How to prosper with your goals

January is for making resolutions.
February, for most, is about giving up on them.
What about if we took March back from feeling guilty and got better goals?

Here's are a few way to take back this month to MARCH FORWARD in life, whether your goals are health related or not.

1. Instead of sprinting into the year and burning out by the second quarter, make smaller, positive goals. For instance, instead of swearing off all sugar, aim for swapping sweets with sensible solutions or making a better goal like eating a healthy lunch so you don't get hungry for afternoon treats. Better goals are smart: specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable and time-bound. For instance, instead of "I'm not going to eat sugar," saying "I am going to eat high fiber cereal before I leave for work so that I don't stop at Starbucks and buy a scone." If you'd like the Sweet Swap List you can download it here.

2. Share your goals with a friend. This makes it alot more fun and makes you more likely to achieve them. Studies show that verbalizing a goal to a friend makes you 50% more likely to succeed.

3. Aim for prospering. Prospering has two root meanings: to make successful AND to flourish and grow strong and healthy.

4. Write down your goals beyond the problem and visualize how you will think, feel, look and be different; then, place it somewhere you will see every day.  This is an exercise I learned from Marie Forleo, the business coach I've learned a lot from. Here's a video from her on goal setting with soul.


March can be all about making forward progress. No need to get down on yourself or make grandiose gestures: goals that come from the soul usually are much better and find much great traction.
If you feel like sharing your specific goal, jump over to my Facebook page

TTYL,
Nora

Longing for Spring? Try this Spring Leek Soup

We can long for spring today, while the snow is falling.

Why not make something green? This Winter Green Leek Soup from my upcoming Spring Meal Plan has been fantastic!

Leeks are rich with soluble fiber, also known as inulin, which is a powerful prebiotic. Prebiotics feed healthy bacteria that grow in our gut microbiome. We need about 20-30 grams of fiber each day-- from both soluble (soft) and insoluble (adds bulk.) While fiber may be largely undigestible, we do know that the bacteria in our gut feed off of soluble fiber to create healthy microbiome balance.

This soup is a quick fix to get that dose of fiber, while brightening the palate with a pop of dill + providing relief from the weary, dreary winter with it's bright green color.


This soup has a dose of fiber both from the leeks and the peas.

With only six ingredients, it is quick and simple to assemble.

It is satisfying both in its chunky and pureed forms: for added flavor I like to put a little extra dill sprinkle on the top.



 Recipe
1 tb butter or olive oil
2 leeks, thinly sliced
3 green onions, thinly sliced
2 cups frozen peas 
1 qt vegetable or bone broth
2 tb fresh dill
. 
Sauté leeks and onion in butter until soft over medium heat in a medium saucepan. Add peas and broth and cook for 10-12 minutes. Add fresh dill salt and pepper. Purée. . . .

For more recipes like this, check out a full list of the recipes in the Spring Meal Plan here.

SPRING LEEK SOUP

By NORA SHANK NUTRITION

This simple, high fiber soup is delicious and healthy with a bright pop of flavor from dill cooked in just 20 minutes from 6 simple ingredients

Prep time: 5 minutes, Cook time: 20 minutes, Total time: 25 minutes
Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients:
1 Tb butter
2 leeks, split, rinsed and thinly sliced
3 scallions, thinly sliced
2 cups peas (frozen is fine)
1 qt vegetable or bone broth
2 Tb fresh dill, minced
Salt and Pepper, to taste
Instructions:

INSTRUCTION

Melt butter over medium heat in a medium saucepan

Saute leeks and green onions until soft, for 8-10 minutes

Add peas and broth, then bring to a simmer, about 10 minutes

Season with salt and pepper to taste

Serve or blend first with an immersion or standing blender.

Sweet Treat Traps

I had a client today who was sad he didn't lose any weight today.

He didn't see it as a "win".

 " There was Valentine's Day, and then it was a special anniversary; and my spouse brings sweets home all the time." 

But after a week of many of these special treats, he didn't gain any weight. That's a win, friends.

When we eat well at other times, our bodies handle those extra calories with grace. This is the point of metabolic training with consistent meals and enough fiber and healthy fat at each of those meals--> it leads to flexibility.

 " I'm sure I've gained weight." 

The scale said the exact same number. The proof was there that even with all those extra treats, the body is able to maintain homeostasis. No weight gain.

You can drink. You can eat sweets. You can have treats. 

And still not gain weight.

 " I'm sure its because I've eaten too much sugar. Sugar makes you fat."

The problem isn't just in the sugar (which does cause problems to the metabolism overall)-- I believe the problem starts with our self-talk traps.  If we constantly create confusion about sugar between our willpower (sugar is bad, it makes me fat) and our body  (where we have created a loop of desire and satisfaction with sugar that has been repeated by thousands of positive/happy experiences and reinforced heavily by dopamine)

- Sugar is not a bad food that makes us fat. -

We must change the conversation inside of ourselves.

Once the conversation inside starts to shift, we can move away from a dieting mindset.

Who wants to live losing and gaining the same ten pounds over and over?

Here's a simple way to get off that merry-go-round:

1) Start noticing what negative things you say to yourself about food

2) Find a new phrase to use about sweets, like " I enjoy this food" 

3) Figure out the context for the craving (is it emotions, physical, medical, environment)

4) Feed your body with the right food.

How to feed your body when the craving comes? Here's a new handout called Sweet Swaps that will help guide you to make good choices so that you can get a handle on those cravings.

Sweet Swap Tips by Nora Shank, RD

Fight Time, I mean, Dinner Time

I want to go on strike.
To quit making dinner. Can we just go to Chick-fil-A?
This is not the dietitian talking.
This is the mom, who is tired to fighting to feed every single bite of healthy food into my children's mouths.

Maybe it's because I'm tired or pregnant, but our dinner time has become a major fight time with my two children. I attribute this all to the prolonged winter weather and record cold temperatures, and the lack of the ability to lock send my children outdoors before dinner.

There are stages where it is explainable, commonly known in the nutrition world as "food jags", when kids get stuck on certain preferred food items-- but what about all the other times?

A RDN (registered dietitian nutritionist) named Jill Castle, wrote a great series on feeding toddlers, as well as wonderful resource for raising healthy eaters through childhood. In her article, "Your Toddler's Development: What to Expect and How It Affects Nutrition" she says,

Toddler eating can worry parents. Understanding how the toddler develops, both physically and cognitively (fancy word for brain development), can help you get a grip on why your toddler behaves the way he does, especially around food and eating.

Instead of giving up, I try to remember that children use food as the first power play-- they are learning to exert their independence as well as using it as a power play with parents and the limits we set. My role is simple: make and offer healthy food choices and model good eating behaviors.

In agreement with Castle's guidelines, we have never had many "rules" for eating at the table, but we have structure and standards for manners like: sitting still and not getting up from the table until you are finished with your meals, saying "please" and "thank you for dinner", not complaining about the meal, and trying at least one bite of a food that is "not your favorite".

I think it has worked for the most part, but with our long winter, I've been relying on a lot of warm foods, like soups and stews, which seem to be particularly difficult for them to try, because they can't separate the ingredients.

My husband was so kind as to offer to help me make some freeze-ahead meals for the next month or two, so I started by writing a list of our children favorite meals.

Here's a snapshot of what I came up with:

For the full list, you can find it on my Pinterest page here.
I am going to get a shopping list and few of the recipes together and start posting them as I go and fill up my freezer again with some of the freeze-ahead versions and shopping lists.

Thanks for stopping by!

Comfort

Through a difficult week for many friends over the loss of a dear mother, friend and Warrior. She's blazed a trail for many mothers many years ago, having a career as a nurse, then getting married later, only to really enjoy having seven kids and raising them well. Her daughter blogs about her in a tribute. 

In the same week, there was a terrible accident at the high school I attended, where a teen girl was killed and another girl seriously injured.

The loss of those two beautiful women is striking and severe. We all must face loss in our life. We might not lose our mother or our friend or our daughter, but every day we must confront our own mortality and limitations.  

Grief isn't just over great loss, it can be experienced every single day.  We might see them as frustrations or disappointments. But they are losses. The kids break the radio. The meat you took out for dinner is bad. School is delayed two hours again. Our friend let us down. The struggles we face might seem simple in light of a greater loss, but we still have to ask   How do we move through grief?

Every person has their own way through; and if you are currently experiences, I pray you will find your way through the comforts of Christ. But you will have your own time, methods, pace, momentum and stalling. That is why I love poetry; because it is always a reflection of someone else's process. It reassures me that I am not alone in my experience, nor am I supposed to make it look a certain way.

Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet

From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low

Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so

Who art not missed by any that entreat.

Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet!

And if no precious gems my hands bestow,

Let my tears drop like amber while I go

In reach of thy divinest voice complete

In humanest affection -- thus, in sooth,

To lose the sense of losing. As a child,

Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore

Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth

Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled,

He sleeps the faster that he wept before. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

There is a way through, one where you reach a place of rest from your sorrows and disappointments. There will be a time when we will "lose our sense of losing." A small psalm understands the smallness we feel when we grieve: Psalm 131 gives us a simple image: that of a resting child.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;

my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord

from this time forth and forevermore.

As Browning writes, there will be a time when we will have sweet rest faster than the tears come down so quickly.