"Clean Simple Eats" Sweets

Healthy cookies? Who knew there was such a thing? This afternoon I was checking up on the happenings on Instagram when I saw @cleansimpleeats posted a recipe for "Skinny Banana Cookies" and I immediately went to store, grabbed some bananas, and turned on the oven. The result was awesome. :-) 

Last night, Darren and I went to a birthday party and overdosed on delicious appetizers and desserts at a restaurant called Moxies. While these eats were scrumptious, we both woke up today and decided we needed to repent and be a little healthier (I feel like we do that a lot though, it's a vicious cycle). 

The problem with trying to be healthier is that I have a VERY overactive sweet tooth. So when I saw "skinny" and "cookie" in the same recipe name it caught my attention. Enough of my gabbing, here's the recipe:

"Skinny Banana Cookies" from @cleansimpleeats
Ingredients:
- 4 medium ripe bananas, mashed
- 2 1/2 cups oats
- 1/4 cup all natural peanut butter or other nut butter (I used regular PB because that's all we had)
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- dash of cinnamon
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate because if I used dark then I'd be the only one eating them)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine all ingredients together and spoon onto parchment paper on a baking sheet
3. Bake 12 minutes and cool on cooling rack
Makes 32 cookies.



Pretty straight forward, yeah? Mash up some bananas, throw in some oats, peanut butter, chocolate chips, seasoning and voila! Healthy cookies!

Did you know that in Canada, Kraft makes peanut butter and puts pictures of teddy bears on it? I didn't.

Now this is where I got nervous: I'd made the dough, I'd formed the cookies and placed them on the cookie sheet. The thing is that I have very rarely, like VERY rarely, had a cookie that I formed nicely and stuck in the oven and had it come out looking as nice as it did when it went in. I seriously thought that these would turn out the same way and they would fall sometime during the 12 minutes of baking time. 

The picture @cleansimpleeats posted looked like baked versions of the cookies I'd formed from dough: (Photo taken from her Instagram post)

 I wasn't sure how mine would turn out. Twelve minutes later:

Victory!!! I was seriously so surprised!!! Adding to the fact that I love @cleansimpleeats because she posts healthy food and sticks the recipe in the comments instead of making you track down the website, but now I can confidently say that non-foodies and people who are less than proficient in the kitchen can follow her recipes and have them turn out as good as she says they will!!

Taste test: they were delicious. And I typically steer clear of things with banana in them but maybe it was the oats or the peanut butter or the chocolate (all things I love) but I didn't feel like the banana took over the cookie. If I were to rename these, I would call them "Skinny Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Held Together by Bananas." Her name for them is shorter though and probably more accurate... I tried. 

I texted my husband to tell him I'd baked him some treats. His response was, "Are you trying to make me fat?" And I could tell him with confidence that they wouldn't! (He got home from work and ate some before I even knew he was home. Pretty sure that means he liked them)

Instagram WIN!!!

Trying Some "Clean Simple Eats"

Nine times out of ten, when it comes to exercises, cardio routines, and recipes that I want to try, I turn to Pinterest. BUT I do reserve the right to change that up and I'm glad I did. 

Instagram was the key to finding these new recipes. She's @cleansimpleeats and I've been following her for a few months now after Heidi Powell (wife of trainer Chris Powell and co-host of "Extreme Weight Loss" - a show that I'm absolutely addicted to) re-posted a recipe for some healthier Valentines Day cookies. She always posts delicious looking foods and, what I especially like about her posts, she posts the recipe in the comments so you don't have to go tracking down a website (turns out websites don't translate to hyperlinks in Instagram).

Today she posted what she called "Skinny Banana Cookies" and I decided today was the day to try and re-create her delicious looking treats for myself and see if they actually worked. There was another post for "Sausage and Hash Egg Muffins" that she'd posted a while back and, because I'm trying to find protein-filled, healthy yummies to include in my hubby's breakfasts and lunches, attempting to make the muffins was added to my to-do list as well.

First up to bat:

"Sausage and Hash Egg Muffins" from @cleansimpleeats

1. Preheat oven to 375F

2. Crack 18 whole eggs in a large bowl and beat

3. Add:    1 grated sweet potato

                 2 chicken sausages, chopped

                 2 cups spinach, chopped

                 1 Tbsp dried, minced onion

                 Salt and pepper to taste

                 Shredded cheese (optional)

4. Grease 24 foil muffin liners and scoop about 1/3 cup mixture into each liner

5. Bake 30 minutes. 

Store leftovers in fridge.

I started off with the eggs, per her instructions. I don't think I've ever cracked so many eggs in my life. Holy Protein, Batman.  After using an entire carton of eggs (turns out in Canada, Costco sells eggs in boxes of 18 so I was in luck), I peeled a sweet potato and grated the whole thing directly into the eggs.

Next came the chicken sausage. I tried to cut each one up into semi-small pieces so that each of the 24 muffins would get at least two or three pieces in it. As a side note, I bought these at Safeway but I'd been at Costco the day before and noticed that they had some turkey & chicken sausages and you get eight sausages for the same price that you'd get a package of four from Safeway so if you're planning on making these muffins on a regular basis, I'd suggest going the Costco route and either freezing or refrigerating the extra and using it for the next batch.

The spinach, onion, salt and pepper came last and I mixed it all together. In retrospect, I should have added more salt and pepper but I figured that it would be safer to add too little than too much. In the taste-test portion of this experiment, my sister-in-law cut the muffin in half and added more salt and pepper to each side and it made up the difference.

When filling up the muffin tins, the recipe calls for using about 1/3 cup. Keep in mind that the eggs are going to expand during baking so you don't want to fill them all the way to the top of the liner. The first few muffins that I filled I used exactly 1/3 cup and then had to fix them later because there was WAY too much egg and they may have exploded in the oven and no one wants to clean that up. I went back and fixed the first few and ended up using a little less than 1/3 cup in each muffin.

Here's a helpful hint: they raise up when they're cooking but a few seconds after you take them out of the oven, they settle a little bit. I took this picture after they'd already fallen but they still look pretty good.

As a born skeptic, I'm always cautious when I try to replicate the recipes of others. I feel like no matter what I do, mine never end up looking the way they are "supposed to look." Here is the picture she posted along with the recipe:

And here is a picture of what I made: 

Taking into account that I grabbed the smallest one of the batch to sample and acknowledging that her picture was taken outside with better lighting, I'd say that they aren't a far cry from each other!! Win!! 

Two of my sister-in-laws helped with the taste test and they both said that they were good. As noted before, we all added some extra salt and pepper and I will probably put ketchup on some of the ones I eat in the future (but I put ketchup on almost everything so that's not a comment about needing to change the taste of it) but I thought they were really good, easy to make, and I'm a huge fan of the nutrition facts:  

Protein: about 6 grams

Carbs: about 1 gram

Calories: about 65

I'm chalking this one up to a Instagram WIN and sending props to @cleansimpleeats. 

Stay tuned to see how the "Skinny Banana Cookies" turned out :-)

Quest Bar Ranking: Round 1

The results are in!!!

About a week ago, my wonderful husband surprised me with a bag full of eight Quest Bars to try and, if you're like me, you want to know what's good before you buy a box of something (hence why I am a HUGE fan of Costco samples but that's a story for another time). Quest Bars are available individually but, depending on where you buy them, they can get a little pricey. So I decided to put the Quest Bars in order of the ones I like most to the ones I like the least and share them with you so that you can hopefully make a more informed decision if you decide to try them yourself (which I very highly recommend).

Now I've tried a lot of protein bars in my time and these are my favorite BY FAR for multiple reasons:

• High Protein
• All of the Quest Bars in this post have at least 20 grams of protein.
• Not Overly Carb-y
• About 22 - 26 grams of carbohydrates in each of these.
• Lots of Fiber (for anyone who knows me, you know that I am a huge fan of fiber)
• There are a whopping 16 - 19 grams of fiber in each bar!!! There are only 9 grams of fiber in a Fiber One bar.
• Low Sugar Content
• Only 1 - 2 grams of sugar in each of these protein bars.
• Relatively Low in Calories
• These are NOT a meal replacement but definitely a good snack in between meals (you should be eating 5  to 6 times a day to maximize the function of your metabolism so these are really good for meals 2, 4, and 6).
• They taste GOOD!!!

So here they are in order of my least to most favorite Quest Bars of this batch. The ranking is based only on taste but I've provided what I believe are the important nutrition facts so you can compare and contrast those along with my comments.  This list is not all inclusive, there are a few flavors I haven't tried yet but I may or may not have bought the rest of the flavors today so there will be a comprehensive list coming soon. :-)

Number 8:     DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CHUNK

• Protein: 20 grams
• Carbs: 25 grams
• Fiber: 16 grams
• Sugars: 1 gram
• Calories: 160
• Taste: I know what some of you may be thinking. "Chris, you LOVE chocolate. How could this be your least favorite of the batch??" While this one didn't taste bad necessarily, I'd have to say that this one tasted the most like your typical protein bar: a little chalky with a weird after taste. If it's the only near by and you have to choose between eating this or eating a cookie, I'd say pick this bar but I wouldn't recommend ordering a full box of them. There are better ones out there to satisfy your chocolate cravings that don't leave a funny taste in your mouth.

Number 7:     BANANA NUT MUFFIN

• Protein: 20 grams
• Carbs: 25 grams
• Fiber: 17 grams
• Sugars: 2 grams 
• Calories: 190
• Taste: I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not the biggest fan of banana in things. I can handle bananas by themselves and banana bread is good (not good for you, but tastes good) but other than that there is just something about banana inclusive foods that I just don't like. So it would make sense that this would be towards the bottom of my list. I will say that I would recommend this as a breakfast-time protein bar. Say you just finished working out and you need some recovery food, if you like bananas, this would be a good one to munch on. It gives your body the post-exercise carbs it needs (you should have a few carbs within 30 minutes of finishing your workout), it has plenty of protein so your muscles can soak that up, and the fiber will help you feel full so you don't feel like you have to grab that extra doughnut sitting on the break room table.

Number 6:     STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE

• Protein: 20 grams
• Carbs: 26 grams
• Fiber: 17 grams
• Sugars: 2 grams
• Calories: 180
• Taste: I need to qualify these bars really quick. If you are regularly eating a lot of processed sugars, these bars will NOT be as tasty to you. If you are used to eating a Snickers bar every day, the taste of this Strawberry Cheesecake Quest Bar probably will not live up to the hype that I'm giving them now. With that in mind, when I tell you that this bar actually does taste like strawberry cheesecake please note that you should not take a bite of this Quest Bar and then take a bite of actual cheesecake and expect them to taste exactly the same. In one slice of Costco cheesecake, there are 24 grams of sugar instead of the 2 grams that are in this bar. I would recommend this bar as a post-lunch or after dinner dessert to curb any sweet cravings you might have.

Number 5:     MIXED BERRY BLISS

• Protein: 20 grams
• Carbs: 22 grams
• Fiber: 18 grams
• Sugars: 2 grams
• Calories: 210
• Taste: This is the bar that I prefer as a mid-morning snack as I pick berries over bananas any day of the week. It tastes like it has some strawberries, blueberries, and some almonds in it which makes for a very pleasant mix. It doesn't taste like a dessert though so while I would still recommend it over a cookie for a dessert, this to me is more of a post-morning-workout Quest Bar as opposed to a dessert Quest Bar.

Number 4:     CINNAMON ROLL

• Protein: 20 grams
• Carbs: 25 grams
• Fiber: 17 grams
• Sugars: 1 gram
• Calories: 190
• Taste: The Cinnamon Roll bar was the first Quest Bar that I can remember trying (my husband claims that he bought some a few months ago to try but I can't really remember those). It was Christmas time and I LOVE baking so, unfortunately, I was eating a lot of sugary, fat-filled baked goods and didn't appreciate how good these were. Then I re-tried them just this last week and I loved it! This one is good for any time of day. It works as a morning cinnamon roll fix or an after lunch or dinner dessert. You really can't go wrong with this bar. Again, don't eat an actual cinnamon roll and then eat this and expect it to taste the same but, on it's own, this tastes just like a cinnamon bun to me. 

Number 3:     WHITE CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY

• Protein: 20 grams
• Carbs: 23 grams
• Fiber: 17 grams
• Sugars: 1 gram
• Calories: 190
• Taste: I love my chocolate but there are some days where dark or milk chocolate is just not what my sweet tooth is craving. On the occasion that happens, this is my Quest Bar of choice. I love raspberries and adding white chocolate (which is not actually chocolate to me because it doesn't contain the cocoa bean no matter how you dice it or splice it) gives it the sweetness and flavor I need to curb my need for a dessert after dinner. Or lunch. Sometimes a girl just needs something sweet, am I right or am I right? If you're a girl then you know I'm right, if you're a guy then I will teach you a valuable life lesson in that you should agree with me and say that I'm right. :-) I was really excited to try this one and it did not disappoint.

Number 2:    CHOCOLATE BROWNIE

• Protein: 20 grams
• Carbs: 24 grams
• Fiber: 19 grams
• Sugars: 1 gram
• Calories: 190
• Taste: If you need a straight up chocolate fix, not just something with chocolate in it or something with a hint of cocoa, this is the bar to eat. It looks like a brownie, is chewy like a brownie, and it tastes like a brownie. And unlike the Chocolate Chunk bar, it doesn't have the weird after-taste that I was nervous it would have. I would say that this is the bar that comes the closest to tasting like the actual thing. And you have the bonus of the placebo effect that comes from the looking and feeling like the actual thing. Also, it's chocolate. And I love chocolate.

Number 1:     COOKIES AND CREAM

• Protein: 21 grams
• Carbs: 22 grams
• Fiber: 17 grams
• Sugars: 1 gram
• Calories: 180
• Taste: EXCELLENT. This is my number one favorite Quest Bar as of right now. The chocolate chunks in it seriously taste like Oreos, there is no weird after taste, and the ratio of chocolate to "cream" is spot on. I can eat this as a dessert even if I'm having the biggest sweet craving of my life and my tastebuds will be satisfied. I know I said these rankings were based only on taste but I had to add that not only does this Quest Bar taste the best but it also contains 15% of your daily needed calcium. Win. Win. Darren actually ordered a box of these a month ago and I loved them but I ate the new ones with an open mind but this one still came out on top. That's right. It is that good. That's probably why they were sold out of them at GNC today….

So there you have it my friends. My list of my favorite Quest Bars as of today. There will be a list coming that will include the bars that I got today but, even as much as I love these protein bars, if I were to eat them all today so I could give you a comprehensive list, I'm pretty sure I'd be sick as a dog. And no one wants that. But there are the bars that are coming: 

• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
• Peanut Butter Supreme
• Coconut Cashew
• Apple Pie
• Chocolate Peanut Butter
• Peanut Butter and Jelly
• Vanilla Almond Crunch

Stay tuned and give some of these Quest Bars a try. I've given you my opinion but, in the words of Levar Burton, "you don't have to take my word for it." ***

*** Quote taken from the children's show "Reading Rainbow." If you don't know what that means then you are probably too young to have lived during the "Reading Rainbow" era and you missed out. I'd say look it up on youtube but that won't do it justice. Just trust me that the 5 to 8 year olds of my childhood loved it.

Cardio for the Anti-Runner

I used to HATE running. I couldn't fathom why people would run track or cross country in high school. In college, I had friends who would go out running on sidewalks, treadmills, and trails and I really just didn't understand the appeal of people putting on shorts and tennis shoes to weary their legs over a number of miles and for what? Granted, I eventually started buying into the importance of cardio and the health benefits that come from running but, to this day, I prefer running on a treadmill (I like being able to see how far I'm going, how many calories I'm burning, and how fast I'm going at any time) and I can only run outside when running a 5k or some event like that and then it's more for the "free" t-shirt and competition rather than the actual running. 

- Side note: I did run the Disneyland Neverland 5k (the Tinkerbell Half Marathon was sold out) and if there is one place that I LOVE running outside it's Disneyland. If I ever do a marathon, it will be at/through a Disney Park and I will love every sweaty second of it. - 

Once I realized the benefits of running, I started running a mile or two on a treadmill a few times a week. All I would do is get on the machine, set it at a speed and run until my miles were up. Problem was, I wasn't seeing results. Yeah, I could run for a while but I didn't see myself losing weight, losing inches, losing anything. The only thing that I lost was the time that I spent doing result-less cardio in the gym. I kept at it for about three years and then I started hearing this hype about interval training. Intervals claimed to have "better results in a shorter time" and I'd "burn fat faster." I figured I'd give it a try and I was cautious at first because I don't tend to buy into quick fixes but I did like the idea of spending less time on a treadmill. I started with a Fat Burning Run (http://pinteresttrainer.blogspot.com/2014/02/fat-burning-run.html) and it worked! I replaced my 3 miles on a treadmill with a 20 minute, 1.8-ish mile run and I burned more calories and could see results on the scale and tape measure. 

Now, I'll be honest. There are some days where it's cardio time and I do not feel like running. Just because someone is able to run, doesn't mean they love it. Somedays I still hate it. On those days, I use this:

The Treadmill Shredmill Workout

There are three non-consecutive minutes where you are running (you can do that :-) but the rest of this workout mostly stays below 4.0 mph. Originally, as I am with most workouts, I was skeptical. But I finished this workout the first time and this is what my treadmill told me:

Four hundred twenty calories?!? And virtually no running?? This is great!!! The reason that this works so well is that, even though you aren't walking very fast, you're walking up some sweet inclines, burning calories, fat, and working your booty. :-) I've done this workout a few times now and I am dripping sweat afterwards every time. My husband hates running more than I do and I'm trying to get him to try this (I'll let you know if that ever happens haha). I decided to take out my Wednesday rest day and replace it with this treadmill shredder and it's great because it's mostly a walk so I can still do a run the next day and my legs don't feel like jello.

 It makes you sweat but it doesn't make you run!

Pinterest WIN ;-)

Simple Sunday Meal & Save Yourself the Carbs

It seemed like every Sunday when I was growing up our family would have spaghetti for dinner. This was probably for a couple of reasons: 

• It was a really easy meal to put together
• It was so easy that my mom could assign me or one of my 7 siblings to make it without worrying about the state of the kitchen after the fact
• We had 10 people in our family so we bought noodles and Prego in bulk and always had the ingredients on hand
• It was a dinner that almost everyone liked (one of my brothers had a problem with the tomatoes in the sauce and would painstakingly pick out every single one before he would eat anything and eventually my mom agreed that as long as he ate a bite of the sauce, he could put butter and salt on the rest of the noodles. Which he was fine with. He used a LOT of butter. We're talking spoonfuls. Although there was that one time that he took a spoonful of margarine and ate it like it was ice cream…but that's a story for a different time.)

So now that I'm trying to get on board the "healthy train" and trying my hand at carb cycling, it makes it hard to enjoy my traditional Sunday spaghetti without getting a pit in my tummy and feeling a little (sometimes a lot) guilty. But there is a way!

Spaghetti Squash!!!

"How to Save 130 Calories on Your Bowl of Pasta"

I found this pin, tried it and I love it. (I don't know if the 130 calories is accurate because it all depends on portion size but I'll do a comparison of spaghetti squash vs noodles at the end.) Instead of cooking up some spaghetti noodles, I cook a spaghetti squash and it's just as good but so much healthier! 

Using spaghetti squash is almost just as easy as using noodles too. Instead of throwing noodles in water for a while, you put a squash in the oven for an hour and you're good! Well, almost. :)

Good things require work and good things require patience, right?

Here's how I make my spaghetti squash:

**I am including pictures but please excuse my use of an iPhone camera and my terrible kitchen lighting**

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Stab the spaghetti squash repeatedly all over with a knife (this will make it so the pressure that builds up in the oven can be released easily instead of exploding and making a mess for you to clean).

2. Place the squash in a pan or tray on the middle rack of the oven for 60 - 75 minutes (this is where the patience comes in. Noodles cook faster, yes, but this is worth the wait. Also, you don't have to check it to make sure it's not boiling over, over cooking or undercooking, and you don't have to throw it on a wall to find out if it's done).

3. Remove the tray with the squash from the oven, wait about 5 minutes for it to cool a bit (be careful and use oven mitts because it will still be hot!!) and then cut in in half length-wise.

4. Using a big spoon, remove the seed from the middle of the squash.

5. Take a fork and separate the "noodles" of the squash and dish onto a plate. 

6. Cover the spaghetti squash with sauce of your choice (I am a HUGE red sauce fan so for me it's marinara) and enjoy!! 

**Thank you for not judging me on my photography skills or lack thereof**

Comparing 1 cup of spaghetti squash to noodles this is what I found:

                     Squash (Based on Wikipedia and verified by Dr. Oz)                 Noodles (Based on Barilla Spaghetti Noodles)
Calories                                          31                                                                                                        200
Total Fat (g)                                   0.6                                                                                                        1.0
Protein (g)                                      0.6                                                                                                         7
Carbs (g)                                         7                                                                                                           42

Judging by these few nutrition facts, if you are trying to get your protein in for the day, the noodles would be the way to go. But if you're trying to get your protein from this food group, there is whole other discussion we need to have. (Eat a string cheese. One string cheese has 8 grams of protein and doesn't have the calories or carbs.)

BUT if you're looking for a way to enjoy pasta-type sauces and recipes without the carbs and calories, substituting spaghetti squash is a GREAT way to go. :-) Happy cooking!

Embrace Your Rest Day

Ah, the Rest Day. Sometimes my favorite day of the week (sometimes it's not because I feel like I should be out doing something). There are a lot of reasons that rest days are good and important and I thought this pin summed it up nicely:

If you're going to the gym and really working your body, you NEED a rest day at least once a week (sometimes you need two, listen to your body and it will tell you what you need). I take a rest day on Sundays and on Wednesdays. (Sometimes I switch my rest day to a different day depending on scheduling or what day I'm supposed to wash my hair - yes, I plan out when to wash my hair. When your hair is as thin as mine, you do whatever you can to make it as healthy as possible which includes making sure you don't "over wash" it. Life with thin hair is tough.)

There are a lot of different Pins that lead to sites that tell you why you need a rest day and, to me, it comes down to this:
1. It gives your body time to REPAIR itself. When you're working out, your muscles are tearing and they need time to heal. Your rest day gives it that time and helps prevent injuries that happen from overexerting your muscles.
2. It lets you mentally REJUVENATE. I don't know about you, but it takes mental energy for me to go on a run and tell myself not to stop until I hit my goal. It takes mental energy to understand and tell myself that I'm not actually hungry, I'm just bored and want to be eating something (I'm a snacker and a sucker for samples). It takes a lot of mental energy to go for those last 15 seconds of a plank. Your rest day lets you take a break from that, focus on other things, and rejuvenate that metal energy so you don't get burnt out on your workouts.
3. You get extra REST time. Life is busy, and I know that I tend to let sleep be one of the first things to go from my schedule. I'll get up earlier or stay up a little later just so I can cram everything into my schedule. On my rest days, I get to take that extra hour or so and can stay curled up in my bed or cuddled on the couch with a pillow. And because it's a rest day, I can embrace it and not feel guilty :-)

There are plenty of active things that you can do on your rest day that aren't strenuous work outs but you're still moving your body. You can go for a walk, clean your kitchen, do some stretching, things like that. When you get into a habit of working out all the time, your body wants to be moving and doing things but remember to take it easy on your rest day and don't feel guilty for taking a day off!!!

Back Fat to Back Fab

For as long as I can remember, I've had "wings." You know, the fat under your arms that bulges out over your bra and over a swimsuit? And then there's the bra-strap bulge that pooches out over your bra in the back that you can see even when you have a t-shirt on? You know what I'm talking about.  **If you don't know what I'm talking about, then don't worry about reading the rest of this post and be very, very grateful that you were born with nicely sculpted underarms.** I have tried for years to get rid of these - I've done push-ups, arm circles, lifted weights, etc. Eventually I just figured that it was something genetic and the only way to get rid of it was to have lipo or develop an eating disorder (no, those weren't actual options, I'm just trying to say that I had basically given up on ever being able to get rid of my bathing suit bulges). THEN I found this on the Pinterest. It's a work out consisting of 4 exercises that work those specific areas. I was skeptical but I've only done this 3 times and I can already see a difference. Crazy, right???  Here's what I do: 1) Pull-ups: 30 reps (I'll be honest, I can't do more than 1, maybe 2, pull-ups on my own so I use the machine at the gym that decreases the resistance so I'm only pulling up half of my body weight) 2) Push-up Position Row: 30 reps. 15 on one side, 15 on the other, then 10, then 5, and you're done. 3) Superwoman: 6 reps. Hold the position for 10 seconds, rest for 5. It will only take 90 seconds. 4) Lat Pull Down: 30 reps. 
After the first time I did this, my arms felt fine. Then the next day, I thought they were going to fall off my body. My husband leaned over to gently squeeze my arm and it was…tender to say the least. But then the day after that I had to go back to the gym and do the work out again. I started on the pull-ups and, while I was still super sore, I actually felt stronger. It was weird but an awesome feeling!! My plan is to keep doing this 2x a week in between some cardio. I'm thinking that next week (week 3), I'll increase the reps to 40 for 2 weeks and then go back to 30 reps and increase the weight. We'll see how that goes but I'll keep you posted. Let me know if anyone else is trying this and if you're having success!

Cleanse FAIL

Ok, peeps, let's talk about "cleanses." Here's one that I've seen going around the Pinterest world. The picture is of some super skinny chick and the caption reads: 

Honey and cinnamon + hot water = cleanse. Every morning, on an empty stomach, and every night before bed.

The pin goes on to say that you mix 1 tbsp honey and 2 tbsp of cinnamon in a cup of water and drink it every morning and every night. 

Now I'm definitely NOT a fan of the bloating and the blocking and the backing up that a digestive system can do. I've had digestive issues for years and was finally told that I have a deficiency of hydrochloric acid and a viral intention in my large intestine. Basically my digestive tract hates me and doesn't like to pass things through my body so I'm always open to trying new things to help. Thus why I tried this.

Let's be honest, cleanses are supposed to help things move, help you "be regular," and feel better. I drank this as fast as I could because it looked and tasted terrible (cinnamon without enough sugar smells fine but tastes awful) and for the next 4 hours I couldn't eat or drink anything because I thought I was going to hurl my guts.

Again, cleanses are supposed to clean you out NOT keep you from putting anything else in. Maybe the girl in this picture really does drink this every morning and every night and that's why she's so skinny: she can't eat anything because her stomach is in knots. I spent the next few hours laying on the couch, staying close to a bathroom and not making any sudden moves. The "cleanse" tasted bad enough going down, I didn't want to taste it coming back up.

So here's my final judgement: DON'T DO IT!!! Unless you're already sick and you need something that will make you throw up in order to feel better, just leave this one be. There are plenty of other way to get your system cleaned out. For example, there is Metamucil, Activia yogurt, running, and (to be used sparingly) cleanse pills and magnesium citrate. And make sure you're drinking enough water. Your colon can't process and clean out without water. If you're having serious problems with it, go see a doctor. But don't let them take out your gallbladder unless they can prove that it's the problem. For reals. They tried to take mine out "just to see if that would help." ….yeah because I'm ok with people removing a perfectly functioning organ for the sake of experimentation... But that's a story for a different time.

Intro to Inclines

I decided to try out this little beauty at the gym today. The caption on the pin just read "Treadmill Workout!" and I love me some treadmill work outs.

Before starting this one I noticed that the speed never got above 4 mph so it's good for someone who prefers walking to running. I also noticed (and gave props to whoever created this) that their time intervals and their calculations on how much to change the speed and incline during each portion of the workout were all perfect to lead straight into the next segment. (I had a class in college where they taught us how to create surveys and they said never EVER have a question asking -for example- how often do  you eat ice cream and the answers being like this: 1-3x per week, 3-5x per week, 5-7x per week. If you eat ice cream 3 times a week then you would want to circle to answers. Anyway, it's made me notice when people note intervals incorrectly and this pin, instead of going from 0-5 min, goes 0:00 to 4:59 min and therefore notes the intervals correctly. Ok, my nerd self is shutting up now.)

This workout moves at a nice pace, it's not too intense, but I did start to sweat a little by the end. They say that the first 20 minutes of your workout is when you are burning sugar and carbs and the after that you're burning fat. I would recommend this treadmill workout for those who are just starting to get back in the gym and haven't done a lot of interval training or walking on an incline. For more seasoned gym-goers, I would suggest using this as a warm up before weight training.

The all-knowing treadmill told me that this pin takes you a distance of 1.34 miles and I burned 147 calories. I tend to like it when I get a better caloric output than 1 calorie to every .01 miles. (I personally believe that most treadmills are not exact and the calories are more of a ballpark rather than precisely what you burned. This is also based on my weight so if you weigh more, you will have burned more than I did using this pin.)

Overall, was I sore afterwards? Not really. Was it a nice break from running? Yes. 

Pinterest Win or Fail: WIN

Fat-Burning Run

I wanted to start off my posts with a Pinterest workout that I LOVE. It took me a while to be able to do the whole thing at the suggested incline but it is a great run. What I love about this is that it burns calories*, you run about 1.85 miles, you SWEAT, and it only takes 20 minutes. 

Set Incline to 2

For a long time I would go to the gym and I would run 3-5 miles on a treadmill and I would get on the elliptical or the stair master for a while and it really didn't feel like it was doing anything. I would spend 1.5 - 2 hours in the gym almost every day and it wasn't showing with how my clothes fit or with the scale. Frustrating!!! Then  started reading about interval training and how that is more effective for weight and fat loss than just running forever. I found this treadmill work out on Pinterest and I never went back to the endless hours on the treadmill. 

To start doing this run, I wanted to see if it was something I could actually do. So I tried the whole thing full out: speed, time, and incline just like it calls for. I made it about half way and I couldn't keep up. There are other ways to ease into it, but I decided the best way for me was the incline. Running on a flat plain is so much easier than running on an incline. So I started going as far as I could on the 2.0 incline and then, when my brain and body were telling me to stop, I'd keep everything the same but go down to a 1.0 or .5 incline. Gradually, I was able to go further and further at the full incline and now I can do the whole thing.

I do this run at least 2, sometimes 3, times every week. I do still run an occasional 5k or 10k on a treadmill (just to switch things up and see if I can do it) and this has made me faster, increased my endurance, AND it's made a difference in the fit of my clothes and on the scale. :-)

*The number of calories you burn depends on each person's individual size. For me, this burns about 190 calories.