Eating for fat-loss! High protein family dinner(no short - order cooking)

Shrimp pasta and omelet..but first, have you heard of "Flexible dieting"? or "IIFYM"? how about simply eating for fat-loss?

As we've talked about before, it's hard to know what to cook and how to eat when you don't need the same amount of food that your growing kids or man-sized husband need.  I definitely don't need the same amount of calories my husband does just to keep meat on his bones, and my 3 year old is a good eater but still a picker, she'll eat anything but she's still 3 and randomly picky. If you don't want to know about eating or fat-loss skip down to the recipe... (but it's pretty interesting info, if you ask me!)

I need more protein and fats than I do carbs, as many women with hormone issues/imbalances find they do. This is found by knowing your body (blood work from doctors helps) and trial and error. Carbs are awesome, and I eat them, but there are times when I'd rather eat mine for things other than just pasta and plain breads or there are times when my body just doesn't need 200 grams... though I do have those days too.

I guess I will take this minute to talk about carbs, just to clarify how I organize macro nutrients (fat, protein and carbs).  As we are taught in college nutrition classes, there is a balanced way to eat your nutrients and every individual has a different need. This need can be calculated out based on many factors. Once calculated based on body composition and activity level it is truly trial and error over time... Eat what we calculate, see how your body responds then adjust accordingly.

These days, the days of needing to name diets and put Fancy titles to trends, people call this flexible dieting or "iifym" if it fits your macros. But calling it a diet is annoying to me because it's just how you should eat based on what you body needs....for life, as a lifestyle, not a diet. But if you need to tell yourself you're following a cool trend then go right ahead, because it works. But I've been calculating these things since 2002 (and many other have for many more years than I). **And for the general population, It's not about weighing your apple pieces or weighing minuscule crumbs of protein powder, but it's about knowing how much you need, how much that looks like and eating within what your body is requiring, but not being tied to a measuring cup or scale.

So I eat within what my body needs, and so do my clients. We track the food for and little bit so they can get to know their body and the fuel it needs and then they can wean off the numbers so they can learn to make appropriate choices to stay healthy and fit. 

When my thyroid was off kilter (as diagnosed by a sports doc) I had to eat lower carb, higher good fat, high protein.  Many women with PCOS or other hormone related issues (think pre, peri and post menopause) will realize that lower carb, higher fat eating will just make their body respond better to their fat-loss efforts.  And the cool part is that if you can get your body back to where it should be,  like I was able to do through diet (eating more) and minimal cardio, then carbs can come back with minimal negative effects. Though some with PCOS will always be insulin resistant and carbs will need to be low to keep fat off. 

So, yes, women and men are the same as we can eat similar but there are unique things that may change what and how we need to eat to reach fat loss and health goals.

On to the food recipe!!!....
Ok, so that being laid out there. I don't eat low carb anymore because things are going well but as it pertains to the meal in question I had delved into a bag of pretzels and had a bowl of cereal for breakfast (those that know me know that when I say "a bowl of cereal" just double or triple it). So needless to say I had loaded on carbs for the day and by dinner I was out of my allotted amount. I needed some fats and protein! But the rest of the family wanted pasta.  So here's what we did:

I had frozen shrimp, gluten free pasta, tomatoes and eggs. 
-I thawed the shrimp while boiling the pasta. 
-When that was boiling away I had my 3 egg omelet cooking in a pan (I had 3 whole eggs for the fat and protein, if I was limiting fat I would have done 4 egg whites),  tossed in some shrimp, flipped, and let it cook.
-While the omelet was cooking I mixed the stewed tomatoes with the drained pasta and shrimp in the hot pot. Picture ----->
- Plated the pasta/shrimp and sauce up for the hubs and the kid. 

- By then my omelet was done I sprinkled some pesto on top and plated that.  <-----picture p="">
- We all sat down to eat.

Oh and since we require something GREEN at every meal I heated up some frozen green beans...1 minute in the microwave. No biggie. 

This is what I call an overlapping meal...
3 people eating the same foods, different amounts with different nutrient needs.

We also watch our added sugars so instead of pasta sauce I made it with stewed basil and garlic tomatoes. This gave great flavor, less sugar, 1/2 the sodium and it stretched the serving size. My main focus is lowering sugars not total carbs or fat or anything, but it comes along with it sometimes. You can see the nutrition differences here:
Stewed tomatoes, Store brand

Toddler approved protein pancakes...the best!

Do you ever have a hard time getting your kids to eat anything other than cereal for breakfast? Well, we all know that breakfast is important, especially for kids who are headed off to school to use their brains to learn new things every day.  Breaking an all night fast with a sugary cereal, pop tart or waffle and syrup is not ideal for a growing brain, let alone a growing body. Being both gluten and dairy free helps us get in the good foods because we avoid most processed "gluten free" foods by cooking most things from scratch. But breakfast, in the morning is always a challenge, especially when we need to get in some protein for growing bones and muscles...both the kids' and ours :)

I have made tons of different types of protein pancakes. Many of them were ones that I can eat every day, some I was just getting through telling myself they're pancakes (mostly the super high protein/no carb ones) but I still like them, they are good...but a 3 year old has a different idea of what a pancake is. Fluffy, a little more substance, and sweet flavor. 
So here it is friends! The recipe for the pancakes:
Ingredients:
1/4 cup mashed overripe bananas about 2
1 cup vanilla almond milk
1cup oat flour (I did my oats finely ground in the food processor)
1 to 1 1/2 scoop About Time vanilla protein powder*
1tsp baking powder
coconut oil as needed

Directions: 
Mix oats and baking powder with the milk and mashed banana. Mix well.  Add in 1/2 scoop or so of protein powder, mix well again. Scoop by 1/4 cup fulls onto greased heated pan. (I added a teaspoon or so to the pan for each pancake as they got a bit stuck and I like crispy.) If it fluffs up or is a weird constancy then add some milk (this could be your protein powder). After cooking a few for the kiddo I added a whole scoop of powder to the rest of the batter for myself and added a splash of milk to thin it out then cooked the rest. *you can leave out the protein all together, but I am always trying to get more protein into my kid's any my own diet

We didn't top with anything, the super ripe banana is just sweet enough to make it good to eat without adding more sugary substances...though if you need then local honey would be tasty!
 It made about 6 pancakes....G's were cut into an Easter egg shape since she thought that would make it taste better...
I hope you all enjoy it! MMMMM

This recipe was adapted from Oven Haven blog here: http://ovenhaven.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/toddler-tuesdays-banana-pancakes-no-eggs-no-dairy-no-sugar/#comment-9991

Fit mommy, fit baby!

Hi everyone! I hope Spring is going well and you're as happy as I am to be out of the cold and into the (already) sweltering heat! It makes me happy :)  Guess what?! I was a featured blogger on For Two Fitness! They sell some pretty cool workout clothes for pregnant moms but also provide great advice on staying healthy and working out. Check out my blog here!  Then stop in and check out the rest of their website.


On another note:
We just finished a "Spring into Summer" 6 week lifestyle challenge at the HeartStrong Fitness studio and the winners were announced!

All the final check ins done and the winner was announced in our private facebook group but I thought I'd let everyone know that Michelle Leaf was our grand prize winner of the Spring into Summer 6 week challenge! She has done amazing! Such a great inspiration!
*EVERYONE lost inches (and that's what we want...smaller and tighter!) 
*not everyone lost pounds but I always say it's not about the scale in the grand scheme of things  next time we'll change it up for the final results. But I am so proud of everyone who did this challenge and I hope you all keep up the workouts and healthy choices! Thank you!

This challenge gave me some grief a little bit. See, I always say that it's about the inches lost not what the scale says....but for this challenge sake, to make it fair, we had to do percent of total weight lost. This is an easier one that will be most fair across the board. I'm thinking I'll rearrange the way I do the next challenge because inches are certainly much more telling of body change than just the scale. I mean, I'm all about gaining muscle, and that's just what everyone did! yay!


Hope you have a happy and healthy weekend!