Love Of Oats

A blog dedicated to balancing a healthy and fun life… with oats!

Category Archives: return to health

Fresh Start

Wow, it is probably the most beautiful Saturday since 2009 because the sun is out and we are going to have another sunny 50 degree day!  After many many snowstorms, cold temps, and rainy days, this excites me like nothing else!  Hope you are having some nice weather as well :)

That being said, as you may remember in my “Return To Health” post in February, I mentioned that the month of March is my “Fuel The Fire” month, where I will refocus and ramp up my intensity for life, try new things, live outside my normal comfort level and try new things.  Needless to say I think it should be a fun experiment that will hopefully never end and continue throughout my life.

After a trip to Barnes and Noble last weekend, I decided to purchase a few new books, with one of them being “The Eat Clean Diet Revamped”.  I have been a fan of Tosca Reno after seeing her on tv, in Oxygen magazine,in Clean Eating magazine, and reading her blog, but I never actually sat down to read her book.  I was aware of the principles (obviously I try to practice it as much as possible), but never fully executed eating clean to the “T” because I always feared giving up my beloved granola bars!

This week I read through the entire book and couldn’t get enough and also made sure that every meal I had aligned with the principles of Clean Eating.  I subbed my granola bars for an apple with almonds, celery and almond butter, raw broccoli and homemade hummus, organic greek yogurt with homemade granola, etc…  The results?  I felt more alert, I actually looked forward to the gym at the end of the work day, I didn’t feel bloated, and I definitely fit into my clothes much better :)   I am excited how my body and health will change over time if I keep implementing Clean Eating… It’s really quite the simple concept that we all follow except for me personally, I always allowed for a few loopholes whether it was a processed granola bar, endless snacking at night, or not being mindful about where my food comes from…

As I had mentioned, I came up with some new (EASY) recipes and meal ideas that I will be sharing with you over the next few weeks… and if you have any easy and delicious clean eating recipes, please feel free to share!

Now I’m off to head to kickboxing and hopefully spending lots of the day outside ~ Have a wonderful Saturday!

RTH: Simple Step 4

Simple Step #4: Load It Up

It’s amazing that it took me this long to do something so simple to think about the concept of loading it up… I had made pasta for dinner the other night and even though I always make ww pasta, I very rarely add veggies to it, instead we have our veggies in the form of a side salad… I was trying to be creative and have as healthy a dinner as possible so I pretty much threw every veggie that I could think of into my pasta sauce… I simmered some organic tomato sauce first then threw in leftover roasted asparagus, peppers and onions, and lots and lots of steamed broccoli.  I then mixed it in with the pasta and topped it with parm cheese – it was SO good and SO refreshing.  Usually after I eat pasta, I am left with that full feeling, but this time, I actually felt great.  After this creation, it made me realize that I need to start thinking outside of the box.  There are wonderful ways to incorporate more vegetables in my daily diet in very delicious ways!  I do a fairly well job of getting my share of fruit in throughout the day but veggies often are set aside simply as a dinner meal in the form of one side of vegetables and/or a salad… Something as simple as adding some veggies to simmering sauce improved the nutritional value of a normally mediocre meal…

Anyway, the whole point of this simple step is to add more veggies in unique ways…

Here are some examples that I came up with:

  • Adding spinach/broccoli to lasagna
  • Making a more veggie-packed chili by adding more tomatoes, peppers, onions, corn, etc
  • Cauliflower in mashed potatoes
  • Stir fry with unconventional veggies thrown in the mix ~ go beyond the normal broccoli / pepper / onion mix and throw in some corn, eggplant, asparagus, spinach, you name it, add it, I’m sure you’ll be surprised at how well the flavors will mesh!
  • Add thinly sliced carrots to my pb or hummus sandwich
  • Bulk up a normal family favorite casserole by adding lots of veggies… My mom makes a killer broccoli cheese casserole and I have some ideas up my sleeve on how to make it more veggie-packed (stay tuned)
  • If you’re going to have a grilled cheese, add some spinach and tomatoes for an instant nutritional boost; same applies for pizza, add the peppers/onions/broccoli, etc.
  • Having some Annie’s Mac n Cheese?  Add in that steamed broccoli and enjoy!

The possibilities are endless, I just came up with the above list in a few minutes so I’m sure there are numerous more ways that you can think of… I’m hoping that I can continually improve at treating my body right through the goodness of veggies :)