Samantha K Schmidt

Eating healthy is hard to do when you are constantly on the go. One of the easiest ways to stay healthy is to cook at home, but whether you are a working girl or a busy stay at home mom it's hard to find time to cook nutritious meals. That's why meal planning can be such a life saver. Here are a few ways to minimize your meal stress and stay healthy all week long.

Every now and then I get a serious carnivore craving. Today I was craving buffalo chicken, so I thought I'd try my hand at a vegetarian version. Ingredients: 1/4 cup of Barbecue Sauce 1/2 tablespoon of Hot Sauce 1 tablespoon grape jelly (optional) Chicken Substitute (I used Veggie Patch Nuggets) Directions: ~ Cook chicken substitute according to package directions ~ Meanwhile mix your sauces together in a shallow bowl ~ Toss the "chicken" in the sauce ~ Enjoy! This recipe is great because you can mix it up for different flavor. I prefer my buffalo sauce a little sweeter so I added jelly, you can leave it out for more spice. You can also water down the sauce to make a thinner coat. The choice is up to you.

It seems like everyone get's fitness crazy over the summer months, obsessed with getting the perfect bikini bod. Well if you are a fitness junkie and you're not using MyFitnessPal... what are you using? MyFitnessPal boasts 50 million users that have lost weight using their app, but it's not a weight loss plan. It's an all in one accountability app and it all starts with your personal profile. It starts with a few easy questions which the app uses to set your daily nutritional goals including calories, protein, and carbohydrates. You can also customize these goals. For example if you are diabetic you can adjust the amount of sugar you are allowed to intake each day. The next step is to log your daily input and output. MyFitnessPal's inventory contains foods from every brand and nearly every restaurant, and if you can't find it you can always add it yourself. You can also save your favorite meals to add them easily later. You can also log all of your da...

I hope you all had a fabulous 4th of July weekend. If you read Friday's post you know my weekend consisted of the 48 hour cleanse . I will say that overall the cleanse was successful, but dreadful. Friday we went to Fresh Market and prepared all of the weekend meals. Here is a breakdown of what we ate. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are the same for the 2 days. Breakfast: Quinoa with Prunes *this wasn't as dreadful as it could've been, but by day two I was not having those prunes. Lunch: Blueberry Smoothie *probably the most delicious of the cleanse meals Dinner: Vegetable Broth *plain tasting, but not terrible (except for the cabbage smell seeping through your pores afterward) Snack: Kale Smoothie, Pineapple/Pomegranate Drink, and Vegetables *our ninja didn't cut it for blending the kale it was grainy and gross, pineapple drink was okay, and I couldn't eat enough carrots to get full The cleanse does it's job. It cleanses your liver, kidney, and...

Today is Fourth of July and if you are like the majority of the American population you are going to eat (and drink) way too much. Saturday morning you'll probably be having some serious regrets. Well don't fret. I found a 48 hour cleanse that will put you back on track. I went on a mini-vaca this week and after only two days I had gained 4 pounds! (I blame it on the sangria.) Needless to say I was feeling pretty awful and wanted to find a way to clean out all the awful things I had ingested. So I found a cleanse that I knew I could stick to and if you are doubting the efficiency it's Dr. Oz approved. The 48 Hour Cleanse Here you will find a shopping list as well as recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. I already prepped my meals and snapped a few pictures of the final products. Breakfast Lunch Dinner Don't forget to come back Monday for an update.

My favorite veggie burger of all time is the Vegefi from Burgerfi. If you haven't tried it, do yourself a favor and devour one. It has a very similar texture to meat and toppings make you nostalgic for backyard barbecues. Even my non-vegetarian friends love this burger and often prefer it to the real thing. I've been trying to find a copycat recipe for the Vegefi for a long time. After much searching I came across one, but the recipe was ridiculous. I'm really not much of a cook (you can tell from my directions below), so I managed to minimize the list of ingredients without minimizing the taste. Here are my Simple Homemade Veggie Burgers Ingredients: 1 box of Nature's Earthly Choice - Garden Vegetable Quinoa (This brand is my favorite, because all the vegetables are included) 2 eggs 1 cup of breadcrumbs 1/4 cup of shredded gouda Canola Oil Directions: ~ Cook the quinoa according to the directions on the box ~ In a medium sized bowl beat eggs ~ Add the quin...

After I graduated college I went through a really rough time. I couldn't find a job. I broke up with my boyfriend of 2 years, and all my friends seemed to have abandoned me. I was going through a serious bout of depression. After taking some photos for an audition one day, something hit me. It was like a smack in the face. Something I had been ignoring for the past 3 years. I had gained more than 30 pounds. My BMI teetering on the edge of overweight. After months of moping around, my eyes had finally opened. I knew that if I didn't get my life on track my genetics would kick in and I would be stuck with the plagues of my family: obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. So I decided to change my life entirely. I won't say I lost weight in a completely healthy way, but I can say that over the past few years I have found a middle ground between obsessive overeating and obsessive under eating. Today I have a pretty healthy lifestyle, and I thought I would sh...

Last week I posted all about my vegan adventures. Although it has been a difficult journey I have learned so much along the way. Today I thought I would share some easy vegan meals with you. I don't have a lot of time to cook so many of these are straight from the frozen food aisle. If that's not your thing you may want to consider cooking your meals ahead of time. Many people cook all of their weekly meals on Sunday. However, if you aren't a big cook (or if you just aren't very good at it, like me) these meals will be your easy way out. Breakfast: Oatmeal with peanut butter and brown sugar Cereal and soy milk Breakfast smoothie with strawberries, peanut butter, soy milk or yogurt, and protein powder Snacks: Clif bar Carrots Banana Pita chips and hummus Lunch: PB&J or try an AB&J (almond butter and jelly) Gardein Chick'n Sliders (my current favorite) Tofu and Spinach Ravioli (I can't think of the brand that I usually get, but it...

Eight months ago, I made the decision to become pescetarian. It was a decision, that for me, was a long time coming. Although I'd always enjoyed biting into a chicken sandwich I hated the sight of a whole chicken. I had trouble cooking meat for dinner, and absolutely refused  to eat any meat that truly resembled the animal. I was an oddity in my family. I grew up with hunters. I'd even seen deer slain right before my eyes. I consistently came up with excuses on Thanksgiving as to why I wasn't eating meat carved from the carcass of a turkey. Finally, after a few days of research I made the switch. I did it for many reasons. First, the reasons aforementioned. I was never a big meat eater anyway and hated the sight of raw meat. Second, economical reasons. One of the most shocking things that I read was that if all of the grain that went to livestock in this country actually went to feeding our hungry, no one would be hungry! Yea, seriously. Okay maybe it's all propagand...