Peach Cobbler Protein Shake

One of the most common complaints I hear about eating "healthy" is that it's boring. Who wants to be eating bland chicken and brown rice when you could be eating bacon pizza and Chocolate Peanut Butter PopTarts right??? Listen, I'm not going to dispute that the tried and true "contest prep" diet used by bodybuilders, fitness models, and Hollywood actors getting shredded for a role (Oh hi, Chris Evans, nice abs in 'Captain America', by the way...) can get a little monotonous after, say, the 2nd meal. However, if you're not preparing for a competitive event, a photo shoot, or an action movie, it does not - I repeat - DOES NOT have to be that way! You can afford a little fun in your diet and STILL live a healthy life - I promise! The way you do that is by getting creative and experimenting a little. 

If you know what your nutritional needs are and know what the nutritional value of certain foods are, the possibilities are quite endless. One of my favorite things to do is to experiment with different ideas in the kitchen; some days this turns out to be one giant inedible fail of epic proportions...but on other days...you get the "Peach Cobbler Protein Shake"!

I make this in the morning and throw it in my shaker cup for
safe and clean travel to work! :)

Ingredients (based on what I had in the house, but feel free to customize to your liking!):
1 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
1/2 cup Fat Free Cottage Cheese
1/2 cup frozen Peaches
1 Tbsp Stevia
Cinnamon
1 Tbsp Walden Farms Calorie Free Pancake Syrup
Ice (optional)
Pinch of Salt (optional)

Add ingredients and blend together until smooth.

*Notes and Suggestions*: 

 - If you are like many and are skeeved by cottage cheese OR want to pack more of a protein punch into your shake, substitute the cottage cheese for Vanilla Whey Protein Powder or Vanilla Greek Yogurt!

 - Use any type of sweetener you like! 

 - Fresh peaches would work beautifully, but frozen are great to have on hand for that "spur of the moment Peach Cobbler protein shake craving"! (Not sure if there is such a thing, but I just invented it!)

 - Omit the WF Pancake Syrup if you are anti-artificial sweetener! Agave nectar or honey would work well too!

Well there you go! Love it or hate it, hopefully it will get the wheels turning in your head and get some experimentation going in your kitchen! I look forward to hearing about your concoctions so feel free to share if you have anything fun to add to it! Enjoy! :)

Losing My Balance

I have a confession to make. I am a bit of an extremist when it comes to certain things. An all-or-nothing kind of girl, if you will. When I go for something, I GO FOR IT...which can be great, don't get me wrong. When I really want something, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING can get in my way. Focus, dedication, and discipline are my middle name. But on the downside, it also means that when I fall, I fall HARD. If I'm not putting my all into something, I'm putting in nothing - no - less than nothing, if there is such a thing. It's not a truth I'm proud to admit, but it's the truth. It always has been my whole life.

If I knew I would be great at something, I'd go for it. If not, I wouldn't even attempt it. Why? Because in my mind, if I'm not the best at something, I'm a failure...and failure is unbearable. As much as I've tried to suppress this way of thinking, it always manages to creep up on me and make it's way back into my subconscious. It's become such a deeply embedded part of who I am, to the very core...and I hate it.  

I hate it because it keeps me from achieving the very thing that makes me feel whole...BALANCE.

It was, in fact, the very thing that inspired this blog in the first place. After undergoing a huge transformation in my lifestyle, my body, and most importantly my mindset, I finally felt like I had found balance. I had found who I was...and for the very first time in my entire life...I LIKED THAT PERSON. For a girl who spent the majority of her life living in a constant state of self-loathing and insecurity, that's SAYING SOMETHING!

And then it all fell apart.

The scales tipped back out of balance. I slowly allowed myself to fall deeper and deeper into a depression that would ultimately test the integrity of this new person in the mirror I had come to respect. It was a test that I have, to date, failed miserably. I stress the words to date, for a reason.

So, I do have a tendency to go off the deep end sometimes. I have my fair share of issues with perfectionism and failure. And yes, I've experienced episodes of depression that, on certain days, have nearly annihilated my motivation just to get out of bed in the morning and function. However, I do not offer this deeply personal information to you as an excuse, but rather as a proclamation of self-awareness. One of the many lessons I've learned through my fitness journey is that you are capable of exactly what you allow yourself to be capable of. If you allow yourself to be bogged down by challenges and excuses, it becomes a cycle of even more excuses, followed by mediocrity and failure. But if you are honest with yourself and you rise to the challenge with a little bit of self-awareness and a lot of determination, you are UNSTOPPABLE. 

I realize now, that the mistake I made was assuming that balance, once achieved, cannot be taken away. In reality, life, people, and circumstances are constantly changing and therefore balance is something that we will struggle to maintain each and every day. So, when I say that I have failed "to date", it only means that I still have work to do - that I'm not giving up on myself. That I will not just lay down and take whatever mediocrity hands me. It means that I'm capable of going exactly as far as I'm willing to push myself...which brings me to the reason I decided to share this: BECAUSE SO ARE YOU. YOU NEED ONLY REALIZE IT.
   

"It's Part of the Process"

If you have ever followed a fitness professional/blogger/Youtuber/enthusiast, you, no doubt, have heard the phrase "learn to appreciate the process." Meaning, don't look at the lifestyle as just a means to an end. If you're in it for the right reasons, the results will come. Don't fixate on the little things, but rather see your journey on a larger scale as "the bigger picture" and the little things will fall into place. I, myself, am guilty of throwing this phrase around time and time again when it comes to fitness. I believe it wholeheartedly, I truly do. I know it, I believe it and yet, even I manage to lose sight of it from time to time...and perhaps forget that it applies to more than just fitness.

Life, for example. It has it's fair share of ups and downs, that's for sure. The past two years or so have proven this to me. There will be times when you feel happy and free and invincible. You lose a bunch of weight and people start noticing you that never did before and you start a blog and a YouTube channel and feel as though nothing can ever get you down again. And then something does get you down. And then another something gets you down and another something and another and before you know it you feel as though you're about as low as you can go...and then just when you think you've hit rock bottom, you fall even harder than that. 

I'm not looking for sympathy, here - the point that I'm trying to illustrate is that this is the cycle of life. It's not always sunshine and rainbows - in fact, more often than not, life will throw you rainclouds (aka obstacles) to try to block out the sun. There's no way around it. It happens to the best of the best. And when it does, you have only two choices. You can give in to the feeling of hopelessness and let the rain beat you further and further into the ground, or against all odds, you can fight like hell to weather the storm. 

Anyone who has ever been in this position knows it is not an easy decision to make. But it is part of the process. And it determines who you are and where your journey will take you. 

I have had much reason lately to doubt that I am truly the person I've strived to be - to wonder if everything I've worked toward has been in vain. I've looked to everyone and every place I can think of to find the answers - except the one place I needed to be looking: IN THE MIRROR. I am the only one who has the answer. There are days when I feel completely powerless to find these answers that I seek and it is on those days that I hate myself for being so weak. And then it hits me.

Weakness is part of the process. Without it, we are not able to appreciate strength. Without the bad, we do not know how lucky we are to have the good. Without the rain, we have no rainbow. It is NECESSARY to feel pain, to feel lost, to feel weak...because it is in those moments when we think we are too weak to pull ourselves back up, that we find out just how strong we really are. 

I'll admit, I have a long way to go before I am out of the storm. However, just knowing that it is part of the process and it's within my power to pull myself out of it gives me something to look forward to. Though it may seem faint, if I look beyond the rain, I can see just a glimpse of the rainbow to come...

"The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears."

Top 3 Dumb Reasons Girls Don't Lift

If you follow my YouTube Channel, you'll find the live angry rant version of this post. But, I still felt the need to sit down and write an intelligent account of my experience on my Monday night Push workout.

After overhearing an interaction on the bench next to me, the wheels in my head started turning almost as furiously as my front delts were burning. It was a young guy and girl I had never seen before and he was "training" her, as it was clear she had had no experience with lifting weights. If you want the full scoop, check out the video, but to sum things up, if I had been this girl and it was my first experience lifting weights, it would have also probably been my last. Not only did he not help her to get a good workout, but he also made her feel silly and insecure for not doing it right. This made me downright angry the more I thought about it - almost to the point where it interfered with my own workout. But I was able to put the thoughts aside and when my workout was done I thought back to the interaction and again the rage started bubbling up inside me as I walked out of the locker room. I felt it was my responsibility to share this experience.

As I've mentioned previously, I started lifting weights almost by accident after stumbling upon some information on the internet that pointed me to the theory that this was the answer to the dream body I was seeking. I've never been athletic or had any comprehensive weight training experience, so I was basically just determined and self-taught. It is intimidating to be in that position and walk over to those weights which are typically surrounded by beefy guys looking super-tough, like they totally know what they're doing (even when, as I later came to find out, most of them didn't!).

So I can absolutely understand why there are so few women who lift weights. I understand it. But it doesn't mean I like it. When I first started my YouTube channel, it was in hopes that it would inspire others like myself to make changes - maybe not NECESSARILY other women, but subconsciously it was my intended target audience. What I found out, though, was that the bodybuilding/weightlifting community is overwhelmingly male. I don't mind because I have managed to make a great number of new friends that I wouldn't have otherwise had through that experience (most of whom are male), but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that more females didn't show much of an interest in what I was trying to do.

So what is that, exactly? To share this message: LADIES!!!! YOU ARE NOT A PRISONER OF THE ELLIPTICAL!!!!! YOU, TOO, CAN LIFT LIKE A DUDE!!!! YOU'LL BE BETTER FOR IT, I PROMISE!!! What's stopping you? This:

1. "Bulking Up" Myth: It has long been taught that if you want to bulk up you lift heavy weights and fewer reps. If you don't want to get too bulky and you just want to "tone up" - light weights and high reps, right? There is so much wrong with this theory, but I'll just delve into the most obvious: WOMEN DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TESTOSTERONE TO GET BULKY!!! Those bodybuilding women that you see with the manly shoulders and veins popping out? They didn't get that like that by accidently lifting too heavy. That took years of VERY heavy lifting, spot-on proper nutrition, and likely some hormone therapy. For this reason, the excuse "I don't want to get bulky, I just want to look good in a bikini" is completely invalid. 

2. "Women Are Too Weak for Heavy Lifting" Myth: Yes, women usually lift lighter weight than men. But we tend to take the term "lifting light weights" too literally. LIGHT WEIGHTS DOES NOT MEAN NO WEIGHT!!! What is "heavy lifting"? You walk into the gym and see men lifting weights that you probably couldn't even pick up once. Don't assume that when I say "heavy lifting" that's what I mean, because you'll psych yourself out that way. It is true, women are not built with as much muscle mass as men. In your natural state, with no weight training, your boyfriend or husband is likely to be able to lift heavier weight than you. But this does not mean you cannot lift what is considered heavy to you. It is all relative to the person in question. I shoulder press 22.5 lb dumbbells. For some people that might be way too heavy, while others might be able to do that in their sleep. But I am able to get 8 good reps out, while keeping proper form. That IS lifting heavy for me. The idea is to push yourself, to push your muscles beyond what they've previously been able to accomplish, so that they will break down and regrow better than they were before. I promise you, you're not doing that with a pair of 5 lb pink dumbbells. Don't underestimate what you are capable of simply because it's not what HE is capable of.

3. "I feel too silly to lift weights": This was the part that made me angry. Having been in this position, I understand what a monumental feat it is to overcome that self-consciousness that one feels when they have no idea what to do and are surrounded by people who make them feel bad about it,  intentionally or otherwise. But understand this: Learning any new skill is a challenge and you ARE going to mess up. You ARE going to get it wrong. EVERYONE DOES. It's part of the process. It sometimes feels as though everyone's watching you (especially if you are the only girl there!), and you may even have somebody like the jerk I mentioned earlier who is intentionally trying to tear you down to make themselves feel better. But know that this uncomfortable insecure feeling is only temporary. Know that the ones who are trying to tear you down are only doing it because they are unsure of themselves and are feeling threatened. Know that if you stick with it and dedicate yourself to learning and training, you will one day look up from your workout to realize that those big scary guys who once made you feel insecure are actually glancing over at you because YOU are making THEM feel insecure. Because you continually push yourself every single day to make yourself better and better. Because you don't even care anymore what they think. Because you are there for YOU. 

What's your rush?

When I first started getting really into nutrition and fitness I read a ton of interviews with professional fitness competitors for inspiration. One of the things that always stuck with me that seemed to be a recurring theme was the idea that changing your body is not an overnight deal. Many of these people took YEARS to get to where they wanted to be and despite having what the average person would consider "perfect" physiques, they STILL strive to better themselves on a daily basis. When you consider how long they have been working toward their goals, it may seem like a long time to wait to be able to see the rewards for your discipline and hard work. But not if you look at it from the right perspective - the perspective that the best of the best see it from. 

Sept. 2010

They have perfected what is known as "enjoying the process." They don't see watching their diet or going to the gym as just a means to an end. They aren't expecting to wake up tomorrow and suddenly be at their goal. They have respect for the fact that IT IS A PROCESS.

It is those that don't fully understand this who fail. You know the ones I'm talking about. Hell, you might even be one of the ones I'm talking about (no worries, I was that person for a long time, too!) The ones who've tried all the shortcuts, all the fad diets, all the bandwagon exercise programs...and failed. Failed because they expected to bypass the discipline, effort and time that it takes to achieve real, long-lasting results.  

May 2011

We live in a society where everything is on the fast track. We don't have the patience to wait long for our internet connection, our coffee at Starbucks OR our fitness/nutrition plan to yield results. But, the harsh reality is, that in the long run, it's the only way. Sure, you could do a cleanse that promises you that you'll drop 20 lbs in a week, or you could live on carrot sticks and celery to fit into a smaller size for an upcoming event. You could eat pre-packaged meals that come in the mail and drop a good amount of weight. But what exactly do you think will happen when you go back to eating normal food after that? You know the answer because it's probably happened to you or someone you know: you gain it right back. Then you're back at square 1.

June 2012

The aforementioned methods of weight loss are pretty miserable ways of life, if you ask me - so why would you want to put yourself in a position to have to go through it again??? Your best bet? LEARN THE PROPER WAY TO EAT/EXERCISE, PUT IN THE EFFORT, AND BE PATIENT! Instead of yo-yo'ing back and forth from pants size to pants size for the rest of your life, going from one extreme to another, you could see REAL results and be able to maintain them long-term.



***Believe me, I understand the urge to want immediate results, I do, really. But I promise if you take the path less traveled - the one fewer people are willing to take the time to walk down - you will see results that those who bypassed this path are not able to achieve. So, what's your rush? You have the rest of your life to become a little bit better each day. :) ***

March 13, 2013
It's been a long journey, and it's not over yet...
and I'm totally cool with that. <3

10 Minute Chicken Chili

When you work 4 days a week, go to the gym 6 days a week, have a 2 year old, a hubby, and a house to take care of, finding time to make healthy home cooked meals can be quite the challenge. Luckily I've never been one to back down from a food challenge. I've mentioned many times before that I prepare my meals at least a day in advance for the days I will be working and out of the house. Except dinner...sometimes. For some reason I still haven't quite mastered setting up for dinner on the nights when I will be working late...especially this past month, since we've been fridge-less and living out of a cooler. So two nights a week, when I work late, by the time I pick up Little Girl and get home it's approaching 8:00 and my stomach is usually growling. I don't know about you guys, but when I'm hungry, I seem to fire on a few less brain cells and trying to sort out what to make and how to go about making it is...as I said earlier, challenging. Some nights I give up and decide on some configuration of scrambled eggs. But other nights I have ground chicken sitting in the cooler on the floor of my kitchen that will go bad if I don't figure out how to use it...and on those nights...those are the nights that things like 10 Minute Chicken Chili are born.

I will warn you, if you are a gourmet chef this recipe may offend you with it's simplicity, but understand that it was not intended for you. This recipe is intended for those who've found themselves in a jam, without the time, patience or energy to chop, peel, simmer or saute and need to get some macros in them fast! :)

10 Minute Chicken Chili

You Will Need:

1 lb Ground Chicken (I get 98% Fat Free)

1 can Red Kidney Beans, (I prefer Reduced Sodium) drained and rinsed well 

2 8 Oz cans Tomato Sauce 

Onion Powder

Garlic Powder

Ground Cumin

Chili Powder

Salt/Pepper

Cooking Spray

Directions: 

1. Spray pan and brown the Chicken in a pan on medium heat.

2. While that's cooking, drain and rinse the beans really well to remove excess sodium.

3. Once the chicken is cooked through, add the beans and both cans of sauce and lower heat to low-med.

4. Start adding spices one at a time - my advice is to do each by your taste preference because let's be honest...you're in a rush and you're hungry. You could measure, but ain't nobody got time for dat. ;)

5. Let simmer for a few minutes (or as long as your grumbling stomach can hold out!) and dig in!

This recipe will make 4 servings. The macros will vary depending on the ingredients you choose. You may substitute the chicken for ground beef or turkey and customize and add whatever flavors you like and what you have time for!

 

Nutritional Facts: (as I said, they will vary depending on what you use!)

Calories: 245

Protein: 29 grams

Carbs: 29 grams

Fat: 1.5 grams

New and Improved Protein Pancakes

Part of living a healthy and fit lifestyle is self-improvement. In the spirit of that, I thought I'd share some of the improvements I've been making to one of my favorite breakfast recipes. I've actually taken the original recipe down because when I read over the post, there were a few things I knew I wanted to change, so I thought it would just be easier to make a new one. If you are familiar with that one, there were a couple of other breakfast recipes in that post that I will re-post later in the week but for now, I give you the new and improved:

Not-So-Cardboard Protein Pancakes (Note: Hubby said he actually enjoys these even more than real pancakes...and that's saying something, because he wasn't a fan of my earlier attempts at protein pancakes!)

As you can see, my flipping skills have significantly improved! :)

Ingredients:
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 scoop your fave protein powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
Cinnamon to taste
Sweetener to taste (I do about 2 Tbsp of Stevia!)
1/4 cup Cottage Cheese (I like 1 %, but choose your desired fat content!)
1 egg white
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
Water
Non-stick cooking spray
Blueberries (optional)

Directions:
1. Add dry ingredients to a bowl and mix.
2. Add wet ingredients, except water and mix. You will get a THICK consistency. 
3. Add water, a little at a time, until desired pancake batter consistency (this may vary based on preference!)
4. Add blueberries (or chocolate chips, or strawberries, or bananas, or whatever you have a taste for that day, you get the idea!)
5. Spray a little cooking spray into batter and mix well (this is the only way I've gotten them not to stick, it works like a charm!)
6. Spray pan and put desired amount of batter in pan,
7. Cook on medium heat and flip when edges start to lift off pan! (The second side will cook quickly after this!)

Nutrition Facts: (without blueberries - this will vary based on your ingredients!)
Calories: 266
Protein: 34 grams
Carbs: 28 grams
Fat: 2 grams

*Makes about 8 medium pancakes, depending on how "medium" you make them!

Now grab a fork and enjoy...or not...to be honest they're so good I'd just eat them with my hands... :)