How to Have a Healthy Ramadan

Happy Ramadan dear sisters!

Read my article in Layali Webzine on How to Have a Healthy Ramadan, pages 36-41! I hope you enjoy! 🙂

With love, Leena ❤

 

Green Juice

Hello lovelies! 🙂

Today I am sharing with you my favorite green juice recipe! Drinking fresh juice allows easy absorption of powerful nutrients, since the body does not have to process the fiber in the fruit and vegetables. If you’re scared of trying fresh juice, it’s best to start with simple recipes with 2 or 3 ingredients to get yourself use to them. I suggest apple cucumber and lemon! If you’d like to advance a little more, this is the recipe for you!

It’s sweet and sour like an earthy lemonade with little extra kick of ginger. You will need a juicer for this recipe, and a strainer if you wish to strain the extra pulp at the end, I decided not to strain today though. 🙂

Ingredients:

1 lemon

1 small cucumber

2 small apples (or 1.5 large)

2 celery stalks

1/4 inch piece ginger root (a little goes a long way!)

2 handfuls spinach

I hope you enjoy!

With love, Leena ❤

How to Stay Healthy in College

In order to eat right and exercise while trying to balance all the stresses of student life, you have to be committed and willing to make time for your health each day. It might be hard at first to start new habits, but they will simply become part of your routine once you get use to it! Personally, working out and eating healthy foods are what keeps me sane when college gets stressful! Here are the ways that I stay healthy in college! 🙂

My morning: It takes me about 15-20 minutes in the morning to make breakfast and pack my lunch and snacks. I know 20 minutes is a long time in the morning when you’re in a hurry! So, I just wake up 20 minutes earlier so I have time to get ready, then prepare my breakfast and lunch before I run out the door!

For breakfast: Protein and carbohydrates for breakfast are important to give energy and fuel for your day. I don’t get too fancy with my breakfast on school days since I’m in a hurry. I like to make 2 scrambled eggs with a side of strawberries or other fruit. Other days, I make a simple smoothie with a nut butter or protein powder (you might want to try my Chocolate PB Banana Smoothie!). These are really quick breakfasts because scrambling eggs takes like 2 minutes, and throwing ingredients in a blender is just as easy!

For lunch: I love making salad bowls filled with greens + veggies + healthy fats + protein and a separate little container with a homemade dressing with a side of fruit.

I usually have a bed of spinach with cucumber, tomato, bell pepper, olives and chickpeas with a dressing made out of olive oil, lemon, and apple cider vinegar. There are endless possibilities with this meal! When it’s lunch time I just pour in the dressing, close the salad up again and shake it up! My inspiration for this lunch came from one of my favorite healthy blogs Nutrition Stripped. Read here where she explains more in depth how to create a “nourish bowl“. If you just don’t seem to have enough time in the morning to make your lunch, prepare as much as you can the night before. It saves so much time!

For snacks: I always try to have protein at every snack and meal. I usually bring a banana and almonds and a thermos of green tea. If I am eating fruit, I always eat it with nuts or other protein so that it does not spike my blood sugar. Any type of fruit and nut combination is always good! Other protein-filled snack ideas would be boiled eggs, or veggie sticks like cucumber, carrot, and celery with humus dip.

Water: Drink water to keep those good nutrients flowing through your body throughout the day. Did you know that not drinking enough water can cause you to be tired and fatigued? Try filling up a water bottle with filtered water in the morning and sip on it throughout the day 🙂 Adding lemon makes a world or difference, too!

Exercise: Find a convenient time of day for you to work out and make it a part of your routine. I work out right after I get home from school, which works for me because I get it over with and it keeps me from getting lazy! Other people find working out first thing in the morning before school works for them. Everyone is different, so find out what works for you! I make a schedule for my exercise goals at the beginning of the week. I always try to fit in at least 2-3 days of weights and 3 days of cardio. You don’t have to go to the gym every day, but do try to do something active everyday! It could be just walking to classes around campus  or taking  stairs instead of the elevator and parking your car far away so you can get a little extra movement in!

Sleep: I know I have repeated myself many times on the importance of sleep, but it is truly important if you want to stay healthy while in college. If you get enough rest, it will be easier to wake up early to prepare your meals and have enough energy to exercise. As a student, sleep is also important in order to retain knowledge, because during sleep is when your brain organizes all the information that you learned and studied throughout the day. Try not to go to sleep past 10 or 11 o’clock so you can wake up early rested and ready to start your day! 🙂

I hope that I have inspired you to incorporate more healthy habits into your busy schedule!

 

With love,

Leena

What I Wear to the Gym!

I have loved working out and going to the gym since I was fourteen years old. Figuring out what on earth I was going to wear to the gym was one of my biggest fears before I started wearing hijab, and turned out to be one of my toughest struggles. Through lots of trial and error, thank God, I found a hijab style that stays in place! Literally, people.. it does not move through all the jumping, kicking and punching that I do!

How I tie the scarf: The scarf is a maxi cotton hijab that I folded in half longways and then cut down the middle to make two rectangles, which makes two workout scarves! I use a cotton bonnet with the ties at the end so that I can tie it tight without it slipping off. Then, I place the rectangular scarf over my head with the two sides equal on both sides. I take both sides to the back and tie it in a knot, and tuck the two pieces up inside in the back! Ive also learned that tying your hair in a half-ponytail works better than a bun so that it does not come undone if you’re moving around a lot.

Shirt: I wear running shirts with a high collar that are super lightweight and breathable so I don’t get too hot, and I am still able to maintain coverage of my neck without suffocating. 😉

This one is from Underarmour. Other brands that have these types of shirts are Nike, Target, Lulu Lemon, and Zella to name a few.

Pants: I get wide leg yoga pants so that they are not too terribly tight, but still allows freedom of movement without fabric getting in the way.

These pants are by Zella, from Nordstroms. You can also check Gap or Target to find your perfect fit.

Every once in a while, I do get stares or questions when people see me dressed like this at the gym. It’s not the typical Muslim dress (even though I still manage to cover everything), so people get confused. People ask me, “Don’t you get hot in that thing? It’s 100 degrees outside!” or, “You look like a melting popsicle!” Someone even thought I had cancer! I just want you to know that it doesn’t matter what other people are thinking or what they say, just own it and continue to do what’s best for your body, while still maintaining your duty to Allah. It’s something to be proud of! Go get it girls! 😉

With love,

Leena

 

Chocolate PB Banana Smoothie

My little brother calls this smoothie the “Chocolate Monkey Party” smoothie. I hope that describes to you how good it is. I make this smoothie as a breakfast or snack. It’s great for post workout recovery with protein from the peanut butter and carbohydrates from the bananas! I love it so much that I drink one several times throughout the week, and it’s so easy to whip together with just 4 wholesome ingredients.

Ingredients:

1. 2 frozen ripe bananas
2. 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
3. 2 T peanut butter
4. 1 T cacoa powder (or cocoa if that’s more accessible)

Directions: Puree all ingredients in a blender and that’s as simple as it gets!

PS: if you only use a tiny bit of almond milk instead of a whole cup, it becomes chocolate icecream. 🙂 perfect guilt free dessert!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

With love,

Leena

 

Think Healthy, Not Skinny

As a nursing student and healthy living enthusiast, I have learned there is so much more to health than being thin. Our bodies were handcrafted just for us by our Creator (isn’t that just mind blowing?) Subhanallah. We should show our appreciation through nourishing and respecting our bodies rather than beating ourselves up because we don’t look like Victoria’s Secret models. In all reality, everyone is shaped differently and is beautiful in their own way. After almost a semester of nursing school, I am now thankful for my health more than ever, because there are so many people who are sick and the last thing on their mind is their outer appearance.  I have certainly had my share of insecurities about my body as most girls do, but changing the way I eat and exercising regularly have made me happier and healthier from the inside out! To start off this health and fitness series, I will share my beliefs about health in general. Then, in future posts I’ll give more specific tips on diet, recipes and fitness, especially for all of you with busy schedules. Believe me, maintaining a healthy lifestyle can be done, even while in college. 🙂

Listen to your body: This is my first word of advice. I suffered through bloating, stomach cramps and extreme fatigue through most of high school. After realizing the food I was eating was causing my problem, I began a lifestyle change and cut out certain foods that I was sensitive to. A food sensitivity is not the same thing as an allergy, because it does not involve a major immune response, but rather, more vague symptoms, which can make it hard to diagnose. Some of the top foods that cause sensitivities in people include dairy, gluten/wheat, corn and soy. I eliminated dairy and grains from my diet and couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so good. My stomach was not bloated, but flat. The cramping was absent and I started losing a little weight without having to eat less. Most importantly, I started to appreciate my body and feel more confident about the way I looked…just because I FELT better. I now model the way I eat off the Paleo diet, which I will talk more about in the future. Pay attention to the way food makes you feel, and eat the foods that make you feel amazing.

Fuel: The food we eat is one of the most important elements to our health. We literally are what we eat, because the molecules in our food build the cells of our bodies. By eliminating as many chemicals, hormones and genetically modified foods (GMOs) as possible, we allow our bodies to function properly and make us feel our absolute best! You can start by eliminating processed and packaged foods, avoiding meat and dairy products with added hormones, making sure to wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly to avoid consuming pesticides, and choosing organic when possible!

Hydration: Drink pure, clean water throughout the day. Plastic water bottles cause chemicals and plastic to end up in the water you’re drinking, especially if you leave it out in the sun in your car! Making sure you have a water filter of some sort in your home is so important! It’s cheaper to fill up a bottle of filtered water everyday than to buy tons of pre-bottled water anyway.  I really enjoy drinking water…especially out of a glass jar with lots of lemon 🙂

Exercise: Find something you LOVE to do.. and do it! If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you are less likely to make it a part of your everyday life. It could be anything from walking to dancing! I love going to classes at the gym! It helps me to have an instructors motivation alongside lots of other classmates. My favorites are the Les Mills Body Combat (a mixed martial arts/kickboxing class) and Body Pump (a weight lifting class)! I also love going to cycling and yoga classes, and jogging around my neighborhood too. I like to mix it up sometimes. I try to make an exercise schedule at the beginning of the week so I have a plan in order to meet my goals.

Sleep: Last but certainly not least is sleep! During sleep, our bodies are in repair mode. If our bodies do not have enough time to heal themselves, they cannot remove toxins, rebuild cells or fight infections. Lack of sleep can slow metabolism leading to weight gain, and weaken the immune system, which can lead to getting sick easily. I gave tips on how to get a better night’s sleep in my “How to be a Successful Student” post! I try not to go to sleep past 10 or 11 pm every night. Plus, it makes getting up to pray Fajr SO much easier.

May you be healthy and happy always! Stay tuned for what’s to come inshallah 🙂

With love,

Leena