Cheesy Roasted Veggies

Looking for a yummy side dish for dinner tonight?  Try this!

1 1/2 cups broccoli florets
1 1/2 cups cauliflower
1 garlic and cheese laughing cow cheese wedge

I roasted the veggies on a lightly sprayed cookie sheet (I even lightly misted the veggies) at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes or so.  The time will vary depending on how big your veggies are.  When they were done, I zapped the cheese in the microwave for about 15 seconds in a ramekin.  Then I mixed the cheese in with the veggies in a bowl.  I totally sat down and ate the whole bowl.  It was delish and only 130 calories.

Almond Butter Cookies

Look!  A cookie recipe that has no refined sugar or white flour!  Try these out because they were seriously good.  Even small children liked them.  :)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

1 large egg
1 cup unsweetened almond butter
1/3 c raw honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 c almond flour**
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

**If you do not have almond flour (I got mine at Trader Joe's) you can make it by zapping raw almonds in your food processor until it is a fine meal like consistency.  

Mix the first 4 ingredients together and then add the last 3.  This recipe makes 12 good sized cookies.  The Nutritional below is per cookie.  

Quinoa, Red Pepper, and Cucumber Salad With Avocado and Lime

Here is my salad for the week!  I am thinking this will be yummy in a wrap as well.  :) I adapted it from here.  

Kosher salt


1 cup quinoa


1 garlic clove, pounded to a smooth paste with a pinch of salt


1 large shallot, finely diced


1 jalapeño, seeded and finely diced


Juice of 3 limes

1 medium red pepper, halved, seeded, and finely diced


1 English (seeded) cucumber, cut into 1/4-inch dice (about 1 cup)


1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro, plus sprigs for garnish


3 ripe avocados, diced

Directions

1. Cook 1 cup of uncooked quinoa according to package directions.

2. Put the garlic, shallot, jalapeño, and lime juice in a small bowl. Season with salt and stir to combine. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes. 

3. Put quinoa, red pepper, cucumber, diced avocado and chopped cilantro in a medium bowl. Add garlic, shallot, jalapeno mixture.  Fold to combine.

Makes 5 servings

Food of the week: EBOOST

Do you drink coffee all day?  Do you look for those energy drinks that have loads of calories or chemicals to help you get through the day?  I found a NATURAL energy drink that has only 10 calories.  It is EBOOST and I LOVE IT!  When I find myself dragging, I get the powder packets and dissolve one in a glass of water and go about my day.  There is pink lemonade and acai pomegranate.  There is also one that is Immunity Boosting.  Both of my kids had colds, so to try to not get a cold myself, I drank the Natural Orange to help boost my immunity.  It worked!!  I also love the fact that I don't crash after a few hours.  I found mine at the Vitamin Shoppe and at Amazon.  I highly recommend these as you can also keep some in your purse to have when you really need it.

Jawbone-UP

I got a new fitness gadget for Mother's Day!  The Jawbone UP and I love it!  So much fun information!  It goes along the free UP app on my iPhone and it syncs with other apps I use like MyFitnessPal and MapMyFitness.  It tracks my food, my sleep and how much I move each day.

This technology stuff is really taking off.  It blows my mind sometimes.  :)

You set goals for yourself.  You set a goal for how much you want to sleep (my goal is 7 hours a night) and how many steps you take during the day (my goal is 10,000 steps).  The bracelet you wear around your wrist holds all of this information and then you can plug it into your iPhone and you get all of this fabulous information.

It is addicting!  They recommend syncing it 2 times a day, but I do it A LOT more just to see where I am at any point during the day.

My Goals for the day

On the home screen, you can see an overview of my goals for sleep, activity and food.  Then it is broken down by goal.














This is an overview of my activity.  You can see the 2 huge spikes are when I worked out before work and again at lunch.  Then after work, I took the dog on a walk and it was logged as the little walking guy on the bar graph shows.

           

Information about my activity levels

 You can see my sleep patterns as well.  You can see when I was in light sleep and deep sleep.  It can even show you when I got out of bed to go to the restroom in the middle of the night (the orange line.)

                                                                    

                                                                                            My sleep patterns (how does it know??)

I highly recommend the Jawbone Up.  It keeps all of your fitness information in one app, which I LOVE!  The bracelet also comes in many color choices.  

As always, let me know if you have any questions!  I am happy to try to help in any way!

Strong is the New Skinny...

I have been thinking about how I used to struggle to be skinny when I was younger.  I don't think I was ever happy with the shape I was in.  I was always one of the tallest girls.  I am 5 feet 11 inches, now.  Growing up, people would say, "She is so tall and has high cheek bones.  She could be a model."  HA!  Comparing myself to the models I saw in my magazines, I would never be able to be like them.  I tried.  When friends would say how much they weighed, I would always just say I didn't know.  I would NEVER be able to be the 120 pounds that they were.  Even at my skinniest, I felt terrible.  I was always hungry.  I was grumpy.  I was tired.  I was UNHEALTHY.

These are all problems that almost every teenage girl goes through.  They look at the magazines and the TV shows and the movies and aspire to be like them.  Uggg, it is the worst.

Now, I work out 5-6 days a week and most of the time it is when the kids are at school.  I wake up and put on my workout clothes every school day.  They know I am going to workout when they leave.  My seven year old daughter asked me the other day why I worked out.  She asked me if I thought I needed to lose weight.  Thinking before I spoke, I told her no.  I worked out to be strong and healthy.  Do I think that response is going to change her outlook on herself when she is older?  No, but I think it is important to teach this to kids at an early age.  So maybe what you say is louder than what the media says.

I am 38 years old.  I am in the best shape of my life.  I am almost never sick.  There is no fad diet.  There is no secret.  It all happens by eating right and exercising.  Who knew that actually works?

I find myself pushing myself everyday to challenge myself.  I can do things now that I never thought I would be able to do a couple of years ago.  I like being strong.

I eat better.  I eat actual food, not food that has been overly processed and full of preservatives....for the most part.  I don't deprive myself.  If I want dessert, I'll have dessert.  It may not be the HUGE dessert that I used to comfort myself with because I wasn't skinny, but I eat a reasonable amount.  :)

I try to instill this same behavior in my kids.  Food is fuel.  Would it be yummy to eat dessert all day?  Totally!  Would it make you sick?  ABSOLUTELY!  Just eat a balanced diet and go run and play!  Unplug from the tv, ipad, computer....Go DO something!

Phew!  Moral of the story....Strong is healthy, confidence boosting, and beautiful.

STRONG IS THE NEW SKINNY!  Spread the word!

Food of the week: Fold it SOFT PRETZEL!!!

Who doesn't LOVE a soft pretzel?  Look at this!  It is a Fold it (from the makers of Flat Out) for your sandwich!  It is only 100 calories and 6 grams of protein!  It is so yummy!  Enjoy this soft pretzel sandwich with your favorite sandwich fixings.  You won't regret it!