Meal Prep Helpers

If you are like me, your week is hectic, and sometimes you run later than you should due to traffic, needing to fishing things up at work, errand at last minute, etc. It feels like we have so little time at night when we get home, esp when you have kids who are definitely on a schedule to get to bed for tomorrow. Trying to fix a healthy meal with little time at night doesn't leave a lot of time for homework help/review, reading bedtime stories, bath time, or for yourself.

What has really helped us is starting to use our crock pot as much as possible. Once a month, one of our awesome coaches hosts a 5 Day Clean Eating Crock Pot group. I have picked up some get recipes in there, and of course just googling clean eating crock pot meals. I prefer ones that have less ingredients, that are easy to just toss in the bag and be done.

Check out these awesome time saving ingredients you can use in your recipes!

I love using these Recipe Ready Pepper Strips and Onion Blend bags for fajitas! 

Mincing garlic doesn't necessarily take a lot of work, but it's an extra step or two between pealing, mincing cleaning the mincer. This is just so easy to use a spoonful or two and be done. 

Oh my gosh, what a great way to have no tear onions! I believe you can also get just onions in a bag like frozen veggies, but this is what I found and I love them! 

Why buy frozen veggies? Well, you can easily dump them into your bag for one, and for two if you find you can't use them all right now, you don't have to worry about them going bad in your fridge if they don't get used right away. 

When I first started using my crock pot, I wasn't sure what all I could make besides roast. Here are three that I will be making in the coming week or two. 

Beef or pork roast with potatoes and carrots

BBQ Pulled Pork

Honey Garlic Chicken with green beans, carrots and potatoes

The potatoes I recommend are either sweet potatoes, or red potatoes. I do not have big sweet potato fans in our house, so we usually opt to use red potatoes. 

I will share these recipes and a few more this coming week. It is definitely nice being able to come home, maybe making one side, and being done with dinner. 

I hope I helped with some ways to save time with your meal prepping. The above helpers save time, and dishes. 

Happy prepping! 

6 Easy and Fun Ways to Burn Calories

So, we are past the holidays, and maybe you burned some pounds off. Then here we are, Valentine's weekend. It's full of dinners out, take out, candy, and feeling a little like the over indulgence we have around the big holiday meals.

Don't set yourself back, you can enjoy yourself, just remember portions and exercise.

Here are some easy and fun ways to burn some of those calories you are about to consume.

1. Chewing Gum. That's right, chewing a piece of gum burns about 11 calories every 12 minutes. Can't get much easier than that right? 

     2. Get up and dance with your valentine. 15 minutes could burn close to 72 calories. 

     3. Do you have a baby or small kiddo still in a stroller? Take the stroller out on your walk and in            about 20 minutes you burn close to 60 calories! 

     4. Are there stairs where you are? Climbing stairs for 5 minutes can burn just over 50 calories. 

     5. Walking your dog can burn about 150 calories in 40 minutes. 

     6. Remember jumping rope as a kid? Well 15 minutes of jumping rope burns about 150 Calories! 

Have fun, enjoy yourself, stay on track for your health. Happy Valentine's Day! 

Thank you Huffington Post and WebMD.