Sign Up for My Email Newsletter

Get My Fitness Video E-Course FREE!

sprinting spoon

Faster Fitness, Food, & Health

Avocado Black Bean Frittata

by Filed Under: Blog, Food Leave a Comment

So, “Brinner” is a thing at our house…usually at least one time weekly.  Some people may call it breakfast for dinner, but, really, who has time to say all that?  Let me give you a few reasons why we love brinner so much:

1.  We love eggs.  Our family can easily eat three dozen eggs every single week.  (There are only 2 adults and 1 tiny human in our family, so I think that is kind of a lot.)  Eggs are extremely nutrient dense, cheap (even if you buy the pricey ones that are all free range and organic and clucking happily as they lay…for protein, they are an economical option!), and easy to prepare on a busy weeknight.  Sometimes I work until 5:30 or 6 (as do lots of people), and so eggs are just a great way to get dinner on the table fast without any stress or forethought.

2.  Brinner can be high protein/high fat/low carb without being pricey.  I’ve found some pretty decent eggs at my local market that run me about $1/dozen.  So, our fascination with eggs doesn’t break the bank.  Hooray!  Plus, if you’ve read anything else on here, you know how much I love fat!  Do NOT throw those egg yolks away and just eat the whites (ick…so bland…)!  So, with brinner we get a nice low carb dinner that keeps us on par with our budget.

(On a side note, wanna know what my child’s first food was after fermented cod liver oil?  Egg yolk from a 4 minute boiled egg mixed with a bit of frozen raw beef liver and himalayan pink salt.  Yep.  Not even joking.  The best part?  He loved it!  Maybe I’m not the only one who’s crazy…  So, to say that we like our eggs around here is putting it mildly.  He’s almost two now and he puts down two scrambled eggs every single morning…usually in about 30 seconds.)

3.  I just freakin’ love breakfast.  I am not one of those people that can just blend a smoothie in the morning and be good ’til lunch.  Nope.  Breakfast is a meal for me, and I could eat breakfast foods for all three meals probably…and sometimes I do!  On the contrary, the Hubs is not a breakfast person at all.  He’s more of the, “I’m just eating this because I know I should” kind of guy.  But, he does love his eggs, too, so he’s really quite happy with the brinner thing.  In fact, he gets excited when he gets home and sees it/smells it…normally it involves bacon…so, I mean, how does that not make you happy?

So, with all that being said, our brinner does not center around pancakes or waffles (although I do enjoy some alternative pancakes here and there for actual breakfast).  Our brinner is centered around the good ol’ egg in various ways, shapes, and forms. [Read more…]

How to Get an Autoimmune Disease: My Journey with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis

by Filed Under: Blog, Health Leave a Comment

Last week I spent my “blog hours” watching The Thyroid Secret, a docuseries produced and hosted by Dr. Izabella Wentz.  It has confirmed my suspicions about a lot of the problems with conventional medicine’s approach to treating the thyroid (and autoimmune conditions in general), given me some additional tools to help me get my disease successfully regulated and into remission, and fired me up about dialing in my diet for a little while (a particular part of treating my thyroid that can be hard and certainly inconvenient at times).

I thought I’d use this opportunity to share a little more about my journey with Hashimoto’s and how I suspect I got the disease.  Dr. Wentz attributes three things to how one develops an autoimmune condition (and what may trigger it to “turn on” in our bodies and start attacking us).  I’ll be detailing those factors below and what that looked like for me. [Read more…]

Double Chocolate Avocado Cookies

by Filed Under: Blog, Food 2 Comments

I’ve mentioned in a few other posts that I really try to avoid gluten and most dairy for the sake of healthy thyroid function.  But, you guys.  This is a thing: I love cookies.  They are my favorite treat.  (I also really, really love ice cream, but I think I love cookies even more.)  Cookies are just the best.  My mom had me baking cookies with her probably just as soon as I could sit on the counter, and, well, not to toot my own horn or anything (toot, toot!), but I do know how to make a dang good cookie.

So what’s a girl to do?  Make a gluten free cookie!  Duh!!  (Occasionally I do still make real deal chocolate chip cookies, but I can’t most of the time.)

Two days after I had Landon, two of my friends showed up with a whole big dinner for us and these ridiculous double chocolate cookies.  I ate them.  All.  I don’t think the Hubs even had one.  They were so comforting and kinda the best combination of chocolate, more chocolate, cookies and cake.  I don’t even really like cake.  After these cookies, I was willing to reconsider.  So, I tracked down my friend and begged her for the recipe.  And now I’m sharing it with all of you. [Read more…]

Oil Pulling: What it Is, How to Do It, and Why You Should!

by Filed Under: Blog, Health Leave a Comment

I briefly mentioned in my “Day in My Life” post that my morning routine involves oil pulling.  I’ve had a lot of questions about this somewhat weird routine of mine, so I decided it deserved a post all its own!  What the heck is oil pulling?  How do I do it, and why on earth would I?

What is oil pulling?

Oil pulling is really just a fancy way of saying you swish oil around in your mouth.  That’s it.  To be a bit more specific, I put about one tablespoon of coconut oil in my mouth when I get up in the morning (before food, drink, or brushing my teeth), “pull” it back and forth through my teeth for twenty minutes, and then spit it into a sandwich baggie that I throw in the trash.

Oil pulling is actually an ancient Ayurvedic practice which originated in India thousands of years ago.  In the past twenty years or so, it has gained a bit of traction amongst the crunchy crowd in the Western world.

Oil pulling has loads of purported health benefits including: [Read more…]

A Day in My Life: Stacey

by Filed Under: Blog, Life Leave a Comment

A Day in My Life: Stacey

This post is the first in a series of posts where we get a glimpse of the everyday lives of other people, read about their day-to-day routines, perhaps glean a few helpful tips and tricks, but, most importantly, leave feeling encouraged!  What this is not: the place to play the comparison game.  Everyone has unique struggles and stresses and nobody is perfect!  (Okay, end of rant…steps down off soapbox…)

So I thought I’d start with my own life.  Here’s a semi-typical Monday for you… [Read more…]

On Breaking Up with Frozen Pizzas/Delivery for Good

by Filed Under: Blog, Food Leave a Comment

You guys.  I’m just gonna go ahead and do it.  I’m sharing one of my biggest kitchen secrets in this post.  My most highly requested recipe.  The meal that I probably make for guests most often.  The meal that I make every.single.dang.Friday.

Today, I give you my pizza recipe.

Today is not the day that I go all nice and gluten free.  Today is not the day for all things paleo.  Today is about pizza night, and that’s a topic we take rather seriously in our house.  You see, we work pretty hard to be able to do whatever the heck we want on the weekends.  I mean, burning the candle at both ends Monday through Thursday is totally worth it to me if I get to just have fun on the weekends.  No weekend trips to the grocery store.  No laundry.  No cleaning.  Even when I was working (ahem, before I became a stay-at-home mom and stopped getting paid for working), this was the case, and it’s how I like to keep it!

So, by Friday night, the Hubs and I are toast.  We stay in.  We wear yoga pants.  We watch our current Netflix show or a movie.  And we eat pizza.  In fact, my husband has requested an email by noon on a Friday if for some strange reason we are not having pizza on a Friday night.  He would be so disappointed, he needs half a day to wrap his mind around it.  On Fridays, his coworkers leave wishing him a happy pizza night.  It’s kinda a big deal for us. [Read more…]

How I Got the Abs I Wanted (Without Crunches or Hating Food!)

by Filed Under: Blog, Fitness, Health 2 Comments

I really debated whether or not I should even write this post.  In fact, this post might even be slightly more narcissistic than my “Secrets of a Pregnancy Unicorn” series.  But here’s the thing: lots and lots of people are self-conscious about their midsections.  They’ve tried all the conventional tips and tricks to no avail.  They still don’t have the abs that they want (or arms or butt or thighs or whatever they’re trying to “fix”).  I just want people to know that they really can have the abs (and the body!) that they want, and, in some ways, it may be easier than they think!

You see, my approach doesn’t involve a single crunch (please just stop doing those things…they’re really ineffective at core strengthening, and they’re not too great for your neck or your back…not to mention how extremely boring they are)!  I also don’t recommend any crazy “diets.”  In fact, I hate the term “diet” they way Americans use that word.  Guess what?  You’re already on a diet.  Your diet is simply what you eat.  A “diet” is not a list of rules that force calorie restriction for a short period of time until a magic number appears on a scale.  That’s (most of the time) just self-sabotage.  What do you do when your “diet” ends?  Generally, gain the weight back slowly over time (and maybe a little more…you’ve now tanked your metabolism with all your calorie restriction).  So if my plan doesn’t involve crunches or “diets,” what should you do?

Here’s how I got the abs I wanted, and how you can too… [Read more…]

My Top 7 Favorite Things for a Home Gym

by Filed Under: Blog, Fitness, Training Leave a Comment

It’s that time of year again!  Time when many people start thinking about goals.  Goals for health and fitness have got to be some of the most common goals.

So you want to start working out?  Great!  But what do you do if joining a gym just isn’t a feasible option for you?  Either the cost is not in the budget, or the time spent driving to and from the gym just ends up making fitness take up way too big of a space in your day, or you have children that you can’t exactly bring to the gym with you.  What’s a person to do?

My advice?  Invest in some home gym equipment!  Now, personally, I do have a gym membership, and I really, really love it, but there are still plenty of times when it is not feasible in the schedule of my day to get there.  So, I love having some home gym equipment at home that I use to bust out a quick 20-30 minute workout.

New to working out?  Feeling dazed and confused about which exercises to do let alone which equipment to purchase?  Not to worry!  See my list below! [Read more…]

Total Body Giant Sets Workout (with Plyometrics!)

by Filed Under: Blog, Fitness, Training Leave a Comment

I’m excited to bring you another at-home, little to no equipment workout today…complete with fancy little GIFs that will help you see how to do each exercise!  So, there are a few things that I love to incorporate into many of my workouts:

  1. Multi-joint exercises.  No wasting time working one muscle at a time.  Get more bang for your buck with each exercise by performing multi-joint exercises.
  2. Plyometrics.  Because I love adding a cardio component to my strength workouts without a single step onto those dreaded “cardio machines.”  Boring and not the most effective of exercise.  Enter plyometrics!   These jumpy sort of exercises provide high intensity interval training within your strength workout, boosting metabolism and balancing hormones.  Winning!
  3. Little to no rest between sets.  I hate standing around waiting on my muscles to get their act together and recover already.  That’s why we alternate between upper and lower body focused exercises in this workout and use giant sets.  Giant sets are groups of three exercises completed in a row and then repeated for additional rounds.  If you’re just getting started, 1-2 rounds of each giant set will probably be sufficient to bring your muscles to fatigue.  If you’re more advanced, you may need to complete 2-4 more rounds.  I usually do 4 rounds per giant set.  I only rest minimally (maybe get a sip of water after each round), but rest as needed to bring your heart rate back down just a bit before continuing with each round.  If you’re still a little short of breath, that’s okay.  If you can’t talk or feel dizzy, rest a bit longer.
  4. Short workouts.  Because, honestly, I don’t love strength training.  I mean, I’ve come to love it a lot more than I used to, but it’s still not my absolute favorite thing.  And also, I have a life.  I can’t spend all day working out, nor is that the best idea for my thyroid.  But you really don’t need to spend all day in the gym to get the results you want.  I’ll go to my grave saying that.  You can get a fantastic workout in thirty minutes or less, especially if you’re incorporating numbers one and two above.

[Read more…]

Starting Solids: What I Feed My One Year Old (and how we avoid “kid food”)

by Filed Under: Blog, Food, Health Leave a Comment

I don’t believe in kid food.  I don’t believe in picky eaters.  I don’t believe in bland.

These were a few of the opinions that formed my beliefs about what I would feed my family.  Ain’t no way I was going to let Landon eat Cheerios, Go-gurt, and Goldfish crackers.  My “eat real food” philosophy remains, and that eliminates a lot of “foods” that are commonly given to kids these days.  Now, I’ll admit.  When you’ve got a busy day, it is so stinkin’ easy to grab a box or a pack of something for hungry kids, but, with a little bit of forethought (and a few products that really do contain real food ingredients), we have successfully avoided “kid food!”  (You can see what I fed my son from six to twelve months here.) [Read more…]