Friday, March 25, 2016

3 Day Refresh: Not Your Average Cleanse

What is the 3 Day Refresh?

The 3 Day Refresh is a safe, easy, and gentle cleanse that will help boost your energy, clean out the GUNK from your system, and help cut those cravings from the foods you're trying to let go of.

This cleanse is designed for people who have a few pounds to lose or are just looking for a way to refresh their bodies and get some more energy! This by NO means is a starve yourself kinda cleanse, nor is it a pure liquid detox either. You stay pretty full, and most of all, SATISFIED.

So, what will your 3 days consist of??
You're 3 day refresh package comes with 75% of everything you need in those 3 days, so great right?! The cleanse consists of three daily shakes which are high in protein but also SUPER high in nutrients, plenty of filtered water, a fiber sweet supplement, plus a wide array of fruits, veggies, and healthy fats throughout the day to keep your energy up and your metabolism going. It's a low calorie cleanse but packs a power punch with dense nutrition that you'll be getting from Shakeology, a Fiber Sweep drink, and your Vanilla Fresh Protein Shake each day. I'll be the first to tell you, I get HANGRY when i'm hungry and can't eat... at NO point in these 3 days did I feel that way!



The Meal Plan:
What is really great, is although the plan is simple, it offers alternatives for each meal so you can choose what may be most appeasing to you. 

Here's a typical day on the refresh:
Wake Up- Drink 10-12 oz. filtered water
Breakfast- Shakeology with 1 serving of fruit
Mid Morning- Drink your Fiber Sweep which is an all natural digestive health drink. It contains chia seeds, flax seeds, and psyllium seed husk which all promote healthy digestion. 
Lunch- Drink you Vanilla Fresh Shake with 1 serving of fruit, plus have a serving of veggies and a healthy fat from the list provided. I loved hummus with veggies!
Afternoon Snack- Eat something from your vegetable and fats list, or make one of the juices provided in the book. 
Dinner- Drink your second Vanilla Fresh Shake plus a delicious meal from the 3 day refresh booklet which comes with your program.

See, told you starvation wouldn't be an issue... :)




The Final Results...
This cleanse is one of the only detox/cleanses I will do! I feel SO good after the 3 days, usually drop close to 4.5 pounds and a few inches from my waistline. The best part though was the incredible sleep I got and finally getting rid of my CRAVINGS! Man, sugar gets me out of control. 

The top pictures are on day 1 - the bottom pictures are on day 4
In 3 days I lost 4.3 pounds and 5 inches!


3 Day Refresh Expectations:
You can expect improvement in your digestion, energy, and weight loss. The purpose of this program is to put you on the right path towards better health and overall wellness. It's a great program for those who are starting a new fitness program, stuck in a weight loss plateau, or those who just need a quick cleanse after a weekend of indulgences to get their mind and body back on track. After the program, you should full lighter and healthier overall, which is a GREAT push to continuing clean eating and exercise!


**Special Note** For maintenance and continued progress after the refresh, I HIGHLY recommend purchasing the 3 Day Refresh WITH the full supply of Shakeology which is known as the "3 Day Refresh Challenge Pack". You are SAVING money when it is bundled together & you get to continue you progress long after the refresh ends. Definitely a WIN-WIN in my book!


Purchase 3 Day Refresh Challenge Pack!



Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Homemade Protein Bars

When first embarking on my clean eating journey, it was hard to find to healthy snacks that I could take on the go other than fruit, raw veggies, and nuts. Sometimes I really wanted something that tasted guilty, but would still fit into my nutrition guidelines... sound familiar?


I started carrying around quest bars but eventually just got sick of them! I realized the amount of money I was spending on buying boxes of clean bars (I mean really clean...) was crazy! After looking at the ingredients on many of the bars that were portrayed as being "clean" I couldn't believe all the crap that was listed in the ingredients!!

So as you guessed, I made my own. I adopted the recipe from a few other recipes I came across and just picked and chose new ingredients to make my own, CLEAN bar! The result? This is one you need to add to your MAKE NOW list!!!


What You Will Need:
  • 2 cups rolled oats (I used gluten free)
  • 1/2 cup protein powder (I used the vanilla quest powder - if you want to keep the bars dairy and gluten free opt for a vegan protein such as vega one)
  • 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (I used the enjoy life dairy free/gluten free) -- OPTIONAL
  • 1/2 cup chia seeds 
  • 1/4 cup chopped, pitted dates
  • 1 cup PB2 (mix the powder with unsweetened almond milk until you get the creamy consistency of peanut butter)
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
  • Cinnamon
  • Nutmeg
To Make:
  1. In a food processor blend the oats until you get the consistency of an oat flour. Only blend the first 1 1/2 cups, save the other 1/2 to add to the batter as is. 
  2. In a large bowl add the oat flour, remaining oats, protein powder, chocolate chips, chia seeds, and chopped dates.
  3. In another bowl mix together the almond milk and peanut butter. Pour peanut butter mixture over the oat mixture and stir until completely mixed.
  4. Spread mixture into a 9x9 baking dish and cover with tin foil. Refrigerate 5-6 hours until hardened and then slice into 12 bars. I chose to slice mine into 24 pieces just as a satisfying bite sized snack! 
  5. Keep stored in the refrigerator!

Nutrition per serving (1 of 12 bars): 223 calories, 8.8g fat, 29.7g carbs, 8g fiber, 4.7g sugar, 11g protein

Nutrition per serving (1 of 24 bars): 111.5 calories, 4.4g fat, 14.8g carbs, 4g fiber, 2.4g sugar, 5.5g protein 




Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Meal Planning: The Breakdown



Get excited! Meal prepping will enhance your results, increase you confidence, & I promise after time it'll even become a habit! :)


It doesn't matter if you use pen & paper OR if you type it up - just take the time and get it done.

This leads me to STEP 1... Make a PLAN!

1. Keep it simple.
Think about meals you already create if you are already eating clean OR if you're a clean eater in progress think of individual foods you KNOW you like and you won't get tired of. If you keep it simple, you're more likely to keep it up. Don't stress about finding a bunch of different recipes and planning meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the entire week... put your own schedule into consideration and make your plan based off that. 

2. Use the same ingredients - but switch it up.
Write down a list of meals you eat often and see which of those meals have the same protein that you could make in a large batch and use in different meals all week. For example, we go to Sam's club and get a BIG bag of frozen salmon and the big packs of chicken. We grill the chicken which can be used on salads for lunches all week, but can also be thrown into a veggie stir fry, or served alone with some roasted veggies and a sweet potato. The salmon is SUPER easy to make in bulk and freeze so we already have a ton of meals stored in the freezer for "fast meals". 

3. Plan Ahead
When you sit down to make your meal plan, think about what your up coming week looks like. If you already know mornings are CRAZY, snacks are hard to come by, and lunch is convenient to go grab from a nearby restaurant (or worse... drive thru) then obviously those are meals you want to make. If you're working long hours and know you wont want to come home and fix dinner, do like we do and prep some meals that are easy to put in the freezer and thaw out. Snacks can be as simple as portioning out fruit (apples cut and soaked in water with lemon for about 15 minutes then sprinkled with cinnamon make AWESOME snacks for the week!), cutting up raw veggies and portioning them out, or fixing little baggies with raw nuts portioned out so all you have to do is grab & go - no thought process required!

4. Be Flexible
We all know even if we plan our day, week, or month to the very last second - it ALWAYS changes. If you get invited to dinner one night, don't feel like you can't go because you have a meal plan to stick to. The whole idea of making meal plans and prepping ahead is to keep you on track, not keep you anti-social. My advice? Choose something at the restaurant that still aligns with your nutrition goals. Don't be afraid to ask for veggies with no butter, chicken with no butter, and a sweet potato dry (with a dash of cinnamon of course)! Then you stay on track, but still get your time to socialize!

I found this meal planner from another blog and i've now been using it for months. It's simple and makes it easy to plan.

View meal planner HERE

Now that you have everything PLANNED, we're ready for step 2... SHOP!

1. Make a grocery list & stick to it.
Review your meal plan and make a grocery list with everything you will need to make your meals. Once you have that list made, head to the grocery store. DO NOT buy anything that is not on your list! If it's not apart of your plan, you do not need it in your house... aka TEMPTATION.

2. Stay out of the aisles. 
You're probably thinking, ummm what?? Think about it, the aisles contain all of your processed, nutritional deprived food. We don't want that in our homes because we don't want that tempting us to EAT IT. I love eating clean but i'll be the first to tell you if there's cookies in my pantry or ice cream in my freezer, chances are I won't be able to resist. We only have so much willpower & by nighttime, that willpower is usually completely used up!

3. Eat BEFORE you go shopping
Seriously, this is huge! Have you ever gone to the grocery store staving & by the time you come home and unload your groceries you think to yourself "why in the world did I buy all this CRAP"??? Our brains don't work logically when our tummies are growling and all we can think about is eating. It tricks us into thinking buying those oreos or bag of flammin' hot Cheetos isn't a big deal, I mean everything else in the cart is clean right?? WRONG. As soon a you bring it in the house, it haunts you until it gets eaten or thrown away - and lets get real, who's going to throw away a brand new package of oreos without trying a few (or all) of them first?


Guess what??!! The hard part is DONE! It's time to get cookin'!

It may seem dreadful looking at all your food and the thought of cooking and prepping it all in one day, but having your meals readily available to grab and go is essential to your success, trust me, it's worth it!


I don't know about you, but my days are BUSY and i'm constantly on the go. So anything to make my meals a little easier, is a must!

1. Plan an order of cooking.
What I mean by this is look at all of your food and decide what can be baked together, what can be on the stove cooking while the chicken is grilling, etc. I like to bake my salmon (or whatever fish i'm having) at the same time im roasting my vegetables. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone, catch my drift? Then when that's baking, I can cook my quinoa or brown rice on the stove or throw my sweet potatos in the microwave to soften up. I can also go ahead and boil my eggs.

2. Wash and cut all produce.
This may seem like a hassle, but it's WAY more of a hassle to have to wash and cut it every time you go to grab something! Remember, we're making clean eating EASIER.

3. EAT.
Go ahead and store whatever meals you plan to freeze and then organize your fridge where it's easy to grab and go. I like to go ahead and get my meals/snacks together the night before so as i'm heading out the door I can just throw them in my lunch box and go for the day!


I hope this helps in your attempt to start a meal prepping habit! If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below & i'll answer them as quickly as possible!

Be on the lookout for my upcoming blog post "freezer meals" with all the meals i've already tested by freezing and thawing out & which meals made the cut!

Have a crazy awesome day! 

XOXO,
Brianna





Thursday, March 10, 2016

Hi-Protein Veggie Egg Casserole

Are you one of those people who go to bed with this plan - i'm going to wake up early, workout, get ready and wear something REALLY cute, and make a super healthy breakfast to start off my day perfect...? But then morning rolls around & we just press snooze a few too many times and next thing we know we have turned off all of our alarms and all those plans we made before bed are shattered.

Let me tell you, I WAS one of those people. I can honestly say that even if I wake up late and nothing else gets done, my healthy breakfast is ready to go because I prepped it the Sunday before! Hallelujah for meal prepping, right?!

This recipe, might become you're weekly breakfast MUST. Whether it's prepped ahead and put in the freezer for mornings you just run out of time to make your superfood shake, or if you make it ahead so the kids have a nutritious breakfast (seriously get rid of the cereal... after this post you have no reason to keep it around!).

This Hi Protein Egg Casserole can be tweaked to whatever ingredients you prefer - but i'm going to give you my favorite combo & i'm pretty positive you'll love it too! :)



Hi-Protein Veggie Egg Casserole

Serves: 10

Ingredients:
  • 1 lb 97% lean ground turkey
  • 1 lb lean turkey sausage (I like Jennie-O brand)
  • 3 sweet potatoes cut into thin rounds
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 
  • 7 eggs
  • 12 egg whites
  • 2 large zucchini (chopped)
  • 2 red bell peppers (diced)
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 cup chopped Portobello mushrooms
  • 1 10 oz. bag of spinach (i've also used chopped kale and it's amazing!)
  • 3 tomatoes, optional 
Seasoning:
    • 1 tablespoon minced garlic 
    • 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning (I use the EVERYTHING seasoning from flavorgod - but if you don't have it, italian will work)

 Instructions:
  • Preheat your oven to 425F
  • Cut up all of your veggies & sweet potatoes and set aside.
  • Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, your minced garlic, and chopped onion into a large pot on medium heat and cook until onion is halfway translucent. 
  • Add the rest of your veggies to the pot and stir around. Reduce your heat to medium-low and put a lid on the pot. Stirring occasionally, let veggies cook down until they're soft. **You do not want to skip this step because if you forget to cook your veggies before throwing them into your casserole, your casserole will turn out extremely watered down.**
  • While your veggies cook, add your ground turkey and turkey sausage to another pan to cook. Cook until there is no pink viable.
  • Next, in a bowl, mix 7 eggs and 12 egg whites. 
  • Once veggies are cooked, drain ALL the extra liquids out. Then add in your ground turkey & turkey sausage.


  • Spray (2) baking dishes with a olive oil. Add your sweet potato rounds to cover the bottom of the dishes. You'll need 2 11x7 sized sizes.
  • Next add your turkey and veggie mixture on top of the sweet potatoes.
  • Next, pour your egg mixture evenly between the two dishes.
  • Top with sliced tomatoes. 
  • Cover each dish with aluminum foil.
  • Bake for 25 minutes at 425F. **NOTE: Check after 25 minutes, if still slightly watery, cook     another 10 minutes. Keep checking until there is no more liquid consistency in the casseroles.**


Sometimes your egg casserole may want to play this game where it makes these massive bubbles... but don't worry. They go away on their own ;)

NOTE: I love adding avocado to my egg casseroles along with Trader Joe's pineapple salsa! SO GOOD!

1 Serving (21 day fix) - 1.5 Red, 1 Yellow, 1 Green

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

What is 22 Minute Hard Corps?



Imagine 8 weeks of military style bootcamp training with the same creator of the P90X workout series... Only now, you spend only 22 MINUTES a day working out getting the same results as an hour long bootcamp style class at your local gym.



Check out the video on the 22 Minute Hard Corps so you can get a feel on what to expect:

          



What YOU need to know:

22 Minute Hard Corps is exactly how you imagine a boot camp training to be... Intense, quick, and total body drills. Legendary trainer Tony Horton has created a challenging, but simple to follow workout program inspired by training program techniques used in the military.
Each workout is designed to get participants “boot camp fit” in just 8 weeks. Each day of the program consists of a series of total body rounds within the 22 minute workout window, rotating through functional resistance, cardio, and core focused workouts.  It was quick and it was FUN!
8 weeks,  22 minutes.  Period.

Who is this workout for?

Don't let the word "bootcamp" scare you into thinking you aren't capable of doing this workout, or are too out of shape to do something like this. 

THIS WORKOUT IS FOR EVERYONE!

Seriously, Tony designed this workout that everyone can move at the their own pace, modify the moves where they need to, AND you're doing the workout from home... aka you're in control of the pause button, so don't be afraid to use it!

My opinion so far:

I started this workout about a week ago and I was slightly skeptical about working out only 22 minutes a day. I used to be a "lets go to the gym and completely exhaust ourselves" kinda girl and sometimes that logic still creeps in.

A week in and i'm hooked! This is the FIRST workout i've been able to commit to doing at 5:30 am every morning (i'm not a morning person, this is still a struggle, but it gets done) because I tell myself - "in 22 minutes you will be DONE".

I finish the workout panting, sweating, yet feeling so proud because I seem to push myself harder for ALL 22 minutes since I know it's short.

This program has exceeded my expectations so far & I can't wait to see how my body transforms in the next 8 weeks!

What do you get with the program?

- 8 challenging workouts on 2 DVDs
- Quick Start Mission Guide
- 8-week Basic Training Action Plan
-Rations for Results Nutrition Field Guide
-Cold Start pre-workout drill
-Hell Week Challenge Card
-HARD CORPS: Battle Buddy Workout DVD (Network Exclusive)


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