domestic violence is NEVER something you ask for. And I am opening up that yes, I have been abused, assaulted, and raped for the purpose of (1) helping to change the outlook and occurrence of domestic violence. I truly believe that as long as we as a society make women stay quiet about their experiences, that they are not to be shared, that domestic violence is GOING to unfortunately get worse. We need all women whom have experienced these atrocities to feel okay and comfortable coming forward about it and speaking about it. Because if we as a people continue to act like rape and abuse is "make believe" and "doesn't exist as long as you don't talk about it," we can never begin to make domestic violence decrease in numbers. And I want to be a voice publicly stating yes, I am one of those women whom have gone through and experienced domestic violence, because I WANT to see positive changes in society. I want domestic violence to not be hush-hush so that the instances will lessen in society. And (2) I mention my experience because in order to not only get to a healthy weight and stay there, I think this is something I publicly have to put out in the open. I have mainly stayed quiet about going through this for almost a decade. And due to the fact I do not want men idolizing me, or looking at me with lust, I truly believe I put on some weight to become LESS desirable looking to men. And you know what? That is not okay. I should and WILL live healthy, and lose weight because I deserve that. I deserve to NOT feel scared by any random guy I see. Just swallowing the "pill" that this happened, but always being put to shame to not speak of it I believe has done much more harm to me than any good. Just simply sitting in Barnes and Noble, at a small table in their café feels so liberating, a feeling that truly has no words to properly describe.  I also share this in hopes to give anyone, man or woman the courage to come forward and talk about their own domestic violence issues they have dealt with. I want everyone whom has been a victim to know it never was and NEVER WILL BE your fault. Anyone whom has gone through this, you are all beautiful, capable, and incredibly strong human beings with amazing souls. So yes, I truly believe my weight gain has happened as a protective method to protect myself from the world. But no more. I deserve HEALTH. I deserve HAPPINESS. I deserve to NOT FEEL TRAPPED. And so does anyone else whom has gone through this.

So in sum? Weight watchers, is absolutely good for those just starting out on their healthy journey. Will it be beneficial to me? Well, I will share as time goes on, and we will see. Every new experience in life is an adventure and a journey that will help in shaping one's life path. Thusly, it is possible I may pick up a thing or two. Though I may not have had a good first experience or impression I live my life in according to the motto, " there is always more than what meets the eye;" therefore, my first initial "judgment" is never my last, and should never be your last either. Take time to cultivate, and truly think about developing logical judgments or thoughts, that will not happen within your first experience. Always go back, always be open to new experiences, and to try and take time to make that new experience fit for you.

Love. Health. Love Fitness. Love Yourself.

<3Sarah