Sweat It Out Baby With The Stairs Workout

Hello my lovelies, I hope you're ready to wear your beautiful swimsuit for summer beach parties, personally I still have to lose some more kilos before going on vacation (I still have enough time)  :p
So as promised, I am blogging today about my new workout routine, I've started this new workout "program" more than a week ago and I want to share it with you :D

Well I'm talking about The Stairs Workout. Stairs are a great way not only to lose weight but also to tone and strengthen our lower body. The fact that it's very efficient in burning maximum of calories and increasing heart rate makes it my all time favourite exercise :)

In this kind of workout, you will only need a set of stairs, your body, motivation and a strong determination :)

Personally when I first started the stairs workout, I started by running up and down for 5 minutes and now I can run for 15 minutes, But if you are a beginner you SHOULD start off slowly, you can start by walking up and down until you acclimatize you body.

So here is my stairs workout routine but without warming up, stretching or cooling down exercises (there will be a full post dedicated for them)

• Joging up the stairs step by step (up and down), followed by climbing two steps at a time (up) for 5 minutes

• The spiderman push up: I put my hands on a stairstep and I bring my knee to my elbow while doing a push up (10 reps). This is a great exercise for shoulders, triceps, core and chest.

• The stairs triceps dip: I put my hand on a stairstep with bent knees and my feet on the floor. I move my buttom down and I bend my elbows and then I slowly press off with my hands and push myself straight back up to the starting position (10 reps). This is a great exercise for shoulders, triceps, wrists, core and legs.

• Rotational reach: I start with the plank position, I put my hands on a stairstep with hands and shoulders width apart. I turn up my body to the side and I raise my arm then I repeat the same steps on the other side (10 reps for each side). This is a great exercise for shoulders, core and back

• Stair lunges: I put my one feet on the last stairstep and the other one on the floor and then I bent my keens. Just be sure to not overextend your knees over your toes as this will hurt your knees (10 reps for each leg). This exercise is great for legs and butt.

I take 3 minutes rest after doing all these exercises and then I repeat the circuit 3 times. In fact, if you include these exercises to the stairs climbing you will get a full body workout. Stairs are really a free and accessible way to lose weight, increase your resistence and strenghthen as well as tone your whole body.

My goals in the few next days are:

• To lengthen the time of my workout by doing more sets
• To carry dumbbells while running stairs
• To speed up my workout

And now what are waiting for, go and climb the stairs :) See you soon BYE <3

My Food Diary #1: What I Ate Today

Hi my lovelies, hope you're all fine :) I introduce for you today a new kind of posts which concerns what I eat in a typical day. Before I start, I would like to give a special thanks to my friend Yosr from the blog Mode et Beauté for all her inspiring and encouraging words. You're My Muse girl <3
So let's start :)

I always start my day with a good breakfast and as I'm in vacacion now I have more time to prepare a good and delicious breakfast :) For today I just made a mix of natural yogurt and some strawberries and apricots topped with cereals ( I love the combination of creamy and crispy texture)

Normally I get my morning snack by 11am but today I just skip it because I ate my breakfast late at morning :)
For lunch, I got a dish of pasta with tomato sauce, chicken, cheese and olive

After my workouts I got a green juice made with banana, apple, spinach and cucumber

For dinner, I made a very simple salad with carrot, lettuce, fennel and 2 eggs

I hope you like this post, tell me in the comment section below what did you eat today, I love reading your comments. Don't forget to subscribe and to follow me on my facebook page My Muse: The Blog. I love you 

A Luscious Red Strawberry Tart For Mother's Day

Good morning and Happy mother's day to all of you :) I hope you treated your moms like a queen on their special day. Yesterday, I baked for mom a sweet  and rich strawberry tart and I thought it wouldl be wonderful to share the recipe with you, actually this tart can be a great gift for your guests, your family or even your darling. 

 So let's start step by step:
For the crust you will need these ingredients:
200g flour
100g cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
50g sugar
1 egg
1 vanilla sugar

1. Mix butter and sugar in a large bowl
2. Mix vanilla sugar and egg and then add to butter and sugar and mix well
3. Add flour to the mixture and mix until the dough is formed
4. put the dough in the fridge for at least 1 hour

For the filling  you will need these ingredients:

250g strawberry cut into pieces

For the custard you will need these ingredients: 

1/2 litre milk

4 eggs yolk

5 Tbsp sugar

2Tbsp cornstarch

1 vanilla sugar

1. Heat the milk and vanilla sugar on meduim high heat
2. In a bowl, mix eggs yolk and sugar very well 
3. Add cornstarch to the mixture
4. Once the mixture is well mixed, pour the milk on the mixture and mix
5. Transfer the mixture in a saucepan and cook over meduim heat for 5 minutes, stir constantly and make sure that the cream does not stick to the bottom of the pan.
6. add a piece of butter and let it cool down

It's time now to transfer the dough to a tart pan and bake it for 20-25 minutes. After baking it, let it cool down then spread the crusted evenly in the buttom of baked crust. Arrange strawberry pieces ,starting from outside edge, on custard. In a saucepan heat one table spoon of jam (I used apricot jam) until liquefied, gently brush strawberries with jam. Put it in fridge for at least 2 hours before serving.

My strawberry tart is now ready :)

If you like the recipe, please share it with your friends :) And don't forget to comment below what gift did you get your mom this year :) I would love to hear from you. You can follow me on my facebook page My Muse: The Blog, I love you <3

Think Pink: Strawberry Banana Smoothie

Lovely morning pretties <3 I hope you like the new look of my blog as I do :) I'm in a Pink mood this period and this pink fever will follow us till the next blog post :) As you know girls summer is almost here, it's getting hot already and when the temperature heats up outside, nothing tastes better than a cold, creamy, frosty, fresh and fruity smoothie :) So, I come back today with a refreshing, savory, and healthy smoothie recipe made of strawberries and banana...

This sweet pink smoothie is full of vitamins, minerals and cancer fighting antioxidants. it can be, in fact, a nutritious breakfast, snack or post-workout meal. Let's see together how to make this delish pink smoothie:

Ingredients:

1 Banana

8 Strawberries

1 Natural yogurt

1 Tsp honey

Put the strawberries, banana and yogurt in the blender, add a one teaspoon of honey, you can also adjust the honey to taste. The reason why I added honey and not sugar is that I avoid any empty calories (honey contains natural sugar, minerals, vitamins, and even antioxidant properties, it's also fat and cholestrol) 

Blend everyting together until smooth :)

Here is my easy, fun to make, healthy and colorful strawberry banana smoothie :)

I really enjoyed writing this post so I hope you like it. Don't forget to leave your comments down below for more summer smoothies recipes :) You can follow me on my facebook page My Muse: The Blog... See you soon My Muses in another pink blog post <3

Today's Treat Meal: Hot Chocolate

Good morning girls, I missed you alot :) guess what?? I'm finally on vacation, I'm really sorry for not posting for such a long time but I have more time now to do things I love as blogging and cooking :)

Well I though it would be great to share with you a very easy recipe for a very yummy creamy drink. I want to tell you also that it's good to have a delicious treat meal from time to time as you will be more likely to stay on track when you know that you have this meal to look forwad to... So, for today's treat meal I've chosen to prepare a delicious Hot Chocolate.. I know it's hot outside and many of you prefer to have cold drinks but ,believe me, Hot Cocoa is always delicious even in summer :D

So let's start with the recipe...you will basically need:

• 1 cup of milk
• 3 tsp of cocoa powder
• Pieces of chocolate
• Whipped cream 

All what you have to do now is to heat the milk in a saucepan on medium heat, add the cocoa powder and the chocolate, mix well until it becomes hot.

And here is my loco hocho :p

You can use whipped cream or marshmallows to garnish your delicious hot chocolate and here is the final result ;)

this chocolate can be stored in the refrigerator up to 5 days, just mix it well and reheat it before serving :) I really hope you like today's post and let me know if any of you try this recipe, you can send your hot chocolate pictures to my facebook page  My Muse: The Blog. I love you all because you are my MUSE <3

Love Your Body and Say Stop to Bad Eating Habits

Good morning girls :)) I hope you are doing well and you've already started making healthier choices in your life :) Today, I want to touch on one of the big problems and obstacles that we can face when we want to lose weight or when we want to be healthier: I will talk about some of our bad food habits and I mean here emotional eating, binging and craving :)

This post will be based on my personal experience, as I used to be a good example of a perfectly unhealthy person, so I'll share with you some of the tricks and tips that helped me to stop all these bad habits once and for all :)
I used to be an emotional eater, I would eat when I'm bored, sad, stressed or even happy. I used to binge and crave food all the time. Believe me, I couldn't stay 10 minutes with an empty mouth  and my parents were very concerned about my health and they believed that if I carry on on my bad habits I would soon or later end up suffering from diabetes.

When I decided to save my life and be healthier, the first thing I had to do was to stop bad eating habits. So here are some of the tricks I've tried to help me end my bad food habits :)

• Keep a food diary: One of the  best ways I've found to control my bad eating habits was to keep a food diary. Write down what, when and how much you're eating. This method will give you a complete  picture of your eating behaviors and you will end up changing your bad habits.

• Face your problems: as I said before, I used to be an emotional eater. If you're an emotional eater too, I really advise you to know what are the feelings that lead you  to crave food. If you're bored, angry, sad,  food will not solve your problems, it can even make you feel worse about yourself and your body. Find a new hobby, write your diary, dance or workout ( exercising makes your body produce endorphins- natural feel-good chemicals )

•  5 meals a day is my secret: yes! 5 meals a day helped me a lot to cut out binging and cravings. Change that 3 big meals habit and start eating small and frequent meals. This can prevent you from getting too hungry, which can lead to overeating.

• Think ahead: scheduling and preparing your snacks a day before will help you to gain time and prevent you from snacking bad food. Examples of healthy snacks: unsweetened yogurt ( Bifi has a yummy 0% fat 0% added sugar yogurt), fruits, dry fruits, nuts, green smoothie, banana ice cream, ricotta cheese, green tea ... 

• Don't skip breakfast: There will be a whole post about the importance of breakfast. but what it is important now is that scientific studies have proven that skiping breakfast will make you crave all the day, decrease you energie and reduce your motivation. So be sure to get a healthy and complete breakfast every morning.

• Keep good food in your fridge: keeping healthy food at your home will help you to stop your bad eating habits because binging in good food will not be as bad as binging fast food or sweet things.

• Stop eating refined sugar or at least limit it: well I'm planning to do a whole post about how does refined sugar affect our health but let me explain now how does eating sugar affect especially our eating habits. Scientifically speaking, eating refined sugar makes you feel hungry after a short time from eating it. Every time you eat sugar you will feel full for a short time because refined sugar (used in soda, cakes, ice cream..) makes your blood sugar level go up, after a while your blood sugar  falls down which makes you feel hungry again.

        Look at this curve graph, This is how exactly your blood sugar level works when you eat refined sugar ( it goes up and down, up and down all the day) and from my personal experience, I can say that this is pretty true. In fact, since I've stopped eating refined sugar I've remarked that I dont't feel hungry anymore. You can replace refined sugar with honey or natural sweeteners but you still have to use them in moderation.

This brings me to the end of this post. I want to insist on the fact that bad eating habits are seriously bad for our health because what you eat literally becomes you . So girls start loving your body, build a new realtionship with food and be healthy. I hope these tips would help you as it did for me :)
It would be a real pleasure for me to read your comments below :) Don't forget to follow me on my facebook page My Muse: The Blog. I love you all because you are MY MUSE <3

The Best Gift Nature Has Offered in a Glass: Green Juice

Green is the color of nature, fertility, growth, balance and life and so is the green juice. As the title of this post indicates green smoothie or green juice is probably the best gift nature has offered for human being.

Girls, do you have any idea  how many minerals, vitamins and enzymes are in that one glass of juice? In fact, the fresh vegetables and fruits in this green juice do nourish our bodies for healthy skin, nails, teeth and it will also help you to lose weight :) and another good news, green juice works as an anti-aging , I don't mean you will be left with no wrinkles but most of us experience premature aging signs caused by unhealthy food and drinks, green juice help you to look younger :)

Green juice also helps your digestive system to get some rest since drinking juice is much quicker digested and absorbed with a minimal effort from our body. and we have to face the truth, it's easier to drink juice than to eat one big dish of salad in one sitting :)

Still not convinced!! what if I tell you that green juice is the best friend of most of Hollywood stars :)

Maybe you think that green juice does not taste delicious but believe me it tastes a lot better than it looks.. And if you are not a vegetable lover, here is another good news for you, you'll barely taste the vegetables in your juice at all :)

So let's see together how to make this priceless juice, but first let me clear up what's the difference between green juice and green smoothie: they are, indeed, made from the same vegetables and fruits but the only difference is the machine. Green juice is made with a juicer ( so you don't need any sort of liquid) and green smoothie is made with a blender (you should use some sort of liquid like water or milk)

This is how I make my green juice : I use spinach, carrot, appel, cabbage and I use a Moulinex juicer. You can use any vegetables (cucumber, celery, parsley, etc...) and any fruits (banana, strawberry, melon, etc...) you can also add lemon, ginger and mint (just a little bit) :)

Personally, I drink my green juice almost every day :) and I hope you will do too, you will not regret it :) I hope you like this post. Don't forget to leave your comments below and to like my facebook page My Muse: The Blog for more healthy and delicious recipes :) YOU ARE MY MUSE <3