When you start a new diet, one of the biggest hurdles is food cravings. If you’ve been eating unhealthy foods for awhile, your body becomes dependent on them. You may crave sugars, fats, and simple carbs. These cravings can be really tough to overcome. However, your body only needs these things in moderation, so it all comes down to willpower. Here are some ways to ensure that you beat even your toughest food cravings, so your diet stays on track.

Recognize The Difference Between Hunger And A Craving

When you are first changing your diet, one of the things you need to learn is that hunger and cravings are different. Hunger is your body telling you it’s time to replenish. Cravings are, on the other hand, is part of detoxing off of unhealthy things. For example, your body is addicted to the spike in blood sugar from an afternoon candy bar. However, if you eat a healthy diet, you don’t need that sugar burst. When you crave something you usually picture it in your mind, which can be really distracting. Once you know the difference between hunger and cravings, there are steps you can take to battle them back.

Tips For Beating Cravings With Nutritional Coaches

Here are some things you can do so you don’t give into cravings:

1. Drink a glass of water. We sometimes mistake thirst for a food craving.
2. Beat them proactively by providing your body with the sustenance and nutrients it needs. If you have plenty of energy from a healthy diet, your body will be less likely to crave energy from unhealthy sources.
3. Substitute your junky favorites with a healthy version. Got a craving for candy? Eat a piece of dark chocolate or some fruit. Want some salty chips? Grab a handful of nuts or seeds.
4. Find a healthy way to get your mind off of a craving. Take a walk, focus on work, or call a friend to chat.

These simple times will help make sure that when a craving strikes you are ready.
Another way to ensure that cravings don’t get to you is to work with a nutritional coach. A nutritional coach will help tailor a diet that meets all your body’s needs so you have less cravings. At Everlasting Changes, we include both nutritional coaching and personal training in one great package to help you achieve your goals faster. Call now for 3 risk-free, complimentary sessions. We include a 30-day guarantee on all of our packages.

Our kids are eating too much junk. And who can blame them? Junk food tastes great.

The good news is that healthy food also tastes great. Here are simple ways to help your kids eat healthier:

1) Choose Whole Foods

Processed foods are the biggest problem with our modern diet. Packaged and refined food products are devitalized and filled with empty calories that quickly lead to weight gain. Unfortunately, processed foods make up a large portion of the diet of many children.

Offer your kids whole foods, rather than packaged ones. Whole foods are foods that are in their natural state. An apple. A piece of sprouted grain bread spread with natural peanut butter. A piece of hormone-free chicken. A bowl of beans. You get the idea.

2) Add Color

Adding bright and colorful fruits and veggies to your child’s plate will get their diet on the fast track to health. Fresh fruits and veggies are filled with fiber, vitamins and minerals that are essential to good health.

Make it fun! Serve veggies with salad dressing as a dip. Cut fresh fruit in the colors of the rainbow and place them on a skewer. Serve a color themed meal – all green, all red or all orange. Use your imagination and you’ll come up with an endless number of ways to make fruits and veggies fun to eat.

3) Make Smart Substitutions

Kids love pizza and pasta and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and that’s not going to change any time soon. Rather than fight your kids on their favorites, try making smart substitutions to make their favorites more nutritious.

Pizza: Up the nutritional content of your pizza by opting for wheat crust over white, adding veggies to the toppings and sticking with lean meat toppings. You could even make “Pizza Eggs” by adding marinara sauce, cheese, and pepperoni to an omelet and avoid the crust altogether.
Pasta: Make spaghetti with veggie noodles – see the recipe below!
PB&J: A PB&J, made with white bread using sugar-filled peanut butter and corn syrup-filled jelly, is fairly void of any real nutritional value. Instead make a PB&J with sprouted grain bread, pure peanut butter (with only peanuts and sea salt), and fruit-only jelly. This will provide real wholesome fuel for your child’s day.

4) Ban Sugary Drinks

One of the best things that you can do for your child’s good health is to instill in them a love for water rather than sugary drinks. Soda pop, juices, smoothies, and blended coffee drinks are filled with empty calories that cause weight gain.

The easiest way to do this is to stock your house with lots of pure, filtered water. Don’t have fruit drinks or soda pop readily available so that they grow accustom to drinking only water.

While I presented these tips as improvements to be made to your child’s diets, these tips will also do wonders for your diet. Practice these tips for 30 days and I guarantee you’ll look and feel better.

Parents all want good things for their children. Now how about doing something good for yourself as well? You are your child’s biggest role model on how to live, for better or worse.

Treat yourself right by calling or emailing today to get started on an exercise program that will change your life for the best.

Call or email now to reserve your spot.

Just A Few Minutes

Do you put off doing your daily exercise? Research shows that by spending just a few minutes doing the dreaded task you’ll feel an urge to see it through completion. These initial few minutes of activity is all you need to get into the swing of it. Before you realize it, you’ll be sweating, smiling, and feeling great!

One Pan Spaghetti

You’ll never make traditional spaghetti and meatballs again. This lightened recipe combines butternut squash noodles with tender meatballs and savory red sauce for a healthy meal that tastes downright naughty. Every family needs a reliable spaghetti and meatball recipe, and it’s a happy bonus that this one is light and lean.

Courtesy of RealHealthyRecipes.com

What you need

Serves 6

1 pound ground beef
¾ cup grain-free bread crumbs
⅓ cup Basil pesto
1 teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
6 cups Butternut squash noodles
1 (24 ounce) jar of marinara sauce

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and adjust an oven rack to the middle position. Spray a 13×9-inch baking dish with olive oil.

2. Use your hands to combine the beef, bread crumbs, pesto, sea salt and black pepper. Roll the mixture into about fifteen 1-inch meatballs. Place the meatballs in the prepared pan and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove the meatballs, setting aside on a plan, and drain off any liquids from the pan.

3. Spread the noodles in the pan. Pour the marinara sauce over the noodles and toss gently with tongs to coat. Add the meatballs back to the pan, gently nestling throughout the noodles. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 7 minutes. Remove the foil and bake uncovered for another 3-5 minutes.

4. Remove the pan from oven. Toss to coat the noodles and meatballs with the sauce. Season generously with sea salt and black pepper and garnish with fresh basil.

Nutrition

One serving equals 289 calories, 10g fat, 23g carbohydrate, 4g fiber, and 26g protein.

When you workout hard, you sweat. When you sweat, you don’t just lose water. You also lose valuable minerals your body needs to stay healthy. These minerals are called electrolytes and they support your body’s hydration. So after a hard workout, you want to do more than just grab some water. You need to replace these valuable minerals. An easy way to do this is with an electrolyte drink like Gatorade or a post-workout shake. However, many of these drinks contain high levels of sugar, chemical ingredients, and do not taste very good. Luckily there are other ways to replace these minerals besides grabbing a post workout drink including:

1. Grab A Snack:

A healthy snack loaded with the necessary minerals can be really helpful. One of the best things you can do is eat a banana. Bananas are loaded with 400 mg of potassium. If bananas aren’t your thing you can try potatoes or yogurt for potassium. You’ll also want to eat something with magnesium such as pumpkin seeds, nuts, spinach, or beans. Both potassium and magnesium help your body stay hydrated and reduce muscle tension and soreness.

2. Add A Pinch Of Salt To Your Water:

Salt is made of sodium and chloride. Sodium is crucial to helping you stay hydrated because it holds water in your body. If you don’t like the idea of adding a pinch of salt to your water you can consider drinking some broth or vegetable juice to increase your sodium. Drinking tomato juice will offer both sodium and chloride.

3. Have Some Dairy:

Finally, you’ll want to replace your lost calcium. The easiest way to do this is with dairy. Grab a glass of milk which has 300 mg of calcium or snack on a yogurt which has 400 mg of yogurt per serving.

4. Drink Coconut Water

Coconut water is nature’s electrolyte drink. It has potassium, sodium, and magnesium. It works as well as an electrolyte drink but without all the sugars and added ingredients. You can find coconut water nowadays at most grocery stores. They even come in a variety of flavors.

Hydration requires more than just drinking lots of water. You need to also equip your body with the right minerals like electrolytes. To ensure that you are getting all the things your body needs after a workout, the best idea is to hire a nutritionist. At Everlasting Changes, all of our personal trainers are also certified nutritionists. Not only will we make sure that your workout makes you sweat, but that you’ll replenish all the nutrients your body needs. Call now for 3 risk-free, complimentary sessions. We include a 30-day guarantee on all of our packages.

A wholesome breakfast kick-starts your metabolism and helps you to burn more calories throughout the day.

This wrap is delicious for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It’s ready in a flash, tastes amazing, and is filled with lean protein, veggies and whole sprouted grains. Try it today, but don’t be surprised if you get hooked!

Courtesy of RealHealthyRecipes.com

What You Need

Serves 4

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
¼ cup tomato, finely chopped
2 cups spinach, roughly chopped
1 cup egg whites
dash of salt and pepper
2 sprouted grain tortillas
2 Tablespoons pesto (purchase it pre-made, or combine ½ cup walnuts, 2 cups basil leaves, 2 cloves garlic, ¼ cup olive oil, and 1 Tablespoon lemon juice in a food processor and blend until it becomes a paste.)

Instructions

1. Spread a tablespoon of pesto over each tortilla and set aside.

2. In medium sized skillet warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté until golden. Add the tomato and cook for another 3 minutes. Add the spinach and cook until it is soft and wilted. Remove the veggies from skillet, set aside in a bowl.

3. Pour the egg whites into the skillet, season with salt and pepper. Cook until the egg is no longer runny.

4. Arrange half of the egg whites in a line down the center of each tortilla. Top with half of the veggies and then fold the ends up and wrap like a burrito.

Nutrition

One serving equals 288 calories, 10g fat, 28g carbohydrate, 6g fiber, and 21g protein.

I hope that you get a chance to give this recipe a try this week. Remember that I’m only a call or email away to assist you in all things fitness. And if you are not yet one of my prized clients then call or email me now to set up your first workout – I’d love to help you achieve your best body ever!

It’s important to avoid traditional breakfast foods that are filled with carbs, grains and sugar, and to instead stick with protein rich recipes like the one for Eggs in Clouds below. A wholesome breakfast kick-starts your metabolism and helps you to burn more calories throughout the day.

These flavor-rich, fluffed, and baked eggs are great for delivering big nutrition in a fun package. The nutritional yeast adds nutty, cheesy flavor, making it the substitute for dairy cheese.

Courtesy of RealHealthyRecipes.com

What You Need

Serves 4

4 eggs
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
¼ cup scallion, minced
¼ cup bacon, cooked and minced
sea salt
black pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

2. Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks, placing the whites in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and the yolks in individual ramekins, being careful not to break the yolks.

3. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes. Gently fold in the nutritional yeast, scallion, and bacon.

4. Spoon the egg white mixture onto the prepared baking sheet in 4 mounds. Use the spoon to create a well in the center of each mound, then bake for 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and add a yolk to the center of each mound. Return to the oven for 3 minutes, until the yolk has set. Season with sea salt and black pepper.

Nutrition

One serving equals 101 calories, 7g fat, 229mg sodium, 1g carbs, 1g fiber, 9g protein

I hope that you get a chance to give this recipe a try this week. Remember that I’m only a call or email away to assist you in all things fitness. And if you are not yet one of my prized clients then call or email me now to set up your first workout – I’d love to help you achieve your best body ever!

If you’re a fan of crispy orange chicken from Chinese take-out restaurants then you are going to simply love this healthier at-home version. While traditional orange chicken dishes taste great they are filled with gluten, sugar, soy and unhealthy fats that cause weight gain. Not a good thing when you are trying to get fit and healthy!

This version is much healthier so you can enjoy the flavors you love without any of the guilt.

This dish is really quick to throw together for a weeknight dinner and tastes so good you won’t believe it’s healthy. As a bonus, you won’t get that big belly ache like with the take-out version. Enjoy!

Courtesy of RealHealthyRecipes.com

What You Need

Serves 6

½cup orange juice concentrate (no sugar added)
3 Tablespoons coconut aminos
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Zest from one orange
3 cloves garlic, minced
Dash red pepper flakes
2 packets Stevia
1 tablespoon coconut oil
2.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken thigh, cut into bite sized pieces
Dash salt and pepper
Dash granulated onion
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
3 green onions, chopped

Instructions

1. Combine the orange juice concentrate, coconut aminos, olive oil, orange zest, red pepper flakes and Stevia in a small bowl. Mix well and set aside.

2. In a large skillet, heat the coconut oil on medium-high.

3. Generously season the chicken pieces with salt, pepper and granulated onion. Add chicken to hot skillet and brown on all sides.

4. When chicken is almost fully cooked, add the orange sauce, stirring to coat all of the chicken. Cook, uncovered, simmering the sauce until thickened and fully sticking to the chicken.

5. Garnish with sesame seeds and freshly chopped green onion.

Nutrition

One serving equals 282 calories, 12g fat, 505mg sodium, 12g carbs, 1g fiber, 35g protein

I hope that you get a chance to give this recipe a try this week. Remember that I’m only a call or email away to assist you in all things fitness. And if you are not yet one of my prized clients then call or email me now to set up your first workout – I’d love to help you achieve your best body ever!