Sugar Free Sugar Cookies

NO, these are not 100% clean. BUT they are sugar free and a whole lot better for you than the traditional sugar cookies that have over a cup of sugar. I found the recipe on Dashing Dish, she has lots of healthier alternatives for sweet treats that you dont have to feel horrible about. My kids LOVE these and i love knowing that I made them and that they are way healthier than buying packaged cookies at the grocery store.

I used REAL unsalted stick butter. I would much rather use real butter from cows than fake processed crap made from chemicals.

1/4 cup butter - softened
1/4 cup truvia or stevia
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt

Mix the wet ingredients and dry ingredients separate. Slowly add the dry to the wet. Flour your counter top and roll out the dough. Mine made about 18 mini cookies :) Bake @350 for about 8-10min.
**If your dough is too soft after mixing, place it in the freezer for a few minutes until its easier to work with**

I will continue to experiment with this recipe to make them even better for you (minus butter) and better tasting. My kids love them the way they are but im determined to make the perfect cookie! 

Shoyu chicken

Shoyu (soy sauce) Chicken is a popular dish in Hawaii. Although it's not totally "clean" because of the amount of soy sauce and sugar, it is super tasty and something different to do with chicken. You can usually find drumsticks for $1/lb so this is a very inexpensive meal. You could certainly try doing this with boneless skinless chicken to cut back on the fat but having the bone-in chicken really gives this the flavor. We only eat this every few months. 

1 pkg (5-6 pieces) chicken drumsticks or thighs

water

5-6 garlic cloves

2 thumb sized pieces of fresh ginger - peeled

1 cup low sodium soy sauce

1/2 cup brown sugar

sesame seeds

Place chicken, garlic and ginger to a pot and add just enough water to cover the chicken. Bring to a boil and cover slightly with the lid (you want some steam to escape). Let this boil for 30min. Then, add the shoyu and sugar. Reduce heat to a simmer and let simmer for 3+ hours (the longer the better) keep the lid slightly ajar. Serve over ice and top with sesame seeds. 

Pumpkin protein muffins with cream cheese frosting

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry four
1 scoop vanilla protein powder (optional)
2 tbsp ground flax seed
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp clove
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 small can of pumpkin
1 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1 tbsp vanilla
2 eggs 1 egg white
1/2 cup agave nectar

Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl then combine all of the wet ingredients in another. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet. The batter will be thick. Pray muffin tin or loaf pan with cooking spray and bake at 350 for 20-30min keeping an eye on them.

Cream cheese icing

4 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
1 tbsp vanilla
1-2 tbsp agave nectar

Combine all of the ingredients and mix until smooth. Add agave until you get the texture you're looking for.
Since these are topped with cream cheese i stored mine in the fridge and microwaved them for 20 seconds before enjoying. I cannot believe i came up with the recipe on my own! It turned out great. These are an awesome "clean" snack or dessert, even my children like them!

Excess skin after weight loss or pregnancy

As most of you know, I am a mother of two amazing little blessings. Gavin - 3 and Marlee - almost 1! I gained over 45lbs when i was pregnant with my son and close to 40lbs with my daughter. I don't have a super small frame but boy did i stretch!! Gavin was an 8.2lb baby so my tummy was by no means small. Along with the stretching came LOTS of ugly stretchmarks. I don't like to call them "tiger stripes" or "stripes that i've earned" but i try to remind myself that not everyone is blessed with super perfect skin. Genetics played a huge roll in stretch marks for me. All the women in my family have them.

Mother of two and she gained 75lbs with each pregnancy. 

What I want to talk about here is the excess skin you are left with after losing weight and particularly after pregnancy. Some things i hear too often about mothers like myself who have WORKED OUR BUTTS OFF TO GET WHERE WE'RE AT are "you just have good skin", "not everyone is a freak of nature like you", "its impossible for skin to go back to the way it was before pregnancy". WRONG WRONG WRONG. I want to slap these people in the face ((no pun intended)).

Mother of FOUR! - Tamarra Hay

Here's a link to her blog. I LOVE HER! And all of the other FITMAMAs on there. 

http://tamarrahayfitmama.com/find-inspiration/

Our skin is extremely elastic and can stretch, grow, expand, and contract to a degree. Think about how much it stretches during pregnancy or massive weight gain. How long you carry the extra weight may influence how much the skin will become taut after weight loss - 9 month pregnancy V.S. 9 years of being overweight. How fast you gained the weight and how fast you lose it will also come into play. Rapid weight loss will not allow the skin to resume to normal this is why it is important to lose weight slowly. ( I know that is NOT what you wanted to hear) 1-2lbs a week is ideal when in comes to weight loss anything after that you are most likely also shredding lean tissue. 

Nutrition has A LOT to do with your skin. You can do crunches all day long but if you are not eating a clean diet to shed the fat that is sitting on top of your abdomen, you will not get results. Another reason i recommend getting your body fat measured! Lose skin is one thing but still having a lot of extra body fat is another. Suppose you start at 36% body fat and drop down to 25%. You should feel GREAT about this accomplishment but you shouldn't be worrying about the lose skin just yet. Although 25-30% body fat is considered "average" for a woman you  most likely will not see muscle definition until your body fat is in the mid to lower teens (15%). To achieve this you need to become LEAN and continue to focus on strength training to build lean muscle. 

I strongly discourage tummy tucks/lipo until you have done ALL you could possibly do. Lowering your body fat will take time. Gaining lean muscle may take even longer! But it IS possible. I know of a woman who got a tummy tuck and lipo before even trying to lean out and lose all the excess body fat. I guarantee if she were in her low to mid teens in body fat before her surgery the surgeon wouldn't have needed to do lipo (removal of fat) because there wouldn't have been enough there to begin with. It is remarkable how much your skin can tighten up once your body fat goes from "average" to "excellent" and even more so when LEAN body mass increases. 

So the key to getting tighter skin is to lose more body fat, in a sensible way, improve your muscle to fat ratio and shoot for BETTER than "average". Only after you reach your body fat goal should lipo or a tummy tuck even cross your mind. So please, don't take the easy way out. Work your tush off every day, eat right, and i promise, you WILL see results. 

THIS ^^^ IS ME! If i can do it, so can you!

Weight lifting

First off, lets clear up the misconception many of us have on women and weight lifting. I'm tired of hearing "I don't want to lift weights, i will look like a man!" Strength training WILL NOT,  i repeat, WILL NOT make you look like the hulk. You will not get masculine bodybuilder type muscles from lifting. Due to the fact that women's bodies do not, and cannot, naturally produce as much testosterone ( the hormone linked to muscle size) as males do, it is IMPOSSIBLE! God never intended on making women look like men, that is why our bodys chemistry is made up of totally different things. What about the women bodybuilders you see on TV and in magazines?! Those women spend countless hours in the gym lifting extremely heavy weights, probably have good genetics and in most cases take some type of anabolic steroid. They do not look like that by accident. Regardless of how much or how often you train or how much protein you consume, you will not come close to looking like a MAN!

I personally think VS models are too thin. Now SHE has a body! 

You want to "tone"?

Everyone already has muscle, its about bringing them out and showing those beauties to the world! 

Tone = Define
Definition or "tone" is created by:
1. Building and preserving muscle
2. Lowering body fat

THIS is why i cannot push clean eating enough! 
Lowering body fat is all about your diet and caloric needs. Building muscle comes from a good strength training routine and heavy lifting! 
Why do we so often hear that women should'nt lift light?? Is it because we "shouldn't be as strong as men"? I don't know, but throw that out the window ladies!! Lifting 5lb dumbbells 50 times isn't going to give you the "toned" shape you're going for. Very high repetitions will not encourage your body to make your muscles bigger or more defined. Feeling "the burn" is not a sign of burning fat. The "burn" is lactic acid being built up into your muscle. The pump feels good and will make you feel like you're getting toned, but in actuality you are just growing the size of your muscle.

To "tone" you should stick to heavier weights and lower reps.

Example 115lb squats (3 x 8) or preforming 8 squats, 3 different times :) 

Lifting heavy with smaller reps will make your muscles more dense - not larger. Which is great for toning, IMO. The reason for this is known as myobibrillar hypertophy. This basically means that you are increasing the thickness of your muscle fibers instead of the fluid that's in them. 
I am all for building my muscles, so sometimes i do lift slightly lighter with more reps, i like to switch it up! 

Burn calories 24/7

Usually the goal of weightlifting for women is to get a nice figure while slimming down and toning up!   Although cardio will burn more calories than strength training in 30minutes, strength training will have your body burning calories all day long! Studies have shown that if you lift weights 3 times a week for two months you will gain nearly two pounds of muscle weight and lose about 4lbs of "fat" weight. As your lean muscle increases so does your resting metabolism. They say, that for each pound of muscle you gain, you will burn 30-50 more calories each day. This is why i like to tell people to GET RID OF THE SCALE! Or at least try not to weigh yourself everyday. 

I personally weigh myself every two weeks, just out of curiosity. I am at my "goal weight", being 5'7 and 132lbs i am totally happy with that. People look at me and say "there is no way you weigh 132lbs", remember people, muscle weighs more than fat! At one point (before weight lifting) i weighed 122lbs. My body looked almost exactly the same EXCEPT i had no muscle definition. I like to call it "skinny fat". I am now HEALTHY AND STRONG! 

I recently had my body fat measured at the base gym. They have something called "The Bod Pod" it is highly accurate in measuring your fat and takes only a few minutes. Keep in mind that the "average" body fat in the US for women is 30%. At 127lbs i was 13% body fat. The man preforming the test put me in the "at risk" category. After having breastfed i lost all breast fat and now have nothing but sagging skin :( BUT, im getting boobies soon to fix that ;) ANYWAYS, this could be one reason my body fat is low. Another reason may be because i am healthy, i eat right, and i am gaining muscle!! Again, muscle weighs more than fat. After being put in the "risky" category i did tons of research to see what i was doing wrong. What I found was that i am doing everything right! I do not want to be what the "average" American is. For the average American today is overweight. As long as i have normal menstrual cycles and no health issues it is perfectly safe to have low body fat. I am now 5lbs heavier than i was when i took the test because I have upped my carb/protein intake and have gained muscle mass. So im sure my body fat percentage went up just a bit. 

I was one of those women who used to walk pass the weight room in the gym and cringe. There was no way I was ever going to step foot into a room full of confusing machines, crazy amounts of iron and lots of intimidating men & women. Trust me, once you breach the free weight area, you'll realize your fears are unfounded. 

Still not convinced?! 

Here are some benefits of lifting heavy:
1. FAT LOSS
2. Muscle preservation
3. Increased metabolism
4. Increases functional strength - daily activities
5. Increases bone density
6. Increase energy
7. Improves digestion
8. Lowers blood pressure
9. relieves stress
10. Helps with depression
11. Lowers resting heart rate
12. Makes you look good naked!

So in summery, get off the damn treadmill and get your booty to the squat rack! 


TO BE CONTINUED......time for bed! :)

Overnight Oats

There are many different ways you can make overnight oats. You can add greek yogurt, and just about any fruit, spice, nut you can think of. This is one of my favorites :) Keep the next empty jar you have and try this out! Perfect for an on the go breakfast/snack/lunch as well. 

1/2 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup milk (skim, almond, soy)

1 tbsp peanut butter (or nut butter of choice)

2 tbsp flax meal

1 tbsp agave nectar

1/2 banana - sliced

a few crushed almonds (i used cocoa roasted) 

Combine everything into a jar, cover and shake! Let sit over night and in the morning they will be ready to go. Just give them a stir and enjoy! I like mine cold but you can certainly microwave them for a few minutes if cold oats aren't your thing. 

This will look soupy when first combined but the oats and flax meal will absorb the liquid while it sits overnight :) 

Health benefits of consuming oats:
Eating oats in your diet provides a wide range of health benefits including dietary fiber which helps keep your heart healthy and cholestrol down. They also reduce your blood pressure, blood sugars, and risk of cancer. They also help with bowel function and weight control. Since oats are valued as a carb they are excellent for giving your body the energy it needs for athletic performance.

I work out!

As most of you already know, I am obsessed with working out...I like to call myself a gym rat :) I look forward to the time of the day when i can put on my workout clothes, tie my hair up, take my pre-workout, turn up the music and PUMP SOME IRON!! I crave it. 

The photo on the left was taken in Feb 2012 (( YES, this is ME! I've had people ask why my tattoo is on the wrong side, implying that they aren't the same person. Well genius, the first picture someone took of me and the second i took myself in a mirror.)). This was 4 months after giving birth to my daughter. I gained close to 40lbs while i was pregnant with her and was determined to lose the "baby weight" in the healthiest way possible. So, i turned to CLEAN EATING & EXERCISE. There are no products in the world that will do what a healthy diet and frequent exercise will. Many people are under the impression that they can take a weight loss pill, go on crazy fad diets, or simply starve themselves. Wake up!!!! Those might be quick fixes, but they are the easy way out and will not last. 

Losing weight, gaining muscle, and becoming a healthier person will not happen over night. This will take time. Especially if you're in deep enough. Losing weight is a mind game...change your mind, change your body. It's all about making the change.

I encourage taking progress pictures. Go in your bathroom right now and take a picture of yourself with minimal clothing on (something you wouldn't mind showing people down the road). I only WISH i would have kept the other pictures i took along with this one. My husband took a picture of me from the front and the side and you know what i did, DELETED them! I was ashamed of my body. I know i shouldn't have been since this was only 4 months after having a baby and my hips were still out of place. But now i wish i would have those to look back at and to encourage others with.