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How to Pursue Movement for Wellness, Not Weight Loss

January 30, 2019 by Guest Post 2 Comments

By: Brittany Guerin, MS

Guest Post Writer

As a fitness professional, I see how much diet culture infiltrates the fitness industry. I can’t look at fitness marketing or a gym billboard without exclusively seeing bodies that represent the thin or muscular “ideal.” It’s no wonder fitness can trigger over-exercising, eating disorders, and feelings of body dissatisfaction. Often, when we workout or go to the gym, we think we are doing something good for our bodies, but, sometimes, we end up feeling worse than when we started. (This makes me very upset with parts of the fitness industry!)

The good news is, it doesn’t HAVE to be this way. I am a fitness professional and promote movement for wellness, not for weight loss. I’m a firm believer that movement can be extremely healing if we are doing it the right way, for the right reasons.

Not Everything Your Fitness Instructor Says is Good for You

First, we need to take a critical look at the messages we are receiving from the gym, fitness instructor, yoga teacher, #fitspo, or other components of the fitness industry. Often, this even includes comments from friends and family.

If a message involves movement to burn calories, to earn what you will eat or drink later, to punish your body, or if you leave a workout feeling beaten up and inadequate, that is a really good sign to stay away from that environment. For a list of 10 fitness messages to ignore in social media, check out this blog post. There’s also a really great podcast on #fitspo from “Stuff Mom Never Told You” that critically analyzes when fitspo is unhealthy.

Movement for the Right Reasons

As I said, movement is SO amazing for our minds and bodies. Instead of focusing on breaking down and shrinking our bodies, let’s focus on everything movement does to build us up. Here are just some of the benefits of movement:

Improved sleep
Increased energy
Stronger immune system
Maintained or increased bone density
Reduced chronic disease
Improved mood
Decreased stress

Notice I said nothing about weight loss. How much we weigh tells us nothing about our health. If you’re interested in more information on Health At Every Size®, I wrote a blog post on it or you can go directly to their website for tons of resources.

Final Tips on Pursuing Movement for Wellness

Focus on what movement adds to your life: endorphin rush, stress relief, being with friends, sleep aid, etc. (Scroll up for all the amazing benefits of movement!)
Avoid trigger phrases like exercise as punishment, exercise to burn calories, exercise to burn off food or earn food later.
Avoid instructors who mention these trigger words and phrases. If you hear these phrases, perhaps let the instructor know how it made you feel or email the manager of the studio. You are not being rude, you’re just passing on valuable information! This is how we slowly change culture…
Report instagram posts that mention these things so they won’t show up in your feed anymore. (Click the 3 dots on the top right box of the post, click “report”, and click “it’s spam”)
Add in more gentle and brief movement. This could be walking for 5 minutes or take a stretch break if you have been sitting for awhile.
Avoid really intense workouts until you feel like movement does not trigger a weight loss mindset, disordered eating or disordered exercise.
Avoid working out in front of mirrors. Focus more on mind-body awareness and tuning into how movement makes you feel.
Incorporate more gentle, non-heated yoga where you can really slow down and pay attention to your breath. This does wonders for your stress!

For more information, please head over to my website. You can also send me questions by contacting me here. I look forward to connecting with you and wish you the best on your wellness (sans weight loss mindset) journey!

About Brittany Guerin:

Brittany Guerin is an anti-diet movement and wellness coach. Using principles from Health at Every Size, she promotes body kindness, movement for wellness, mental health awareness, and self-care. In May 2019, she will finish her Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health and open a private practice in Raleigh, NC. Check out her website for more information!

Follow her on Instagram: @britguerin

“Go To Meals” – Part 2

January 25, 2019 by Elizabeth Davenport Leave a Comment

Easy Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

Hi! Elizabeth here. I’m calling this post “Go-To Meals” Part 2. Anna shared her family’s “go-to meals” in her post last week. Read it here. I’m definitely adopting their yearly tradition–Anna, Dan and their children spend some time on their car trip home from visiting Dan’s parents for New Years to talk about what meals they’ve been eating during the year. Anna writes down the list so she can refer to it during the year. I just love this idea! I also love the way Anna and Dan divided the list into categories that made complete sense to me. Some of my “Go-To Meals” might fall into Anna and Dan’s Standard Meals. A good example that everyone’s meals and how they approach food are different.

My family’s current “go-to meals”

There are definitely some that have fallen off the list over the years. I plan to bring them back into our rotation and share them with you in a future post.

Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup-recipe below (or ragu over pasta or oven polenta)
Black bean and beef tacos with guac, salsa, cheese and sour cream–and sometimes rice or corn
Pasta Carbonara and salad with mustard vinaigrette
Instant Pot Butter Chicken with rice and sugar snap peas
Chili, cornbread (made with Jiffy mix) and salad
Pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes, garlic, basil, balsamic vinegar and grated ricotta salata (summer)
White Bean, Kale and Sausage Soup, salad and bread
Spaghetti with tomato sauce and meatballs (I’ve recently been using Mom Made Turkey Meatball Bites), salad and bread
Trader Joe’s Mandarin Chicken, rice and green beans
Taco Soup, tortilla chips, and guacamole
Mustard Salmon, couscous (or rice) and broccoli
Lemon Shrimp over pasta, salad and bread
Bell and Evans chicken tenders, roasted new potatoes, broccoli
Pasta with sausage, sage, fontina, and kale with salad and bread
Pasta with Pesto, salad and bread
Italian sausages, potatoes and shredded brussels sprouts (or broccoli or green beans)
Tomato soup and open faced toasted cheese sandwiches with salad (or raw veggies)

Meals don’t have to be complicated to be nourishing or to provide an opportunity to gather together to eat.

What does this list tell me? That I rely A LOT on broccoli and salad as sides. Perhaps it’s time to branch out a bit!? I’m going to refer to Anna’s post here on simple sides when I’m planning meals over the coming weeks.

One of My Family’s “Go-To Meals”: Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

Everyone in my house likes a version of this soup.

My 11 year old, Ellie, only likes the broth. The bowl she serves herself is often mostly broth with just a few beans. Caroline, my 14 year old, loves this soup except for the kale. The bowl she serves herself is typically the complete opposite of Ellie’s bowl. Caroline loves the beans and prefers less broth. I don’t worry that neither likes the kale. The kale cooks in the broth, so some of the nutrients from the kale find their way into the tasty, parmesan infused broth. And eventually, they might end up trying the kale again.

I’ve made this soup for years. It’s inspired by/adapted from a pasta recipe, Orecchiette with Shell Beans, Proscuitto, and Parmigiano-Reggiano in Alfred Portale Simple Pleasures: Home Cooking from the Gotham Bar and Grill’s Acclaimed Chef.

It’s quick and easy. And I typically have the ingredients on hand. It can truly be made in 30 minutes!

At some point, I decided to change the recipe up a bit. I began adding a lot more broth, a hunk of parmesan cheese (this gives the broth a lovely rich flavor), and black eyed peas.

And it slowly transformed into soup, rather than a sauce for pasta.

Sometimes, I serve this over polenta–not as a “go-to meal” though! Served over polenta is a great option for a nice dinner and it’s great for a crowd, too. During a few Christmases at Chad’s parents (there’s always a crowd), I made a big batch of the soup and served it over polenta along with a salad. Then we used the leftovers as soup for lunches.

Here it is served over pasta. I love serving it over orecchiette (which means little ears) pasta because the broth pools in the “little ear” shape. I alternate between the three because we have one person in our foursome who doesn’t like polenta and one who prefers it as the stand-alone soup.

If you’d like to make this without the bacon, I’d suggest adding fresh basil or a couple of tablespoons of pesto to the soup just before serving.

Easy Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

Author: Elizabeth Davenport

Print Recipe

Description

A great weeknight soup that doubles as a tasty ragu over pasta or polenta. Serve it over polenta for a nice weekend or special occasion meal.

Scale

Ingredients

4 slices of bacon cut into small strips

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

3 cans black eyed peas, drained and rinsed

1 can white beans, drained and rinsed

3 cups chicken stock

2 cups water

1 2 x 3 inch hunk of parmesan cheese

1 1/2 cups frozen peas, thawed

2 cups kale, washed and torn

1 ½ teaspoon salt

pepper

Instructions

Stack the 4 slices of bacon and cut into strips crosswise. Place the bacon in a large pot over medium-medium low heat. Cook the bacon until it is crisped–about 10 minutes.
While the bacon is cooking, peel and chop the garlic; drain and rinse the beans in a colander, and rinse and tear the kale; and cut off a piece of parmesan cheese.
Once the bacon is crisp, add the chopped garlic and cook 2 minutes. Next add the beans, stock, water, parmesan hunk and salt and pepper.
Bring to a boil. Then turn the heat down to medium and simmer the soup for about 15 minutes. Next add the peas and kale and cook for about 5 more minutes.
Serve as a soup or serve over pasta for a quick and easy tasty weeknight meal.

Notes

For a weekend meal or for a large group, I sometimes serve it over polenta.

“Go To Meals” – Your Plan B

January 19, 2019 by Anna Lutz Leave a Comment

Each year on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, my family takes a 9 hour car trip home to North Carolina from Ohio through the mountains of West Virginia. While the kids are watching movies in the back of the minivan, my husband and I usually talk about the coming weeks, months and year. It’s a moment of calm after the months of busyness leading up to the holidays. We review our calendars, work plans, childcare arrangements and often our conversation turns to what we want to be doing differently or better. This always seems to include the topic of food and cooking, something we both value but have to work hard at doing well. This year, as we were rounding the curves of the mountains, Dan suggested that we make a list of all of the dinners we like to make, because we tend to get in a rut. We make the same 4-5 meals over and over again, and forget about certain meals we used to enjoy. We thought if we could keep our list handy, right inside our pantry, then we could refer to it when we are meal planning and grocery shopping. (Get our simple meal planning template at the top of our home page.)

So, we pulled out my little anchor journal I have in my work bag and found that we made a similar list 365 days ago. It’s beginning to be a tradition, this time of year, to feel like we could be doing better with meal planning, but we keep working at it and haven’t given up yet. The kids paused their movie, and we brainstormed all of the meals we like to make for dinner.

We divided the list into 4 categories:

Go-to Meals – Meals that we typically have the ingredients for and can make without planning and quickly
Make Ahead/Slow Cooker Meals – Meals we can make on the weekend to have during the week or put in the slow cooker on a weekday morning if we know there’s a busy evening
Standard Meals – Meals that require some planning and cooking, but I usually keep meals to 30 – 40 minutes tops
Special Occasion Meals – Meals that we like but we’d never make during the work week.

In future posts, I’ll expand on each of these categories. To start, though, I think it’s important to have a list of “go to meals” that we usually have the ingredients for and are easy to get on the table in 15-20 minutes. We are all so busy and juggling work, activities, trying to keep the house clean, school and appointments. It’s easy to fall into black and white thinking about dinners. Sometimes it feels like there are 2 options — either cook something with a recipe or we don’t have time, or haven’t planned, so we order take out. There’s a lot of gray area between these two examples. Having a list of “go to meals” can help you have an easy plan for busy nights, but also are great to turn to when your plan isn’t going to work for whatever reason. They are your Plan B. These aren’t gourmet meals, but meals that are nourishing and you can make at any moment and know you’ve put together a nourishing meal for you and/or your family.

This is our list of “Go To Meals:”

Tacos (with fruit and bagged kale slaw or veggies and dip)
Spaghetti and Frozen Meatballs (with a salad or broccoli)
Spaghetti Carbonara (with fruit or a salad)
TJs Mandarin Chicken (with broccoli and rice)
Boxed or stove top Mac and Cheese (with broccoli or fruit)
Pizza – We keep premade pizza shells in the pantry (add a salad or fruit)
Black Beans and Rice (add avocado if the stars align)
Frozen eggplant parmigiana (with salad or veggies and dip and pasta)
“Brinner” – toast or waffles, eggs and/or bacon/sausage, fruit
Ravioli (kept in the freezer) (with fruit or salad)
Quesadilla (with salsa and fruit)
Tomato Soup and grilled cheese (apple slices)
Nachos – We make ours with tortilla chips, shredded cheese, salsa, black beans, and leftover meat and avocado, if available

When I’m headed in the door at 5:30 pm with hungry kids and I’ve forgotten to put the food in the slow cooker, or I just don’t have the energy to make the meal that I planned, these are meals I can pull together quickly. I think it’s helpful for anyone to have their list of “go to meals” so that we know we have a back up. Just knowing we have a Plan B can be reassuring. What are your family’s “go to meals?” Your list will be different than ours. Would it help to make a list so you know you have several nutritious meals to “go to” in a pinch?

Sauteed Brussels Sprouts – Our Holiday Tradition

December 24, 2018 by Elizabeth Davenport Leave a Comment

Just before Thanksgiving, Anna and I shared some of our family holiday traditions. These Brussels sprouts are part of our Thanksgiving AND Christmas meal traditions. The process of removing the cores and seperating the leaves takes awhile. But it’s well worth it! And Chad and I enjoy the time together. Sometimes people help with the process and sometimes it’s just us. Either way, we enjoy making this dish.

If you’d prefer not to core and leaf the Brussels sprouts, you can simply feed them through your food processor using the shredder attachment. It’s not the exact same dish, but still works well and tastes great! Either way you decide to prepare them, cook them until they are bright green and some of them just being to brown.