Heading to Florida

Hello and happy Saturday!

I hope all is going well with you, and you are doing something really fun with your favorite people 🙂

Today has been a pretty jam packed day…for a good reason though!  Tonight I am leaving for a family vacation to Florida in honor of my younger brother’s graduation from college.  Because I have been so busy with work and teaching group fitness recently, I literally have not had a spare second to think about packing (or maybe it’s the fact that I truly hate the packing process…)

That being said, I started this morning bright and early with a delicious bowl of what I like to call Monkey Oats!

The Monkey Oats were chocolatey, peanut buttery, bananay, and just plain good!

Monkey Oats

• 1/3 cup oatmeal
• 2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 stevia packets
• 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
• 1 sprinkle cinnamon
• 1/3 banana
• 1 Tbsp peanut butter

Directions:

Place the oats in a microwave safe bowl with 2/3 cups water.  Microwave for 1 minute.  Take the oats from the microwave and mix in cocoa, stevia, protein, cinnamon, and about 2/3 cup more water.  Microwave for about 1 minute and 30 seconds, or until the oats are the desired consistency.  Top with bananas and peanut butter…and enjoy!!

Workout

After my oaty breakfast, I spent the morning reviewing my Body Pump notes.  I was a little nervous for class today because I was teaching the latest release all by myself for the first time!  The class was great, I had so much fun, and I only made a couple of minor mistakes…nothing to sweat about!

After teaching that class, my brain officially went on vacation mode!! I came home to make myself a quick lunch, and Brian had a little surprise waiting for me.

For the past 10 days, Brian had been in London and Ireland with his mom and aunt visiting family (yes I know…I was only slightly jealous he was in London right before the Olympics!)

Brian bought me a couple of souvenirs, the first being an Irish wool sweater!  I absolutely love being warm and cozy all the time, and love bundling up in big chunky sweaters, so when Brian asked what I wanted while he was on the trip, I jokingly said I wanted a wool sweater…I guess he didn’t get the joke 😉

I love it!

He also got a cool Olympic backpack from London!  We are definitely taking it with us to Florida.

After present time, it was time to get down to business.  Brian cleaned our little apartment, and we packed a whole weeks worth of stuff into one bag…

That’s right…ONE BAG!  We are driving to Florida, and in the car will be my mom, dad, Brenna, Brian, and me.  There is very limited space, so we had to be flexible…luckily it is summer, meaning our clothes are small and can easily be rolled up.

The trip down to Florida should be interesting considering we have three adults in the back seat of the car…and my dad hates making pit stops…wish us luck!!

Rough Ride Home

I am home for the weekend in Fort Wayne, but I did not have an easy road getting there last night.

 

 

That would be my car, with a giant flat tire on the highway.  Luckily, it didn’t cause any accidents and I was safely able to pull of the road.  Shortly after I pulled to the side, a kind police officer stopped to help me out, call the tow truck, and wait with me until everything was finished.  He even stopped traffic on the highway to get everything moved over into the far lane.  What  great help he was!! I couldn’t thank him enough.

After my adventure on the highway, I finally ended up at home about an hour later than planned.  Thankfully, my mom had a delicious meal of salmon, sweet potatoes, and veggies all plated up for me and ready to go.  I was hungry and the food tasted good!

My mom made a new rub for the sweet potatoes and salmon that is to die for!  Don’t worry, I got the recipe and will share later 😉

 

My mom and I then spent a good portion of the evening trying to photograph our dogs…we finally gave up and deemed them both cute in person, but horribly un-photogenic!!

 

This Morning

Today, Mom and I got up nice and early to head to a diner owned by one of her friends.  Literally, they just reopened the doors on Tuesday!!  I’ll go into more detail on Minnie’s diner in a later post 😉

We both had veggie omelettes, mom’s with a side of potatoes

 

and mine with a side on plain oats.  I seriously think that was on of the biggest bowls of oats I have ever seen!  Tasty, but I couldn’t finish it.

 

We then ran a couple of errands including mailing a package to a special giveaway winner (yes, I know the giveaway was a while ago, but we have been in contact and she understands!)  It should be there by Monday!

 

Next on the agenda was Body Pump.  I had to have a sub teach my class for today in Indianapolis, but I made up for it by attending class as a participant this morning.  I upped my weights today…and all I can say is OUCH!!! (in a good way of course!)

 

Then, it was time to head home, shower, and eat some lunch.  For me, lunch included tuna with some low fat cottage cheese, cucumbers and carrots, some leftover sweet potatoes from last night, and grapes and berries.  So summery and tasty!

 

 

Now, I am off to get a new tire for my car, meet up with a friend, and mom is at a baby shower.  Enjoy your Saturday!

Completely Delicious Meatless Zucchini Lasagna

Many of you may know that Monday was the official launch of Body Pump release 82 at the gym I am an instructor at.  Because I love a theme, and I love to dress for the occasion, I ordered a shirt from the Les Mills web site that matches the Body Pump theme.

I was tracking the shirt online to make sure that I would get it by the time of the launch, and on Monday morning it said that the shirt was in my city!  Naturally, I thought that it was at the house just waiting for someone to pick it up.  When I told Brian that the shirt had arrived, being the loving fiance that he is, he immediately headed to the house to pick up the shirt….and to find that it was not at the house!  It was in town, but it had not been delivered yet 😦 So, I had to complete the launch with just a plain red tank top.  Clearly, the red tank worked fine, but as soon as I got home what was waiting for me??

The Body Pump tank top!

So, I didn’t have it for this launch, but at least I can wear it when I teach my Saturday classes!

Meatless Zucchini Lasagna

In my family, lasagna is that dish that everyone loves but we reserve for special occasions like Christmas Eve.  So, we only end up having the tasty dish once or twice a year.  Well, this weekend while I was planning my meals, I was in the mood for this special dish, so I decided to do a little experimenting with my mom’s traditional recipe, and this is what I came up with!

Yields: 4 large servings

Ingredients:

• 4 small zucchini
• 1 cup of your favorite tomato sauce
• 8 oz of Morningstar Farms Meal Starters (I am seriously loving these things!)
• 1 cup of low fat or fat free cottage cheese
• 1 small red onion
• 3-4 fresh basil leaves
• 1 Tbsp garlic salt (divided)
• 1 tsp oregano (divided)
• 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 3 oz low fat string cheese (or mozzarella)
• 9×11 glass baking dish

Directions:

First, place a pot of water on the stove to boil while you brown the meal starters and the onion together.  While the meal starters and onion are cooking add 2 basil leaves, 1/2 Tbsp garlic salt, 1/2 tsp oregano, and the Italian seasoning.  Once the water on the stove is boiling, place zucchini pieces that are cut into the shape of lasagna noodles (long strips) into the boiling water to cook until tender, about 4 minutes.

Mix the tomato sauce with the meal starter and onion mixture.  In a separate bowl, combine the cottage cheese with the remaining spices.

Now, it is time to begin layering the lasagna!  First, put down a light layer of sauce into the 9×11 glass baking dish, then place a layer of the zucchini “noodles” on top so that you cannot see anymore sauce.

Next, spread half of the cottage cheese mixture on top of the zucchini and top with half of the mozzarella or string cheese cheese.

Then, it is time to repeat the steps all over again!  So, place another layer of sauce, then the zucchini, then the cheeses, then one final layer of sauce.  Place in the oven at 400 for 25-30 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and it is cooked all the way through.  Allow to set in the pan for about 5 minutes before serving.

Last but not least…cut yourself a slice and enjoy!

Nutrition for 4 servings:

Calories:  155  Fat:  4.4g  Carbs:  10.2g  Protein:  17.4g

Tell me what some of your family’s special occasion meals are!! Do you ever “break the rules” and eat them without there being a special occasion??

 

My First Official Launch and Zucchini Complete Breakfast

Good morning!

I have to start by saying that last night’s launch was amazing!  We had such a great turnout for all of the classes and we all had so much fun doing it.  I have to admit that I was pretty nervous before teaching my two tracks in the new Body Pump release, but after doing it once, I wanted to get right back up there and do it again!

We are already starting to brainstorm about our next launch in October!

Breakfast

To make things even better, I started my day with a delicious breakfast as well.

I feel like I am constantly searching for a way to incorporate veggies into my breakfast since I typically go for the sweeter stuff in the morning.  This breakfast is a complete meal in that it counts as one serving of veggies, 2 servings of starch, 1 serving of good fat, and 1 serving of protein.  All that you need to do is add a little fruit on top (I think strawberries taste delicious with this little cake!) and you have all of your food groups covered.  This little breakfast cake would be perfect to prepare ahead of time and eat in those mornings when you are on the go.

Zucchini Breakfast Cake

Yield:  4 Servings

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of zucchini
• 2 cups of oats or oat flour
• 4 Tbsp peanut butter
• 2 scoops of your favorite protein powder
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 cup of unsweetened almond milk
• 6-8 packets of stevia (you can do this to taste, it really depends on how sweet you like things)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  In food processor or blender place zucchini, egg whites, and almond milk.  Combine the zucchini mixture with all of the other ingredients and mix until combined.  Place in large muffin tins, or in an 8×8 baking pan.  Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Store in the refrigerator.  Enjoy!!!

Nutrition:

Calories:  324.9  Fat:  11.6g  Carbs:  60.6g  Protein:  19.7g

Have a great Tuesday!

Koru: Representation of Strength

First things first…breakfast!

I started out my morning with a batch of protein pancakes topped with homemade almond butter, strawberries, and a side of Greek yogurt.  So good! Breakfast is definitely my favorite meal of the day.

I needed to start out the day with good fuel in my tummy, because today is a very exciting day for me.

The gym that I teach Body Pump at launches the new release of Body Pump today…and I am teaching two of the tracks!

If you are new to the blog, I recently completed the initial training module for Body Pump, and I am loving every step of this new fitness journey.  I worked hard to create a great video tape of a class that I taught, sent it in and I am anxiously awaiting the video assessment results.  In the mean time,  I have been subbing classes and I also started teaching my very own class once a week.

Secret Package

On Thursday, I got a notice in the mail that I had a package waiting for me at the post office.  I had just ordered a Les Mills Body Pump workout tank top, so I thought that is what my package was.  Because I head into work before the post office opens, I had Brian pick up the mystery package.

Once he picked up the package, he called me sounding pretty confused.  I thought for sure that the package was my new workout top, but Brian explained that the package was very small…too small for a tank top, and from Indonesia.  What could it be???

When he opened it up and explained to me that it was a bone carved necklace, I knew exactly what it was!

When I started attending Body Pump and other Les Mills classes, I noticed similar necklaces on the instructors’ necks.  When I was in training, the trainers and some of the participants had necklaces on too.  I didn’t know what the necklaces were, but I suspected  that they were a symbol Les Mills used to represent strength.

My mom, being the sneak that she is, secretly asked her Body Pump instructor about the necklace that she wore and where she could purchase one for me to help me in my new fitness journey.

The necklace is a New Zealand koru, symbolizing growth, new life, strength, and peace.  Because Les Mills originated in New Zealand, several Les Mills instructors wear these necklaces to provide them with personal, mental, and physical strength while teaching.

I received my necklace just in time to teach my first official class and right before the new launch.  It is the perfect symbol of strength and personal growth, and I can’t wait to wear it at each class and see where my new Les Mills and Body Pump fitness road takes me.

Wish me luck at the launch tonight!

Do you have anything that you wear or keep with you to help symbolize strength???

Bachelorette Party and Weekend Recap!

*Warning:  some of these photos are extremely blurry…

Yesterday, we celebrated Erin’s upcoming wedding with her bachelorette party.  The day was FULL of activities and I felt so special to be included in all of it!

We started the day bright and early heading out to the lake where we rented a boat.  With a slide on the back!  We literally spent the entire day in the sun…it was glorious!

We then showered and got ready as fast as we could so that we could get back in time for dinner, presents, and the CHICKEN LIMO!

We tried to all fit in the lovely chicken limo…but unfortunately it literally started dragging and squeeking on the bottom…so we had to have the limo driver take two trips…oops!

That would be the chicken limo behind us

The bachelorette herself!

It was a great day and night, everything was perfect and memorable!

Today

Yesterday was my Dad’s birthday.  He spent the day in Fort Wayne celebrating with mom, but this morning, my sister and I took him out for breakfast at a little restaurant called Biscuits.

This restaurant is a little hole in the wall place that serves breakfast and Mexican all day.  Two random things to put together?  Not at this joint!  And their specialty?  Biscuits and gravy of course! It is located between 5 and 10 minutes from where I went to college, and I remember many a hung over morning heading to this eatery for some delicious biscuits and gravy.

Even though the memories from the past are from those glorious morning after moments, my sister and I agreed that the food served seemed like the perfect “Dad” food.

I enjoyed an egg white omelette with veggies…honestly, I was kind of surprised that they could do egg whites!  It was pretty tasty 😉

It was great to see Dad and my sister Brenna this morning, what a great way to start the day!

Body Pump

Today marked a pretty big milestone in my group fitness and Les Mills career…I taught my very first Body Pump class completely solo.  That’s right, no video taping, no other instructors around…just me.

Did I make a couple of mistakes….yes, but did I keep going, have fun, and finish on time…YES!  It was a great feeling.  The band-aid has been ripped off, and now I can’t wait to do it again.

Sunday Errands

After Body Pump, I drove to the grocery store and on the way I snacked on a Lemon Zest Luna Bar….so yummy!

I love little bars like this because I wasn’t starving because I had only eaten breakfast a couple of hours before, but I knew that I needed to eat something so that I didn’t want to buy everything at the grocery store.  They are so small and easy to throw in your bag and have on hand all the time…it’s my “emergency food.”

I headed to the store, filled up my cart with lots of goodies, then headed back to the house to fix up my meals and snacks for the week.

I love that on Sundays I “have” to do the things that I love….shop and cook!

Now, I’m off to prepare a workout for a class that I am teaching tomorrow morning featuring…

the Bosu Ball…post including the workout coming soon!!

I hope you all had an amazing weekend, and are getting ready to start the work week off on the right food tomorrow!

Wedding Season Kickoff

Today is the start of WEDDING SEASON!

Brian and I, along with his Mom, will be heading to our reception venue later this afternoon to check out a wedding set-up for a wedding the size of ours.  I am excited to see it all set-up, it has been about a year since I have been inside of the venue, so it will be good to refresh my memory.

After crashing that wedding, we will all get changed and dressed up and ready to attend Brian’s cousin’s wedding.  The engagement party at their house was fantastic, so I can hardly wait to see what the actual wedding will be like.

Breakfast

Last night, I prepped myself a batch of overnight oats in a jar of nearly empty peanut butter, and I am so glad that I did because nothing hot seemed appetizing to me at all when I woke up this morning.  I tend to get cold very easily, and for me when I am cold I am very uncomfortable.  I would rather be hot than cold any day.  So, when I sleep, I often sleep with sweat pants and a sweat shirt, or multiple layers and then I pile up a ton of blankets on me.  Even though I enjoy being warm, sometimes, I wake up in the morning burning up because of all the thick layers…today was one of those mornings, and I was so thankful to have a cold breakfast waiting for me.

Oats, Plant Fusion protein, vanilla extract, cinnamon, a little bit of peanut butter on the bottom, and some chopped apple…yumm!

Now, it’s time to practice Body Pump before my fourth team teaching session this morning, run 3 miles, and figure out what to wear to this wedding.

Have a great Saturday!

Of Possible Interest:

• Why Am I Not Toned?  fitsugar.com

• How to Stuff an Artichoke Eat Spin Run Repeat

Body Combat Obsessed and a Photo Shoot

Hello!  Long time no see.  I have had a busy couple of days full of driving to Fort Wayne, group fitness classes, Vera Bradley, and birthday celebrations.

On Tuesday, as soon as Brian was finished with class, we loaded up the car and headed to Fort Wayne so that I could be a part of the Vera Bradley Fall into Fashion photo shoot.  Last year, around this time I was apart of their Winter 2011 catalog shoot, and I had a blast doing it!  When I saw that they were looking for more models for their Fall 2012 shoot and that the shoot was taking place in Fort Wayne, I had to apply…and I was selected!  So, Brian and I headed to Fort Wayne a day early to spend a little quality time with my Mom.

 

Last time I visited Mom, I attended a Body Combat class with her.  Body Combat is a Les Mills class that is pre-choreographed to music.  The types of movements used are “fighting” moves like punches, jabs, and kicks.  The workout really gets the heart rate up and makes you sweat.  On top of that, it makes you feel like a badass (excuse the language but it really does).  Since Brian was with us, I thought it would be fun for him to try out this workout class, and I am so glad that we decided to do that!

This time, the classes intensity was ramped up by about 1000%.  The instructor turned the lights out, gave all of the new people glow sticks to holding in their dominant punching hand and cranked the music.  It was awesome!  We all had such a great time doing it, and I can’t wait to visit Mom and go again.

After the class, we were all pretty sweaty and hungry.  Luckily, Smoothie King had free samples waiting for us on our way out 😉

Mom and I after Combat

We headed home, and Mom whipped up a quick and delicious dinner of lettuce wraps.  They kind of reminded me of a saucier version of P.F. Chang’s lettuce wrap appetizer.  Mom and Brian’s wraps were made with ground beef and mine were made with tofu.  I have never been a big fan of red meat, so the alternate menu was much appreciated 😉

While Mom was cooking, I thought it would be the perfect time for me to put together a batch of chocolate protein muffins, however, when I asked my mom to preheat the oven to 350 degrees she accidentally preheated the oven to broil, so the muffins were a little overdone.

In order to let our food settle, we then headed out with my puppies for a little walk.  Mom showed me her raspberry and strawberry bushes…I can’t wait for those babies to grow berries!

We then threw a couple of balls around with the dogs (well Mom and and Brian and I spectated) and headed back home.  Brian unwrapped a couple of belated birthday presents from Mom, and then we all had a little bit of homemade strawberry shortcake for dessert…this dessert is so light and delicious, it really screams summer to me.

We then headed to bed so that we could have our beauty rest for the Vera Bradley shoot.

Vera Bradley

We arrived to the shoot at 7:30am, which honestly allowed me to sleep in a little bit compared to my usual group fitness class time of 6am.  Like most photo shoots, there is a lot of waiting and patience involved, so I occupied my time by practicing my Body Pump combinations.  I always carry some sort of notebook with me, but for some reason I didn’t have one with me at all yesterday…so a napkin had to do the trick.  They also had Luna bars for snacking, I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

After a long day of waiting, the end of the day began to near and it was finally my time to be put to work.  Although there was waiting involved, it was still a great experience because of the kindness of the people working for Vera Bradley, the other models, and being able to watch the entire shoot take place!  I love all of the new patterns (literally!) and I cannot wait to see the outcome of the shoot 🙂

We finally arrived home around 5:30pm and Mom had dinner waiting for us.  Tilapia served along side roasted zucchini with cheese on top.  Those little zucchini medallions were probably my favorite part of the meal, and I could have eaten the entire plate.  Somehow, I contained myself.

We also had a tasty side salad.  Gotta love the veg 😉

 

After dinner, we loaded up the car once again and headed back to Indianapolis.  I practiced a bit more Body Pump in the car, but I was beat!! I fell asleep on the way home, and then as soon as we got home, I hit the hay.  It was a fun, exciting, but long and tiring day.  It’s tough life being a model 😉

Today

Today, started bright and early so that I could review the most recent tracks I have added to my Body Pump repertoire.  Because I woke up so early, I ate my oatmeal breakfast before class.  Usually, it makes me nervous to eat a full meal before exercising, but I had more than an hour to digest and everything was completely fine.  Plus, I woke up hungry, and being hungry during Body Pump can make it harder for me to put in my full effort.

I actually cooked my oats this morning rather than making them the night before.  I added a bit of my Plant Fusion protein powder, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla extract, stevia, 1 Tbsp of Greek yogurt for creaminess, and some chocolate PB2.  It was delicious and tasted like cookie dough. 🙂  Just the way I like to start my day!

I then team taught Body Pump, and had a great time doing it!  I made a small mistake, but because I knew my choreography I was able to recover and continue on. My next goal with Body Pump is to be able to teach the first 5 tracks of class.  My next team teaching session is Saturday….let’s see if I can do it!

I then came home and practiced more Body Pump so that I can achieve my goal on Saturday, and when I was bored of doing that it was time for my run.  I had 7 miles on the schedule today and I was feeling good.  I know we all have those days when running is literally the last thing that on the list that we want to do, and my last attempt at running more than 5 miles was one of those days, so I was a bit nervous starting out.  But as soon as the first Broadway tune (yes, I listen to Broadway while running 😉 ) hit my ears, I knew it was going to be great.

I found my pace, and for me, when I find my pace it is like finding the rhythm of your body.  Once I get in that groove, there is no getting out and the entire run just feels like you are coasting through the air.  I LOVE that feeling!

Completed:  7 miles in just over 1 hour…not too shabby if you ask me.

I then showered, and made myself some lunch.  Lunch was basically the usual, tuna, hummus, and veggies.  I also had a LOVE bite for some healthy fats and a little something sweet.

 

I then headed out to a little coffee shop called Mo’ Joe so that I could change the usual scenery while I did some job hunting and cleared out my e-mail inbox.  To give me a little extra fuel, I sipped on Mo’ Joe’s most popular drink the Honey Bee iced latte.  A cinnamon and honey latte made with skim milk…I can definitely understand why it is the most popular!

I hope you all are having an amazing Thursday and are getting ready for the weekend!

Of Possible Interest:

• Heavy Weights or Light Weightsfitsugar.com
• Free Fr Yo for Mom at TCBY on Sunday budgetsavvydiva.com
• DIY Mother’s Day Gifts healthyliving.dialybuzz.com

 

 

LOVE Bites

I did it…this morning, I “ripped off the band-aid” and got my first team teaching session of Body Pump out of the way.  The first attempt at anything is always the worst, and I find it is best to just do it and get it over with…kind of like quickly ripping off a band-aid.

And guess what, I had a blast teaching live people with a microphone on while standing on stage!  Did I make a couple of mistakes?… of course I did!  But that is why I was team teaching and not full-out teaching the class on my own.  I may have been a little ambitious with my weight selections, but I still got through it, and I am teaching again on Thursday morning 🙂

After teaching, I was more than ready for breakfast.  I actually prepped myself a bowl of overnight oats last night so that I could eat right away when I got home…but Brian ate it!  He thought that I made it for him…I honestly didn’t mind too much that he ate it, but I make my oatmeal a little different than his oatmeal.  He doesn’t exactly like it when things taste “healthy” and I do.  Oh well!

Instead I made myself a very interesting smoothie combination.  A pineapple banana spinach protein smoothie topped with some of my Chocolate PB2.  I know that I only received the PB2 in the mail yesterday, but whenever I get something new to eat I feel like I have to try it immediately!

It was interesting, and actually quite good!  I will say, I am LOVING the Chocolate PB2 and can’t wait to formulate some recipes with it!

I then volunteered at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.  When I left to volunteer, it was a beautifully sunny day out, so I decided to walk to their offices, which only takes about 30 minutes.  Well, that was a poor decision because as soon as I was leaving it a heavy down pour of rain began…and I had to take a taxi home!  I felt so goofy riding in a taxi in the middle of the day in my own city, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do!  30 minutes in a  torrential down pour would not have been the smart decision.

Lunch

By the time I got home, it was after 1pm and I was pretty ready for lunch.  I whipped up a batch of homemade hummus in the food processor (so quick) and enjoyed it along side some veggies, tuna, and some (unpictured) Greek yogurt.  Tasty, quick, and simple.  Just what I needed.

Sharing the LOVE

This past weekend while I was in my training for Body Pump, I made sure to pack myself lunch and adequate snacks.  While I was eating one of my snacks, some of the girls that I had made friends with asked what I was eating. I told them what this tasty little morsel was and rattled off the ingredient list without really thinking anything of it.  Both of their eyes lit up, and they asked where I got the recipe.  “I made it up!” was the answer, and instantly a light bulb clicked in my head that I should make them a batch of this little treat and share the recipe with them.

As soon as I got home on Saturday, the first thing I did was whip up a batch of these Love Bites so that I could share them with my new friends 🙂  When they tried them the next day, they couldn’t stop telling me how great they tasted!  It was then that I had the thought of making enough for everyone to try, but it was too late.  At least I got to share the love with two of my new friends.

LOVE Bites

Yields:  14 Balls

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup unsalted almonds
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup raw oats
• 1/2 cup flax meal
• 1/4 cup Foods Alive hemp seed
• 1/4 cup raw organic agave nectar
• 2 tsp palm sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted sunflower seeds

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in the food processor and process until a sticky mixture is formed.  Roll the sticky mixture into 12-14 balls.  Store in the refrigerator and enjoy!

Nutrition:

Calories:  138.3  Fat:  7.6g  Carbs:  16.9g  Protein:  4.1g

Question of the day:

• Have you ever tried PB2, and what recipes do you use it in??

 

The Day After

I am sure that you all have heard that muscle soreness occurs the day after a workout, or that you can see the results of your workout the day after, but has anyone ever heard that you get extremely hungry the day after an intense workout?

Well, I had never heard of hunger striking the day after a workout, but believe me…today I felt it!  I felt like I couldn’t get enough food in my body…the entire day.  In fact, I still feel hungry.

While volunteering at the symphony I ate a full protein bar, rather than my usual half.

I then came home and had a large salad with tuna for lunch while clipping some coupons.

After the salad (and still clipping coupons) I was still hungry, so I mixed a little plain Greek yogurt, natural peanut butter, and sugarless jam.  Tasty….but I was still hungry.

Once my list was compiled, my coupons were clipped, and I was ready to head to the grocery store I made myself a small smoothie of 1/3 banana, 1 scoop of protein powder, 1 cup of unsweetened original almond milk, and some ice cubes.  Thankfully that held me over a little bit so I wasn’t soooo starving during my grocery shopping trip.

I then came home from the store, and as I was unloading the car I saw the UPS man arrive.  I had  been expecting a package, so I kindly asked if any of his packages were for Tara Deal…and one of them was!  This was a package from iherb.com.  iherb.com is a great site where I order my protein powder, certain grains, natural beauty products, and so much more!  This site is great because it has such a wide variety of items, gets orders shipped out promptly, is constantly offering different discounts, and always has a section on the web site dedicated to free trials.

This order included Plant Fusion protein powder which is a blend of pea protein, artichoke protein, organic sprouted amaranth powder, and organic sprouted quinoa powder, Maca Up which is a vegetarian energy protein made from pea protein, organic brown rice protein concentrate, organic maca root powder, and oat bran fiber.  Currently, I am experimenting with different types of protein to see what I like the best, and what my body likes the best.  I also ordered a jar of PB2.  Chocolate PB2 to be exact.  I have read about PB2 several times and have always wanted to try it, so I was very excited to finally receive it in the mail today!

PB2 is a peanut powder with 85% of the fat and calories removed without using chemicals.  All you do is simply mix it with water to get a peanut buttery like substance.  I am looking forward to making it a mix-in in my overnight oats and smoothies!

I also received a free trial sample of chocolate pea protein powder, digestive enzyme tablets, and kumquat jam.  I always love it when a freebie is thrown in.

Because iherb.com is so great, they have given me a special code to share with you.  If you use the coupon code OGA946 when you make your order as a new customer, you will receive $5 your entire order automatically!  Sounds like a great deal to me 😉

 

Once the groceries were put away, I was ready for dinner.  Since Brian was studying at the med school library, and I was on my own for dinner, I opted for my favorite meal of the day…breakfast.  I made some veggie scrambled eggs topped with the last of my mom’s homemade salsa.

Now, I am off to practice my Body Pump.  After all, I am making my Les Mills instructor debut tomorrow morning, and I want to make a great impression 🙂

Have a great evening!