Meal prep master

 



Once you fight for better body and concentrating on your diet, preparation is the key! Everyone will fall off the track when he/she has to spend another 30 minutes for preparing healthy dish. 
With a little planning, you can made a positive and diet-friendly environment around you which will promote your goals :) 

roasted cod, salsa and vegetables with spoon of sesame oil

With leftovers from dinner (spaghetti bolognese for my husband to be) I made myself two lunchboxes for work. 
I used bolognese souse as salsa for my fish (just a simple cod baked in the oven with salt and pepper). Plus some more veggies (broccoli and courniflower), small spoon of sesame oil (for taste and healthy fats) and it's done! :) 





And here is a tip for great, healthy snack - carrots with greek yogurt dip. So simple, so good! Recently it is my favourite snack :)

carrots and greek yoghurt as dip - perfect snack :)

Daily gym log & some progress

I started this week with... 2 days of recovery. Body felt week and my attitude towards training was bad. So i decided to listnen to body and give it a rest.  
I felt little better today, to I did quite serious gym training. Legs, back and little abs and biceps was on a plan. 

'good morning' exercise - not bending your back is crucial here

I did "good morning" exercise with barbell for the first time (I mean, I did it someday in the past, but my technique was horrible). It engages glutes and lower back very good. And I also put down some weight fr deadlifts. I felt like my technique collapse with each day, so I had to take step back, decrease weights and work on it.

full deadlift with barbell

In the morning I check my progress after over a week of new eating routine (reduce carbs and kcal in genera with one refeed weekly, more here). I can see a progress both on scale and measurements. I don't feel that I can trust scale since it can be only lost of water (less carbs, less water retention), but still, tape shows a little more cm in my hips area. 

This progress is not dramatic, but still I am glad that some actually is after 10 days :) Patience. The worst part in fitness journey ;)

This week's end and its summary

I end this weekend with amazing weather in Oslo. High temperature and shining sun. This is what I needed! :)

Beside sitting and sunbathing, I made a gym training today dedicated to legs and abs. I was kind of weak after 6 days of continuous training, that is why I decided that tomorrow it will be a rest day for me. 

This week was about concentrating on my diet efforts. I hate work 'diet', I would rather use term 'way of eating', but it is much longer ;) Anyway, food intake was my priority since I realised that with my active lifestyle and job it is diet which has to mastered in order to get more definition.

For 6 days I cutted 'traditional' sources carbs from main meals (potatoes, rice, flour, pasta) and replace it with more vegetables. Still I was consuming carbs in the morning, little before and after workout. I had slice deficit in my calories intake (about -300 kcal) and about 150g of carbs intake per day.

My example food intake this week looked like:

breakfast: oat bran with wheat bran mixed with protein powder
brunch: chicken with vegetables
pre-workout: carrots and small protein coffee, bcaa
post-workout: protein shake with rice cakes
snack: greek yoghurt or low fat yoghurt
dinner: chicken/fish with vegetables and shirataki noodles
supper: cottage cheese

(I deliberately do not mention portion sizes, because this thing is dependent on your weight, goals and fitness level) 

Is that low carb diet? Well, not exactly, I still did eat carbs but little less then normal.

Today, at the last day of the week, I have some carbs refeed. It is not a cheat day, but something more like oppcarbing. 

Why refeed? To refill my muscles with glicogen, ensure my body that everything is ok and it doesn't have to go into starvation mode, calm down my cortisol levels while dieting and restore my energies levels. 
I eat more calories today (round 2200kcal) with emphasis of good carbs (more oats in the morning, sweet potatoes for lunch, fruits as a dessert). 
I expect little water gain after today refeed, but in the end it should result in fastening my metabolism. 

carb sources are not only limited to bread and grains

I look forward to see result of my dieting on Wednesday. I will check then if my efforts were worth it and decide weather I will continue with that time of eating or not. 

For those of you who are looking for some good source of protein in your diet, check out new MyRevolution's offer where you can buy 3 different flavours of MyoProtein and 2 packages of fat burner in great summer price:

Chicke'n roll

Today's lunch/dinner suggestion is chicken roll with spinach filling. 
It looks fancy, but in fact it is very easy to prepare!

For 3 portions (approximately 150g each) you will need:
* 400g ground chicken meat (mine had 7,8% fat - generally the less fat the better)
* 200g of spinach (I used frozen one)
* 1 egg or egg white
* psyllium husk
* spices (salt, garlic, onion, paprika and so on).

Preparation: 
Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees. Prepare meat first. Mix it with egg/egg white (if you sparing calories) and spices. Add 1 tbsp of psyllium husk which will make meat more sticky.

Pre-cook spinach. I added only little salt and garlic to a pan with de-frozen spinach.

On a baking pan spread a meat over baking paper. Form rectangle. In the middle of it, put a line of spinach.
Take a one side of baking paper and put it on the opposite one, that two sides of rectangle will split with each other. Roll a little and delicate take the paper from the top of your roulade.

Roast for 30 minutes in 200 degrees. 

Nutrition value for 1 portion (150g):
225 kcal
28,5 g protein
11,9g fat 
2,6 carbohydrates

Enjoy!

High energy!

Recent days are full of positive attitude, happiness and smile!Nothing special happened since Tuesday thought, but last weekend filled me with good energy :)

Trainings are getting well. I did back&biceps on Tuesday, legs&abs on Wednesday and chest,shoulders&triceps today. Two upcoming days are dedicated to cardio (due to my aerobic classes) and Sunday for heavy leg workout!

 

I started also little cutting. I don't want to use a word 'diet', because it has a negative meaning for me. 

With my own version of cutting I ate my carbs in the morning and after workout, but swap another sources of carbs (rice, bread, potatoes) for vegetables. 

This results in less calories per day, but not a drastic cut (I don't want to let my body put it intro starvation mode when it's stared to gain fat in order to protect itself from being not enough feeded).

And why I even started cutting? Because I want to go on a higher level with my fitness progress. Simple clean and balance eating keeps my body in balance, but I want more ripped look. In order to achieve the look I wanted, I have to do a little more than regular effort. 

Diet noodles helping me with quantities. It is almost no calories asian food which makes your dish bigger and make you more full, without adding additional calories.

lunch for today - diet noodles with eggs, ham, vegetables and parmesan souse

Today I made myself delicious lunch with 1 egg, 3 egg whites, lean ham, vegetables, shirataki noodles with Walden Farm's Alfredo souse on top. 

Alfredo souse which I used for my dish :)

 

Walden Farm's products are another diet-savers. 
These are no fat, little carb souses (they are also sweet dips) which makes my cutting life tastier. 
Sure, it is not natural and definately it is not a 'clean food', but if you treat it only as a addition to regular, clean food, it can make your diet dishes even more pleasurable :)

For my polish readers I can recommend this site with Walden Farm's offer in Poland.

For all peanut butter lovers

If you, same as me, struggling with unconditional love for peanut butter, this product is made for you - PB2. It is powdered, fat reduced, peanut butter. 

If you add a little water, you will get calories reduced peanut butter pasta. 
If you add a spoon to your protein shake, it will be thicken and with amazing peanut taste. 
It is also perfect for pancakes (use it together with flour), cookies and other pastry baking. 

I am totally in love with this products. OF course, it is not calorie free, but at least I can allow myself to eat that instead of normal peanut butter which is a total calorie bomb and I am never enough with only 1 spoon of it! ;)

You can order PB2 at MyRevolution's shop.

Hardangervidda/Flåm/Jotunheimen trip

As I promised, I am coming back with little update about my recent weekend trip.

As 17th of May is Norwegian national day and it is free, as well as 20th of May, we had all 4 days for ourselves! :)

the beginning of Hardangervidda - national tourist road

We started our trip from passing Hardangervidda - mountain plateau, which - on this time of the year - is still covered in snow and ice. 

Hardangervidda in the mid of may ;)

 Hardangervidda is an extraordinary place, which will be ever more special for me now <3

Stalheim hotel and mountains around it. Photo from visitnorway.com

Stalheim hotel was another destination on our trip. The view from hotels terrace is amazing, as well as the route down (Stelheimskleiva) - the steepest route in Europe!

view from Stalheim's hotel

grill on our way to next trip destination

 

marinated chicken was on the menu ;)

grilled chicken sandwich

Next 2 days we spend in wonderful small city Flåm, which is a Norway in a nutshell for me. 

 

Flåm in the evening

It has fiord, beautiful and high mountains around, little wooden houses and many mountain pathways for hiking, cycling and skiing. 

Up in the mountains with the view on Nærfiord

 We managed to take a proper mountain trip which took us few hours and was approximately 10km long. And found local brewery very welcoming the same evening :) 
We felt so good in Flåm and the weather was so amazing that we had to force ourselves to leave this hospitable place... :)

beautiful view from Stegastein

 Aurland's viewpoint (Stegastein) was the next on our tour. The weather was perfect for climbing up in the hills (with car this time) and admire Nærfiord from above.

grilled salmon - yummy!

grilled salmon menu :)

mighty Jotunheimen Mountains

Last, but not least, we crossed Jotunheimen - the highest mountain range in Norway. This was spectacular! But, I have to admit, very scary at the same time! We were there almost alone and the scope of mountains was even overwhelming! On passing mountain shelters, we met professional Alpinists who were discovering Jotunheimen Mountains by foot (and skies).

waterfall in Jotunheimen mountains

Despite it were only 4 days, I totally relaxed, charged my batteries and had a wonderful, and very emotional :), time. It was all about relax, chill, love, celebration and splurging! Like a proper vacations should be :)

first ice creams this year ;)

"Nordic's kitchen" ;)

Up to the fiords!

And finally moment I've waited for so long, has come! We are about to leave Oslo for few days for mountain trip. Fiords are waiting! :)

Due to weather conditions, our trip to Trolltunga has to be postponed. Actually, conditions are good, but for those who want to ski ;) we were more into hiking, but with 20cm of snow, it won't be possible until mid of June.

So, we are starting our adventure from visiting Flåm - the best place in whole Norway, which is a 'Norway in a nutshell' for me. It has fiord, mountains, little Norwegian houses and outstanding nature all around. We will take for sure some mounting trip from there, since spring has already came to that region.

We are all packed, have lot of food supplies and positive attitude. I am about to relax and enjoy Norway!

For all of you who wants to celebrate 17th of may (constitution day in Norway) with some extra shopping deal  - check out MyRevolution's great offer for upcoming 3 days: 

Qucik gym log

This week is special - first because of my birthday, secondly by a long weekend which starts tomorrow at 14 and lasts till Monday! :) 
We have a mountain/fiords trip scheduled and I really can't wait until we seat in the car an run off from Oslo


That is why my last days were intensive with trainings - from Sunday I made each day a gym day, keeping in mind that on weekend time I will only have mountain activities, chilling and sunbathing :)

Today was my leg day. Despite little laziness, I went to my local gym and made it a great workout. 
Last weeks I prefer to train at gym near my home, with more modern gym that the one I work in. The other factor is that in the new one, no one knows me, so it is very easy to focus on training.

cable leg kickback

Today's training consisted with:

* squats
* bulgarian lunges
* standing calf raises
* lying leg curls
* hanging leg raises
* cable leg kickback
* crunches with weight