Spring is 'round the Corner!

On this rainy morning all I can think about is that Spring is just around the corner. Spring brings fresh flowers, new leaves on trees, sunshine, and a preview of the summer. One of my favorite things about Spring is that it is the season of planting! Many plants flourish during the Spring with very little effort from humans. I used to think that there was absolutely no way I could ever keep any plant alive but in the past year I have learned that herbs take very little maintenance. My herb garden barely survived through the winter, but the cilantro held strong.

This is why Spring is SO exciting for me, it means an herb garden that will be green and thriving again. I spent $5.00 a piece on my herbs last year, $20.00 on a garden box, and $10.00 on soil. For under 50 dollars I had an herb garden that provided fresh ingredients that I could put in every type of meal I was preparing and I almost entirely eliminated using store bought seasoning. The reason that eliminating seasoning out of my diet is a good thing is because a lot of store-bought seasonings have food dye (that is from unnatural sources), extra salt, and chemical preservatives.

I am not the type of person that has a perfect,  100% clean diet but I am determined to minimize the harms I cause to my body, or at least have my unhealthy stuff be food I enjoy. I would take a glass of wine over food dye any day of the week.

I also think that having fresh herbs will make cooking a more delightful experience. If you have fresh herbs on hand you might be more proactive to look for recipes that contain them. Let's also be honest, seeing fresh herbs everyday is also not such a bad thing. ;)

I bought all my herbs already grown as opposed to seeds because I just didn't trust myself to bring something to life from the get go, but I have read so many great articles on other blogs that give great direction on how to do this!

Blog Post on growing herbs from seeds

The article above has such a great author and is really well written, definitely a must read for anyone interested in growing an herb garden from seeds!

If you aren't sure where to start for your upcoming herb garden please use the visualization below! I personally grew basil, rosemary, oregano, cilantro, and mint. I adore basil and think it belongs in everything, against my husband's wishes but the great thing about a diverse herb garden is getting yourself to experiment and explore your preferences!

(Art work by http://www.heather-hardison.com/)





As we head into spring start keeping your eyes open for gardening pots, boxes and planters! Catching a sale on a cute planter will only motivate you more to fill it up!

Enjoy!

XOXO

100% Clean Dinner: Cilantro Lime Chicken Stir-Fry with an Arugula Salad

 First let's review what clean eating is:


Clean eating: Eating natural foods that aren't processed, don't have any added chemicals or preservatives and are generally meats, fruits and veggies.

Eating clean benefits your body in so many ways, but the main benefit is that your body will actually use the nutrients in the foods you are eating. My husband got me hooked on stir-fry for a clean meal, and it would be what I recommend to anyone who is looking for a healthy, easy and relatively quick dinner. I am not as hooked as my husband, who could eat stir-fry seven times a week, but I am a huge fan!


First rule of stir-fry: pick out your favorite veggies and put it with a meat. If you follow that rule, your dinner with taste good and likely be something you already have ingredients for.


The stir-fry I made Monday contained:

- 1 chicken breast

- 1 orange bell pepper

- 1 zucchini

- 1/2 cup of onion

- 1 cup of mushrooms

- a handful of fresh cilantro

- 2 baby limes

- 1 tablespoon of olive oil


First I squeeze lime juice on the chicken, pepper it slightly and then put it in a pan on medium heat. I get the outside a little golden and then turn down the heat somewhere between low and medium. (I put oil in the pan!)


In a second pan (that has coconut oil as well) I put my veggies that I have cut up. I put this pan on a high heat for about 4 minutes, and then put it on a medium heat and let it sit for about 4 minutes while stirring every once in a while. I sprinkle cilantro on the chicken and veggies.


When the chicken looks 90% cooked (white inside) I mix everything together in one pan just so the chicken absorbs the flavors of the bell pepper. I put a lid on this and let it sit for about 3 minutes.




After the chicken is cooked through and the veggies are mostly soft you are ready to eat! The prep time for this was maybe 2 minutes to cut everything up, and the cooking time was about 12 minutes or so. Making stir-fry is so easy and is such a healthy meal!


I added a salad to get more veggies in, so I combined a handful of arugula with half a tomato and half a cucumber with a garlic vinegar dressing. I like to add cheese to everything, so I grated some Parmesan over this.




Eating healthy can be EASY, QUICK and CHEAP. This meal cost maybe 8-12 bucks, and it made dinner for 2 people...who eat a lot. If you are new to clean eating, this recipe can help you get started. Make this stir fry idea your own! Sometimes we use ground beef and put that over rice or mashed potatoes; there is a lot of creative ways to make stir fry hit any craving you may have.


If you need more recipes like this, or need a personal meal planner feel free to reach out to me! My BeachBody challenge groups always have tons of people sharing their own recipes and meals.


kkgentry@beachbodycoach.com


XOXO

Why I Decided To Be a Beach Body Coach

Growing up I ate whatever I wanted and what I had access to, which neither was healthy. As I got older I thought this was in my benefit since I was so skinny and able to do this without any consequences, or so I thought.

My final 2 years of college I realized I had a severe gluten intolerance as well as many other health issues that seemed to be linked to nutrition. My husband ate very healthy and worked out about 7 days a week. I started to change my habits and eat clean.

Clean eating: Eating natural foods that aren't processed, don't have any added chemicals or preservatives and are generally meats, fruits and veggies.

Changing my eating and exercising changed my life. Suddenly I had more energy, suffered through less depression, had less digestive issues, got sick less, and generally felt like I was given a whole new body. I started researching nutrition like crazy every single day. I wanted to know what facts I should consider, and what myths there were out there. All the fad diets and get skinny quick fads seemed so illogical to me at that point. I started to analyze my diet by thinking of it like this: if I can't tell you what's in it, I won't eat it. This proved to be the best mentality I ever adopted because my potassium deficiency went away, my low iron levels went back to normal, I started having zero cavities (before this I had 26 cavities, all with fillings now!) and I wasn't feeling sick every time I ate.

My diet now is pretty much the same! I go by a 80/20 rule: 80% clean, 20% cheats. By cheats I mean alcohol, candy, soda, cheese enchiladas, you get the point. I think this makes sense because it is a way of life, easy to follow, and isn't so strict you can only do it for 30 days. 

I started training people in college by taking them to the gym, showing them recipes, talking about clean eating and generally just promoting a healthier life. Helping people put me on fire, I loved it.
I knew it wasn't something I wanted to make my full time job because I also enjoy business.

I am a financial analyst for one of the largest oil companies in the world and ENJOY analyzing variances and investigating cost and all that nerdy stuff. I have many sides of myself and the one I want to be the most is the business analyst.

BUT my second choice is being a health coach. Teaching people from my mistakes, showing others how to eat food they like in a healthy way, helping people figure out how to like healthy food, helping build muscle and confidence, it all lights me up.

I work 40-50 hours a week as an analyst and love it, but I want to chase down my passion for helping people and really put some time into it. I joined Beach Body because they have at home programs that people love and see so many great results from. This was perfect for me because it is very time consuming to design workouts for people I trained and I no longer have that sort of time. I do have time though to help people figure out a program that works for them as well as teach them about nutrition.

I joined Beach Body because it was the perfect catalyst for me to help others. I do not want to sell people stuff to make money off of them, frankly my job covers all my financial needs. I want to recommend programs to people so that their lives can change in a positive way. So that they may teach their children or families about the power of being healthy. The financial opportunity is there with Beach Body if that is what you are looking for, but I want to reinvest my earnings BACK into the clients and helping others.

I am so excited to be on fire again, and I hope that I can help others come to life as well!

xoxo

Homemade Tomato Sauce : Healthy, clean && easy!

Before finding out that I couldn't eat pasta, I ate pasta. Well saying I ate pasta is really not doing it justice..I more like devoured pasta frequently, and by frequently I mean multiple times a week. Pasta was my go-to food for when I was happy, sad, angry or bored. Once I did find out that pasta was something I couldn't eat anymore I was devastated. What other food was out there?

Now-a-days I still eat pasta, but it has to be gluten-free (i.e. pretty tasteless). I buy quinoa pasta and it is by far my favorite type of gluten-free pasta, mainly because it doesn't dissolve like rice pasta.I haven't figured out how to make gluten-free pasta from scratch besides using squash and spiralizing it (and be sure to look for a post about that coming up!) so I am forced to resort to buying a processed item. This pasta however is all natural and probably the healthiest you could find, so I recommend it.

Given that my favorite food was taken away from me and replaced with an alternative I do not find TOO tasty I was forced of ways to make pasta taste good. I bought a Vitamix 2 years ago, and that blender came with a recipe book that includes making sauces with the blender.

"Sauces in a blender? How stupid is that?!"- I thought. I was desperate and so I tried it. After 2 years of practice I have figured out how to make a delicious tomato sauce to drench my gluten-free pasta in that is super easy, relatively quick and mighty delicious.

First think of all the flavors you enjoy in a tomato based pasta sauce; mine were garlic, basil, onions, mushrooms, and oregano. So there you have it: 99% of my ingredients. I use fresh herbs from my herb garden and would HIGHLY recommend buying fresh herbs to use in any sauce you make, it will kick ass.

I cut up 4-6 tomatoes in 1/4 and put them in a baking pan. I then cut up one clove of garlic, 1/4 an onion, a handful of fresh basil, a tablespoon of fresh oregano and I drizzle olive oil all over it. I don't measure my olive oil, but I would say I don't drizzle more than 2-3 tablespoons.

I put a little pepper and no salt; you don't need salt when you are messing with fresh herbs, they provide all the flavor you need.

I then bake these ingredients at 350 degrees for about 15-25 minutes. Your kitchen should start smelling like heaven!

After you bake the tomatoes you can either blend it for 10 seconds OR you can put it in the stove top at a medium heat and stir everything up. If you like creamier sauce feel free to add a little milk.

After I blend it up for 10 seconds I put it on the stove top to simmer and I usually cut up mushrooms and bell peppers to add some chunkiness to my sauce. I do this for about 10 minutes until I get a consistency I like. I know you might be skeptical about a sauce that is "blended" and has all natural ingredients, but let me tell you that this sauce is so delicious and flavorful. Modify this recipe to fit what you like, and try adding new things! My next sauce project is a vodka sauce, though I can't be sure I can claim that to be healthy. ;)

I mix in my gluten-free pasta and voilà : a dinner that is clean, healthy and super easy. On nights I feel naughty, I sprinkle munster cheese over it. Yum.

Give me feedback, let me know how you liked this!
xoxo

How much should you be eating?

One of the first things I learned as I started picking up a healthier lifestyle was that LESS food doesn't necessarily mean HEALTHIER body. My husband was eating all day non-stop and was losing fat and gaining muscle. It literally blew my mind. I started to realize though that is wasn't all about how much to eat but more about the WHAT, and how much of that what.

Before I was forced to give up gluten I would say that 70% of my diet was carbs. Carbs encompass fruits, veggies and of course BREADS. I would snack on carbs, have 90% carb meals (spaghetti, with bread) and I would turn to carbs for days when things didn't go as planned. I ate what I liked to eat, even though I didn't always feel so good afterwords.

There are 3 macro-nutrient groups: Carbs, Proteins and Fats. A healthy diet consist of a balance of the 3, fat being the least consumed. My husband's eating habits were a lot different than mine, and he rarely seemed to have the upset stomach and low energy levels I did.

I started to look up what a healthy balance of macros looks like, and tried to incorporate it into my life. I recommend looking at a tool like Macro Calculator if you want to get an idea of your diet needs based on your weight and activity level. Below is a picture of what mine is:

This is based on MY weight and MY activity levels. Although this is super useful, what is difficult is ACTUALLY counting my macros. I work 40-50 hours a week and eat all day long. I tried to use various apps on my phone to track how much of what I am eating has so many macros, but it was just too time consuming for me. If this is something you are capable of doing, then I think this is a great place to start!

This at least made me re-evaluate my diet and showed me I wasn't consuming enough protein, which many people are guilty of. What I did find helpful was using the 21dayfix meal planning containers! The booklet comes with instruction on figuring out how much each food group you should be eating and instead of counting macros the containers measure out your food for you and you simply check a box each day to see if you are eating the correct portions. I find it so helpful and I think this is a great way for people to start off when considering changing up your eating lifestyle to something more balanced. A balanced diet between the 3 macro groups will help ensure your body is getting the proper nutrients. Buy these containers - Go to shop beach body then nutrition and supplements

I would NOT recommend counting calories for this reason: just because something is low calorie doesn't mean it adds ANY benefit to your diet. You could drink wine all day and meet your calorie intake WITHOUT providing anything beneficial to your body. 

The picture above demonstrates that 200 calories of different types of food means different things! 200 calories of something healthy is better for your body as opposed to 100 calories because you ate half a doughnut. 

I think that finding a balanced meal plan that suits YOUR body's need is extremely important for hormonal balance, digestion health, and overall bodily function.

I hope this helps and of course feel free to reach out to me about any questions of concerns you may have!

Enjoy!

xoxo

Homemade mac and cheese!

I love cheese. I love carbs and I love fresh herbs. So I set out on a mission to make a healthier version of Mac and Cheese. I think it's difficult to make anything with cheese too healthy, but I certainly believe that fresh cheese from the deli is much healthier than that powder cheese that comes in the mac and cheese boxes. 

Ingredients:

Block(s) of cheese

Pasta *I used gluten free quiona*

1 cup of milk

1-2 tbsp of flour

Choice of herb

pinch of salt and pepper

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 10-15 minutes

So the first thing I did was put a pot with a cup of milk on the stove top at a medium heat and then I chose my 3 favorite cheeses and cut them up into small cubes that would be easy to melt (grating the cheese is also an option!).

Next step is getting the cheese to melt, so keep stirring with the milk. I added a tbsp of gluten free flour to thicken the mixture and to help combine the cheese and milk. Gage what amount of cheese you want, but I used about 1/4 of each block. I also put a dash of salt and pepper as I was stirring

While I got the cheese to a consistency I liked I also started boiling up the pasta! When the cheese reached the creaminess I liked I just switched the heat to a very low setting and kept stirring periodically to keep the cheese creamy. I added fresh oregano through-out the process and sprinkled a few leaves on the final product.

Lastly I added fresh oregano from my herb garden. My herb garden is small, but it is one of the best investments you could EVER make. I have had an herb garden for about 1 year and I rarely season anything because fresh herbs are the bomb. We have our herbs in a partially shaded part of the porch for a good portion of the day, and we water the plants at most 5 times  a week. Keeping the herbs alive is easier than you would think, and some of ours survived the winter!

All of my herbs cost about 5-6 dollars to start, and besides a pot and soil I haven't had to put any other money into it. I think it's a fun hobby and really adds excitement to cooking!

The result was FABULOUS. It was much simpler than I thought and tasted really good! If you aren't used to gluten-free noodles then it won't taste as good as noodles with gluten, but for someone like me gluten-free is the only option and I wouldn't have it any other way!

This totally fit my meal plan for the fitness program I am doing too! You don't have to avoid carbs or fats to be healthy, it's all about moderation and balance.

Enjoy!

xoxo

How to Get Started on a Life Change!

Ok so you know what health goals you have and you know what it is going to take to achieve them, but you still think to yourself ,"But how do I actually do that?"

I am hoping this post helps clarify that fuzzy part in your mind. First thing to know is to take baby steps. Changing your workout regime overnight and going from 1 day a week to 7 is a bit extreme and you WILL get burnt out! So if your goal is to lose 15 pounds, and you know that working out is needed to achieve that goal first thing to realize is that habits aren't created overnight. Your body didn't become what it is today just over one night, it was over the spans of MANY nights. That is key to remember!

When I was struggling to get past my gluten issues I had to realize my digestion system took years of abuse and so I wasn't going to immediately experience healthier digestion just from eliminating gluten for 1 day, it was going to take several.

So I am a type a personality and so that means I LOVE lists. So I recommend writing a list or making a "dream" board of your goals. Next write the general necessities of achieving that goal, for instance working out. THEN drill down further!

EX:
Goal: Lose 15 pounds, gain muscle too
How: Working out
Plan: For week 1 I will go to the gym 3 times for 30 minutes
Workout plan: 30 minutes of HIIT one day, 30 minutes of heavy weights the next, 30 minutes of Yoga

See how specific that is? It makes it easier for you to actually get started. It is easier to visualize actually accomplishing that. Ok what about diet?

EX:
Goal: Lose 15 pounds
How: Eating healthier
Plan: Eat clean (all natural, no processed) 80% of the time, and have 3 cheats this week.
Eating plan: Buy natural snacks, eat every 2 hours, meal prep the night before, drink 8 oz of water

If you miss your targets that's OK too. You are definitely closer to your goal by trying to hit something instead of giving a half-hearted effort. Big changes happen through an accumulation of little ones, and so set goals that you can hit, and take those goals week by week. Every week you cut out a soda, or run for 10 minutes or drink tea without sugar is one step closer to transforming your life.

These principles can apply to all aspects of your life. My goal in the past year was to work on my analytical skills and it took small steps to get my thinking to change. I just kept setting new and ATTAINABLE targets for myself, such as reading a new economic article every week. It helped me re-train my brain without burning myself out.

I hope this post has inspired you to go pick up a cork board, write some new goals down and figure out a plan. I am happy to help with meal planning or fitness tips! Reach out to my email if you need any help with your new goals for 2015!

-xoxoxo
kkgen


*picture source: http://fitbeliever.tumblr.com/post/46788287572