It All Starts with Breakfast!

If we've heard it once, we've heard it a hundred times: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Well, I'm here to remind you how true that is. If you want to maintain your health, your body needs fuel. It's important to remember that although YOU may be asleep, your body is still working for you all night long... pumping your blood, keeping you alive. Right? But it's doing all that on no fuel, no food - for a good 6-8 hours. So, in general, breakfast is just important for a good "fill up."

But especially if you are changing your eating habits because you want to a) change the shape of your body and/or b) lose weight... there is nothing you can do better than to fill up first thing in the morning. The key to weight loss (that took me 45 years of hearing, not believing, then waking up and realizing I was wrong) is not simple reduction in calories. It's absolutely, first and foremost changing your metabolism (and eating enough, not too many, calories). And you know what comes next, right? To boost the metabolism, you start out by feeding that body that has already been starving during those sleep hours. Just go ahead and give it a kick start every single morning.

So, not having been a fan of the breakfast previously, I find my breakfast choices tend to get boring. This morning I experimented a little and I loved the result. Perhaps you do this already, perhaps not. I do love hot oat bran cereal - reminds me of my childhood Cream of Wheat days. But of course, here is a healthier version:

1/2 c oat bran

1 1/4 c water

1/2 banana (sliced)

dash of salt

1 tsp pure maple syrup (optional)

Combine the oat bran, water, salt and sliced banana in a bowl. Microwave on high for 3 minutes. It will look like it's still watery when you take it out but once you stir up the bran from the bottom it will be fine. While stirring, mash the banana so that it mixes in with the hot cereal. If desired, add 1 tsp pure maple syrup for added flavor.

Grilled Chicken and Mango Salsa

Grilled Chicken:

1. season thawed chicken breast tenderloins (or whole breasts) with a little sea salt and some fresh ground pepper.
2. grill until done.

Mango Salsa:

1 whole mango, chopped
1 whole avocado, chopped
a few sprigs fresh cilantro, chopped
1/4 red onion (you can use more, but mine was super hot)
1/2 jalapeno (again, you can use more but mine was HOT!!!)
1/2 small can super sweet white and yellow corn
about 6 cherry tomatoes, chopped
lime juice (about 3 Tbsp?)

chop all the above stuff up. mix it all together and stir in the lime juice. Add to your cooked chicken.

This is my favorite thing i've made so far! and the best part is you can use this salsa on just about anything else...wraps, salads, pork loin. i don't know what else, but if you think of something good to put the salsa on, leave it in the comments section :)

Enjoy!

shim-han cho-un su-reg-i

that means "serious good garbage"...well this isn't garbage, it's chicken. and it's pretty darn good and easy, to boot.

Honey Balsamic Grilled Chicken Breast:

marinade: balsamic vinegar, honey...don't ask me for measurments. just go easy on the honey and make a thick liquid while stirring in the balsamic vinegar.

marinade the chicken with it for about an hour. and grill. super easy. i'd say i used about 3 Tbsp honey and about 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar over 4 medium sized chicken breasts.

it was excellent. i served with my fave bag of 50/50 mix lettuce...topped with feta, dried cranberries, and kalamata olives. the dressing i made using 2 tsp olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a few shakes of onion powder and italian seasoning, and one clove pressed garlic. again, not really a measuring kind of person.

next time i make it, i'll post a pic. it looked pretty!

Once You Go Clean

I feel like I've been introduced to a whole new level of taste since eating clean. I didn't really notice it until this weekend though. Not only have I been eating clean, but I've also been pretty committed to buying Farmer's Market fresh and organic produce. This has been my way for almost three months now. But this weekend the kid went to the grocery store and bought some food, including apples. I was hungry, and an apple's and apple, right?

W.R.O.N.G.

One bite into that grocery store, non-organic apple and I wanted to spit it out. It tasted almost plastic, fake. I couldn't believe that a poor apple could really be so tasteless. But I was hungry, so I ate that plastic, fake tasting apple. But half-way through it, my stomach turned into a knotted, cramped mess. I was so sick! I mentioned something to the kid tonight at dinner about it and she looked at me and admitted that she had gotten a stomach ache from eating the apples too!

It just goes to show you how desensitized our bodies become to the crap, the wax, or the sprays or whatever. But after you rid your body of all that junk, it doesn't want it back, not in the teeniest tiniest bit.

Salmon and Spinach Pasta

yummy! super easy and super fast...

2 salmon fillets (i buy the individually packed/frozen fillets)
1/4 pound whole wheat pasta
1/2 bag fresh baby spinach leaves
2 tsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. McCormick Perfect Pinch Mediterranean Herb Natural Seasoning
1 clove garlic, pressedPrepare pasta as suggested on package.

1. Sprinkle herb seasoning on both salmon fillets. Grill salmon or cook in skillet in 1 tsp. olive oil until done. Remove from pan
   
2. Add another tsp. olive oil to skillet and add pressed garlic. Add spinach leaves and saute until wilted.
3. I usually get 3 meals out of this. If you want to do the same, cut up salmon fillets and add spinach and salmon to pasta and separate into equal portions.
   
4. Enjoy!
   

Kicking the Habit

So, if you are here, you are likely making an attempt, maintaining, or considering a clean eating lifestyle. Hey, me too. But is there something (maybe more than one) in your diet that you know for darn sure it isn't within the guidelines of eating clean? Sure, I'm sure there is. Maybe it's that' Diet Coke you just have to have every day with lunch. Or, perhaps you really can't live without an occasional Dairy Queen Blizzard. Well, nobody is perfect. I've been clean eating now since just after the Thanksgiving holidays. Yes, I went for it at a very difficult time of year. I stopped eating candies (yes, when my boss gave me a coffee cup filled with Hershey Kisses, I did eventually eat them all gone - but I gave some away too), I stopped drinking soda of any kind (fell off that bandwagon though last week and I had ONE Diet Coke because my daughter, aka the temptress, bought and brought home a case and left it sitting on the kitchen table), and I stopped eating white flours (and that's been pretty easy).

All that went out the window - mostly - on vacation. But I digress as that is a post all on its own.

But what about that one vice, that one thing one can't live without? Tosca Reno herself has one - and it's coffee. For me, it's my little pink packet (and it MUST be the pink kind) of artificial sweetener in my two cups of coffee first thing in the morning. Before I drink my water, before I eat my breakfast, before I work out on my treadmill... I have two cups of freshly brewed, wake up full on caffeinated, hot cups of coffee with a dash of milk and a pink packet of ultra sweet goodness.

For the first four weeks, I thought - later, later I will give it up. The fifth week I said, now. So, I bought some Agave syrup thinking that was the sweetest stuff described. And for 10 days I tried it. I hated every cup of coffee. But I kept drinking it - it's my thing - it's what I do. I went to Costa Rica for a week this month and while there I decided, well, since there is no agave, and I don't want to revert to my artificial ways, I'll try the unrefined pure cane sugar they had. No dice. I hated every single cup. So, I returned home (and on the trip I brought Tosca's book to read), and thought about Tosca and the plan.

It's clear that for Tosca, she was unwilling to give up her coffee. She made many other good choices, but that one, that very one was not going to budge. I started thinking about my development. I realized, I eat damn healthy 98% of the time. I've given up artificial sweeteners in my fake cookies, my low-fat false ice creams, my diet sodas, my diet iced tea drinks, my powerade/gatorade drinks - from everywhere else, it has been eradicated. So, is it completely and totally necessary to give it up in my coffee? I've decided, no. But I've reduced. I've learned that having a Hazelnut coffee, or a coffee dusted with cinnamon before brewing provides natural sweetness. So, I only need a 1/2 packet per cup to still love my coffee.

So, there you have it. Sometimes, it's just allowing yourself a simple pleasure that can keep you right on track.

Grilled Chipotle Chicken and Spinach

ok, so maybe the two don't go together but whatever. it's yummy! and, just so you know, if it ain't simple i'm not going to make it! this is SIMPLE!!!

• Chicken Breast (i make like 6 pieces at a time and eat them over a few days)
• Chipotle Chili Pepper Seasoning
• Fresh Spinach Leaves
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 1 tsp. olive oil

(i don't measure things really, sorry!)

1. Trim fat off chicken breast. Rub about 1/2 tsp of chipotle seasoning on each chicken breast, both sides.
2. Grill or bake until done.
3. heat 1 tsp. olive oil in pan and sautee garlic. Add spinach leaves until wilted.
4. EAT!!!

super simple, right? and super yummy! Enjoy!