I mentioned earlier that I was going to start writing about some of my favorite things. Sometimes it will be a product, sometimes it might be a place, or sometimes it could be a product or thing–like a movie. Today, however, it is about a recipe. A HEALTHY recipe from a friend of mine Allison Reyna whose life mission is about helping people use food as medicine. As a single, working mom with kids on the go, the following recipe is easy, healthy, and full of protein, good fats and complex carbs. Plus, it stores well in the fridge or freezer. Just pop them out when you need them. So, here it is. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
No Bake Almond-Oat Energy Bites
(Makes 24 1-inch balls and takes < 30 minutes to make!)
2 ½ cups rolled oats (regular)
½ cup raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
2 Tbs. cocoa powder
½ cup raisins or dried cranberries
1 Tbs. raw sunflower seeds
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ cup almond butter
1/3 cup + 1 Tbs. honey
2 Tbs. barley malt syrup or brown rice syrup
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Optional: ¾ cup cacao nibs
(I also throw in some dried blueberries, and mini dark chocolate morsels!)
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Grind ½ cup oats, ¼ pumpkin seeds and 2 tbs. cocoa powder in food processor until powdery. Transfer to medium bowl and set aside.
- Combine remaining 2 cups oats, remaining ¼ cup pumpkins sees, raisins, etc. and cinnamon in large bowl. Stir in almond butter, honey, barley malt or brown rice syrup, and vanilla until soft dough forms.
- Moisten hands and roll dough into 1 inch balls. Coat balls in oat-pumpkin-cocoa powder. Place on cookie sheet. Place cookie sheet in freezer to set, then serve or store in fridge.
- And– oh yeah, enjoy!
P.S. If you have allergies, food issues, weight loss goals, energy problems, or are battling an illness, I encourage you to seek guidance from a nutritional counselor. There is power in the right foods.
Continue reading about Raindrops on Roses, Whiskers on Kittens…
Are you ready for summer… and SWIM season?!! It’s just about here….with Memorial Day typically being the “official” kick-off for the summer season. The topic du jour at the gym and around the office is getting swimsuit ready! Losing weight is simple math, really. You’ve got to burn/take in 500 calories less a day in order to lose one pound a week. I think it’s easiest to do it by adding an extra 100-200 calories of activity coupled with a reduction of 250-300 calories a day. You can get there with a focus on food and fitness–two of my favorite things! (This btw, reminds me that in future blogs I am going to share a few of my favorite things! I hope you do, too.)
If the 500 calorie a day deficit seems too aggressive, losing half a pound a week is much easier–and definitely doable–especially for the ladies since our daily calorie needs are less than the guys. A 250 calorie a day decrease and/or exercise burn is easier to reach consistently.
For the fitness angle, get moving! No way around that one. For at least three workouts that include 20 minutes of resistance (minimum), 20 minutes of cardio and 5-10 minutes of stretching. (For why, look at past blogs on the importance of muscle and its calorie burning effect.) If you need some ideas for exercises, two sites I really like are Fitness Magazine where you can tailor your workout to your time, location, and equipment (if any). You do need to join the site, but it’s free and from there you can design a workout just for you, change it as often as you like, and see how to do the exercises. Another good site with exercise ideas is Runner’s World which also contains videos of the movement execution with verbal descriptions. Gotta love technology!
Seriously, food manufacturers have got us pegged. They have figured out how to make sh– taste really good. And we’re suckers. We go for it. The smells in fast food joints are enticing. They elicit responses and make us want to eat it (so much for the healthy options). Then when you eat it, you feel good while you eat, you feel satisfied afterwards, like a drug. Then, you crash and guess what your body wants after you crash? More sh—. Seriously, it’s a vicious cycle. The best way to avoid it is to NOT walk in the place. That’s A. And B - when grocery shopping, avoid boxes whenever possible. Shop the perimeter. The more processed a food–meaning the more things done to a food once it leaves an animal, the ground, a tree or the ocean, the more processed it is. The more chemicals are added. The more fiber is stripped out. The more salt is added. MSG is awful. And the worst offender is the trans fat added to make the product hold up, like forever. Even mold avoids it! In David Katz’s Flavor-Full Diet: Use Your Taste Buds to Lose Pounds and Inches, he shares the nitty gritty about the physical AND physiological dependence that is promoted by convenience, marketing and price. Then, there is the Wake Forest School of Medicine which found the effect of trans fats on weight. Turns out they fed these two groups of monkeys an equal # of calories but gave one group just 8 % of their daily intake in trans fats. The trans fat group gained THREE times as much weight. So the moral of THAT story is you can’t go eat a fast food lunch and then think eating lean the rest of the day can make up for it. You might THINK so calorie wise but those trans fats do more than screw up your cardiovascular health. And oh yeah, it’s allllllllllllllllllllllllllllll belly fat!! If that isn’t enough to convince you to start eating healthy TODAY, then consider this: Another study (CARDIA in 2005) followed 5000 healthy young adults for 20 years (that’s a GOOD sample and a good time period). Turns out, eating fast food was worse on a body than a sedentary lifestyle or alchohol consumption.
Be good to your body. Try a cleanse. I found a really great one several years ago and do it twice a year. It’s not tough and you’d be surprised at how far you’ve moved from eating healthy. I sleep like a baby and wake up before my alarm. I have tons of energy. There’s a great article you can follow at Experience Life Magazine on a fast track detox plan. ENJOY and Happy Monday!
Supposedly, if no one were fat, we’d save…. the earth? That might be a stretch, but it is a great idea, don’t you think? The guys over at Men’s Health have shared that we’d save “$5 billion in fueling our lighter cars and planes, spend $10 billion less on clothes, and be so productive at work that the nation would see a $257 billion boost!” Apparently, some guy actually put a pencil to this and found that an America without obesity would save $487 billion dollars each year—enough to give every one of us $4,270 in gas money. Certainly the kind of thing that makes you go, “Hmmmmm!”
The moral to this story? Start exercising and get everyone you know to join you. I normally ask, “What have you got to GAIN?” However according to this article, it’s a bunch o’ money, plus health benefits galore….so get GOING! And be FIT!
Invest in your workouts; it will do you and America some good. Gotta love it!
Continue reading about Is Weight Loss the Key to a Better Future?
I got the “tri-bug” year before last. I fell in love the competition aspect of it—and the thrill of beating a previous time. I like the intention and goal setting of planning my training each week. I like the forced balance it provides by alternating cardio between swimming and cycling and running. Had it not been for triathlons, I would have never climbed on a bike or started doing laps again in a pool. I’ve really started enjoying both of those additions to my training. And, I rarely have knee issues running any more. So, tri training is fun. It makes me intentional. And I can compete with myself –or race against others. I was just starting to ramp up my spring time cardio routine for a summer of triathlons. Then…life happend. I learned that I needed to have surgery. It’s been a possibility for a couple of years. This time, however, I wasn’t bummed or upset about the news. No roller coaster of emotion. The Q to my doc was, “How long before I can train again?” I had to smile. I’ve come a long way… “ain’t nothing gonna break my stride!” So what did I do? After looking at the optimal time to juggle work and line up summer driving for my kids’ activities, I searched the net for a local triathlon! I wanted to get at least ONE in this season. Found one that was two weeks away. It was last Sunday. The Saturday before was a gorgeous day. And Sunday? I woke up at 4:30 to cold, rainy weather. Oh well—I wanted to race. Never raced in the cold, so what the heck? A new experience. My 10 year old daughter went with me to watch. The swim leg went well. The bike ride was…well, cold, windy and wet! I slowed down my transition a bit to add some arm warmers and a sleeveless jacket. I felt the cold, rain pelting me like little needles and yet– I had to smile. I thought, “I’m here. I’m STILL here. I get to FEEL this rain. I get to push it.” I had a blast. When I came in to transition from the bike to the run, there was my little girl standing on the corner in the rain, holding an umbrella, shouting, “Go MAMMA, go!” Just what I needed. Those words of encouragement fueled my run. I finished 2ndin my division. Cool. Maybe I will get another race in late summer/early fall. And maybe not, but that’s OK. There’s always next year. As I was running today, Natasha Bedingfield came on my ipod. You know the song, Unwritten? “Feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you, only you can let it in….live your life with arms wide open, today is where your book begins—the rest is still unwritten.” I felt the rain on Sunday. It was glorious. And today, I watched the trees dance while I ran along the creek and inhaled nature’s honeysuckle perfume…with arms wide open. It was awesome.
