New Year's resolutions are the traditions in which we commit to changing an undesired trait or behavior in ourselves, in order to accomplish a personal goal or otherwise improve our quality of life. Until I was 27 years old, my New Year’s Resolution was always weight loss related (along with 90% of the population) with the hope to get the holiday weight gain off. I set myself up for failure, year after year, starting in October, by throwing in the effort towel a little early. I would overindulge for nearly three months straight, only to waste a time meant for personal growth on superficial nonsense that was brought about by my own hand (and mouth).

Each week we choose an ingredient and challenge our clients and community to come up with an exciting recipe featuring the ingredient. Sometimes the ingredient is more challenging and sometimes it’s quite simple to incorporate. The point of the challenge is to encourage everyone to try something new and to get comfortable with being uncomfortable in the kitchen. It’s easy to make the same things over and over out of convenience, but it can become monotonous and boring. Adding variety to our diet is so important for sustainability and overall health.

Fats help us make hormones, and they're the most satiating macronutrient - they slow down digestion and keep us full.

It’s the start of a new week and that means there’s a new ingredient challenge. And this week it’s the most basic fall ingredient of them all. Hello, pumpkin! Pumpkin’s incredibly versatile and I urge you to explore with it this week. It’s great in sweet and savory dishes and it’s rich in vitamin A, potassium, vitamin C, and fiber. You can’t go wrong with this one.

This gut-healing chocolate, date, and sweet potato mousse are so quick and easy to make and requires no baking! My VERY sizable serving ended up being around 20g of carbohydrates, 6g of fat, and 8g of protein, making it a great pre-workout or post-workout treat.

Here are some quick, go-to options for carbs when you’re in a bind and don’t have time to cut up your own potatoes or wait 30 minutes for your rice to cook!

As soon as I heard the sentence “your wrist is broken” come out of my doctor’s mouth, I couldn’t stop laughing. This was ridiculous. 2018 had to be playing tricks on me. With Hashimoto’s coming to light in May, finding out my body wasn’t producing hormones in July, and now this???

The ingredient challenge this week was black beans so I decided to work on my baking skills. I’ve never been the best at baking with protein powder, and I gave up for some time because it gets quite expensive if you have to continually throw away batches and batches of food. But I decided it was time to experiment again.

Sometimes, folks are so busy that can’t spend a few hours in the kitchen a week to food prep. Or, they aren’t Master Chefs (yet). I went scouring through the frozen foods section of a few grocery stores and found some quick go-to options. My hope is that these options alleviate some stress and help you guys with time management.

Our bodies need to recover. The harder you train, the more important it is to make time for it. Preventative care is so important, yet many of us wait until we’ve pushed ourselves too far. I hear it all too often, the frustration from clients who’ve suffered an injury because they weren’t proactive or they ran themselves into the ground. Recovering from an injury is stressful and a test of our mental strength. Trust me, I’ve been there myself.

Another Pizza Party coming right up. This time with those fall flavors we love and that keeps us feeling all warm and cozy as the temps drop. Our ingredient challenge this week was Butternut Squash. Who doesn’t love a sweet and savory pizza tho? I mean, come on! This one did not disappoint at all. Save it for a day when you have the macro room though or for a rest day! Definitely a treat!

This week we challenged our clients and ourselves to come up with the most creative recipe using butternut squash, our ingredient of the week. I decided to keep this recipe super simple and even used a combination of Butternut Squash pasta sauce and regular tomato marinara.

I LOVE pizza! And every once in a while I get a serious craving for it. I also love cooking and eating at home because I can control what goes into my meals. Sure, eating out is great every once in a while, but pizza is rarely loaded with the amount of protein and veggies I want it to be loaded with. So I figured, if I could just come up with a killer crust recipe, I’d be set.

We all know that one person who seems to have their life together, everything seems so easy and carefree. I think we all strive to be like that in some way or another. That person probably goes into each day with a plan.

From a young age, I always noticed that I had a "belly". So much so that I hated the word "belly" with a fiery passion. To this day, the word still makes me queasy. But I always felt like I was overweight in some regard simply because I had a "belly". What exacerbated the situation was that I chose to be competitive in swimming, where I would wear a simple Speedo brief. And I felt like I stood out (or rather stood "rounder") in the way I didn't want to: I was one of the "fat" ones in a sea of tall, skinny swimmers.

By now you've probably heard over and over again how people need to decrease the amount of sodium they're consuming on a daily basis. Well, that’s all fine and good if we only really knew why sodium was important to keep in balance. I am much more apt to pay attention to vitamins and minerals that are either helpful or harmful to my health when I really understand how the body is responding to that mineral. So if you are anything like me and want to know what the big deal is about sodium, then I hope you find this helpful.

Even if we want to change, we may feel stuck, or we’re attached to something that keeps us from changing. We may get pulled between different things, like taking care of others versus taking care of ourselves; or, wanting to lose weight, but not wanting to give up comfort eating and drinking.

In 2008, my collegiate swimming career was coming to an end. By that point in time, it was coming somewhat as a welcome. I was just coming out of some serious issues with over-training syndrome and exercise addiction. But a large part of me was concerned about what my identity would be like without swimming. Outside of that, what was I to do as far as fitness and staying in shape? For 16 years I had grown accustomed to just wearing a Speedo to swim in. But would I have the audacity to ever put one back on if I couldn't look at least decent in it again? So many concerns were going through my head with the end of such a career…

Who doesn’t like Chicken Pad Thai?! Check out this easy recipe!