The Secret to Getting Fruit on a Budget

The secret to getting fruits on a budget; smoothies! I know fruits and veggies can be expensive and often break the budget. Especially if you try to buy organic. One secret that I share with all of my clients is to buy fruit in bulk. People always think I'm joking when I say this because fruit is notorious for going bad quickly. The exception: freezing it.

When fruit is in season, it is cheaper because there is an abundance of it. Usually your grocery store will have deals during this time. My grocery store always has a 2 for the price of 1 deal whenever they have an over abundance of fruits. Whenever I see these sales I jump on it and really take advantage. Whether it's berries, apples, oranges, grapefruits, melons, or pineapple. All of these make great smoothies later on. 

When I get home from the grocery, I cut up the extra fruit, separate it, throw it into containers, and put them in the freezer. Later, I can take out a container, dump the contents directly into the blender, add some water, OJ, or yogurt (depending on your preference) and there you go! I love making smoothies at night, and saving them for breakfast that next morning. This is a great option when you know you have a busy morning the next day, so that you don't end up skipping breakfast all together.

Smoothies are great for a couple of reasons: 

1. When you freeze fresh fruit, you keep all the vitamins and nutrients frozen in the fruit. This means that the fruit is still jammed packed with great benefits months later when you have it in your smoothie. 

2. Frozen fruit that is packaged at the store, is often just as expensive, or more expensive than fresh fruit. It is so much cheaper to buy fruit in bulk and store it yourself.

3. Smoothies are a great way to mix up your normal routine. If apples aren't in season, but you're really craving them, pull some out of your freezer and make a smoothie!

For more information on buying food on a budget, or smoothie recipes visit my website www.abbyshroka.com or contact me directly at abby.shroka@gmail.com Please contact me with recipes of your own too! I love to hear how people are finding new ways to eat healthy!

No More Wine - 30 day Challenge (eek!!)

I LOVE red wine! In my opinion, it goes with everything. All food is better with a little red wine on the side. The way that it brings out the flavor in food... mm my mouth is watering just typing this. Don't even get me started on drinking wine while eating chocolate. There is nothing better with dark chocolate than a glass of red wine. I like to go wine tasting, I like to drink while I cook, I like to cook with wine; I'm not addicted I swear! I'm very strict with myself about sticking to one glass a day. (this is my personal justification of course, but still a good rule of thumb)

Alot of people ask me my opinion of alcohol, specifically red wine, when they hear that I am a health coach. I have no perfect answer that works for everyone, but I have some general information that is very interesting:

1. Italians drink far more red wine than Americans and Germans drink far more beer than Americans. Both countries have less heart disease, obesity, and diabetes compared to America. 

2. Alcohol is empty calories in the body. This means that you get NO energy, vitamins, minerals, or nutrients from alcohol. All it does is turn into fat.

3. Wine decreases your risk of heart disease, but increases your risk for breast cancer

Basically, these facts prove that alcohol effects everyone differently, and there are pros and cons to drinking it. Because we as humans love to justify our actions by focusing solely on the bonuses that alcohol gives, it led me to my 30 day challenge. 

I never ever give rules and restrictions when it comes to nutrition and diet plans. Let's face it, no diet ever works long term when you are forced to cut out all of your favorite foods and drink nothing but water. However, there is one exception. I do encourage everyone to set up rules when it comes to drinking. These should be your own rules that are based on how you feel when drinking alcohol. When you start to feel the negative effects of alcohol, that means it's time to stop. This includes headaches, stomach aches, dizziness etc. These signs are your body's way of telling you that the alcohol you're consuming is starting to negatively affect your health. (Nevermind the fact that you're also probably on the verge of doing or saying something stupid as well). These physical negative effects include dehydration, organs being overworked, blood sugar crashing etc. 

My rules for drinking include:

1. No more than one glass of wine a day. This means that if I am going to have chocolate dessert after dinner, I have to decide if I want my glass with dinner, dessert, or split it and have a little for both.

2. Don't drink more than 5 times per week. It's always good to give your organs a break. Even if you are drinking in moderation

3. Take a solid month off once a year to fully detox and recharge my body.

So, it is that time of the year where I'm going to take a month off to detox and recharge. I have vowed (as of yesterday) to not drink any wine until October 1st. (yes I know this is more than 30 days, just deal with it). There is one exception, I am going to a wedding in the middle of September, and I will be drinking there, because it's a special occasion. (again, we humans are great at justifying everything)

I will continue blogging about my month long hiatus to let you know how I'm doing! Hopefully I have encouraged others to make some "alcohol rules" as well.

Dad's Specialty

Whenever my mom was gone overnight, my dad would always make us french toast. Even though this is a breakfast meal, he would always make it for dinner. If mom was gone for multiple nights, we would start to complain on the third or fourth day because we were tired of french toast, so he would order pizza. At some point, I developed a hatred for french toast because my dad would make it so much. I recently tried french toast again, for the first time in almost 10 years and it was quite delicious (I haven't told my dad this of course, he still thinks I hate it) Below is the recipe. Feel free to try it, just don't feed it to your kids over and over again.

French Toast
-2 eggs, beat lightly in a bowl
-soak bread in eggs on both sides
-fry bread on stove on low heat

This breakfast is full of protein and carbs! Add some fruit, grapefruit, strawberries, watermelon, cantelope, and you have a heart healthy breakfast.

Heart Healthy Breakfast Recipe

I love eating a big breakfast. It is the best way to start out the day. Lucky for me, my mom always made breakfast a priority in my house. These days, I try to continue what my mom started by making time to eat a heart healthy breakfast everyday. Below is my favorite breakfast meal. Throughout the next week, I will post more of my favorite breakfast meals for you all. I hope that you will try some of these meals for yourself, and if you have some heart healthy meals of your own to share with me, email me at abby.shroka@gmail.com I love trying new breakfast meals!!

Eggs, Bacon, and a few Veggies
-3 eggs scrambled
-1/2 of a green pepper chopped
-mushrooms, sliced
-moderate amounts of onion (totally depends on your preference)
-spinach/kale, chopped (whichever you prefer)
-2 strips of bacon
-1/2 of a grapefruit

If you're a tomato lover (I am not) you can add some diced tomatoes in there as well. The key is to pick some veggies that you like. Eating veggies at breakfast is soo healthy, and a great way to start out your day! Whenever I have veggies for breakfast I have so much more energy throughout the day. I usually have this meal on Thursdays. Thursdays are hard days because I am always exhausted from the long week I've had so far, and yet the week is still not over!! Try this breakfast on Thursday this week. It will really help you.

Hint: Cut up the grapefruit (or fruit of choice, sometimes I have strawberries instead) and the veggies the night before, so that all you have to do is scramble the eggs and make the bacon the morning of. This will save you alot of time. (I have problems getting up in the morning as you can tell. Anything that helps me get a few extra minutes sleep is welcome) Stay tuned for more breakfast recipes!

Gold Old Vitamin D

I LOVE the sun. Most people who know me, know that this is true. Feeling the sun's rays on my face can instantly lift my spirit. I love being in the sun, or even looking at the sun. No, I don't mean directly staring up at the sun, but looking out at the bright sunny weather. So, I guess I should have said that I like natural light. Anyways, I usually lay out by our community pool on the weekends. It's one of those weekend indulgences that I try to reward myself with after a long week of work. This past weekend, I was laying out for my usual 40 minutes, 20 minutes on each side, and I just didn't want to go in once my 40 minutes were up. I've built up a pretty good tan, so I wasn't a bit worried about getting burnt, and I was really into the book I was reading and didn't want to put it down to go back inside. So I stayed out an additional 30 minutes. Of course you know what is coming next.

I got burnt, and not the burnt that turns into a tan the next day, but the burnt that I have to put lotion on myself twice a day for three days straight so that I can avoid peeling. Oops. I know better by now. Part of the reason I got burnt is because I haven't been wearing sunscreen for the past 6 months or so (I really hope no dermatologists read this). I do wear sunscreen on my face every single day to avoid wrinkles, but other than that I don't wear it.

The reason why I don't wear sunscreen is because you can't absorb vitamin D when you wear sunscreen, and vitamin D is so important. It helps your body absorb calcium, fight off diabetes, prevent depression, and much more. I think this is a pretty good justification. However, it is just that, a JUSTIFICATION. I probably will be singing a different tune if I get skin cancer someday right? We use justifications all the time when we don't want to do something, like exercise or eat our fruits and veggies. "I'm too tired to exercise," or "fruits and veggies are just so expensive," or "I'm too busy," or "I don't like it." Well, sorry everyone, but these justifications are just as bad as my justification about not wanting to wear sunscreen.

Face Your Wake Up Call

I had another sleepless night last night. I thought about getting out of bed to write this blog in the middle of the night, since I wasn't sleeping anyways.. oh the irony! As I've shared, sleepless nights have been haunting me lately, and I have tried all of the remedies that I know of to help me. I've stayed away from caffeine at night and started exercising more routinely, but it's not helping. I'm tired, I'm frustrated, and I need some sleep!! My health is going to suffer when I don't sleep, not just physically but mentally. For me, it is mentally exhausting to try and fight the yawning, and push the tired feeling out of my mind. I also get headaches when I don't sleep, which are draining mentally and physically as well. It is just great to have that constant reminder throbbing in my mind :(

I guess it is somewhat of a comfort to know that ALOT of other people have been there and that this is a very common problem, so I'm not alone. It is an even bigger comfort to know that this to shall pass. I have battled, and conquered, sleepless nights in the past.

So when the physical remedies don't work, that means that it is time for self reflection. This is where people get stuck, and the occasional sleepless nights turn into chronic sleepless nights. Isn't that crazy, that we would rather have insomnia than face our problems and do some self reflecting? Well not really, since self reflecting is scary, and often produces things that we have tried so hard to hide. So, I have to take my own advice and do some self reflection. For self reflection, ask yourself three questions, "what do I lay awake all night thinking about?" "What are my biggest fears right now" and "What are my biggest regrets right now?" Usually one of these three questions doesn't apply at the time, but if you are honest with yourself in answering them, you will figure out what is keeping you awake all night. Here goes...

What do I lay awake all night thinking about? For me it's my new business. I lay awake thinking about all of the things that I didn't get done that day. Nevermind the 2 million things I did get done, I choose to focus on the ten things I didn't get done. This is obviously a problem. I also lay awake scheming and strategizing different marketing tools that I haven't tried yet. I analyze in my head if it will work, how it will work, when it will work etc. This problem seems easy enough to fix at least. Schedule some time during the day to brainstorm new ideas. Time? What time? Ahh! Most often though, I lay awake at night thinking about all of the marketing strategies that I'm currently using to grow my business. Are they working? Are they working well enough? How can I tweak them so that they'll work better? How long should I try this strategy before moving on? You get the idea...

What are my biggest fears right now? Money obviously, since I quit my salaried job to start my own business. The second is that I will fail at this. I think every new business owner fears failure. I hear all this stuff about a bad economy and lack of security, tons of negative reinforcement is out there in the world. I know I have an extremely valuable service to offer, and I know this is going to work out in my heart of hearts, but I also know that these fears will be here for awhile. That is part of being a new business owner.

For me, it is clearly the first question that is keeping me up all night. I have to find time to brainstorm during the day. I also have to find peace with myself for the things I was able to accomplish in one day, and remind myself that there is always tomorrow to worry about that.

So now, I challenge all of you to do some self reflection of your own. Come on, if I can do it on a public (!) blog, then you can do it for yourself!

Fix Your Wake Up Call

For the past week, I've had some sleepless nights. The snooze button on my alarm has been my best friend until I get up, and then that best friend is replaced with the coffee pot. By now, I've learned that when I don't sleep, it is because I'm worrying. My fears and doubts are practically shouting at me from inside my head, and I can no longer escape them in order to fall into a blissful sleep.


Because I have battled with sleepless nights before, I know some tricks that help me get back to that peaceful sleep that I'm missing so much. 
1. Exercise! No, this doesn't mean that you should get out of bed in the middle of the night and do some jumping jacks. That will definitely NOT help you fall asleep. What I am saying is that you will sleep much better when you are on a scheduled exercise routine. Yes, I know, you have no time or energy to exercise amidst your busy schedule, but I promise promise promise that having a regular exercise routine will help you have a more regular sleep routine
2. Stay away from caffeine towards the end of your day. This one seems like a no brainer, but caffeine can affect all of us differently. For me, I need to eat a solid meal AFTER having caffeine in order to sleep well at night. This means no caffeine for me with dinner, or after dinner. This is something that each person must experiment with.
3. Pray. This one works really well when I'm laying awake worrying about things that I can't control. There is nothing more frustrating then laying awake worrying about something that I know I can't do anything about. Like worrying about an upcoming big move (say to Cali)! Giving this worry over to God is the only thing to do, and it really helps!


Sometimes, even these tricks don't work. I have been trying all of these tricks lately, and none of them have been working. When these tricks don't work, that means that my "3am sweats" aren't the cause of any physical problem. It means that it is time to face my wake up call. Stay tuned!