Plantain Muffins

Plantains....holy moly if you have never used these for baking, you are missing out.  They are amazing!   I first learned about there amazing potential from my awesome sister who made my nana pancakes with them instead of bananas!  I was sold.  The reason they are so great for baking is  because of their natural starchiness, which opens up a huge potential for replacing flour in recipes such as cookies, muffins, breads, tortillas and pancakes.  It may be tricky to find these in your supermarket, so you may have to ask for some help, when you do find them try to find some that are brownish as this means they are riper and will be easier to peel and work with and will be sweeter.  I have made the pancakes with these a few times and my family loves them, so I decided to venture further and developed this muffin recipe.  I will probably work on variations now that I am happy with the
basic recipe.  From the mouth of my 3 year old, who prefers this muffin smothered in butter, "If kids eat this, they will love it!"  So there you have it go make them...

Protein Egg Muffins

Are you in a hurry in the mornings on the weekdays?  Off to work early or getting the kids up and ready out the door and to school early?  One of the best ways to get proper nutrition in the morning is to eat a protein loaded breakfast.  These little protein bombs are amazing.  They are simple to prep on the weekends and easy to grab, microwave and eat in the morning on the go.  The reason you want to focus on higher protein in the morning is primarily to avoid insulin spikes that come from typical carbohydrate dense breakfast foods (ie:  cereal, oatmeal, bars, etc...)

Sleep...why I have made it more of a priority

My ideas about sleep have transformed from: "You can sleep when you are dead," To:  "You can sleep when you are dead, which will be a lot sooner then you want, if you don't start sleeping"

Get off the Treadmill and go Play!

Can anyone spot the over-sized kid? 

Have you ever watched kids play?  Healthy kids will play very very hard and rest when necessary, they don't need to go out on 5 mile runs or spend hours at the gym because their entire day is built around moving around, they climb, they jump, they run, they play and it is all effortless.  At the end of the day, their heads hit the pillows and they sleep hard. They are doing what humans were designed to do.  Being active comes second nature to  kids, and somewhere along the lines of becoming grown ups, most of us lose the natural tendency to be active often throughout the day.  We have traded natural activity for desk jobs and forced treadmill runs to try and make up for it.  No fun!

For awhile I have been annoyed at how hard I have to work to maintain my level of fitness, while my husband works out hard for 2, maybe 3 days a week and not that long... while also being incredibly in shape and lean.  So annoying!  So I think I have figured it out, he works out with a 100% intensity for only a couple days a week, plays with the kids endlessly and eats to satiety, while never depriving himself of real food.  So for the last month I have been on a mission to re-think exercise.  Let me just say up front

Kale and Pear Salad

Are you in a salad rut?  I get that way, but this one will cure that problem....in fact it is so simple and refreshing you just my want to make it everyday...which is what I have been doing anyways. 

Bison and Parsnip Chili

I had to make a pretty quick dinner tonight because we were out all day in town so luckily the day before I stocked up on a ton of wonderful food options at Costco, and I am incredibly thankful to be able to shop there as they really have some great choices.  I will come up with another post to list some great items to stock up on if you shop there, this can really help you to navigate away from the less than desirable foods they sell in bulk, I mean unless you enjoy a box of 100+ Twix candy bars calling out your name from the pantry all day long.  Costco can be an awesome place to shop for whole food options...you just have to know what to look for and "think outside the box" ;)  Tonight I just wanted to whip up a meal in one pot so we had less dishes to do and I could spend more time blogging and working on some upgrading of the blog!  I am super excited for the current project I am working on and will share in time when I get things up and running, for now just know that I plan to be a ton more active on here, pushing out new content far more frequently. 

Adrenal Fatigue

I keep coming across this phrase Adrenal Fatigue in various articles, pod-casts and such and I feel like I have been beaten over the head with it lately.  So I decided to explore this further and found out a ton of information that has changed my life.  Not to sound dramatic, but seriously I can't possibly ignore the facts.

 So what on earth is Adrenal Fatigue?  In a nut shell I will attempt to explain a somewhat technical system.  The Adrenal Glands which are two triangle-shaped glands that sit on top of the kidneys, their function is to secrete various hormones that regulate stress, sex hormones, sleep, etc.  Pretty much a big deal those little glands.  Cortisol is one of the main hormones that when the body is put under systemic stress, it is released.  The main functions of Cortisol are to increase blood-sugar levels through gluconeogenesis, suppress the immune system and aid in digestion of macro-nutrients.

The system of communication called the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis is essentially a messenger system.


Here is a little diagram that helps to show in more detail what goes on:  Basically when there is stress (physical, mental, emotional, etc)  the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis responds by sending chemical messengers that transmit signals from the neurons to the target cells across synapses.  Its confusing to wrap your head around, but this diagram really helps to see the connection.  Eventually the cycle continues and unfortunately in most people stress is far more abundant than it should be, therefore homeostasis (the ability or tendency of an organism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes...aka balance) is very difficult to reach.