Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

A salad is a convenient, easy and affordable way to work in several servings of nutrient-packed vegetables into your daily diet. Vegetables act as a low calorie vehicle to deliver fiber, antioxidants, an abundance of vitamins and minerals and satiating power into your daily diet to support hormonal, immune system and metabolic health. When constructing the perfect salad, it's important to differentiate between eating a salad as part of a meal versus eating a salad as the main component of the meal. As an example, if you are having a sandwich, you may have a "side" salad with the meal. But for many people, a salad is the main part of the meal. From a nutrition perspective, when creating a salad that acts as the main component of your meal there are a few tips to ensure that your salad is well-balanced. Keep in mind that a balanced diet is one that meets your individual needs taking into consideration your food choices, ethics, finances, culture and so much more. There is n...

With warmer weather in your near future (fingers crossed), you may be looking to enjoy a meal or two outside. Whether it's a family backyard cookout or a picnic with a friend at the local park, here are a few tips to keep your picnic meal nutritious and safe. If you plan to be outside for several hours, choose foods that won't melt or spoil easily. Good options include raw or cooked firm vegetables, chopped fruit, cooked grains, cold pasta salad, beans, popcorn, pretzels, hummus and trail mix.  Consider going meatless with plant proteins that hold up well in hot conditions. Options include beans, lentils, tofu or tempeh. You can mix into a beautiful salad or your go-to grain dishes.  For a savory-sweet dessert, consider cheese alongside dried and fresh fruit. Don't forget to hydrate. To limit individual plastic water bottles, have everyone at your picnic bring/carry their own reusable insulated water bottle.  When grilling, consider heart-healthy options like fi...

If you are looking for tips to eating healthier or getting your diet back on track after overeating, I have one best tip for you: Meal Prep. Before you start another busy week of life, set aside time today to prepare a few meals (or meal components). Let's get real - when you are completely exhausted, pressed for time, hungry and tired, the last thing you want to do (and will do) is spend time preparing a meal. This is why prep is key. Do the extra work now so that later, it's easy to properly nourish and fuel yourself. I prepared a delicious salad for Thanksgiving and thought it would make the perfect prep/plan ahead salad for your upcoming week. The best part is the dressing! Pomegranate Kale salad with Lemon Tahini dressing Ingredients Salad 6 cups rinsed and chopped kale Seeds of 1 pomegranate 1 large mango, chopped (or 2 small pears) 1/2 cup chopped pistachios Dressing 1/4 cup lemon juice 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar 1/2 cup tahini 3 tbsp GF tamari sauce 3 small cl...

Almost every day of the week (minus my long workout days), I have a big beautiful salad for a meal. Typically, my salad meal occurs at lunchtime as it is far out between my morning and evening workout, which allows for adequate digestion time due to all of the roughage in the meal. A salad is a super, convenient, easy and affordable way to work in a few servings of vegetables into your daily diet. I won't mention all of the health benefits that come from a plant strong diet but for athletes, vegetables act as a low calorie method to pack in fiber, antioxidants and an abundance of vitamins and minerals into your daily diet, to support proper immune system functioning while optimizing metabolic and hormonal health. When constructing the perfect salad, we must differentiate between eating a salad as part of a meal versus eating a salad as the main component of the meal. As I mentioned above, most days during the week, a salad is my lunch meal but on my longer workout days, when ene...

I'm not a fan of fad diets that promise "too good to be true" health or weight loss results or require extreme, restrictive eating choices but I'm all about food trends that encourage healthy eating. If it wasn't for food trends, you probably wouldn't be eating so much kale, avocados or chia seeds! If you've been a long-time  Trimarni  follower on Facebook or Instagram, you've probably noticed that most of my meals are eaten from bowls. Well, wouldn't you know that it is now trendy to eat a meal out of a bowl??? I love the idea of eating out of a bowl for several reasons: -Flavors are enhanced when combined -You can incorporate a variety of nutrients into one dish -You can see what you love to eat -You can hide what you don't like to eat -You are forced to sit down and eat with silverware When I plan meals, I always focus on a template for every meal: -Plants (fruits or veggies) -Protein -Starch or grain -Fat Withou...

With so many food options available to consumers, there's really no reason why meal time should be an unhappy time.  If we ever eat together, you'll notice that I yum a lot. Food makes me happy, especially when it is real food. I love the taste when ingredients come together and I love exciting my taste buds with new or recently introduced ingredients end up on my plate.  Almost every day, I make myself a salad for lunch. Occasionally it is a warm salad (stir-fry) but I typically make a raw salad loaded with vitamins and minerals combined with a grain and vegetarian protein. I find that lunch is the best time for me to load up on veggies as I typically work out in the morning and evening and I don't prefer a lot of roughage after an evening workout and I recover best with a nice mix of carbohydrates (fresh bread, oats, homemade granola, raisins, fruits) and protein (eggs, yogurt or whey protein and milk) for my post workout morning meal. (I always eat before ...

 No surprise. Food is a BIG part of our life right now. With so much sport nutrition being consumed during workouts, every meal is focused on nourishing our body with real food.  Here are a few of my daily eats today.... With two workouts on the training plan today (70 min AM run - strong up hills, everything else steady. 4200 PM swim. MS 12 x 200's desc 1-3), I find no trouble in consuming nutrition before my workouts. Never do I train without a pre-workout snack. Pre workout nutrition made simple for your busy life and your gut.  Choose your low residue carbohydrate base (from left to right: pita, wasa, banana, saltines, rice cake) and then dress it up with additional carbs from syrup, honey, raisins or dates. For longer workouts or more time to digest, add a little nut butter or cream cheese.   This works great for early morning workouts as well as evening workouts.   I'm not big on food rules but you owe it to your health to eat a s...

It's nice to be back in Greenville, SC after our 9 day, Boulder  train-cation  and it's even better to have a few days of low volume/low intensity training to recover from all that training stress.  We did a lot of eating out while we were in Boulder. So you know what that means, right? Diet?  Not us! Cleanse/Fast? Never! Go low carb? Absolutely not. We love bread! Be inspired? YEP!!! In Boulder, there was no shortage of restaurants that offered a variety of vegetarian options for me but also kept us well-fueled with all of our training.  With all that eating out, there were many opportunities to be inspired. I firmly believe that we should always feel great when we eat - no matter where we eat or what we eat. It is your choice as to what you choose to put inside your body that you may as well choose food that makes you yum (yumming out loud is totally acceptable).  For our last dinner in Boulder, we went to  Pizzeria Locale  with...

Today's workout required a lot of mental focus, strength, fuel and well, a really strong body. I can't believe that I will be racing my first key race of the season here in two weeks at Challenge Knoxville ! Karel and I will both be racing and we are excited to race a Challenge event and explore Knoxville by swimming, biking and running in the city.                                                                                                                                I had no time for pictures this morning so I am sharing a few pics from earlier this week (including the pic above from climbing up and over and then up and over again on Paris Mountain). This ...

A salad:  "A dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar, or other dressing and sometimes accompanied by meat, fish, or other ingredients." I realize that for some, the thought of eating only veggies for a meal is boring but for others, the thought of eating only veggies for a meal is satisfying. If you love veggies, you are probably smiling right now thinking of veggies whereas those who have yet to appreciate veggies, are cringing at the thought of eating those crunchy, tasteless food stuffs.  Plants are Mother Earth's best sources of vitamins and minerals so consider them to be the most delicious way that you can take a multi-vitamin.  What's not to love about a salad?  The beauty of a salad is that YOU can create a meal that leaves you and your tummy happy.  Essentially it is a plant-strong meal but you can dress it up however you want.  As a 22-year lacto-ovo vegetarian, you'd ...

We are off to Madison, Wisconsin tomorrow!!  The weather is looking GREAT for race day and our bodies are feeling healthy thanks to a lot of great, delicious, real food! I thought I'd share a few yummy creations that we have enjoyed over the past 2 weeks.  Don't forget to yum! Chia crepes and egg and kale omelet 1 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup skim milk 2 tbsp chia seeds 1/8 tsp salt Dash of cinnamon 3/4 - 1 cup water 1 egg Olive oil 1. Mix ingredients in bowl for crepes until thin consistency.  2. In a medium skillet on low heat, drizzle olive oil to lightly coat bottom of the pan.  3. Pour crepes (around 1/3 cup) in middle of skillet and spread to make a large, thin pancake with back of spoon (you need to do this quickly and your pan can not be hot, it needs to be on the low setting. You may also use this batter for pancakes).  4. Cook for 1-2 minutes until firm on edges, then flip and cook for 1 minute.  Omelet 1 ...

The other day, someone asked me what I eat when I am really busy. I suppose I needed to give the reply of what fast food I order out or what's my favorite microwave dinner when I have no time to cook. Now, there's always an exception as I do not believe that there is a perfect way of eating but you will not find a microwave dinner in our freezer and Karel and I rarely (less than 5 times a year) go out to eat (unless we are traveling).  This doesn't mean I am good and you are bad but there's a reason why I wanted to write this blog.  I absolutely love real food and I make time to cook, even in my busy lifestyle. I know you can do it too. It's a lot easier than you think. You, me.....we are all busy. Who isn't busy? If there were more hours in the day, we would find a way to fill those up as well.  But it is because of my/your health that we are able to thrive in a world of craziness, business and never ending to do's.  The foo...