February Catch Up

I've had lots of photos hanging out on my phone for months because I kept forgetting to upload them and make a post. But today is the day I finally share. If you can remember, my last "life" post was valentines (I'm not counting the yeast-free as "life")! So let's catch up with the rest of February.

I actually bought a new nail polish and it wasn't black! This is Essie Naughty Nautical. I love it! My toes however will always be painted black...ha ha.

 

I continued to rehab my knee by adding a little more distance each time I went to the gym. I was also trying to train for a 5k I was running in March.

 

 

For my baby brother's birthday, I whipped up some amazing mini bananas fosters cakes. They are definitely worth breaking any diet for. Recipe to come.

 

 

My man finally came home from half way around the world and we celebrated by getting on yet another airplane and flying to go see his family. I absolutely love flying at night and seeing all the lights below. So beautiful.

While visiting his family, good ol mother nature decided to dump a ton of snow. Granted it was beautiful, but let me tell ya this girl was not prepared. I mean this was the last weekend of February/first weekend of March! There should not have been this much snow!!! Ha ha. The only shoes I packed were Sperrys and flip flops. Talk about some cold feet. Luckily I did bring a jacket.

 

30 Day Yeast Free Recap

This recap is way over due! The 30 day yeast free challenge was definitely an eye opening experience. Here are a few things I learned...

1. It's not cheap eating clean!

The first trip to the grocery store to stock up on most of everything I would need drained my wallet. While the next few trips didn't add up to as much it was still more than I was used to spending on just myself. Also, I was visiting the grocery store at least twice a week.

2. Food prep will save your life!



R to L: Roasted Chickpeas, Salsa Chicken, Spaghetti Squash, Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

The first week I was not as prepared as I thought. I had breakfast and lunch prepped for the week, but didn't take time to make dinners. So each night was spent making something in the kitchen instead of relaxing after a long day at work. The next few weeks I got better and did prep some dinners on Sunday night.

3. I love Fruit!



Pumpkin pancakes with pureed raspberries

Blueberry Almond/Oat flour pancakes

Cutting out fruit for the first two weeks was extremely difficult. Yes I craved bread, pasta and rice, but since those were forbidden during the whole challenge I didn't think about them too much. But fruit? I was two weeks away from being able to eat it and that's all I could focus on. That first strawberry I put in my mouth tasted so sweet that I probably could have eaten a whole carton of them.

4. Exhausted!

My energy levels dropped significantly at first. I was coming home and taking naps! And working out? Forget about it. I don't think I went to the gym until the last week (granted the diet isn't the only this to blame since I was fighting/still fighting a knee injury).

5. Dessert!

Since no sugar was allowed, I had to get creative in order to satisfy my sweet tooth. Luckily a co-worker of mine told me about these things called Chocolate Delights that she is allowed to eat on her very strict diet. I don't have a picture of them, but they are on my Instagram account with the recipe. I also discovered a fudge recipe from PurelyTwins that fit the yeast free guidelines (pictured above). It takes coconut oil, cocoa powder, a little bit of stevia and water. Both desserts tasted more on the bitter side...like extremely dark chocolate, but they definitely hit the spot.

Overall, the diet didn't help much with my stomach issues, but I did end up losing about 8 pounds with half of that in the first week. Since ending the diet, I've tried to continue eating clean 80% of the time. I also, finally, went to the witch doctor who congratulated me for accomplishing the diet, but said that yeast was not my problem. He has me on a no starch diet (no bread, pasta, rice or white potatoes) and lots and lots of supplements. With taking the supplements and trying my best to stick to the diet he set out for me, my stomach issues have slowly been getting better!!

Daily supplements from the "witch" doctor...Morning on the left...Night on the right

February Meal: Crock Pot Chicken Curry

While this isn't the prettiest picture, it is best one I could take that actually looked liked food and not weird orange mush...ha ha. This recipe comes from fannetasticfood.com and she has much better pictures so go check hers out!

Minus the orange mush of this dish...I actually quite enjoyed it and it was definitely filling. I tried to stay as close as possible to Anne's ingredients since the title "Chicken Curry" kind of scared me.

Here's what I used...

Not pictured...chicken breasts and pre-cut butternut squash.

Recipe (originally from Anne at fannetasticfood.com)

1 cup Chicken broth
1 can Chick peas (rinsed and drained)
1 can Coconut milk (mine is 13.5 oz.)
2 T Chili Garlic Sauce (I used two heaping tablespoons)
3 Chicken breasts
1 package pre-cut fresh butternut squash (the only pre-cut butternut squash I could find at the store came in an 11 oz package...so just a little less than the original recipe)

Place everything in the crock pot. Stir. I set mine on high for 6 hours...probably should have done less time, but I wasn't hungry at 4 pm so I let it cook longer.

I served mine over a bed of spinach the first night and added a side of broccoli to eat with my leftovers the next two nights.

My biggest complaint about this meal is that the butternut squash became quite mushy. If/when I make this again, I think I will add in the butternut squash half way through.

Weekend Update: 2/14 - 2/16

This picture is actually from 2 weekends ago when I went to the Hill Country to visit my Aunt. This is my new friend, Stormy, the only horse out of 6 horses that came to say hello. I love how we are both actually looking at the camera...ha ha.

Now to this past week/weekend...

I finally found almond milk yogurt!!!! I used it in my red velvet pancake recipe. Let's just say I was a little surprised when I opened it and it didn't look like regular yogurt...ha ha. I haven't tried it by itself yet, but I know there will be a night I forget to prep my breakfast for the morning, so I'm saving it for such an occasion.

As we were all reminded every day since Christmas, Valentines day was this past Friday. I didn't have much planned, other than trying not to eat the entire bag of m&m's sitting on my counter, and was completely surprised when I got this special delivery from a very special guy who is currently half way around the world!! I even rationed the 24 chocolate covered strawberries to last me through Sunday night...trust me that is a lot of self control for me!

Saturday, I did my one and only work out for the week, (shame shame) an hour and 5 mins on the treadmill! Two weeks ago, I instagrammed that I actually ran a mile for the first time since injuring my knee and since I was able to walk after that I decided to up it a little this time. I ran for a total of 1.5 miles and could still walk Sunday...woo hoo! After my workout, I let my heart rate monitor run a little longer and was surprised to see over 1000 calories when I finally stopped it! I've never seen the calories burned number that high, but then again most of my workouts are 20-45 mins. After my workout, I went back home to a pretty sad looking lunch...tuna and apple. I literally had nothing else...ha ha...I needed to go to the store bad!

To avoid eating tuna and apple for lunch and dinner, I went to the store and picked up some quick and easy meal items. Since starting the yeast free diet (which is more like 80/20 yeast free now) I crave Chipotle all. the. time. But my wallet just can't handle their expensive bowls :( So I decided to create my own! I heated up some black beans and pinto beans with a little seasoning, put those over a bed of torn spinach, put shredded chicken over that and finally some avocado...Delicious! Was it as good as Chipotle?!?! Of course not, but it didn't cost me quite as much ha ha. I had it for lunch Sunday as well and will probably eat the rest of it for lunch Tuesday.

After a very lazy Sunday morning of watching movies (I watched American beauty...one of two Oscar best picture movies I watched this weekend...the other one was In the Heat of the Night), I started working on a winter mesh wreath for Barrett's mom. His mom gave me a mesh wreath idea book for Christmas and picked out two that she "wanted" ha ha. Since all the Christmas/winter stuff went on sale right after I received the book, I decided to go scoop some stuff up and make one of the wreaths she liked. I think it turned out pretty decent. I'm going to surprise her with it this weekend when they are in town. Hopefully, I'll have two surprises for her, but the other one may not happen/get spoiled...ha ha The rest of Sunday was spent doing laundry and other chores while my dinner was cooking in the crock pot (more on that later).

How was y'alls weekend?

Red Velvet Pancakes

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Valentine's day so far. Mine has consisted of lunch with a friend and then tonight I plan on making myself a steak dinner while catching up on some Pretty Little Liars (yes I still watch ABC Family shows).  I know I have a few things to catch everyone up on (like the recap of my yeast free diet), but since these pancakes fit the occasion I thought I would share them today and then do a life recap next week (hopefully...no promises ha ha).

I saw a recipe for red velvet waffles over on Fiterazzi and fell in love at first glance. Since I don't own a waffle maker, I had to make pancakes instead. I also didn't want to deal with making sure I had dairy pills on hand so I didn't make the filling, but it looks amazing. Definitely worth checking out if you don't have issues like me. I changed the recipe slightly so below is my version.

Red Velvet Pancakes
**adapted from Fiterazzi**

2 T Oat Flour
2 T Coconut Flour
1 T Ghiradelli Unsweetend Cocoa Powder (I really do think the better quality cocoa you have, the better tasting things will be)
1 T Stevia
1 T Almond Yogurt
3 T Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (I use the Silk brand)
1 Egg
Red food coloring

Directions

Place all dry ingredients in a small mixing bowl and stir to combine/get rid of any clumps.
Make a well in the middle and add your wet ingredients.
Whisk everything together.
If the color is not red enough...add more food coloring (the one I have is gel like)
Heat your skillet or frying pan over medium heat (I use a medium 10 in non-stick frying pan)
Pour the batter into whatever size/shapes you want. I used a metal cookie cutter with some type of coating over it to make the heart shapes.
Enjoy!

I topped mine with a drizzle of melted dark chocolate chips. Feel free to get creative :) If anyone makes these with the filling, let me know how it is!!!

Weekend Update: 1/24 - 1/26

After surviving the ice apocalypse part 1 last Friday, the rest of my weekend looked like this...

We had a beard shaving party Friday night. It was sad to see the beard go :( And yes I did love the crazy beard.



 

Before and After of the beard shaving party

 

 

Saturday, early afternoon, I watched as he left for his grand adventure.

 

Saturday night I finally got around to trying my hand at Cauliflower mashed potatoes again. Having a legit steamer basket and an amazing food processor really helped. I added a little bit of olive oil, almond milk, salt, pepper and garlic powder to the cauliflower. I love that it made my plate look more like a normal meal!

 

 

Sunday I woke up to enjoy a new favorite of mine, a breakfast cookie along with a new tea. The tea is called natural energy (you might have seen a commercial with Kat Dennings for it) and I don't know if it was the tea or just a good amount of sleep, but I didn't feel tired at all yesterday! Maybe it was all mental...ha ha...who knows.

 

After breakfast, I was a good girl and did my knee rehab for the day. I've been battling pain in my knee for a few months now and over the past few weeks it got pretty bad. With the encouragement of Barrett and Elizabeth, I finally went to the doctor. Apparently, I have something called Jumper's Knee. My knee cap has not been tracking properly so the pain I feel when squatting down is because my knee cap slides to the inside of my leg. The doc has given me several exercises to help it not do that anymore and wearing tape is supposed to help as well. Hopefully by the end of next week I will be cleared for running and jumping again. Since starting the rehab, I have noticed it is less painful to walk up and down the stairs! Yay!!

After rehabbing my knee and face timing with Barrett, it was time to start meal prepping for the week. I made pumpkin blueberry pancakes, coconut tortillas, turkey taco meat, guacamole and hamburgers. I may or may not have done a little happy dance when I saw how perfect my avocados looked...it's the little things :)

 

While all my food was cooling, I took advantage of the nice day and sat outside on my balcony and tortured myself by looking through lots of yummy food magazines...ha ha. I tore out a few recipes to save for when I'm not on a super strict diet. Then it was time for dinner and to watch the Grammy Awards. I wasn't too impressed with them this year.

 

How was y'alls weekend? Did you make anything yummy? Did you watch the Grammys? What did you think?

#nomnomnom

Sooooo...I started a yeast free for thirty days diet. I'm one week and two days into this thing and it has not been easy. I'm doing this more to see if this will help any of the stomach issues I have and the minor weight loss is a bonus. This means no sugar, dairy or carbs for thirty days. This includes no fruit for the first two weeks. For the people who have had to put up with me, I applaud you...the mood swings are not fun...ha ha. I'm slowly learning new foods to eat and have found some I'm in love with...



Roasted chickpeas are hands down my new favorite snack. I made them for the first time this past weekend and already went through one batch. I can eat them just like I eat popcorn. They are made with cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Yummy in my tummy.

Next up, we have chocolate delights. These little guys have really helped with my sweet tooth cravings. They are made with coconut oil, cocoa powder and a little bit of almond milk with stevia. These can be catered to any ones taste, it just so happens I like them more dark chocolaty. You could easily make them more milk chocolaty by adding more milk and stevia. You can also get fancy and add things to the middle, but I'm in the super strict phase of the YF diet so they are only chocolate. Oh and yes those are tiki mask molds...ha ha...what can I say I don't have any other flexible ice cube trays.



This last new food item was an absolute life saver last week. This is called a breakfast cookie and it is delicious! The first two days of the YF challenge I just had egg muffins, but then felt so completely disgusting (which happens a lot when I eat eggs) that I just couldn't stomach eating them the rest of the week. So then I tried almond flour pancakes. While they weren't bad, they were super dry and since I can't add any fruit, until January 27th, to help add some moisture to them I decided I needed something else to try again. Then came this cookie! I was a little worried about it since I don't really care for protein powder, but honestly after the initial bite everything was smooth sailing! I ate this Thursday through Sunday. Thank goodness you can have oats in things on this food plan.

I will try to remember to recap my whole experience after the thirty days are up, but don't hold me to it...ha ha.