Hi everyone, hope your weekend is going well and if football is consuming your life I hope your team is winning! Remember last week when I said that I was going to challenge myself to wait on dessert for one hour after dinner? (See post here.) Well it went pretty well actually, and it got me thinking how small changes can make a big difference for living healthy and weight control. In fact, it went so well that I thought I’d do a little weekly challenge here at HH that we can all focus on together. I think that knocking out small goals each week will help me (and hopefully you too) build healthy habits without feeling restricted or overwhelmed. I’ll post the challenge on Sundays, and on Monday’s we can recap the previous weeks challenge. I’ll keep this series going until I run out of ideas (feel free to send me some if you’ve got one in mind!)

One of my biggest bad habits is eating while I prep food, a bite here and a taste there can really add up. So this week I want to try and break that habit by not snacking while I prep meals and snacks. This one is going to be a real challenge for me, but 7 days isn’t that long right? Anyone else have a snacking while cooking habit?

Groceries

Sprouts

Trader Joes

Safeway

Costco

• Butternut Squash–> dumped them into a freezer bag and froze immediately
• Chicken Tenders (frozen)
• Organic Spinach
• Eggs
• Berries
• Grapes

Menu Plans

Breakfast

– Greek Yogurt and Quinoa Granola

– Starbucks DIY Breakfast Burritos

– Acorn Squash and Nut Butter

– Eggs for Egg Scrambles (traditional or pumpkin pie) or pancakes.

– Smoothies

Lunches

– leftovers

– Thai Chicken Salads with Peanut Sauce

Dinners

Sunday– BBQ BLT Pizza (made on TJ’s Wheat Pizza dough)

Monday– Asian Pasta Stir Fry (recipe to come)

Tuesday– Fish and Veggies

Wednesday– 5 Ingredient Chicken Sausage, Brussel Sprouts, & Butternut Squash Saute

Thursday– Chile Verde Shrimp Saute

Friday– Personal Pita Pizza’s

Saturday Wing it

Desserts

The usual protein fudge, dark chocolate, or dates

Prep Ahead

• Chopped Two Heads Of Romaine Lettuce
• Chopped One Head of Napa Cabbage
• Marinated (in TJs spicy peanut vinaigrette) and Cooked Chicken Tenders
• Chopped Cucumbers for Salad
• Shredded Carrots for Salad
• Homemade Salsa

Exercise/Workouts

As I mentioned on Friday’s post (Sidelined, Dun Dun Duuuuuuuunnnnnn) my hip wasn’t feeling too hot so I took the weekend off. Actually I went to the chiropractor on Friday and turns out I have obtained my first legitimate sports injury (since high school anyways). I’m not sure EXACTLY which joint or muscle it is, but something to do with a bad strain in my glutes region. Prescription? RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate) Lots of foam roller/tennis ball, stretching, and icing. He said the pain should subside within a week and total recovery time will be 3 to 5 weeks. Like most injuries, I look back and know exactly what I did wrong. The first step in preventing this injury in the future will be stretching my hip flexors daily. As if the time I thought I had an inguinal hernia but it was a muscle knot in that region wasn’t enough of a clue, I also constantly get told at crossfit my abilities are being limited by tight hip flexors. It is like I have some kind of mental block when doctors, coaches and friends tell me I should be stretching them out daily… I think to myself “oh it’s not THAT bad, they don’t know.” Well the fact is they do know, and I should have listened. My chiro said that my arches in my feet are also causing me to pronate inwards when I run and making it double difficult to perform a good formed squat… increasing the risk of injury. I’d like to think I am a pretty careful person when it comes to backing off, but I didn’t do that last week. So the plan for this week? Back to the chiro on Monday and we will go from there. Until then RICE and as many pull ups and push ups on Paul’s new tower as I can manage….

oh and yoga, and consistent stretching of the hip flexors…. I’m listening this time…

Archived Weekly Meal & Fitness Plans

• January 5th, 2014-January 11th, 2014
• December 29th, 2013-January 4th, 2014
• December 22nd, 2013-December 28th, 2013