Protein Packed No Grain Pancakes

When I heard the ingredients for these pancakes, I was super skeptical. I mean, how can eggs and a banana make a pancake? But seriously, TRY THEM! They are sweeter than a normal pancake, which means you don't need much syrup (honestly, you may not need any at all!). Best of all? They are SO easy! And you probably have the ingredients on hand at all times!

Seriously, here are the only ingredients:

2 Eggs
1 Banana
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
cinnamon and vanilla to taste

First, throw all of your ingredients into a blender or food processor. You could also just mix them really well in a bowl if you want. I used about 3/4 capful of vanilla extract and several good shakes of cinnamon. 

Blend for just a second or two, until a batter is formed. Meanwhile, melt a little coconut oil in a frying pan or skillet. You can use any oil you want, but the coconut oil adds a nice sweetness that I really like. 

Once your oil is melted, just pour the batter into the size pancakes you want, and let it start bubbling a little around the edges before you flip it (just as you would with a normal pancake). 

Flip it over for only a few seconds on the other side, and that's it! Top it with some real maple syrup, or some fresh berries, and you've got yourself a super delicious breakfast that feels like a guilty pleasure, but is really a very healthy, high protein meal! Who knew eggs and a banana could taste so good?!

Chicken and Cheese Chimichangas

I have to give credit to my sister-in-law Erin for this recipe. It was one of the first of many that I have gotten from her over the years, and it remains a favorite in our house. The best thing about it is that it was so already healthy, so I really didn't have to modify it much for our clean eating lifestyle.

I think what is so great about these chimi's is that they can be thrown together in just a few minutes, and can be on the table in 30 minutes start to finish. Plus, I always make them the night we go grocery shopping and I use a rotisserie chicken! You all know I love shortcuts, and what is easier than using an already cooked chicken? Bonus is that at Costco the rotisserie chicken is only $4.99, so it's cheaper than buying raw chicken and cooking it too!

Honestly, these guys couldn't be easier. Here are the ingredients:

2 1/2 cups cooked and shredded white meat chicken
2/3 cup Pace Pecante Sauce (or chunky salsa of your choice)
1/3 cup sliced green onions
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
1 cup shredded cheese (I use whatever we have on hand-- usually a mexican blend)
Tortillas (best to use corn, but they break more easily. I find sprouted wheat varieties at Trader Joes)
Olive Oil spray

Preheat the oven to 475. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large deep rimmed pan and simmer 5 minutes, or until the flavors are well combined.

Spoon 1/3 cup of filling and 2 tbsp cheese onto each tortilla, and roll up like a burrito. Spray the tops of the chimichangas with olive oil cooking spray (or just brush them with EVOO).

Bake at 475 for 13-15 minutes or until tortillas are crispy and chimichangas are heated through. Enjoy with a dollop of guacamole or greek yogurt and some chopped cilantro on top!

Fruit and Nut Chicken Salad

I have been following the 21 Day Fix meal plan lately, and it has been really eye opening! I learned that even though I was eating clean foods, too many of my calories were coming from carbs each day, and not enough from fruits and veggies. So I've been trying to come up with recipes for lunches that I can eat without any carbs, but I was getting a little bored of having a salad with chicken or salmon on it every day.

I decided to create this awesome chicken salad recipe because I had some leftover rotisserie chicken and didn't want to throw it away. Whenever we go to Costco we buy their rotisserie chicken, because HELLO! It is $4.99 and HUGE! There is so much white meat on it that I had more than what I needed for last nights chicken and cheese chimichangas, so I decided to use ingredients I had at home to create a yummy lunch for today.

I like chicken salad, but it's usually loaded with fattening mayo, which I refuse to eat. Lately I substitute plain fat free greek yogurt for anything that calls for mayo or sour cream, so I decided to use as my base. It didn't have much flavor that way, though, so I started adding other stuff I had laying around. The result was this super delicious fruit and nut chicken salad that was absolutely incredible!

Here is what I used, but of course, feel free to substitute your own ingredients that you have lying around!

1 cup shredded cooked white meat chicken
1/2 cup plain greek yogurt (I used Fage fat free)
1/2 cup chopped apple
1/2 cup chopped red grapes
1/4 cup sliced green onions
1/4 cup chopped toasted pecans
drizzle of honey to taste
salt and pepper to taste

I just mixed it all together in a tupperware and let it sit overnight in the fridge. The next day the flavors had all combined, the apples and nuts were still crunchy but the honey had sweetened everything just enough to reduce the tanginess of the yogurt, and I was one happy girl!

In my efforts to reduce my carbs, I just ate mine with a fork, but it would be really great as a sandwich, or on top of greens as a salad, or scooped up on some whole grain crackers!

Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup

This past week I had so many after-work commitments, I knew it would be nearly impossible to make dinner most nights.  It was one of those crazy "I'm juggling 50 things at once" weeks, and I knew that the only way to make it work was to rely on my trusty crock pot.

In the past I would have driven through somewhere, or ordered food to go from a restaurant. I am so proud of our family for quitting the excuses and relying WAY less on take-out meals. It takes a bit more planning, but if you own a crock pot, it's really very easy to have a healthy, home-cooked meal ready for your family when you get home!

So this week we made minestrone soup. I love minestrone, and it is full of veggies, which works really well for the 21 Day Fix meal plan that I am currently following.  Plus, you can switch up what you serve with the soup to make different meals. The soup is great on it's own, or even better when paired with a nice salad, but our favorite is serving it with turkey and cheese panini's made in our panini press! However you decide to serve it, everyone is sure to love it.

Ingredients:
1 15 oz can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup shredded cabbage
1/2 cup sliced carrot
1/2 cup sliced celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes with basil, oregano and garlic
1 14 oz can beef broth (can use veggie broth if you want this to be a truly vegetarian dish)
3 cups water
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
8 oz fresh green beans, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 cup tiny whole wheat macaroni noodles
2 tbsp snipped fresh parsley
1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese (optional)

To make the soup:

In your slow cooker, place beans, cabbage, carrot, celery and onion. Stir in undrained tomatoes, broth, water, salt and pepper. Cover, cook on low setting for 8-10 hours or high setting for 4-5 hours.

If using low setting, turn to high. Stir green beans and macaroni noodles into soup mixture. Cover; cook for another 30 minutes.  Stir in parsley. Ladle into soup bowls. Sprinkle each serving with Parmesan cheese, if desired.  Enjoy!

My 20 Favorite Clean Eating Snacks

Since I started my journey to clean eating almost 10 months ago, I have incorporated snacks into my daily routine. That's because it's way better for our metabolism to eat 5-6 times a day instead of only 3. I was never a snacker before. I just ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. I really wasn't hungry between meals. But my metabolism was also slow as molasses. At first it was tough for me to remember to eat every 2.5-3 hours, so I had to set an alarm on my phone to remind me when it was snack time. But as soon as my metabolism started to increase, I no longer had to rely on anything but my hunger reminding me to eat. I am almost always hungry at snack time now, especially because my body is used to that schedule.

So you might be thinking that adding two snacks per day would only make you GAIN weight, since you'd be adding more calories. But NOPE! You aren't going to really add more calories, you will just be adjusting your meals to be fewer calories to accommodate for your snacks. Plus, if your metabolism starts to increase, you'll be burning more calories too. So, a few extra will not matter-- you'll come out even and never be hungry!

Honestly, in addition to helping you burn more calories more quickly, eating more often also prevents you from having that panicky "I'm starving" mentality when dinnertime does roll around. And we all know what happens when you start to feel your painfully empty stomach growling, your blood sugar drop, and your mood start to deteriorate-- you want to eat anything in site! Forget your plans to eat a healthy dinner! You start either gorging your face with whatever is closest (is that a Taco Bell over there?) or else you eat too fast and too much, resulting in that oh-so-familiar stuffed feeling that leaves you with the need to unbutton your pants. Ring a bell? I thought so.

So try it. Seriously, try it for a week. Try eating more often and see if you don't feel more energy without the blood sugar highs and lows. See if you don't have more control over eating healthy and sticking to proper portions. And see if you aren't more satisfied overall. But don't just snack on chips and cookies. That defeats the whole idea.

So what should you snack on? Here is a list of my 20 favorite clean eating snacks. I always include a protein and a complex carbohydrate so that my body takes longer to process the carbs, resulting in fewer blood sugar spikes. The protein is also more satisfying, meaning you will stay full longer.

1. apple slices dipped into 2 Tbsp natural peanut butter
2. strawberries and 12 cashews
3. cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes dipped into hummus
4. nonfat plain greek yogurt with mixed berries and 1 tsp honey
5. string cheese and handful of grapes
6. 2 hardboiled eggs with the yolks removed, filled with hummus
7. Ak-Mak crackers topped with turkey and cheese
8. 1 piece of Ezekial toast topped with natural peanut butter and 1/2 banana sliced
9. celery sticks stuffed with either natural peanut or almond butter and topped with raisins and cinnamon
10. Lara Bars (my fave is apple pie)
11. Quest Bars (my faves are chocolate chip cookie dough and strawberry cheesecake)
12. Trader Joe's spicy egg white salad with 5 whole grain crackers
13. romaine lettuce leaves wrapped around turkey, avocado and bell pepper slices
14. mini sweet peppers dipped in guacamole
15. 1 cup edamame salad (shelled edamame, corn, black beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers all tossed in a mixture of olive oil, lime juice, cilantro and cumin)
16. 2 no bake peanut butter oatmeal energy balls 

17. Shakeology

18. veggies dipped into ranch or onion dip made with greek yogurt (instead of sour cream)
19. 1 cup quinoa strawberry feta salad

20. frozen banana/peanut butter "sandwiches"

I hope that some of these snack ideas are helpful to you! What would you add to this list?

What is the 21 Day Fix?

Maybe you've heard about the newest Beachbody workout program launching this month, The 21 Day Fix, and maybe you haven't. Either way, you are about to hear about it all over the place, because this is going to be REVOLUTIONARY! I am so excited to get this program and experience it for myself, and I'm even more excited to watch others go through it with me and get amazing results!

What is 21 Day Fix? 21 Day Fix is THE fitness and nutrition program to help you lose up to 15 pounds in 21 days. The unique nutrition plan uses specifically portioned food storage containers that eliminate the guesswork from portion control - no weighing, measuring, or counting calories, carbs or points. If it fits in the container, you can eat it. And you'll lose weight.

The 21 Day Fix is different from any other Beachbody program because it includes color coded food containers that regulate your portion control. What does this mean? It means all of the guesswork about nutrition and portions is taken away, and you are left with an easy-to-follow, simple guideline that will ensure you maximize your results. No counting calories, no foods off limits! Yes, that's right, you can even have some chocolate and wine! If it fits into the container, you can eat it. If it doesn't, you can't. It's that simple. There are containers for each food group (veggies, fruits, protein, carbs, fats, etc.) and then a plan for how many of those containers you can eat in a day, based on your current weight. How easy is that? And of course you get to keep the containers forever, so you can continue to monitor your portion control until it becomes second nature. 

The program also includes seven 30 minute workouts, including: 

• Dirty 30 workout (a bootcamp circuit style workout)
• Total Body Cardio Fix
• Upper Fix
• Lower Fix
• Pilates Fix
• Cardio Fix
• Yoga Fix

So every single day of the week is a different workout, giving your body a total makeover through muscle confusion and variety. And every single workout is only 30 minutes, so you don't have to spend a lot of time to get great results! 

Everyone can do 21 Day Fix and get great results. Each workout has a modifier to show easier moves. The test groups included fit people as well as people with 100+ pounds to lose, to be sure that anyone could be successful with this program. If you are already in great shape, you will follow the advanced moves. If not, you'll rely on the modifier. No matter what, the 21 Day Fix has an option for you.

The 21 Day Fix was created by Autumn Calebrese, a fitness trainer, a competitve bikini model and single mom who knows exactly what it takes to be successful, even with a very busy schedule.  Autumn came up with the idea of the program one day after going out to lunch with a friend who was struggling to lose weight. This friend was working out and eating healthy foods, so she wasn't sure why she was struggling. At lunch, both Autumn and her friend ordered a very healthy salad, but when it was brought to the table, it was huge. While Autumn ate about 1/3 of her salad, her friend finished the whole thing. That's when it hit her like a ton of bricks: portion control is the issue! You can overeat on  healthy foods too! Thus, the 21 Day Fix was born. 

Autumn has said from her test group results that people can expect to lose 10-15 pounds in just 21 days if they stick to the workouts and the eating plan. How amazing is that? It may sound unhealthy to lose so much weight in so little time, but this plan is so well designed that it ensures you are getting proper nutrition and exercise so that you lose weight in a very healthy way. Plus, the plan incorporates Shakeology, which means that you are getting your daily dose of dense nutrition as well.  

Why 21 Days? 

It is said that it takes 21 days to develop a new habit. So in the three weeks that you complete this program, you will be on  your way to maintaining that healthy lifestyle permanently. Of course you can continue to repeat the 21 day fix many times, as well. As a matter of fact, some of the test group members repeated the program numerous times to lose up to 45 pounds!

Honestly, there is no other program out there like this. If you are ready to see amazing results in just three weeks, contact me to join my exclusive test group starting on February 17th. You will get the 7 workouts, the portion control containers, the eating plan, Shakeology and of course the support and motivation of me as your coach! I will NOT let you fail! Together we will change your body, your nutrition, and your life. 

Message me below or contact me at danarsimon@gmail.com to get started!

Crockpot BBQ Apple Pork Tenderloin

I am obsessed with finding new healthy crockpot meals! My goal is to make dinner in the crockpot at least once a week, ideally twice. I mean, how awesome is it to come home from work and have dinner ready? It is so much better than stopping to pick something up, or having to slave in the kitchen for an hour when I am already hungry and exhausted.

I adapted this recipe from one I saw on Pintrest, and it was so simple and delicious that I couldn't help but share! There are literally 4 ingredients. That's it! You can't get much easier than that, right? Plus, it's pretty versatile, so you could easily change it up a little bit to make different variations.

Here are the ingredients:

1 pound pork tenderloin (you could use turkey or beef tenderloin if you don't eat pork)
1 cup unsweetened applesauce (chunky is best, but not necessary)
1 cup BBQ sauce
1/4 cup minced onion

It was really eye opening to find a BBQ sauce that was anything I could consider adding to a clean recipe. Almost every single bottle in the store had high fructose corn syrup, and usually as the first ingredient! Some of them had more than 20 ingredients that I did not recognize, and many topped off at more than 20 grams of sugar per serving! I did end up finding a good choice though, with all natural ingredients that I recognized and only 6 grams of sugar per serving. Just check your labels carefully and choose wisely. Or, you could choose to make your own BBQ sauce. Simply google "homemade BBQ sauce" and a ton of recipes come up. For my purposes, I was trying to make a super fast meal that could be thrown into the crock pot in 5 minutes on a weekday morning, so I wanted to use bottled.

To make this, you literally just have to place the pork tenderloin, silver skin removed, on the bottom of the slow cooker.

Mix the applesauce and BBQ sauce together and pour evenly over the pork. Top with minced onion. Cook on high for 6 hours. When done, the meat should easily shred with two forks. Stir the shredded pork with the sauce and let it sit in the crock pot for about 5 more minutes, to make sure that all of the meat has been soaked with the sauce.

I served the meat on top of a piece of whole wheat toast with a spinach and raspberry side salad, but it would be great as a shredded pork sandwich on a bun, or on top of rice, or even wrapped up in lettuce! There are tons of options.

Hope you enjoy!