2 Farro Salad Recipes You NEED in Your Life

Kale salad, check. Three berry fruit salad, check. Cucumber salad, check. Farro salad? Hmmmm. You’re eating clean. Getting in those greens. Drinking your tea. And, chowing down on nuts and avocado. But, you still need a little substance. Something solid as a side dish (or even a main meal) when salmon and spinach alone don’t do the trick. Rice? Pasta? No, thank you, refined starchy evildoers. Quinoa? Been there, done that. Enter your new friend farro, also known as emmer or “true farro’. Sometimes this ancient grain gets confused with spelt, worthy of praise too, but different in taste, texture and nutrients than the real deal variety. When you need a hearty side dish that you can feel empowered eating, give this really retro grain a try. Farro is a whole grain loaded with vits and mins, fiber and a little protein. Its also your new grain friend-with-benefits; it’s lower in calories than brown rice and quinoa, and higher in fiber. Queue the mic drop. Here are two of my fave go-to farro salad recipes for you to give a try:   Fresh Mozzarella Farro Salad – Get the Recipe!   Asparagus Farro Salad – Get the Recipe!    

One Surprising Reason to Have a Healthy Sex Life

I talk a lot about having a healthy sex life and the benefits of sex, but today’s reason might surprise you. Did you know that having sex improves your sense of smell? After sex, there is a surge in the production of the hormone prolactin, which causes your brain’s stem cells to form new neurons in the olfactory bulb, also known as the brain’s smell center. Why am I talking about this? Well, you know I always support having a healthy sex life, because research shows it’s a best way to lose weight. And we know that how well you can taste your food is tied to how well you can smell. Research also shows that there are certain aromas that will actually curb your appetite. So, the more sex you have, the better your ability to smell these foods, the more weight you may be likely to lose!  Now if that’s not a beautiful trifecta of benefits, I don’t know what is.   How a Healthy Sex Life and a Better Sense of Smell Relate   One study showed that strong aromas can cause you to grab a smaller forkful of food, so think chiles and onions if you need a little help in the not devouring-your-meal department. Another study found that the smell of bananas and green apple can actually curb your appetite, so reach for a whiff of these when you’re trying to lessen the amount of times you open the pantry door every afternoon. Licorice works well here, too. Grapefruit has been shown to lower appetite and weight. I love having my clients eat half of a grapefruit with cinnamon as a snack when they are cleansing or trying to lose weight. And here’s a fun fact: my mom started dinner every night with a half grapefruit on all of our plates. I have no idea why, and it had nothing to do with weight loss, but there is a special place in my heart for these citrus powerhouses. So, back to why I originally started writing this. You should have more sex. It’s part of a Nutritious Life, and there are so many other benefits we didn’t cover here today. Clients always raise their eyebrows when I ask them about sex in our nutrition counseling sessions but it truly does have a place in a nutritious life. I don’t want the private details – I want to know they are using it as a secret weapon to manage stress, burn some calories (sexercise, anyone?), and in the end, lose more weight. See, it’s not all about the food.  

How to Eat Healthy Without Getting Bored

So you either already learned how to eat healthy, or you’re now learning to eat healthy, but you can’t possibly eat another carrot stick or suck down another green juice and don’t even get you started on scrambled egg whites for breakfast every.single.day. Sound familiar? Ever wish you could just invent new foods? It’s something I hear about often from my clients. They are b-o-r-e-d with their healthy routine. After a few weeks or months of following various diet plans, it’s easy to lean too heavily on the same few healthy foods and meals. (Your refrigerator just called, and it’s really tired of yogurt, too!) So while I can’t conjure up a variety of broccoli that tastes like chocolate or transform salad greens into pasta or create a new fat burning food, I do know there are hundreds of tricks to put new zing in your old healthy eating standbys. Learning how to eat healthy doesn’t have to be the most boring thing you’ve ever done, and staying healthy doesn’t have to be an exercise in monotony. How to Eat Healthy Without Getting Bored Shake up your yogurt routine Make it savory: Instead of adding fruit, cinnamon or honey to your yogurt, add ¼ cup of chopped cucumbers, ¼ cup of tomatoes, ½ teaspoon of olive oil, and a dash of red wine vinegar for a tangy, Mediterranean-inspired snack. Pair it with raw veggies. Make it dessert-worthy: Add 1 tbsp of natural peanut butter and 1 tsp cocoa powder for a peanut-buttery chocolate treat. Note: you can do this with oats too! Make it tea-licious: Green tea doesn’t just belong in a mug. Sprinkle in 1 tbsp of matcha powder and stir some antioxidants right into your bowl. Add sex appeal to sandwiches Try something richer: Spread on a little healthy fat, from hummus, mashed avocado or a nut butter. Crunch it up: Sprinkle sliced almonds, finely chopped walnuts, or cashews on turkey or grilled chicken wraps. Make it ethnic: Mango chutney or spicy salsa can give your sandwich some flavor pizzazz.   Un-blah food with more flavor Turn up the heat: Cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, wasabi or hot sauce make so many dishes more interesting, from your morning eggs to your evening chicken breast. Diet food does not mean tasteless food. Remember this always. Rediscover zest: Add fresh lemon or lime juice, white balsamic vinegar, pomegranate champagne vinegar or ginger rice vinegar to kick up the flavor profile of savory dishes, especially fish. Make it earthy: Add mixed mushrooms (shitake, Portobello, Oyster) to tomato sauce, stir fries or tacos for a woodsy, hearty flavor, or if you’re sick of lettuce wrapped turkey burgers try portobello mushrooms with the turkey burger in between.  

Outdoor Workout in the Park

Think you gotta hit the gym to get fit? Think again! My friend Natalie Jill came to visit me in NYC, and she put me through her awesome outdoor workout in the park she calls Upper Body Jiggle Be Gone! I’m not sure what I liked more – the workout or the name 🙂 Outdoor Workout: Upper Body Jiggle Be Gone 6 Exercises, 10 reps of each, repeat – Are you in?!?! Pushups Tricep dips Plank twists Bridge walks Pushup to tricep shimmies Lateral raises (butterflies) Here’s 10 awesome healthy snacks to eat before and after this and other outdoor workouts. And if you wanna learn more about how Natalie Jill lives her most Nutritious Life, check this out! Happy sweating!  

19 Ways to Make Your Weight Loss Diet Less Boring

Almost every client who has ever come to me for a weight loss diet has tried (and often temporarily succeeded) to lose weight in the past. Giving up the burger for the turkey sandwich is popular with the guys. Replacing the bowl of ice cream with a bunch of frozen grapes in front of the TV at prime time works for my night time noshers. Pulling out the same carrots and hummus every day at 3PM does the trick when temptation to hit the bag of potato chips kicks in for others. The thing is, how many turkey sandwiches, frozen grapes and carrots can a person choke down in the name of a 32 inch waist or a size 4? If the diet you’re eating to lose weight is snoozerville, it’s time to change it up and head to varietytown. But creativity with your healthy foods doesn’t come easy for everyone. When you’re bored of your food routine, but want to stick with what works, you don’t need to reinvent your healthy diet entirely. Small tweaks can break the boredom without extra work (just a little swapping of ingredients). 19 Simple Ways to Make Your Weight Loss Diet Less Boring If your healthy breakfast is an exercise in redundancy, shake it up with an artful sprinkle of cinnamon or spoonful of seeds (1). Swap the oats for quinoa or barley (2). Try kefir (3) if you are sick of your usual yogurt. Go overnight with your eggs instead of your oatmeal (4). Try fish before noon (5). When it comes to healthy snacks, drop the baby carrots for a week and go for the radishes or jicama (8) or skip raw veggies altogether and get your steamed veggies on, even if you eat them cold the next day (9). Sub the hummus for guac (10). Make your own Greek yogurt dip with fresh herbs and spices (11) for your crudités if Ranch dressing has been on your brain. For lunchtime, sub the turkey for ham (12), or replace the bread with a big lettuce leaf (13). If your usual lettuce feels too been-there, try wrapping your lunch in collard greens or seaweed (14), and if that’s also too done-that, then get your ‘veggie bread’ on – as in use bell peppers (15) or cucumber boats (16) or portobello mushrooms (17) as the bread. When it comes to all the fixins, go wild and pick up some dried coconut if your bag of flax meal is running empty and you yawn at the thought of buying another (18). Give hemp a chance (19) just as you would peace. Jump on the chia bandwagon (18) if you haven’t already and make 2-ingredient chia pudding. Nutritional yeast (aka nooch) (19) isn’t as gross as it sounds. In fact, it’s really cool and goes perfectly on popcorn, in stir fries and pastas, and even in smoothies. Give it a try, after peace and chia. The point is, you can do what works for you and make it work for you even better if you’re open to a little excitement. Healthy eating doesn’t have to be redundant, boring, or unsustainable. Now go throw out your rice cakes and stop boiling your chicken. Let’s spice up that weight loss diet with things that make you and your taste buds happy. It won’t even feel like a weight loss diet at all after awhile. It will just be your diet.

3 Reasons Why I Love Fat

Fat doesn’t make you fat. I promise! Fat is your friend. Not your enemy. But I still get questions all the time about this. Is this too much avocado? Is it OK to eat peanut butter? Overconsuming anything, in general, will make us fat. But when you control the amount of food you are consuming, fat by itself does not make you fat. Studies have even shown that low-fat diets can actually make you gain weight! Why do I love fat so much? It tastes good! But keep in mind, not all fats are created equal. Saturated and trans fats are solid at room temperature (think lard and butter). However there is a big difference between saturated fat and trans fat. Saturated fat has had a bad reputation for a lonnnnng time, but there is room in your diet for saturated fat from real foods (like dairy, coconut, dark chocolate, and grass-fed butter) and it can actually be good for us. Trans fat on the other hand is just bad bad bad. People mostly get trans fat from packages of processed foods. My advice: Ditch ‘em! On the other hand, monounsaturated fats (from avocado, nuts and seeds) and polyunsaturated fats (from fatty fish, nuts and seeds) have many benefits, like boosting immunity, improving brain function, being good for our heart health, and helping us lose weight. Here’s what to focus on when it comes to fat: Fat helps you absorb vitamins. Vitamins A, D, E and K get absorbed better when there is fat consumed with them. But this doesn’t mean you should pour the ranch dressing on to your beautiful, healthy salad! Use 1 tablespoon of an oil and vinegar dressing on your greens, such as roasted broccoli rabe or mixed greens salad instead. Fat helps you burn fat. Fat helps take fat out of your cells so you can use it for energy. Again, portion control is key, but be sure to get fat in consistently throughout the day (about 30% of your calories should come from fat). Instead of having a big apple for a snack, have a small apple with 2 teaspoons of almond butter. Fat provides satiety. That’s a fancy word meaning it helps keep you satisfied. See, carbs have a single bond: Carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Fats have a double bond. What does this mean? It’s harder for your body to break it down, so you digest it slower, and you end up staying more satisfied. So there you have it. Three reasons why I love fat and you should, too.

New Years Resolutions Start Today

I’ve never been a big fan of new years resolutions. Even though I love that google search histories are dominated by “healthy dinner ideas” and “healthy snacks” and “how to eat healthy” around the new year, by February the healthy eating novelty often wears off and January’s healthy searches are replaced with “weight loss supplements” and other quick fixes that aren’t part of a healthy diet or a healthy life. And don’t even get me started on just having willpower to lose weight every January. I believe we should be working on improving ourselves daily, and that we don’t need a holiday date to begin self-improvement work. However, there is something to be said for taking a minute to reflect on the past year and take action moving forward. That I am down with. There are many “rules” to follow in life but looking ahead at a new year, there is one rule I would like to focus on: be responsible. It translates into your personal, professional and social life in a proactive and productive way. We don’t need a million guidelines. There shouldn’t be a hundred messages telling you how to govern yourself as you navigate the world. Moving through life with the mantra ‘be responsible’ should cover you in most situations. As we approach the New Year, it’s a good time to revisit the simple message of being responsible and perhaps use it as an alternative to your usual new years resolutions that never seem to last into spring. New Years Resolutions the Healthy Way: 1. Be responsible for your health. Make choices that keep you accountable to your physical, mental and emotional health. Find a way to be responsible when you are indulging and enjoy yourself with a thoughtful recognition of your actions with food, exercise and well being. Make and keep your doctors’ appointments, schedule regular dental check-ups and be proactive in eating empowered by keeping your refrigerator and pantry responsibly stocked with healthy foods. 2. Be responsible in your environment. Take a New Year’s minute to look at the space you spend the most time in. Do you love your home? Is your bedroom a sanctuary? Are you proud of the desk you keep and spot where you relax? No? Then take some action and make the spaces you live in spaces you love. Take ownership of improving your world you live in so that you can feel good about your choices. 3. Be responsible in your love. Release some oxytocin, the love hormone that is responsible for managing your stress and negative feelings. While sex is a great way to release oxytocin, there are plenty of G-rated ways to do it, too: cuddle more puppies, hold more children’s hands, hug your loved ones. You deserve to have a year that is full of feelings of being loved, so take responsibility for it by incorporating a little love into each day.    

How to Lose Weight With One Simple Change

I’m going to tell you how to lose weight, but we aren’t gonna talk about what you eat. Well, not yet, anyway. We’re gonna talk about what you drink. Beverage sales are through the roof all over the country. You see a coffee drink in every hand on your commute daily, energy drinks fuel a decent portion of our workforce every afternoon, and a soda with dinner is commonplace in many homes every evening. Not to mention the various bottles and cans than inhabit desks and car cupholders throughout the day. We’re all on something – juice, coffee, soda, sweet tea – so let’s take a minute to really think about what we’re pouring down our throats. I recently asked a client, “Is it acceptable to you to be drinking 4 Diet Cokes in the morning?” Her reply was that she hadn’t thought much about it. She was drinking them for the caffeine and it had just become a habit. It seems that this is common for many of us. Calories aside (yes, I know there are no calories in a Diet Coke), if you really push yourself, you’ll probably agree that it is not human nature to drink Diet Coke (or whatever is in your cup) at all. In fact, humans are the only animals that drink anything other than water or nursing milk in the food chain. Our biology agrees with that line of thinking: in nature, calories are designed to be metabolized through the foods we chew. The process of digesting and processing those calories starts in the mouth but most of the food molecules are broken down in our stomach and small intestine. When you drink your calories, the molecules are already mostly broken down and so they shoot right into your blood and don’t sit in your stomach very long at all. We now know that these calories get stored in fat cells more rapidly than the calories from food, which is why so many of us are trying to figure out how to lose weight. If you are thinking that your beverage doesn’t have calories in it, because it’s artificially sweetened, you’re not off the hook. Is it human nature to be drinking chemicals? Those chemicals are contributing to an increased appetite and cravings, and they may also be messing with your palate by keeping you from being satisfied from naturally sweet foods. How to Lose Weight With One Simple Change: Critical thinking 101: If you are chugging something (other than water) ask yourself  ‘is it reasonable to me to be drinking ____ x ____ times per day?’ Critical thinking always brings me back to human nature and biology — the only thing we should drink like water IS water. Still, we are at the top of the food chain for a reason, and so we should make the most of our critical thinking and large brain capacity. There is still room for delicious drinks in your Nutritious Life. I promise. Choose water, seltzer and tea the majority of the time. Incorporate greens juices and a glass of wine into your healthy eating plan. A glass of wine with a nutritious meal or an all green juice with a handful of nuts for a snack. Leave the juice, sports drinks, novelty drinks and the rest in the rarely to never category. Break your beverage habit. If you start with healthy drinking, it will lead to healthy eating, and you’ll find yourself suddenly with an overall healthy diet. I promise that if you go back to your natural drinking nature, you’ll shed some extra weight and feel like king of the jungle.  

Your Thanksgiving Guide to Not Gaining Weight

Thanksgiving is probably the biggest day of eating in the USA. No shocker there, right? With all that ridiculously yummy food on the table, it’s hard to figure out what to do with your hands besides, well, eat. Good thing you’re here now, because I’m sharing 5 tried and true weight loss tips that are sure to get you through Thanksgiving without stuffing yourself like that bird. Tip #1: Feast on good company I always encourage my clients to make the company the focus of the day, rather than the food. For real this time. Be in the moment. Laugh. Really listen to your cousin’s story about his recent trip. Ask your grandma about what Thanksgiving was like 50 years ago. Challenge your nephew to spell cornucopia. Challenge your niece to say it three times fast. Make eye contact, connect and engage with every person who is special to you in the room and make sure that you leave the day full of love, rather than mashed potatoes. You don’t have to treat the meal like your last supper to be satisfied, nourished and giving thanks. Tip #2: Have a plan (and share it with Aunt Millie) I can’t tell you what to eat, how much to eat or what it will take for you to feel successful on Thanksgiving. I customize that work for each and every one of my clients individually (though I do have some go-to Thanksgiving recipes that I recycle each year). I will tell you that going into Thanksgiving with a plan of attack for what goes into your mouth will give you the opportunity to be successful. Without a plan, you cannot set yourself up for success or stay on track with your healthy diet. You can be the Thanksgivophile (just made that word up, permish to use granted) who plans to eat a small serving of all of the offerings. You can be the parade watcher who plans to eat only the healthy snacks, crudites and desserts. You can even be the marathon football watching fan who snacks from morning to night in planned combinations of portion-controlled holiday favorites. Make a plan so you can stick to it. Tell this plan to someone who will be celebrating the holiday with you. It will keep you accountable and on your healthy eating task. Tip #3: Use your hands for something besides eating Eeeeek. Turkey’s resting for 30 minutes. It smells soooooo good. You’re surrounded by snacks: nuts, cheese, something puffy that’s oozing parm and pancetta. Code red. Remember your plan! Rather than eating whatever’s nearby, keep a glass in your dominant hand (preferably seltzer with a few pomegranate seeds tossed in, a little wine spritzer or an herbal tea). It will keep you from munching mindlessly. Other ideas to keep your fingers from putting unwanted items between your lips: take holiday wish lists from your friends and relatives to make your shopping easier; help the host; bring your knitting, a puzzle, craft or an origami activity to do with the kids; pull out old board games; or look at old photographs. Thanksgiving is a good day to go old school here. Tip #4: Fab your gorgeous self out Take a few minutes before the company arrives, or you head out into the world to your turkey soiree and make sure you feel good about how you look. Celebrating your Thanksgiving in sweats and bed head isn’t going to inspire you to feel your best, make good food choices and propel you into anything other than a food coma. Think about someone you admire who exudes health, confidence and positivity (with a little sex appeal thrown in) and take a little inspiration. Why not feel amazing on the outside?! You’re amazing on the inside! Keeping your appearance on the forefront of your brain may help you make good food choices. Tip #5: Take a nap There are many reasons I recommend a little mid-day shut eye on Thanksgiving. Yes, obvi you cannot eat and sleep at the same time. A little siesta also honors that you’re taking a day off for enjoyment, and quiets the stress hormone cortisol, which is linked to holding on to extra belly fat in your bod. Rested bodies are also better able to fight off germs and keep you well as cold and flu season starts knockin’ on the door. You don’t have to be anti-social — a 30 minute break from the festivities should be enough to refresh you (and maybe help get you out of doing some of those dishes). Happy Thanksgiving, friends. You can celebrate this one without a souvenir extra pound or two to remember it with. Cheers to you — you can practice these tips for all of the holidays to come!

3 Rules to Enjoy Seasonal Foods Without Wrecking Your Waistline

I’m not into the shame game. I know you’ve been looking forward to your _______________ (fill in the blank with candy corn, oktoberfest beer, pumpkin spice latte, cider donuts . . . ), just like you looked forward to the Valentine hearts, peeps and Cadbury creme eggs. And, I know I’m probably not going to convert (completely!) your cult-like desires to get you excited for figs, pomegranates or heavenly sweet potatoes instead. But I don’t want to make you feel bad about that. Let’s be realists. You’re thinking “OMG, (again, your blank) are BACK!!!” and then panicking with feelings that “they’ll only be available for 3 more weeks” only to find that you’re, ahem, pants don’t fit by the end of the month. I’m here to help. If you need to find a way to indulge in the seasonal foods you have mad love for without having to loosen your buckle before the next season hits, you’ve come to the right place. 3 Rules to Enjoying Seasonal Foods Without Wrecking Your Waistline: 1.  Grant yourself permission. I had a client with a self proclaimed addiction to peanut butter cups. She’d hit the vending machine hard around 3 o’clock, indulge her choco-pb habit, then throw away her healthy diet and “hate” herself the rest of the day. The first assignment I gave her was to go out and buy a peanut butter cup, IF, and only if, she truly craved it. She was not allowed to go to the work vending machine and buy it. She had permish to indulge in it if she took the time to assess the craving (was it just work boredom? habit?) and then decide if she would go out and buy it. Know what? As soon as she had permission, she realized she didn’t “need” them as much as she thought she did. Give yourself permission to have your favorite fall treat! Eating foods just for the sake of pleasure, in a conscious and deliberate way, is all part of healthy eating and will not zap your healthy diet. For the record, that client now regularly chooses healthy snacks like hummus and crudites or almonds and yogurt instead of peanut butter cups and has been doing uh-mazing. 2. Plan, plan, plan! Each and every one of us is unique and what works for one of us, may not work for another. But here are a few tips to help you plan your treats. Try to: indulge in your fall goodies twice a week and give up another conscious indulgence to make that happen (meaning you may have to give up your usual serving of fries that you look forward to on the weekend, so you can eat the cider donut). get it out of your system and buy one bag of candy corn and add 5 pieces to the 10 almonds you have between breakfast and lunch until it’s gone. make a date with a friend to enjoy and indulge in (fill in the blank again!) and follow it up with a long walk to catch up. 3. Be mindful and deliberate. Its a sad thing when I hear a client tell me that they indulged in their fave indulgence and “didn’t even taste it” because they were beating themselves for eating the treat before they even finished it. Don’t fall into that trap. Make it a conscious indulgence, eat slowly, enjoy every bite and remember every meal is a Monday morning. Make the next thing to hit your lips uber healthy. Grant yourself permission, plan your treat and ENJOY it! Slow down by using a plate and real napkin. Do not take a nibble while texting, hailing a taxi, watching TV, chatting on the phone or opening up your mail. Be present and in the moment. After all, the seasons change quickly. Bookmark this blog. Refer to it in the winter, when Santa Claus is comin’ to town, in spring when the Easter chocolates are everywhere and again in the summertime when the ice-cream truck is ringing for you!  

How Many Hours of Sleep Do You Really Need?

How many hours of sleep do you get every night? 5? 6? 7? How many pounds do you want to lose? 5? 15? 50? Guess what? These two numbers go hand in hand. So many of my clients are terrible sleepers. They can’t fall asleep because their minds are racing or they fall asleep, but can’t stay asleep. Or they wake to use the bathroom and then wander into the kitchen at 3AM. Or they sleep OK, but wake exhausted. And they eventually end up in my office, asking for diet plans and how to lose weight. This is yet another example where I preach, “It’s not just about the food!” “Sleep deep” is a Nutritious Life pillar because how many hours of sleep you get affects your wellness and waistline as much as the healthy foods you eat, the exercise you practice and the stress you manage does. See, sleep deprivation messes up the hormones that regulate hunger, causing an increase in appetite and specific cravings for calorie-dense, high-carbohydrate foods. So after a long night, there is indeed a reason you are reaching for the bagel and cream cheese at 7am instead of your normal healthy breakfast of hard boiled eggs and berries. Research shows that sleeping only 4 hours per night for 2 nights causes leptin — the hormone that tells your body to stop eating — to drop 18%. And levels of ghrelin — the hormone that says “eat more”– jump 28 percent. Again, there is a reason you can’t stop chowing after pulling an all-nighter. Buh-bye healthy eating, so long balanced diet. Now keep in mind this happened after just 2 nights of sleep deprivation…just imagine what happens after weeks and weeks of missing sleep! No wonder your pants are tight, right?! So, how many hours of sleep do you need to be the healthiest you possible? Adults are supposed to get about 7-9 hours of sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation. If you only get 6 hours, your risk of developing obesity rises 23%, if you only get 5, it increases 50%, and if you only get 4, it increases a whopping 73%! The thing is, if you want to improve your sleep, you’ve gotta work on your nighttime behaviors, just like you practice brushing and flossing or washing and cutting fruits and veggies right when you get home from the grocery store. What can you work on to better up your shut eye? If you wake up to pee, stop drinking 2 hours before bedtime and try to go right before you turn in for the night. If you fall asleep, but wake up a few hours later, give up all alcohol for a few days and see if it helps, or jot down your biggest stressors in a journal immediately before you turn in to quiet your mind. If you’re sleeping, but not feeling rested, flip your mattress, adjust the temperature in your bedroom, buy yourself new pillows or invest in snore-strips for your wake-the-dead, apnea challenged spouse. If you’ve flipped the mattress and that isn’t working, I’ll let you in on a secret – invest in an Essentia mattress. They are the only organic memory foam mattress available and I’m telling you, you’ll sleep like a babe. Can’t fall asleep? Ditch the caffeine after noontime and exercise in the morning, rather than the evening. Tonight, I want you to stare at the inside of your eyelids with the curtains drawn, in your favorite jammies, with your iPhone silenced, no matter what. Stop making lists in your mind or preparing for tomorrow’s presentation or folding the laundry. Tonight is about sleep. That’s it. If you sleep well, you’ll eat a better breakfast tomorrow morning, which might motivate you to eat a better lunch, which might motivate you to hit the gym, which might make you sleep better tomorrow night, which might help you drop those pounds you’ve been struggling with. Done and done.

How to Eat Healthy 5 Times a Day

How to eat healthy once a day is a no brainer. Find something green in a 24 hour period, and eat it. That’s it. Surely, you can do that, right? Well, not so fast. I’ve seen lots of clients that live on an un-healthy diet of carbs and white-ish things, with a side of burger. So telling them to simply “Just eat more vegetables!” (even once a day!) is pretty much a recipe for them never getting anywhere as far as a healthy diet goes. I mean, we’ve been told since we were kids to eat more vegetables. It just doesn’t work that easily. Most veggie-challenged people envision trying to choke down plain lettuce or a side of over-steamed broccoli, and they immediately race to a bowl spaghetti instead. But today is going to be different. I’m not going to tell you to “just eat more veggies”. I’m going to show you how to eat healthy veggies at every meal, and you might find it’s actually easy (and not as boring) as you once thought. If you need some nudging, research from the University of Liverpool in England reports eating 7 servings of fruits and veggies daily significantly lowers mortality, and death from cancer, heart disease and stroke. So, literally, veggies can save your life. My challenge to you is, no matter how many or few healthy foods you are already eating, to get one type of veggie in at every meal. Here’s how to eat healthy 5 times a day: Healthy Breakfast: 2 eggs with a giant handful of spinach, peppers and onions. Add a half of a small avocado instead of your usual cheese (avocado is more fat than fruit, but c’mon, we’re trying to improve your health, might as well swap cheese for a better fat!) and serve it up with a cup of berries. 2 servings Morning healthy snack: 12 almonds and zucchini chips (I know, you’re busy and don’t have time for a feast, but you need a little pick-me-up before lunchtime). 1 serving Healthy Lunch: Spinach salad loaded up with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, grilled salmon and a splash of lemon juice and olive oil. 2 – 3 servings Afternoon healthy snack: Tabbouleh prepared with parsley, tomatoes, onions, bulgur, olive oil and tablespoon of feta cheese on top (yes, you don’t have to make it yourself! You can buy it ready to go from the deli counter at the market). 1 serving Healthy Dinner: Roasted chicken with a small sweet potato, roasted cauliflower and a green salad. (If you love cauliflower, check out my recipe for Flank Steak and Mashed Cauliflower from Chef’d!) Need dessert? Me too. Grilled peaches with a spoonful of ricotta and a drizzle of honey. 3 servings See?! Not so difficult (nor boring), right? Use this sample day as the foundation for your week. Change up the produce for added variety. Swap peaches for pineapple, almonds for cashews, Tabbouleh for hummus and crudites, spinach salad for arugula, roasted chicken for salmon…the possibilities are endless. You don’t have to bother with measuring cups and scales,  I’m just looking for you to get MORE veggies and healthy foods in during the day! I like for my clients to eat 2 servings of greens a day. Leafy greens are packed full of nutrients with very few calories, and they take about 2 seconds to throw into a bowl and drizzle with balsamic when you’re pinched for time. As a reference, usually that salad you (hopefully) grab at lunch will have 2 – 3 servings in there. So there you have it. eating more veggies doesn’t mean soggy green beans. Bon appetit!