Welcome to Smoothie Saturdays!

Good morning, all. Welcome to my weekend series, Smoothie Saturdays! Just like my Fitness Fridays series I'll be sharing how I make my delicious and healthy smoothies every other week. I am so excited for this series because it revolves around my favorite past time, eating. 😄

As I'm slowly adopting healthier habits, I find that I still crave nourishment that tastes good. I love eating fruits, and where I live, mango is where it's at! Us Virgin Islanders love our mango, and I'm constantly craving anything mango-flavored. But even though mango season isn't for another few months, I recently got the idea to make healthy smoothies to supplement my junk food cravings. Instead of eating processed sweets I decided that eating fruits or blending them into smoothies would be a much better replacement. 

Either I got my fruits from the freezer aisle at the store or from someone who had picked them for my family to eat. Because I'm still experimenting with different smoothie combinations, my base is quite simple: fruit, a bowl of spinach and some honey for sweetness. 

What made starting these smoothies especially awesome was getting to finally use the NutriBullet that my aunt purchased a long time ago but never got around to using. This machine is WAY better than a regular blender because it's so quick and compact, and it pre-portions your smoothies with the different cup sizes that come with it. 

 

What I also love about the NutriBullet is that it comes with handles that can be screwed onto the cup and lids for storage. The set actually didn't come with a spout attachment for drinking, so I ordered two from online for about $6. I didn't take a picture of all of the parts but this is what the entire set looks like. 

To make each "smoothie session" run smoothly, I like to portion out all the fruits that I buy into sandwich bags and store them in the freezer. 

All of the fruits in the picture above that you may not be able to see include pineapple, watermelon, cherries, banana, apple and avocado. Every time I make a smoothie, the very first ingredient that I add is a huge helping of spinach. I never do a smoothie without adding greens or vegetables because it would defeat the purpose of making healthy smoothies. Then I add at least a cup of water because as I add the fruits, I don't want the mixture to become too thick. 

I give the spinach a blend by itself to make room for the fruit. I always love watching the vibrant green come through as it blends! 😍 

After blending the spinach I add my fruit. Pictured here is a mixture of mango, mixed berries and a whole diced apple. Lastly, I drizzle some honey for a little added sweetness and blend that all together. Look at that color now! 

And my smoothie is done! This process takes me less than ten minutes to complete and the cleanup is even better. Another advantage of using my NutriBullet instead of a regular blender is that I don't have to transfer the smoothie into a smaller cup because it's already in a cup. I just screw on the drinking spout and store it in the fridge. I like to either drink my smoothie from the spout or from this cute little mason jar cup my sister gave me. Every smoothie lasts me about three days and I usually drink it with my breakfast or as a snack.

I began experiencing the benefits of these smoothies almost immediately! Let's just say my digestive system really needed the nutrients. They also gave me more energy and kept me fuller longer, which made me feel less hunger between meals. It's a great way to get my daily helping of fruit in a much more convenient way.

As spring approaches and brings other fruits into season, I'll be looking forward to coming up with even more yummy and healthy concoctions. I hope this post gave you some inspiration to create your own healthy smoothies, and feel free to share what ingredients you use to make your own smoothies.

Thanks for reading and I'll be back with another recipe on the next Smoothie Saturdays. Have a great weekend everyone!

Fitness Fridays

Push-ups and Printables

Happy Friday, all and welcome back to Fitness Fridays! I'm extra excited for this post because it contains a freebie! Keep reading to see.

If you read my first Fitness Fridays post, you'll know that I started with an overview of the Complete 10 Week No-Gym Workout Program. Have you personally decided to start this challenge? If so, let me know how it's going so far!

As for the two workouts, I downloaded from Popsugar, I feel very different about each workout. I quite enjoyed the Lean and Fit Full-Body Workout because the intensity was just right for me but it still yielded great results in terms of my upper body strength. My arms are probably the weakest part of my body and I would eventually love to be able to hold my own body weight through yoga training. I just need a yoga teacher first... 

This particular workout was the best thing to happen to my arms because not only does the circuit contain regular push-ups, but side planks and tricep pushups. Because I usually struggle to complete 10 push-ups, I noticed that each day became less of a struggle for me. And because I want to keep it real with you guys, I did have a few days where I just could not bring myself to work out. However, to avoid losing progress in my arms I would do ten pushups in the morning and ten in the evening. 

Last night I even considered purchasing a doorway chin-up bar. 

 

Unfortunately, I quickly found out that it would physically impossible to use the chin-up bar because, for some reason, ALL of the doorways in my house doesn't have the brackets where the chin-up bar is supposed to hook onto. 🙄 If there were extra space in my house for a power tower, I would have ordered one in an instant. 

Since this is the case, I will just find other ways to increase my upper body strength.

Now, after doing the At-Home Cardio workout, I realized that cardio is no joke. This workout left me panting and wheezing and burning. It was a little too intense for me. (Either that or I need to exercise more often.) I will say that I did feel accomplished when I completed it. I honestly did the Lean and Fit workout more than this one but I'll occasionally go back to this one whenever I need an extra boost of energy.

This week I'll be doing two more workouts that I downloaded from Popsugar, which is the Full-Body Stretching Routine and the Strong Abs & Toned Arms Bodyweight Workout. You can do these as well and I can't wait to read what you think about them. But you probably stayed for the freebie, am I right?

It is a free monthly workout log that I made myself and you can download it here. I personally didn't want to start my workout log in the middle of this month so I'm saving it for the first day of April. 

This is the first of many free printables that I'll be posting on this blog, some of which include shopping lists and weekly agendas. Creating printables is just so fun and therapeutic for me, so you'll be seeing quite a lot. Tomorrow I'll be launching my Saturday series, but you'll find out what it is soon enough. Have a nice day and thanks for reading! ✌

Confessions of a Newbie Cook: Pomegranate Chicken

If you're a beginner cook like me you know how daunting it is to sometimes take on a new recipe. I personally aspire to become a great cook like my grandmother, who knows that the only reason I'm a spoiled foodie is because of her. I'm starting to take notes and ask questions whenever she cooks one of her many delicious meals because if there's one thing that I want to take with me once I leave St. Thomas, it's the food that I grew up with and continue to eat from her. My grandmother is probably the only person in the world who can make even meatloaf something to drool over. I will get there eventually but in the meantime, I'm a certified noob. This is going to be a short post but I really wanted to share this recipe with you all because it's just so good! 

I have many recipes saved but I honestly haven't used many of them due to many different reasons. Because I'm usually so busy these days I rely on using ingredients that I already have at home. So when I came across this Pomegranate Chicken Wings recipe video on the Tastemade Facebook page, I jumped at the chance to make it. I chose this recipe because not only was it extremely easy to make, but I had most of the ingredients at home. What I did not have on the other hand was Pomegranate juice, but I knew where to buy it. I also did not have chicken wings but I was not going to buy any because I had a bag of frozen chicken breasts in my freezer. It was all about working with what I had. Here is the link to the original recipe.

I tried the recipe for the first time a few weeks ago using the only technique I've been using since I started cooking: baking the chicken. I'll admit that I always relied on baking my chicken instead of cooking it on the stovetop because I was terrified that it wouldn't be cooked through. Yes, that sounds very reasonable... 😶

I quickly learned that baking the chicken breasts wasn't the best way to prepare it because although the finished product tasted amazing, the chicken was a little tough. I knew that next time I would have to conquer my fears and cook the chicken on the stovetop. So last week I tried the recipe again. I like to let my chicken marinate for a long time so I took a large zip lock bag and added the ingredients into it along with the cubed chicken breasts. I used about four breasts. 

The ingredients required baking powder, paprika, ginger powder, cumin, salt, and pepper, but I didn't have cumin so I just rolled with it. The next morning I took my marinated chicken out if the fridge and cooked it on the stovetop until I was sure it was cooked through. In the meantime, I made the glaze and added a little brown sugar to enhance the flavor.  

When everything was finished I combined the chicken into the glaze and served it with some Jasmine Rice, one of my favorites. 

This meal was so easy to make despite not having the exact ingredients, and it was just yummy! I definitely plan to do this recipe again very soon, and this time I'll make sure to get chicken wings (and cumin) so that I can follow the recipe as it was intended. I hope you'll try this recipe because it's so simple yet SO delicious. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to Fitness Friday!

With age comes not only the certainty of death and taxes but a slowing metabolism and increased risk of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes; as I've learned in these past few years. I kissed my size zero days goodbye the moment I graduated from high school, and I have accepted the fact that I'll never be that size again. Eventually, I realized that I could not eat the same massive amounts of food I did as I teenager, and remain healthy forever. Something had to give. 

I have a love-hate relationship with exercise for the mere fact that I know what I eat plays a huge part in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. While exercising and maintaining a healthy diet is not always fun, it's necessary. While eating a handful of granola is not as fun as eating a pint of ice cream, it's necessary. My goal is to adopt healthy, beneficial habits while I am still young and relatively healthy. 

That is why I came up with Fitness Fridays. It sounds pretty self-explanatory, but this series will include fitness regimens and challenges, meal prep/planning and eating habits such as portion control. 

At the time I wasn't really exercising but when I did, my main form of exercise was Polynesian dancing. I eventually tried the Plank Challenge after a relative shared the post on Facebook. The challenge totally dominated me but by the end of those 30 days I felt stronger and I was able to do a plank for an entire two minutes without breaking a sweat. In that same year, I would utilize the public gym at my university after class. I looked forward to doing the squat challenge in the following month... but that was 2 years ago and I had not exercised since then. 

Last Sunday, however, I officially completed the last week of the Complete 10 Week No-Gym Workout Program. I first discovered this program on mamabee.com and decided that it was the perfect challenge to get myself back on track. I like the idea of challenges because it sets a goal for me to accomplish and the bar is raised with each day that passes. I ended up creating a chart for myself to keep track of each week, and because I like checking things off. If you're interested in doing the Complete 10 Week No-Gym Workout Program, you can check it out below. 

Complete 10 Week No-Gym Workout Program

Like any other exercise challenge, this one was no easy feat. I am not someone who keeps track of my weight, and perhaps the last time I was weighed was a few years ago at the doctor's, and I was told that I was 110 pounds. My goal with this challenge was not to lose weight, but rather to get my body toned and stronger. And I realized just how much I needed that challenge when I could not even do one sit up or no more than four push-ups on the first day of week one. By the end of those ten weeks, I was able to do at least 30 sit-ups with ease as well as 15 push-ups without having to take a break. I would complete each workout by using my aunt's SimplyFit Board,

 which was quite fun. I believe that I also lost a little bit of weight when my jeans began to feel slightly loose. What changed the most for me was that I had become so used to the habit of exercising every morning that I simply could not start my day without exercising, and that was exactly what I wished to happen. I began the workout program on December 19, 2016, and completed it on February 26, 2017. Here's how my chart looked. 💪

This week's exercise routine was one that I came across on Popsugar.com. It's called 9 Printable At-Home Workouts You Need in Your Life and I chose two workouts to alternate during the week, as shown below. 

Lean and Fit Full-Body Workout (No Equipment Necessary)
At-Home Cardio

I still enjoy looking good while I exercise so this is my workout gear for the week!  ^-^ 

Top: Rebellious One, Sports Bra: Mondetta, Shorts: Starlet

Running shoes: Impact by Jillian Michaels (I love these shoes. Motivation delivered in true Jillian Michaels fashion. 😜)

On the next Fitness Friday, I'll give you my thoughts on these two workouts as well as my meal prep plans. Thanks for reading and let's get physical!