April 18, 2014 - Easter Brownies

Becoming a beachbody coach is giving me the motivation to press play everyday. Even though I am not fully set up yet  feel like I need to do more now to prove the programs work.

I have done a T25 workout everyday since my last post. Next goal is to work on eating better. If you need more information on beachbody products go to www.beachbodycoach.com/isha21. It is Easter weekend so this week's recipe is a bit of a treat. I have to admit I couldn't stop eating them They were a hit at work and the comment was that they taste like two bite brownies this is a much healthier version.

Brownies
2 cups hazelnuts
3/4 cup icing sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup cocoa
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp of olive oil

Place nuts, icing sugar, cocoa in blender or magic bullet and mix until nuts are ground

add eggs, vanilla, buttermilk, and oil and blend until consistency of cake batter
line a baking pan with parchment paper. Pour mixture into pan and bake at 350C for approximately 35 minutes. 

April 13 update and shakeology

I just ran for the train and felt extremely unfit. Another bad eating day this weekend. I have been trying to get back into t25 I did do a workout each day this weekend and I am going to try to do one everyday this week I said try.  I am craving shakeology more and more now. I felt like a treat breakfast this weekend so here is my tee at shakeology recipe. I am now a beachbody coach all my posts prior to today were before becoming a coach and I mainly signed up for the shakeology discount . However if you are interested in any of the beachbody products I talk about here you can go to www.beachbodycoach.com/isha21

Chocolate orange
1 orange
5 hazelnuts
1 Hershey's special dark single
1/2 banana
1 package chocolate shakeology

Blend and enjoy

April 7

This past week I tried to get back into a workout routine. I did 4 t25 workouts out of 7 days so better than nothing still have some work to do to be consistant. I am still drinking shakeology 5 days a week. That seems to be working I realized I now work next door to my favorite chocolate store. I went in looked around and didn't buy a thing. Does this mean my chocolate addiction is gone.. No because I did buy some drug store chocolate but shared it. This past weekend I went on a mini vacation had all the junk food I wanted for 3 days the junk food I are was a single portion bag of chips, 2 glasses of pop, a veggie burger and an order of fries, a piece of cheesecake, a bakery brownie, and a few cookies, and a couple of single portion chocolates. We did a lot of shopping walking okay it's time to try to get back into a healthier routine. This recipe is for the return if vacation you know when you have eaten out to much and you don't want to cook. Here is a fast in between I got 3 portions out of this.. I will post pictures later.

Tofu stir fry

Half a bag of fresh chow mein noodles
3 tbsp sweet and sour sauce
1 individual package soy sauce
1 tbsp hot mustard
Half a package coleslaw mix
One carrot
Half a carrot
One package smoked tofu cubed

Boil water for noodles
Meanwhile heat a non stick frying pan
With one tbsp oil (optional)
Heat tofu until crisp
Add coleslaw mix
Add sauces
Stir and reduce heat
Add some water if there isn't enough sauce
Add noodles to boiling water
Meanwhile chop carrot and cucumber
When noodles are cooked add to tofu and stir
Turn off hear
Add carrot and cucumber to mixture and mix

What Should I make?

cook coleslaw mix, tofu, and sauce 

chopped this while mixture was cooking

All done. 

Shakeology update

Over the last few months I have been experimenting with shakeology to see if its worth buying it on a regular basis. I have finally decided the answer is yes. I pretty much stopped working out months ago because other things got in the way. I was surviving on 4 hours of sleep a night but shakeology gave me the energy to get through the day at that time I was still eating relatively healthy. Then I had oral surgery and other than shakeology, bananas, and avacado's everything else I ate was junk food pudding, icecream, pasta, cookies etc and unless you considering sleeping a form of exercise no exercise either. I still lost 5 pounds and if you have been following my blog that hasn't happened for awhile. This diet was about a month. It took me a few months to get used to shakeology I didn't drink it everyday at the beginning I didn't like the taste and texture and it felt like it wasn't agreeing with me.  I did find that the vegan versions sit a lot better in my stomach than the non vegan ones. I kept drinking it because there was no doubt that it was giving me the energy I needed. There was a few weeks where my shipment was lost and I didn't have it and I could really feel the difference in my energy level. I now drink it at least 5 times a week and I find the days I don't drink it I eat a lot more. I don't intentially not eat when I drink it I just don't feel like eating anything else. I now really enjoy the taste it feels like a treat now it took awhile to get to that point I guess it was all part of the detox process. The tropical strawberry is the best taste, chocolate second, and I don't like the vanilla and haven't tried the greenberry.  I now replace my workday breakfast or lunches with shakeology. Its easy I take a blender bottle to work and shake it and have lunch. It prevents me from eating out and I don't need to buy groceries or think what am I going to have for lunch today. I have not given up Starbucks but that is more of a social thing and I am sure I could go without it now if I wanted to but I enjoy my one latte a day. Althought the price of shakeology seems high at first the amount of money I have saved on not buying junk food or even vegetables that end up going bad it pays for itself.  I am not a coach yet so I don't get a discount unless I get it on sale its still about $5 a serving but it replaced at least a $5 junk food or lunch item and relieves the stress of making lunches and I am sure future medications. The days I am going out  socially I intentially don't have a shake because then I would be eating nothing in the restaurant and that would be awkward. There is one other side effect that I have noticed my hair grows like crazy and it sometimes it looks like I styled it when I haven't done anything. The negative part of this is my unwanted body hair also grows like crazy. Just tells me the nutrients are working. I know a lot of people think why not just drink a cheaper protein shake but if you look at my previous posts garden of life was a very good shake but my energy levels didn't increase the way they do with shakeology and the benefits were not the same. These are the results I had I did do a lot of research before buying my first package and was very hesitant to start drinking something that could potentially be discontinued at some point. For now it works I like it so I will continue drinking it. My next experiment will be the difference between results from beachbody workouts without shakeology and beachbody workouts with shakeology. Future posts and hopefully results to come. 

March 6, 2014 - Sweet Potato Soup

Some posts to come about where I have been lately. I just made this soup and want to get the recipe out before I forget its pretty awesome. I am recovering from oral surgery right now and haven't been up to cooking or eating much lately but I bought the sweet potatoes prior and didn't want to waste them. I have never used boxed vegetable broth before as I usually make my own but I bought the broth when I knew I was going to be on a liquid non-spicy diet and never felt like eating soup while I was on a liquid diet. This soup is so simple and really tastes great. I was originally going to put some sour cream in it but decided its really good on its own.

Sweet Potato Soup (2 servings)
1 sweet onion
3 sweet potatoes
1 cup vegetable broth
1 piece of ginger
some water

Really that's all that went into this.

 cook the onions first then add the sweet potato. I was cutting the sweet potato while the onions were cooking and didn't finish them all at the same time. It would be better to cut the potatoes first.

 Definitely will be using this vegetable broth again. After adding the sweet potato add 3/4 cup of vegetable broth.

 let cook on medium heat stir every few minutes.  I used the back of a wooden spoon to mash the potatoes while they were cooking.  When it looks like this around 20 minutes add the ginger and let it sit.

15 minutes later it looks like this. You can also eat this like this as a side still tastes good.

 I bought a new magic bullet when I found I could get a blender attachment with it. This is the first time I have used this. Love it. I added the rest of the broth and some water before blending.

 Then it looks like this so creamy and no cream

I added more some water to get the remainder out of the blender and its more soup like but will probably thicken up again.
That's all enjoy. 

December 9, 2013

This week I am slowly getting back into a routine. I was going through a lot of halls so a lot of additional sugar. I am still drinking shakeology as a snack not a meal replacement. I haven't measured or weighed myself this week. My stomach is getting flatter than before. I mixed in a couple of alpha workouts this week as Gamma is intense.

Today I will write about the pyramid workout. This workout is a nightmare you do every move building up to an 8 count. Well I didn't make it to 8 on many of the moves. This is not a beginner workout so if you are thinking about skipping alpha and beta and going straight to gamma I would advise against it. The only reason I even stuck it through to the end of the dvd was because of the mindset alpha and beta gave me. If Shaun T looks like this at the end of the workout imagine what I looked like.

I bought  a salad of spinach, kale, and baby greens. I sauteed an onion, some mushrooms, a tomato, added the greens. Then blended in the magic bullet. I then put it on a pizza crust with some feta cheese. I also ate some as soup think it made a nice soup.

December 1, 2013

This week I have been sick with a bad cold and didn't do as much as I usually do. I am continuing to drink shakeology but I did miss a few days. I tried the gamma speed 3.0 workout I didn't do all the moves because I couldn't keep up plus being sick I was more motivated to keep my ass on the couch. Even so I think I sweated some of my cold out with the workout. It's one of those workouts that I will need to do a few times but eventually it's going to become one of my favourite's. As usual it pushes me to my maximum abilities this workout doesn't have any modifiers I am impressed with how far I have come since before I started T25. I went from not being able to do a burpee to attempting to keep up with Shaun T in gamma.

I have not tried any of the other gamma workouts yet. I hope to get back into it by monday and hope to review the rest of the workouts next post.

Today I tried the vegan tropical strawberry shakeology. I wish I had ordered more than one package of this. So far it is the best tasting of the ones I have tried. I only added water today and it was almost equivalent to a smoothie I liked it. I drank it for breakfast and didn't eat anything else until 4pm. I also didn't do anything active unless coughing counts as a workout.