No Sugar: Day 2 and Lemon Pound Cake

 

Yes, today should technically be day 4, but we had guests in town this weekend, and one of said guests makes an excellent lemon pound cake (from scratch). So, it was one of those "live life" moments. Which I was completely fine with. I did get off track a little after the cake... damn animal crackers. BUT, yesterday, I started fresh, reassessed my goals, and got back on the wagon. Here's the plan, since I didn't go into much detail before.

-No adding sugar to thing. No sugar (white, brown, powdered), no stevia, no splenda, no honey, no maple syrup, etc
-No foods with added sweeteners. (cereals, granola, nut milks, protein bars...)
- Two servings of fruit a day, either green apples, berries, or greenish bananas, no juices.
-Protein shakes are allowed on the days I work out, because I typically burn 400-600 calories per session.
Two beverages of choice on weekends to help me keep my sanity through the start of pumpkin beer season. Typically, I'll split one with my Honey.


Goals: Feel great for family photos on Sept 13, for little Honey's first birthday party, and look awesome in a bikini for the fall beach trip I have planned for the end of September!

There it is. Two down, twenty-eight to go!

Guilt Free Chocolate Covered Banana Bites

Oh man. I hit it big with this one. In my quest of no sugar for 30 days, I found a loophole. Not really, because it doesn't have sugar, but it feels like one. Now, these aren't crazy low calorie, but they are rich enough that just a few will do the trick. Plus you get a dose of healthy fats from the coconut oil. So, here is the recipe for these crazy-good chocolate covered banana bites. 

2 T coconut oil

2 T cocoa 

1 banana, sliced and frozen

Wax paper

Put coconut oil in the smallest container you can find (I used a shot glass).

Microwave until liquified-about 15 seconds.

Stir in cocoa powder until thoroughly mixed.

Dip frozen bananas in the chocolate and lay on parchment paper to set. 

Store in freezer until ready to eat.

That's it! It took about 5 minutes to whip up a batch of these, and the three or four I ate were plenty to take care of my dessert craving. Next time, I may top them with a sprinkle of sea salt or sliced almonds. 

What is your go-to guilt free treat???

Quitting Paleo for Quitting Sugar

    

 

Hi friends!

Lately,  the hubs and I have been on a Paleo kick... Short version: Paleo is eating like a caveman: meat, veggies, fruit, seeds. No grains, no dairy, no processed anything. You can find the long version here. I honestly didn't feel so great on the Paleo diet. I am still nursing, so I had to be sure to get enough calories and healthy fats in, but really just felt weighed down and like I had no energy. I may have not given my body long enough to adjust, but I decided to take a different path after reading I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson. It was an eye opener. I have a HORRID sweet tooth, and reading about the crave/eat sugar > high> crash> crave/eat sugar... cycle really opened my eyes to what I do to my body and my brain when I eat junk. It  really creeps me out when I read that sugar is as addictive as cocain. A few months ago, I completed the 21 Day Fix (which I LOVED... more about that later...) and it really taught me what I should be eating and how much. I lost 10+ pounds in 21 days, "got jacked" as Honey would say, and felt amazing. Then, life crept back in as it usually does.  I am still in the gym and I still eat pretty well most of the time, however, my sweet tooth has made a return in the form of "just one bite", "I worked out, so I can have dessert, right?", and "one extra beer won't matter..." YES. It matters. Because it starts the cycle. SO I'm quitting sugar for 30 days to retrain my body and my brain. No processed junk, no sugar in my coffee, no maple syrup, no honey, no crazy fruit binges and worst of all (dun, dun, duhhhhhhh...) no crazy delicious organic animal crackers that are more like crack than a snack. ( I keep telling myself "they are for the baby... they are for the baby..." )  It's 5:50pm on day one, and I'm already feeling better and like myself. Here is what today's menu looked like:

Breakfast:
Coffee, TJ's soy creamer, 1/2 tsp coconut oil, splash of vanilla
2 Kale and turkey sausage egg white cups, 1/4 avocado, Ezekiel bread with cinnamon
Lunch:
Left-over naked fajitas on spring mix
Fage 0% yogurt with almonds and cocoa powder
Snack:
Green apple
Hummus and celery
Dinner:
Chicken Apple Sausage with mixed veggies
Paleo Chocolate

One last note about getting into diet trouble... I like to make things waaaay more complex than they need to be. I like to get creative and add a pinch of this, a dash of that, and handful of chocolate chips to oatmeal... ( totally healthy right??? Not.)  So, I'm definitely scaling back on the kitchen creations and getting back to the root of simple recipes and whole foods.

What are your dieting woes and tips to stay on track? I'd love to hear!!

Baked Baby Bites

Little Honey is definitely in the pincher phase when it comes to motor skills, so we eat A LOT of Puffs around here! I try to stick with the organic ones most of the time, but those can get pricey. I made these Baked Baby Bites to let little man practice feeding himself and to save a little on our grocery bill this week. We already had all the ingredients, so I tossed them in a bowl, mixed, rolled, and baked. They came out great! The texture isn't the same as puffs, because the ingredients aren't ground as fine (or processed) but I like to think they are a little more nutrient dense and hearty. :) Hope your little one enjoys! 

1 1/2 cups oats 

1/2 cup baby cereal

2/3 cup applesauce

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tbs coconut oil

Grind 1 cup oats in food processor until fine. (About the consistency of coarse ground coffee.) 

Stir in remaining ingredients.

Roll into 1/2 inch balls and place on greased baking sheet. 

Bake at 350 for 7 to 9 minutes. Let cool about 10 min before serving. 

Bon Appetite! 

I store mine in the freezer in a freezer ziplock. 

Sweet Corn & Cauliflower Baby Brunch

Hey Friends! 

I whipped this up for little Honey last night, and he absolutely devoured it! It may seem like a strange combo, but I'll take any way to get him to eat (and love) his veggies! He ate the recipe plain for dinner, then I mixed in a chunk of pureed avocado for his lunch today. Enjoy!

1 cup sweet corn
1 cup cauliflower chunks
1/2 to 2/3 cup sweetened coconut milk

Cook corn and cauliflower thoroughly. ( I used the steam function on my Baby Breeza.)
Add coconut milk and blend until creamy. Serve warm or cold.

P.S.
I freeze the leftovers in an ice cube tray then just pop out a few cube whenever it's meal time. Easy peasy.

Apple Peach Baby Breakfast

I try to feed my little honey as little processed food as possible, so I'm always looking for ways to make real food baby friendly. Don't get me wrong, he still eats Gerber squeezy pouches when we are out running around and has tasted ice cream on more than one occasion, but I like to do what I can. So this week, I whipped up a batch of this Apple Peach Baby Breakfast. I cooked about a 1/4 cup of oats in coconut milk until they were soft, added cinnamon, and peach applesauce (made from organic apples and the peaches we picked here) to give it some flavor. I let it sit in the fridge over night so it would continue to soften. Little Honey loved it, so we'll definitely be making it again soon! Hope your little one likes it too. Enjoy!

Recipe:
1/4 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 to 3/4 cup milk of choice
pinch of cinnamon
3 tbs peach applesauce or applesauce of choice

Heat milk and oats in small sauce pan on low heat.
Cook until soft- about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat.
Stir in cinnamon and applesauce.

Refrigerate overnight. Serve cold or warm. 

Makes 1 serving. 

Faux Canvases

You may have seen here, that my family went peach picking last week.  I absolutely loved the way our pictures came out and couldn't wait to get the up on our wall. I knew I wanted them fairly large, but I didn't have a ton of money to put into the project. I really like canvases, but they tend to run a little pricey, unless you can find them on sale. Plus, with family coming in the following weekend, I needed something with a quick turn around time. I considered a modpodge project, but found these babies at the last minute when I was looking for cheap printing options. They are faux canvases. Basically, pictures wrapped around a cardboard frame. They can be wrapped with a gallery wrap, where part of your image is wrapped around the edges, or wrapped as a mirror wrap where your entire image is on the front of the "canvas" and the edges are mirrored on the sides. I chose the mirrored because I didn't have the space to spare on my image. The paper is thick, and textured just like canvas. You can't even tell that they are not real canvas when they are hanging on the wall. The best thing about these to an impatient person like me? (Patience is something I am constantly working on...) The turn around time is same day- SAME DAY!!! I love same day. They probably won't hold up in the long term like canvas would, but they are perfect for a quick fix that you know you'll probably swap out seasonally and I couldn't argue with the price. I'm normally not a Wal-mart shopper, but boy did they come through for me here! Without further ado, here's the finished product hanging on our freshly painted dining room wall. 

Peach Pickin'

 

This past weekend, my honeys and I went peach picking at Fisher's Orchard. I love orchards and beg my big honey to go every year. I have really been itching to go this year because when I went to go pick apples last fall, our local orchard was already closed for the season. It was a sad day. My very-pregnant-self seriously wanted homemade applesauce. But I survived, and decided that I was not going to miss the opportunity to pick something this year. So I scoured the results from a Google search of "pick your own orchards Greenville, SC". Low and behold, there is an entire website dedicated to "pick your own" in South Carolina. I wasn't picky about what we picked,  I just wanted to be sure little honey was able to pick something! So I settled on peaches. We had so much fun ducking under the trees, hunting for the perfect, big, fat, juicy peach. Little honey was even able to get his hands on a few and pick them himself with a boost from Dad. My heart explodes watching theses two. Maybe these memories are a little more for me than little man, but I cant wait to show him the pictures when he's older, and sit back and reminisce with my big Honey about when we too our little guy to the orchard for the first time.

 

The Isn'ts...

There are few things I love more than sitting criss-cross in an overstuffed chair with a hot cup of coffee that has the perfect amount of sugar and cream. Bonus points if the criss-cross legs are bare and tanned, and no one else is awake. These moments are far more common for me than I deserve. I squeeze them in a couple times a week - on a random Tuesday after my big honey has left for work, or on a Saturday when both honeys are still snuggled up in bed. I keep the lights low, pad across my hardwood floors, snuggle into a favorite spot and savor the moment when the sun just begins to flood my living room with that dusty golden glow.  I had one of these sweet. solitudinous moments this past weekend at my in-laws house. It was raining out, little honey was playing happily in the floor. I was wearing a worn, over-sized sweater (double bonus points...) and my coffee had just the right balance of whole milk and real sugar. In that second, I thought about how fortunate I was. How graced, blessed, loved, and unbelievably fortunate I was to be there. Far too often, I find myself focused on what isn't. What isn't clean, isn't on time, isn't perfectly cooked, isn't toned (post-partum body, mamas? Can I get an A'men!)... isn't, isn't, isn't. So I decided, right then, to start a blog about what is - to remind us that life is not about the isn'ts. It's about the people you love the most, the passions you follow, the lives you touch and the moments as they come- not as we think they should be.