Chicken Avocado Salad and Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken

Hey Fitties,
    how are ya doing? I committed to eating clean this week. So far this whole thing has been really good. I thought I would hate it but I've actually been enjoying what I make and have been learning a lot along the way. Below is my recipe for the chicken avocado salad. I actually adapted this from a restaurant I like to frequent called Press195.

Chicken Avocado Salad
Chopped Romaine Lettuce
1 Boiled Egg
1 Chicken Breast
1Tomato
1/2 an avocado sliced
Trader Joe's Cilantro Dressing

Anytime I make this salad I use a creamy dressing. The combo of the avocado and the boiled egg is divine and keeps me satiated until my next meal.

Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken

8 thinly sliced chicken breasts
2 tbsp Italian seasoning
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp black pepper
1/2 packet sazon'
1 tspn salt
12 oz frozen spinach
1/4 cup chopped scallions
2 garlic cloves smashed and chopped
1/4 cup cilantro
1/2 cup Feta Cheese
1/3 cup fat free ricotta
1 large egg
1 tspn water
1 cup breadcrumbs


    1. Season Chicken with italian seasoning, ground cumin, sazon, salt and black pepper.
    2. In a pot add 1 tbsp olive oil and add scallions and garlic and leave on med-high heat till garlic turns light brown.
    3. Add frozen spinach to the pot and a dash of black pepper and salt. Cover pot and let spinach simmer for about 10 minutes.
    4. Uncover the pot and let the spinach condense for 5 minutes or to your liking.
   5. In a bowl place 1/3 cup fat free ricotta, 1/2 cup feta cheese and cooked spinach.
       Mix, this should look and taste like creamed spinach now.
   6.  Lay out chicken breasts flat and spoon in 1-2 tbsp spinach mixture into each and roll.
   7. Make an egg wash consisting of 1 large egg and 1 tspn water. Dip each chicken roll into the egg wash and roll in bread crumbs.
   8. Place the now breaded chicken on nonstick foil with seam down.
   9. Bake for 25-30 minutes on one side, flip and bake for an additional five minutes.
   10. Enjoy, this is rather tasty.
Also, I had a lot of the creamed spinach mix left over. This can be used as a tasty side dish :)

 

XoXo,

YumYum

Baked Salmon Cakes with Avocado Cilantro Dressing

 Wazzup Fitties,
     so this weekend I went shopping and bought a bunch of food to try. Below are the recipes for the salmon cakes and feta stuffed chicken I made this week. Remember, these are adapted from +Skinnytaste Gina .

Saute 3/4 cup yellow onion, 1.5 cups chopped celery,
1.5 cups orange bell peppers, 1/2 cup green bell pepper and
1/4 cup cilantro in 1 tbsp olive oil.

1/2 lb Salmon fillet seasoned and seared
on each side for 5 minutes.

Flake cooked salmon, add veggie medley,
1 tspn hot sauce, 1/2 tspn lawry's salt,
1 cup breadcrumbs, 3 tbsp light mayo,
3 tbsp non fat greek yogurt,  1.5 tbsp dijon
mustard, 3 egg whites and 1 large egg lightly beaten
and mix together to look as above. Leave in fridge for
30 minutes or more.

Take 1/4 cup portions of mix,
arrange in patty form and place
on non-stick foil.

Bake on each side for 12-15 minutes @
400 degrees Fahrenheit and dig in :).

 


  Now, if you want the whole shebang you can make a simple and refreshing dip for these salmon cakes to mingle with. 

Avocado Cilantro Dressing

This dressing is really good, it is mayonaisseless and quite simple to make.

Ingredients

1 hass avocado

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

3/4 cup low fat buttermilk

1 garlic clove

1 small jalepeno (remove seeds, but keep em if you feelin saucy 

1 scallion (chopped)

1/2 tsp black pepper and salt

1/8 tsp cumin seeds

1 juice of lime.

 Throw these all in a blender and mix until you see no more cilantro pieces and voila you have a refreshing eggless salad dressing. This recipe makes 6 servings and yields 64.9 calories, mainly from the 4.8 grams of fat from the avocado and buttermilk used in this recipe. It's rather thick, so you can use this as a dip as well. Enjoy

Meals for the week

Hey Fitties,
         So sorry I've been aloof. I know I promised to have my meal plan post up by Sunday, but if I did I'm quite sure the post would have been all ova da place.

 
      So, below is my planned menu for the week. I felt like the best place to research healthy and tasty meals was @skinnytaste.com. I have been stalking her site for years but have never prepared any of the recipes she's shared.  I currently have made a couple of the meals and condiments already for the week from her site and they have been absolutely delicious. So much so, that my fiance' has been eating healthy dishes I have prepared as well.

Menu
Chicken avacado salad with Trader Joe's cilantro dressing (I luv this place)
Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken
Baked Salmon Cakes with avocado cilantro dressing
Baked Sweet Potato Chunks
Grilled Talapia with a Veggie Medley

       My next post will show the recipes and pics of the processes I went through to make a few of these dishes. Until next time, which is literally in a few minutes, Fitties.

XoXo,
YumYum

Workouts for the week

Hola fitties,
    although I was lamenting about my physical progress earlier this week, I still was getting my workouts in. Below is a list of all the programs and exercises I performed during the week.

Monday
Body Beast Tris and chest
Nike Trainer Club 15 minute Ab blast

Tuesday
3.4 mile speed circuit on treadmill

Abs
30 crunches
30 cross crunches
20 kickdowns
20 bicycles
30 flutter kicks
20 heel touches
60 second plank
20 superman
3x20 swimmers


Bootay n legs
2x20 donkey kicks
2x15 fire hydrants
4x12 squat press (incresing weight, started @ 180lbs ended @ 270)
4x 10 single leg squat press ( stayed @ 90 lbs)
4x12 deadlifts (stayed @ 135lbs)
4x12 squat machine (stayed @ 270 lbs)
3x10 reverse lunges (135 lbs)

Wednesday
Insanity Asylum Plyometrics
Body Beast Shoulders
Body Beast Abs

Thursday
Nike Training club Ab workout
3.7 mile tempo run on treadmill
P90x back and legs

Friday
3.1 mile conversation pace treadmill run
30 minutes of full court basketball (we lost :()

Saturday
4 mile outdoor run
Body Beast Abs
Body Beast Back and biceps

Well that's all folks. I will update you with my menu for next week and get the ball rolling on eating clean. Until next time fitties.
XoXo,
YumYum

A Setback is a Setup for a Come Up

     Well, I am not proud to say this but I gained 6 lbs. I knew I gained weight over the holidays, especially after I decided to take a before pic at the gym, but I kept avoiding the scale because I just did not want to see the truth. I feel absolutely hypocritical right now because I’m working on becoming a personal trainer yet, I am gaining weight. Like seriously, how am I supposed to aid someone on their weight loss journey when I’m over here packing on the pounds as well. Just had to let this off my chest because well, I’m human and quite emotional. Now, gameplan.  

1^st determine the problem.

The reason I have gained weight is because I have not been eating well plus I have been slacking a bit during my at home workouts. I know I am supposed to eat better but I have not. I use exercise as validation to eat more sweets when I know I should not. Now the stuff I make for meals such as breakfast and lunch may sound good because they are mainly veggies with a little piece of meat. However, I am still hungry after eating these meals and find myself running to the fridge for more meat or waking up out of my sleep to binge on something unhealthy like ice cream.  I have noticed during my meals I do not eat enough and the food is not satiable. 

2^nd Propose a plan of action

So where do I go from here? Well, from speaking with my sister (who say’s I’m too hard on myself) I need to develop a meal plan and actually stick to it. Meaning, I need to research healthy, satiable meals that I can prepare either weekly or daily. Then from this I need to come up with a menu for the week, shop and actually prepare these foods. On instagram and facebook I have noticed a lot of fit people do weekly meal prep or cook all their dinners and lunches at the beginning of the week. This actually is a good idea. However, to stop myself from over eating I am going to have to section out each meal for myself.

3^rd Just Do It

                Stop speaking about it and be about it. My fiancé has told me many times when I complain about not being where I want to be physically that I know what I need to do, I just don’t do it.  Which is absolutely correct. So instead of whining about where I am presently I am going to have to perform what is needed to get me to the level where I would like to be. I also have to remember that there are slip-ups and stops along the way and that I cannot beat myself up about that. Instead I need to learn from my mistakes and just move on.

       So since I put together this life lesson for everyone to read, I am also going to put my plan of action and document it. I will do some research tomorrow and come up with a meal plan for the week of 1/12/14-1/18-14. The plan will be posted on this site and I will shop for everything Saturday and meal prep either later that day or Sunday. 

P.S. I decided to smile in these pics because I know I will not stay where I am at now. I have the tools, determination and support. I can lose the weight and get in phenomenal shape, it all depends on what I do.

XoXo,

YumYum

Nike+ Challenge on the Dreadmill

Wow 2 posts in one day???? This girl must of added some Wheaties to her smoothie, just joking. I didn't want to mix a recipe with a workout post. So today I braved the cold for 2 whole minutes, got in my car and went to the gym. Surprisingly it wasn't crowded. I was able to do all I wanted except take a selfie in the stretching area. But the picture is not important, my workout is. In a previous post I wrote that I only needed 7 miles to complete my running challenge on January 5th. I find the treadmill to be rather boring but since the weather is uhhh frightful I just had to find a way to spice up my run. Instead of running miles continuously, I broke them up into three 1 mile runs followed by a strength circuit. The workout I performed was made by the good folks +Spartan Race . Below is the workout.

Spartan WOD, 11.12.13:
Beast Mode 1.2

Part 2 of a 4-week Challenge 

Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.
- George S. Patton

Run 1 mile
15 burpees
5 pull-ups
50 crunches
15 box jumps
5 pull-ups
50 bodyweight squats
15 burpees
5 rope climbs or 5 x 25' bear crawl
50 walking lunges
15 box jumps
5 x 25' bear crawl

x 3

Stretch.

    I opted out of the bear crawl and rope climbs, however after the 3rd circuit I completed another mile for a cooldown. Also, I was able to complete 3 sets of unassisted pullups, the rest of the pullups were performed with 40lb assists.
     Well, only three more miles and I will officially be done with this +nike+ challenge.
Until next time.
XoXo,
YumYum

Incredible Hulk Smoothie

Hello Fitties,
    how are y'all during this cold weekend??? As stated in my last post I've been staying inside and surprisingly have been able to keep up on my workouts. Now the clean eating part, not so much. Anyhoot, I wanted to post to show off my +Vitamix ....... I mean to show a green smooothie recipe I have been using for a while now. Below are the pics and the recipe, enjoy :).

Recipe on my Chalkboard

My VitamiX :-)

Frozen Spinach, I used 2 bowls.

1/2 a banana

2 strawberries

4 mango chunks

Handful of pineapple chunks

1 large carrot chopped

Thumb size ginger slivered

1 cup Coconut water and 1 cup water

All in the mix

Voila

     All the fruits and vegetables, except the carrot, were frozen. Also, for people just starting out with green smoothies I suggest you put a sweet juice such as pineapple or mango instead of the coconut water. It took me a while to ween myself off using juices in my smoothies but either way they are still quite healthy and low in sugar. I used to drink this only before workouts but now since my circuits are more intense and longer I drink this with a slice of raisin bread and peanut butter.
      Try it out and see how you like it. You may be surprised how much you will like this drink.
XoXo,
YumYum