Prep yourself before you wreck yourself

April 22, 2013 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

Eating healthy is too hard and too time consuming. It is so much easier to just grab some quick snack that is already made and get on with my day.

No, I haven’t gone crazy, and no it was not me who uttered those words. But I have heard every variation of this complaint when it comes to eating well. In fact I know that this is a big issue that keeps a lot of people from giving up their junk food lifestyle and eating healthy. People just don’t have time in their busy lives to sit there and prepare their own meals and snacks. While I am not diminishing all the hard working, busy people out there, I believe that everyone has enough time to prep their own food and snacks. I do it every week, and there are a ton of other bloggers out there who are just as busy as you that do it too. Check out Lindsay from The Lean Green Bean, who posts tons of pictures and recipes for her week of eating.

My point is that with a little planning and a little bit of time one or two days a week, you can make sure that you eat healthy the whole week. Sure, it does take a little effort, but I argue that the effort is well worth it in the end. Your good health counts on it! This week I am going to invite you into my kitchen and share some of the foods/tips I use to have a successful healthy week of eats for both Adam and I!

Plan it out. My number one tip for eating better is to take a few minutes and write out your menus for the week. I’m weird and I like to plan way ahead and have the whole week of dinners written out so I know exactly what I am making each night. You don’t have to write out a detailed menu for every single meal for the week, but creating a general plan will help eliminate the frantic 5:30 rush to find something to put on the table. This usually leads to throwing something unhealthy (think: frozen pizza) into the oven just to feed the hungry masses slobbering away at your kitchen door. When you have a rough plan of your meals it makes it that much simpler come eating time. I do my grocery shopping on Friday’s, so on Thursday I usually write out a weeks worth of dinner and then make my grocery list. I don’t do any fancy new recipes during the week and I stick to simple dishes. If I want to try something new I save that for my weekends when I have more time. Some examples of a typical weeknight meal are frozen fish (tilapia, salmon), steamed veggies and brown rice. Another favorite of Adam’s is a skillet scramble that usually consists of potatoes, eggs, beans, salsa, various spices, and anything else in the fridge that looks good. Keep it simple and easy and that will make your nights a breeze. No need to be a gourmet chef every night to eat well.

Pick a prep day. Like most people I work Monday-Friday and don’t have much extra time during the week. So I take one day over the weekend and I get as much food prep for the week done as I can. It usually takes me only about 2 hours at the most to get what I need to get done and for some of my prep I can do two things at once. A typical prep day will include making quinoa breakfast bars for Adam, hard cooking eggs for snacks during the week, making roasted chickpeas for lunches, cooking brown rice or quinoa for dinner sides, cooking dried beans, and cutting up vegetables for lunches and dinners. Simple steps like this make it so easy during the week to just grab the prepped food and be on your way. When I first started utilizing a prep day it took me a little longer to get everything done. But as I did it each week I got faster and more efficient at my routine and now it is just habit to get all the stuff done that I need to. Don’t give up if it seems like you are in the kitchen forever when you first start out, once you get your rhythm the steps will fly by and you will be done before you know it!

One magic word: LEFTOVERS. Seriously, learn to love and use leftover food. This habit alone will make your life 10 times easier. Plan to make a little extra food for your dinner and voila! You have just created lunch for the next day. Remember how I mentioned my best friend the slow cooker last week? On the weekends I make three big crockpot meals that provide us with leftovers for the entire week. I also make extra vegetables for dinners during the week and those also get used for lunches or as sides for another dinner. Leftovers have been a major help in our life and keep us eating healthy at every meal!

Now that I have given you my three biggest (and in my humble opinion most helpful) hints, I thought I would share my refridgerator/freezer/pantry with you to give you some visuals on how I stock/prep for the week!

First up we have my freezer:

I buy big bags of frozen fish (top left corner) from Aldi. This saves money and time because it is so easy to grab a piece of tilapia or salmon, season it, put it in a baking dish, cover and bake for 20 or so minutes. Remember, you don’t need to get all fancy for your week night meals. I also have frozen veggies, that I steam for quick sides. I also have individual bags of beans that have been cooked and frozen (top right corner). These are so simple to throw into any dish, from soups to scrambles to salads, and they are so easy to make in your crockpot. There are also some frozen pork chops that I make for dinner for Adam some nights (bottom left corner) and frozen homemade bread for Adam’s breakfast toast (bottom left corner).

Next up, my fridge:

Starting with the top we have a lot of eggs. We use eggs for breakfast, dinner, and snacks. We hard cook them, scramble them, turn them into omelettes or frittatas, poach them, pretty much any way you can eat/cook an egg we have done. Eggs are relatively cheap and they make healthy, quick meals! Moving on down to the next shelf we have parsnips and carrots that will be used for lunches and dinners and next to that we have those beautiful leftovers I mentioned earlier! On the bottom shelf and in the drawers we have more fruits and veggies (like broccoli, cabbage, beets, turnips, and pears) that will be used for lunches and sides for dinners. My go to method for veggies is to cut them up and then come dinner time throw them on a foil covered pan, drizzle some olive or coconut oil, season with whatever strikes my fancy, and roast them at 400 for 20-35 minutes. Simple, quick, and delicious. Also on the bottom shelf we have water (a must no matter what), almond milk for my breakfasts/baking purposes, veggie broth, oj, and hidden back there are some beers for Adam. A guy’s gotta have his brew! On the door, where you can’t really see, I have a variety of condiments such as mustard, homemade ketchup, hot sauce, salsa, jams, and other various things that can be thrown into recipes to make things taste delicious!

A quick glance at my spice cabinet:

I’m not going to name every single spice in my cabinet, because quite frankly I am a spice junky and have probably hundreds of spices! I have talked before about how important spices are to healthy eating because they are such a great way to season your food without adding unnecessary chemicals/calories to your meal. Start experimenting and find out what your favorite tastes are and once you figure that out you can even start making your own spice blends, like a taco or pizza seasoning!

And finally my cupboard/pantry:

In the top picture we have all my grains and flours. I use everything from brown rice to quinoa to lentils to steel cut oats. I also have almond flour (for gluten free baking), whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour. I also have raw almonds for snacks, onions and potatoes for meals, ground flax seed for baking, and various dried beans to be cooked. In the bottom picture we have mostly canned goods and stockpiled stuff like soups, peanut butter (a MUST in this household), loose leaf teas and various other baking supplies. Usually when there is a good sale on say pumpkin or diced tomatoes (fire roasted and no salt added are my favorite), I will stock up. This makes it easy to have them on hand to throw into any meal.

Now this is by no means all the food we have in the house any given week. We also have various other fruits and vegetables that are kept in different areas. Hopefully the pictures helped give you an idea of how of how to stock your own kitchen and some of the tips I use gave you some ideas of how to prep your own healthy eating lifestyle. Eating better does not have to be stressful as long as you just take some time to plan it out and stick to simple techniques. The easy act of just cutting up some carrots for lunches or adding an extra chicken breast for dinner to make leftovers can make a world of difference in eating better! So give a few of these tips a try and see how easy and beneficial it really is! If you already do your own prep day and have some tips/advice of your own, feel free to share with everyone! The more we talk with each other and share our healthy ideas the easier it is to change the way we eat and live!

Have a fabulous week and I’ll see you next Monday with a post about some of the meals Adam and I eat throughout the week!

Moving, without all the stress

April 15, 2013 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

It’s official, we have finally moved! I know I haven’t mentioned much on here about us having to move, mostly because we weren’t really looking to move. We found out in February from our landlord that she was not renewing our lease and that we had until May to find a new place. Needless to say we were a little shocked.

Living room, with gorgeous sunlight coming in off the balcony!

From that point it was a mad dash to try and find a new place in the area and within our price range. Because we were not expecting this, it was obviously a bit of a stressful situation. I’ve mentioned it before in the wedding post, I do not tend to handle stress very well. I pretty much turn into a huge mess and no one really wants to deal with me. Plus it messes with my health big time. My acne flares up, my digestion goes haywire, I become more susceptible to illnesses, and overall, I just feel awful.

Dining room!

Knowing this about myself, I was determined not to let that happen to me this time around. One of my health goals this year is to really work on how I manage stress, as well as how I react to stress. An unexpected move seemed like the perfect stressful situation to try and work through. I know that everyone goes through stressful times in their lives, so I thought that I would share with you some of the steps I took this time around to try and minimize/manage my stress. You can tailor these to your specific needs and hopefully they will help you out as much as they did for me!

Office/guest bedroom. Hi Adam!

Accept the stressful situation. Huh? Yes, I said accept. I am a person who loves to have control over every aspect of my life. Unfortunately, life does not care about that and will inevitably throw curve balls your way, causing you stress. It has taken me a very long time to learn and begin to accept the fact that there are just some times when I will not be able to control a problem. I had no control over the fact that my landlord was not going to renew my lease. Nor did I have control over the fact that I had less than three months to find a new home and move. Worrying or stressing over the situation was going to get me nowhere, so rather than let it bring me down I decided to just accept the fact that this was happening and move on from there. I am not saying you have to be happy about unplanned stress in your life, but there are times when all the worrying and fretting will amount to nothing. In fact, it will just add to your misery. So once that curve ball is thrown your way, take a deep breath, accept that this is happening and move forward. Which leads to my next point…

Make a plan. Once you accept that some stress is going to enter your life, create a plan to help and work through that stress. For me, creating a timeline showing how we would deal with the situation helps to lessen the stress. For this move, I made a timeline of when certain things needed to be completed. The time when we needed to find a new place, the time we needed to tell our landlord, the time when we needed to start packing, and the date we needed to move by. Having checkpoints for me to reference helped me feel more in control of the situation and it also helped to make sure we were getting things done in time. Having a basic outline of how you can tackle your dilemma will help you to feel more in control of your situation.

Our bedroom… don’t mind the laundry on the bed

Realize there will be hiccups. Even if you plan down to the very last detail, there will probably still be some unforeseen issues that will arise. Clearly there is no way to make sure everything goes 100% smoothly, 100% of the time. By knowing that beforehand, it can make it a little easier to deal with the little things that pop up. Don’t let those little things stress you more, handle them in the best way possible and keep moving towards your ultimate goal.

Laundry room/mucho storage! I love having a washer and dryer right in my home!

These tips are obviously of the broader type, meant to be utilized in most types of stressful situations. Here are some of the more specific things that I did to deal with this move and not freak out.

1. I asked for help. This is a huge thing for me because I generally have the attitude of I can do it all by myself. I have learned the hard way that I can NOT do it by myself, and I have a ton of people in my life who are more than willing to help me when I need. All I have to do is ask them. I asked both my parents and my in-laws for help with the move as well as my sister and to our surprise and delight, some of Adam’s friends offered to help us the day of our move. Everyone was ready and willing to help and never once made it feel like it was a huge inconvenience. I was overwhelmed with their gusto and both Adam and I were super appreciative.

2. I started packing early. Instead of trying to jam all the packing into just one day, I spread it out over a few weeks. This helped it to seem less overwhelming and made the process go fairly smoothly. Plus, with the way the timing worked out on our lease, we were able to move some things in stages, which REALLY made the actual moving day less stressful.

3. I became best friends with my slow cooker. I was already on fairly good terms with my slow cooker before this move, but I really gave it a work out that whole weekend. Because I knew that I would not have the time (or quite frankly the energy) to make healthy dinners, I planned to have three slow cooker meals for that weekend. It was so simple to just throw the ingredients in in the morning and have a delicious meal at the end of a long day. It was so important for me to eat, and eat healthy, so that I could function properly. I also made sure to save some leftovers from the week before so that we could also have quick lunches ready.

Kitchen, and yes that is the crock pot cooking our dinner!

All these things helped to greatly reduce my stress levels this past weekend. Did I still freak out and have to calm down? Of course. Like I said before, this was my first real test of better handling a stressful situation. There were times I felt like crying and giving up, but rather than bottle that up and let it destroy me, I talked with Adam or my friends and family. They were able (and happy) to listen and offer advice and encouragement and it really made a difference. I experienced none of my usual health problems, and in fact have felt even better than I did before the move! You can work through a stressful situation and come out better on the other side. Just take some time to compose yourself, create a plan of attack, and call on the ones who love you to lend a helping hand!

I hope that these tips can help you guys out whenever life gives you some lemons and that you are able to better maintain a healthy life while dealing with adversity. I think that I am going to start writing more about what Adam and I do to eat healthy throughout the week. I think it will be helpful for those of you out there who might not be sure what to do to even start eating better and taking care of your health. Again, if you have any suggestions just let me know! I would love to hear from you! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and are ready to attack the week ahead with some energy!

On the move…. again

April 1, 2013 / ktbuchs87

I mentioned last week that Adam and I were gearing up for a move in a few weekends. Well that weekend is quickly approaching and we have been in full moving mode. We actually started the whole process this past Saturday, and next weekend we will finish everything up and be in our new home! It’s all very exciting and stressful.

My new kitchen!

Today’s post is going to be short and sweet. I just wanted to touch base with all of you and let you know what’s going on over here in my little world! I won’t be posting next weekend but I will come back the week after and let you know how I dealt with the stress of moving and how it affected my digestion. We all have to deal with different stress in our lives and if how I handle my stress can help give you some advice then I count that as a good thing!

Running always helps reduce my stress!

I hope you all had a restful weekend and a very Happy Easter! See you soon!

Happy Easter from my family to yours!

My Digestive Journey: Stress

March 25, 2013March 25, 2013 / ktbuchs87

If you were to ask anyone who knows me really well, they would tell you that I don’t handle stress very well. I tend to turn into a wreck, no longer a human, but one giant ball of stress. It’s not pretty and it is definitely not fun. All this stress has wrecked havoc on my gut in the past..

I come from a long line of worriers, and I tend to internalize that worry and stress. Whenever I start to worry about something, my gut goes haywire on me. While I was in college, I used to have to perform solo pieces on my French Horn in front of a panel of teachers. I do NOT enjoy playing by myself in front of an audience, as it pretty much terrifies me. But every semester I would have to begrudgingly stand in front of 5 professional musicians and try not to throw up while playing my instrument. Obviously this situation caused me great amounts of stress, and the weeks leading up to my performance I would think of nothing other than having to play my solo. This stress would in turn mess with all things digestive. I wouldn’t be able to eat, yet somehow would have to run to the bathroom all the time dealing with diarrhea. It would get so bad that literally I would have to go to the bathroom 2 minutes before my performance or risk having an even more embarrassing accident than playing a few wrong notes. The surprising thing though? The minute I was done with my piece and walked out of the room I would feel infinitely better. I could eat, I wasn’t racing to the nearest toilet, and my stomach wasn’t constantly swirling like a tornado.

Stress manifests itself in different ways for different people. Not everyone may experience my intestinal fireworks whenever they encounter a difficult or worrisome situation, but there is a significant link between stress and your digestive system. There are actually a ton of nerve endings in your digestive system, and when your brain experiences a stressful situation it will release hormones that directly affect your digestion. It even starts as soon as you eat, with stress decreasing your saliva production and causing food to not be properly digested right from the moment you chew. Stress doesn’t mess around. Many of the ways you can see stress affect the digestive system is through indigestion, ulcers, and even heartburn. Not really all that fun.

So are our digestive systems at the mercy of stress and our brain? You don’t have to let it. There are things that you can do to eliminate or reduce your stress and that can help alleviate stressful situations. For all you professional worriers like me, these habits can take some time to incorporate. I still have a hard time dealing with stress (just ask my wonderfully patient husband) but I keep trying to practice and get better!

Talk it out. One of the worst things that you can do is internalize your stress and bottle it all up inside. That will just eat you up and spit you out. Having someone you can talk to about your stress and worry will help you get all that bad energy out into the open and off your chest. Also, now you have someone who can help you work through that stress and ease your worries. Even if you don’t have someone you can talk to, writing in a journal works as well. I always felt like I would be a burden to my friends and family if I bothered them with my troubles, but I have found that they are always willing to listen and help. Those that love you don’t want to see you suffer, so talk!

Find an activity that will get you away from your stress. Even if it is for a few minutes, do something that will take your mind away from your stress. When I would be practicing for my performance, sometimes I would just have to stop for a few minutes and walk around the music building or read the school newspaper just to give myself a break. If you are constantly dwelling in your stressful situation, you will eventually break. Take a walk, drink some tea, do yoga, play a video game, ANYTHING just to give your body and brain some relief.

Eat healthy foods. This is the toughest advice for me to follow, but probably some of the best. When stressed, I tend to barely eat. This is not good at all. Your body needs fuel to function and it really needs fuel whenever you are stressed so that it can deal with that stress. It may seem like common sense, but along with eating regularly, eat HEALTHY. You do not need to be eating 20 oreos, even though that may comfort you. Junk food will produce junk results and you don’t need that when you’re stressed. How many times have you been worried about something, and in order to try and feel better, you eat your favorite comfort food? How many times has that food made you feel better for the 10 minutes you are eating and then you feel awful after you are done? You don’t need the added stress of bad food, as junk food will allow your digestive system to function properly. At a time when you need your gut working as best as possible, don’t feed it garbage. Stick to foods like oranges and broccoli and other foods that have vitamins and minerals that will boost your body and alleviate your stress. Your gut will thank you!

Take a deep breath. Breathe deep and realize that this stress will not last forever. You can and will get through it and you will be stronger for having done so. Try not to dwell on the immediate stress but think to the future and the outcome. Think about how great you will feel once you have worked past this problem and come out on the other side!

Like I said before, I still struggle with dealing with stress properly. In fact, yesterday Adam and I started to pack for our upcoming move (long story short: we did not plan on moving, we were told that our lease was not going to be renewed and thus had to find a new place to live. Woooo….). I started to feel overwhelmed by everything that had to be done in a few short weeks and I started to shut down. Luckily, I (with a lot of help from Adam) was able to vocalize that stress and work through it. While I am still a little stressed about the whole situation (I seriously hate moving), I am not experiencing any of my usual symptoms. That alone is reason to be happy, because seriously who wants to have to pack and have the trots? Not me! When you start to feel stressed, take a step back, breathe deep, and know that you are tougher than any problem out there and can handle this!

My Digestive Journey- Probiotics

March 18, 2013 / ktbuchs87

Last week I talked about eliminating certain things from your diet in order to help heal your gut. For me personally that meant getting rid of dairy as well as gluten. This week I want to talk about adding something to your diet: probiotics.

Little Biology lesson for you: You have bacteria and microbes all over your body, from your skin, to your eyelashes, to inside your digestive system. Before you freak out and douse your body with sanitizer, these are good bacteria and essential to your every day functions. These bacteria have various jobs, but the ones in your gut help to digest your food. A healthy gut can have upwards of trillions of microbes helping to breakdown your food so you can use it to function.

When you don’t have a healthy gut, your microbe count can drop way down. This in turn affects your digestion. You no longer have a billion little helpers and food can sit in your digestive tract and rot or pass through only partially digested. Clearly having rotting food sit in your gut is not an ideal situation. This can lead to stomach problems, bloating, gas, and just general unpleasantness. Many things contribute to unhealthy microbes. Taking anti-biotics can damage good bacteria as well as bad bacteria, as well as eating an unhealthy diet.

This is where probiotics come in. Adding probiotics to your diet can help restore and repair the bacteria in your gut, in turn helping your body to properly digest and use the food you eat. There are plenty of ways to get probiotics into your diet and I’ve tried a few here on this list. REMEMBER: I’m not a doctor or any type of certified medical professional. This is just a list that I have made based on my own research. Talk with your health care professional if you want to start adding more of these to your life.

Probiotic Pills There are a plethora of probiotic pills out there on the market. It can be overwhelming to try and find the right one for you. While I’m a believer in trying to get your nutrients/vitamins/minerals from food, I realize it’s difficult to get everything you need every day from food alone. When looking for probiotics you don’t need anything fancy, just probiotics. Here is a list, by all means not all inclusive, of different probiotics and their functions. Start here and go through and find the function that you need and then work from there. Look for pills that contain that strand of bacteria. Talking to your doctor or a nutritionist can also help as they are well equipped to help you sort through all the information out there.

Some forms of dairy This one I approach with caution. Obviously I do not eat any dairy, but there are products, such as yogurt, that have probiotics in them.. The downside is that many times they will also have added sugar and chemicals that don’t help your digestion. So be careful if you choose this approach. Plain Greek yogurt is a good start and you can add in your own flavoring such as honey or fruit.

Fermented Foods Tempeh, kimchi, kombucha. All of these are fermented food/drinks. Because of the fermentation process, these products have probiotics that can help with digestion. This is the route that I have been experimenting with lately and it has given me some great results. While these foods may sound weird and not as appetizing as, say, a plate of cookies, they really taste good and are immensely helpful. I have mentioned kombucha before and this is the fermented food that I have used the most. Kombucha is a type of fermented tea that you can purchase at most grocery stores. Unfortunately it is pretty expensive (around $4 for us here in the Midwest but the good news is that you can actually make your own! I recently purchased my own kombucha kit, and while I haven’t started to grow it yet (I’m going to wait until after we move in April), it is actually a fairly simple process and not at all intimidating. Plus once you start to grow your own kombucha you can have a never ending supply because it just continues to grow, as long as you maintain it. Once I get kombucha down I plan to start trying to make my own fermented vegetables. I’ll try to share that process with you as I go through it so that you can reap all the benefits of fermented food!

This is by no means a complete list of probiotic help. There are other things such as papaya and apple cider vinegar that also have probiotic qualities and will help with your digestion. Again, the key here is finding a method that works best for you. Perhaps you can’t stomach the idea of eating billions of microbes (don’t worry, it is a little creepy at first) and want the convenience of a pill. That’s totally fine, this isn’t about following the crowd and choosing what is most popular at the time. This is about finding the combination of digestive aids that works for you and gives you the best results.

Hopefully these last few posts and some of the advice have been helpful to you. I would love to hear from you readers with any questions, comments, and/or concerns. I write this blog to help you and your input is greatly appreciated! Have a great Monday and an awesome week!