Hitting the Reset Button and Some Lessons Learned

Wow, I cannot believe that we are almost halfway into April and that in a month I will be done with my last set of final exams EVER, graduated from law school and moved out of Nashville to spend the summer back in Winter Garden, FL before heading to New York. I'm not sure "time flies when you're having fun" really applies here, but time certainly does fly.

After my hefty eating over the Easter weekend, I decided to do just a two-day juice cleanse in order to give my body a rest from having to process food. I don't think many people have ever said this, but I was craving a juice cleanse after that weekend of being in pain from eating everything sight. Juice cleanses get a bad rap for two reasons (1) people view it as starving yourself and (2) juice takes all the fiber out of the fruit and leaves all the sugar. (1) is just not true. You usually take in about 1200-1300 calories in the juices and you feel full between them all. Sometimes you feel obligated to drink your next juice when you aren't all that hungry. I wasn't hungry on the day following my juice cleanse until I had been awake for about 3 hours and run for 30 minutes. The struggle is the caffeine headache and not having the action of chewing.

(2) is definitely true, the juices are a chock-full of sugar, WAY more than necessary - but, they are all natural sugars coming from the fruit and Google has yet to tell me the limit on how many grams of natural sugar I should have. Yet, this is where I lodge my complaint against Juice Nashville. I have done Blueprint cleanse before and have to say I enjoyed it much more than the highly touted Juice Nashville cleanse (ranked 3 in the nation by US News), despite Juice Nashville being tastier. Don't get me wrong, the juices from Juice Nashville are phenomenal - way too delicious for their own good and the almond milks?!?! I could drink the Chocolate Almond milk every day for the rest of my life. However, they are WAY too sweet and do not follow the normal "cleanse" formula you see in things like Blueprint. Literally, 9/12 bottles had apple in it. I'm fairly certain the phrase is an apple a day not 10. I found myself wishing I just had a bottle of kale and celery juice because of how sweet they were. Nevertheless, it was a nice reset and I felt that my digestive system appreciated the well-deserved break from its duties. 

I made another important discovery this week regarding one of my goals. My fitness goals for this month are barre class 3 days a week (carried over from January!), 150 minutes of cardio/week (carried over from last month), and NEW to attend a different group exercise class every week while I still have the luxury of a free gym across the street. Well, I have been really struggling with what we will call pain not injury in two places for some time now. One is the fascia on the outside of my left leg and the other, my right hip. My hip is in a really bad place right now and I think it stems from a combination of four things - (1) always having had tight hips (2) not stretching enough (3) a barre class where the instructor got distracted and had us in an exercise far past the recommended time and (4) overdoing it. The 150 minutes of cardio derives from what I was told was the recommended amount by the CDC and American Heart Association. I just assumed that this meant only when your heart rate was up in the target zone for cardiovascular activity and didn't bother looking into it. Well, I decided to look into it since I was in pain and OOPS - its 150 minutes of moderate cardio/week or 75 minutes of vigorous cardio a week. I think my doing 150 minutes of vigorous cardio a week may have been pushing it a little bit. So this week I counted the 65 minutes I logged walking to/from school one day and to/from Starbucks and was still at 195 minutes, 130 of that at vigorous level. So new goal stop killing myself. If you want to learn more about recommended activity level for adults, here is the website that you should read.

I have also been thrilled this week to hear from people that have tried and fallen in love with some recipes I've posted - particularly my carrot cake cookies and overnight oats (my mom is afraid she is addicted). With so many people coming to love overnight oats as much as I do, had to one up them. So, I took it to the next level with baked oatmeal that I made the night before and let sit overnight before putting it in the oven. I had cranberries in the freezer that I had been meaning to use up, so I mixed them into a base sweetened with bananas and dates (no added sugar). Prepped it the night before, put in fridge overnight, woke up preheated oven and popped it in, went for a run and took it out when I came back. It was so yummy right out of the oven topped with some Greek yogurt and toasted wheat germ. It keeps in the fridge and freezes great too! Not to mention it comes in at well-under 250 calories a serving (and a serving is giant). Once I make this a few more times I will share a recipe, but for now here's a picture! 

Another fun fact I learned this week is that you can freeze hummus! It can even be frozen in ice cube trays for small individual portions. I've been challenged this week to use up some hummus I made before its shelf life is up; freezing reduced my challenge by 50%. I have tried several recipes for homemade hummus and this one for Roasted Red Pepper Hummus is my favorite. I always see them blistering peppers on the cooking shows to remove the skins and felt super savvy getting to do it in making this hummus. The only thing I would change is that it needs a little more salt and a little bit of a kick. Never fear, this is easily solved by a twist of sea salt and dash of red pepper flakes before enjoying. I'd been snacking on it with some broccoli florets and baby carrots, but needed to mix it up if I was going to be able to finish the container. The result - one delicious sandwich and one delicious salad.

The sandwich is the Roasted Red Pepper hummus (1/4 c) on two slices of Ezekial 4:9 with Sun-dried Tomatoes (2 chopped tomatoes), Alfalfa Sprouts (1/3 c) and Cucumbers (1/6 large cucumber). This comes in at 336 calories, 10 grams of fat, 15 grams of protein, 12 grams of dietary fiber, 7 grams of sugars, 92% of your daily recommended Vitamin C intake, 18% of Vitamin A, 20% of Iron, and 4% of Calcium. Not bad for a sandwich. 

it looks much more exciting mid-eating

The salad, while in a lame Tupperware for me to take to the library, actually is overflowing with goodness. Spinach (2 c), Roasted Red Pepper hummus (1/4 c), black beans (1/4 c), fat-free feta cheese (2 tbsp), alfalfa sprouts (1/2 c), chopped broccoli florets (1/2 c) and baby carrots (1/3 c), cucumbers (1/6 large) and Sun-dried tomatoes tomatoes (4 chopped), sprinkled with some garlic salt and red pepper flakes w/ lemon wedges as dressing. Comes in at a whopping  340 calories, 9 grams of fat, 21 grams of protein, 14 grams of dietary fiber, 13 grams of sugar (all natural of course), 268% of your recommended vitamin A, 229% of Vitamin C, 28% of Calcium and 42% of iron. Now, if you have read anything about nutrition density, I pretty much hit it out of the ball park on that one. (If you don't check out a brief summary)

I encourage you all to make hummus from scratch at home. A bag of dried chickpeas is less expensive than a container of hummus and makes WAY more than was in that expensive container. Plus, you can control the ingredients and try any variations you want - roasted garlic, black bean, peanut butter, or even just plain. If you have any creative uses for hummus other than as a dip, do share! 

P.S. Quick hummus-related side note - Panera has a Power Chicken Hummus Bowl that is a great option if you happen to be eating there. It is SUPER filling and comes in at 270 calories for a whole order.