Cauliflower Pizza Crust

As cliche as it is, pizza is my most favorite food ever. There is nothing as good as enjoying a thin crust pizza loaded with all the meat and veggies from our favorite pizza shop (eeek my mouth is watering thinking about it!)

But realistically, I can't eat my favorite pizza weekly. Ok, I can't even eat it bi-weekly on my training and macros schedule. Thus began my hunt for the perfect pizza fix I could make at home that wouldn't be loaded with carbs and fat (a pizza I could comfortably fit into my macros for the day).

And I stumbled on cauliflower crust, and I fell in love.

Cauliflower crust pizza? You bet. It's so easy and tastes very close to the real thing for a fraction of the macros. I promise! I even tested it on my dad- he had no idea it was cauliflower until after he ate it and he loved it.

What you need: 

-1 head cauliflower (no stalk)

-1/2 cup shredded mozzarella (or Italian blend cheese) 

-1/4 cup grated Parmesan

-1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

-1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

-1/4 teaspoon garlic powder 

-2 eggs lightly beaten


What you do: 

-Pre heat over to 400 and line a pizza pan (or pan of your choice!) with parchment paper. 

-Steam or boil your cauliflower, then toss it in a food processor to turn it into a "rice" like consistency. Lay it on top of a paper towel afterwards to help remove extra moisture. 

-Mix together all ingredients in a bowl .

-Spread on your pizza pan and form your crust, bake plain for 20 minutes. 

-Add all of your yummy toppings (I love cheese, pepperoni and as many veggies I have!) and bake for 10-15 more minutes. 

ENJOY! I eat this weekly! 

timbuktu

Weight loss is hard. So stinking hard!
For the past few weeks I have been teeter tottering the same one pound. One pound!
It can get really frustrating, especially if you are like me and you are use to seeing really big and quick results. Sadly, those results don't last too long and then all of a sudden, SLAM. You've hit a wall.
In the beginning 10 pounds a month was nothing! Standard and expected weight loss for me and it continued like that until I was down about 75 pounds. Then all of sudden it completely stopped and I had to change things up. What I was eating, what I was doing, I even changed what time of day I was working out. I started to lose again but it was much slower, about a pound a week. Which is still awesome!
Now I am between and rock and a hard place- I've changed it all and I still feel stuck! I know exactly why: I have to work harder.

The more weight that you have to lose, so the bigger that you are, the faster you are going to lose weight to begin with. Why? Because you are big. When you exercise and move your body at a rapid pace, your heart rate is going to sky rocket and you are going to burn some major calories and fat, the scale will drop frequently.

Then you will hit an "ok" weight. Not your goal weight, but more of the in-between weight. You are not as big, you are not carrying around as much extra weight on your body. Which means that your old ways are not going to work and you need to make changes. Why? Because your heart rate is not getting as high as it was when you were +40 pounds and doing the same workout. You may be able to breeze through those workouts now, you will not be torching as many calories as you had before and the results are going to slow down. Change it up, you will continue to lose, don't give up. Be sure to sit down and re write your goals. It's no longer realistic for you to lose 10 pounds a month, so make new goals and remember, even one single pound is still progress! Change your workout, change your meal routine, change your protein.

You do this and you lose another 10 pounds, it took two to three months but you knew and planned that it would, so you were not discouraged or disappointed. But now you've come to another halt. These are the worst! This is where I am now, and I'm certain it's because I've been snacking and not counting it in my daily macros, letting the calories creep up on me. It's one of the main causes of plateaus. There are a few things I plan to do to kick this plateau to the curb and to start losing again:



-Count every little thing I eat. Even if I think that it's "not enough to count", it is and it does.

-Count every little thing I drink. I usually drink half of my body weight in ounces a day, but lately I have been more guessing rather than counting, so I am going back to tracking my water intake to make sure I really am getting all of the water I need.

-Back down from my carb intake. By no means am I going on a "low carb" diet, but Im going try to keep my carbs as the lowest bracket in my daily allowed macros. This way my body will burn through more of my fat rather than all of the carbs I take in.

-Protein. I am not a big fan of supplementing meals. I like food too much and truly believe in eating the nutrients. But, I do believe there is a time where it can be beneficial. A few weeks ago I posted about making your own Isagenix.  I only did it for two days, and I lost two pounds. I have kept that two pounds off, even when I went back to eating and stopped making the shakes. So for a little kick start again, I am going to do the shake supplements for four days this week. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday I will eat a high protein, regular diet because I will be running 4.5 miles that afternoon and I want to keep my body guessing what it's going to get.

-Boost my workouts. Do 2-a-days or do one longer-than-normal workout. I plan on doing my regular strength training during the day, and then running 1-2 miles at a fast pace in the evenings. Normally, I would one strength training workout OR I'd run.

I am very confident that all this above paired together is going to get me past this scale stall and back to losing again. Of course, it's not going to be at the 10 pound a month loss as in the beginning, but it should be a healthy few pounds a month.

I will update at my end-of-week weigh in! As you can see, tracking what you eat and not slowly letting things back into your diet that you shouldn't is key to avoiding the dreaded plateau!

Isa this, Isa that.

I know I am not the only one who's social media feeds are bursting at the seams with post's about Isagenix. I'm not the only one who has considered taking the dive and actually using it, either.

At the start of this journey I decided that I was not going to do any of that stuff. Because there is so much out there, and everyone knows that the only thing that really lasts is hard work. Not to mention, hundreds of bucks to lose a "possible" fifteen pounds, yikes.

So I have not given in. And sometimes it just plain stinks, friends. To see posts from friends about how they lost 14 pounds in a week sitting on their behind when it takes me two months to lose that weight working six days a week. Not. Fun. And then I remind myself that I am not in this for a quick loss.

I recently hit a big wall in my loss. I stayed the same weight for three long weeks, the longest I have gone since the start without seeing any progress scale wise. It's going to happen. It is. But that doesn't mean it's not discouraging. It is! So I'm sitting here at this weight and running and lifting and I hear "isa this, isa that" all over.

I dug for information, and Isagenix is not a horrible product, it's not. It's actually good protein (although it does have synthetics if that is a concern for you).  But again, those crazy numbers ($300!) just to get past this wall. It's two shakes a day, with two snacks and a sensible meal. Easy enough, I chose to see if I could make my own shakes for two of my meals a day (using whole 30 approved ingredients and a really good plant based protein) to see if I could kick this wall down.

I'm only on Day 3 of doing this, and I got past the wall having lost 2 pounds the first two days. Using healthy whole foods and protein that was already in my house, costing me nothing extra. Now, I know my Isa friends would be all over this "well it's not as high quality", "it doesn't have this special ingredient" blah blah.  It's not Isagenix. But you don't need Isa to see similar results without starving yourself.

This is what I use:

Garden of Life's Raw Fit  I typically put 1.5 scoops in to boost the calories.
1/2 Cup almond milk or coconut milk, your personal preference.
Veggies, whatever I have on hand. Lately it has been spinach, carrots and broccoli.
Fruits, whatever I have on hand. Lately it has been strawberries and blueberries. An occasional banana if I'm up for the sugar and carbs.
Chia seeds.
Occasionally I will add a teaspoon of almond butter in it.

Blend. 

The calorie content is going to vary on what you put in it, my breakfast shake this morning turned out being 396 calories. My lunch was 385, so there are plenty of calories, carbs, fats and a lot of protein to make this a good meal replacement option. If you are on the verge of ordering a meal replacement plan, I challenge you to try the same thing first and see what your results are. Here is an example of a what a day of eating for me looks like:

Breakfast: Homemade shake with a high quality protein
Snack: Hummus and celery
Lunch: Homemade shake with a high quality protein
Snack: Green apple (less sugar) with almond butter
Dinner: Anything healthy! Chicken, sweet potatoes, veggies, wild caught fish, turkey tacos, tons of healthy and whole options out there!

Because I am only on Day 3 of doing this myself,  I will post my end results once I finish. I plan to do this throughout the weekday and eat real whole foods on the weekend to change it up for my body. This is something Isagenix does not do, so if you want to go all out continue eating like this for a month.

Whole 30 Challenge Week 2

My goal for this week of the challenge is to eat more vegetables than fruit, and to cut back on snacks as much as possible. I am use to the "eat something small every 2-3 hours diet", along with working out and nursing, so my goal is to go from twice daily to once. The Whole30 says you are only allowed a pre/post snack if you are working out. I am, therefore snacks are compliant for me. If you are not working out, you should be trying to eat three good sized whole meals a day, no snacks.

Day 8
B- Banana Pancakes with almond butter and strawberries
L- Spinach salad with boiled eggs, raw veggies, EVOO and balsamic
S- Homemade lara bars, recipes here.
D- Baked salmon over lime cauliflower rice, mashed sweet potato and cantaloupe.

Day 9
B- Sweet potato crusted quiche
2med sweet potatoes shredded
1package chopped mushrooms
1package frozen spinach, thawed and dried well
1onion sliced
1dozen eggs
2T coconut milk
S&P to taste
Coconut oil
1c brothSauté onions and mushrooms in coconut oil until browned and start to soften, add broth and simmer until tender and pan is dry. Set aside. Fry sweet potatoes until browned and crisp in coconut oil, pat into baking dish like a crust. Beat eggs, coconut milk and add seasoning, onions, mushrooms and dried spinach. Pour over crust. Bake 400 for 20-25 min until eggs are set. Allow to cool, slice into individual servings and refrigerate. Grab your container on the way out the door, microwave for about 90 sec. 
L- Grilled chicken, cauliflower rice, steamed broccoli (grill extra chicken for dinner, or leave out/ready)
S- Almonds and Cashews
D- Spaghetti squash, complaint tomato sauce/marinara, mushrooms and left over chicken from lunch.

Day 10
B- Vegetable and Egg muffins
L-  Turkey avocado wraps, hard boiled egg.
Avocado and carrot shreds wrapped in compliant deli Turkey. Can dip in homemade mayo or other complaint sauce/dressing. 
S- Carrots, celery with almond butter
D- Sweet potato noodles and citrus ginger meatballs. Recipe here. I used turkey vs bison. Save some meatballs for lunch tomorrow

Day 11
B- Veggie Omelete
L- Leftover meatballs on top of a spinach salad with veggies
S- Baked cinnamon apples (microwaved peeled apples in cinnamon)
D- Buffalo ranch stuffed peppers

Day 12
B- "Banana pudding" with blueberries. See meal plan from Week 1 with recipe
L- Turkey Burger with steamed veggies and a sweet potato
S- Hand full of almonds, raw broccoli and carrots
D- Salmon with Avocado salsa and mashed cauliflower

Day 13-
B- Scrambled eggs with spinach and tomato, compliant bacon
L- Spinach salad with berries, chicken, EVOO and balsamic
S- Small apple with almond butter
D- Slow cooker chipotle pork with pineapple slaw and baked sweet potato, recipe here.
Save some meat for lunch tomorrow

Day 14-
B- Fruit and Spinach/Carrot smoothie
L- Left over pork and avocado with steamed veggies.
S- Hard boiled eggs
D- Chicken thighs baked with sweet potato, squash, zucchini, onions, peppers, EVOO.

Whole 30 Day Challenge Week 1

I have started the whole 30 challenge and often get asked "what are you eating?". I think the hardest part is figuring out what to eat! I'm going to be posting weekly menu plans as I finish them, I had a friend do this and it helped me tremendously with meal planning! Don't forget to check out whole30.com for in depth details of the whole 30 diet.

Day 1- 

B- veggie and egg scramble

L- spinach salad with berries, almonds and balsamic 

D- crock pot carnitas on cauliflower lime rice topped with tomatoes & avocados Recipe can be found at:  http://popularpaleo.com/2013/01/07/crock-pot-carnitas/

S- apple with almond butter, carrots

Day 2- 

B-banana "pudding" w/blueberries (really good!)

1-2 over-ripe banana(s)
1/2 c coconut milk
Combine and blend in food processor

Add 1/4 c. chia seeds and refrigerate for about an hour to let seeds plump

L- avocado, bacon, and egg salad

D-Tuna cakes made w/sweet potatoes & black olives. Recipe: http://meatified.com/tuna-cakes-green-olives/ 

S- apple and grapes, greek yogurt/plain (greek yogurt is not whole 30 approved but this is something I will not cut out as it still has health benefits and a lot of protein! ) 

Day 3- 

B- strawberries, blueberries, bananas, and chopped pecans w/coconut milk 

L- spinach salad with leftover tuna cakes, tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, & EVOO

D- pork chops w/baked apples & onions. recipe: http://nomnompaleo.com/…/…/bacon-apple-smothered-pork-chops/ roasted zucchini & onions w/balsamic vinegar & EVOO, & grapes

S- banana with almond butter 

Day 4-

B-egg (over-easy), sweet potato hash w/pecans, sliced apple

L- leftover pork chops w/apples, onions, & bacon; side of steamed broccoli & carrots, warmed pear & blueberries w/cinnamon

D- lettuce wraps w/leftover pork chops w/apples, onions, & bacon (stretched to 3 meals), tomatoes, & avocados

S- broccoli dipped in balsamic, tangerine 

Day 5-

B- scrambled eggs with bacon bits, side of strawberries

L- homemade cobb salad: spinach, bacon bits, grilled chicken, boiled egg, tomato, cucumber, balsamic vinegar and EVOO. 

D- Turkey meatballs with tomato sauce, green beans, pears, & raspberries

S- Greek yogurt with almond butter stirred in, fresh fruit 

Day 6- 

B- Banana pancakes topped with almond butter, strawberries and raspberries, side of orange slices

L- Leftover turkey meatballs on top of a spinach salad 

D-Taco salad with a side of kiwi

S- berries and almonds 

Day 7-

B- Veggie Omelette 

L- Tuna salad lettuce wraps 

D- Baked chicken with roasted sweet and red potatoes. 

S- banana with almond butter 

Top 20

One of the most common questions I get asked about health and fitness is "what are you eating?".
Food is hard, because when you are first starting out you don't know what to eat, and there are times when you have been eating this way for so long that you simply run out of ideas and/or forget about different meals and foods. Over the past week or so I have compiled a list of the top 20 healthy foods that I eat on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis.

Breakfast:

1. 1/2 cup of oatmeal with 1tbs of almond butter mixed in.
2. Eggs scrambled with tomato and avocado on the side.
3. Toasted ezekiel bread with almond butter.
4. Fruit smoothie.
5. Plain greek yogurt with cinnamon, fruit and occasionally almond butter.

(Can you tell I love almond butter?)

Lunch: 

6. Tuna wrapped in lettuce and a whole wheat wrap
7. Spinach salad with berries, almonds and balsamic vinegar.
8. Turkey and tomato wrapped in lettuce with a side of fruit or veggies.
9.  Baked sweet potato and side spinach salad.
10. Grilled chicken, broccoli and brown rice OR a sweet potato.

Dinner: 

11. Turkey burger with grilled mushroom & onion, grilled whole green beans
12. "Spaghetti" & meatballs. Using zucchini or spaghetti squash for pasta and turkey for meatballs.
13.  Baked chicken with sweet potato, squash and zucchini seasoned, EVOO and baked in one pan.
14. Taco night, lettuce taco that is! Ground turkey, black beans, salsa, avocado, lettuce, lime, greek yogurt (replaces sour cream), grilled onion and peppers.
15. Strips of grilled chicken cooked in EVOO and seasoned, over seasoned and baked red potatoes and broccoli.

Snacks:

16. Protein shake. I have one daily, and highly recommend Garden of Life "Raw Fit".
17. Plain greek yogurt with berries, nuts, cinnamon.
18. Handful of almonds and dark chocolate chips.
19. Fruit and raw veggies.
20. Hard boiled eggs.

There you have it! I don't take any vitamin supplements as I try to eat what I need vitamin wise. Drink half of my weight in ounces of water daily which I have found to be key and very important when trying to lose weight. I also try hard to eat high protein every day. On occasion I run into a really good healthy recipe and I will post it, but for the most part I am boring and eat these same foods all of the time!