TGIF Friday, May 7, 2010

First things first: The winner of the Pure Physique book is: April! Email me your full mailing address at jody@truth2beingfit.com & I will forward your name to the publisher.

So this week has been filled with posts about choices. Yesterday was a great guest post which discussed making time for you to be healthy. This is not just about exercise though. Yes, we want to have family time and ME time & unplug time. But we also know that at least 75% of the weight loss equation is food. Ya have to get that under control & find a food program that works for you.

A key part of eating healthy, just like exercise & life... IS PLANNING! Yup, we all know that but many of us fail to plan for life.. AND FOOD!

For me, I prefer to eat whole foods & less packaged stuff & I do try to plan for that. On the whole, I do pretty good. There are many sources online both on blogs, websites & otherwise to find healthy recipes & information to help us thru this process. I have even shared some recipes from magazines, websites & more.

I got this email the other day from Fitness magazine with all kinds of links to healthy recipes, advice for you when you just did not plan well enough, try to keep that to a minimum, , snack suggestions, smoothie recipes  and more! Heck, Fitness mag even mentioned MizFit! Maybe they want to put me in there too! Oh yes, that would be nice! Show the younger crowd that us older ladies can kick some you know what!

The thing that is great about this is that you don't have to follow the recipe to the letter. If you are like me & not a great cook and/or not one to be able to think these things up yourself, the recipes can give be a basis for your own variation. Honestly, I do this a lot. I check out the recipe & then I do have enough knowledge to make it my own.. a tweak here & there to make it taste the way I want it to OR maybe even reduce the calories OR up the protein to meet my needs.

There were even suggestions for packaged & vending machine foods. NOW, again, try to keep that to a minimum & you can if you PLAN! If you do have to go that way, DO READ THE LABEL. Check out the ingredients & see if you can read & understand them & hopefully the list is not 5 pages long!

Also check out HOW MANY SERVINGS per package as people get fooled & eat the whole package & later see it was 2 1/2 or 3 servings per package! I actually wrote this before I saw a segment on the Today Show when Hoda mentioned that she bought one of those "single serving" sizes of ice cream. She ate the whole thing as she thought is was 170 calories. AFTER eating it, she looked at the serving size & saw it was 2 servings!!!!! READ YOUR LABELS! They try to deceive you!

The label will also give you the calories per serving, the protein, carb, total fat & those bad trans fat grams along with the sodium content. Check it all out to be sure you are eating something you want to eat. Again, hopefully you will plan & bring snacks with you but this does not always happen.

I even saw this list on their site so plenty to check out!

 Most Popular Recipes

• 20-Minute Dinners
• Healthy Waffles, Pancakes, Muffins, and More
• Flat-Belly Meals
• Desserts Under 250 Calories
• Refreshing Smoothie Recipes
• Our Favorite Chicken Recipes
• Easy, Healthy Egg Recipes
• Pasta Recipes
• Easy, Healthy Beef Recipes
• Life After Lettuce: Our Best Salad Recipes

Plenty of other sources as well. Oxygen Magazine & Shape have websites as well. Clean Eating mag sends out a e letter.

Utilize the recipes & info out there & again, modify to suit your needs. At least you have a starting point.

PLAN for your success!

OK, who has a great recipe they want to share or a website they love? I know many of us also read Clean Eating magazine. Pass on your fav piece of info for us!

PS: You can still enter the giveaway for the $20 Dick's Sporting Goods gift card here. Read more about it here too. This is the last week to get your entries in as it ends May 8th! Enter as many times as you want!