Get Fit Without the Gym

Eat veggies twice a day
It's a simple rule to follow, just make sure it happens. For lunch, I'm usually starving after classes, so I only want to spend a few minutes making something. I'll heat up a black bean burger or veggie patty and then have something green on the side (even if it's out of a can because #college). For dinner, I'll make pasta or have some kind of lean meat like chicken or ground turkey and have some more greens.

My "I suck at cooking" fool-proof recipe for the BEST brussels sprouts:

• preheat oven to 400
• mix frozen brussels, a spoonful of olive oil, and a pinch of salt in a bowl together
• lay out brussels on a cookie sheet or baking tray
• pop in the oven for 35-45 min (depends on how crispy you like them) 
• *some recipes say to shake them every 10 min, but ain't nobody got time for that. They'll just be darker on one side, but still delicious

Try to walk as much as you can
At school, I can easily get in a couple thousand steps before lunch. It's campus and you have to walk to get anywhere. At home, it's not so easy. My plan is to figure out how many steps I get on campus each day and try to match that by walking around my neighborhood a couple days a week. Walk your dogs, walk your kids, borrow someone's dog and walk it...just get those steps in.

Eat when you're hungry
One issue I had my first year of college with healthy eating was that I ate when I wasn't exactly hungry. Class got out for me at 11:35 and I always went to the dining hall to eat something so I could start studying by 1. Now that I live off campus I don't live by the dining halls hours. I eat whenever and want and whatever I want have in my fridge at the time.

If you do live on campus and have to eat by the hours of the dining halls/food vendors, grab a small plate if you're not that hungry and keep some healthy snacks back at your dorm for later.

Keep healthy food at home
Speaking of eating what's in my fridge, studies show that if you have healthy stuff, you'll reach for it instead of the junk. (Duh? Don't need a PhD to know that right? Sheesh.) I don't keep any junk food in my fridge or pantry for myself. Ok, ok unless you count the three bags of Twizzlers my mom gave me, but those were a gift. "Treat yo self" when you go out and stick to the healthy stuff at home for balance.

If you want to know exactly what I have on hand here at HQ, I did a post on that a couple of months ago.

"This isn't the end of the world"
So when I first started trying to eat healthier about a year ago, I had this mantra for myself:

It's hard to turn down a cupcake right? Sure. But, if you just think "this isn't the last time I'm going to have a cupcake. I mean, I can turn down this one. I'm sure it'll be someone's birthday sometime soon or I'll win a dozen cupcakes on Twitter or something and I'll get to have one then."

So the winning cupcakes totally happens sometimes, heehee. Follow Bliss Cupcakes on Twitter!


Last year, I was so hard on myself and strict about going to the gym at least 5 times a week. Now that I've moved to just focusing on being healthy and moving my body when I can, I've toned up more than ever and been a lot less stressed.

Make a green smoothie and think of me!

X,

Cristina