Pancakes and Snow Day Workout

Today is the day! The day the kids have been waiting for......SNOW DAY!!!! Now it IS a little less dramatic since they were just off yesterday for President's Day. But nonetheless, I cancelled my small group classes this morning to stay home with them. Our morning started with the most outrageous chocolate chip pancakes ever. My oldest son "helped" me add the chocolate chips so they were abundant at best. While I typically shy away from eating this type of breakfast.....it's a snow day. Rules don't apply on a snow day in case you weren't aware of that. So, like a good girl I took 2 Carb Ease and enjoyed 2 of these amazing little cakes of goodness. I figure it will be the best fuel for the shoveling I need to do, followed up by my bodyweight workout, right?

If you are looking for a good old fashioned pancake recipe, this is my go to, adapted from a recipe I found on food.com.


Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk
4 TBSP butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup all purpose white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 TBSP sugar (or 1 tsp honey)
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions:
Beat egg until fluffy
Add milk, melted butter and vanilla
Add dry ingredients and mix well
Heat a heavy griddle which is greased with a little butter on a paper towel
Pour a small amount of batter (approx 1/4 cup) into pan and spread out with a spoon (add chocolate chips on top at this point, or even blueberries are delicious)
When bubbles appear on the surface and begin to break, turn over and cook the other side

Now onto the workout of the day! Go through each exercise in a circuit format, resting as needed. If you don't have stairs available to you, then try jumping jacks or high knees or walking in place for that 3 minute time period. Try and go through the circuit at least 3 times, but keep in mind to always do what is appropriate for YOUR fitness level.

Here is a breakdown of the exercises above for your clarification:

Burpees (in this video I also show modications of the burpee)

Air Squats

Push ups

Tricep Dips

Alternating Lunges

Wall Sit

Speed Skaters

Bicycle Crunches

Forearm Plank

Enjoy the pancakes and enjoy your workout Fit and Healthy Crew!!!!

~Debbie

Coffeccino - perfect coffee substitute!

How AWESOME would it be to enjoy a warm coffee frappuccino drink without all the sugar, fat and calories!! Well, I'm here to tell you that I know where you can get just that!!

I'd like to introduce you to Coffeccino! 

Coffeccino is actually a vitamin and mineral supplement drink that I drink frequently. It provides key B-vitamins and amino acids to enhance mental focus and alertness and supports your body's natural energy production. It also helps manage appetite in conjunction with proper diet and exercise. 

Another bonus about this drink is that you can prepare it three different ways:

1.  For a hot beverage (great during the chilly days of fall and winter), you simply blend, shake or stir the contents of one pouch into six ounces of very hot (not boiling) water. Stir thoroughly. Flavor extracts can even be added at this point.

2.  For a cold beverage, blend, shake or stir the contents of one pouch into six ounces of cold water. For an iced drink, shake thoroughly.

3.  For a frappe, add with ice cubes to a blender and blend until smooth. Flavor extracts can be added as well. 

After having some pretty intense workouts the past two days, I took a breather this afternoon and had an enjoyable warm epson salt bath and wanted to relax a bit before picking the kids up from school. I decided to spend some time in my compression socks to help with the recovery from my long run yesterday and speed work today. Seemed to only make sense that I heat myself up a warm coffeccino and not only enjoy the delicious taste, but also the vitamins, minerals and amino acids that come with it, and get a little pep in my step this afternoon! 

Better yet, when you compare it to one of the high end coffee drinks you buy at your local coffee shop (Starbucks grande frap for example), you can really start to see the benefits of this supplemental drink, outside of the fact that it simply tastes delicious.

Theirs:

Calories:  400

Fat: 15g

Sugar: 60g

Caffeine: 110 mg

Advocare's Coffeccino:

Calories: 80

Fat: 4g

Sugar: 3g

Caffeine: 120mg

If you are so inclined to want to try this delicious drink, you can visit my Advocare site. And if you have any questions about this product, or any of the other Advocare products, please feel free to contact me.

Be Fit! Be Healthy! Be Inspired!

~Debbie

Copycat Pecan Pie Larabars (Laraballs)

I really like pecan pie larabars. When I looked on the ingredients and saw there were only three (pecans, almonds and dates), I did what I always do.....made my own. Super easy and the perfect treat when you are craving something a little sweet and nutty. I made mine into balls instead of bars simply to keep it easy. Enjoy!!


It's just this easy........
Take 14 Medjool dates (pitted), 1 cup of pecans and 1 cup of almonds and process them all together in a food processor.  Roll them into balls and store in the refrigerator for a quick sweet and nutty (like ME!!! Bad pun......) pick me up!!!

This will make between 12 and 15 balls depending on the size you want.

Be Fit, Be Healthy, Be Inspired!
~Debbie

Banana Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffins

While my Banana Oatmeal breakfast muffins have taken off on Pinterest over the past two years, reaching almost 800,000 pins (crazy I know), my Pumpkin protein muffins have always been my personal favorite.  Today I decided to take the best of both worlds and create a new muffin recipe combining these two favorites. I'm pretty sure that right here, and right now, I have created THE PERFECT MUFFIN, free of refined sugar and flour. Make these and see for yourself.

Be Fit, Be Healthy, Be Inspired,
~Debbie

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups old fashioned oats (use GF oats for this recipe for GF diet)
1 cup plain 0% fat Greek yogurt
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 ripe banana
2 eggs
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
Dash of nutmeg
2 TBSP ground flaxseed
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips (optional but recommended)


Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray or line 12 muffin tins with muffin liners. If you use liners, make sure to spray the liners with a bit of non-stick cooking spray as well, as these muffins tend to stick a tad bit.

Place the oats in the food processor and process for about 20 seconds. Add remaining ingredients (minus the chocolate chips if using) to the food processor.

Process until everything is mixed together, about 30 seconds.

After processed,at this point, you can add in approximately 1/4 cup of dark chocolate chips to the batter before placing batter into muffin cups. I highly recommend this step :-)

Divide batter among liners, about 2/3 the way full and bake for 18-20 minutes. 

Let muffins cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 15 minutes, then remove from the muffin pan and continue to cool.

Muffins can be stored in an airtight container for a day or two and then placed in the refrigerator or put into a freezer bag and frozen for snack time on a later day. (I do love snack time.......) 

This recipe yields about 15 muffins.

Pumpkin Banana Protein Muffins

Here is my latest healthy muffin recipe.  I adapted it from my original Pumpkin protein muffin recipe and I have to say that it is just as good if not better!  As with most of my muffin recipes, this one contains no white refined sugar or flour and has some extra nutritional benefits as well with the addition of the ground flax seed.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as the kids, my Mom and I did! Both of my boys each had 2 muffins and some fruit for their after school snack.  I feel so much better serving them home made nutritious food over processed boxed goods. Yes, it is definitely more work, but so worth it!  Make up a batch of these delicious morsels for your next fall gathering and let me know what your friends and family think.  I guarantee you, they will NEVER believe these are considered "healthy treats!"  And you can give yourself a huge pat on the back for feeding your friends and family food that you have made with only the best intentions in mind.

 Ingredients: 

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Clean Eating Challenge grocery list

In preparation for our clean eating challenge, it will be imperative to do a little shopping to get some key foods for the challenge.  It isn't all that complicated.  We will really be eating food in it's most natural state so you will find your meals and snacks to be rather simple actually!  Our ultimate goal is to stay away from most processed foods. So, in order to get us started on the right foot, I'll give you a list of some foods that you can have on hand in order to make this challenge a success. And make sure to read my previous blog post to get a true feel for what exactly we mean by eating clean.

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Pumpkin Protein Muffins

I've been working on a Pumpkin protein muffin and I think I've finally found a good combination of ingredients for the perfect, healthy, cold weather muffin. The original muffin recipe that I played around with to come up with my recipe can be found here at Dashing Dish.  As with most of my muffin recipes, this one includes no added refined sugar and it gets its sweetness from honey and dates. It is also classified under the gluten free category and it got two thumbs up from my kids and fellow "health nut" trainers at the gym. So I think we're good!! If you like pumpkin I think you will really like this, and I love that it has a good little dose of protein to it, making it a great pre or post-workout snack. Enjoy!

 Ingredients: 

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Cinnamon Chia Oatmeal bake with Coconut Whipped Cream

I made the kids and I some baked oatmeal this morning.  I adapted the recipe from a new blog I found called, Skinny Mom's Kitchen.  Her recipe looked delicious, so I just made a few changes using coconut oil, coconut milk and added some chia seeds for additional nutrition.  Since I was on the coconut theme, I played around with the coconut whipped cream as well.  Don't like coconut??  No worries!  Outside of the whipped cream, which you could omit, you will find that there is no shockingly crazy coconut flavor to this dish.  It's very cinnamony (is that a word?) and this is a basic recipe in which you could play around with all sorts of flavors.  How about almond flavoring, using a mashed banana rather than applesauce, or adding peanut butter........PEANUT BUTTER, why did I not add that??  The possibilities are really endless.  Play around with it and let me know what you come up with.

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Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins

Yep, another muffin recipe!  What can I say.....I love 'em and my kids will eat them.  Score!  As I was pinning today, I came across this that I repinned from Toni, one of my facebook fans at Fit and Healthy with Debbie Reichert.  Here is the original recipe if you would like to check it out at chase and em's site!

I did not add any sugar at all, and substituted with honey, as I usually do with my muffins.  Therefore, these muffins were not overly sweet, making them truly perfect for breakfast with a cup of coffee.  Oh, who am I kidding, I just ate 2 at 2:00 in the afternoon with some skim milk......so sue me!  Since I have been eating clean, I honestly don't miss the sweetness in certain foods.  That said, if you are looking for a sweeter muffin, then use the sugar that is called for in the original recipe, OR use more honey than I did.  But play around with it and make it your own.  I found the recipe below to be just right!

Here's my variation:

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Apple oat muffins

In my effort to continue to get rid of all of our freshly picked apples, I found this recipe online, made a few changes, and it was super easy and yummy!  The original recipe can be found here if you are interested.   I'm VERY happy with how these turned out! They are not as much on the sweet side, so I'm picturing me in the morning, with my cup of coffee and one of these beauties, alongside my Greek yogurt and fruit.  My 7 year old LOVED it for his after school snack.  He had 2 of them with some yogurt. Score Mom!!!  

I try very hard to keep my refined sugar intake to a low but you'll see I did throw in a little bit of brown sugar.  To me, the combination of apples, brown sugar and cinnamon is second to none.    Try throwing some walnuts into the batter as well.  I did not because my kids are not big on nuts in their muffins.  That, however, would have made me even happier with this final product......the things you do for your kids, right??  Next time, I'll make a special "Mommy batch."

If you use gluten free ingredients, then this is another great GF recipe.  If you've been following me for awhile then you know I've chosen to decrease the amount of wheat in me and my family's diet, so I've been making quite a bit of gluten free recipes lately.  My reasoning for that are for another post, for another time.  Until then, read this fabulous recipe and then use the apples (that I know you have during this prime picking season) and ENJOY!!

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Banana Protein Pancakes with fresh cherry sauce

I LOVE this recipe for protein pancakes!  I've tried a few different ones and have experimented with different ingredients, but always come back to this one.  When I started making them, I would top them with sliced bananas, berries,a drizzle of honey and sprinkled with cinnamon.  It is ridiculously delicious, and really a great pre-workout meal for me, full of protein and carbs.

Recipe for Banana Vanilla Protein Pancakes

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