Month: December 2014

Mexican Brunch Pie

Posted on December 26, 2014 by - Breakfast

Mexican Brunch Pie Recipe from That Vibrant Life
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Mexican Brunch Pie Recipe from That Vibrant Life

Mexican Brunch Pie

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  • Author: Jessica Parker
  • Prep Time: 15
  • Cook Time: 30
  • Total Time: 45
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Description

I make this every Christmas morning and sometimes Easter.  It’s a hit, supper yummy AND EASY!!! Great for those watching carb intake but wanting something tasty at a brunch.  You could absolutely add bacon, sausage, veggies if you’d like but it really is amazing as is.

 

This recipe calls for regular flour, but I use almond flour to make it gluten free and more keto friendly. I also like to double the recipe so we have leftovers for a couple of days (it really doesn’t last long at my house). It makes for an easy breakfast or snack that is full of protein and healthy fat. Just heat it up in the microwave.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 5 eggs, beaten
  • 2 tbsp butter, melted
  • ¼ cup all-purpose flour (I use almond flour)
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • 1 cup cottage cheese
  • 2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (or Pepper Jack which is a fav at my house!)
  • 1 (4 oz.) can chopped green chilies, drained

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400F.
  2. Mix beaten eggs with butter (melted) & baking powder & flour in a large mixing bowl at medium speed until mixture is well blended.
  3. Stir in cottage cheese, shredded cheese & green chilies.
  4. Spoon into a well-greased pie dish.
  5. Bake at 400F uncovered for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 350F and bake another 20 minutes or until set.
  6. Let cool about 10 minutes. Slice and serve!

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 8
  • Calories: 2
  • Sugar: 2
  • Sodium: 2
  • Fat: 2

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Christmas “stuff”

Posted on December 25, 2014 by - Balanced Living, Fitness

Wellllll. There goes Christmas and in a week we will be saying goodbye to 2014. I know we say it all the time…but, really…what happened to the year?!

The holiday season always makes us kind of take inventory of our lives, doesn’t it? This time of year brings joy and pain and struggle and closeness; creates memories as well as brings up hard ones. It’s a chaotic whirlwind that ends up in a pile of wrapping paper and ribbon in an unbelievable short amount of time. So much effort is put into creating this big show…this production that we hope impresses our loved ones, our neighbors, our coworkers. Some of us are really interested in it and some of us just go through the motions. The lights, the movies, the cookies and candy….so much. I really always love Christmas Eve and taking time out to go to church to quiet all of that and refocus on the reason for all the buzz. Today, we went on a hike and I felt like that was part 2 of that “refocusing”.

All of this is such a great metaphor for life. Constantly busy trying to GET more and BE more. We are professionals at being distracted. I mean…we’re good. This afternoon I went and watched the movie, “Wild” based off the book by Cheryl Strayed about her Pacific Crest Trail hike; but really, about her life. Have you seen it? More importantly…did you read it? We can sit here and debate the stupidness of some of her decisions regarding her hike; but I’m more interested in the “about her life” piece.

Here is a lady who physically removed herself from the “chaos of it all” and was able to, thankfully, set herself back on a good path after experiencing heartbreaking loss. She was able to get out there and be alone with her struggle to just stay alive and take care of her physical needs. It cut away all the excess struggles we often times create for ourselves. Granted, it’s sort of fairy-tale land for most of us to even consider “dropping” life for a few months to do something like that. Perhaps we can purpose to create lives that are just a little bit more mindful in the day-to-day stuff, though?

I don’t know. Sometimes I just don’t think I have “that” in me. Being more mindful. What does that look like? Have you ever seen the movie “Eat, Pray, Love”? Remember when she is…wherever she was, at a retreat perhaps…and she was trying to mediate in that room full of people. She was trying so hard and just so awkward about it. It seemed as though 20 minutes had passed with the way her mind raced from thing to thing. Then, she looks up just as the clock ticks over one minute. It had been one WHOLE minute that she had been sitting there “meditating”. Well, I’m that girl. I don’t like to force myself to be still. I don’t like it. I don’t think that’s a bad thing either. What I have discovered about myself is that I get centered and grounded through active things. Running and hiking and just being outside in general do that for me. Really working hard and sweating takes me to a different place physically and my mind and emotions follow suit. Writing is another form of that for me, but a good hard run is my absolute favorite.

So now that we’ve gone down that tangent…we’re going to go down the whole tangent of exercise and fitness in general. I mean, this is a health and fitness blog after all. 🙂 The bottom line when I am working with clients or participants in a class, is that I want to help them get to this “mindful space”. I truly believe that struggle with weight and health in general stems directly from our crazy relationship with distraction. It is a symptom of it. This is one HUGE reason it is so. darn. hard. to lose weight! It really is about changing mindset and lifestyle. FOOD IS OUR DRUG. It is. Watching “Wild” tonight made that realization surface for me once again as I watched her sabotage her life with drugs, sex, bad relationships. We use food and no one can say a darn thing about it…because “everybody’s doin’ it” AND we need food to survive. Dang that’s a hard one.

So to wrap it all up (excuse thebad pun), I challenge you each to think about this whole “mindfulness” thing. What works for you? How can you be more mindful in your life? Is there excess that needs trimming (I’m not taking about pant size…well, that too) that is unnecessary distraction? A worse crime than picking up another cookie, downing another soda and adding to your overflowing calorie allotment for the day, is the heart and mind numbing effect that takes place because of it. Think about that one for a few.

I truly hope you all had a lovely Christmas!

My “WHY” & believing in more

Posted on December 18, 2014 by - Inspiration

Today I heard something on a podcast I was listening to that went something along the lines of “it’s not just about fitting into your jeans, it’s about being happy”. So simple and so true. It made me think of my why, which is very simple, and yet very multidimensional and super personal at the same time.

This “before” picture is me probably middle school aged right before I went on my “first” diet. I was miserable growing up. I always felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere whether that was with my family or peers. My family was a mess. Never did I feel anyone believed in me. They didn’t even believe in themselves. I was painfully shy and would just melt into the wall hoping to go unnoticed. I really had no confidence whatsoever and could not relate to the girls my age. I was too shy to act out and rebel against my dramatic and unstable surroundings and yet I didn’t know how to deal with it in a positive way. And so I ate.

Food was my comfort. I was always the quiet girl either tagged as “nice” or “snobby” depending upon how my shyness and lack of confidence was interpreted. One night, my mom sat me down on my bed and told me I was getting fat. Well, she didn’t say it, she just said, “you’re getting…” and she puffed up her cheeks and held her arms out to paint the picture of a fat person. Hmmm. What a moment. Burned into my heart. Although there are far more loving and tactful ways of addressing such a topic, I took it seriously. I lost 20 pounds on my first diet. I was in the 7th grade.

I will say that I ended up gaining confidence through taking control of my weight. I followed a diet that allowed me dry toast and plain peppermint tea for breakfast, cottage cheese, pineapple and walnuts for lunch…I think chicken and veggies for dinner… I remember getting candy from friends at Christmastime and just saving it all up in my room, proud that I didn’t touch even one piece. And so the cycle began.

My weight went up and down over the years and so did my family. I had already been in therapy and continued, participating in group and individual therapy. (I HIGHLY recommend this and will talk more about it in a later post). Fast forward on this crazy journey. I realized that food was my drug of choice. I ended up struggling hard with an eating disorder for many years. Food offers you that substance that is not only legal, but necessary. I was able to hide my abuse of it by keeping my actions secret and using exercise and not strict dieting to cover up the damage I was doing. I could go days hardly eating a thing because of the binging I would do. Exercise became my saving grace. It was another addiction, though. If I didn’t get in my certain amount of minutes/days each week I felt out of control. I irrationally thought everything would unravel and I would turn back into that girl sitting on my bed when my mom told me I was fat. That was my nightmare.

In the midst of this, though, began my relationship with God. I knew that I was made for more. I knew that, I was more than the dysfunction I was born into. I knew I was more than my struggle with food. I knew I was more than my struggle with self-esteem. I knew that somehow, my life had purpose. What that was…I had know idea. But, I was determined to find it.

So, on life went, very touch and go with my disorder, always working on myself in therapy, a strong relationship with exercise, dysfunctional choices in men…and on and on. However, my faith has always been my true saving grace. God has truly been my rock, even when I felt that I was just flat on my face. There has always been an underlying, undying belief that there is meaning even in my pain, despite so many mistakes…

So, here I am. I have a nine year old son who I consider a miracle, simply because children are just that. I have been a single mom since he was 2. During these single mom years I have earned a masters degree in Health Psychology, gotten certified as a Health Coach and as a Fitness Instructor. Life is often far too busy for my own taste, but I am so very thankful. I finally can say that I believe in myself.

My “why” when it comes to health and fitness is about fighting. I refuse to be the person I believed I was growing up. It is never too late to become who you know you can be. It doesn’t happen overnight, but the journey is a beautiful thing. This is why I love doing what I do. Sure, it’s thrilling to see people lose weight and fit into their jeans. But, what I live for is those moments you see tears in someones eyes because they have found hope again. I have watched people get back in touch with this belief in themselves and I am SO honored to be a part of it. It takes great courage to “go there” and be that real with yourself and others. It is incredibly worth it, my friends!

So much love to you this Chirstmas!

Courage

Posted on December 11, 2014 by - Inspiration

Don’t you hate it when people give you the whole “when life hands you lemons…” line? Life sometimes just plain sucks. I think it’s okay to acknowledge that. There are things that I just don’t understand and it makes my head hurt to even try. And, to make matters worse, often times the very best things we could be doing for ourselves are the very things we DO NOT feel like doing. AT. ALL. Why is this? Never mind…head starting to hurt.

I do know that I spent many years blaming my past for my own pain. Bottom line…it did nothing for me. All it did was help me look down. When you’re looking down you’re life feels like…well…one big downer. The problem is that we do need to be real about the crappy stuff. It’s there. We need to get down in the dirt and just work hard and grieve and struggle sometimes and it’s ok to hate it. But, it’s not ok to stay stuck.

How do you know if you’re stuck? I think you just know. I think when we are really, painfully honest with ourselves, we know.

Sometimes we just have to kick ourselves in the pants, peel our eyeballs of the sidewalk and force ourselves to look up and decide “THINGS ARE GOING TO CHANGE AS OF NOW”. That doesn’t mean it’s all sunshine and gumdrops from then on… it means I will take the crap in my life and use it to my advantage. Sometimes that means I am going to fake it, knowing that staying the course will be SO WORTH IT.

Thank you, GOD for do-overs, for forgiveness, for GRACE, for purpose behind the junk I just. don’t. get. Thank you for loving the stuff about me that I hate. Thank you for being FOR ME.

You really are entirely up to you. Don’t give the other stuff your power!!

Getting the most out of your exercise! Are you working hard enough to make a difference??

Posted on December 4, 2014 by - Fitness

Had this little conversation the other night at the gym with a couple…he LOVES exercise and she…tolerates it. Ha! A lot of people really want the benefits of exercise, but are not interested in things like…sweat. :-O In our little chat sesh, this couple and I were talking about being sore the day after (or two days after) a good workout. Her argument was that people will not want to continue with an exercise program if it makes them sore.

This made me stop and ponder the whole idea.

The truth is that “sore” is just part of the whole deal. I happen to love being sore because it’s a good indication that I worked my booty off (perhaps somewhat literally?!)! For those new to exercise programs, I would suggest easing into it so that the next day reminders as you try to lift yourself out of your chair, aren’t too much of a deterrent. HOWEVER…be careful not to stay in this “safe zone”! If you want real progress…work has got to be done! And, truth be told, you WILL feel it.

This leads me to the graphic about target heart rate above. While I think it’s excellent that people just move more in general, too many people do far too little and get nowhere with results. Knowing your target heart rate and then making sure you hit it and STAY there for at least 30 minutes is a great way to know you are getting your body in a zone that will burn fat and help you lose weight. This used to be a big deal in the exercise world…I remember stopping mid-class and the instructor would have us check our heart rates. I don’t even notice these charts anymore at gyms…do you??

HOW TO USE THE CHART:
You could do the formula…220 – your age…OR look at the bottom of the graphic, find your age range and then move up to the heart rate range you want to be at. I recommend staying between “moderate” and “hard” to really turn up your furnace and burn fat. For example: since I’m close to 40 *gasp*, my target heart rate should be between 126-144. So…how do we do this?

First of all, you need to allow your heart rate to reach its target before you check it. I always exercise for about 5 minutes to warm up and really get my heart pumping before I ever check my heart rate. When it’s time, I just use my pointer and middle finger to find the pulse on my neck or the inside of my wrist and count for six seconds then just add a zero to get your current heart rate. You will want to keep it there for 30 minutes minimum. This little video will walk you through assessing whether or not you are at your target:

http://youtu.be/sj80z6RY_34

***IMPORTANT*** Everyone’s target heart rate will look different in terms of how hard they have to work to hit it! One person might JUST be starting out and have a lower fitness level, so walking alone without much speed will really spike their heart rate. Someone who is a regular runner will likely not be able to reach their target heart rate even with speed walking. Each person is different and this is one reason why its important to check your heart rate. I should look out at my class while I’m teaching and see people working at all different levels because each person is coming from a different fitness level.

I’ll wrap it up with this:
I heard someone say today that “WORK WORKS”. Yes, it does! When I workout and I’m sore…I know I worked. When I take my heart rate and make sure I am in my target heart rate range…I know I’m working. If you want to see results, do the work. These are just ways to measure your output to ensure you are putting forth the appropriate amount of effort!

Hope you all are having a fabulous week!!

Love and blessings!