Healthy Banana Muffins

 

Newly engaged, my fience & I just moved in together & I'm definitely in "nesting" mode, making him breakfast smothies, packing his lunch & making dinner every night (haha the things LOVE does to a girl), so I plan on sharing some of my favorite recipes with you guys!  I'm definitely an extremely healthy eater & cooker & have been slowly converting my fince over to a health nut, too.

Before, we were putting Fiber One bars in his lunch, but I just didn't like the idea of all those preservatives & sugar.  I figured I could make a healthier version myself at home! 

After finding Keeping Up With the Joneses banana muffin recipe on Pinterest, I decided that I would tweak the recipe & amp it up a bit, adding some protein powder & other healthy additions & after several weeks of playing with the recipe I think we have a winner!  I love that there's no flower, butter, or sugar in these muffins & hope you guys like them too!

 

Healthy Banana Muffins

Ingredients 

-2 /1/2 cup old fashioned oats

-1 cup yogurt (I use goat yogurt)

-2 eggs
 

-1/4 cup organic agave (you can use stevia, but since these are for my fiance, I'm not too concerned with calories)

 -1 1/2 tsp baking powder

-1/2 tsp baking soda

-2 bananas

-2 tsp cinnamon (heart healthy & yummy)

-3 heaping tbsp vanilla protein powder (fills you up, adds extra a little extra protein to your diet, & also tastes super yummy in the muffins!!)

Instructions

Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit & spray your muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a blender, slowly combine ingredients together, being sure to add oats in little doses so you don't freeze your blending process.

Pour mixture into muffin pan & make for 20-25 minutes.

Tips

Store your muffins in the fridge!  They'll only keep for a few days before they get moldy in the pantry (the price you pay for preservative free food)!

You can add a wide variety of additions to these muffins, I've tried sliced almonds & want to try dried cranberries when it starts to feel a little more like fall around here.  

Get creative & ENJOY! 

xoxo Shauna

 

Add GLUTEN to the List!

Truth be told... I'm a picky eater. 

{wince}

That's not something that I readily admit.

At the age of 12, I decided that I no longer wanted to eat beef or pork.

I never looked back & haven't missed red meat.

At around 20, I decided that I wanted to stay away from milk & egg products, too.  

I switched to goat yogurt, almond milk, brown rice protein powder, applesauce when baking, etc.

I try not to sweat it when out in public, because I don't want to be "that person" (I'll have a bite of that yummy dessert or have a bread roll with butter) but truth be told your body gets used to eating a certain way, so now when I eat ice cream or butter my tummy does not like it at all. 

Lately, my tummy hasn't been very happy.  Sharp pains to be exact.  

Problem is, I haven't been consuming any lactose products or beef or pork. 

After scrutinizing my diet, I've realized that my stomach only hurts when I consume products with gluten (that tortilla at the mexican restaurant, the pasta salad at the bbq, when I had a bran muffin for breakfast).

Great.  

Sooo join me on my experiment where I try to lead a gluten free life & see what kind of results I achieve!  I plan on going to a nutritonist soon, but am going to cut out gluten until I see the doctor in the hopes of feeling better FAST.

I'll keep you all updated & please let me know if you have any advice or insight!

xoxo Shauna

"Cheap food is an illusion. There is no such thing. The real cost of the food is paid somewhere. If it’s not charged at the cash register, it’s charged to the environment, it’s charged to the people in the form of subsidies, or it’s charged to your health. In the end you get what you pay for." - Unknown

xoxo Shauna 

Craving Sweets

If you're like me, it's impossible to "just say no" to my sweet tooth.  And why would I want to?  Sweets make me happy!! 

For me... it's all about choosing options that are yummy, but not drenched in fat & calories.  

Here are some treats I always have on hand at home for those times when I'm craving something sweet, but don't want to ruin the whole day with a calorie binge...

 

I've posted on Arctic Zero before, and some of you were a little skeptic as to how healthy an ice cream so low in calories could be... Trust me, I thought it was too good to be true, too!   

 

The first ingredients are water & whey protien!  So in essence, you're eating a frozen protien shake as dessert!  An entire pint is 150 calories... which makes me wonder... Why would you ever eat regular ice cream again?!  

 

Vita Tops are another go-to for me.  Only 100 calories & full of fiber & vitamins!  

 

Sounds kinda silly, but I save my chewable vitamins for night time to have with my nightly tea!  I can't take regular vitamins because they make me nauseous, but secretly love the treat of having these gummy vitamins every day!  They're only 10 calories for 2 & these prenatal vitamins are full of good stuff for your hair, skin & nails (no, I'm not pregnant, I just like the added vitamins to help grown my hair long).  

 

I love hot tea at night!  Not only does it help de-stress me from a long day &  help me drink more water (something i'm always struggling to do), it also helps my sweet tooth craving.  My favorite is Red Lavender & Earl Gray Creme.  I add a packet of Stevia & almond milk if I want something a little creamy... 

 

Another trick I can attribute learning about to Pinterest.com... Broiled grapefruit!  The acidity turns sweet in the oven... Super yummy! 

Check out Pinterest for the recipe:  HERE

Hope my tricks help you ladies with your sweets cravings!  

xoxo Shauna

Healthy Ice Cream?

 

Sounds too good to be true... But it is true!!

Found this amazing ice cream at Mother's Market :)

xoxo Shauna

Coconut Water: Not So Magically Healthy After All?

Coconut water is EVERYWHERE.  & I must admit, i've jumped on the bandwagon myself.  I love the stuff.  But is coconut water as amazing as it claims to be??  I usually opt for the lowest calorie option at my local grocery store (some have "pulp" or added juices that make them higher in calories & I typically like to EAT my calories & not DRINK them), but I wonder... are all coconut water brands created equal or is there a specific brand I should be buying?

To my surprise, when ConsumerLab.com tested three leading brands (Zico, Vita Coco & ONE), only one contained what it actually said it did. 

The trouble seems to lie in the beverages' sodium and magnesium quantities: These electrolytes form the basis of the drink's rehydration claims.  The test revealed that in the Vita Coco and ONE brands, there was as much as 82% less sodium than advertised, and as much as 35% less magnesium.

 

However, CNN reports that Zico Natural did deliver its promised levels of the two ingredients.

Zico it is!

xoxo Shauna

Pilates Plus Orange County

Tonight I tried Pilates Plus in Costa Mesa located on 17th st. (they have a Newport Beach location, too) & wanted to share my experience about it!  

With my job, I have to admit, comes a lot of perks.  Most of which, however, usually make me fat or drunk (I work in the restaurant industry) so needless to say I was excited when an unlimited membership to Pilates Plus Orange County was given to me.  My workout routine usually consists of hot yoga & spin a couple times a week but I definitely wanted to through something new in there & have always wanted to try pilates reformers.

Well I can tell you that it took a good 1/2 hour for my muscles to stop shaking after class!  It was a really good muscle workout, but not so much of a cardio workout.  I didn't break a sweat or ever get out of breath but I think i'll for sure be sore tomorrow.  I think it'd be perfect to incorporate into a routine of running or spin or another form of cardio.  I plan on adding pilates classes in a couple of times a week so I will blog again soon about results!  

Milk is Evil

Milk campaigns targeted at children & athletes spew out this FALSE information & it really fires me up!  

So, yesterday I got in a semi-heated debate with a friend of mine who is convinced that milk is some sort of life source.  He asked me why I considered milk the "devil's drink" & there we so many points I wanted to make, I didn't know where to begin…

Think about it for a second… 

What other animal on earth drinks milk from another species, besides human beings?  
What other animal on earth drinks milk after maturity has been reached, besides human beings?
Cows weigh THOUSANDS of pounds & calves drink fat filled milk to reach this weight… why are we drinking something that is intended to make you gain weight RAPIDLY?  

There is an amazing blog called eatingforenergy.com that talks about pasteurization, growth hormones, antibiotics & other disgusting problems with milk.  Some of my favorite points:

The Unnatural “Beefing Up” of Dairy Cows – Hormones and Antibiotics

"Fifty years ago an average cow produced 2,000 pounds of milk per year. Today the top producers produce about 50,000 pounds! How is this accomplished? Drugs, antibiotics, growth hormones, forced feeding plans and specialized breeding – that’s how."
"The most recent unnatural addition to dairy cows is bovine growth hormone or BGH. This genetically engineered drug is supposed to stimulate milk production without “supposedly” affecting the quality of the milk itself! Rrright….(in the voice of Dr. Evil from Austin Powers)"
"Many countries have banned BGH because of safety concerns. Any substance added to a dairy cow’s body comes out in the milk. I don’t know how you feel, but I don’t want genetically engineered hormones coming into my body!"
"BGH causes a dramatic increase (50 to 70 %) in mastitis (udder infections) in the dairy cows’ udders, because of the constant production of milk. This in turn requires antibiotic therapy to cure the mastitis, and then the residues of the antibiotics appear in the milk we drink."
"Over 50 % of all the antibiotics produced in North America are mixed directly into animal feed. Ideally, antibiotics should be used in farming only when necessary to treat infections."
"However, due to the unhealthy conditions of factory-farmed animals, and the poor, dirty conditions they are raised under, they are fed a constant supply of antibiotics from birth until death."
"We then, are unknowingly consuming far more antibiotics than we intend to, by drinking commercial milk. This fact may be part of the reasons that more and more people are becoming resistant to prescribed antibiotics."
"Milk alone contains traces of up to 80 different antibiotics! Since lactating mammals excrete toxins through the milk, this would include antibiotics, pesticides, chemicals, and growth hormones.?

The Problem with Pasteurization

"Raw milk sours naturally, but pasteurized milk turns putrid and thus manufactueres must remove the slime and pus from pasteurized milk through centrifugal clarification." 
"Furthermore, inspection of dairy herds for disease is not even required for pasteurized milk."
"To hit home the problem with pasteurization, calves (baby cows) fed pasteurized milk die before maturity!"

http://eatingforenergy.ca/blog/143/milk-dairy-products-pasteurization/