Cheapskate Breakfast

I am NOT a morning person. I don't bound out of bed every morning sprinkling sunshine and happiness everywhere. Typical mornings are me stumbling out of bed, kicking Sam in the process and then yelling at him for not being excited about me accidentally kicking him. Sorry, love. :) Second scenario-- I wake up 90 seconds before I am supposed to be on the fwy and fly out of the house, sans breakfast. On the days i wake up early-- breakfast happens. Kinda. Generally i snack on whatever is handy while i throw together lunches. In the search for something handy, we grabbed some Kashi blueberry waffles that i could eat while doing my prep. Sounded good? No. They were not just bad... They were SO bad i had to throw it out- including the chewed up portion in my mouth.
A while back i found a recipe for cottage cheese pancakes that we were obsessed with for a while, until we ate it every day to the point of nausea. They were so yummy, had a pancakey texture with a hint of french toast flavor and super easy and portable. How to make them better? Waffles! I threw the same exact recipe (with the addition of blueberries) into the waffle maker, made a huge batch and froze them. Now in the mornings i have homemade, whole ingredient, non processed toaster waffles ready to go in seconds! Not only do they taste amazing, I made them for a fraction of the cost. Boom!

Kashi Blueberry Waffles

$4.59 for 8
$1.15 per serving (2 waffles)
Calories: 150
Fat: 5g
Carbies: 25g
Protein: 4g
**p.s... the ingredient list on this is too long to list... a whopping 28 ingredients!!

Knockoff Blueberry Waffles

$1.45 makes 6

$0.71 per serving (3waffles)

Calories: 150

Fat: 2.5

Carbies: 15g

Protein: 16g

Protein & penny pinching for the win!!

Cottage Cheese Blueberry waffles

First of all--get over the cottage cheese phobia. Its loaded with tons of casein protein(slow digesting protein), low in carbs, and CHEAP! Once it's blended you won't even know it was there.

1/2 cup cottage cheese

1/2 cup old fashioned oats

4 egg whites

splash of vanilla extract

frozen blueberries (just know the more you add the higher the carb count)

Throw everything in to a blender, blend until smooth and cook in a waffle maker just like regular waffles! I made a double batch and kept them out until they cooled and popped them in a freezer ziploc bag and just pull out a few every morning. Easy!

Planning to plan.

   Seeing as it is now the second day of August, I see no better time than today to start my “blog a day” challenge for myself this month. HA! Those who know me well know that I am A: faaaar from punctual, B: could win awards for my disorganization, and C: have the brain of a hoarder (no method—all madness) so this is in keeping with my personality. My immediate game plan is to blog once a day, but don’t hold your breath. =)

    Aside from my outlandish daily blog plan, my goal for August for me and Sam is to STICK to our meal plans! Usually every Sunday we try to plan out our dinners for the week, lunches for him, lunches for me, and breakfast options and then grocery shop according to the list. Apparently, when I make these fantastic lists, I must be clearly fantasizing about being a stay at home wifey who doesn’t have an undying love for DVR’d reruns of The Big Bang Theory or the attention span of a two year old. What I don’t account for is needing to leave the house at 7am for a class and waking up at 7:05, sprinting through the house leaving the idea of making breakfast and lunches a figment of our imaginations.  I also don’t anticipate how tired I will be after teaching 3 fitness classes and spending 3 hours in traffic and how in that moment, I would rather sleep on the freeway than have to make dinner. So on those days that I have a late night class and Sam throws out the idea of grabbing In-n-Out instead of either of us cooking, I jump at the thought. Every. Single. Time. While we scarf down double-doubles, all the carefully purchased groceries for our carefully planned meals grows older and goes bad and ends up forgotten until we go grocery shopping again on Sunday and throw it out to make room for our new future garbage. I’m tired of us throwing away money, and I’m scared for my arteries. I’m pretty sure my veins are just pumping red bull and In-n-Out spread by this point.

     This Sunday, instead of browsing Pinterest and picking out our meals based on the healthiest looking foods and trying to make us eat brussel sprouts out of curiosity, I wrote out my schedule, the times I’ll be getting home and figured it from there. I planned Crockpot meals for my late nights or Sam opted to grill, and pre made some breakfast food for the days that we sleep in (like today). So far we have stuck to the plan 100%. However, it’s only 3 days in but it’s a strong start! The only thing that has been off the wall, have been MY meals. I have been teaching 3-4 classes a day at about 8 different gyms on top of training clients in there, I start to forget to eat until I’m starving and have class to teach so my food has been a little off… I can completely understand when my clients tell me they get so wrapped up in their families that they just “forget” to eat. With all that I have been and am going to put my body through, I need to be putting only the absolute best nutrition in it to make it through my schedule. I’ll save that for another day. Here are two of the EASIEST recipes I have used to make our meals healthy and QUICK!

 Taco Ranch Chicken

-1 packet Ranch dressing mix

- 1/2 packet low sodium taco seasoning

-1 ½ cups low sodium chicken broth

- 4 chicken breasts

 I throw everything into a Ziploc bag on Sunday and let it marinate till it’s ready to cook either in the crock pot on high for 4 hours, or grilled. Both super easy, low cal, low fat, high protein. Only downfall is that it’s a bit high in sodium—time to start chugging water.

Turkey Meatballs

-1 lb lean ground turkey

-chopped onion to taste

-1/2 chopped bell pepper

-¼ cup oatmeal

-1 egg

Season to taste

 Side note--I usually chop up a ton of onions and bell peppers up and store it because we use it in so much so this is one of the easiest things I make. I dump everything in a bowl, mix it up and either form 1 oz balls or a meatloaf, depending on what’s on the menu. The meatballs have a million different variations; this is just Sam’s favorite. We have thrown everything from cheese to bacon in them so make it yours. It’s good with pasta, brown rice, extra healthy points when on top of spaghetti squash. These also freeze really well for a last minute dinner.

 As for veggies… we are not adventurous. Sam is about as picky as a five year old and I get nauseas if something smells old or foreign…Asparagus is our friend. He grills it, I steam it, roast it whatever. We can eat it everyday and not get tired of it. Frozen broccoli and green beans are the only other things we can eat so we stopped trying to be fancy and just eat what works.

11 Weeks. The Rebuild.

   The first three months that I have been back in California have been the most body-destructive of my life. When compiled with the last 5 months that I was in Texas being the other most destructive days...my abs have been a scary sight. After months of weekend wine fests, midnight In and Out 'snacks' (which ps--a double-double is NEVER a snack) 4 course Cheesecake Factory dinners and now my Europa body has since felt like a figment of my imagination. Its been hard to think abut how far i had let myself go... Seemingly, I have had every excuse I could think of to lose control of my clean eating and lack of exercise. Excuse #1: I had an amazing job with 10 hours of cardio built right into my schedule that I had spent years building up my client and member base where I not only loved everyone but was loved back ten fold, to now starting over from scratch where NOONE knew or cared who the hell I was or what I brought to the table. Excuse #2: In TX, my best friends were either like-minded trainers or gym junkies whose idea of a good time was inventing new torturous leg exercises or swapping clean recipes, to now having every social situation being centered around alcohol or dinners out. Excuse #3: I moved halfway across the country to move in with my brand new fiance, whom I haven't lived with even in the same zip code for the past 3 years, let alone under the same roof. Excuse #4: I was sad and borderline depressed from picking up and moving, leaving all my friends and mom behind, so while feeling sorry for myself, I hated the thought of working out in the gym knowing that they wouldn't be there.
    As most of my clients know, I have a very low tolerance for excuses. I couldn't wrap my head around why I was letting myself give in to all that for so long. At first it was nice to have a break, but my body was craving the gym, craving a workout and i was going out of my way to avoid it.
    I was going through what i have seen clients/friends/members go through time and time again. When you first get involved in a program whether it be training, regularly attending a class or whatever it may be, being a newbie sucks. No one likes to feel awkward, or like you don't know what you're doing, that you're just an intruder or feeling like you could just hear other people think, "Oh, she'll never last". Once you dive past that awkward stage and start seeing progress, the people you regularly interact with now become your cheerleaders, your motivators and the people who help keep you accountable. Its an amazing feeling to get to know like minded people and bond with them on your fitness journey. Its extra motivating to know you have a gym full of friends expecting to see your sweaty face every week, but as it often happens, life can get in the way. Whether it be a couple classes missed due to a work schedule, or a couple months off from an injury, knowing that you'll have to face those people in a completely different shape than you left is what sets off the negative nancy part of your brain. Sitting around obsessing over what everyone will be thinking about you is the poison that WILL totally derail your progress. "Wow, someone really fell off the wagon", is likely what you think everyone will think. I know its definitely what I thought everyone would think.
   Here I had been looked at as a motivator, and I fell into the exact pattern that I try sooo hard to keep everyone off of. My body fat had gone from 16% to 31% in a matter of months and I felt like I was one In n Out run away from needing a hoverround...true story. My trainer jerseys barely fit and for the first time in the 7 years that I had been working at 24 Hour Fitness I had to upgrade to a large shirt which was still snug. I didn't even feel like i deserved to be a trainer/ instructor because i felt like i was far from a shining example of what to do. I decided to take some bikini pics as I had done all through Europa's training and was floored when i saw how bad the situation really was. That was when my pity party came to a screeching halt... I cant fix ANYTHING if all i keep doing was sitting around mourning my abs. I enlisted  one of my CA best friends to meet up with me at a different class every night, which made me look forward to working out again. I was still upset about not being able to workout with Nina, Angela, Ashley or my other workout buddies, but I had to make a temporary peace with it or make  permanent peace with wearing a shirt over my bikini all summer. Then came my sweet tooth Sammy... Even though Sam's meal plans are geared towards him gaining muscle and a ridiculous amount of calories, we cleaned up our meals together and he gave up the late night drive through urges and steers clear of the junk food aisles now when we do our grocery shopping. We help each other every morning prep all of our clean meals for the day and surprisingly have saved tons of money on our grocery bill in the process. So one month later, I am the happiest I have been since i moved and i owe it all to jumping back into my old lifestyle. I can not WAIT to come back to TX to compete with my favorite people again for Europa part two... 11 weeks away and I am now happily busting my ass to make each one count!