Another New Year's Resolution Post

Hi everyone! So, we're about halfway through January. Did you make any New Year's Resolutions? If so, how are they going? If they're going well, GREAT! Keep up the good work! As you may remember in my last post, Why You Should, and Ways to Drink Green Tea, I have resolved to drink 3 cups of green tea per day. So far, I have been completely successful. So, I wanted to just share how I've managed to be successful so far, and whether you want to keep up a resolution better, or you just want to make a change in your life, hopefully these tips will help.

So, my first tip is: Mark things on a calendar. Everytime you complete a goal, or something that is part of a goal, mark it on a calendar, and keep it where you an see it. For me, it reminds me to finish my goals each day, and is a way of congratulating myself on all the successful days I've already had. I find that this gives me a lot of motivation not to give up. I have a color coded system and I mark a tick mark on each day for each cup of green tea I drink in one day in green, every time I publish a blog post in brown, every time I work out at home in orange, every time I go to the gym in red, and every time I go roller skating in blue. Granted only the green tea was an official resolution. The rest of those things were just things that I've been wanting to do more. But seeing it all right there on my closet door reminds me to keep at it, and shows me how often, or not, I've been doing each thing. If you don't have a calendar that you wouldn't mind marking up, then check out this free printable calendar that you can mark up to your heart's content! You can even decorate it with your favorite animal rights stickers. Again, if you want some ideas for resolutions, especially ones that are directly related to animal activism, check out my blog post from last year about New Year's resolutions.

Next, I have a tip for those of you who want to get in shape, work out more, lose weight, be healthier etc. Guess what? It doesn't involve joining a gym. In my blog post, 5 Ways to be Vegan and a Little Less Poor, the last thing I talked about was an app called Punchcard. This app allows you to earn mPOINTS, which can be traded in for gift cards and things. (Again, FYI, the $1 Amazon card is the best value.) But there are several really helpful mPOINTS apps that allow you to track your fitness activities or help you train more effectively. Runtastic Situps, Runtastic Pushups, Runtastic Squats, and Runtastic Pullups are all free apps that provide a training program for building muscle by doing those activities. They all reward you mPOINTS for each day you use the app, and each day you do 3 activities in one day. This can be any combination of training sessions and / or quick log sessions. These apps can also be synced with myfitnesspal, for those of you who use it for fitness, food, and weight tracking. Nexercise is another app that gives you mPOINTS for working out, and it allows you to log past workouts, so if you use one of the Runtastic apps, and then also log the activity on Nexercise, you're essentially getting paid twice for the same workout. Granted, you won't be making a ton of money off of it, (don't quit your day job,) but a little extra money, or Amazon cards, never hurts. So, I guess that would also be helpful if you've resolved to make more money. Sort of.

Thanks for reading everybody! I hope this has been really helpful. What resolutions did you make, if you made any? How well have you been keeping up with them? If you try out any of my suggestions, I would love to know how well they work out for you! Have a fabulous 2015!

CTTVCC: Booty Shakin' Bagel

Today's recipe is located on page 41. This is a rather tasty recipe, and great for when you don't have much time, but want to eat something filling. It's very customizable and simple, yet not too simple. (I mean, you do have to actually do something. The recipe doesn't just say "open a vegan pop-tart package and eat it.")

The recipe calls for:

• 2 tablespoons vegan cream cheese
• 2 tablespoons jelly (your fave flavor)
• 1 bagel, sliced in half

I used Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese, which is the brand most available to me, though, I'm sure other brands would work just as well, as long as you like the flavor.

For the jelly, I used Polaner Sugar-Free Blackberry Jelly with fiber.

Now, when it comes to the bagel, I could not fin gluten-free, vegan bagels for the life of me. I looked in all the grocery stores I could find, and got nothing. So, I decided that a gluten-free, vegan English muffin would work well too. I picked Food for Life Brown Rice English muffins, and toasted one. They have just the right amount of crisp to the outside, and they're deliciously soft on the inside.

 

So here is my finished not-bagel:

 

Because I had to switch out the bagel for an English muffin, I paired this recipe with a nice warm cup of English breakfast tea soy latte, and felt thoroughly like an American person wishing to feel like a British person. Really though, the combination is very good. The simple fruit-and-(vegan)-cream-cheese-on-(gluten-free)-bread taste went very well with mellow, sweet taste of the tea latte. The recipe is one I will definitely make again.

Quick, Good-For-You Breakfast

It's been awhile since I've posted much of anything, but here's an original recipe that's cheap, vegan, and allergy friendly. No gluten, soy, corn, peanuts, etc. Now, before you turn your nose up at oatmeal for being boring, old-people food, let me tell you this is one of my favorite morning recipes. So yes. Oatmeal.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of oats
1 tablespoon of milled flaxseed
1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
8 oz of very strong brewed tea (flavor variable)
Sweetner to taste (typically 1 packet of 0 calorie stevia sweetner)

Instructions: mix all dry ingredients together in a microwavable bowl. Add tea to bowl, and microwave for 1 minute to 1 minute and 30 seconds. Stir and allow oatmeal to cool enough to eat. Enjoy!

Nearly all of the ingredients can be bought in bulk. Oatmeal, flaxseed, cinnamon, and sweetners can be purchased at stores like Costco. Oats and flaxseed can be bought in bulk from specialty grocery stores. Buying larger quantities reduces the cost significantly.

The oatmeal base has fiber and protein, flaxseed has protein and omega-3, cinnamon has Antioxidants, and tea has vitamins and caffeine in addition to Antioxidants. All of these are essential to a balanced diet and help kick start your day.

Now, my favorite part about this recipe is how variable you can make it. The variation is in the tea. Using a variety of flavors helps to keep this basic food from getting boring. I prefer to steep my tea overnight for oatmeal to get the maximum amount of flavor from the tea. Because it is a morning food, I would suggest black tea because it contains more caffeine than other blends. Some of my favorite teas to make oatmeal with are black chai, black apple chai, black vanilla chai, morning thunder (a black matcha tea,) black Madagascar vanilla, nutcracker sweet (a holiday tea,) and orange black teas. Other non-black teas that are good include sugar cookie sleigh ride (a holiday tea,) green chai, green tea with red Antioxidants (strawberry and orange,) spiced apple herbal tea, raspberry herbal tea and others.

The best part of this easy breakfast is that it is filling; high in protein and fiber; omega-3 rich; full of caffeine, vitamins, and Antioxidants (depending on the tea you use;) and only 100 Calories!