Motivation Post Roundup + Looking Forward to 2014

Happy New Year!

I started off my day with a nice run with my family along the river (if you're familiar with the Boise, Idaho area, we ran along the Eagle section of the greenbelt, by Merrill Park). That section of the Boise river is so pretty, especially in the wintertime when everything is frosted over. Since I was running with other people, I went music-less, which I don't often do. I rarely go running without some kind of music playing in my ear. If I run without music in the neighborhoods, I tend to get bored, but boredom isn't really a problem when I'm running somewhere scenic and different than the usual. Going without music today turned out to be incredibly refreshing. For part of the run I actually ended up running separately from the rest of my family, and it felt amazing to just run through the chilly winter air, by myself amid the bare trees, and let my thoughts flow freely. I loved the time I ran with my family as well, but I really enjoyed the experience of running by myself too. It was a great way to start off the new year!

The beginning of the new year often gets a bad rap, and resolutions (particularly health and fitness ones) tend to be scoffed at. My personal take on it is that resolutions aren't bad, but unattainable ones are. If you set small, measurable goals for yourself, instead of setting out to completely change every aspect of your lifestyle at the same time, you're much more likely to be successful.

I've been off-and-on about making resolutions in the past, but this year I have come up with a couple health-related goals for myself. I made some other, non-health-related resolutions too, which you can check out here, but these are my health-related ones:

1. Run a half marathon. I am determined to finally do it! It's been something I've wanted to do for over a year, but injury and daylight savings has continually thwarted my efforts. I'm going to do my best to actually check this one off in 2014!

2. Eat at least 3 servings of vegetables per day. This one is going to be difficult, I'm not going to lie. I challenged myself to this for a three-month time period last year, and it was hard. I did find, though, that when I was working on that challenge, I ate a lot better overall, since fitting in those three servings left less room for the less-healthy food. Lately I've been eating a lot of processed food (things like protein bars and other granola bars) and I want to do better at eating more naturally. Protein bars are awesome, but I'd just like to eat things with smaller ingredient lists that haven't been processed quite as much. For me, setting a goal to eat at least three servings of veggies with help me avoid the unhealthy food and not eat as much of the healthier processed food. I'm going to do my best with this resolution, but I'm not going to freak out if I only eat one or two servings in a day occasionally.

I wish you all a very healthy and happy 2014! If your resolutions are health-related, here's a roundup of posts related to healthy lifestyle tips and motivation. Even if your goals aren't directly health-related, a lot of it still applies. If you are looking for some easy, healthy recipes to start off your year, check out the "Recipes" tab right below the blog header for a compiled list of my recipes. Enjoy!

Motivation Monday: Healthiness is a Journey
Choose to Live Actively
A Notebook and a Pen
Motivation Monday: You Sacrifice for What You Love
Motivation Monday: Just Because You're Not Sick, It Doesn't Mean You're Healthy
Eating Healthy On a Budget: 9 Tips
Motivation Monday: Getting Away From the Physical
Motivation Monday: Pinterest Motivation
Motivation Monday: Write a Mission Statement
Motivation Monday: General Tidbits About Embracing Life

What are your New Years resolutions?

Motivation Monday?

Happy Monday, everyone!

My apologies for being missing in action the past few weeks. Starting back with school kind of knocked me off my feet and I'm just now starting to get into a normal routine.

Today's post is just going to be some general tidbits and items of randomness that have been floating around in my head the past few weeks. Maybe you'll find some motivation in it?

You can't always fit everything in!
When I'm not doing much (during the summer months, for example), I fill my time by pursuing slight obsessions that aren't quite so productive. Think Pinterest, YouTube makeup videos, lots of reading, etc. On the more productive side, exercising most days of the week was essential this summer, and blogging became a part of my schedule as well. When my life gets busier (when school starts again!), I want to keep doing everything I was doing during the non-busy time, along with fulfilling my school-related obligations. Social media and books are fun, right? Yeah, I tried that for about a week this time around before realizing that there's no way I can fit it all in and still go to bed at a decent hour each night. Prioritizing has been key lately. Although I wish it were otherwise, school has priority over running or reading or even blogging. I've realized that I just need to chill out and stop trying to be a super lady. That just leads to stress, and stress is definitely not healthy!

Life works better if you relax.
This is kind of similar to the last tidbit, but can still stand independently. If you're stressed out every second of the day, it's hard to really enjoy life. And we're supposed to enjoy life, right? I definitely think so! Life is a happy place! If you need to drop one or two things off of your schedule in order to take care of the stress, do it, and don't look back! I've figured out that I'm so much happier on a day-to-day basis if I keep my schedule on the simple side, and if I don't stress out when I happen to have a busier day here and there.

Savor the run.
Running is a privilege. Having been injured and out of commission for part of the summer, and now being too busy to fit in a run sometimes, I have a greater appreciation for the opportunity to run. Don't discount even the smallest run. I'm grateful for the time and ability I have to get my little "easy runs" done during the week. If you don't have time to do your preferred hour-long workout on a weeknight, try for ten minutes. Even the littlest effort is better than none.

It's all mental.
You have control over yourself. If you want to start - or continue - eating healthy, you're the one who ultimately has the power to make that happen. Find some good motivation, stay motivated, and keep your mind on track. You have the power to choose how you take care of yourself.

Those are the general, main ideas that have been floating around in my head lately. I've been trying to focus on the most important things, and add in the less-important, more-enjoyable things as I go. Hopefully blogging will be one of those add-ins! I've missed it ! Hopefully I'm back to blogging on a regular basis! Let me know if there is anything specific you want me to blog about! Motivation, tips, workouts, recipes...? Tweet me (@tessabrynnk) or leave a comment on this post!

Thanks, as always, for reading! Have a lovely day! 

Question of the Day:
How do you transition best between less-busy and more-busy times of the year? Any tips?

Portable Lunches

The start of the new school year means going back to packing a lunch every day. It's not my favorite arrangement; I'd rather spend my lunchtime at home everyday, but that's not quite an option.

This week I set off with a running start, but who knows how long my lunch creativity will last. By the end of the year, I'm usually just throwing things in a brown bag, but for now I'm enjoying making my lunches unique.

I picked up the tupperware container (it's Ziplock brand) at Fred Meyer for about three dollars a week or so ago. It makes it a lot easier to portion-control what I pack, which is nice. I put together my lunch at night, then stick it in the fridge until the morning.

Hopefully you'll find some inspiration in what I packed!

 -Wrap (Flat Out bread, hummus, lettuce, 1 roma tomato, 1 slice ham, cheese)

-1 apple 

-1/4 C blueberries

 

-Healthier Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

-carrots (they have frost on them because I stuck this container on the top shelf of the refrigerator overnight, and they froze)

-hummus mixed with salsa (to dip the carrots in)

*I had some camera malfunctions, so the picture got cut off on the bottom!

 -quesadilla (black beans, cheese, Flat Out wrap)

-salsa

-pluot

-fruit salad (blueberries, 1 orange, 1 apple, grapes)

-carrots

-Cheerios and peanuts

Motivation Monday: Write a Mission Statement

Happy Monday! For me, I have school to look forward to this week, although at least now I have some yummy, healthy cookies from yesterday's baking experiment take with me. Okay, it's not much, but it's a slight consolation prize for being forced to sit through classes all day. Sigh.

Anyway! Back to the topic of motivation!

The other day, I had another brain-spark: to stay motivated, write a mission statement for yourself. Schools and businesses and other organizations have mission statements, so why not normal people?

Huh? Just bear with me! I'll explain!

First, get out a piece of paper and writing utensil. (What would be super extra fantastic is if you got out the notebook or planner you keep yourself organized with!) At the top of your paper, write "Who Am I?"

Then answer the question! Technically you can write anything about yourself, not just fitness-related things, but be sure to include some of those in there too. If you eat healthily about half of the time, but get thwarted by food temptation the other half, write in what you wish to be - in the form of a true statement.

Is this getting confusing? Here's an example:

I'm Tessa Kohler. I'm a daydreamer, and a romantic, and I'm obsessed with New York City, and I'm going to live there someday. I eat clean. I choose to eat food that is good for me because I care about my body enough to fuel it right. I exercise regularly, no matter how sluggish I may be feeling. I am a runner. I am dedicated and I make sacrifices because I know it is all worth it.

Is it maybe making more sense? For me, eating super clean and waking myself up to exercise in the mornings is what I struggle with. I'm not perfect at it by any means, however in my mission statement I wrote that I do eat clean and I do exercise regularly, no matter what. 

When you write down strong statements about yourself, based on your goals and aspirations, you will be more likely to actually believe that they're possible. Really, it all comes back to believing in yourself, which is absolutely crucial if you want to get anywhere with your goals.

Put your mission statement somewhere you will see it regularly - maybe next to your list of goals. Let it be your motivation and your support on those days when you feel like you will never be done with trying and failing. Let it be the thing that helps get you back on your feet, working even harder than before.

Have a wonderful week! Tweet me and let me know if you wrote your mission statement (@tessabrynnk)!

Question of the Day:
If you were to answer "Who Am I?" in only once sentence, what would it be?

Healthy Stuffed French Toast, a Face-Lift, & Getting Back On Track

Yesterday was a day for getting back into the swing of things, even though I was only out of town for a weekend. It's crazy how fast a car full of yummy (but not always healthy) trip snacks can put you out of whack.

I started the day yesterday with a little bit of oatmeal before my workout. After that, I completed this workout I found on Pinterest. It says it burns 1,000 calories, which I'm not too sure about, but it was a good workout nonetheless. I would have preferred a run, but for some reason my running shoes decided to start giving me huge blisters on my heels, even though I've worn them for months now. I'm waiting for my heels to heal (hehe get it?) before I go for a run again. After the workout I enjoyed a bowl of Greek yogurt, Grape Nuts cereal, and a cut-up orange. 

After not snacking the best on the trip, I was in the mood for a snack that was actually healthy. I sliced up an apple really quick, since a sliced apple is just much more fun to eat than a whole apple!

 

For lunch I made myself a quick wrap with what I could find in the fridge. We reeeeally need to go grocery shopping, but it turned out pretty well with what I put into it. The recipe for this will be coming tomorrow!

Another quick snack of the day: almonds and peanuts!

For dinner, I went the nontraditional way with my french toast and turned it into stuffed french toast by topping each slice with Greek yogurt and folding them over. Yes, it looks weird, but it actually tasted great! It was a lot lighter than drenching my french toast with maple syrup.

For a quick evening snack, I had some air-popped popcorn (I didn't eat this whole thing), and a little bowl of granola mixed with honey nut Cheerios, topped with almond milk. Granola with almond milk is one of my favorite foods to eat late at night. I like to put my almond milk with the granola and just let it sit for about 10 minutes or so, until the milk is all soaked up. Granola doesn't really get soggy like other cereal, just softer. Personally, I like granola when it's a little less crunchy.

Then I proceeded to stay up waaay to late, working on giving this lovely blog a face-lift! I added a new header, and then I also switched up the layout. What do you think?

It feels great to get back on track with exercising and eating clean. If you ended up having a bit of a YOLO weekend with food and such, don't get discouraged...just get back into it! One step in the right direction is better than none at all.

Check back in tomorrow for my lunch recipe!

Question of the Day:
What do you eat to get back into the swing of clean eating after a less-than-healthy weekend or vacation?

Eating Healthy on a Budget: 9 Tips

Sometimes one of the hardest things about eating healthy is the grocery store. A complaint that many people have (including me), is that healthy food is too expensive. Without going into a long speech, the key is that if you really want to make your health a priority, you have to sacrifice. Yes, healthy food is expensive, but buying it is a sacrifice worth making. Aside from that, there are some tricks I've learned about eating healthy on a budget.

1. Plan out meals before going to the grocery store. This is huge! Fresh produce goes bad, so you need to know exactly what you're going to eat so you don't buy too much.

2. Pick only one new food to try per grocery store visit. This may not be relevant to some people, but I'm the kind of person who loves trying out new healthy foods. If I set a limit for myself of only one just-for-fun food, I don't go overboard with the new granola bars, crackers, and fruit chips that catch my eye.

3. Bring a limited amount of money with you. If you only want to spend $20 on groceries, only bring $20 with you. You'll be sure to buy only what you need since your money is limited.

4. Keep an eye on the fresh produce you've bought so you eat it before it's overripe. I'm the worst person for buying a bunch of tomatoes, and only using one before they all go bad. I just forget what I have! Meal planning will help a lot with this, because you won't be as inclined to accidentally neglect your fresh food.

5. Buy produce in varying stages of freshness. This tip has helped me a lot. If you buy multiple avocados or bananas, for example, you don't want them to all get ripe at the same time, forcing you to eat copious amounts of that particular food in a short period of time before it goes bad.

6. Watch for sales on more expensive produce items. Where I live, fruits like blueberries or cherries tend to be a little more expensive. If I don't need them for a specific recipe, I hold off on buying them until they go in sale, making sure to keep up-to-date with the sales by checking in the advertisements that come with the newspaper.

7. Freeze your own fruit for smoothies. Frozen fruit gets expensive, so when fresh fruit is on sale, buy it in larger quantities. Chop up what you can't eat before it's too ripe, stick it in a zip-lock baggie, and toss it in the freezer.

8. Grow it yourself. While not everyone has this option, this will definitely save you a lot of money. At the very least, you can buy potted herbs you can put in your kitchen. Potted vegetable plants are also easy to put on your patio.

9. You don't need to shop at Whole Foods. The last thing I want is for people to think that you need to shop at fancy healthy stores to eat right. Yes, Whole Foods is a good store. Personally, I love wandering around in there. However! It is expensive and you can still buy good produce and other healthy food at your normal grocery store.

Those are the top nine recommendations I have for eating healthy with a limited amount of money. A healthy lifestyle is completely feasible for almost anyone, as long as you have your priorities set right.

What would you add to this list? What do you do to stay healthy on a budget?

Motivation Monday: Mini-Goals (plus a challenge!)

Success. What do you define success as? Everyone wants to be successful, right?

The thing about success is that it doesn't happen overnight or on its own. It takes work. Talking about success comes back down to priorities. Are you making the area you want to be successful in a priority in your life?

Everyone says they want to "be healthy." That's their ultimate goal. If they accomplish that, then they will have "succeeded." Assuming that you, reading this right now, want to be healthy, set yourself up for success! The best way I know of to get big things done without giving up, or else just wandering in circles, is to set reasonable, attainable, mini-goals. Setting broad goals will just leave you exhausted and stressed. My challenge to you today is to set 1-2 mini-goals to accomplish this week. Here are some ideas:

-Eat 4 servings of vegetables every day.

-Drink at least 8 glasses of water every day.

-Get to bed at a decent hour at least 4 nights this week.

-Work out at least 3 days this week OR make it a priority to at least sweat every day.

-Eat when you're hungry, not just when you're bored.

-Go at least 3 days this week without eating any processed food.
-Try going at least 1 day eating fully-raw vegan.

You can pick a couple of my ideas, or you can make your own mini-goals. To make your own, think of a health- or fitness-related practice in you life that you know you can improve on (ex: not snacking, exercising more, drinking more water) and make a measurable goal out of it. "Exercise more" isn't enough. Try "exercise for 30 minutes, 3 days this week." Much better! 

Once you have your goals, write them down! Write them on a post-it note and stick it on your bathroom mirror or in your weekly planner. It doesn't really matter where, just put the post-it note somewhere you will see it.
Then, finally, follow through! Smash those goals! Let this week be a week of success for you!

Have a lovely day!

A Notebook and a Pen

Along the lines of consciously choosing to live healthily, here's one thing that really works for me: I take the time each night to plan out the next day's events and food and such. I have a simple, spiral-bound notebook that I write everything down in. Well, not every single little detail...that's a little excessive. Just a general outline. Mixed in with normal things like waking up, working out, and teaching piano, I write in the things I'm going to eat for snacks, breakfast, lunch, etc. This helps me follow through on my workouts, since having them written down somehow makes me feel more accountable. It also helps when I have those lame moments when it's lunchtime and I'm standing in front of the open fridge or pantry, trying to decide what to eat. When I'm hungry, I'm much more likely to impulsively eat lots of chips or crackers that aren't super healthy if I haven't planned better ideas out before.

Along with meals and snacks, I jot down a general to-do list on my notebook page, and maybe a motivational tidbit or two. I like just using a blank notebook page because I like being able to make my page a little more personal.

If you're not the best at keeping your day structured and productive (like me!), I definitely recommend planning your day out the night before. You can use a fancy planner, or a notebook, or your phone, or whatever! Just write it down!


Question of the day: What do you use to stay organized and on-track?

On-The-Go Snacks

Usually my typical weekend consists of at least one evening out with friends in which we tend to meander around town looking for random adventures. My friends love the delicacies of fast food (curly fries, soda, chocolate turnovers, etc.), so we usually end up stopping at at least one fast food place during the night. I try to opt out of buying anything on these fast-food runs, since I hate the gross and bloated feeling I get after eating fast food. My friends' snacking mood usually rubs off on me, though, so I always throw a healthier option in my bag before heading out. Here are a few of my favorite on-the-go snacks!

Apples
Apples are small, portable, and satisfying. The naturally-occurring sugar in them satisfies any possible sugar cravings.

Peanuts
One of my favorite snacks are peanuts, which are easy to toss in a zip-lock bag and bring with me. Be aware that peanuts are quite calorie-dense, so don't go overboard. A small handful or two is more than enough to fend off the snacking bug anyway.

Luna bars
I love these! At around 200 calories each, they're a great on-the-go option. My favorites are Peanut Butter Cookie (shown above), Nutz Over Chocolate, and Caramel Nut Brownie. The Luna protein bars are good as well.

Larabars
Gluten free, dairy free, and vegan, with a small list of ingredients, Larabars are a fantastic healthy choice. For some reason, I'm just now getting into these, but they're already on my list of go-to snacks. The other day I tried the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip flavor and loved it!

Going out with friends doesn't have to mean giving up on trying to eat healthy for the night. Once you start snacking on something healthier, that brownie cheesecake milkshake or large order of salty fries probably won't look nearly as tempting. Also, always make sure to bring a water bottle with you, in case you're not near a convenient source of water. It's easy to mistake thirst as hunger, so sipping on water often takes away that supposed hungry feeling.