Gym Motivation

So the past few months I have been in such a gym rut! Anyone else ever feel that way?! Despite being a dietitian and usually the motivator of healthy food and regular exercise, I still get into gym and food ruts!

About 3 months ago, I had participated in a Goliathon obstacle course challenge. Really awesome and a ton of fun. Since then; however, my gym schedule has been totally out of whack! I used to go to the gym at least 3 days a week with no issues. When Goliathon came around, I took a few days off to make sure I was fresh for race day and took a few days off after to recover. After that, I ended up spending a lot of time prepping my garden and pulling out poison oak and ivy in my yard that I really didn't go to the gym steadily through June and mid-July. Come August, I was biking a few days, but not nearly at the activity level I was before.                

I became really bummed with the fact that I was actively procrastinating gym time. It was rough motivating myself when I was working 10-12 hour days with 2 jobs. Just an excuse on my end. While I was staying moderately active in some ways, I really was getting "lazy."

I looked into getting a membership outside of my workplace (I am a part-time dietitian at a community center with a gym) in hopes that it would motivate me to go to the gym more. While that turned out to be a bust, I really thought to myself that I needed to get back on track. All those times that clients no showed or cancelled at work, I could have been clocking out and hitting the gym, versus going home and not being as active. I could have packed gym clothes and have been more prepared. Or I could have packed some extra snacks so I wouldn't be going home hungry instead of working out. Could have, should have, would have.

I thought about all the times I gave advice to clients about exercise. "Just pack your clothes the night before." "Remember to plan your workouts." "Make a commitment to yourself." I finally took my own advice and planned my gym day and clothes and made the promise to myself that I would be going.

Yesterday, I knew I was working both of my jobs so I went into my full-time job a half hour early so I could stop home before my part-time job. I grabbed a quick shake and changed into different pants + my uniform shirt and sneakers. I packed my change of shirt and an extra snack in case my shake didn't hold me over. I worked my second job and without giving it a second thought I changed and got ready to workout. Although a little part of me said "It's 7:15pm, go home," I knew I would be upset with myself had I not gone.

Honestly, I feel so much better (sore after working out but emotionally better :)) after yesterday. I even have my next workout day planned and ready to go. Despite all the advice I give others, I need to remember to give myself that same advice. If you are ever in a gym rut try my strategy: plan your gym day (write it on your calendar), pack your clothes, ready your snacks, make the commitment to yourself, and remember to think about how great you might feel after going (versus not going at all).

Happy exercising :)

Dietitian Eats: WIAW (8/19/15)

It's that time again! Another "What I Ate Wednesday" post!

Breakfast
I started off my day with a fruit and protein shake. Basically, that consisted of 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk, 1/2 cup frozen mixed fruit, 1-2 tablespoons of hemp seed protein powder, 1 scoop Vega 1 protein powder. If you didn't already know from my other posts, I am lactose intolerant, so no milk for me!

My counseling appointment at work came earlier so I had lunch right after (instead of a snack then lunch).

Lunch
Quinoa veggie burgers (I was totally not a fan of these), whole grain couscous, stewed tomatoes (from my garden), and watermelon. Usually, I have more greens; however, last night I didn't get home until 8pm and didn't feel like cooking, so I just threw in the leftovers. Normally, I go with Dr. Praeger's or Boca Burgers; however, I tried this new brand in the store and let's just say I regret telling the company to send coupons for me to sample it out.

Snack
I bounced around to another supermarket for a Diabetes tabling event, so I grabbed a snack before going over. This was a Chocolate Chip Cliff Bar-Z. Again, a leftover from an in-store demo! I had hummus and wheat thins; however, I didn't really have time to sit and eat like I thought.

Dinner-ish
So, after job #1 I was going to job #2. Figured I would be good with eating my hummus but it got hot in the car. I ended up making a salad at the salad bar. Consisted of: baby spinach, radishes, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, croutons, sunflower seeds, and light caesar dressing. Normally, I would add some chickpeas; however, they were not out today. Meh.

Dinner-ish
After about 2 hours, I was getting hungry so I made another shake. Being lazy today in terms of cooking! This time I made the smoothie with RAW protein powder, which I just got, plus my fruit and almond milk. I have to be honest, this is probably my favorite plant-based protein powder. It didn't any weird tastes or textures. Definitely a fan.

Snack
I was feeling something crunchy, so I had a few rice thin crackers. Love these for a "light" treat.

Some days, I like to use the MyFitnessPal app just to see where I measure up nutritionally. I averaged around 1800 calories, 95g protein, 210g carbohydrates, 50g fiber, 75g fat (17 PUFA, 11 MUFA, 14 SFA), 1450mg sodium, 3200mg potassium, 419% of my DV for vitamin A, 234% of my DV for vitamin C, 170% of my DV for calcium, and 133% of my DV for iron. Not too shabby I must say!

What did you eat today? Have you ever tried a plant-based protein powder?

Dietitian Eats: WIAW (8/12/15)

Hey there! It is time for another round of "Dietitian Eats"! Today was one of those days where I worked 2 jobs, so I am all over the place in what I ate. Nonetheless, here we go!

Breakfast
Had my usual Kashi Go Lean mixed with unsweetened almond milk, my coffee with almond milk creamer, and my Bubba water :)

I worked at 8:30am this morning, so I had lunch early and held the snacks until later.

Lunch
For lunch I had my leftovers from last night: sautéed tofu (extra firm Nasoya brand) with hemp seeds, asparagus sautéed with low sodium soy sauce, whole wheat couscous, and sautéed kale (olive oil and McCormick's garlic herb seasoning). I also had watermelon! Pretty excited about this because I had been waiting for watermelon to go on sale and last week they were! If the container looks like a lot, it is because it is my 2-day stash.

Snack
Forgot to snap a picture, since I ate walking to the bathroom; but, I had a Oatmeal Raisin Cliff bar Z, which was part of my demo at work.

Snack
So, between jobs I was starving! I decided to swing home and make a quick smoothie to hold me for the next 2 hours. My smoothie consists of a handful of mixed berries, unsweetened almond milk, and a scoop of vegan protein powder (can't do milk based proteins)! Sometimes, I will mix in vegetables or use a hemp seed protein. I was kind of in a rush so I just grabbed the one on the counter! I love smoothies for when I don't feel like cooking or just want some nutrition on-the-go.

Dinner
Dinner was another "I failed to take a picture" moment. Whoops :) Anyways, I had a salad made with dragon kale and lettuce from my garden, hemp seeds, pine nuts, dried plums and tahini dressing that I found at Aldi's. Usually, I make my own dressing with a salad dressing bottle I got from Amazon, but today I was not feeling it. I also had a mini wrap with my leftover tofu and hummus. I also munched on some carrots and peas from my garden while getting everything together!

I was feeling something tasty after dinner so I snacked on 2 gummy bears (I know, totally overdid it :):)) and had some mint tea. I usually find if I am bored and want something to snack on, I will make tea and that helps with mindless eating.

How was your day today? Make some healthy picks yourself?

Dietitian Eats: What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW)

Hey there! One of the top questions I get (on a daily basis) is "What do you eat all day?" That mixed with, "What's for lunch?" In inspiration of that, plus other RD blogs I follow, I decided to do my own "What I Ate Wednesday" blog!

I tend to eat the same types of things every day. Today, was a little different than my usual pattern, but hey that's life.

Normally, my breakfast starts with either a protein bar, high fiber cereal, or a tofu wrap. Today, I went with some Kashi Go Lean Crunch mixed with Get Balance Fiber cereal. I have unsweetened almond milk or unsweetened cashew milk with that (lactose-intolerant). I try to get a cereal with <10g of sugar per serving and at least 3g fiber. Sometimes, I will do 1/4c of a cereal that has over 10g of sugar and mix it was a low sugar cereal. Just to change things up. I of course have my coffee in my fancy RD cup and my Bubba water (32oz). My coffee I either drink black or with a splash of unsweetened almond milk creamer.

That usually holds me for 2 hours. I had my mid-morning snack about 2 hours after getting into work. I wasn't starving, but, I knew I was doing a demo and would not be eating for another 3 hours. I didn't want to be sampling food and having my stomach grumbling at the same time. I packed some veggie pop chips (leftover from an event) and spinach and artichoke hummus (my favorite).

Lunch today was leftovers from last night; tofu (about 1/2c) with marinara, wheat pasta (1/4c), and broccoli with a caesar dressing on it. I'm not a huge pasta fan, but I was in the mood for it last night!

I also have fruit or a salad with my lunch. Today, I opted for green grapes. Looks like a lot, but I typically put 2 days worth of grapes in my lunch box. One less thing to refill when I get home! My grapes are also looking a little sad, so I am glad I only have 1 more servings worth.

So, last night, my boyfriend and I did an 11-mile bike ride. We didn't go until late (8-ish), which means we weren't back until about 9pm. That being said, neither of us felt like cooking! Adam (aka my boyfriend) wanted Chinese. Usually, I find the "healthy" part of the menu. I opted for steamed veggies (sauce on the side), and Adam got vegetable mei fun. We ordered quarts to have leftovers. Tonight, I had my steamed veggies (broccoli, snow peas, bamboo shoots, etc) with brown rice (1/2c) and about 1 tablespoon of the sauce they sent (there was about 1 cup!). I also had a forkful of Adam's mei fun.

While heating everything up for the night, I was getting pretty hungry. I ended up snacking on a few sweet green peppers from my garden. I also packed my snack and lunch for tomorrow, so I snuck in a slice of cheese! After dinner, I was feeling something sweet so I tried out these new barkThins I got at the supermarket. I like that 1 serving is 22g of carbohydrates and 11g of sugar. Not bad for chocolate! Also, there are not too many ingredients. Anyway, an indulgence nonetheless.

I usually fill my Bubba water jug about 2x during the day. Normally, i get about 75-80 ounces of fluid on a non workout day. Sometimes I will add in seltzer or unsweetened iced tea (brewed from home) to change things up!

Overall, today was not too bad. I got enough fiber, carbohydrates, healthy fats, and vitamins and minerals (with all the veggies!). I wasn't too high on sodium, sugar, or calories (even with the chocolate!). Typically, I would like to get more protein in, whether it is some nuts, beans, or a bar, and another serving of fruit.

Hope you enjoyed the Dietitian's Eats. Tune in next week to see what is on the menu!

My New Garden and Being a First Time Preceptor

It has been quite a while since my last blog. I have been crazy busy between both my jobs, recently moving, planting a garden, and being a preceptor. Not to mention the impromptu summer mini vacations.  Nonetheless, I am back in action :)

About 2 months ago, I was asked to be a preceptor to a distance intern for their community rotation. I am sympathetic when it comes to distance interning (I was one myself). I remember just how hard it was to find all of my preceptors! I must say, it was definitely weird to be the one doing the teaching. The first couple of days with my intern were odd purely because I was not used to someone following me around all day! It was cool sharing my knowledge and experience with someone who has the same passion as me. It was definitely helpful to have a second pair of hands when I was working with a group of young children too! I would suggest to anyone to become a preceptor if your job allows. I felt it was a learning experience for me as much as them!

Post digging out 

3 weeks after planting

My biggest project since my boyfriend and I moved into our duplex was my garden (or should I say gardens). One, I am no garden expert. Two, I learned plenty of things I should and shouldn't do. Three, things taste wayyyyyy better when you grow them yourselves! Four, don't try and attack your overgrown, new yard with a tank top on or you will become a vesicle for bugs and itching.

I never had my own yard space until now. My dad always had a garden in our yard growing up; however, it was never something I really worked on. Our yard with quite overgrown when we moved in, so it took about a week or so to pull weeds and get the dirt ready for planting. The lady that lived in the house years back had put down some bricks around plots of land. It made for great sectioning of my garden:) I ended up with 3 plots for vegetables and a 4th for a butterfly bush. We also had an overgrowth of mint in the yard, which was super fun pulling out (not). A few things about mint: never ever plant in the ground unless you want it to take over your yard and be prepared to muscle out the roots if you try and pull it out!

Tomatoes, peppers, etc

Tomatoes, peppers, parsley

I ended up planting one plot with cucumbers, carrots, kale, spinach, and lettuce. I trim the kale, spinach, and lettuce every other day. I love fresh garden salads! The cucumbers I am still waiting to grow an actual cucumber and not a thousand more leaves and flowers. My other plot has tomatoes, peppers, and parsley. I got about 4 peppers so far and 50 tomatoes, all of which are still green. The 3rd plot has parsley I started from a seed, basil, peas, and another tomato plant I just moved out of a pot. I also have aloe, hot peppers, and a weird cactus looking plant in pots along the edge of my garden.


Having a garden is hard work between prepping the soil, planting, weeding (almost every day), and watering. Despite all that (plus the poison oak/sumac I got on my arms), I absolutely love it. Someone said to me that gardening was therapeutic and I totally believe that! I can spend hours outside and I wouldn't even care. You wouldn't believe how excited I was when my first leaves poked out of the ground, or my first green tomato sprouted. It is like my little baby!

First pepper

First tomatoes

It definitely makes you appreciate the food you eat when you grow it yourself. And if you were wondering. After I got poison oak/sumac, I went outside with pictures of all the poisons, found the tree/bush with both sumac and oak twisted around each other and hacked it apart. Take that!

Stay tuned for my new "What I ate Wednesday" posts, inspired by fellow dietitian, and "Fresh Fridays" post with my garden updates!

Tips for Teaching High School Nutrition

This past week, I went back to my old high school to teach nutrition in the health classes. I had already been back here to teach in January for the first round of health; however, I came back to teach the 2nd semester students. This was all through my position as a ShopRite Dietitian. I do in-store counseling and demos; but also go out in the community for presentations and classroom teaching (whem i am invited). It is such a great experience for me since I love teaching nutrition. I also love working with kids! The little ones (kindergarten) are my favorite; however, I do like high school too.

This week, I mostly had freshman students with a few random juniors and seniors. I did 5 separate classes, covering about 130 students total. I choose to do just a basic MyPlate, food group, lesson. I wasn't really sure the knowledge of students and I wanted to just do something simple. I started off by introducing myself and my role as a dietitian. I was surprised that about 80% of the students didn't know what a dietitian was, let alone, what I did! After that, I did a short introduction of the MyPlate symbol. I gave a pre-assessment activity to see how well they knew the food groups. Most students didn't know avocado was a fruit or what tofu was (no big surprise there). I did have 1 student tell me that soda was a protein food and another tell me that candy bars should be considered a dairy product because it contains milk. Yup.

Then, I jumped into the bulk of the lesson. I went through the benefits of different foods (like citrus containing Vitamin C, which is good for immune health) (1 soft pretzel being equal to 4 slices bread) and the recommendations for things like protein and vegetables. I tried not to just lecture to the students. I remember what it was like to be in a classroom, so I didn't want to bore them, if possible. I did a lot of interactive questions. I would ask if they thought something was a myth or a fact. For instance, eating oranges to prevent a cold. MYTH. Vitamin C will shorten the duration of your cold but not prevent it. Asking a lot of questions helped to keep them more engaged.

After moving through different foods and food groups, I gave them a blank plate and had them fill in what they ate yesterday for dinner and what category the foods were in. A lot of the students did great with this, even though they were a little nervous about sharing. I also told counseling/food stories throughout the class to keep the conversation light. I always love telling students about how a fellow employee literally hid her fast food from me and became super awkward when I said hello to her. No, I am not the food police. Ha.

I left about 10 minutes for questions and open conversation. Last time I was at the school, the teacher asked a lot about school lunch and sugary beverages. I left time to incorporate that into my lesson for this round. I did a brief couple of minutes on sodas and juices (both of which are no match for water), protein drinks/supplements, nutrition for athletes, vegetarian diets, and dieting in general. All of these topics would be great for future lessons for high schoolers. I also left 2 nutrition handouts on the front desk in the classroom for students to take if they wanted. I found that just handing out materials will lead to most of them throwing it out or leaving it on the floor. About 50% of the kids took the handout and I figure majority of them were actually interested in the nutrition information.

One of the biggest things with teaching high schoolers is to be relatable. Don't go telling them to eat salads and broccoli if they probably won't. Get on their level and figure out what they do now and how they can improve. Relate healthy eating to performance and feeling good versus "getting fat." I had the students think of ways they could improve their lunch. Maybe, they would bring an apple or baby carrots. I also reminded them it is about balance and adding healthy items to their meals. It is not about restricting, limiting, or cutting foods out. The other major thing with teaching high schoolers is to really know your material. They will ask a lot of random nutrition questions, so don't go teaching something you don't really know much about.

Hopefully, this helps you teach nutrition to the youngsters :)

Reasons Why I Love My Job

I just realized it has been waayyyy too long since my last post. Whoops :) Today as I was driving home from work, I had one of those moments where I thought about my day and said to myself, "I really love what I am doing." I always hear from friends or coworkers how much they hate their job or hate what they are doing in life right now. I feel really lucky to say not only do I love my field, but I also love working as a Retail Dietitian.

One of the first things I love is all of the connections I get to make with people. Even if it is just a passing by conversation with the same customer every single Tuesday, it is nice to think that they swing by my desk just to say hi. It is great to have other employees walk by and ask me nutrition questions or pick my brain about something. I feel like I am much more settled in my new job and people are starting to see that I really do know what I am talking about :) Today, I had one employee come by and tell me she lost 5 pounds since talking to me. Wooohoo!

Earlier at work, I did a food demonstration with hummus, veggies, and crackers. If you haven't been reading my other blogs, part of being a supermarket RD is healthy food demos. Sometimes I will make a healthy recipe in the kitchen; other days I pull products from the shelf and try to match them with coupons I have. Today happened to be Sabra hummus in my heart healthy snacking demo. As I am giving out samples, I get the few people who walk by and make a face at the mention of hummus. I also get the people who never tried hummus before and love it their first time! I had this one mom come up with her child and asked if she could take one. I was like of course, thinking it was for her. She reaches down to her child and goes, "Here, it is hummus, your favorite." It gets me all excited when kids are excited about healthy foods! Win!

Probably the most rewarding part of my day was a counseling session I had. It was a late in my shift and I was burnt out from working 10 hours already. My client was so motivated and already making lifestyle changes that it made me super excited to get to work with her. She got into some personal issues she had with food and used some of my listening and reflecting skills. We went on to talk about a few new nutritional changes she could make and I really encouraged her to keep up what she was already doing. So, as we near the end of her time, she goes on to tell me, "I just need to tell you I really appreciate all the advice you gave me. I feel like you covered everything really well. You truly listened to what I had to say and allowed me to get some things off of my heart. It feels really nice to be able to talk to someone about my health and I really appreciate you listening." Day made. That is the best part of my job. Working one-on-one with people is so rewarding for me. I get into such a groove for a counseling session that I feel like I am walking on air when I am done (I know, it is weird). I love seeing clients for follow-up and tracking the progress they made. It is so awesome to be a part of someone's journey to health.

There are a ton of other things I could go on and on about with why I love what I am doing; however, these were just the few little things that happened today that I felt the need to share :) Hope you had a great Monday as well!