Exsoycise is now Awakened Nutrition & Training, a blog for health seekers, food lovers and dream body builders!

If you knew me about 6 years ago, you would have laughed at the thought of me being a healthy eater much less a health coach. I had just moved to NYC and my time as a vegetarian was coming to an end. I can see how when one would hear me say “I was a vegetarian”, that would lead you to believe I was health conscious. But let me tell you, I was so far from the picture of health! I was the girl eating pizza at 2am after a long night of drinking and partying, and I loved any and ALL desserts that NYC had to offer. I mean, you can't move to NYC and not enjoy some of the best foods on Earth, right?

I often times, I would forget to bring my lunch to work and order food that I know wasn't great for me usually under the pressure of co-workers. Or I'd have a fridge full of random food and I wouldn't know what to cook. The next thing you know, I'd be so ravaging hungry that I'd end up ordering take-out or another poor food choice - like a tub of ice cream in the freezer or an entire jar of peanut butter.

I was already heavy when I moved up here, but with all the amazing foods I was eating the scale continued to go up and my closet was also expanding from having to buy larger size clothes as my waistline expanded.

I was not happy with how I looked and despite how bad I wanted to lose the weight, I was never able to achieve my weight loss goals mainly because I didn't know where to start. I was so tired of falling back into my old habits of crash dieting and needed a serious change!

Luckily, I started dating Chris and he came to my rescue like a knight in shining armor! He taught me about foods, like clean proteins, complex carbs and health fats, that I should to eat to nourish my body and workouts I should do in order to create lean muscle.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what food I should eat for the week and even more time putting them all on an excel spreadsheet. Meal planning became even more of a struggle for me once I did an allergy elimination diet and realized I was allergic to soy and intolerant of dairy. I soon realized that it's nearly impossible to find packaged foods at the store that were both soy and dairy-free. I had many "freak out" moments in the aisles of the grocery store when I realized I could no longer enjoy many of the foods I had loved my entire life.

It was a struggle for me at first, but I soon learned that these foods were acting as poisons to my body causing me to stay in a constant state of inflammation, hold onto body fat, and causing me to have a leaky gut. Once I cut out most processed packaged foods and started incorporating more whole foods by planning and cooking my meals each week, those stubborn pounds started to come off which resulted in 17lbs of weight loss in the first year.

Meal planning over the years has helped me to transform my body and take a lot of stress out of eating a soy, dairy and gluten-free diet. AND I almost always start noticing a shift in my weight when I start to stray away from planning and preparing my meals regularly. You can look back at many past blog posts where I have “gotten back on the wagon” using meal planning. It’s really such an easy and effective tool.

It’s been my goal over the last few years has been to show my clients and blog readers that cooking and eating healthy foods, even when dealing with food allergies or sensitivities, does not have to be difficult or boring; it can be an easy process and taste delicious at the same time! That is why I rcreated the 4-Week Soy, Dairy & Gluten-Free Meal Plan and recipes just to share with all of YOU!

The 4-week meal plan is the perfect jump-start to help you get back on track with your health and wellness goals after the holidays without having to follow some fad diet. You don't have to let poor food choices get in the way of achieving your goals any longer! Let healthy wholesome food be the solid foundation for achieving your own transformation!

Maybe you are also soy, dairy and/or gluten-free and are looking for some easy-to-make recipes or maybe you just want to incorporate more whole foods into your diet in order to shed a few pounds or maintain your current weight. Whatever your reasons for wanting to be the healthiest version of YOU possible, these meal plans are loaded with so many great recipes and tips that will help!

But I really want you to be successful whether you buy my meal plans or not, so I've completely revamped the FREE 7-Day Meal Plan, that many of you all have already downloaded! It now includes 15 delicious recipes, an easy-to-read 7-day plan, and an exact list of what you need to buy from the grocery store. I want meal planning to be as simple as possible for you guys because I know that it's one of the key tools that will help you make daily healthy food choices to maintain your ideal body weight and remove inflammatory foods that are making us sick and fat. You can grab the new copy of the FREE 7-Day Meal Plan HERE. I'm so excited to hear how you guys like it!!

I wanted to share one of my favorite entrée recipes with you from the meal plan. I seriously make it just about every week and it’s so easy! It’s also a great dish to serve when you have guests over for dinner. When I made it this last Thursday, I also added 1-2 teaspoons dried Thyme and 1 tablespoon dried Sage that came from Chris’s mother’s garden – such a treat! You can really add any herbs to this recipe and it would taste amazing!

Roasted Garlic Rosemary Chicken Breast and Legs – 4 Servings

From Week 4 of the 4-Week Soy, Dairy & Gluten-Free Meal Plan

• 2 bone in organic chicken breasts and 4 legs with skin on (I get the pack from Trader Joe's)
• 3-4 cloves garlic cut into thick slices
• 1 ½ tablespoon coconut oil melted
• 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spread about 1 tablespoon coconut oil into bottom of a 9x13 pan.
2. Cut garlic into thick slices and chop rosemary. Salt and pepper the bottoms of chicken, then place into pan skin side up. Separate and lift up the skin, place 2-3 slices of garlic under the skin and make sure they are covered under the skin. Brush the tops of the chicken with ½ tablespoon coconut oil, sprinkle rosemary, salt and pepper to taste.
3. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until done. Enjoy!