What's in my fridge this week + meal ideas

September grocery hauls just hit different. It’s still technically summer, but I can feel fall creeping in when I spot delicata squash at the store or start craving soup in the evening. My cart (and my freezer + garden) are basically doing a mashup of both seasons right now.

Here’s what I’ve been loading up on lately:

🥩 Protein power: Applegate Farms GF chicken nuggets (kid approved), cottage cheese, eggs + egg whites, Truvani protein powder, Greek yogurt or Skyr, lupini bean pasta, Unbun bread, Chomps meat sticks, sprouted tofu, Three Wishes cereal (for snacks or dessert), and alllll the organic burgers + hot dogs that never got used at our cancelled BBQ (they’re frozen and waiting for action). I don't eat meat but it sure would make it easier to balance my meals with less effort if I did! But my family does. Hence the big variety.

🥦 Veggies: spinach, salad mix, peppers, onions, garlic, cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, spaghetti squash, and frozen staples like peas + riced cauliflower. I grab delicata squash and jicama anytime I can find them. Plus, my garden is still coming through with cucumbers, green beans, carrots, rainbow chard, radishes, lots of herbs, and cherry tomatoes (late bloomers, still green).

🍎 Carb crew: bananas, apples, frozen berries, seasonal grapes, watermelon, rice, oats, rice cakes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, blue potatoes from the garden will be ready to harvest soon. I hope! My first time growing them so I'm a newb. Summer fruit is still hanging on, but I’m starting to think more cozy bowls and baked stuff.

🥑 Fats: avocados, cheese, brazil nuts (thyroid health!), cashews, almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, nut butter, NuCo wraps, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, butter.

✨ Fun extras: Mary’s Gone Crackers, hummus, broth + canned coconut milk (for last-minute soup nights), FlavCity electrolytes -- low in sodium and higher in magnesium + potassium (this is my fav. flavor), Daily Elements powdered microgreens (tossed into yogurt, muffins, or smoothies -- code TaraAllen15 for 15% off).

🌱 Fiber check: basil seeds, lentils, chickpeas, beans.

And since life is full throttle this time of year, here’s a September Mix + Match PFF Guide straight from my cart + garden:

➡️ Protein: eggs, cottage cheese, lupini pasta, burger patty, chicken nuggets, Chomps stick, Greek yogurt, protein powder
➡️ Fiber (carbs): grapes, apples, watermelon, blue potatoes, delicata squash, spaghetti squash, oats, lentils, cucumber, rainbow chard
➡️ Fat: avocado, nut butter, cheese, olive oil, pumpkin seeds

Pick one from each category and boom ... instant meal.


Examples:

• Greek yogurt + frozen berries + basil seeds + walnuts

• Burger patty + roasted delicata squash + avocado

• Egg scramble with rainbow chard + blue potatoes + olive oil drizzle

• Lupini pasta + sautéed garden veggies + cashew parm

• Chomps + apple + handful of almonds for an on-the-go mini meal
  
  

This season is about simple, balanced, and doable, not perfect.


This season is about simple, balanced, and doable, not perfect.


Said it twice so we can both get that in our heads. I'm 42 years old and still need these reminders and I know I'm not the only one.


And don’t forget: if TRANSFORM: Body + Mind has been on your radar (the place for fat loss + health optimization all at once), the waitlist is where you need to be. Waitlist folks are the only ones who get the discount code when doors open this Friday. 2 days left to get on it before I pull it down!

Tell me ... what’s one thing you always throw in your cart this time of year without fail?

XO,
Tara

I like rollercoasters but not THIS kind

Could blood sugar imbalances be the reason for your ...

• weight loss resistance

• cravings

• energy crashes

• moodiness

• frequent illness / infections

I'd argue that it's very likely if you're experiencing one or more of the above. It's even more likely if you also have ...

• elevated Hgb A1c

• elevated blood pressure

• elevated blood sugar / insulin

• elevated triglycerides, Apo B, and / or LDL

• PCOS

Since the connection between poor blood sugar management and health / disease risk is a bit more known, I'm focusing on the connection with weight / fat gain and weight loss / fat loss resistance today.


In order to do that, I'd like to share a little more about the hormone called insulin and its important role in our body.


Insulin can be thought of like Uber drivers for your carbs / sugar intake. The more carbs / sugar around, the more drivers (insulin) get released from the pancreas to deal with it. Insulin picks up the carbs / sugar and drives it to a few places. First, it'll go to our muscles. But if our muscles are full of glycogen already (we haven't strength trained recently or don't have much muscle mass), it'll be driven to our liver. Our liver can hold a small amount of carb / sugar storage (glycogen). If it's full already (happens when you take in more than you use up), then whatever is leftover will be stored as fat.


Insulin is a GOOD thing as it allows us to avoid letting too much sugar hang out in our blood and cause damage and rather gives us the chance to use it up as fuel. The (VERY common) problem has become that we weren't educated on how to fuel ourselves properly and so most people are way overdoing the carbohydrates. Overdoing carbs over time means insulin is working overtime and becomes a bit less effective.


For a while -- and this is the sometimes decades long period in time where people are getting sick but don't yet know it -- insulin just gets cranked out more. More insulin keeps your blood sugar in check. Because your blood sugar may be in check, doctors may tell you your bloodwork is fine. What's often happening though is insulin resistance. Eventually, your insulin doing double and triple duty tires out and can't keep up with your blood sugar. THIS is when you might start to see changes in your bloodwork. It can show up as prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, cholesterol issues, non-alcohol fatty liver disease, frequent illness / infections.


But let's step back a minute. During all of those years or decades spent overusing insulin, our body usually still gives us some red flags. Excess body fat or fat loss resistance is often one of the first signs. Others include energy and mood dips, cravings, getting hangry ... ever, and hunger / fullness cues that are very out of whack.


Now you might say, "Tara, if it's really important not to overdue the carbs / sugar, maybe I should cut it all out?" And to that I'd say, "Don't!" Here's why. Our body uses "carbs" whether we eat them or not. If you go keto and stop eating them, your body will just manufacture its own through a process called gluconeogenesis. Doing that all the time can be pretty taxing on your body, dial up inflammation, down-regulate your thyroid (making fat loss harder eventually), and interfere with certain neuromodulators that assist with sleep and happy moods.


So when it comes to carbs, a moderate approach is really pretty darn important. Get enough, but not too much. 


"Great! WTH does that mean?"


I gotchu ;-)


Here are some things to start to implement so you can get to a happy place with your blood sugar and insulin:

1. Eat PFF at every meal. Protein, fat, fiber. These help to blunt blood sugar response and keep you nice and satisfied between meals -- which is important because we need some downtime between meals to allow insulin to come back down AND allow us to enter fat-burning mode most effectively.

2. Eat intentional carbs according to your needs. This won't be 10g carbs per day, but it's likely also not 300g carbs per day. You don't need to track every morsel of food, but plan to have a serving of carbs, on purpose, at 2-3 meals and not all day everyday,

3. Strength train 3-4 x per week. Muscles are like dry sponges that soak up some additional sugar out of our blood. Basically, the more muscle you have, the more storage room you have for carbs without it being stored as fat.

4. Movement. This isn't exercise, but rather how much you move your body outside of exercise and can have a big impact on helping to manage blood sugar. Move around more in general or be more targeted by taking a little walk or having a dance party after meals.

5. Sleep. When we're not sleeping enough, our blood sugar balance is thrown off even if all other things stay equal.

Of course there's more ... and we cover it all in detail in TRANSFORM: Body + Mind ... but these are some of the biggest needle-movers to get started with.



Before I let you go, I have to address the, "Isn't fat loss just a matter of being in a calorie deficit?" people out there. ;-) Kinda yes but kinda no.


Taking in slightly less energy than you're using up is how our body turns to our stored body fat to use it up as fuel (that's how it's "lost"). However, getting that equation to be in our favor for fat loss requires some blood sugar stability (otherwise your hunger and cravings alone will make it nearly impossible to be in a deficit for any real progress).


But also (and this is not as well-known), we can kinda lose excess body fat or really lose body fat. The most effective way to lose body fat also requires we get a handle on our blood sugar and insulin. Insulin is a storage hormone. If it's always elevated, body fat loss isn't being maximized ... even in a deficit. What this means is less weight will be lost or the same amount of weight will be lost, but less of it will be from body fat and more of it can come from things we don't want to lose, like muscle.



Leaving you off with an example of eating in this blood sugar balancing way. Read the caption of this instagram post for a few ideas.


XO,
Tara