Check out these awesome give-a-ways!

This morning I had such an amazing Spin class. Lots of hill climbs and sprints. It definently rev'd me up for the day! I guess it made me feel lucky and I wandered across all these sweet give aways! Rock on! These sites are amazing and who doesn't love free stuff? I recommend checking these out for sure! Good Luck!

Jocelyn's big A-mazing give away!

Agave Give away!! Check this out!

OneFitFoodie is giving away some awesome coupons for Nasoya Product. Love it!

Eat,Live,Clean,Green is giving away some awesome Nature's Path products!

Spelt is a girls best friend

I was on a baking roll today. I had a huge monster cookie craving and just had to do something about it. Luckily while surfing around I found an amazing recipe for vegan spelt chocolate chip cookies. These seemed ungodly amazing. The velvet texture of the spelt flour combined with pure golden maple syrup, raw crunchy almond butter and hints of cinnamon and pure vanilla seemed like just what I needed. These were crunchy on the outside and moist and delicious on the inside. Warm from the oven the chocolate chips just oozed everywhere. Pure heaven! This so completely made my night and I went to bed a very happy girl!

Rain, workout excuses and more spiralizer fun!

This morning was a tough one to wake up for the gym. It hardly ever rains in SoCal and when I woke up this morning it was a torrential downpour. Amazing! A part of me would have loved to just stay snuggled under the covers listening to rain on the roof but on the other hand I wasn't about to let a little rain interfere with my morning! SO I got up as fast as possible and hit the road. Once I got to the gym (this always seems to happen to me) I stepped out of the car and into I swear the biggest puddle in the parking lot. Naturally. Luckily my shoes dried fast. Although I did forget that they were wet on the soles and I almost slipped off the elliptical. Ha! Graceful. But I ended up having a fantastic workout and I really enjoyed my morning! Just by chance I got an email this morning from fitness magazine about the top 8 workout excuses..

1) I'm too tired
2) I'm too busy
3) I'll never look like Jennifer Lopez, so why bother?
4) I'm too sore from yesterday's workout
5) I feel as if I'm getting sick
6) I'm bored with my workout
7) I'm stressed
8) I'm not in the mood

I thought this was a great list they put together. Although I would have added weather as one! Does anyone ever feel more sluggish on cold rainy days? I do! But I always make sure to go anyways.

I've totally been there with all of these and can totally relate to them. On the flip side though I've taught myself how to make it through each excuse and still get in a killer workout! For instance saying I'm too busy or too tired..I feel that squeezing in some time to workout, even if its just a 30 minutes quick walk actually makes me feel less tired and busy. The time I take to do something active makes me feel as though I have some time to myself and it also perks me up! Which makes me more productive.

Excuse numero three.."I'll never look like Jennifer Lopez, so why bother?" I think a comment like this really affects upon a lot of factors that I could go on and on about. I think the bottom line is setting goals and working on them will help you see past these idealized views of others. We tend to forget sometimes that celebrities have a ton of personalized dieticians, trainers and amazing make up personnel that can make them look the way they do. And as easy as they make it look, Im sure its a lot of work to maintain that appearance. (Hey we are all just human!) Be happy knowing you are beautiful and taking the time to do something active will keep your outlook positive and body as healthy as possible! Now onto excuse 4!

"Im too sore from yesterdays workout". Well just from personal experience I find that doing some light activity can actually help relieve tense muscles and help to stretch them out. The day after I rode my long distance ride, my legs and back and shoulders were pretty sore. But I went to the gym and did some light cardio and stretching. I found I wasn't quite as sore later that night. I'd say even just a small walk or anything can help get the blood flowing and help to heal sore achey muscles faster!

"I feel as if I'm getting sick" - I think this is something you really have to make the call on. Growing up my parents always had us "sweat it out" when we were getting sick. Whether or not this is a good idea or not I think is up to you.

"I'm bored with my workout" - Well one way to fix this. Mix it up! Try a class at your local gym. Go for a hike, try a new running route, swim anything! Maybe even try out something you've always wanted to do but haven't before like rock climbing. Anything you can do to get that heart rate up is great!

And last but not least. "I'm stressed" and "I'm not in the mood". I find working out to be a great stress reliever. Its amazing how taking your frustration out on the treadmill can really improve your mood. Studies have shown that any form of exercise can relieve tension and help calm. As for not being in the mood, again, any for of excercise can really help boost your mood.
So put on those running shoes and get out there! You'll feel 100% amazing after wards and feel as though you did something great for yourself!

Id love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this!

Since it was still amazingly rain cold tonight I was in the mood for something warm and comforting. Dinner was a big bowl of roasted veggies over noodles. I tossed them in a touch of Braggs and some hot sauce and I was super happy!

Amazing workout and a new toy!

4:45am this morning and I was up with a bang! Time for Spin!..If you couldn't tell I'm obsessed with Spin! So much fun! I just love the music and the energy of the class. I look forward to these days. Its a way for me to de-stress and have some me time. Really helps to re-set me and energize me for the day. That's what I love about working out. All the amazing energy I get from it. Anyways after a fantastic class I grabbed some oatmeal and off to work. I received a package in the mail today. My Spiralizer came in! Hot Damn! This thing just rocks my socks off. I accidentally bought an enormous amount of zucchini the other day, (Don't ask) so its gonna be zucchini noodles for awhile for me!


I cut up some ribbon shapes and spaghetti shapes. Pretty cool!

And for dinner tonight....Zuchinni pasta! Will post back later with some pictures of the final masterpiece!

Tea of the week! White Chocolate Kisses

I am such a bargain shopper. Maybe a bit impulsive about it but I love finding great deals. Ive also discovered that buying in bulk saves alot of cash. (Although now I have a cases of items sitting in my dining room! I really need a bigger pantry. Ive found a couple things on amazon the other day and its like christmas! They shipped everything seperately so Ive been getting a new pacakge everyday. Today my new tea came in! Nothing fancy, its Bigelow teas and the flavor is White Chocolate Kisses. Sounds amazing, right?

Well it is! This is my tea of the week. Im such a huge fan of teas. I have my usual go to teas but I love trying new flavors. I have tons of boxes sitting around. This week Ive been craving chocolate more than normal, so the White Chocolate Kisses tea does the trick. I'll admit, it doesnt taste like white chocolate. More just dark chocolate which is more than ok with me! I way prefer the taste of dark chocolate over white chocolate any day.

Going Bananas!

Lately Ive been really interested in incorporating more nuts into my diet. I love the larabars and thought it would be a great idea to try and make my own. I found a recipe online from OhSheGlows.com for banana larabars and gave them a shot. They turned out super tasty and oh so amazing. I so cant wait to experiment and try out tons of new flavors. So thanks for the recipe!!

They are incredibly simple and easy to make! I took one of my old brown bananas that I had lying around and sliced it very thin. They I stuck it in the oven for about 2 hours on low heat.


I so had to eat some banana slices when they came out of the oven. They were crispy and carmelized and heavenly. Next up was the dates. I rough chopped about 3 dates. That equaled to about .25 cups. Then threw those in with the banana chips into the food processor and grinded them for about a minute or two.

I set this mixture to the side and put about 1/3 cup of almonds in the processor and grinded those to a coarse meal. I mixed the wet and dry ingredients together and formed them into little ball shapes. I opted for this over the bars cause I was in the mood just to pick and I wasn't sure I could actually finish a whole bar.


The end result was a perfectly sweet banana almond treat. I'm in love with these! I'm thinking already of how to make tons of different flavors. They were simple fun and amazing. Thanks so much for the recipe Angela!

Pumpkin Oat Bran Muffin Bites

This morning was cloudy and cold. One of those days where if I didnt live in SoCal I bet it would have been rainey. That is the one thing that I really miss, big thunderstorms and rainy mornings. There is something about waking up on a Saturday and hearing the pitter patter of the rain against the windows. Days like that make me want to pull the covers over my head and lay in my warm bed all day. Ah well..I'll settle for a cloudy Sunday morning for the time being instead. I woke up this cloudy morning, put on a strong pot of coffee and I just felt like baking. I had a lot of pumpkin left over from my attempt at making some pumpkin granola from earlier in the week and some bananas which were turning a lovely shade of brown. I love old bananas, it just means I get to make banana bread! So I began playing around.



These muffins contained oat bran, oatmeal, pumpkin, whole wheat flour, cinnamon, bananas, pumpkin, vanilla, eggs and brown sugar. They came out super moist, cakey and delicious. Fresh from the oven toasty warm and had the perfect fall flavors. It definently took a few tried though. But the end result was fabulous.


First batch I had a feeling my muffin batter was too wet, and once out of the oven my hunch was correct. Although not too far off. Just super moist in the middle, which I didnt mind. They had an amazing banana flavor with a hint of sweetness. So lovely! They were a little ugly since I just spooned them into the pan. But then I remember I had this awesome gadget...A cookie scoop! It makes perfect 1 Tbs scoops. The muffins came out nice and rounded the second time around.



For the second batch I added more flour and oat bran. My first batch also didnt rise as much as I wanted to so I threw in some more baking powder. The muffin on the left is the second batch and the muffin on the right is the first batch. You can see what a difference these small changes made! I was surprised how much they poofed up!




I also like something crunchy on my muffins but a streusel topping isnt exactly the healthiest. So I mixed some rolled oats, oat bran and to make it stick together I added some agave. This worked perfectly! The second batch rose very nicely, streusel topping worked out. Added a nice hint of sweet crunchiness to them and I must say they looked prettier with the scooper. They were nice and moist and the perfect breakfast snack if I do say so myself. Deeeeelish! They made the perfect mid morning snack.