Another crazy breakfast

Obviously I have to keep making things with my meal replacement shakes. I'll be honest, I love these shakes so much more than I ever thought I would. The first time I did a 24 day challenge I was kind of terrified of having to have a shake for breakfast. I thought there is no way I would enjoy it or be satisfied. Instead, I became a bit addicted and wanted one every day. Sometimes I even wanted one twice a day. 😳

Despite all that, I do get into ruts when I just don't want a shake. So I invent crazy recipes instead. 

Today I had 2 little chocolate cakes for breakfast. They were delicious. 

They are pretty much made the same as the pancakes, only instead of messing with the griddle, I pour them into ramekins and microwave those suckers. 

One chocolate MRS

1 egg + 1 egg white

Strawberry applesauce pouch

1-2 tsp baking powder

Blend.

Pour into 2 ramekins sprayed with cooking spray. Microwave 2 minutes.

Top however you wish.

Cake for breakfast!!

Pancakes!

You know those food blogs, with the perfectly staged photographs of the food? They look so pretty and you want to gobble them up. Yeah, you won't find that here.  Every now and then I have to remember how the hell I made something though, because it was just that good, so this is the best place for now.

I have been on this weirdo kick lately where I take a meal replacement shake and try to cook something with it. It's always a gamble. What if it tastes like shit and then I've wasted a precious shake?! Precious, because I also hoard my favorite flavors, and some are limited release shakes, which means when they're gone, they're gone. 

But man, today I made lemon shake pancakes, with what I will call a blueberry sauce. And it is divine. Not pretty, but divine. I may or may not have licked the plate, I'm not telling.

For the pancake, I put in the blender-

One Advocare lemon shake packet

-1 egg plus 1 egg white

-1-2 tsp baking powder

-1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (will probably try 1/4 cup next time)

Blended well and then cooked on the griddle.

For the blueberry sauce-

In saucepan I put:

-about a cup of water (didn't measure, just guessing).

-1 T of this

-one packet Advocare Oasis

-a handful of fresh blueberries

Boiled and simmered for a bit. At the end I removed some sauce and mixed in about 1 T of cornstarch to thicken it.

Poured the sauce over the pancakes and voila! Amazingly delicious.  If I had any whipped cream in the house, I would have thrown that shit on top too.

Pretty stoked to know that was one shake I didn't waste!

My 3rd half marathon!

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I ended up doing another half-marathon a few weeks after the last one. The car accident certainly put a bit of a damper on it, but it wasn't anything a little muscle relaxers and some pain meds couldn't get me through.

This half, I decided to run it with a friend. I promised her I'd get her to the finish line with a better finish time than her last one, because she wasn't thrilled with it.  We decided ahead of time to do intervals the whole way, so off we went. We stuck to them the whole damn race and wouldn't you know, she beat her time and then some. I am not a regular interval runner, but we did rune mile, walk 1/4 mile, for the whole race. It was fun!

Crazy hair, don't care!

Keeping it real, we really only did it for the jacket. Because a race ain't worth running unless the swag is good! 

Keeping it REALLY real, this is what we are for dinner the night before. Everything in moderation?!? 😂

Day who knows what!

I'll be honest, the challenge is over, but I don't have the last 2 days done. Sometimes life gets in the way and this time life really got in the way. 

On Friday afternoon after school, me and my 3 boys went to the gym. I had a great workout- my friend taught me how to use the TRX straps and we did a full body workout. Afterwards, we enjoyed a delicious low carb smoothie and just had a good afternoon. On the way home, I stopped to pick up a pizza for the kids for dinner. It was already 5:30, and I did not feel like cooking for them. After getting the pizza, we were on our way home. Just minutes from the house, I was stopped in a line of traffic, waiting to turn into my neighborhood. To say these things happen in a flash is so true. One second I'm talking to my kids in the back seat, the next second the loudest noise I have ever heard (and one that will haunt me for a long time) and my car is spinning into oncoming traffic. I had been rear ended by what I can only guess was someone traveling at full speed and not slowing down one bit before hitting us. My 7 year went into a frantic panic. I cry just thinking of the sound of his screams. His window was broken and he was trying to climb out of the window in some sort of disorganized panic. As I found my voice to clam him, my 3 and 2 year olds both started crying uncontrollably.  Let's just say, it was unbelieveably scary. 

In the end, our car was totaled, my boys are all physically ok (some emotional aftermath though), and I was minimally injured, all things considered. I am thankful, and I am lucky. 

That said, I had pizza. I had cookies. I had a few other cheats in the days following the accident. I never did my measurements again, perhaps I'll get to it this week. My total loss for the challenge was between 9-10 pounds! I may have floundered the last couple of days of it, but so happy to get that weight off again. 

For now, I am still using Spark, MNS, the meal replacement shakes, and Catalyst daily. I am keeping my eating at about an 80/20 in check. Lots of goodbye meals happening here since we are moving next week. Just trying to enjoy, while not going too crazy. 

Day 22

Breakfast-

Shocker! Breaking the rules and went for a real breakfast this morning. Just testing a theory that the shake, while delicious, doesn't give me enough oomph in my runs. I had oatmeal, PB, 1/2 banana. 

And guess what? I had a pretty darn good 4.25 mile run this morning. So no telling if it was the breakfast or the rest day I took yesterday, but there it is.

Snack-

Lunch-

Chicken and white bean chili

Forgot to have snack. Again.

Dinner-

My last one! Boo!! 😭

Day 21

Nearing the end and suddenly I fall behind on my tracking here!

Breakfast-

And my usual grape spark. 

Morning snack, eaten a bit late-

Lunch-

I'm sure you've figured out I'll try anything once.  This is a cauliflower pizza casserole. Yeah. 

It was not terrible, not fantastic. It just, was.

Afternoon snack-

Dinner-

Evening-

Another weirdo thing I tried. This is a chocolate pudding made with avocados. It was not that great on its own, but with raspberries and banana on top, it was actually pretty good.

Torture:

My kids last day at current preschool is Friday (we move in a few weeks), and these are for the goodbye party in his classroom. Oh how I wish I could dive into them!

Day 20

Breakfast-

Morning snack, before gym-

Workout was some leg/butt strength training and then my favorite deep stretch yin yoga class.

For lunch, I had this white bean chicken chili. This was a swap I made with a friend for some of my vat of 16 bean soup. I believe the recipe is from the Advocare recipe pdf, but not positive. It was really good!

Afternoon snack-

I also had a Coffeecino made with plain almond milk.

Dinner. I will cry when I eat my last one! 

Unexplainable evening snack. A meal replacement shake is probably a bigger snack than I should have at night, but I was really wanting something sweet and filling. It hit the spot.

Day 19

If you turn your head, you can see what my favorite morning Spark flavor is. ;-)

Breakfast.  I love how even when I'm starving, this creamy milkshake actually fills me up.

I grabbed this to eat before my run, because it had been a few hours, but I didn't want anything heavy.

Set out for a run with a friend.  We ended up walking a lot of it, but we had good girlfriend talk time, so it's all good.  It ended up being 3.5 miles.

Afterwards, I snacked on a banana while prepping my spaghetti squash for my lunch.

The DIVINE spaghetti squash:

I used this recipe.  Really I didn't change much.  I brushed the squash with olive oil and sprinkled salt and pepper, and then roasted.  For the filling, I just mixed everything (except corn because I didn't have any) in the pan with the sauce, instead of reserving some sauce to the side.  And on top, I sprinkled the Go Veggie cheese I've been using.

I am no lying when I say, you must make this.  You simply must.

Afternoon snack:

I am not a fan of making 2 snacks a day a pre-packaged thing, and I already had one bar today, but I was in a rush of cleaning.  I realized I was about to skip snack again, and that has not been a good habit, so I grabbed one of these and ate it while vacuuming.

Dinner was lefteover 16 bean soup.  Still delicious!

Evening snack.  Haha, I attempted another one of the protein cakes. It was better than the last one, but still not perfect.  I have now made it my mission to perfect this thing though.

Day 18

I'm loving this combo for breakfast-

Morning snack on way to the gym-

Exercise- warm up on rower, then upper body weight workout with a friend.

Lunch-

Threw the rest of this casserole in the freezer. It is good, but I am tired of eating it.

Afternoon snack-

Coffeecino blended with almond milk and 1/2 scoop cinnamon protein powder

Dinner-

Delicious! Made this soup, only I substituted chicken for the ham. It was delicious, but again, it made too much. Lucky for me I have two neighbors willing to do some swapping!

Evening snack-

Day 17

After my usual Spark, Catalyst and first packet of supplements, I had my yummy breakfast-

Morning snack-

Had it at the gym. In the locker room. In my bathing suit. Haha!

Lunch-

More unstuffed cabbage casserole with rice. Yup, I am getting tired of eating it. It made too much for one person. 

Exercise- took my two little guys out for a walk in the stroller. We did about 3.75 miles and I walked quite slow. Legs still sore. Ugh.

Missed snack again this afternoon. :-( I know that breaks the rules, timing just sucked.

Dinner-

Was yummy. Turkey burger with a smidge of the salsa yogurt dressing and some avocado slices, on lettuce leaves; side of roasted sweet potato ribbons with rosemary and garlic; side of Brussels sprouts with a little balsamic glaze on top.

Snack:

So what's going on here is I made this "cake". It uses egg whites and protein powder, along with vanilla extract and cream of tartar. The description said it was like angel food cake consistency, which mine was not. Now this wasn't horrible by any means, and overall not a half bad way to feel like having a treat and getting in a bunch of protein. It was much better with 1/2 banana slices over it and would probably be great with berries on top. I don't know, this is definitely worth experimenting with I think.