Wonderful Weekends

So much happened this weekend which marked the 2 week point to my first ever competition, so I’m sorry for the radio silence, but this is going to be a lengthy post and you will probably see I didn’t have much time to write a blog.

The lovely Lisa from Figure911.com

Firstly, I would like to give a shout out to the beautiful Lisa of Figure911.com who I met at the KW Oktoberfest Natural Classic this weekend. She was competing in the Figure Medium category and Figure Masters. She placed second in both thought I thought she was definitely the best up there. It’s hard to know exactly what the judges are seeing and I was pretty far back. But if you pop over to her sight you can see the pictures of her on stage, she looks incredible.

We chatted while my boyfriend kindly took some photos and shared a mutual respect for each other’s awesome shoulders. I don’t know why, but having strong shoulders creates an unspoken bond that can’t be beat. I had started following her blog maybe 2 weeks before the show and am so happy I recognized her from her vlogs. Her site’s tagline is “A working woman’s guide to keeping fit”, obviously this called to me. If you are looking for some great tips and motivation, check out her site.

Finally getting to meet the amazing Tosca Reno

Secondly, also at the competition and the main reason I went to this show in particular was Tosca Reno (author of the Eat Clean Diet) who I am so inspired by. She has not competed in years, but the recent passing of her husband, Robert Kennedy, inspired her to compete again at 53 and boy did she look amazing. I got to chat with her for a quick moment before her coach pulled her away to eat (she literally grab her and pulled her away shouting “eating, now” which was kind of hilarious and awesome). She was really kind and wished me luck in my competition saying I looked very fit. I swear I’m not usually the type to get all excited about celebrities, but I was absolutely giddy about seeing her as you can probably tell by the goofy grin on my face.

 Tosca competed in the Bikini Tall and Bikini Grand Masters, winning first in the Grand Masters category. I did not see a more genuine smile on any other competitors face. You could just tell she was so thrilled to be there and doing her husband proud, proving that age is just a number.

Thirdly (maybe I’ll stop numbering these because this could be a long list) I made awesome Paleo Banana Pancakes courtesy of Mark Sisson’s recipe plus a bit of baking powder to make them fluffier and egg whites instead of whole eggs. The combo I used was:

Paleo Banana Pancakes (for 2 servings)

Me saying “no” to pictures in the morning

Ingredients

• 2 ripe bananas
• ½ c. Egg whites or 2 whole eggs
• 2 tbsp natural peanut (or other nut) butter
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Spices to taste – vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg etc.
• Butter or oil to grease pan

Directions:

1. Mash bananas in a large-ish bowl with a fork or put it in a food processor if you have one
2. Add the egg whites and peanut butter to the bananas and mix thoroughly, try to make the batter as smooth as possible. Microwaving the peanut butter for 15 seconds will make this easier.
3. Add the baking powder and spices and mix to combine.
4. Heat a large pan to medium heat and grease well with butter
5. Add the batter to the pan (I made 2 batches of 4 pancakes) and cook for 2-3 minutes , or until you start to see bubbles on the top of the pancakes, then flip (carefully) and cook for another 2 minutes.
6. Top with your favourite topping, I chose to grate 1 square of 85% lindt dark chocolate over mine, because chocolate, peanut butter and banana is an amazing combo.

Nutritional info (per serving): Cals – 250    Carbs – 35 g    Fats – 10 g    Protein – 13 g

These were made on a high carb day, but I still had a side of peameal bacon to add some lean protein to the mix. 

Fourthly, my boyfriend and I carved an awesome pumpkin with some friends of ours after a great workout. The workout consisted of a 30 minute interval run in which I hit a max speed of 9 mph for a whole minute AND I didn’t get a single stitch. This is a big deal for me because I really suck at running, but my 11 year old brother has been trying to get better at cross country running even though he too sucks at running. He used to come dead last, literally, and he finished in the middle of the pack this year. So if he can do it, so can I!  I ran a total of 3 miles in 30 minutes which isn’t half bad IMHO.

After the cardio we did a chest, shoulders and abs workout with some full body moves thrown in for good measure.

Chest, shoulders and abs workout

Abs

• Cable chest flyes – 15 reps, 4 sets
• Cross body cable pulls from low to high – 10 reps each side, 4 sets
• Crossover pushups on the bosu ball (one hand on the bosu ball and then pushup and transfer your body over the ball) – 12 reps, 4 sets
• Kettlebell swings – 15 reps, 4 sets
• Lateral deltoid raises – 15 reps, 4 sets, last set drop set 12 high weight, 12 low weight
• As many pushups as you can do in 1 minute, I did 54 but the last few were pretty ugly, so let’s say 50.
• Bicycle sit-ups – 30 reps, 4 sets

Halloween

Then on to pumpkin carving! We did a dog howling at the moon and our friends made kind of a disco ball pumpkin by drilling a tonne of holes in theirs. We also toasted up the pumpkin seeds with some salt and butter and snacked on those while we worked. Yum. But I am definitely retaining water today from the salt (and the excess food which I’ll discuss below).

Fifthly, (told you I should have stopped numbering) we went to my parent’s house for dinner which is always both good and bad because my mom is an amazing cook. Her food is always healthy, but I always eat WAY too much of it. We picked up my grandma and headed over where the smell of roasting chicken and sweet potatoes was wafting from the house. I think I must have had about 8 oz. of chicken (with some of the skin plus homemade gravy) and maybe the same amount of sweet potatoes  plus some lovely cauliflower, broccoli and green beans. I also had 3.5 of these little butter cookies that my mom had bought from a local store. They were way too good. FYI 4 cookies ran a total of 150 cals so it wasn’t that ridiculous of a portion size in case you were thinking 3.5 cookies! OMG!

Obviously this was too much food and so close to the competition it was not ideal, but I am just going to push on and do lots of cardio today and be as good as possible until the day of the show.

So that was the awesome weekend I had. I am going into my last 2 weeks of contest prep and will be doing the following:

• Cutting out dairy (other than whey protein) and grains entirely because these can be sources of inflammation and therefore hinder the look I want
• Adding more cardio to between 1 and 2 hours per day until the Thursday before the show
• Doing more full body workout sessions and while my last leg focuses day being this Thursday and just trying to tighten as much as possible
• Limit my sodium intake in the last week before the competition
• Drink lots of water!

Carb deplete and then load in the last 5 days leading up to the competition with clean carbs and not junk food.

So there you have it. What a wonderful weekend. I hope all of yours were wonderful too!

Taste of Fall

Sunday mornings are great, there is even a wonderful song by Maroon 5 that I am currently listening to. There are only 2 things that would make it better…. (1) if I was able to sleep in instead of waking up at 7 am and (2) if my boyfriend were here instead of in Buffalo. But still, it’s Sunday morning. There is so much potential to the day. I have a workout planned with my best friend. I am going to try to find some competition heels (basically stripper heels… the clear plastic ones). I’m going to see my family in the afternoon. Sounds like a good plan to me!

Apparently to make up for waking me up at 7 am, my mind decided to gift me with an AWESOME dream. This is literally the coolest dream I have ever had. I was looking up how to make low carb and grain free pancakes yesterday, but they all involved bananas… which are pretty high carb and I don’t have any. So I went to bed a little disappointed. Then my stellar subconscious came up with a solution… it’s fall – fall equals pumpkins – use pumpkin instead of banana. It’s not as binding or thick as bananas but I also happen to have some xantham gum kicking around for gluten-free baking so that would probably help. Egg whites can be the liquid and maybe, just to be on the safe side and to add some substance I can add some almond meal that I picked up at Trader Joes in the States when I was there in August and haven’t yet used. Sub-conscious me…. you are a genius. Seriously – I dreamed up a recipe!

I was a little worried that it would not work at all and I was just being teased by my dreams, so I made half of what I would actually want to eat for a first attempt to see how it worked, and then would modify it for the second half if needed. But it worked! No modifications needed! Here is the recipe that I literally dreamed up last night. Thank you sub-conscious.

Paleo Pumpkin Pancakes (I like alliteration)

Paleo Pumpkin Pancakes ready to be devoured

Ingredients:

The ingredients

• 1/2 c. Pumpkin puree (like E. D. Smith Pure pumpkin… not pie filling)
• 1/2 c. liquid egg whites or 4 egg whites (real egg whites might hold together better, so try it out if you are less lazy than me)
• 2 tbsp. Almond meal plus 1/4 tsp xantham gum (I’m guessing you could replace this combo with gluten-free flour or whole wheat flour minus the xantham gum and it would work, but no promises 😉 )
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 pkg splenda
• generous amount of pumpkin pie spice

The pancakes starting to cook

Directions:

Add everything to a bowl and mix with a whisk or fork until combined.

Heat a skillet to medium heat and coat with butter (I find if I use a different oil the pancakes usually stick, so butter is usually my go to for pancakes)

Pour batter into pan, I made 4 pancakes with this recipe.

Cook 2-3 minutes until bubbles and holes appear all over the top of the pancake.

CAREFULLY flip the pancakes, because they don’t have wheat flour in them they are pretty delicate and will fall apart easily so go slowly and good luck!

Cook for another 2-3 minutes or more then serve.

*** my pancakes we undercooked in the middle but still tasted delicious, so maybe increase the time of cooking***

Nutritional Info (for the whole recipe):  Cals – 215 cals    Carbs – 14 g     Fats – 8 g     Protein – 21 g

So these are obviously very low-calorie and pretty low carb, but what’s nice is that most of the carbs (11 g) are from the pumpkin which is actually mostly fibre, so the net carbs are about 5 grams, which is really REALLY low carb pancakes 🙂

Since I am on a crazy competition diet I topped mine with a mixture of greek yogurt, pumpkin puree and splenda, but normal people should top these with real maple syrup and butter because it would be awesome.

Enjoy your Sunday! I’m off to workout.

Related articles

• Pancakes or something like it. (onthegofitness.wordpress.com)
• Low Carb Pumpkin Pancakes (lowsugarlowcarbslongruns.wordpress.com)
• Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin: 4 Recipes for Pumpkin Pancakes (makeabirthdaywish.wordpress.com)

Pancakes or something like it.

Pancakes aka. maple syrup sponges

Today I had planned to go for a longish walk before work for some light cardio as it’s a day off from weights. However, I decided sleep was better and walking can be done anytime. Pancakes however, pancakes are for mornings!I am generally not a fan of pancakes (try to suppress the shock). Pancakes are just sponges for maple syrup, and usually taste a lot like flour which I don’t like. Add to this the fact that pancakes are basically anti-diet food and I won’t go anywhere near them. A regular pancake is made with white flour, butter, eggs and milk and that’s about it. Not much nutritional content there and a whole whack of carbs with little-to-no protein. Not to mention the 1/2 cup of maple syrup that most people drown their pancakes in which is straight sugar.Ok so with a modest 4 tbsp of maples syrup and 2 medium-sized pancakes it breaks down to:

Calories – 525

Fat – 14 g

Protein – 8 g

CARBS – 90 GRAMS 

Clearly not compatible with a low carb or even moderate carb diet. I typically consume between 100 – 150 carbs per day, not at breakfast.There are some pancakes that I like. The pancakes that I grew up with and asked for on every birthday. My moms amazing oatmeal pancakes (usually with blueberries mixed in). These things rock… they do not taste like flour, they are a nutritional power house, and they hold on to a considerable amount of maple syrup without falling apart. I feel I may have given you the wrong impression above… I love maple syrup, if you are going to have something like sugar, have maple syrup. It has a tonne of nutrients in it, and is one of the best options when it comes to sugar. It’s still sugar though, so use it sparingly. Back to my mom’s pancakes.Unfortunately these things are still not diet friendly. They are the type of things you want to eat when you will be working outside raking leaves for 3 hours. They will keep you full and provide lots of energy. They are again, full of carbs, but at least this time they are whole grains and provide some fiber. I don’t have a picture of them, but I promise the next time they get made I will post one to show you what they look like in all their grainy goodness. Here’s how to make them:

Ingredients:

• 1 c. whole wheat flour (i have made these with gluten-free flour and some xantham gum and it worked just fine. I little fluffier even)
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp baking powder (not soda)
• 1 tsp salt 
• 1 1/2 c. large flake oats (gluten-free if you need it)
• 2 c. milk (any percentage) 
• 1/4 c. butter melted
• 2 eggs beaten 

Directions:

1. In a large bowl combine the milk and oats and let these soak while you prepare the other ingredients.
2. In a medium bowl combine the dry ingredients and mix well.
3. Melt the butter and whisk the eggs separately and add these to the milk and oats mixing quickly so the butter is evenly distributed.
4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients mixing until there are no clumps.
5. Spoon about 1/4 c. of batter onto a hot pan greased with butter (don’t burn the butter) and wait until bubbles form on the top of the pancake all over, not just on the sides, then it is ok to flip.  
6. Enjoy!

This serves about 6 people, or 4 hungry ones… usually 4.

For 6 servings it breaks down to:

Calories – 270

Fat – 11 g

Protein – 10 g

Carbs – 35 g

Plus the maple syrup – let’s say 2 tbsp per person and you can just double or triple it as you see fit. 2 Tbsp of maple syrup works out to:

Calories – 100

Carbs – 26 g

So as you can see there is nothing really bad about these pancakes, and if they are served with some peameal bacon for protein or something then they are really no worse than whole wheat bread… but way tastier. Not low carb, and not diet food sadly. 😦

So what is a person on a diet supposed to do when they wake up craving pancakes and don’t want to spoil their diet or use their entire carb allotment for the day? Well they make no powder protein pancakes! These little gems have a similar taste and texture to pancakes and almost none of the same ingredients, plus a completely different nutrient profile.

Diet pancakes – gluten-free too!

Here are the ingredients:

• 1/2 c. non-fat cottage cheese
• 1/2 c. egg whites (I use the carton egg whites)
• 1/4 c. large flake oats
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• vanilla and cinnamon to taste

That’s it! Such a simple list. The directions are even simpler… it’s awesome.

1. Put all the ingredients in a blender (I use my magic bullet) and blend until smooth-ish.
2. Cook like a normal pancake until you see the bubbles as described above… then flip.
3. Enjoy!

Seriously, amazingly simple. This makes 2 servings, but if you’re hungry go ahead and eat it all because it’s pretty low cal and carb. In the picture you can see that is not maple syrup on top. For an added boost of protein I top these babies with more cottage cheese blended with coconut water and some splenda and then sprinkle some shredded coconut on top. I love coconut, but you can put anything on pancakes: jam, natural peanut or almond butter, mushed up bananas and walnuts, berries and maple syrup, pumpkin puree with cream cheese, whatever strikes your fancy. Oh and these can be gluten-free if you choose gluten-free oats.

Without the topping, half the recipe is:

Calories – 140 cal or 180 if you cook them in a pat of butter

Fat – 2 g plus 6g for the butter

Protein – 18 g

Carbs – 14 g

The topping adds about 50 cals along with 8 g of protein and 3 g of carbs. So that was my breakfast this morning. Low carb, low cal, diet friendly, delicious pancakes. There is no protein powder, just whole food goodness. You can modify these a lot to fit your diet needs, if you want to go super low carb you could probably replace the oats with almond meal or something which would increase the fat and cals a little. Maybe I’ll try that next time. I’ll definitely be posting a few variations on these things… maybe add some banana and flavour the topping with cocoa powder? I think so. There you have it folks… you can have you pancakes and eat it too.