June Intentions and More!

Hello Readers -

Checking In
I have logged food this past week and been extra careful and "honest" with myself with great results. I am down 3 pounds since Sunday. After being stagnant pretty much all of May this scale affirmation is greatly appreciated. At the same time, I have been thinking a lot about the video below. Obese to Beast is so wise and I love how he shares and explains things that he's walked through himself. The whole video is great. The part I've been pondering and incorporating into my self-talk is the Honesty and Forgiveness portion where he explains the importance of both. I also have been known to join in the calorie game he describes (time frames noted below the video link). A pattern I articulated this month is that, in the past, I give up when I am 7 pounds from my maintenance goal. By using his suggestion of being both honest and forgiving the new thought process guided me to experience a victory. I am now within 5 pounds of my goal. Another update is that I have enjoyed doing Yoga every day in May and am working towards memorizing this 15-minute video that challenges, engages, and drives me 15 min Balanced Power Yoga.

Obese to Beast
7'51"  Playing the "Calorie Game"
9' Honest and Forgiveness

Helpful Mindshift
Dani Spies recently shared on her Instagram story that she has struggled in quarantine (she lives in NJ) because she is motivated to exercise as she is engaged as she perseveres physically until she reaches a goal. This needed to change because she has no access to the weights at her gym and other equipment she needed to reach her current goal. She had a mind shift from thinking of exercise as a way to achieve some sort of goal to thinking of it as a gift to her body. Our bodies were made to move.

Intentions for June
I will log food for a 2nd week in a row so as to continue with my honesty pattern. (Note: I do not log on Sundays, I still eat as though I am logging but with more grace and no hassle.) This will have me not logging for my anniversary and during our vacation. During vacation I will only hold myself true to the walking of 10,000 steps a day -- I will eat intentionally but all food is acceptable (same for my Anniversary). For the rest of the month, I plan to stick to my 1200 calories/day, 4 times a week 15 min yoga, 2 jog/walks a week, and 15,000 steps a day. Eating intentionally involves staying engaged and listening to both hunger and full cues.


Egg Whites (EW)
 I bought egg whites in a quart container and froze the rest in a muffin tin. Once frozen I popped those out to store in the freezer to use as needed.
Oatmeal with EW
This delicious oatmeal with egg whites is a great break from my normal approach (see recipe below, shared already?). It is a combination of a couple of recipes from Dani Spies (Clean & Delicious). I eat 1/2 cup of it at a time, I've found the rest stores well in the fridge to be warmed up each morning. I like to add fruit and peanut butter to the top (sometimes 1 tablespoon of chocolate chips, yum!).
Granola with EW
My son is visiting this weekend and he likes my granola. I came across a new granola recipe that uses egg whites (there are lots of those --google).  I've enjoyed the granola a tablespoon at a time on top of plain yogurt with fruit. I leave out the sugar in the granola recipe and add a little drizzle of honey. As the recipe states, you can sub in and out dry for dry and wet for wet. I used my homemade almond butter I made in the food processor and skipped the coconut oil. I also used quick oats instead of oat bran and left out the brown sugar, as I mentioned earlier, and used pumpkin seeds and coconut to make the amount of coconut needed.


Stay well.
Amy B Haddock


THE BEST OATMEAL
1 cup dry rolled oats 2 cups water
1/4-1/2 tsp salt 1/3 cup egg whites 1 tbsp coconut oil --NOTE == Amy did not put this in and it was fine-- lowers the fat/calorie below INSTRUCTIONS Combine oatmeal, 2 cups water, and salt in a small pot. Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and slowly stir in the egg whites, continually stirring until the oats look opaque. Cook for an additional 2-3 minutes or until the oats are creamy, tender and heated through. Stir in Coconut oil--mix. Serve topped with favorite toppings. NUTRITION
Nutrients for 1/2 of the recipe: Calories: 291; Total Fat: 14g; Saturated Fat: 9g; Cholesterol: 0mg; Carbohydrate: 37.5g; Dietary Fiber: 5.3g; Sugars: 9g; Protein: 6g

Adele, Coffee, School/Summer

Hello Readers,

Adele - posts on an Adele's Twitter photo post are getting people wound up. The topic boils down to should people congratulate someone when they've lost weight? First, it implies they weren't "beautiful" "glammed-up" before. Second, they may not have meant to lose weight and are having a health crisis or maybe they have disordered thinking in regards to food. My take on this is that while yes --I do believe that saying congratulations is problematic it can be a valuable encouragement. There is no simple answer. If the person is posting a selfie I don't think you can ever go wrong by saying --you look gorgeous etc. If you see someone in person and notice a change -- commenting on their energy or sense of style could be a good place to start and then use judgment based on how well you know them and where the conversation naturally lands once they respond. Additionally, giving grace to the person giving the comment is important, while some people are passive-aggressive I find most to be genuine in their motivation. Find someone you trust that you can replay the conversation over with when you're feeling hurt or unsure of how to receive a comment.

Coffee
Day 6 of no sweetener in my coffee is going well -- I am enjoying it, I have had sweeter breakfasts to balance it out. For example, on Saturday I made and froze Blueberry Lemon Muffins (see recipe below) for the week. I made a few changes in the recipe using regular milk, not almond, and over-ripe banana instead of yogurt. In related news, I bought a lemon zester -- good purchase, I had been using the side of the cheese grater and maybe it had gotten dull? I don't know...but this new zester is way easier and more efficient. In regards to coffee, after this week I will try giving myself no more than 2 'special' days a week where I get to beef up my coffee with sweetener or cocoa mix as a fun treat and maintain the no sweetener rule on the remaining mornings.

School/Summer
Tomorrow is the 'last day of school'. I checked out of the building for the summer yesterday and all our grades were due last week. I feel like I'm ready to start thinking about how I want to spend my now actual summer break days. I will be taking the rest of this week and all of next week off from Blogging-- as I said in last week's post, it's been a bit of a struggle lately for various reasons. Look for my next Blog post by the end of the month with my June intentions--

Thanks so much for all your support (you know who you are 😉)
Stay well,
Amy

Blueberry Muffin Recipe (Clean & Delicious)

Ingredients

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 cup plain greek yogurt or mashed banana or apple sauce*
• 2 pastured eggs beaten
• 2 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons monkfruit**
• 3/4 cup blueberries
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350ºF and spray a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray or coat with coconut oil or butter to ensure nothing sticks.
  
• In a large bowl combine oats, salt and baking powder and gently toss together.
  
• Mix in milk, Greek yogurt, eggs, lemon zest, lemon juice and monk fruit and stir together until everything is incorporated and you have a rich, thick batter.
  
• Add in the blueberries and almonds and stir until just combined.
  
• Evenly divide the oat mixture between all 12 muffin cups and pop in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until the muffins are set through and lightly golden brown on the top.
  
• Cool completely before removing muffins from the pan and enjoy!
  

Notes

*You can sub in applesauce or mashed banana for the Greek yogurt, if you want to keep the oat cups dairy free.

**Monk fruit is a plant-derived, calorie free sweetener. This is the one I am using. If you prefer, you can use coconut sugar or really any granulated sugar instead of the monk fruit.

***I like to store these muffins in an airtight container in the fridge where they will happily last up to one week. 

****To reheat the muffins, you can slice them in half and place them in the toaster oven or pop them in the microwave for 20-40 seconds.

Nutrition

Serving: 1muffin | Calories: 93kcal | Carbohydrates: 16g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 1mg | Sodium: 105mg | Potassium: 138mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 5IU | Vitamin C: 1.8mg | Calcium: 43mg | Iron: 0.9mg

Focus!

Hello Readers!

I am on the struggle bus with getting myself to post today (or yesterday). One reason may be that I have gotten back into graduate writing. Another is just pure laziness.

Senior awards and scholarships were posted today for my high school. Our counselor made it into a 30-minute video (it's usually well over an hour ceremony). My colleague and I each submitted a short video for the senior music awards. Our graduation has been moved from May 10th to May 31st from inside the gym to outside in the football field from anyone may attend to only siblings, parents, and grandparents. No choir. No band. But we ARE having a ceremony, yay!

Coffee 
I have one cup a day usually with a tablespoon of cocoa mix, some other sweetener, and half-n-half. Lately, I've been enjoying oat/coconut milk half-n-half. I contemplate at times if I should wean myself from sweetener & cocoa. Perhaps the add-ins would be more enjoyable. I plan to try a week of just creamer...I can do one week.

Ezekiel bread
I forgot to add this to my pantry items. It is a staple I store it in the freezer for once in a while.

Birthday(s) weekend
My sister and husband have celebrations this weekend. Food is at the center of the weekends for both locations, as it should be. We are having ribs and ice cream (pistachio and vanilla).

Thanks for reading.
Stay well,
Amy BH