Breakfast Hater to Lover | 20 Easy & HEALTHY Ideas

Eating breakfast in the morning has a number of health benefits including better focus and concentration and a way to jumpstart your metabolism.  Studies have even shown links to skipping breakfast and obesity, yet people are still avoiding it like the plague.  Is it really that bad and that hard to take 5 minutes to better your health.  Too often we live in the moment at what we want from life right now.  Guess what, I bet you want your health later, right?  So take the extra steps now to ensure your health later in life... and you know what? This is going to be one of the easier steps.  

OK, I want to help, here is a list I put together of 20 breakfast ideas that taste good, are easy, and healthy.  Or leave a comment with what your favorite breakfast routine is...

1.  Mixed grain bread, almond butter, sliced banana, and a sprinkle of cinnamon
2.  High fiber cereal, topped with sliced almonds, dried, fruit, and skim or soy milk
3.  Fat-free greek yogurt, mixed berries, and whole grain cereal or low fat granola
4.  Healthy granola bar, a piece of fruit, and skim milk
5.  Whole wheat English muffin, topped with low fat cottage cheese and pinapple
6.  Natural yogurt, chopped apple, ground flaxseed, and a sprinkle of cinnamon
7.  Whole wheat toast or English muffin, topped with reduced fat melted cheese, sliced tomato, a sliced hard boiled egg (and avocado when in season)
8.  Scrambled egg whites, served with whole grain toast and fresh fruit salad
9.  Oatmeal topped with raisins or dried cranberries, sliced banana, and skim milk
10.  Quinoa with sliced apple, dried fruit, cinnamon, and topped with a little skim milk
11.  Whole wheat pita half topped with turkey bacon, fat free cottage cheese, tomatoes, and mushrooms
12.  Fruit smoothie with mixed frozen berries, banana, greek yogurt, natural peanut butter, and milk 
13.  Breakfast burrito with scrambled eggs, tomatoes, reduced fat cheese, whole wheat tortilla, and served with fruit
14.  Sandwich made with lean ham or turkey, whole grain bread, sliced tomatoes, avocados, lettuce, and a glass of skim milk
15. Mini whole grain bagel, topped with low fat cream cheese, served with an apple
16. Scrambled tofu with onions, peppers, dash of light soy sauce, and stirfry with olive oil.  Serve with whole grain toast
17.  Last night's chicken or lean protein left overs (stirfry with peppers, onions, and mushrooms, to add nutrients)
18.  Homemade granola, mix 2 cups rolled oats, 1 cup of wheat cereal, dried fruits, seeds, and 1/4 cup of flaked coconut
19.  Mini wheat cereal, dried fruit, mixed nuts, and hints of dark chocolate chunks in a baggie with a thermos of cold skim milk
20.  Whole wheat pancakes or waffles topped with almond butter, melted frozen mixed berries, and cinnamon served with turkey bacon

And if you still don't find something you like... I bet I can think of more... So, which will you try first?  Enjoy!
oxox, Em

The Skinny on Smoking | Time to Quit

No matter what your age, quitting smoking is always a good idea, but is never an easy task.  I have had many opportunities for growth over the past 2 years since starting my career, but for the first time I was able to dip into the world of addictive behaviors when I was asked to co-lead a smoking cessation group.  My contribution?  Not the psychological aspects of the process, but how can quitting smoking benefit your body and health and how to use exercise to fight cravings.

Here is what you should know:

• After 20 minutes: Blood pressure and heart rate lower
• After 12 hours: The level of carbon monoxide in the blood returns to normal
• After 24 hours: The risk of a heart attack decreases
• After 2-12 weeks: Blood circulation starts to improve
• After 1 year: The risk of heart disease is half that of a smoker
• After 5 years: The risk of a stroke is now the same as that of a non-smoker
• After 15 years: The risk of developing coronary heart disease is the same as a non-smoker

Once you have decided to quit, actually sticking to it is the tricky part.  According to research, when individuals are trying to quit, it is proven that going cold turkey tends to work the best.  But while this works for some, every one reacts differently to the experience and some people may need help dealing with withdrawal symptoms and adjusting to their life without cigarettes.  One thing that I did learn this week is just how much this activity can take over a life and just how hard it really is to get your life back on track.  

Research regarding how to fight the cravings of smoking proves how physical activity acutely reduces the cravings of having a cigarette.  Exercise can literally change the brain patterns of smokers and reduces the craving for nicotine.  Acupuncture and hypnosis are other natural ways that have proven to reduce cravings.

The truth is, nearly 1 of every 5 deaths each year in the U.S. is attributed to the adverse health effects from cigarette smoking.  Trust me, it is never too late to quit.  The positive effects of quitting occur almost instantly and continue to grow as long as you continue to abstain.  

I am by no means an expert in the area of kicking addictions, but I do find the field very interesting.  I look forward to being a part of this important process with each individual and know that I will learn more from each of the participants going through the course of quitting than I will ever learn from research.

I asked about the best techniques and tricks to keep you focused on quitting:

• Prepare yourself for quitting: Write a list of the benefits and why you should
• Set a target date:  Make it sacred, tell everyone, and DO NOT change it for any reason
• Condition yourself physically a few weeks prior to quitting: Start a simple exercise program, drink more fluids, get adequate sleep, improve your diet
• Make smoking inconvenient: Buy by the pack, not the carton.  Stop carrying them around at home or at work, and be sure to forget your lighter at home
• Find alternative ways to relax and reduce anxiety: exercise, massage, meditation...
• On the day you quit: Throw out all cigarettes, matches, and lighters; get your teeth cleaned at the dentist; keep busy; and do something special to celebrate the day
• Avoid temptation: find new habits, participate in healthful events, develop a fresh and clean non-smoking environment
• If you need support, find it!  Whether you find it from home or from your physician, there are various treatments and groups that want to help you quit

A Healthy Diet | One Step at a Time

I've written quite a bit about exercise and the best way to burn fat with intervals, and I've even mentioned that exercise alone probably will not allow you to achieve your maximum results... the thing I haven't told you about is how do you get started on a healthier diet, what are key points to focus on, and how do you turn it into a lifestyle.  

It is essential that you first understand that changing your current eating habits to eating in a healthier manner isn't all about strict nutrition values, starving yourself, or avoiding food that you love.  It isn't even all about counting every calorie (although this works really well for some people to stay on track) and cutting your calories in half.  I try to encourage individuals that living this healthy lifestyle is about feeling great, increasing your energy levels, and stabilizing your moods.  

Another important piece is to realize that for maintenance of a healthy diet, you should plan changes in small steps instead of drastic change.  Take one thing at a time and turn it into a habit before turning to the next key point.  A person is almost always more successful when focusing on changing one thing at a time.

Here are some key points to start your lifestyle change:

1.  Simplify - Don't worry about counting calories all the time.  Focus on adding freshness and variety in your diet.  Try to create more meals from scratch at home, with continuing to eat what you love, but look for ways you can make subsitutions and use fresh ingredients.  It should not be hard for your diet to gradually become healthy and delicious.  The simply take away point?  Opt for fresh ingredients and prepare from scratch.  Stay away from processed foods as much as possible.

2.  Make small changes, one step at a time - It is important to realize that you didn't put extra weight on overnight and you sure in hell won't lose it overnight either.  Try to stay motivated ALL THE TIME.  Changing everything all at once will make sticking to your plan very difficult and may even bring you to cheat or give up.  Where to start?  Add a vegetable or salad to every dinner, try making greens half of your plate.  Or use olive oil in replacement for butter; ground turkey in place of ground beef... starting to get the idea?

3.  Adopt a healthy attitude towards food - Many people suffer from using food as an emotional escape.  Let me tell you... it's not!  A vacation will do that for you... not food!  Emotional eating will just leave you feeling guiltier and more bloated than before.  What to do?  Start by creating a food journal, documenting every time you eat.  What was your mood like?  Did you eat alone or with someone else?  What influenced you to eat (were you actually hungry or was it a craving)?  Consider if you have an unhealthy attachment to food or if you have a healthy relationship with your dinner plate.

4.  Practice Moderation, every small step will make an improvement - Don't get frustrated and eliminate all types of foods you love.  Although some people can give up certain foods completely, most of us are likely to "go crazy" and will end up binging and losing control.  Allow yourself one dessert a week such as every Friday night or one meal with red meat.  It will also allow you to enjoy and look forward to those foods so much more.

5.  Focus on portion control - I find that there is a big misconception that people need to starve themselves in order to lose weight.  In fact, this isn't true at all.  Think about it, how many times do you leave the dinner table feeling bloated and so full that you can hardly make it over to the couch?  Just reducing the amount of food you consume will allow you to feel more comfortable after meals and you will still get the nutrients you need.  To get started, drink a glass of water before every meal, use a smaller plate, dish up at the counter/stove and then take to the table (to make sure you don't take 2nd's without thinking, and ensure that you add more vegetables at each meal.

Remember to be positive.  Every time that you make a healthy choice for you body is a win for yourself.  Allow yourself a treat every once in a while so you don't feel like you are "deprived of all good things".  Focus on becoming a healthier individual in the long run.  And finally, if you have to think of an end to your diet, it probably isn't going to work for you.  This is about living a healthier lifestyle... FOR LIFE!

oxox, Em

Do You Walk Enough?

If you have a job that allows you to move and use your body for physical labor, consider yourself lucky!  Numerous studies are starting to raise awareness of the amount of sitting and how it has a huge impact on your health.  These studies will go so far to say that sitting too long actually raises your death risk.  

Most of us have a desk job where we sit for about 8 hours a day.  Maybe in the morning or after work you spend about an hour at the gym and another 2 hours running errands and making dinner, but combined with the amount of time Americans spend in the car or on the couch, it adds up to way too much sitting throughout the day.  

A study that followed 222,497 adults during their daily life over several years discovered that, over the course of the study, participants who sat for more than 11 hours a day had the highest risk for all-cause mortality, followed by those who sat between 8-11 hours a day and those who sat for less than 4 hours daily had the lowest risk for all-cause mortality.

The scariest thing about these studies are the fact that the effects of sitting this long can NOT be exercised away.  Although you burn more calories, you do not increase the overall muscle activity in the body.  A different study proved that the muscles of people who are desk workers are inactive for about 70% of the day, regardless if they do planned exercise or not.

The take away point?  We need to move more! On average, people currently walk 3,000-4,000 steps per day.  According to the World Health Organization's daily activity requirement, we should walk about 10,000 steps daily for general health.    And if you are trying to lose weight... increase that number to 20,000 steps per day.  A good goal for individuals who are trying to become more active, is to increase average daily steps each week by 500 per day until you can easily average your final goal of 10,000-20,000.

The easiest way to track your number of steps is with a pedometer.  Start by wearing one every day for a week from sunrise to when your feet hit the bed.  At the end of each day, log how many steps you took in a notebook and find your average daily steps at the end of the week.  My guess is you'll be surprised at how many (or should I say how few) steps you took!

You can purchase a basic pedometer at a local sporting goods store for a relatively good price.  I like the Omron Pedometer HJ 320 because it uses a pendulum design so that it doesn't miscount steps.  With this design you can wear the device wherever it feels best (on your body or even in a purse!).  This device also has 7 day memory so you can see how you are progressing over the week.

If you are not ready to spend any money on something like this yet and you have a smart phone, you could always try an app.  I use the "Pacer" app from an Iphone.  Just be careful to pause the pedometer if you are picking your phone up and down a lot as it may read as a step.

Finally, I love Fit devices such as the FitBit Flex, The Nike Fuelband or the Up by Jawbone.  Check those out on a recent blog I did here.

Need some great tips to help you get started?
1. Park in the back of the lot when you get to work or go to the store
2. Take the stairs over the elevator or escalator when possible
3. Go to a different floor/building when you need to use the restroom
4. Set an alarm at your desk to get up and do a lap around the office every hour
5. Fidget while you work at your desk
6. Incorporate walking lunges into your workout routine to burn extra calories while doing bicep curls or an overhead press
7. Schedule a walking work meeting or walk during a conference call
8. Skip the drive through and walk in to get your coffee or lunch
9. Instead of meeting a friend for lunch, meet up for a hike or walk in the city
10. Walk the dog everyday (good chance that if your dog is overweight... you aren't getting enough exercise!)

The Calorie Torcher | Circuit Workout

Do you love a good circuit workout?  Me too!  Circuit training combines cardio and strength into one workout for maximum results and minimal time at the gym.  If possible, gather everything you need and do the workout in a studio where you can spread out and don't need to share the equipment with people who may be on it for longer intervals.  This will help you minimize the time between exercises.  Strength training is becoming a very popular style of trainning for individuals who are trying to burn fat.  (Remember that a muscle will burn 30% more calories than fat will).  If you are not quite ready to give up your cardio, this is a perfect way to get started.  This workout is for the intermediate to advanced athlete.  Leave a comment if you have a question on any of the exercises, need a demo, or would like a modification to any of these.  I'd also love to hear your thoughts if you give it a try!

Windmill Exercise
From Fitbie.msn.com

Workout -

Round 1: 
1.  Windmills with Dumbbell   
2.  Squat-Row on Cable Machine  
3.  Alternating Lunge & Curl  
4.  Speedskaters
5.  Pull-ups

Do 3 sets of this round of exercises without rest.  45 seconds/station.

When finished rest for 3-5 minutes and begin round 2.  

Round 2:

Spiderman Pushup
From Womenshealthmag.com

1.  Burpees
2.  Spiderman Push-ups
3.  Swiss Ball Knee Tucks
4.  Single arm dumbbell snatch
5.  Tricep Dips (do on a bench with feet on the floor if necessary)


Complete 3 sets of this round of exercises without rest.  45 seconds/station.

When finished, cool down for a minimum of 5 minutes and do light stretching.

Good Luck!
oxox, Em

FITNESS & FASHION | Nike Fuelband, Fitbit Flex, & Up by Jawbone

I love a good fitness gadget and these 3 are at the top of my list.  What an awesome constant motivator to move and exercise.  If you always have a competitive nature like myself, you will constantly be pushing yourself to do more.  Other than being competitive, I am super analytic.  I love numbers, charts, graphs and visuals, and these devices will give me just that.  I personally love Nike gadgets, but the other 2 can do a few things that the Nike Fuelband can't, such as track your sleep/quality of sleep and food intake.  The Up will even go so far as to help you take the perfect power nap.  It has a silent vibration wake alarm that if you set for 25 minutes, will wake you 25 minutes after you actually fall asleep!  Overall, these cool gadgets will get you set on the right page when you need to be.  What do you think?  The next hot thing, or completely overrated?

Nike Fuel band ($149)

Fitbit Flex ($99.95)

Up by Jawbone ($129.99)

Living Tech Free

OK, so most of us know that living a life that is completely tech free is near impossible in this day and age.  In fact, a good portion of our lives are devoted to technology.  Between, work, home life, kid's homework, social media, staying in touch with friends and family, and finding information on just about anything you can name; we can hardly take our face out of it!  But how has this technology age affected our health?

Technology is literally prematurely aging us.  Not only are the blinking, buzzing, and beeping distracting us from our slower-paced offline projects, but we are constantly waiting for the email response, or are stressing about how many "likes or "retweets" our status will get.  Also some of us even share our bed with this flashing and sound-making device, I bet you can guess that it could be the cause of your inability to sleep.  Lack of sleep is not only making you feel sluggish the next day, but chronic sleep deprivation has been linked to memory problems, heart attacks, obesity, and stroke.  Technology is also stunting our creativity.  Having troubles finishing a project at work?  Turn off the computer and get some fresh air and let your mind think for it's own.  I haven't even yet mentioned what it is doing to us physically.  Most of us look down to a phone or hunch over our computer for a good part of the day putting a lot of stress on our necks and allowing us to have terrible posture.  And the worst position to use your technology... in the car!  A recent study proved that someone on their phone while driving increased their risk for an accident by 23% and even worse, the average length of time someone was on their phone when getting in an accident, 5 seconds.  Now what is that important that it can't wait!!

So now you have heard some of the negatives.  I urge you to try a day or even just 4 hours tech free.  Let yourself be creative, move your body, interact with people face to face.  Need some good activities?  Here are some of my favorite things to do that don't include my phone, iPad, computer, TV... shall I go on??

1.  Cook up a fabulous dinner for you and your friends
2.  Take the dog for a walk or try snowshoeing with a friend
3.  Take a nap and catch up on sleep
4.  Write a hand written note to a loved one (there is nothing better than getting snail mail anymore)
5.  Take an art class... or yoga, or cooking, or join a book club... the list could go on
6.  Get lost in your city... explore the undiscovered
7.  Read a book, when was the last time you visited the library?
8.  Organize! Whether it is your closet or your files, I think you will feel a sense of clarity and freshness when you are finished.
9.  Take a bath, relax, paint your nails, give yourself a facial... nothing better than a spa day
10.  Volunteer.  Put your time and energy into something that is meaningful to you and you will reap many benefits
11.  Play a game... host a family or friends game night where everyone brings a game and a dish to pass.  How long as it been since you have had a really good belly laugh
12.  Do a project and have a craft day

I want to hear what you do when you turn off your technology and how you can benefit from a tech free day!
oxox, Em