Love me some protein.

I'm baaaaaaack. Happy 2014 sweet friends! Kyle and I were so blessed to have taken off some MUCH needed holiday's. We travelled home to SK this year (every year we alternate families) and spent Christmas in beautiful Saskatoon! It was freezing most of the time, which made it a perfect excuse to spend many days in my pj's :) More on 2014 to come in future posts, but for now...protein.

I found myself getting hungry ALL the time. It was unreal, I would be sitting at work and no matter how many "healthy" snacks I packed (read: granola bars and tons of fruit), I would still be grumbling at my desk. Kyle finally suggested that maybe because I was going to the gym so much more lately and had really upped the activity that I was burning a lot more calories (duh). So I started to look into my protein intake, and thanks to the fact that I'm friends with an amazing nurse she was able to give me a simple calculation on how many grams of protein I should be taking in daily. All you do is multiply your weight in kg X .8 = __daily grams. It turned out I was needing 54 grams of protein daily... at the time, I was only getting around 15-20 grams. Majorly lacking, and no wonder I was starving all the time! 

I thought that it would be super hard to get all that protein in, but here are some tips if you find yourself lacking like me! 

-My girl S (love having nurse friends!) suggested to aim for at least 20 of those grams for the morning. This helped a TON, because it keeps me full for the majority of the day. Having a filling and healthy breakfast keeps me from having sugar highs and lows and therefore avoiding the vending machine temptation.

-If you are finding it tough to eat that much a great way to get easy, yummy protein in is a base protein powder that you can mix into smoothies. I'm going to Costco next week as they have some whey protein powder on with a $10 off coupon! 

-Some snacks that I love and don't get tired of are: hummus, unsalted almonds, eggs, peanut butter, tuna, fruits and dark veggies :) 

- I try to avoid a lot of carbohydrates after lunch, some days I'm more successful than others. Mostly because I usually hit the gym after work and I like to get my snacky foods in before my workout. 

-Water, water, WATER. I'm really trying to cut down on the coffee and fill up on water. It sucks because, I really hate drinking water. I'm a big juice person and a coffee addict, pop has never really been a problem for me but I could drink juice like there is no tomorrow. 

Anyhow, that's about it for now. Can't wait to blog soon again. Kyle is back to school for second semester on Monday- I am SO incredibly proud of how well he did this semester, and I know he will ace the second term as well. We are also really looking forward to family time this weekend, Christmas celebrations with Kyle's side :) 

Keep warm sweet readers (here in AB it is freezing this weekend, with temps going well into the minus thirties!)

xo - H