PaleOMG's 5 Ingredient Pizza Casserole

I have made PaleOMG's (almost) 5 Ingredient Pizza Casserole twice and both times it has come out phenomenal. It is a staple in my families weekly dinner rotation. Not only is it out of this world delicious, but it's completely nutritious! Give it a try and let me know what other variations you come up with. The possibilities  are endless with toppings and adding in other veggies you like. I added mozzarella cheese to mine and plan on trying a version with pepperoni.

Ingredients:
1 large spaghetti squash
1/2 chopped yellow onion
1 cup pizza sauce
1 pound ground sausage (regular/chicken/spicy/mild etc)
2 eggs
Basil (1 tsp)
Ground Black Pepper (to taste)
Salt (to taste)
1 Cup mozzarella cheese (shredded)

Instructions:
Cook spaghetti squash in microwave (you can do in oven but it's quicker in micro) for 7-10 mins.
Let stand for 5 minutes, slice down the middle length wise. Then remove all the seeds. Take a fork and scoop through the squash to pull out the strings of spaghetti squash. Place all in a baking dish.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook sausage and onion on the stove. Once finished turn off heat. Add in the pizza sauce, basil, salt and pepper.

Add sausage mixture to the pan with spaghetti squash and mix well.

Add the 2 eggs and mix all together very well until you can no longer see the egg.

Layer the top with mozzarella cheese.

Cook in oven for one hour.

Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

ENJOY!

10 Week Transformation Check-In

Geez, 10 weeks already huh? Technically 78 days. That's a lot of days! 

Something I have always tried to tell myself in the past is that I have a dead line. By this day I want to look like this. Or, by this day I want to weigh X. This time around I have done things a little differently. Here's how:

1. I hired a coach. Well, don't I have my Personal Training Certificate? Aren't I a college graduate with my Bachelors in Kinesiology with an emphasis on Health and Fitness? Well, yes, yes I am. But, does that mean that I don't need help? Does that mean that I don't have more to learn? Absolutely not. I was struggling for a long while because I was trying to force myself to try so many different things at one time that I was just driving myself nuts. I would go from not eating enough (not purposefully), to eating WAY too much (also not purposefully) and put a lot of hard work into my workouts, which in essence was doing absolutely nothing except keeping myself in my own circle of crazy.

2. I realized this; The time is going to pass anyways. Repeat after me: The. Time. Is. Going. To. Pass. Anyways. So, if you have 50 pounds to lose, if you want to do it the RIGHT way and KEEP the weight OFF, then it's going to take TIME. Possibly a lot longer than you would like. Possibly 6 months to a year or more! Okay, so when some people hear that, they immediately tend to brush it off  thinking, "UGH! But, you're a professional! I want to lose 50 pounds for my 10 year high school reunion that is next month!" Well, sure you do! But, the truth is, you just shouldn't and really to keep it off, you CAN NOT. I have lost 12 pounds in 10 weeks. That's almost three MONTHS. Good things take time.

3. This is probably the most important, your mind has to be right before your body can follow suit. I'm not saying you have to be 100% problem free because that will never happen. I find that in the past I have said the following, "Well, as soon as I go to this party next weekend and then after I go out to dinner with Mary, that following Monday I will begin." And guess what? That Monday comes and now you have something else that came up. THIS.IS.LIFE! Life happens. Things come up. We get busy. We get sad. Mad. Happy. Angry. Blissful. Plans change. Kids get sick. We get sick! Ahhh, the circle is never ending. [DEEP BREATH] Everything is going to be okay. Do you know when the BEST time to begin is? Right now. Right now, make a vow to yourself that RIGHT NOW you are going to try a little harder than you were before. Take a step forward. One foot in front of the other. Just, begin.

The Statistics:
12 pounds lost
9.75 inches gone

Feeling: PRICELESS!

There are no short cuts. There are no cleanses. There is no magical pill that can give you this type of long term success. There is only BELIEF in yourself. TRUST in your coach. And COMMITMENT to make a better choice when you mess up.

BEGIN. 

Thank you for following my journey! I am so glad to be a source of information for those of you who are looking to get started. So, if you have a great transformation story or are just getting started, comment below on your success! I would love to hear about it. 

What Do You Eat?

I recently opened up for some feedback on what information my readers would like to see. I’ve received amazing feedback by the way, so thank you so much for all of you who asked for specific material. I always find myself going back to talking about relationships with food. Relationships with food can be really tough stuff, man. And with the media hoopla out there with all of their branding and money and sales and bullshit, it’s really hard to develop even a decent relationship with food. Everything just seems so difficult now-a-days. If you’re pregnant you can’t eat cheese. If your kid has McDonalds they are going to die. If your kid doesn’t have McDonalds, you’re a crazy tree hugging, terrible parent. If you eat bacon you’re going to get fat. I mean, COME ON ALREADY! It’s bad enough that we have the strong-minded “clean eaters” out there telling you not to eat anything that’s processed but yet eat oatmeal. It’s bad enough that our peers judge us for our parenting skills or lack thereof (oh, you feed your child FORMULA?). Whatever happened to just living life and doing the best you can with what you have? Instead we have all this nonsense “stuff” to worry about that it’s basically taken over our lives! All this, Coke-a-cola is going to kill you, Aspartame is going to give you cancer, sugar is the root of all evil stuff. This stuff gets thrown at us day in and day out. So, how do we even feel able to form a good relationship with food if we’re so worried that it’s going to kill us every day. 

Before you say it, YES food in CRAZY HIGH consumption and a HUGE LACK OF food can absolutely kill you. But, for the common person and the majority of the world, this is not the case. And also, let me address you “3/4 of the population is overweight/obese” people. Look, those statistics are taken by a measure of Body Mass Index (BMI). Which is simply a correlation between your weight and your height. It does not take into account your muscle or your fat distributions (another reason that doctors and insurance companies really irk me). So, according to BMI, I am overweight. Do I look overweight? No. It’s preposterous really. 

Now, coming from a person who has struggled FOREVER with food, and one who has come to understand basics of food and science, I can tell you I am not perfect. I LOVE a juicy cheeseburger with some deep fried french fries. I know that it’s not going to kill me to indulge in one every so often. I also know there are ways that I can eat a cheeseburger today if I wanted to without going over any of my calories/macros for the day. I know that I could make a cheeseburger with ground bison, use a regular fatty piece of cheese, and use half of the bun or maybe I can use portobello mushrooms in place of my bun. Who knows? The possibilities are endless when you get creative enough and learn to stop fearing food. This is simply the point I am trying to get across. I am no better than anyone. I am not better than a clean eater, a paleoer, a vegetarian, a pescatarian, a hunter gatherer, a McDonalds everydayer. I am not. And I’m not trying to be. I’m just a woman who struggled with food and body image my whole life. I am just a woman who was once very over weight. I am just a woman who wants to help other women learn to love themselves and form a good relationship with food. I am just a woman who hopes to spread enough love and knowledge to my son so that he never has to go through the heartache I did as a child. That is simply what this blog is for. To the girl throwing up in the toilet, I’ve been there. To the girl stuffing her face with as much food as possible while sitting in the cupboard alone, I have been there. To the athlete who might be too heavy for their sport, I have been there. To the girl starving herself in private, I have been there. I am just a normal person, just like you. I don’t have it all figured out. And I may never. But what I do know is that you can give yourself permission to be happy and form a better relationship with food.

By request, here is a list of foods I eat regularly:

Eggs

Bacon

Bison

Beef

Chicken

Turkey

Shrimp

Scallops

Bananas

Pineapple

Quest Bars

Mozzarella and American cheese

Mission tortillas

Healthy Life bread

All vegetables

Basmati rice

Anything with tomatoes

Whey protein

Almond Milk

2% Milk

Sparkling water

Coffee with cream and natural cane sugar

Lucky Charms

Marantha Crunchy Peanut Butter

Real Butter

Plain Rice Cakes

Unlimited amounts of spices/condiments (except mayo/ranch/etc)

Salsas/Hot sauces

Extra Virgin Olive Oil/Sesame Oil/Coconut Oil/Canola Oil

Of course I do partake in date nights where Wine, Vodka, Steak, Crab, Pizza and Sushi can be present. 

This is just a small list of what I eat the MAJORITY of the time. I fit some cookies and ice cream in here every so often, but there are my usual staples. 

WTF is IIFYM

Picture found off of google doing a search for IIFYM pics

How to begin with IIFYM/Flexible Dieting:

Become familiar with a food tracker. I personally use MyFitnessPal but others seem to really like Macros+. Both will take some time to get used and you will need to play around a bit but in my opinion, the Macros+ app will take a little longer to become adjusted to. 

If you use MyFitnessPal while tracking macros, do not enter your caloric burn for anything during the day, it will screw up your calories and macros for the day and can cause you to over eat. If you’d like to keep track of calories burned during exercise, you can keep track in the “notes” section in MFP or you can just keep that stored information in your heart rate monitor (if you have one). 

If you are using MyFitnessPal and are following specific macros in grams rather than percentages, there is a plug-in that can be downloaded and added to your program on a desktop/lap top ONLY. It can and will make a HUGE difference in the way you track macros, for the better. 

Familiarize yourself with food labels and what they mean. A serving size does not mean the whole container! This will also mean becoming very familiar and even best friends with measuring spoons, measuring cups, and a food scale. All of which can seem daunting at first, but I can promise you will become quite the expert with practice. 

If this is your first time counting calories/macros it is very important that you understand the three basics of each macro in regards to their caloric content:

Carbohydrates: 1gram = 4 calories
Protein: 1gram = 4 calories
Fats: 1gram = 9 calories

So, let’s say that you consume 100 grams of carbs. The caloric equivalent is 100x4 which = 400 calories. Easy peasy right? 

When counting macros, give your body time to adjust to these numbers. If you’re not seeing results within a few days, don't fret. Give it at least 2-4 weeks and then you can adjust from there depending on how you feel and your results. 

When "Skinny" Clothes Fit

*top: Pink Sugar (Nordstrom); booties: Target; jeans: JBrand Ankle Skinny

John and I just booked two trips for April which is right around the corner and I am beyond excited. The weather here is atrocious and has been for the past 4 months. Being a mom to a rambunctious two year old and being stuck in the house due to weather for most of the winter just isn't cutting it anymore. Spring is supposedly almost here and truthfully, we need to get out of here! So, we are going to Sea World for a few days and then to Vero Beach with my (almost) whole family for the rest of the week. I am anxious to leave already!

Well, with trips to warmer climates comes wearing clothes that you haven't worn since last year OR that are out of style or whatever the case may be, so you "need" new clothes. Well, I have a two year old who is growing like a weed so my first priority is to make sure he has everything that he needs, which happens to be EVERYTHING. I'm pretty sure none of his last years summer wardrobe will fit him so I have to go out and get it all. I am totally OKAY with that because he comes first. And besides, it's so fun dressing him.

For me, though, it's a little different this year. I am now 11 pounds lighter and have lost a lot of inches so I was interested to see how my clothes from last year fit me. Well, I tried them on and almost all of my shorts are too big in the waist (I still got my booty) and my bathing suits COULD work, but they make me look frumpy and that's just not cute. They're that awkward stage of "yeaaaah that's too saggy in the butt and yeaaaah that top is slipping off your back" so I am at a crossroads. The GREAT thing is that I have this bin full of clothes I wore when I was smaller (before I got pregnant). Well, in November I was so upset with myself, that I put all those clothes in that bin with full intention of bringing them to the GoodWill because I never wanted to see them again. So, I tried on some clothes and sweet Jesus, Hail Mary, they FIT. My EFFING shorts FIT. Not only do they fit, they are also a bit loose in the waist. WHOA.

So, there I was, standing there with a look of awe in my face. I couldn't even get words out. I couldn't even manage to make a facial expression. I just stood there dumb founded. For those of you who have been following my blog, you will know that I have NOT been "dieting." I haven't been starving myself. I don't eat salads all day. The thing is, when I was "trying" to lose weight before I was doing all of those things. I was eating small amounts. I was eating only "clean" foods, I would starve! And then, I would binge. Binge all the way! Well, since the very end of December, I haven't been doing that. I've been eating! I've been eating every food I love! I just follow the IIFYM (Flexible Dieting) principles. I am so happy. I'm so proud. And so shocked. I have made it work. I DO have the discipline. I DO believe in myself! I did it!

Of course, now I am excited to wear those old clothes that I love so dearly, but I'm also beyond thrilled to purchase some new ones for our trips this year. My journey isn't over yet, so please keep checking back regularly.

Are you familiar with this feeling? Have you had success with IIFYM? Or just success in general? I'd love to hear from you!