Feeding the Kids!!

As a parent I know that we all want the best for our children. Through providing our children with the nutrients that they need to grow and be healthy we can not only prevent them from becoming ill but also prevent problems later in life. Did you know that a lack of calcium in the diet while growing as a child will increase your chances of osteoporosis later in life? Also more than 1/3 of all cancers can be prevented by living a healthy lifestyle with proper nutrition and exercise.
It is so important to teach our children healthy eating habits while they are young. I also do not reward my children with unhealthy food. We even as adults have linked rewarding ourselves by indulging in alcohol and not so healthy food. Why not stock up on a few clearance toys and keep them on hand in your house to reward your kids or stickers or even 10 minutes added to bed time. I understand that it gets harder to control what your kids are eating as they get older but starting to educate them when they are  young will ensure that they will want to make healthier choices when they are at an age when the decision is their own.
Picky eaters!! My daughter will literally eat almost anything that I give her. She even crawls up on my lap for a bite of my egg white omelets or tuna and mustard. My son on the other hand refuses to eat veggies besides peas occasionally, he wont eat eggs, plain chicken or fish and no cheese unless on pizza or occasionally a grilled cheese sandwich.
My children eat many mini meals throughout the day. I bake homemade bread for them and also make pizza from scratch (both recipes are on my blog). I try to balance their diets throughout the day to make sure that they are getting all of the nutrients that they need and I base their diets on lean proteins, veggies and fruits, whole grains and healthy fats as I do my own.
Smoothies are an absolute must in my house!! Some ingredients that I often use are bananas (over ripe, peeled and frozen in thirds), frozen strawberries and blueberries, unsweetened apple sauce, canned pumpkin, juice, peanut butter, flax seeds, almond milk or organic milk, greek yogurt and more greek yogurt and organic protein powder. I use honey, agave nectar or stevia in their smoothies to sweeten if I've used something like pumpkin in them. Another easy way to add protein to your smoothies is dry skim milk powder which you can buy in most grocery stores. Yes, children can have protein powder, just make sure that it is all natural and adjust the amount used for your child. I aim to get 1 gram of protein in per every lb of weight for my kids spread throughout the day from many different sources such as greek yogurt, chicken, cheese, fish, eggs, peanut butter, organic milk and protein powder etc. My son is an absolute greek yogurt addict!
Children also need lots of healthy fats in their diets. My children love the chocolate avocado pudding recipe, I add peanut butter and leave out the protein powder for theirs. I also often make them peanut butter and banana smoothies to get in fat from the peanuts and I will add a little flax to their smoothies for omega 3's. I fry things like my banana french toast(recipe on my blog) in coconut oil for the kids and serve it with peanut butter. I also use coconut oil when making grilled cheese sandwiches with my homemade bread. I make sweet potato fries in advance for the kids by chopping the sweet potatoes into fries and mixing in coconut oil, cinnamon and stevia before freezing them. When I want to cook them I just place the frozen fries into the microwave for 5 mins before baking them in the oven at 385 degrees for 20-25 mins.
As I said before, it's really hard to get veggies into my son so I find that the easiest way to do this is by adding a few extra veggies to his pizza. Both of my children love oatmeal. I quickly cook it in the microwave by adding double the amount of apple juice to dry oats and then sprinkling it with cinnamon and adding a little milk. My children drink a lot of water and I don't often give them straight juice but will sometimes water a little down for them. If I do give them juice I will often blend it up with some fruit like strawberries or a banana in the bullet to at least include some fibre. You can easily make Popsicle's this way for your kids to by freezing smoothies or juice blended with fruit. My kids love fruit and eat a huge variety of different kinds. I try to buy what is in season or on sale and stock up and freeze things that are really one sale to use in smoothies later.
I give my children a children's multivitamin and a children's omega 3-6-9 supplement daily.
Some of my favourite on the go snacks for the kids are cheese strings, raisins, fruit, squish ems (apple sauce in a squeezable hand held package), PC brand organic fruit chews, Annie's organic crackers and homemade protein muffins. My banana protein pancake recipe is a great alternative to pancakes for kids and gives them great nutrients to start their day. My kids also love rice cakes and will eat them plain or with natural peanut butter. My son is a popcorn addict, I don't often give it to him because a lot of corm is genetically modified but when I do make it for him I just use a pot and fry it with coconut oil. Microwave popcorn bags contain cancer causing chemicals so should be avioded and it's so much cheaper to make your own fresh popcorn!
I hope that a little insight into my home and what my chidren eat has helped you a little in making choices in your own home!! :)

Jon McKinley's 24 week Transformation

I was contemplating making major changes in many areas of my life. In late May 2011, I snapped some pictures and decided to not look back!  The only real challenge at hand was to apply myself and adhere to new life choices. May 28th 2011 I weighted 164lbs at around 18% body fat (lean weight 141 ish),  this wasn't bad considering 12 months before I had no build whatsoever and weighted 150. I had been stuck around 165 for over a half year already,decided to analyse myself and realised I was doing many things wrong which was keeping my results from their full potential.

From June to the end of August '11,  I made sure to drink close to or over 1 gallon of water  and to bring up my meat protein intake. I had meat every morning and tried to bring in a wider spectrum of protein into my diet. I set aside more time for the gym and used a "mind muscle" approach to my weight regiment. I supplemented with ALPHA and a lot of GP3 powder as well and Nitric Impact.These adjustments were working for my body and on August 28th I weighed a full 10lbs heavier on the scale and looked much leaner at around 15-14% body fat making my lean body weight around 155lbs.

The biggest challenge still lied ahead, my protein intake still was not sufficient and I still had a major lack or fruits, veggies and healthy fats in my diet. I became determined to study nutrition and keto diets in depth so that I could continue my transformation with results! At the beginning of September I put more time into cardio and meal prep, I kept seeing gains and decided to go into a full ketogenic diet as of the beginning of October. By doing the ketogenic diet and doing extra cardio twice a day I noticed my body was healing faster and could handle more as the days went on. Doing a keto diet ended up making me consume meat proteins and other proteins over 6-7 times a day with lots of chicken and cheese salads. I learned so much about my mind and body during this transformation. On my final picture day, November 27th '11, I knocked my body fat to 8% and weighed in at 178lbs after a good 2.5 days of carb loading. Making my lean body weight around 164lbs which was my beginning weight!! During my transformation, I weighted in at 182 before doing a few weeks of water extraction. On the evening of November 29th my weight was up to 183lbs. My lean muscle gains are anywhere from 23lbs to 26lbs in only 24weeks.

Perfect Whole Wheat Oat Pizza Crust

1 1/2 cups of oats

1 cup of whole wheat flour( I use white whole wheat flour)
2 tbsp. of flax seeds

1 packet of yeast

2 tablespoons of agave or honey

2 tablespoons of coconut oil

1 cup of warm water

a little extra flour to knead the dough

In a large bowl sprinkle the pack of yeast over 1 cup of warm water. Drizzle the agave or honey on top of the water and yeast and let the mixture set until the yeast becomes foamy on the top of the water. (Approx 10 minutes). Add the oil. Grind the oats and flax seeds into flour in the magic bullet or blender. Add the ground oats, flax and whole wheat flour in the bowl. Mix all ingredients and then let the dough rise for 10 minutes before placing some additional flour on a clean counter or work surface and lightly kneading the dough for approx 30sec-1 min. Grease pizza pan and spread the dough to the thickness that you want your crust. I normally split the dough in half and spread it thin enough to make 2 pizzas on 12 inch pizza pans. Top with pizza sauce, your choice of toppings and cheese and bake for 13-15min at 425 degrees.
The dough can be made in advance and stored in the fridge for up to 5 days. To use the dough you just need to take it from the fridge and let it rise in a warm place for a 1/2 hr before using. I shred enough cheese for 2 pizzas when I make the dough and then I store the second half of the dough in the fridge and I have dough and the cheese all ready to use when I want an easy quick meal for the kids.
My husband is very picky and normally will not eat any of my healthy recipes besides my bread and he loves this pizza crust as does everyone that I've made it for.

Pumpkin Spice Protein Muffins

1 cup of oat flour(blend oats in bullet or blender until the consistency of flour)

3 scoops of vanilla or white chocolate protein powder

1 tsp of cinnamon

2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice

1/4 tsp of salt

1 tsp of baking soda

3/4 cup of liquid egg whites

1 egg

1/2 cup of unsweetened almond milk

1/2 cup of stevia(I use truvia)

1 cup of canned pumpkin

1 tsp of vanilla (optional)

Pre heat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together in separate bowl. Combine all ingredients and mix well together. Spray muffin tray with non-stick spray. Pour mixture into muffin tray and bake for 20-25 minutes. Makes 12.

Each muffin is approx. 80 calories with 7 grams of protein and lots of slow digesting carbs from the oats and the pumpkin! They are my favourite on the go meal! I usually eat 3 or 4 for a mini meal.

Banana French Toast

1/2 ripe banana

1 egg

2 tablespoons of honey

2 tablespoons of unsweetened almond milk

1 tablespoon of flax seeds (optional)

Put all of the ingredients in the magic bullet or blender until mixture is smooth with no banana chunks left. Dip pieces of bread ( I use my whole wheat oatmeal brown bread) into the mixture coating both sides and fry the bread as you would regular french toast. I prefer to use coconut oil but you can use butter or non stick spray. Flip to fry both sides.

My son loves dipping his in peanut butter but it tastes great plain which is how I serve it to my daughter since she is younger and tends to make a huge mess if I give her the peanut butter. I make extra and I keep it in the fridge. I think it tastes even better cold and it's such a great snack for the kids and so easy to just cut up in little bite sized pieces!

My Journey To Health and Happiness

I grew up in a small town in Nova Scotia but I guess you could say that despite this, I've always had big dreams. My husband likes to say that I am an optimist in every sense of the word, often proposing ideas or views to him that as a realist sound completely unrealistic. I easily see the good and I often over look the bad, forgetting to take the time to consider the "what ifs". I guess looking back, some of my ideas actually were completely unrealistic but even some of those ideas that at first seemed impossible, turned out to be completely possible. Between being a dreamer and being stubborn, usually once I get an idea in my head and my heart becomes set on that idea, I am unable to stop until I've finished what I set out to do.

My first mission in life was to go to Australia. After seeing a movie when I was 6 yrs old about a child who travelled to Australia by postage stamp, I decided that one day I would go to this magical land. Growing up poor, our farthest family vacation was to a camping ground a couple of hrs away or to my Aunts house but throughout all of my years growing up, I held onto this idea of going to Australia knowing that one day I would get there. Three weeks after my 18th birthday I bought a one way ticket and alone I jumped on a plane for the first time and I was finally on my way to Australia.

The night of February 6th, 2011 was no different than that night as a child when after watching a movie, I decided that I was going to go to Australia, except the movie was pictures and the goal was to have the body of my dreams and become radiantly healthy and happy in every aspect of my life.

Like most girls, my issues with body image and my weight began in my teens..well actually they began before then, when I was in the 6th grade. I wasn't overweight then, I was actually quite skinny, I just had a rather large backside for my body frame and some of the boys in my class gave me the nick name bubble butt. Throughout my teens I struggled with low self esteem, always comparing myself to other girls and deciding that I didn't quite compare. I would go through periods of exercising 2-3 hrs a day and barely eating to periods of overeating and not exercising. I yo-yoed many times throughout my teens and very early 20's between 130lbs and 150lbs never being happy with what I saw in the mirror.

In my early 20's, I felt that I had finally found balance. I managed to keep my weight between 130lbs and 140lbs by eating "healthy" and balancing it with exercises like running, yoga and snowboarding. I even saved up money and went through a surgery to get breast implants as I'd always felt self conscious about my chest, feeling that my smaller breasts were "freakishly" out of proportion to my larger hips. I was happy with my body, I finally accepted it. I didn't like the extra "puffiness" that I carried around my mid section and I wasn't so pleased with the cellulite on my legs or on my butt but I reasoned that these things were due to genetics and things that I was unable to change.

It was at this time that I reconnected with the love of my life who I'd lost touch with during my years of travelling and living overseas. My husband and I first met when I was 15. Looking back now I can honestly say that it was love at first sight. We dated briefly in our teens and then our lives went separate ways.     

We still stayed in touch for a while, even when I went to Australia at 18 but we slowly lost touch. Through the friend that we originally first met through, we got back in touch after not talking for 5 years. After dating long distance for nearly a year with him living in Ontario while I was living in Alberta, we made the move back to Nova Scotia together. Our plan was to move closer to our families and to start setting up our lives for marriage and a family of our own. Things happened much faster than we had planned though as we found out that we were expecting only two weeks after returning to our home province. We bumped up the wedding and we were married in August of 2008 when I was three months pregnant.

Although at the point when I became pregnant I was quite healthy, I became really sick almost as soon as I became pregnant. Basically any healthy foods like vegetables, fruit, or chicken would come back up instantly. Even the smell of eggs or chicken cooking would have me running to the bathroom within seconds to get sick. Greasy, starchy carbohydrates like chips, pizza and french fries seemed to be the only foods that would stay down. They would also help to settle my stomach and take away a bit of the constant nauseous feeling. So, I ate and I ate and the weight piled on. During my pregnancy I went from weighing 130lbs to weighing 208lbs before I refused to look at the scale anymore. I would assume that I put on another 5lbs or more in those last 2 weeks, which would put me at over 80lbs gained in 9 months.  While gaining the weight I also lost more and more of my self esteem with every single pound that I put on. By the end of my pregnancy it seemed that my old zest for life had all but disappeared and I had become a shadow of my former happy, self confident, outgoing self.

I became pregnant with my daughter less than 5 months after my son was born. I wasn't nearly as sick the second time. I gained a lot less weight with this pregnancy, topping out at 185lbs at 38 weeks pregnant when my daughter was born. Needless to say that after 2 back to back pregnancies, a large amount of weight gained and after having 2 c-sections, my body no longer resembled anything close to my pre pregnancy body.

                          

It was Sunday, February 6th, 2011 the night that my life changed forever. It had been 9 months since I'd given birth to my daughter. I was still overweight at 5'3 weighing 145lbs with a very high body fat percentage. I was tired all day every day and I was tired of living my life as a miserable frumpy mother, always wearing sweatpants and embarrassed of my body both in and out of clothes. That night I was searching the Internet for hope that I would one day be happy with my body and my life again. I was searching for before and after pictures of mothers who'd had tummy tucks. I wanted a mental picture of what my belly would one day look like when we could one day afford the surgery. I'd believed at that time that surgery was my only option to have a "normal" belly again.

I found two pictures that night that gave me hope. Both of these pictures will forever be imprinted in my mind but neither of them were of women who've had tummy tucks. They were pictures of mothers who were fitness models. The first picture was a before and after picture of Jennifer Nicole Lee. The second picture was of Kim Dolan Leto. She was wearing a black and white zebra print bikini while holding her young daughter. I remember being completely in awe of how stunning she was with her amazing body and beaming smile on her beautiful face. I could see how happy and healthy she was spiritually, mentally and physically and I wanted that. I wanted self confidence and I wanted to be truly happy in every sense of the word. I wanted to be proud to stand there in a tiny bikini with my young children and I wanted to be radiantly healthy in mind, body and spirit. Seeing that picture of Kim set my goal and seeing that picture of Jennifer made me believe that I could achieve it. I took a before picture that very night and I promised myself that I would never look that way ever again.

On Kim's site she mentions that she sometimes does the program Insanity in her training and she also talked about eating clean and gave a breakdown of her diet and calories. So, that is what I started with and the very next day I started on day 1 of Insanity and I started eating clean. The other two goals that I set at the same time where to enter my first bodybuilding competition and to enter the Status Fitness magazine cover contest in the fall.

I stuck with the Insanity program for the first three weeks before finding myself exhausted and deciding not to continue after 3 days of still doing workouts despite hurting my leg which was only making it worse. I decided that there must be an easier way and I turned to an at home workout in Oxygen magazine.  I purchased two 8lb weights, some resistant bands and between the exercises in the magazine and others that I found online I alternated between upper body and lower body days doing exercises throughout the day while watching the kids like various squats, push ups and tricep dips. I stored my little weights in the kitchen cupboard and I would sneak off for a couple of minutes at a time to do excercises like shoulder presses or bicep curls. It was also at this time that I started focusing and learning more about nutrition. All of my spare time was consumed with reading articles on nutrition, articles on training and also on competing. I had fallen in love with my new lifestyle and then in June, I made the decision to enrol in school to become certified as a Nutritionist.

The weight was coming off and I was becoming stronger and healthier physically, mentally and spiritually by the day. With every little goal that I reached, the sparkle in my eye became a little brighter and almost before I realised that it had happened, the once out going girl who had disappeared returned and was ready once again to take on the world.

It has been just over 10 months since my journey to my new life began. I am now in the absolute best shape of my life. I have reached my goal of becoming truly happy and healthy physically, mentally and spiritually. I also ran for the Status Fitness magazine cover contest in October earning my spot in the finals. Last month I stepped on the stage for the first time weighing 114lbs.
I have set many new goals over these past 10 months and I will be continuing to work hard towards each and every one of them while also setting many more. Yes, I am sure that just like with reaching any goal there will be some obstacles along the way but I will stay focused and I will get through each and every one of them.

"I've felt weak before.

Becoming strong made me a fighter.

I refuse to give up on myself."

-Kim Dolan Leto

High Protein Chocolate Macaroons

2 1/2 cups of oats

8 scoops of chocolate protein powder (vanilla, plain or white chocolate also work)

1/4 cup of cocoa

1/4 cup of stevia

1 cup of fat free greek yogurt

Grind 1 cup of the oats into flour in a magic bullet or blender. In a large bowl combine the oat flour, 1 1/2 cups of oats, 8 scoops of protein powder, 1/4 cup of cocoa and 1/4 cup of stevia and mix well. In a small pot, warm the greek yogurt on medium until the yogurt becomes runny and slightly hot to the touch. Pour the heated greek yogurt onto the dry ingredients and mix well until all of the ingredients are completely mixed throughout. Spray 2 cookie sheets with non stick spray. With a tablespoon, drop a heaping spoonful of the mixture onto the cookie sheets one at a time dividing the recipe into 18 portions. Place trays into the refrigerator to cool for 1 hr before eating. I store the macaroons in a Tupperware container in the fridge with the layers of macaroons separated by sheets of aluminium foil or parchment paper.  

Each macaroon ends up being approx 110 calories with 14 grams of protein, 10 grams of carbohydrates and less than 2 grams of fat.

This is also the recipe that I use to make my homemade protein bars by placing the entire mixture into an 8x8 pan sprayed with non stick spray, placing in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hr before cutting into 9 squares. The protein bars end up being approx 220 calories, 28 grams of protein, 20 grams of carbohydrates and less than 4 grams of fat each. They make a perfect pre or post workout meal.

This recipe makes the macaroons quite chewy. If you want them harder or more dry than you can choose to add another 1/2 cup of oats and also not grind the 1 cup of oats into flour and just use all of the oats whole. I also sometimes grind flax seeds with the oats to add to the mixture or replace 1/2 cup of the greek yogurt with 1/2 cup of natural peanut butter, still heating both the greek yogurt and peanut butter together in the same pot before adding the mixture to the dry ingredients.