Chia

Hey there, back again with another post! The topic for today will be chia. Whenever people see me eating or drinking chia, they always ask what it is, and when I tell them it's chia the most common response is: "like Ch-ch-ch-chia?" And the answer is yes, it's that same chia! Commonly known as chia pet, a plant that would grow around the shape of an animal! It makes me laugh thinking about the seeds of those plants being a part of my diet now. I eat chia pretty much every day because it has countless health benefits, and I think it really adds to some of the foods already in my meals! So in this post I'll be telling you why chia is so good for you, as well as some different ways you can incorporate chia into your diet as well.

Chia is widely known for being a super-food today, and is said to have been the Ancient food of Aztec warriors! So if chia can give enough power and endurance for an Aztec warrior, I'm sure it can handle giving bodies plenty of energy to go about our day!

Chia is a super-food because it has a ton of omega-3s, antioxidants, and fiber and functions to give you energy all day long, keep you full, cleanse your colon, prevent inflammation, and balance your blood sugar.

So now that you know the health benefits of chia seeds, let's talk about how to prepare them for some meals!

Chia seeds can be bought from your local grocery store, and they'll look like this: (My seeds are black, but chia seeds can also be white; the color doesn't affect the taste at all)

So the interesting thing about chia is that they don't taste like anything, they just add a tapioca-like texture to a drink or they could make for a good pudding, topping for your oatmeal/yogurt, an ingredient for a homemade granola bar, addition to your salad, and even a crust for your chicken or fish!

The way that I like to have my chia is for breakfast mixed in with some naked juice. I'll soak three tablespoons of chia seeds with a cup of water in the refrigerator overnight and then spoon some into my juice the next morning, then save the remaining for the rest of the week, I love it! I have it pretty much every morning, and I never get tired of it. Especially because there are so many great juices out there that you can try, or you could add chia seeds to a smoothie as well.

I know that a lot of people like to drink their chia with just their water, so here's a picture of what it'll look like when the chia seeds have absorbed water (9-10 times their weight in water!) and then are immersed in additional water:

 

Another way that I like to eat chia is, as I mentioned earlier, in the form of a pudding. Chia pudding is very similar to tapioca pudding, but much healthier. This is definitely an awesome dessert option, as it's super light and refreshing, but you could really eat this anytime! Here's the recipe:

Chia Pudding

3 tbsp. chia seeds
3/4 cup almond milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp honey

1. Mix all of the ingredients together in a container (except for the honey if you want your pudding to be sweeter, and add the honey in right before you eat the pudding, but if you want the sweetness to be more subtle, go ahead and mix in the honey at the same time as all the other ingredients).

2. Refrigerate the mixture for as short as ten minutes if you want the texture of the seeds, but refrigerate for a few hours or overnight if you want the seeds to be completely smooth.

3. Serve! If you didn't add in the honey yet, mix it in now, and you can also top the pudding with some fruit or nuts. Now your chia pudding is ready to eat, enjoy!






 

Boosting Metabolism

Hello!! First off, I would like to say that I'm very sorry for not posting at all last week! I had finals last week and they absolutely killed me, haha. But I'm back and I will make up for it with two new posts this week instead of my usual one! So the topic today will be about how you can boost your metabolism, which is the rate at which our body burns calories. But first, why is it beneficial to have a faster metabolism?  Having a faster metabolism means that your body will be able to break down food and sugars quicker and more efficiently so that they won't be stored as fat. So, that being said, instead of blaming your genes for your slow metabolism, here are 10 easy ways that you can speed it up!

1. Drink water
Our body needs water to process calories. If you are dehydrated, your metabolism will slow down by as much as 3 percent. Studies have shown that by drinking just 17oz of water, which is only a little bit more than a water bottle, the metabolisms of both men and women boosted 30 percent! The boost occurs within ten minutes, and reaches a maximum 30-40 minutes after drinking, so it's ideal for you to be drinking water constantly.

2. Eat breakfast
When you sleep, your body is fasting. And so when you wake up, you have to break that fast, which is why breakfast is called what it is! When you eat breakfast in the morning, you're starting up your metabolism. But if you skip breakfast, your body is still fasting and therefore is operating at a slower rate.

3. Step up your workout
High-intensity exercise, even for a short amount of time, burns more calories than low-intensity workouts for long time intervals. So try some half-hour workouts that really make you push yourself, or add in some shorts bursts of jogging when you walk!

4. Drink tea/coffee
Coffee does increase your metabolic rate, just make sure not to go overboard with the creamer and sugar! Green tea and oolong tea are very good teas for boosting your metabolism. Recently I discovered that you can go to Starbucks and order three scoops of matcha green tea powder mixed with water (you can get it iced or hot) and they only charge you $0.80 for a Venti size! The eighty cents is just to pay for the matcha powder itself, which I think is pretty great. No more sugary $3.75 frappuccinos for me!

5. Get sleep
While I mentioned earlier that your metabolism is slower while you sleep, it is important that you get enough sleep that you aren't sleep deprived, because lack of sleep stops the genes that are responsible for boosting your metabolism. The recommended amount of sleep is to get about eight hours a night.

6. Eat protein
In addition to keeping you full, protein takes more calories to digest than fats or carbohydrates, while boosting your metabolism during meals. So make sure to include some good sources of protein such as chicken, fish, lean beef, tofu, turkey, eggs, nuts, low-fat dairy products, and beans.

7. Build muscle
People with more muscle have a higher resting metabolic rate; one pound of muscle burns 6 calories a day just to sustain itself, while one pound of fat only burns 2 calories. After a strength-based workout, your muscles are activated all throughout your body, raising your metabolism.

8. Eat frequently
Your metabolism slows down in-between meals, so try to eat about every 3-4 hours, which is about 5-6 meals a day.

9. Don't stress
Stress causes high levels of cortisol, which is the hormone that leads to belly fat. Hakuna Matata! "It means no worries..."

10. Eat spicy foods
Spicy foods can definitely kick up your metabolism, and though it may only be for a short period of time, if you eat spicy foods enough the benefits will most likely add up! So just add in a tablespoon of chili pepper into your dishes or sprinkle some red pepper flakes on top and you'll have a nice spicy addition to your meal that will help boost your metabolism!

This is all my knowledge and tips that I have as far as metabolism goes, I hope that this was useful and maybe--somehow-- interesting? Haha if not, well you read this entire post all the way down to here, so thank you for that! Anyways, I can't wait to talk to you guys in my next post! Actually I'll probably blog again tomorrow... so yes, I will post again very shortly! Thanks again for reading this, and for all your interest and support, you are the best! I know that I wouldn't be as motivated and dedicated to this fitness journey as I am now if it wasn't for you, so thank you.

Update

Hello! I've been looking forward to sharing about this week's post, so let's jump right in. I wasn't sure if I was going to do updates on my progress intermittently or announcement my total weight loss until the end of this journey. But I decided that I will share my successes and setbacks about every month or so, just to hopefully motivate those who are also trying to live healthier but also to keep me accountable as well.

So, it has been about four weeks since I started trying to live a healthier life style. And in those four weeks, I've lost nine pounds as of today. Which is great, because that means I'm on track to lose thirty pounds by the end of March, which is my goal. I'm looking forward to continuing this journey of eating right and exercising and I plan to push myself even harder as the feeling that I've been getting knowing that I'm benefiting my body has definitely been worth it.

As of my past few posts, I've been getting a lot of questions about what I'm doing personally for this fitness journey, so I thought that I would talk about that today as well.
So, my daily routine has basically been to consume around 1,300 calories a day, allotting breakfast and lunch about 320 calories and around 440 calories for dinner, leaving about 180 calories for snacks (These are just estimates, they're about what I shoot for when preparing a meal, but if I eat more or less than those allotments then I just adjust my other meals accordingly). Then as for exercise, I walk/jog/run five miles a day, or more if I'm feeling up to it. I haven't been focusing too much on toning my muscles, but I hope to start that soon. I also make sure to drink a minimum of 64 oz, eight cups, of water everyday. Then after all that, I try to get eight hours of sleep (because did you know that you burn [0.4 x your weight] calories each hour that you sleep? For me, that's equivalent to a meal and a few snacks' worth in calories!) So if you can, make sure to get as much sleep as possible!
So this is pretty much all that I've been doing so far as a routine, but it will most likely change as my weight will hopefully continue to change and consequently will my intake of calories and exercises and such.
To help me stick to my routine and keep on track towards my goal, I use a Fitbit Flex, which is a wristband that syncs with an app you can download on your phone that counts your steps, tells you how many calories you've burned, and how much undisturbed sleep you've gotten. It also allows you to enter in your meals so that you are aware of how many calories you are consuming. Here are some of the foods that I eat frequently, in addition to some other healthy meal options that I would recommend:

Breakfast:

-Green juice that contains apples, bananas, kiwi, mangoes, pineapple, spirulina, alfalfa, broccoli, spinach, kale, garlic, barley grass, wheat grass, ginger, and parsley
-Chia seeds (I'll do a blog post on this later)
-Eggs (I like them boiled, and I don't eat the yolk)
-Turkey bacon
-Bananas
-Oatmeal
-Granola
-Greek yogurt
-Cottage cheese
-Muffins (healthy ones!)

Lunch:

-Salads
-Quinoa
-Tuna
-Bean burrito with a whole wheat tortilla, or you can make a wrap with whatever you like inside
-Fruit (Apples, bananas, blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, pineapple, etc.)
-Hummus and carrots or cucumbers
-Turkey or roast beef sandwiches on whole grain/wheat bread or you can make a pita pocket

[Sorry I don't have too many ideas for lunch yet, as I bring my lunch to school, which can sometimes limit my options. But I'll continue to look for more lunch ideas and hopefully devote a blog post to that for those who might need to pack their lunch as well or just want something easy and quick to prepare.]

Dinner:

-Salmon
-Sweet potato fries (they're not actually fried, they're baked--I'll most likely do a recipe post for these)
-Vegetables (Broccoli, zucchini, green beans, asparagus, peas, cauliflower, etc.)
-Chicken (White meat)
-Lentils and broccoli
-Turkey burger (No bun) with avocado
-Tilapia
-Pesto (or shrimp) with spelt/whole wheat pasta
-Brown rice

Snacks:

-Dried plums
-Cheese and fruit (I usually eat a banana, apple, or grapes)
-Plain popcorn
-Nuts (Walnuts, almonds, pecans, cashews, pistachios, but try to stay away from peanuts as they contain a lot of fat, but it's okay as long as you eat them in moderation)

[Side note: Personally I wouldn't advise snacking on energy bars, as they often are pretty high in calories, about half of one of my meals, and I don't find them particularly filling. But at times I will eat them in place of one of my meals if I'm running late, and then I'll make sure to balance my other meals later when I have more time-- so just feel free to do whatever works best for you.]

Drinks:

-Water
-Green tea (or Oolong, both are very beneficial teas; there are also many weight-loss teas out there)
-Almond milk
-Coffee (Coffee without creamer and sugar is less than 5 calories)
-Juices/smoothies
-Coconut water or milk

So these are just some of the foods I've been enjoying and have been seeing results from. I'd like to stress that it doesn't matter when you eat any of these foods, I just organized them in traditional meal classifications, meaning that you can eat breakfast foods for dinner, dinner foods for lunch, and lunch foods for breakfast, the order makes no difference. Just remember to not skip meals, and to eat frequently, about every 3-4 hours as it's important in terms of speeding up your metabolism, which will the subject of my next blog post. Also, I've been getting so much positive feedback about this blog that I am thinking about blogging twice a week, as before I was just planning on blogging once, on Wednesdays. In addition, I've found that I really enjoy blogging; it has been fun and I've been learning a lot. So if I add another blogging day, I'll either set a specific day of the week or I will add in a bonus whenever I have time or if I come across some new information that I'd like to share with you all. I hope this post was helpful, thanks for reading!

Banana Muffin Recipe

Time for the first recipe of this blog! Today we're talking a clean-eating banana muffin recipe. I myself have always loved banana bread, and so this recipe is a great healthy alternative as well as an easy breakfast to grab and go. I've been looking for a flourless muffin recipe for awhile now because I've been wanting to try coconut flour and almond flour, as a substitute for all-purpose flour, but I already have quite a bit in my pantry that I should use before buying more groceries. And to be quite honest, I'm not a huge fan of whole wheat flour; I'll eat it, but it isn't my favorite. And I don't believe in forcing yourself to eat something just because it's healthy. You should be enjoying what you're eating! I personally really look forward to my meals, not just because I'm hungry, but because I've found a lot of healthy foods that I really like and I know are good for my body. That being said, I hope you like this recipe! The muffins are super easy to make, don't require many ingredients, and are completely guilt-free. They also freeze well; I went on a vacation for a week and I wasn't able to eat all the muffins I made so my mom put them in the freezer while we were gone and when we came back and thawed them, they were just as good as they were when we had left! All in all, I'm really glad that I discovered this recipe and gave it a try, I hope you do too!

Here are the ingredients you'll need:

2 1/2 cups old fashioned oats

1 cup plain low fat Greek yogurt

 2 eggs

1/2 cup honey

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 TBSP ground flax seed

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 bananas

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray the tin with non-stick cooking spray or line your muffin tins with silicone or foil liners.

2. Place the oats in a food processor and process for about ten seconds. Add all of the remaining ingredients into the processor.

3. Continue processing until everything is evenly mixed together and the oats are smooth.

4. Spoon out your batter into the cupcake liners and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Here's how mine turned out:

YUM.

Thanks for reading!