Category: Weight Loss

Weight loss strategies.

Stuff You Can Use to Workout That You Already Have

I know that not all of us have access to a gym or can afford to keep fancy workout equipment in our homes. That’s okay! There are tons of exercises you can do with some basic stuff you already have in your house! Check out just the handful I found:

Chairs

Don’t even try to turn around and tell me you don’t own a chair! I don’t believe you!

Triceps Dips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKjcgfu44sI

Chair Pushups

Lat Pull Downs

Chair Planks

Towels

For Abs

For Forearms

Water Jugs

Biceps Curls

https://youtu.be/LaZymfBRNWk

A one-gallon water jug weighs about 8 lbs full so it’s a good weight to add to your collection. If you fill it with dirt or sand it’s closer to 12 lbs. Varying the level of water inside adds to the difficulty level due to the “slosh factor”.

Farmer’s Carry

This is the world’s simplest workout. I buy spring water to keep at work because I don ‘t have access to potable water to drink. Now I drink a LOT of water, 1.25 gallons a day,  so I buy 2.5 gallon jugs. These weigh 20 lbs apiece. I often carry one in each hand from the grocery store near work back to my office. It’s only 1/6 of a mile, but with 20 lbs in each hand, it makes the walk a bit more challenging. You can really feel it in your grip, arms and shoulders. (The guy in the video has 8 gallon jugs, so he’s on the extreme end, but you can vary the weight to your strength.)

And and and…

So you see you don’t need a lot of extra stuff to get a good workout in! I bet you even have all these things at home already, don’t you? GO WORKOUT!

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I’ve Gone Bananas Week: Day 2 – Chocolate Peanut Butter “Ice Cream” Cakes

cake mainI’d been dreaming of a frozen dessert for a while now. Growing up there were all kinds of ice cream tortes with various layers in the grocer’s freezer, often with delicate, shard-like chocolate flakes on top and an airy, sliceable consistency. Some had actual cake in them, some did not. I wanted a take on banana ice cream, without it trying to be an exact substitute for ice cream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SllolGvf5eI

Remember those? Mmmm. A layered frozen dessert was definitely in order, but I wasn’t sure what to use as my bottom layer. Purchased pound cake?  Homemade sponge cake? Chocolate wafers? I couldn’t decide. I had an app rebate for a name brand frozen pound cake (you know the one), so I had planned to use that just by default. But it was fate that I walked by the bakery clearance rack at Walmart and discovered sugar free dessert shells FOR A SONG. I’m not kidding, 6 of them were a mere fifty-nine cents. The only way they could be more frugal was if they were free. I gathered the rest of the ingredients and got started!

Chocolate Peanut Butter “Ice Cream” Cakes

20160327_130500Ingredients

  • 250 grams very ripe banana
  • 4 tbsp Jif peanut butter powder
  • 12 servings (24 tbsp) Lite Cool Whip, approx. half a tub
  • 6 sugar free dessert shells
  • 6 servings bittersweet chocolate chips, approx. 3/4 cup

Directions

In a food processor, process the banana until liquid. Add the peanut powder and process 30 seconds more, scraping down the sides once.

Pour into a large bowl. Add the Cool Whip and fold in gently.

Using a pastry bag or a zip top bag with a tip cut off, squirt the filling into the dessert shells. Freeze until solid.

In a double boiler or in the microwave in 30 second increments, melt the chocolate chips until smooth. Using another zip top bag or squeeze bottle, drizzle over the cakes evenly. Return to the freezer until chocolate is solid.


Wrap cakes individually in plastic wrap and store in an airtight container in the freezer, or CONSUME THEM ALL IN ONE SITTING! (Just kidding.) I had extra filling left over, which I just squeezed directly into my mouth directly from the bag. Don’t judge me!

20160327_155132The banana and peanut butter flavors are pretty mild, but the addition of the Cool Whip keeps the texture soft and easy to eat.

20160327_155255These taste like a chocolate covered banana with a hint of peanut butter flavor, and feels like a decent sized dessert for FEWER THAN 250 CALORIES. Yes, you heard me, this cupcake-sized snack covered in rich, dark chocolate feel decadent, but can still fit into a healthy meal plan. And that calorie count includes the spare Cool Whip, banana and peanut butter powder that I ate separately, so they’re probably even less than that. Bonus.

20160327_155354I hope you give them a try! There’s one more banana post coming this week, so stay tuned!

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I’ve Gone Bananas Week: Day 1 – I Really Wanted Pancakes

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Here’s a warning:

Every post this week will be a recipe that includes bananas.

Why, you ask? Because I have bananas I need to get rid of. I meant to use them last week, but I had a rough, stressful week, and they got to ripe for me to just eat as is. I’m very strange in my dislike for actually ripe bananas, preferring to eat them when they’re still tinged with green. These bananas are way, WAY past that. If I liked banana bread, they’d be banana bread ready. Consider yourself warned.

Peanut-butter-jelly-time.gifEaster morning I awoke before dawn, which, considering Sunday was my day off and I’d declined an invitation to walking group so I could sleep in and totally relax, did not make me happy. At all. I’m really not sure how many times I can watch Cindy Crawford’s Meaningful Beauty infomercial without beginning to feel my skin deteriorate like the Nazi guy at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

5-game-of-thrones-characters-that-make-you-tell-yourself-oh-wait-where-have-i-seen-them-389734
This guy. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t make it. 

So sometime before the sun rose I decided that since I was totally out of both chicken sausage AND eggs, my standard breakfast fare, that I’d throw together a quick pancake mix with those overripe bananas. Now, did you notice something important missing from my refrigerator? Right. No eggs. I knew I had chia seeds. I knew chia seeds could use used as an egg substitute. I scrounged through my pantry and came up with THIS:

The Strangest Pancake Recipe Ever20160327_061942

  • 1/4 c. raw sunflower seed kernels
  • 1 tbsp. chia seeds
  • 1/4 c. cocoa powder
  • 1/4 c. coconut flour
  • 150 grams overripe banana
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1/2 serving whey protein powder (I used Isopure Zero Carb Cookies and Cream)
  • 1/2 cup water
  • cooking spray

Directions

In a food processor, process sunflower seed kernels, chia seeds, cocoa powder and coconut flour until the sunflower seed kernels are coarsely ground. Add banana and vanilla extract, pulse until well mixed.

Scrape down the bowl, add the protein powder and pulse some more. (Why? Who the hell knows. Because it was 6 am and the sun was barely up and I was tired, that’s why.) Then, with the processor running, drizzle in the water slowly. I let the batter sit for 15 minutes in hopes that it would be more viscous.

Transfer the mixture to a pastry bag or a zip top bag with the corner cut off.

20160327_065752
Just pretend these don’t look like anything but pancakes. 

Heat a pan over medium heat. When it reaches temperature, spray with cooking spray and squirt out pancakes in about a 4″ diameter. Here comes the tricky part. Because the batter is both gluten and egg free, you need to be patient. Don’t try to flip them too early or they’ll just fall apart on you. I learned this the hard way. Flip and cook until brown on both sides. You should have enough batter to make 16 pancakes.

20160327_071310I served mine with a frozen fruit blend that I defrosted and warmed a bit so the liquid made a little sauce, almost like pancake syrup!

20160327_071316The texture was a bit dense and you could definitely feel the texture of the sunflower seed kernels and the coconut flour, but the flavor was spot on like chocolate chip banana bread. Really tasty! You could even make these vegan by replacing the whey protein powder with a plant- or rice-based protein powder if you so desired.

Considering I totally made up this recipe I think it turned out pretty good, and it’s a win in the flavor department. Have you ever made something up and failed-but-not-failed? Let me know!

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