Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

( Source) Meal planning is a genius idea. Prepare your meals and snacks on Sunday and you have every meal ready for the entire week. What a time savor! No chopping, shopping, prepping or cooking needed each day to give you so much "free" time to do what you want/need to do and still come home to a healthy meal. As great as this looks, this wouldn't work for me. I need a lot of variety in my diet or else my taste buds get bored.  Plus, my workout routine is constantly changing, with different workouts putting a different stress on my body every day. And lastly, I love to cook, I work from home, I know how to match my metabolic/health needs with my diet and I have the time to cook every day.  But that's me.  What about you?  When it comes to healthy eating and feeling control over what you put inside your body, planning your meals and snacks is a key to success.  Anytime you go too long without eating, let your blood sugar drop, wor...

Getting together with friends and making new friends is so much fun, especially when food is involved. I love being inspired by new creations, flavors and recipes when I eat outside my home and I saw my past "Girls night, appetizer night" as a great opportunity to yum over new creations.  I brought cucumber bites (pic above) with fresh sliced tomato and part-skim mozzarella cheese (and a sprinkle of salt) on top. I absolutely love the crunch of cucumber with the savory taste of mozarella. It's been a go-to pre-meal snack for me lately.  Here are two other appetizers from the evening:  How cute are these Santa kabobs?? Perfect for kiddos - and adults who love to say "awww" when they eat. Grapes, banana, strawberries and a marshmallow on top.  And these apricot, feta cheese and pistachio bites excited my taste buds. I just love dried apricots and the added crunch of pistachios along with the salty punch of feta was amazing.  Not pictured...

You work hard. You take care of other people. You are always busy. What about yourself? Where's your ME time? Sometimes it is not even about making or finding time. It can be hard to even think about yourself when you are exhausted from everyday, life to-do's. Are you still carrying along the same excuses that you have been telling yourself week after week, month after month, year after year. Too busy to shop, too busy to cook, too busy to meal prep, too busy to eat.  I bet if you had more time, you would find a way to fill that time in with more stuff that would keep you "too busy". When it comes to your health, nothing could be more important than making time to nourish your body throughout the day. From the moment you get up to when you lay down to sleep, you should not find yourself pushing your meals and snacks to the side just because you are too busy, too tired, too exhausted or too ______ (insert your typical reason to not make you...

I saw this quote and it instantly took me back to the two busiest times in my adult life: Graduate school (2004-2006) Dietetic internship (2011) When I was in graduate school, I was dipping my toes into the sport of triathlon but mostly because I was fresh out of college and missed competitive swimming. I thought of myself more of a runner during graduate school as it made the most sense as I didn't have a lot of time or money (and didn't know much about the sport of triathlons).  Throughout my 10-month dietetic internship, I found myself in the middle of two Ironmans - IMWI and Kona. Talk about time and stress management! Sometimes I failed miserably at both of these, often at the same time.  Thinking back to these two very busy, expensive, stressful and emotionally draining times in my life, I certainly had to make some extreme sacrifices with my lifestyle. It wasn't just that I didn't have flexible time to train due to 10+ hour school/interning...

Frustration, stress, fear, anger, disappointment, insecurity. Food restriction, in an effort to change your body, will not fix emotional issues. Do not make your body a target when you are having a bad day, an off moment or things just don't seem to be going well. Do not take your emotions out on your body. The only way you can get through life is WITH your body. Give it a thank you every now and then. Starting now.

As I mentioned in my last blog, recovery nutrition is important in the foundation phase, as it will help to kick-start the recovery process soon after your workout is complete. But you do not have to be super scientific and strict with what, how much and when you eat. Remember -  recovery is everything and anything that happens between two workouts and right now in your season, you want to create eating habits that make your body feel good all day long, so that you can maintain a consistent training regime (balanced with your busy lifestyle). By working on your  daily diet right now, you will set yourself up for great eating habits later on in your season when your training volume and intensity increase.   Here are three recovery meals that kept me training consistently last week. (I had a pre-workout carbohydrate snack before all workouts and water during the workouts) Swim Workout:  400 swim 400 buoy Pre set: 8 x 50's kick w/ fins (on back). 10 sec res...

I found this slide on the internet and I find it to be so true for athletes. We all want to maximize our performance and we can do so through training, rest and recovery and nutrition.  Athletes know the importance of good recovery nutrition after a workout as what we eat can help reduce muscle soreness, replenish muscle glycogen, reduce oxidative stress and support the immune system. Four to six weeks out from a key event and we certainly do not want to go into a workout with lingering fatigue and a tired, dehydrated and glycogen depleted body from poor recovery from a preceding workout.  Nutrient timing is an important topic as it is a strategy to help athletes consume a combination of macronutrients (typically protein and carbs) to help rebuild muscle tissue and to restock energy stores after a workout to ensure quick recovery and to keep the body in good health. Perhaps you know this time as the "window of opportunity" to optimize training-induced ada...