Snack Time

It's not easy finding snacks that are healthy in our grocery stores.  Most foods now come high in sodium, full of sugar, and honestly, just not what your body needs.  I've made a list for you of some of my favorite things to snack on and you can have them without any guilt!

Fruits:
Raspberries
Strawberries, sliced
Bananas sliced with a dab of peanut butter and just a couple chocolate chips
Apples with peanut butter or low fat cheese
Grapes
Clementines
Pears
Sliced Kiwi
 Fruit salsa--recipe below

Veggies:
Bells peppers
Baby Carrots
Sliced cucumbers
Broccoli florets
Cauliflower florets
--all the above dipped in Greek yogurt ranch ( Skinny Ranch Dip )

Dairy:
Low fat string cheese
Low fat string cheese wrapped with a piece of low fat lunch meat
Cottage cheese
Hard boiled eggs
Greek yogurt

Nuts & Seeds:
Cashews
Walnuts
Peanuts
Almonds
Pine Nuts
Pumpkin seeds
Sunflower seeds

Fruit Salsa Recipe:
1 small orange, zested and juiced
2 small kiwi, peeled and diced
1 apple, diced
1 pint strawberries, diced
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tbsp. apple jelly

Combine the apple, kiwi, and strawberries in a mixing bowl.  Add the juice and zest of the orange.  Add jelly and sugar.  Mix well until jelly is coating all fruit.  Serve with cinnamon sugar pita chips or eat plain.  Great on top of frozen yogurt or mixed into plain yogurt as well.

In Your Condition...

Sorry for the delay in posting more regularly.  Life sometimes can become overwhelming and things need to move to the back burner for a short period of time.

As I approach my 3rd trimester I am often asked by others, "Oh you still workout?"  Seriously?  If there is nothing going on with my pregnancy that would prevent me from doing so and I am taking the precautions that I need to, what should it matter.  I wish I could figure out this notion of an idea that pregnant women need to just sit around and do nothing other than grow life. 

I prefer to workout while pregnant.  Research is showing that it cuts your labor down, allows for quicker recovery post birth, and keeps pregnancy weight gains to a healthy level.  So why not?  What do I honestly have to lose?

I know I'm coming up at the point where I cannot workout near as often as I would like, but Baby K is growing so much now and it requires a lot of my energy.  I've eliminated exercises from my regimen that might put strain on my loosened joints.  I do what I can, but I also listen to my body.  If it says, "NO MORE BURPEES today", then no more burpees it is.

I am a firm believer that you can do anything you want your body to do.  You merely need to tell it to do so and make it move forward.  Your body is capable of so much more than you realize.  It's built and designed to do work.  That's why each and every one of your cells is producing energy.  It wants to do work.  Let nothing stop you.

I hope you all start this week with a healthy perspective and start making the changes you need to in order to achieve your fitness goals.  Remember it's not about being skinny, it's about being strong and healthy.