Hearty Chicken Stew with Butternut Squash & Quinoa

Ingredients:

•  1 1/2 lb. butternut squash, peeled, seeded & chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1 1/2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 can (14 oz) petite diced tomatoes
• 2/3 cup uncooked quinoa
• 3/4 cup pitted and quartered kalamata olives
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/4 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

 Instructions:

1.  Steam the butternut squash until barely tender, about 10 minutes. Remove half of the squash pieces and set aside.
2. Steam the remaining squash until very tender, an additional 4 to 6 minutes. Mash this squash with the back of a fork. Set aside.
3. In a large saucepan set over medium-high heat, bring the chicken broth to a simmer.
4. Add chicken thighs, cover, and cook until chicken is cooked through, about 15 minutes.
5. Transfer the chicken thighs to a plate and allow to cool. Pour broth into a medium-sized bowl.
6. Return the saucepan to the stovetop and lower heat to medium. Add olive oil.
7. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is starting to turn brown, 8 to 10 minutes.
8. Add minced garlic and oregano. Cook, stirring, for 1 additional minute.
9. To the saucepan, add tomatoes, butternut squash pieces, mashed butternut squash. Stir to combine.
10. Stir in reserved chicken broth and quinoa. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook until the quinoa turns translucent, about 15 minutes.
11. Shred the chicken with your fingers or a fork.
12. Stir the chicken, olives and pepper into the stew and simmer, uncovered, to heat, about 5 minutes.
13. Stir in parsley and serve.

Why are Fitness Challenge Accountability Groups so Effective?

I’ve Got Just What you Need to Succeed!!

• ✅ Have you been stuck in a rut with your workout and need a change?
• ✅ Are you going to the gym every day, but not seeing any results?
• ✅ Do you like to eat healthy but you just can’t stay away from the chips and cookies?
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I have the perfect solution for you. It is my Personal Fitness Challenge Accountability Group.

What is a Fitness Challenge Accountability Group?

• ✅ It is a small group of 5 – 10 people who are committed to their health and fitness and want to achieve their goals.
• ✅ Its a group of people who push each other to be the best that they can be.
• ✅ Its a group that shares their accomplishments, their struggles, their goals and their challenges in the hopes of supporting and motivating the rest of the group.

Everyone in the group is committed to working out at least 3 days a week, committed to a healthy nutrition plan including Shakeology, and open to sharing their fitness goals and accomplishments with the group. I will be actively coaching the group, participating in the group, and moderating the discussions. The primary method of communications for the group is a private Facebook Group where everyone will be encouraged to post updates on a daily basis. This approach eliminates any kind of geographical restrictions and lets us bring together anyone who wants to make the commitment.

Accountability is the key to our success. Most people start out a new fitness program full of enthusiasm and energy, but often that enthusiasm fades quickly at the first sign of adversity. In the accountability group, your fellow participants will be expecting to see your workout logged 3 days each week and see the progress that you are making towards your goals. Those mornings that you don’t feel like getting up to workout, you will know in the back of your mind that the rest of the group will notice if you don’t show up. When you are tempted by that donut in the office break-room you can think about the others in the group who are making sacrifices to achieve their goals. You can even tap into your competitive side by comparing your progress to the others in the group. If you have 3 or 4 friends who all want to work toward their health and fitness goals, we can even form a private group just for you and your friends.

How do I join the group?

The first step is the really think about WHY you want to be in a group like this. I would love to have you in my group, but YOU have to be committed. You have to truly want to make a change in your life. When you and I talk about the Challenge Group, my first question will be “Why do you want to join this group?” I am looking to see what is driving and motivating you. Next, you need to sign up for your free Beachbody account with me as your coach. We use the Team Beachbody account for logging and tracking your workouts so this step is important. click here to start setting up your free account. Once you setup your account I will contact you to discuss your goals, nutrition, and what fitness program you would like to do.

Find out how you can even win cash for being successful! Click here: http://tinyurl.com/Tzena-sBeachbodyChallenge

Making the Financial Commitment to Your Health

I hear from a lot of people that they can’t make the financial commitment to a challenge pack. I completely understand this. I had the same objections myself when I was making my decision to invest in my own health. The result was that for a long time I refused to make the commitment. I was hiding behind any excuse not to do the work, not to make changes to my “comfortable” and “fluffy” life. I had a lot of “reasons” why I couldn’t do this. I am a mom. I don’t have time. I don’t have the money. I don’t have space in my house to workout. Sound familiar?

Guess what? Not only do you owe it to yourself to become healthy, to model the behaviour yourself that you want to see in your kids, the excuses simply are not true. The biggest excuse that I would like to help you move past is the excuse of “I can’t afford it”.

I wanted to share with you the numbers that I crunched.

Before I switched to an at home workout program I was spending:

• $8 – 3 times a week buying lunch = $24 a week = $96 a month
•  $5 – 3 times a week at Starbucks = $15 a week = $60 a month
• $50 a month for a gym membership that I didn’t use enough as it was hard to get there around work and my child’s schedule.
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That is a grand total of $206 a month going out a little here and a little there!!!!!!

Once I saw these numbers it became hard to argue with myself about the financial commitment. If I could easily spend $206 each month maintaining a lifestyle that was unhealthy and hurtful to my child, then why exactly could I NOT make a ONE TIME financial commitment of $140????? I decided to make changes and BE SMARTER with my hard earned money. If I purchased a challenge pack I would own the workouts and fitness plans forever. It no longer required a monthly fee to workout.

 I decided to give up Starbucks and to make lunches, not buy them. I bought a challenge pack for a ONE TIME COST of $140.

I SAVED $66 the first month!!!

The second month (and every month since) I continued to purchase shakeology. This costs me $125.87 (all in). Now each month I SAVE $80 and I lost 18 pounds!!!! I also stick with my workout because I can do it at home around any schedule that I have. While the baby naps, while the kids are at school, early in the morning, while they have quiet time….literally whenever. Some days my daughter even wants to do it with me. There is nothing better then modelling a healthy life for my kids! The added bonus is that at 4 years old she understands the difference between a healthy snack and a processed snack and requests the healthy snack. To me, there is not price that can be placed on that.

So, I ask you to please, HONESTLY look at where you are currently spending your money. Why wouldn’t you want to get a program that WORKS and will SAVE you MONEY each money. Why wouldn’t you want to model healthy behaviour to your kids and be responsible for providing them with a long, healthy life?

If you are ready to invest in yourself because you ARE WORTH it please let me know.

I have never once regretted my decision and I made it OVER a year ago.

You can get more info on taking the challenge here: http://livinghappyandhealthy.automaticceo.com/marketing/go13

WIN A FREE WORKOUT by Participating in our Shakeology 30 day Challenge!!!!

Starts: October 6th!

Location: Your own home

Details: Take my 30-day Shakeology challenge starting on October 6th.

Lose weight, feel more energized, and improve your digestion. And that’s just the

beginning!!!!

Here is how it will work:

1. Visit my website and then order Shakeology on home direct, in whatever flavor you prefer. OR become a coach first and then order Shakeology when you sign up to be a coach and save 25% on all orders!!!!

Why Home direct? Because at the end of 30 days, if you are not completely happy with your results, you can return the bag or box for a full refund and cancel your HD order. But….it if you love it—and you WILL—you won’t have to worry about missing a single day.

Also, it takes a full month to completely feel the benefits of drinking Shakeology every single day. I can provide samples to those who would like to try it first, but don’t wait because the challenge starts on April 22nd and you want to make sure you’re ready to roll!

2. Send me your weight—that’s it, no measurements—at the start and then again at the end of the challenge.

3. At the end of the 30 days—the person who has lost the most weight on Shakeology will win a cool prize from me…..a workout program!!!!

There are no other rules or fees to put in. Just place a shakeology HD order with me, send me your weight by October 6th and then drink your Shakeology until the end of October.. The person with the most weight loss will win a free complete at home workout system!!!!

(Open to new customers only)

Asian Stuffed Napa Cabbage Rolls

These Asian style cabbage rolls are a great twist on stuffed cabbage. They are light and healthy, yet still a filling “one-pot” meal perfect for busy weeknights.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb lean ground beef or ground turkey
• 2 carrots, shredded
• 1 cup cooked brown rice or quinoa
• 4-5 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons ginger, minced
• 1 small onion, minced
• 3 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons Nakano rice vinegar
• 1 teaspoon chili or chili-garlic sauce
• salt and pepper, to taste
• leaves from 1 large head of Napa cabbage
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 Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Prepare your filling by gently combining uncooked beef (or turkey), shredded carrots, cooked rice (or quinoa), garlic, ginger, onion, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, chili sauce and a pinch of salt and black pepper in a large mixing bowl.

To make your leaves easy to roll, use a rolling pin to flatten to make leaves more pliable. If you find that your leaves are on the smaller side, use two to roll, overlapping both ends to make one big leaf.

Spoon your filling to each leaf. Carefully roll each leaf tightly and place side by side in a large baking dish. Pour 1 cup of water over stuffed cabbage rolls and cover with aluminum foil. Bake in preheated oven for about 30-35 minutes or until completely cooked through.

Serve with juices from baking dish and additional chili sauce.

Homemade “Emeril’s Essence” Seasoning Blend

This seasoning mix is so easy to make and really helps kick things up a notch when it comes to adding a little extra flavour to your favourite recipes.

This is a savoury blend that works great to accent meats, poultry and seafood, but is also delicious on grilled or roasted veggies!

Ingredients:

•  1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tbsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper (if you like it spicy, use more)

Instructions:

1. In a small bowl, add all of the above ingredients and mix well to combine. (I use the back of spoon to mash/grind the ingredients together.)
2. Transfer to a small, clean jar.

Gestational Diabetes

(An old blog post that I hadn't shared.)

With my last pregnancy I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes (GD). It was a serious pain in the butt and I was in such denial about the diagnosis that I never really believed that I had it. I was bitter that I had to test my blood 4 times a day and visit the diabetes clinic at the hospital. The appointments always ran about an hour behind schedule and the nurses were always a little condescending. I didn’t have any of the symptoms that they told me I should have. I felt that I ate fairly healthy and I exercised, sort of. In my mind things just didn’t add up.

When you develop GD it can be an indicator that you will develop diabetes later in life. How could that be for me, no one in my family has diabetes? I went to the appointments and was always a little annoyed with the fact that I had to be there. I felt that they needed to reach some kind of quota and where sending people that didn’t necessarily meet the criteria. Why else didn’t I experience the symptoms they said that I should?

At my first appointment they put me on the special diet. When I checked back in a week later I had lost weight and they got upset with me. In my mind that reinforced that there was nothing wrong with me and I didn’t need to be there. So, I basically went through through the motions of following their plan, but from then on out I really did my own thing. Sure I was eating better and following their guidelines, but I did cheat on the diet, here and there. I felt good and didn’t have any issues with my pregnancy. I craved sugary foods and McDonald’s and would regularly indulge.

It wasn’t until my daughter was born, via C-section (after 23 hours of labour) at 7 pounds, 11 ounces and had unstable blood sugar that I finally realized that I probably did in fact have glucose issues. Albeit, not serious ones, but issues none the less. It is said that when you have poorly controlled diabetes during pregnancy it can lead to adverse outcomes, such as large babies, an increased C-section rate and low blood sugar in newborns. Crap. Time to wake up. For 8 hours they came every hour to take her blood and test her levels. Every time they put the needle in her heal she screamed louder then the last time and I felt so guilty, I would cry with her. It was awful. I was a brand new mom and felt like I was off to a horrible start. Then finally it stabilized and that part was behind us.

When she was two years old she had thrush in her mouth for months that would not go away. It was suggested that she was getting too much sugar in her diet. This didn’t make sense to us but because it came to HER health we gave our eating habits an honest look. In the struggle to be a working mom and to get meals on the table at a decent time of day, we had slowly become part of the pre-package, pre-made, easy food choices that our society loves to push so much and had lost our way with real food. We also discovered that she was eating things that weren’t chosen for her by us when she wasn’t in our care and was in fact consuming a lot of sugar;-( This was not going to lead to the life that we wanted our child to live and she was on the verge of developing some real issues, so we made changes. Changes that would give her a real shot at a long, healthy life. Surprise, surprise after only a week of clean eating her thrush cleared up and has NEVER been back!

Now I am 22 weeks pregnant with our second and will be tested for gestational diabetes in 3 weeks time. I am really curious about the results of that test. Regular exercise and clean eating is a way of life for us now. Having said that, I haven’t been exercising nearly as much as I normally would as I have been dealing with pregnancy migraines and some days activity is just not possible, but I do eat well. It is a night and day comparison between the two pregnancies.

There is of course the chance that I will automatically be treated like I have GB regardless of the test results, simply because I had it last time. Either way, I don’t mind. The “diet” is really just clean eating anyways and I am already there. I guess I am more curious about the changes in my body between then and now.

I am grateful for our lifestyle change and grateful hat we won’t have the learning curve to go through this time around;-)