Paleo Berry Muffins - featured recipe

This recipe comes from another Blog
Kristen & Corey Paleo LogBlog
this blog is super cute and full of simple easy paleo recipes... I thought I'd share this one with you guys and see what you think.

Ingredients:
2 cups       almond flour
1 tbsp       coconut flour
                 (if you have it, lends a rich flavour but you can do without too)
1/2 cup      unsweetened apple sauce
2               eggs
1 tsp         baking powder
                If you want them sweeter, you can add a little Stevia or agave nectar to taste. 
Berries -  I pick a different frozen berry everytime, this morning it was blackberries and raspberries mixed. 

I place 4 or 5 berries on top of the muffins after I pour them into their muffin holders, to prevent blue batter.
Bake at 350 for about twenty minutes

So, I used fresh fruit, (she uses frozen) some honey to sweeten and a small tsp. of vanilla - these were hardcore, by that I mean you need to be ready for something different from a normal muffin. They were very crumbley and tasted strongly of almonds. I made some for my boys with chocolate chips - no go. But honestly, I liked them. I thought the blackberries were a fun pop of flavor and didn't mind the crumble. If you're just dying for a easy baked treat..these would do the trick. Maybe just not for your wheat eating little ones...at least not yet

Are you afraid to fail?

It is often the fear of failure that destroys success.

TO ERR IS HUMAN
By Raymond Jones

If you were to take a long trip, say from Salt Lake City to Hawaii, aboard a 747 with several other people, you might be appalled if you knew who was flying the airplane. It is not the pilots; it is a couple of guys named Fred and George.

Fred and George are two black boxes, and they really are referred to as Fred and George. Fred is a gizmo called an Inerial Navigation System or INS. Fred knows at every moment exactly where the airplane is and where it is supposed to be. In the old days a human navigator took a look at his instruments and did some figuring, and by the time he had the position worked out the plane was long from that spot. Fred knows now where the plane is.

George is the autopilot. He moves the controls to guide the airplane this way and that, speed it up or slow it down. He and Fred talk to each other constantly. If their conversation were in English, it would sound something like this: Fred will say, “George, we’re off course two degrees to starboard.” And George will say, “O.K. Fred, I’ll fix it.”

“George, we’re off course three degrees to port.”
“O.K. Fred, I’ll fix it.”
“George, we’re forty knots below our airspeed.”
“O.K. Fred, I’ll fix it.”
“George, we’re three hundred feet too low.”
“O.K. Fred, I’ll fix it”

This conversation continues all the way to Hawaii, and George and Fred bring the giant plane within a thousand yards of the runway in Honolulu within five minutes of the scheduled time of arrival.

The incredible thing is not so much the accuracy of Fred and George, but the fact that the airplane has been in error 90% of the time of its flight. In error 90% of the time and still it lands on target and on schedule!

In weight loss, in life it is not wether we stay on a path 100% of the time that creates our sucess, I think we so often get obsesed with rules, goals, and numbers we miss the big picture. If we could see that we can get a 747 to Honolulu or a rocket to the moon even having been in error 90% of the time, we might be a little less uptight about being in error ourselves.

There’s nothing that kills performance like fear of failure, fear of being foolish, fear of being caught in error.

So next time you have a bad day, or feel like you've ruined your path by binging, slacking or other - just focus on the things you did right and hit it harder the next day to correct. You'll find that if you just keep working on getting to the goal, reguardless of how many steps "back" you might have along the way, you'll still get there!

Green Chile Chicken Soup

Ingredients:

1 sm        Onion (diced)
1 sm can  Green Chiles
2 cloves   Garlic (diced)
2 cups     Beef Broth
1 cup      Brown Rice (instant or cooked)
splash     Braggs
2 cups    Cooked Chicken
              (I like to grill it with salt/pepper/lime juice)
              Either shred or chunk into bite sized pieces

Fresh Garnish:
Cilantro / Tomatos / Avocado - all diced and mixed together with a touch of lime juice

1. Saute' onions and green chile's until tender.

2. Add Garlic and bloom, heat until fragrant but not burned (about a minute.)

3. Add beef broth, brown rice, Braggs, and chicken.
(if rice is not cooked. add additional water as package suggests and wait to add chicken until rice is cooked)
Heat together until chicken is warm.

Serve with a large scoop of garnish on top of each bowl. Makes about 4 servings.
For a Paleo version - leave out the rice

Breathe...

If you're looking for a little motivation....check this out
Breathe
I just wish I was that fast, this just makes me want to work so much harder! ...hey, still better than yesterday...

Pot Roast

Ingredients -
4 Lb         Pot Roast
1 Lg         Vidalia Onion (quartered)
2 sm cans  Crushed Tomatoes (or Petite Diced)
2 springs   Fresh Rosemary
4-5           Cloves Garlic (diced)
1 TBLs     Thyme
splash       Braggs Liquid Aminos
splash       Worcestershire Sauce
splash       Red Wine Vinegar
1/8 cup     Raw Honey

Directions -
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Get your roast out to rest and come to room temp. Preseason with salt and pepper.
2. In an Oven Safe Pot (I use an enameled Dutch Oven)- skim the bottom of the pot with olive oil and heat on med. Get your oil nice and hot, but not smoking.
Add you roast and sear outsides until they are a nice brown color.
3. Remove your roast.
4.Add in the onions to get a sear on them. Then return the meat. Add your other ingredients to the pot, and bring up to a boil. Put the cover on and pop it into the oven to cook. Cook for about 3 hours. (This will be tender but still solid cook a bit longer for shredded meat 30min+) discard rosemary stems.

This is so great along side your Roasted Veggies.
Leftovers - after dinner, cut up the remaining roast into bite sized pieces and return to the pot, toss in your leftover roasted veggies and a bit of water (until desired consistency) - makes a great rustic stew for lunch the next day. All the tomatoes and spices make a perfect sauce/broth.

JANUARY - TIMING

In January our new goal for the month is all about Timing.

Goal: This one is pretty simple - eat something within the 1st hour of waking (some studies show protein is best for this meal) and then - STOP eating within 2 hours before you go to bed.

Example: For breakfast/snack grab a small handful of almonds with an 8oz (or more) glass of water. This will not be too heavy for a morning workout and will give your body a quick source of energy to kick start your metabolism.
At night try to get on a schedule for bedtime (easier said then done, I know) this way you can have your last little snack (like a quick orange and water) at least 2 hours before sleep.

Why should we care about when we eat? Isn't weight loss all calories in, calories out? Well, first off our goals shouldn't be merely weight loss, but overall heath and happiness. But that aside, there is strong evidence that suggest it is not just WHAT we eat, but WHEN we eat that contributes to both, weight and health.

Researchers at Northwestern University wanted to test whether the timing of meals could influence body weight. To test whether time of feeding alone can affect body weight, the researchers studied two groups of mice who were fed identical diets of food that contained 60 percent fat. They fed one group the majority of their meals during their usual waking period (since mice are nocturnal - this meant at night) then the other group was fed one of their meals during the morning hours, or right before the mice would go to bed. At the end of the six week study period, mice in both groups had consumed about the same amount of calories and performed the same amount of exercise. However, the mice who ate when they normally would have been sleeping hours posted an average 48 percent increase in body weight. The mice who ate on a regular schedule only had an average increase of 20 percent of body weight.
Sure Doctors and Nutritionist alike discuss timing with their patients to help them reach optimal health and weight loss. And in the Athletic world, no trainer would EVER allow their athlete to skip breakfast, or eat late into the night. Anyone else pushing a schedule for eating early and late? Oh yeah Mental Health professionals push this same mantra on their patients too...so what do the Doctors, Nutritionists, Trainers and Therapists know that we don't?

Well for starters, we essentially fast every night, right? So when we wake up we're low in blood sugar, our chemicals are not balanced and we are in a drought. So it's pretty simple really, to get the body shifted over from catabolism to metabolism we need to eat something right away. It gets our levels, both chemical and sugar back into the norm. It starts our bodies into a focused 'producing' mode instead of the foggy 'rest' mode. And at night the opposite is happening, we need to give our bodies time to finish metabolising our last meal so that when our heads hit the pillow, we are out of  'producing' mode and 'rest' mode can begin.

Truth is, it's not as hard as we make it, breakfast doesn't need to mean a huge meal - grab something with a little fat/protein and you're good to start. Granted you will need a real meal at some point in the morning, but if you're like me - that means AFTER a workout. And at night, you should be eating your dinner around 5-6ish so that means if you hit the pillow at 11, you can still squeeze in a quick snack at 8 and be fine till morn.

More reading on the subject:
Does it matter when you eat?
Does it matter how late we eat?
Benefits of eating breakfast.