If a busy schedule makes it hard for you to make healthy homemade meals and refuel yourself after a hard workout, here are 10 shopping tips to keep in mind when combing through the supermarket aisles. These shopping habits will make it easier for you to eat healthier and prepare home-cooked meals that will fit into your busy schedule.

1. Keep canned tuna and/or beans in your pantry at all times to quickly throw protein onto a salad or in pasta.
2. Have whole-grain crackers, and have at least one of these proteins ready in the fridge: nut butters, cheese, or sliced turkey.
3. Eggs, ground beef, or veggie sausages can be quickly sauteéd for a fast dinner protein.
4. If you're constantly throwing out stale snacks, opt for these foods that have a longer shelf life: dried fruit, corn kernels (for homemade popcorn), and nori seaweed.
5. Choose fruits and veggies that require little preparation. You can quickly steam green beans and kale. Berries like raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries can be thrown on top of Greek yogurt, in a smoothie, or on top of salads.

Click here for more healthy cooking tips.

Saint Patrick's Day is approaching, and you can jump-start the celebration with an Irish playlist, complete with Celtic folk, Irish rock classics, and contemporary hits. For good measure, I've thrown a recognizable Irish bar jig — I mean, an Irish playlist wouldn't be complete without one! So before you toss back your overflowing green beer, celebrate Irish culture by playing some famous tunes while engaging in a healthy, heart-pumping workout.

Saint Patrick's Day Workout Playlist from FitSugar on 8tracks.

See the complete track list.

Dieting and exercise are obvious choices to help slim and tone you up for bikini season, but there are easy tricks to sneak toning exercises into your daily life. Here are five easy ways to get a full-body workout, without stepping foot in the gym.

1. Carry your groceries: To target the arms, carry a basket when grocery shopping rather than pushing a cart. Walking with the heavy basket, shifting it from arm to arm, and reaching up and down for groceries makes this a dynamic weight-bearing exercise.
2. Keep things tight: Whether you are standing in the shower, blow-drying your hair, walking down the street, or sitting at your desk, activate your ab muscles. Your abs are never intended to relax, so challenge yourself to tighten your core all day, especially if you have any nagging back pain.

See more bikini tips.

You might think that only athletes, runners, and cyclists train strenuously enough to refuel on protein-, carb-, and electrolyte-rich snacks before, during, and after a workout, but dancers need nutritious ammunition as well. Most dance halls that teach genres like salsa, lindy hop, or ballroom will have a social dance after the lessons so you can practice your newly obtained moves in a safe and friendly dance setting. Lessons and the social dance can add up to three to four hours and work up a serious sweat.

If you aren't eating the right things throughout such an intense round of dancing, you run the risk of experiencing DOMS, or delayed onset muscle soreness. Besides sore muscles, DOMS makes you feel exhausted, nauseated, and practically hung over the next day. An average 130-pound woman will burn 324 calories per hour of dancing, and if you plan to stick around for the social dance, you could burn up to 972 calories in a three-hour dance period. To keep your body adequately fueled for the exercise itself and to quickly recover for your next dancing round, here's a breakdown of what you should be eating and drinking.

Keep reading for the breakdown.

When green garlic first appears at the farmers market, you know that Spring has sprung. Picked before the bulb is fully mature, green garlic resembles a large scallion, with a small white base and a dark green stalk. The green garlic season is short (only a few weeks), so make sure you pick a bunch up when you see it, to enjoy the mild, slightly sweet baby garlic stalks.

Green garlic is still technically garlic and contains all the amazing health benefits found in a mature bulb. Garlic is notable for its immune-boosting qualities: allicin, the sulfur compound found in garlic, responsible for its pungent smell and taste, is a natural antibiotic and can help the body block infections. If you suffer from anemia or low iron levels, garlic also helps to keep iron levels high. Most people know that vitamin C helps increase iron metabolism, but garlic contains the protein ferroportin that carries stored iron from inside a cell to outside of the cell, assisting the body as needed.

Find out even more health benefits and how to cook with green garlic after the break!

Trainers are incredibly helpful in teaching better form and correct alignment, but no matter how astute a trainer is, he or she may miss a few things. To help protect your body from injury or strain, keep these questions in mind during your training session. Even though it's a trainer's job to keep you safe, it's still important to develop a keen eye for any bad habits that could present potential problems later.

Where Should I Be Aligned?
Everyone's body has different tilts and asymmetries, and your trainer might not always be able to see the one-inch difference between your left and right shoulders, for example. If you are aware of any asymmetries in your body, verbalize them to your trainer so he or she will keep you in check. You also want to remind yourself of common alignment issues like keeping your shoulders down and back, abs engaged, hips even, and weight on the heels of the foot when doing squats or lunges.

Click here for more questions to ask.

In honor of Mardi Gras, make a lighter (yet still flavor-packed) vegan version of the New Orleans favorite, jambalaya. The Cajun Trinity (and mirepoix variant), sautéed onion, bell pepper, and celery, along with the Creole seasoning give this dish a certified Southern flavor, while the rice, vegetables, and broth thicken to create a rich, creamy texture. This dish does require a few hours to prepare, but the payoff is worth the patience, and Cajun dishes are all about slow cooking and bringing people together. Serve the dish with sautéed collard greens and corn bread!

Check out the recipe here.

Completing 10 reps feels like an accomplishment, but sometimes our muscles are too exhausted to finish a full set. Trainers, gym instructors, and even you might push for a complete set of 10, despite your form being off or your muscles screaming in a bad way. Instead of pushing yourself past your limits, do less reps with perfect form to safely improve your strength and endurance and avoid injury. (You may also want to make sure you are lifting the right amount of weight in strength-training exercises.)

To know when you've pushed passed your limit, it's important to recognize the difference between a healthy muscle burn vs. sharp, shooting nerve pain. It may seem like a no-brainer, but my trainer says that no exercise should cause the kind of pain that makes you want to throw up, pass out, or cry. How often have you pushed yourself further even though you intuitively knew that an exercise didn't feel right? So even if you can only complete eight reps, stop before your muscles seize up and rest assured that you are doing your body a favor by not pushing beyond its means. Someday you will work your way toward a perfect set of 10.

If 30 minutes of continuous cardio activity is too strenuous for you or you can't commit to the time frame, researchers in Canada have found that a 20-minute workout consisting of one-minute intervals followed by one minute of recovery is an effective method for improving your overall health and fitness level.

To experiment with the concept yourself, complete a one-minute interval at 90 percent of your maximum heart rate (calculate your max heart rate here) and then follow with a minute of recovery. Complete 10 one-minute intervals with one-minute breaks in between.
The whole workout will take you only 20 minutes, yet researchers have found that even this small amount of exercise will help increase your energy and oxygen production as well as regulate your blood sugar. From jump rope to battle ropes, we've gathered seven ways you can try out the one-minute intervals yourself. Do each exercise at your maximum for one minute, then follow with one minute of recovery; repeat ten times. Click here to see our interval ideas.

One moment of overextending yourself can lead to years of physical therapy and doctors visits to help keep your sports-related back pain at bay. Trainers and physical therapists constantly remind us to keep the abs engaged when completing any exercise, but to really strengthen your entire trunk, you must work it beyond the gym.

Since most of us sit at a desk most hours of our waking day, our abs have become very lazy. We evolved to be on the move with an engaged core supporting every step. Keeping your abdominals pulled in and up makes a kind of natural corset instantly lifting you up, creating traction (or space) between the vertebrae of the low spine. By consciously pulling your muscles toward your spine, your trunk has the mobility, strength, and support needed to safely and (hopefully) painlessly accomplish any physical task, whether it's lifting a leg, reaching for the floor, or rising from a chair. Many people think engaging your abs means clamping down tight in the torso, but that might aggravate the pain more. Click here to learn how to safely engage all deep ab muscles.

Forget about the partially hydrogenated palm oil and artificial flavors — this vegan peanut butter patty, inspired by the Girl Scout Tagalong classic, has all the buttery, peanut buttery, and chocolatey goodness of the original, minus the animal products and unpronounceable ingredients.

This recipe is definitely involved, but it's a fun way to test your baking skills and make something you are truly proud of. Think of it this way — Girl Scout cookies only come out once a year, so make this your special annual treat.

While it's not necessary to temper the chocolate, you'll see that it gives the cookies a sheen and snap that's attractive and delicious. Untempered chocolate will "bloom," meaning the fat of the cocoa will rise to the top, creating a white, dull appearance (like the cookie on the left). If this happens to you, don't worry! The cookies are still edible, so savor the efforts of your hard work.

Click here to see the recipe.