Exercise is not everyone’s favorite thing to do. Telling someone to exercise sounds a bit like a punishment. It is all psychological though. You can motivate yourself for exercise in the morning or evening. It doesn’t have to feel like a chore, you can discover that you love it and begin to embrace a healthier lifestyle for yourself.

Make the Decision to Exercise

The first step for achieving any goal is to simply make the decision that you will do it. If you are waffling on whether or not you will do it, most likely when the going gets tough, you will quit. I know. I’ve been there and done that. When exercising is a choice and you are tired or have a busy day lined up the next day, you may decide the movie on television holds your interest more and you will procrastinate starting to exercise. Make the decision that you will exercise.

Set Aside a Convenient Time

Schedule it into your routine. The exercise will get done when you have a set time and place to do it. It won’t get done if you think, I’ll squeeze in fifteen minutes of walking sometime tomorrow. That fifteen minutes gets eaten up by cleaning, taking care of the kids, running errands and before you know it there was no time in the day to exercise.

Tap Into the Power of Your Subconscious

This is perhaps one of the most underutilized strategies for motivating yourself to exercise. Listen to positive affirmations everyday. I listen to the Think Right Now programs as I sleep and throughout the day. I’m amazed that after listening to them consistently for a week or two that my behaviors start to change. Things that I may have been procrastinating start to get incorporated into my day. For example, when I was listening to the “I am organized now!” program, I didn’t get immediately organized, but I discovered that I was starting to put things away instead of leaving them out. The dishes would get done on time. Mail would be opened and answered in a timely manner.

As I listened to the Setting and Achieving Goals program, I made the decision to exercise everyday. I started running on my treadmill, doing yoga poses, and taking daily walks within a week of setting the goal. I am not averse to exercise. In fact, most of the time I love it. However, I can get out of the habit of exercising due to an injury or a setback. It was a simple and easy thing to play the audio in the background as I completed other tasks or during the night while I slept. I discovered that I took action incredibly fast. It was amazing! [easyazon_image align=”left” height=”120″ identifier=”B007O98NMW” locale=”US” src=”https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/411sjjchJhL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”mcurle08-20″ width=”160″]

Get a Support System

Your friends and family that are embarking on the same fitness journey can be a great source of motivation. As I have been doing the ketogenic diet, I discovered the power of innundating myself with positive people who are doing the same thing. I joined a bunch of facebook groups on the ketogenic diet. I also started following people on youtube who were interested in doing the low carbohydrate, high fat diet. It was wonderful to share encouraging words and kept me on track with healthier eating.

Having a support system gives you accountability. You are more likely to take the steps towards your goals when you know other people are cheering you on. Being in social media groups and sharing your progress and results keeps you accountable. It keeps you on track. The people in the group may also motivate you through their successes. You may discover that you are inspired through their different work out ideas as well.

Conclusion

Sometimes it is our attitudes that are keeping us from success. You can change your attitude towards exercising and motivate yourself to do it consistently when you put it in a positive light. You’ll start to enjoy exercise and even crave it when you view it as a positive in your life. Support groups and positive affirmation tapes can go a long way in getting you motivated for exercise. Not only will you be motivated, you’ll actually start doing it!

 

 

 

Chicken broccoli stir fry is one of my favorite ketogenic recipes. It can be very easy to make it quickly. If you have the ingredients handy and cook them in the proper order. This is an ideal go-to recipe because it can be cooked in fifteen minutes and often the ingredients are on hand in my kitchen. Also, if you don’t have one of the vegetables, you can swap it out for another stir fry type of vegetable. For example, onions can be swapped out for green onions or scallions. Bell peppers are not essential, but add great flavor. The broccoli can be fresh or frozen. Mushrooms can be added or left out depending on whether you have them on hand or not. If you happen to have sugar snap peas, you could add those. I don’t tend to keep those on hand, but they are a great stiry fry ingredient too! 

Ingredients:

• Frozen chicken tenders
• bell pepper
• onions
• mushrooms
• broccoli
• olive oil
• Tamari (soy sauce – optional)
• salt and pepper

 

Directions:

For this, I start my chicken broccoli stir fry with the thing that cooks the slowest first. I place my frozen chicken tenders in the pan and turn it on high.

I get out the next slowest thing to cook, the broccoli. I cut and break the broccoli into bite size pieces and toss it in the cast iron skillet. I stir up the broccoli and the chicken so that the olive oil coats it a little and it evenly cooks. Next, I grab a pepper and chop it into bite sized pieces.

I toss the pepper into the hot skillet with the chicken and broccoli.

Next, I slice the mushrooms and add them.

Finally, I chop the scallions and add them to the pan. At this point, the chicken is half-way cooked and can easily be cut into bite sized pieces. I remove the chicken and then cut it into bite sized pieces. I cook it for a few more minutes (until the chicken has turned white and looks cooked).

Finally, I season it with about a teaspoon of Tamari, a dash of salt and pepper and serve![easyazon_image align=”left” height=”160″ identifier=”B000EITYUU” locale=”US” src=”https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/513hqJgMaEL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”mcurle08-20″ width=”101″][easyazon_image align=”left” height=”160″ identifier=”B01BMYSNSS” locale=”US” src=”https://getfitandhealthyathome.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/41mgdQr2YyL.SL160.jpg” tag=”mcurle08-20″ width=”47″]

 

Love chicken and broccoli? Check out my ketogenic chicken and broccoli casserole recipe! You’ll love it!

Need more ketogenic recipes? Check out the FREE Bacon and Butter Cookbook! 

Rebounding, or bouncing on a trampoline, has many health benefits to it. It improves your coordination, it strengthens your muscles, and it improves your lymphatic circulation, which stimulates the removal of toxins and improves your immune system.

Bouncing on a trampoline can be done in many ways. You can try to jump as high as you can, you can do twists and tricks, you can flip over. There are a million combinations to bouncing on a trampoline. There are probably just as many ways to hurt yourself if you land improperly. Therefore, I wanted to share some safety tips for bouncing on a trampoline.

 

1. Bounce by yourself. The more people that are added to the trampoline, the more likely that you will collide into each other. On larger trampolines it is often more fun to bounce with friends. Following a few simple rules with multiple people can keep you safer.
2. Smaller, more frequent bounces stimulate the lymphatic system more than big bounces. Start with a health bounce where you feet don’t leave the mat and begin with the vertical motion of up and down. This is the safest way to use your trampoline.
3. On larger trampolines, use a safety net. This won’t be necessary with a health bounce, but as you advance to jumping higher, you may land wrong and bounce into the net. Having a net can prevent you from falling off and stabilize you. On a mini-trampoline, you may want to use a stability bar as you begin to feel more and more comfortable with your bouncing technique.

As you bounce on a trampoline, it stimulates peristalsis, which is the the involuntary constriction and relaxation of the muscles of the intestine, creating wavelike movements that push the contents of the intestines forward. Your digestion should improve as you regularly bounce on a trampoline. You may want to consider drinking a glass of water prior to bounding on a trampoline and using the restroom afterwards to help the elimination process along.[easyazon_image align=”right” height=”500″ identifier=”B00JOIKSTM” locale=”US” src=”https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51YMo6mza%2BL.jpg” tag=”mcurle08-20″ width=”313″]

You’ll have the best results when you match the type of trampoline with the goal that you want to achieve from bouncing on a trampoline. There are cheap trampolines that will help you get started rebounding without much investment, however if your goal is to be using the trampoline daily for an hour or two, you may want to invest a bit more. For the simple health bounce, you may not want the bounciest trampoline because you want to focus your efforts on frequent up and down movements instead of powerfully pushing up and jumping as high as you can.

One of my absolute favorite breakfast meals is a crustless quiche. I love a great quiche and with this recipe, I barely notice that there is no crust because it is so

flavorful. The other thing that I love about this spinach mushroom quiche is that I can transform the frozen spinach from something gross into something totally delicious. It amazes me each time. (Without some additions, I think frozen spinach is disgusting.)

The other great thing about this recipe is that you can make it ahead. It stores in the refrigerator for 2-3 days, so you can get extra mileage out of your efforts. I know that some people are not fans of leftovers, but for me they are timesavers.  I like to make this on a Sunday when I have plenty of time and put a few extra servings in tupperware containers for the next few breakfasts. It keeps me on time and on track with my ketogenic eating plan!

Ingredients:

• 16 oz. chopped frozen spinach
• 5-6 mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 medium sized onion
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 sausage (optional, for flavor)
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 7 eggs (medium or large)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.

Heat a cast iron skillet to high or medium high. Add 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the frozen spinach. Chop up the sausage into a small dice and place into the pan with the spinach. While the frozen spinach is thawing out on one side in the pan, focus your efforts on chopping up the onion and mushrooms. Once you have diced the onion and sliced the mushrooms, flip o

ver the brick of frozen spinach to allow for it to thaw out on the other side. Add the mushrooms and onions to the olive oil. Stir. Let cook for 2-3 minutes. You will want to break up the frozen spinach. Add salt an

d pepper.

As the onions, mushrooms and spinach are cooking, grate the cheese and break the eggs into a bowl. Whisk half of the grated cheese with the eggs. Turn the heat off and remove the skillet from the burner. Place on a hot pad so you don’t burn your counter. Pour the egg and cheese mixture into the cast iron skillet and gently stir to mix up the ingredients. Top the eggs and veggies with more cheese.

Place the cast iron skillet into the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Most of the ingredients have been half way cooked at this point, so it is just a matter of cooking the eggs and allowing the flavors to blend together.

Enjoy!

 

For more ketogenic breakfast ideas, click here!

This ketogenic lunch utilized leftovers from my pot roast dinner last night as well as some fresh vegetables.  I started out by washing two leaves of lettuce and overlapping them. One thing that I did with the romaine was to bend the stalk in a few places, so that I could roll the ingredients that were inside the wrap.  This actually turned out to be really helpful.

I spread mayonnaise on top of the lettuce and added some thinly sliced cucumbers that I had on had.

Next, I sliced some roast beef, tomatoes, red onions and added some avocado. I tried to keep the ingredients as thin as possible to make rolling it easy.

The rolling of it was tricky. I won’t lie. It isn’t like stuffing it into a tortilla. Lettuce tends to break easier than tortillas and not fold quite as easily, but it did work!

One thing that did help was I used a paper towel to wrap around it so that it wasn’t as messy.

Ingredients:

• 2 leaves of Romaine lettuce
• 3 slices of roast beef
• 4 slices of cucumber
• 1 slice of red onion
• 1/4 avocado sliced
• Salt and pepper to taste

 

Directions: Lay the lettuce flat on the cutting board. Spread mayonnaise over the lettuce. Add the veggies and the roast beef. Roll the lettuce and other ingredients together. Wrap a paper towel around it to make eating it easier! Enjoy!