Author: thehealthypancakes

Lavender Moon Milk

I call it moon milk because it sounds cool. Hip. Chic. Sleepy.

I played around with this recipe for a while. The key here is to really be careful about the lavender to milk ratio… it can get ugly real fast.

Sweetner is a MUST. Honey again for me.

And a secret splash of… salt.

No kidding. I had been playing around with this because I wanted to test out lavender for sleep. I just couldn’t love the recipe. On a whim last night I threw some stuff around like a witch over a potions brew and what do you know? IT WORKED!

Lavender Moon Milk

Ingredients:

  • 1 Cup milk of choice (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk) 
  • 1 TSP dried edible lavender buds 
  • 2 TSP honey
  • ¼ TSP coconut oil
  • ¼ TSP vanilla extract
  • 1 pinch salt

Directions:

  • Place all ingredients in pan over high heat on stove top.
  • Once brought to rolling boil, reduce heat and let simmer for 5 minutes – stirring occasionally.
  • Strain lavender out with mesh strainer.
  • Enjoy!

I truly believe this helps me calm down. I haven’t had it enough to talk about sleep… though last night I had the “moon tummy” as I so creatively came up with and was so tired.

I ended up waking myself up and reading on my phone into all hours of the night… so that’s on me.

However, if you’re wanting to know what lavender has been proven to help with I’ll tell you.

Studies have strong evidence that lavender is good for

  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Restlessness

I would also like to mention even though I didn’t sleep last night I felt oddly positive today. Could be me overthinking. But hey.. whatever works.

Lavender also has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties.

So while I wouldn’t use this on wounds or injuries needing actual medical emergencies – you could test it out on bug bites and small burns (like the one you might get when making this drink)

Enjoy your moon milk!

P.S. I don’t recommend putting lavender buds on your drink – they’re disgusting, I used them in the photo because I am hip. Chic. Cool. Sleepy…

Calculating your baseline nutritional needs

Given, there are a million and one sites, people, pro’s, books, blogs and calculators that will do it for you. All giving you slightly different answers depending on how “hard core” you are.

I’m not in the business of super fast weight loss. If you haven’t gathered that already. Tracie Blair is not a fad. Thank you.

But someone did ask about macros (okay, a few people have) and no one in my baby steps group is asking questions about carbohydrates except for the macros.

I CANT, given the 70 or so of you, (or however many of there are of you out there) give a blanket answer. I stated this in the step 3 blog on Carbs. But it did get me thinking about a starting point… most of you probably don’t have one. And then some of you have been given all sorts of answers.

To figure out the absolute baseline we use all sorts of fancy equations and different tests to tell you what you need… a secret – they’re not accurate. They can, however, give you an idea of where to start.

While you’re here, why don’t you go ahead and calculate your Basal Metoblic Rate or BMR:

For men: BMR = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (years) + 5
For women: BMR = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (years) – 161

This is just one of a few different calculations you can use… they all give very similar answers. But this one is easy enough. It’s called the Mifflin St. Jeor Equation.

I want to stress that the number you get from the equation is a calculation of how many calories you burn sitting around doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Laying down all day binge watching game of thrones type of day.

I like it because it gives you the bottom line goal. I never want people to drop under their baseline number because … well of all the arguments I could use I’ll go with… why would you want to give your body absolutely less than it needs just to function? If you hit your baseline number and you move around – walk, workout, clean all day.. you will lose weight. Because you’ve elicited a response that requires more energy than just sitting.

Anyway.. for finding your macros – you need to reflect on your goals. Do you just want to lose weight? Do you want to be good at sport/stronger/more endurance? Are you trying to gain weight (few but there are people out there that do)?

I will encourage you to meet with a professional for this  (like me! Hello!) but a nice little starting point could look like this:

Protein: 30%

Fat: 30%

Carbs: 40%

So you would take your BMR break it down by each percentile to give you calories for each category.

Then you would take the numbers from the % and divide yet again by:

Protein: 4 calories

Fat: 9 calories

Carbs: 4 calories

To give you grams of each category

EXAMPLE:

If you need 2,000 – it would look like:

Protein – 2,000 x 0.3 = 600/4 = 150 grams protein

Carbs: 2,000 x 0.4 = 800/4 = 200 grams

Fat: 2,000 x -0.3 = 600/9 = 67 grams

TA-DA – you have calculated your own macros. Tweak as you go. Be your own scientist… and remember my baby steps program is free. That’s why I’m not diving into each of you, you have to figure things out on your own… and honestly, in the end, this is probably better for you. You’re in control not mindlessly following some program written “for you”.

Admittedly this is a lot of work. And yes! Tailoring nutritional needs to someone is a lot of work. That’s why we end up just paying someone else to do it for us… but you all are capable of tailoring your own nutrition to yourself… be honest, no one knows you as well as you do.

I also want to state that I don’t like giving macro’s that often. I don’t like people trying to control their diet in this way where they’re freaking out because they went over… or they’re two grams low on fat so they like the peanut butter lid… I hate that obsession.

I want people to just eat healthy… naturally. Easily. I want them to WANT to eat right. To LOVE to eat right. And I want it to be second nature… that’s why I implemented the baby steps program in the first place. I want to give you the tools to make the right choices and for it to not be some crazy nutrition mind game.

I want being healthy to be easy.

Do you even prep, bro?

You’ve seen them, the people with their lives all put together who spend Sunday’s joyously cooking, cutting, weighing and placing perfectly portioned “macros” into little black containers so their abs can stay pumped all week long. #mealprep #absaremadeinthekitchen

Okay, it’s not always like that. But social media makes even me feel bad about the way I approach my week sometimes.

I am a firm believer in changing, but changing into something obtainable. If you don’t actually enjoy prepping your week on Sundays or you hate feeling controlled by your food (thats me) then maybe the perfection just isn’t for you. Maybe you’re too busy, don’t like eating the same thing every day or hate the fact that your food touches each other for a few day,  you need to understand that prepping breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in black little containers and to-go bags isn’t the only way to go. 

But while sitting around thinking about how to help you decide how to approach the week I thought about all the different types of people I have worked with…. 

Do you even prep, bro?

Continue reading “Do you even prep, bro?”

Baby Steps III – Carbs are a dirty word

Carbs, the macro everyone loves to hate.

The most abused food in the world.

Keto, cleansing, juicing, paleo, south beach, whole30, zone, low carb, Beverly Hills, alkaline, weight watchers, Jenny Craig, gluten free, elimination diet, Dukan Diet, macrobiotic… the list goes on and on

Fad diets will tell you carbs are bad! Carbs are sugar and sugar is causing diabetes which is killing Americans daily. Sugar is making you fat. Sugar is stealing your lunch money.

And so will people with doctorates. Society. Your mom

So you believe them and you shun shun shun the carbs, you replace all your rice with cauliflower and pasta noodles with zucchini and spaghetti squash.

You feel good about yourself. You shed a few lbs.

But eventually you either feel tired and weak. You overeat the cake at the work party and your body hates you in new ways. Causing you to either give up or restrict further.

You wonder how everyone does it.

Well here is a secret.

We eat carbs.

Continue reading “Baby Steps III – Carbs are a dirty word”

Pine Nut Party Hummus Recipe

So I threw a party and it was GREAT.

For that party I made this hummus because I finally found pine nuts (in bulk at HEB, love that place)

I hate looking up recipes with long intros so I will get right to the point.

Pine Nut Party Hummus

Ingredients:

  • 1 (15 oz) can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 1/3 cup tahini (stir well)
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 2 TBSP olive oil
  • 2 -4 TBSP water
  • dash of salt
  • dash of Italian seasoning

Toppings:

  • handful of pine nuts
  • scoop of minced garlic
  • 1 TBSP olive oil
  • Italian seasoning
  • paprika

Directions:

  1. Put all ingredients (sans toppings) into a food processor or into a bullet (I used my smoothie cup on my ninja) starting with only 2 TBSP of water, adding more as needed, and blend until smooth. Move to bowl
  2. For topping, place pine nuts in skillet over medium-low heat and toast until golden brown, stirring often.
  3. Add olive oil , garlic and Italian seasoning to pine nuts and toast on low until warm (about one minute)
  4. Top hummus with pine nut mix and top with paprika as you see fit

Continue reading “Pine Nut Party Hummus Recipe”

Baby steps, step II – Vegetables

Welcome to step II!

For all those who have stuck with it! Hurrah!

For those who haven’t, that’s okay – You can still focus on hydrating AND eating your vegetables. This isn’t a reason to give up. You can start being healthier any second of any day.

Anyway – WELCOME

I have chosen these steps in what I consider order of importance, many of you who know me may have thought I would have put protein first (though it does get such a bad rap for being such a great thing). But the general population just doesn’t get enough nutrients or fiber in their diet.

We are also building from the ground up which means this is the base or the bulk the diet.

Read More

Why you should look when you go – Part I

Wrapping up week three of step one!

And I touched a little bit on monitoring the color that comes out of you when you go pee. But I wanted to be a bit more thorough.

I think it should be pretty clear to everyone by now that that is the color we want to be seeing when we go. (get it?) The more tinted yellow we find in our toilets, usually, the more dehydrated we are.

Simple Pee Chart

Continue reading “Why you should look when you go – Part I”

Golden Milk Latte

The newest super-food in drink form..

And I’m obsessed.

I’ll admit it started on a trip to Austin, Tx – the city full of weird food and people. I love the culture there, it’s a place I’ve wanted to live for a long time. I probably never will, the traffic is horrible. But I like to visit and try new things.

I had actually gotten this in the cafe of the hotel we were staying in. I added 4 shots of espresso and paid my $15.00 thinking it was just another “something” I was trying on one of my adventures… Well I ended up paying nearly $60.00 by the end of the weekend gulping down my golden coffee every morning , just loving life.The worst part of it is is that I didn’t even think to try and make it at home until we went back again for a few days… stayed in the same hotel, paid the same price tag to make my insides happy. So after the second trip I decided to find out how to have my heavenly drink without breaking the bank account with trips to the weirdest city on earth.

After some trial and error I found a recipe that I tweaked to make it how I wanted it and it comes out to this:

Recipe below

Baby Steps – Step 1, Hydration

HYDRATION.

I’m sure you all have heard how our bodies can survive weeks without food but only days without water. It’s 3 to 4 days to be in the ballpark, maybe maximum a week.

You’ve also probably heard that 60% or more of our body is made of water… We are sort of like walking water balloons if you think about it… Every single cell in our body is made of water. It’s between our joints, it’s in our brain, it carries toxins out of our systems… so why is it that we don’t get enough of it?

We get so busy go go going that we forget to take a few sips here and there and then before we know it we have a headache and feel famished. Most of the time we blame it on other things likes stress or a hard workout.

Hey, maybe it is from those things… but maybe you haven’t been hydrating as well as you should be.

Drink up!