Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup

This past week I had so many after-work commitments, I knew it would be nearly impossible to make dinner most nights.  It was one of those crazy "I'm juggling 50 things at once" weeks, and I knew that the only way to make it work was to rely on my trusty crock pot.

In the past I would have driven through somewhere, or ordered food to go from a restaurant. I am so proud of our family for quitting the excuses and relying WAY less on take-out meals. It takes a bit more planning, but if you own a crock pot, it's really very easy to have a healthy, home-cooked meal ready for your family when you get home!

So this week we made minestrone soup. I love minestrone, and it is full of veggies, which works really well for the 21 Day Fix meal plan that I am currently following.  Plus, you can switch up what you serve with the soup to make different meals. The soup is great on it's own, or even better when paired with a nice salad, but our favorite is serving it with turkey and cheese panini's made in our panini press! However you decide to serve it, everyone is sure to love it.

Ingredients:
1 15 oz can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup shredded cabbage
1/2 cup sliced carrot
1/2 cup sliced celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes with basil, oregano and garlic
1 14 oz can beef broth (can use veggie broth if you want this to be a truly vegetarian dish)
3 cups water
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
8 oz fresh green beans, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 cup tiny whole wheat macaroni noodles
2 tbsp snipped fresh parsley
1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese (optional)

To make the soup:

In your slow cooker, place beans, cabbage, carrot, celery and onion. Stir in undrained tomatoes, broth, water, salt and pepper. Cover, cook on low setting for 8-10 hours or high setting for 4-5 hours.

If using low setting, turn to high. Stir green beans and macaroni noodles into soup mixture. Cover; cook for another 30 minutes.  Stir in parsley. Ladle into soup bowls. Sprinkle each serving with Parmesan cheese, if desired.  Enjoy!

My 20 Favorite Clean Eating Snacks

Since I started my journey to clean eating almost 10 months ago, I have incorporated snacks into my daily routine. That's because it's way better for our metabolism to eat 5-6 times a day instead of only 3. I was never a snacker before. I just ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. I really wasn't hungry between meals. But my metabolism was also slow as molasses. At first it was tough for me to remember to eat every 2.5-3 hours, so I had to set an alarm on my phone to remind me when it was snack time. But as soon as my metabolism started to increase, I no longer had to rely on anything but my hunger reminding me to eat. I am almost always hungry at snack time now, especially because my body is used to that schedule.

So you might be thinking that adding two snacks per day would only make you GAIN weight, since you'd be adding more calories. But NOPE! You aren't going to really add more calories, you will just be adjusting your meals to be fewer calories to accommodate for your snacks. Plus, if your metabolism starts to increase, you'll be burning more calories too. So, a few extra will not matter-- you'll come out even and never be hungry!

Honestly, in addition to helping you burn more calories more quickly, eating more often also prevents you from having that panicky "I'm starving" mentality when dinnertime does roll around. And we all know what happens when you start to feel your painfully empty stomach growling, your blood sugar drop, and your mood start to deteriorate-- you want to eat anything in site! Forget your plans to eat a healthy dinner! You start either gorging your face with whatever is closest (is that a Taco Bell over there?) or else you eat too fast and too much, resulting in that oh-so-familiar stuffed feeling that leaves you with the need to unbutton your pants. Ring a bell? I thought so.

So try it. Seriously, try it for a week. Try eating more often and see if you don't feel more energy without the blood sugar highs and lows. See if you don't have more control over eating healthy and sticking to proper portions. And see if you aren't more satisfied overall. But don't just snack on chips and cookies. That defeats the whole idea.

So what should you snack on? Here is a list of my 20 favorite clean eating snacks. I always include a protein and a complex carbohydrate so that my body takes longer to process the carbs, resulting in fewer blood sugar spikes. The protein is also more satisfying, meaning you will stay full longer.

1. apple slices dipped into 2 Tbsp natural peanut butter
2. strawberries and 12 cashews
3. cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes dipped into hummus
4. nonfat plain greek yogurt with mixed berries and 1 tsp honey
5. string cheese and handful of grapes
6. 2 hardboiled eggs with the yolks removed, filled with hummus
7. Ak-Mak crackers topped with turkey and cheese
8. 1 piece of Ezekial toast topped with natural peanut butter and 1/2 banana sliced
9. celery sticks stuffed with either natural peanut or almond butter and topped with raisins and cinnamon
10. Lara Bars (my fave is apple pie)
11. Quest Bars (my faves are chocolate chip cookie dough and strawberry cheesecake)
12. Trader Joe's spicy egg white salad with 5 whole grain crackers
13. romaine lettuce leaves wrapped around turkey, avocado and bell pepper slices
14. mini sweet peppers dipped in guacamole
15. 1 cup edamame salad (shelled edamame, corn, black beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers all tossed in a mixture of olive oil, lime juice, cilantro and cumin)
16. 2 no bake peanut butter oatmeal energy balls 

17. Shakeology

18. veggies dipped into ranch or onion dip made with greek yogurt (instead of sour cream)
19. 1 cup quinoa strawberry feta salad

20. frozen banana/peanut butter "sandwiches"

I hope that some of these snack ideas are helpful to you! What would you add to this list?

What is the 21 Day Fix?

Maybe you've heard about the newest Beachbody workout program launching this month, The 21 Day Fix, and maybe you haven't. Either way, you are about to hear about it all over the place, because this is going to be REVOLUTIONARY! I am so excited to get this program and experience it for myself, and I'm even more excited to watch others go through it with me and get amazing results!

What is 21 Day Fix? 21 Day Fix is THE fitness and nutrition program to help you lose up to 15 pounds in 21 days. The unique nutrition plan uses specifically portioned food storage containers that eliminate the guesswork from portion control - no weighing, measuring, or counting calories, carbs or points. If it fits in the container, you can eat it. And you'll lose weight.

The 21 Day Fix is different from any other Beachbody program because it includes color coded food containers that regulate your portion control. What does this mean? It means all of the guesswork about nutrition and portions is taken away, and you are left with an easy-to-follow, simple guideline that will ensure you maximize your results. No counting calories, no foods off limits! Yes, that's right, you can even have some chocolate and wine! If it fits into the container, you can eat it. If it doesn't, you can't. It's that simple. There are containers for each food group (veggies, fruits, protein, carbs, fats, etc.) and then a plan for how many of those containers you can eat in a day, based on your current weight. How easy is that? And of course you get to keep the containers forever, so you can continue to monitor your portion control until it becomes second nature. 

The program also includes seven 30 minute workouts, including: 

• Dirty 30 workout (a bootcamp circuit style workout)
• Total Body Cardio Fix
• Upper Fix
• Lower Fix
• Pilates Fix
• Cardio Fix
• Yoga Fix

So every single day of the week is a different workout, giving your body a total makeover through muscle confusion and variety. And every single workout is only 30 minutes, so you don't have to spend a lot of time to get great results! 

Everyone can do 21 Day Fix and get great results. Each workout has a modifier to show easier moves. The test groups included fit people as well as people with 100+ pounds to lose, to be sure that anyone could be successful with this program. If you are already in great shape, you will follow the advanced moves. If not, you'll rely on the modifier. No matter what, the 21 Day Fix has an option for you.

The 21 Day Fix was created by Autumn Calebrese, a fitness trainer, a competitve bikini model and single mom who knows exactly what it takes to be successful, even with a very busy schedule.  Autumn came up with the idea of the program one day after going out to lunch with a friend who was struggling to lose weight. This friend was working out and eating healthy foods, so she wasn't sure why she was struggling. At lunch, both Autumn and her friend ordered a very healthy salad, but when it was brought to the table, it was huge. While Autumn ate about 1/3 of her salad, her friend finished the whole thing. That's when it hit her like a ton of bricks: portion control is the issue! You can overeat on  healthy foods too! Thus, the 21 Day Fix was born. 

Autumn has said from her test group results that people can expect to lose 10-15 pounds in just 21 days if they stick to the workouts and the eating plan. How amazing is that? It may sound unhealthy to lose so much weight in so little time, but this plan is so well designed that it ensures you are getting proper nutrition and exercise so that you lose weight in a very healthy way. Plus, the plan incorporates Shakeology, which means that you are getting your daily dose of dense nutrition as well.  

Why 21 Days? 

It is said that it takes 21 days to develop a new habit. So in the three weeks that you complete this program, you will be on  your way to maintaining that healthy lifestyle permanently. Of course you can continue to repeat the 21 day fix many times, as well. As a matter of fact, some of the test group members repeated the program numerous times to lose up to 45 pounds!

Honestly, there is no other program out there like this. If you are ready to see amazing results in just three weeks, contact me to join my exclusive test group starting on February 17th. You will get the 7 workouts, the portion control containers, the eating plan, Shakeology and of course the support and motivation of me as your coach! I will NOT let you fail! Together we will change your body, your nutrition, and your life. 

Message me below or contact me at danarsimon@gmail.com to get started!