This one is sure to fatten your wallet and loosen your belt.

I’m a big advocate of bringing your lunch to work. But for many, packing a lunch 5 days a week is just out of the question. Time seems to be an issue. If it’s not time , it’s what the heck do I pack for lunch!? Why not take some of the stress of you and delegate! Form a lunch club this year!

Here’s how it works.

1. Put an email out to see who would be interested in joining your lunch club.
2. Whether you have 2, 4 or 7 people on board you’ve just formed your very first lunch club!
3. Assign everyone a day to bring lunch for the gang.
4. On your lunch day – pack a healthy lunch to feed the troupes!

Now you only have to worry about lunch one day a week and on the other days you know your going to get a healthy home made lunch!

Here are some lunch ideas to help you get started!

• Turkey Chili
• Any type of salad with any type of lean protein
• Sandwiches with lean meat on whole grain bread with veggies and hummus to dip!
• Hearty soup with chicken and vegetables – Try this one!
• Lean Beef Stew – like my Hamburger Soup
• Healthy Casseroles – like my Chicken Nachos
• Chicken or tuna salad made with Greek yogurt. Try my Curry Chicken Salad recipe.
• Crust-less Quiche – Here is my favorite recipe!
• Turkey Burgers on Whole Grain English muffins. Make these the night before and heat them up day of.
• Quiona Salad and Soup. Try my Feta Quinoa Salad and my Green Soup!

You have 10 ideas to get you started! And don’t forget, everyone in your lunch club will have 3 or 4 ideas up their sleeve that they love. This is a great way to form a little team at the office and encourage each other to stay healthy and on track this year. Team support is the best kind of support to help you reach your goals. Happy Lunch-ing! Keep me posted on how it goes!

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1. 10 Healthy Lunch Ideas
2. 10 Ideas for Bringing A Lunch to Work
3. The Passover Challenge – Lunch Ideas

The article talks about four reasons we may act on our impulses and not always our best interests.

They are :

1. Hunger
2. Anger
3. Loneliness
4. Tiredness

I think if we could just for a second before we start to over-eat (and I know how hard it is to capture that second), ask ourselves these four questions:

Am I Hungry ? Am I Angry? Am I Lonely ? Am I Tired?

If we know the right answer we may just be able to feed our body what it really needs. And sometimes when our bodies are hungry – it’s not necessarily for food.

To read the article CLICK HERE .

* Fridays’ Steps – 6423

* Monday’s Steps – 8923

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• I love it because it has 20 grams of protein in it! Most yogurts have 2 to 6 grams. This is sure to help keep you feeling full and satisfied whether you eat it as a snack or include it in a yummy breakfast.
• I also love it because low fat dairy is great for weight loss! Recent studies suggest that dairy products help eliminate fat from your body!
• Not to mention that protein takes more time and is harder for your body to digest then carbohydrates or fat! What does that mean?
• 1. You burn more calories working to digest protein then you do fat or carbohydrates.
• 2. Because it takes more time to digest, you stay full longer.
• And of course, this product has 150mg of calcium, that’s 15% of your recommended daily intake.

Liberte now makes a Greek Style Yogurt that is rich, thick and creamy and a pretty close (although not a prefect) match to my favorite Fage .

Here are the stats for 175ml (3/4 cup):

Check back in! I’m going to post one of my favorite Greek Yogurt breakfast recipes !

* Monday’s Steps – 10,197! Whoot!

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WATCH YOUR PORTIONS!

Too much of anything is too much – even if it’s a healthy choice.

Start by doing this like:

• Reading the nutritional labels and portion sizes on everything you eat. Follow them to a T.
• Buy a cheap kitchen scale and start weighing your protein.
• Pour your cereal into a measuring cup before you pour it into your bowl.
• Pour your rice or pasta into a measure cup (or put it on the kitchen scale) before you put it on your plate.
• Stick your Potato, Sweet Potato, Corn, Banana or whatever on your kitchen scale before you start eating it.
• Any beverage you consume that is not water – measure it in a cup before you sit down to a meal with it.
• CLICK HERE to read more about serving sizes and portions.
• CLICK HERE to read more about nutritional labels.

Yup! Pain in the butt. I’m not disagreeing! But if you’re really serious about making healthy changes and maybe losing weight then this is the first step towards you reaching your goals. I think you’ll be amazing at how much you should eat of some things and how little you should eat of others. All of the sudden the things you get more of will seem much more tempting and “worth it”.

Let me know how it goes!

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• When you go to a barbecue your assuming your going to eat. I mean why wouldn’t you? That is what you do at a Barbecue. But your actually not going just to eat, your going so that you can socialize with friends and family! Eating is secondary (at least it is supposed to be!) Make connecting with people your first priority. This may help take focus off of the food. You may actually stop eying the potato chips you “shouldn’t eat”.
• Chat with someone while you’re eating and actually stop eating at 3 points during your conversation to just listen. Once again taking the focus off food. This will also help you to recognize when you’ve had enough. Stopping for a breather gives your mind a little time to catch up with your body so you actually get that “I’m feeling satisfied” signal. (Notice how I said satisfied and not FULL)
• Don’t talk with your mouth full. I knew my parents taught me this for a reason! When your telling a story – stop and talk. Don’t bite- talk – chew, bite – talk. One thing at a time. Put your plate down and tell your story. Again, another way to give your tummy a small break so that it has more time to signal to your brain that you’ve had enough.
• Offer to bring something to help out and make it something healthy. Something that can be your go-to in the event that your having trouble finding healthy options.
• Meet two new people. If you’ve been invited to a barbecue and don’t know everyone – make it your mission to chat with 2 new people. This gives you a task so that the task of standing beside the food table and guarding it with your eyes (and maybe your mouth) is someone elses responsibility.

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I could write 17 pages about this subject – but I really want to try to keep it short & sweet – hopefully to drill the point home.

There have been many articles in the news lately comparing simple carbohydrate foods and fatty foods to the effects hard drugs have on your body and mind.

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1. Unless your eating fresh produce, almost everything you eat will come with labels. It is very important to read and follow the serving sizes on the label. Pay close attention to how much a serving size is, and how many servings are in the box. Sometimes you will buy a muffin and assume that it’s one serving. I mean, why would it be otherwise?! But chances are that muffin is 2 or even 4 servings. All the information you will need to figure this out will be on the label.

• Pour your morning bowl of cereal into a measuring cup before you pour it into your bowl. Look at your labels. They are there for a reason, I swear!

• If you want ice cream, have it. One serving of ice cream (½ cup) never hurt anyone.

Take time to learn what your portions look like on your plates and in your bowls at home.

Pasta and Grains:

For Pasta – normally you’re looking at about three-fourths of a cup or two ounces. But check the label of the brand you buy. Measure it out a couple of times so you can see how many noodles you get to eat in relation to your bowl at home. Then fill out your pasta with veggies and protein! The bowl gets pretty full, pretty quickly.

For Grains- Things like Rice, Quinoa and Barley are generally 1/2 a cup per serving.

Protein: One serving of protein is 3-4 ounces. I recommend:

• 3-4 ounces for women
• 6 ounces for men
• I measure my protein on a kitchen scale once it’s been cooked. A cheap scale at your local kitchen store should run you $10-15. It’s a worthwhile investment that you should make if you can.

Fruit: They say compare your apple to a baseball—kind of tough to do. All apples look like the size of baseballs to me! This is where your scale comes into play. But if you don’t have a scale on hand:

• Typically, round fruit is approximately 2-3 inches in diameter per serving.
• Bananas should be no more than 6 inches long or 3.5 ounces per serving.
• Grapefruit                       ½ of the fruit
• Berries                            ½ cup – 1 cup
• Dried Fruit                      ¼ cup
• Avocado                         1 ounce (3 slices)

Vegetables: I personally (although, would some would disagree) don’t think you can have too many green vegetables, especially if you’re someone who likes a big plate of food. Have as many servings of green vegetables as you like (as long as they are not covered in butter!).

When the color is not green, have a closer look at your serving size.

• Sweet Potato                          ½ cup mashed
• Squash                                    ½ cup
• Potato                                     ½ cup (normally half a potato)
• Corn                                        An ear 5-6 inches long/1/3 cup niblets

Nuts: 1 ounce

Approximately  – 23 almonds/ 18 Cashew Nuts /  7 Brazil Nuts / 7 walnuts

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I don’t mean to be a stick in the mud but I think it’s important for someone to tell you the honest truth about losing weight. None of this 10 pounds in two weeks business! None of this eat everything you want and lose 60 pounds! It’s important to know what you’re in for when you start to make changes – this is not to discourage you,  this is so you are realistic and not disappointed when you begin your journey. If you know what’s ahead of you, you will be more likely to succeed. Brace yourselves, I have my school-marm uniform on.

b) Being a healthy weight is worth the struggle. You add years to your life, YEARS! You eliminate major risk facts for disease and are able to feel better and be more active. It’s kinda crazy that someone can go from having high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes to NOT HAVING any of these things without taking any medication- but by simply changing what they eat. And all that can be done in a matter of months. MONTHS! Now I would personally say months of suffering is worth all that! Especially if the months of suffering allows you to watch your kids grow up and meet the grand-kids!

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1. Listen to your body. If your body is telling you to stop or if you feel an injury lurking. Back off. Running is great, but it’s also really hard on the body  (especially the joints). Once you get injured, you can’t run – so do everything you can to prevent that from happening. Get the right shoes and listen to what your body is telling you.

2. Don’t run 3 days in a row. Don’t run two days in a row. Always take at least one day off running. On one or two of the days off – it is a great opportunity to weight train. Build those muscles so that they can handle the work ahead.

3. If 3 days is too much for your body – follow the schedule, but only do two days of running a week. On the third day – cross train. Ride your bike, take a class, use the elliptical, go swimming. Anything to keep that heart healthy!

4. During weeks 11 – 13 – do the longer runs twice, on the third day do a short version of the challenge. So, for instance -  in week 12-  instead of doing the run/walk eight times – do it just 4 times.

5. During weeks 14 – 17 -  listen to your body. Do the long runs just once and go for two short 20 minute jogs on the other days.

6. If you are already ahead of the game and week one is something you can do with your eyes closed, feel free to start the program at which ever week you feel you are currently training at.

HAVE FUN!

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“I didn’t know I was not sleeping well, until I started sleeping well.”

“3 pounds in 8 days.”

“It was really hard the first week, but the last 3 days, I feel like I really settled into this way of eating. I now appreciate that I no longer feel stuffed after a meal. I feel satisfied and that’s way better then unbuttoning my pants!”

“I was eating so much bread and carb filler – this past week I felt like I was always putting something nutrient rich in my mouth that would help me function as apposed to easting just becuase it tastes good”

Thanks again to Team Passover Challenge! Until next year…

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