Author: Lisa Hopp

Get Control Of Meal Preparation By Prepping Ahead

Posted on April 5, 2015January 8, 2020 by Lisa Hopp

Facing the task of preparing a meal after a long day of work can be overwhelming. Preparing a meal in a slow cooker or relying on frozen meals from the grocery store are commonly used alternatives. Another way to reduce the overwhelm is to break the meal preparation into steps and prep-ahead all or parts of the meal.

Review the meal and identify what you can prep the night before. Are there vegetables that need chopping? Is there meat that can be prepared the night before and just reheated the next day? Or maybe there’s a sauce you can prepare the night before.

Chicken Breasts:

For salads or pasta, bake and cut up chicken breasts the night before and place in refrigerator or prepare several and place in the freezer for future meals. Pull them out of the freezer the night before to thaw.

You can do the same for quesadillas, chimichangas or chicken salad sandwiches, just season and shred the chicken.

Ground Beef:

Make home made meatballs and freeze them.

Meat sauce is also easy to make the night before or in bulk and freeze. Imagine how much quicker it is to make a lasagna, spaghetti dish, or Italian sloppy joes with the sauce made ahead of time.

You can have nachos or tacos quick and easy by cooking up the meat the night before and placing in the refrigerator. And this is great made ahead of time and frozen in the freezer as well.

Soups:

Prepping your vegetables the night before makes it quick and easy to serve a soup with dinner. See our blog post on prepping your vegetables and freezing them to prepare soup later. This is a great way to use left over vegetables or vegetables that are about to go bad.

Lasagnas and Casseroles:

Consider making a double batch of your favorite lasagna and casserole recipes. You can place the additional batch in the freezer for a future meal.

These are just a few ideas of how you can prep-ahead some of your meal and reduce the stress at meal time. Share with us some of your prep-ahead tips.

Foam Rolling For Pain Reduction

Posted on April 4, 2015January 8, 2020 by Lisa Hopp

Several years ago, one of our clients raved about the difference foam rolling was making for her leg pain. We tried it out and have been hooked ever since. Below are some instructional pictures and videos by bodybuilding.com we thought you’d find helpful.

Reduce Calf Pain (Great For Ladies Wearing High Heels)

foam rolling high heels calf pain reduction — Click For Instructions From Bodybuilding.com

Hip, Leg and Back Pain Reduction From Sitting

This is a great exercise to reduce tension in the piriformis. When this muscle is tight, it presses on the nerve and causes pain to radiate down the leg and into the back.

hip pain reduction stretch exercise — Click For Instruction From Bodybuilding.com

Upper Back/Shoulder Blade Tension Reduction

This foam rolling technique will reduce the tension you feel between your shoulder blades which contributes to neck and shoulder tension.

upper back shoulder blade tension exercise stretch — Click For Instructions From Bodybuilding.com

These are just a few exercises you can do to help keep your body tension and pain free. There are several more exercises and instruction videos available on bodybuilding.com.

Of course another great option for stress and tension reduction is to have one of our therapists provide chair massage at your office. Ask your HR department or wellness team to call us for a quote.

My Second Week Giving Up Sugar

Posted on November 2, 2014January 8, 2020 by Lisa Hopp

After two weeks of drastically reducing my sugar intake – I feel awesome! I didn’t lose as much weight this week, but I’ve lost 2 inches around my waist! My clothes feel better, I don’t feel swollen, my energy feels even and I feel free. I wasn’t exercising the last two weeks as I wanted to just focus on what I was eating. However, I decided to start adding exercise back in as I’m starting my third week.

It was very freeing when I started my workout today. Usually, I begin my workout thinking I need to exercise as much as 90 minutes so I can burn off the junk I ate that day. But today, I was able to get onto the treadmill and set a goal of rotating walking and running every five minutes for thirty-five minutes and feel a huge accomplishment.

I was aware there are sugars hiding in nearly everything I eat, but had focused my first two weeks on avoiding pop, juices, and sugary treats. I’ve decided to start tracking all sugar I’m eating this third week. I researched the amount of sugar grams I should consume per day. I have found the American Heart Association has 25-30 grams as the maximum recommended sugar intake. I’ve decided to stay below this daily amount. I’ve also set a daily amount of calories I am allowed to eat. I believe between this plan and exercising five times per week, I will see an average of a 2 lb. weight loss. I will use MyFitnessPal to track my calories and sugar. It is a free app. I especially like clicking on complete entry and seeing my expected weight after five weeks of eating similar to that day.

Are you reducing your sugar in your diet? Share your story with us.

My First Week Without Sugar

Posted on October 26, 2014January 8, 2020 by Lisa Hopp

Struggling with fatigue, weight gain, and a horrible addiction to pop, I decided to give up sugar just to see. I figured I had nothing to lose except maybe the nice large pop belly I’d been carrying around. I had successfully stopped drinking Coca-Cola three years before, but ultimately just replaced it with coffee smothered in creamer and other sugary drinks and eventually I started to drink a different pop every day. Completely frustrated, I decided I needed to go cold turkey and cut out sugar and sugary treats out of my diet all together.

Let me start by telling you I didn’t completely cut out all sugar. And I was okay with that for now. I was drinking 40 ounces of pop per day. That is the equivalent of nearly 600 calories per day or 4,200 calories per week. With a pound equivalent to 3,500 calories, I was consuming the equivalent of over 1 lb. per week in pop. Eliminating pop would make a huge difference. But as I already explained, I tended to replace it with other sugary drinks so I decided to give up all sugary drinks and sugary snacks. I didn’t want to sneak in the sugar.

I started with replacing my morning coffee and creamer (I’d use about 4 tbsp. = 20 g sugar) with chai tea and milk – and sometimes I sprinkled it with cinnamon. For me, this was a very close replacement and had this 1-2 x’s per day. I replaced my pop with ice cold water with a splash of lemon juice.

I made sure I had snacks to help me through the day. I had a granola bar (this had 7g of sugar),yogurt (this had 24 g of sugar! I will be cutting this out soon) apples with peanut butter, chips with artichoke dip, and cashews for snacks throughout the week. Yes, some of the snacks had sugar, but I already had them and wanted to start out slow.

With a lot of determination, I made it through the first week. I lost 3 lbs. and do feel a lot better. I have to admit there were a few days of fatigue as my body adjusted to this new diet. I also noticed if I started to crave a pop or sugary snack and I ate something healthy, it did take care of the craving. I also noticed I wasn’t hungry as often. Before, I was snacking nearly non-stop, but now that I wasn’t eating sugar I started to notice true hunger.

Today, I decided to try Vitamin Water Zero as my doctor indicated Stevia was the only sweetener she would recommend as it was natural. Oddly, it tastes okay, but I’m not liking the sweetness after only a week of reducing my sugar. I look forward to another week!

Days reducing sugar – 7

Pounds lost – 3

Have you cut sugar out of your diet? Please share your story with us and email to contact@bodyworkatlernativesblog.com We’d love to share your story on our blog.

Best Sleep Position

Posted on October 13, 2014January 8, 2020 by Lisa Hopp

We are often asked by our clients the best position for sleep. We found an article written by Jonathan FitzGordon, In this article, the author explains the best positions for sleep.

Sleeping on your stomach is the worst sleeping position. It compresses the back.
On the side with one leg hiked higher than the other. This is also not an ideal sleeping position. It twists and torques the pelvis.
Sleeping on the back with both legs straight and without a pillow is a good sleeping position.
Sleeping on your side with hips stacked is also a great sleeping position.

There you have it if you are looking for the best sleeping position – choose on your back or side sleeping with hips stacked.

Meal Organizing: Prepping Soups

Posted on October 6, 2014January 8, 2020 by Lisa Hopp

Who is craving warm bowls of soup, but find the time it takes to make not ideal for an evening after work? Not only that, but who else buys the vegetables for soup but finds them rotting in the refrigerator by time you get around to making it? Well, our soup prepping tips may save you time and veggies. The next time you go shopping, plan a little time later that day or one of the next evenings to chop and prep soup. In this post, we share prepping for two soups Red Pepper Soup and Chicken Noodle Soup.

Red Pepper Soup

One of our favorite soups is the Red Pepper Soup. To make it easier to whip up this soup, we chop and freeze the vegetables ahead of time. For this soup, we need red peppers, a yellow pepper, celery and onion. We’ve chopped the first batch of vegetables and are ready to bag. It does take some time to chop up the vegetables, I chose to sit at the kitchen table with a large bowl next to me to capture all the stems, seeds, etc. to throw away after. By chopping these vegetables ahead of time, we are able to pull the bags out of the freezer and place into the refrigerator the day before we make the soup. There are two batches of soup below. We plan on making both in one large batch of soup.

meal-planning-meal-preparation-red-pepper-soup-recipe-bagged

Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken noodle soup is a must to have on hand whether it’s for a cold day or someone’s sick – you never know when you will need to whip up a batch! Chopping and freezing the vegetables ahead of time, makes whipping up a batch of soup a breeze! We chopped up carrots, celery and onions ahead of time. Just add chicken, broth and seasonings for a quick homemade batch of chicken noodle soup.

Draw A Crowd To Your Trade Show Booth With Chair Massage

Posted on September 14, 2014January 8, 2020 by Lisa Hopp

If you’re struggling with how to make sure your booth isn’t boring, consider on-site chair massage for your trade show events! We can help you draw attention to your trade show booth. We can tell you from personal experience the attendees of the trade show will be lining up at your booth. This provides you with the opportunity to develop relationships with potential customers while they are waiting for their chair massage.

Each therapist will need a 5×5 area to provide chair massage services. Our therapists will bring their own equipment and supplies for the chair massages. We can support the entire event or just the busiest times. Give us a call today to experience the difference chair massage can make!

Organize Your Finances In Three Steps

Posted on September 1, 2014January 8, 2020 by Lisa Hopp

Reduce the stress of managing your finances in three easy steps:

Step 1: Use Your Online Bill Pay Function With Your Bank

Online bill pay is a great tool for your fixed monthly expenses. Set-up an automatic payment from your account weekly, biweekly, monthly, etc. to ensure your bills are always paid on-time. This option allows better control of your account than allowing the funds withdrawn directly from your account.

Step 2: Set-up A Monthly Budget

Document all of your income and expenses into a spreadsheet. Determine how much money you want to spend every month for your car, insurance, utilities, gas, groceries, household items, meals and entertainment, home improvement, clothing, vacation and gifts. Next, set aside a monthly amount for emergency savings, short-term savings, and retirement savings.

Step 3: Design Systems to Maintain Your Budget

There are a few different ways to set-up systems to maintain your budget. You can designate envelopes for each category and divvy money into each envelope. You can also set-up an automatic transfer to other accounts set-up for each category. A combination of both probably works very well. Set-up a system that works best for you and your family.

Most importantly, give yourself some flexibility to modify these steps until you find a system that works for you.

Quiche Breakfast Cupcakes

Posted on August 26, 2014January 8, 2020 by Lisa Hopp

Eating protein at breakfast helps you to feel satisfied longer and keep your blood sugars balanced. This recipe is easy to make ahead for a quick and easy breakfast. Make a batch of these quiches and freeze. In the morning, microwave for about one minute.

Eat these along with a cup of coffee, some fruit, and a slice of toast for a great breakfast.

Make Ahead Recipe:

Ingredients:

1/2 Tube Hot Ground Sausage
9 Eggs
1/4 cup Milk
Minced Onion
Cheddar Cheese
1/8 Cup Ranch
2 Tsp. Hot Sauce
4 oz. cheddar cheese
Pie Crust

Make Ahead Step 1:

A day or two before making the quiche, brown up the sausage and place in a container in the refrigerator. This makes it even easier to make these. Make the entire tube and freeze in two separate containers for future quiche or double the batch.

Make Ahead Step 2:

Preheat oven to 350.
Microwave roll of pie crust for about 30 seconds to soften. Pinch off a piece of pie crust and press into the bottoms of a cup cake pan.
Evenly distribute the sausage on top of each pie crust.
Sprinkle each with minced onion.
In a bowl, mix together the eggs and milk. Then add hot sauce, ranch and cheese. Evenly distribute into each cup cake mold.
Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until the quiche is firm.
Place into ziploc bags and freeze.

How I Got My Weekends Back

Posted on August 15, 2014January 8, 2020 by Lisa Hopp

After a long week, I would spend my entire weekend cleaning the house, grocery shopping, and other errands. I was exhausted, tired and felt taken advantage of. I was feeling empty and deprived of time for myself. Basically I was feeling robbed.

I dream of having the perfect house with everything in its place, but for now I’d just be happy with not having my house look like a tornado hit it every weekend. And I’d also like to have a little bit of time to read a book, scrapbook or write. You know actually feel like I had a weekend.

The first decision I made was to commit to doing a chore a day during the week instead of saving it all up for the weekend. I created a chart of tasks I’d like to ensure I do every day and added an additional chore each day. I print this out at the beginning of each week and place on my refrigerator. Every day, I consult the list for the tasks I’ve assigned myself to do each day and enjoy checking them off as I complete them.

As I’m working on this new habit of doing a little bit more during the week, I’m learning my expectations of myself were a little too high. I do not check off every item every day. Often times, I find they don’t need to be completed on a daily basis. I still keep all the task listed. I like the daily reminder of the areas I want to see clean everyday.

On the weekends, I’m happy to see I only have an hour or two of quick clean-up around the house and I’m able to enjoy feeling like I have the time to spend time on other things I want to do.

How do you make sure you get to keep a little bit of fun in your weekend.