Jamie Eason's Chocolate Protein Bars taste like a light cake! Two squares is a serving size and only 96 calories. She has other flavors but I didn't care for the lemon flavor and the pumpkin one didn't have a strong enough pumpkin taste. But the chocolate flavor I've made a number of times so I made a few notes in the ingredient list below. Oat flour is just oatmeal grinded in a food processor.

Ingredients:
1 cup Arrowhead Mills - Organic Oat Flour
4 Egg Whites (if using a carton of liquid egg whites use the measurement for 3 egg whites)
2 scoops plain Protein Powder
½ cup Truvia or Ideal (I use Zsweet found at Whole Foods)
½ tsp Baking Soda
¼ tsp Salt
8oz Berry flavored Baby Food (I couldn't find this so I just mashed up berries in my food processor)
3 tbsp Baking Cocoa (I use naturally sugar free raw cocoa by Navitas Naturals found at Whole Foods)
4oz Water (optional)

Directions:
Makes 16 squares, serving size=2 bars.

Don't know what to do with all the peeps you bought for Easter? Instead of eating them you can have some fun with them! Check the super creative dioramas people have made at Today show and the Washington Post's annual peeps contest. I'm amazing by the creativity in these! There's also yoga peeps! lol

Here's my clean eating oatmeal recipe! Rolled Oats are a healthy start to your day because they help lower your cholesterol and regulate blood sugar. It's a superfood for athletes because it's a slow releasing carb so it will give you long lasting energy. It's also packed with vitamin B and iron. If that's not enough to convince you they're it's cheap if you buy it by the tub!

I don't use those prepacked instant sugary oatmeal, instead I buy Whole Foods brand 365 Organic Old Fashioned Rolled Oats. The difference is that they are larger and have a fuller taste; which also means they take longer to cook than instant oatmeal. So to avoid having it cook forever in the morning I soak the oats in water overnight.

I know you've heard of the Ch-ch-ch-chia Pet, but did you know chia seeds were a staple in the diet of the Aztecs and Mayans? Chia seeds are packed with healthy Omega-3, fiber, calcium and antioxidants. It helps curb your appetite with the fiber slowing your digestion. Definitely a key food for weight loss!

If you add a liquid to chia seeds you can easily make a gel! I make chia seed gel the night before (which by the way you can use a substitute for half the butter in any baking recipe to cut the fat). I find this really thickens up the oatmeal and makes it more filling.

I find chia much easier to use than flaxseed because with flaxseed you have to grind it first so you body can absorb it but you can only grind one serving at a time because it goes rancid fast. Chia seeds you can swallow whole and your body will still absorb it and a package can sit around for 2 years and not go bad. They have no taste on their own so it makes it easy to add into any food you make. Chia seeds are a great super food because you get the maximum vitamins with minimum calories. Chia is one of the amazing ingredients in shakeology.
Ingredients:
1/3 cup oatmeal
2 ts wheat germ (adds protein, fiber and vitamin B)
2 ts chia seed
3 tb almond milk (more if needed)
½  tb maple syrup or raw agave nectar (optional)
½  scoop protein powder
pinch of cinnamon

Directions:

The Night Before
In a small pot combine 1/3 cup oatmeal, 1 cup of water and pinch of cinnamon. (This may not seem like a lot of oatmeal, but it grows in volume over night plus you're adding other volume ingredients to it.)

Mix 2 ts chia seeds with 3 tb almond milk, shake it up real well, then come back 20 min later and give it another shake so it doesn't settle unevenly. Refrigerate overnight.

In The Morning
Turn stove on high under the pot and come back in a couple minutes when it's boiling and turn it down to simmer. Then set the timer for 8 minutes.

If I don't have fresh berries on hand I will put frozen peaches in the pot and it defrosts in the 10 minutes it takes to cook this oatmeal.

Once done pour oatmeal into a bowl that already contains the chia seed gel, wheat germ and protein powder and mix well. If you want a more soupy oatmeal boil another 1/4 cup of almond milk and pour that on top of your bowl.

Nutritonal Info
With the fruit it ends up being about 250 calories, 14 grams of protein, 9 grams of fiber and that fiber really keeps me full!

Competitors
Quaker Weight Control Instant Oatmeal only has 7 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber and it's made with sucralose (a poison I try to avoid).

Quaker Instant Peaches and Cream only has 3 grams of protein, 2 grams of fiber, the second ingredient is sugar and it's made with colored dehydrated apples and artificial peach flavor, so no actual peaches.

McDonalds Oatmeal is 290 calories with 5 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber. It also has a ton of brown sugar and added "cream" which has 7 ingredients, I thought cream was supposed to be just milk? The fruit and maple flavor has 32 grams of sugar, that's insane! Two Reese's Peanut Butter cups only have 21 grams of sugar.

It’s crazy you think you are making good choices but in reality there are hidden ingredients and sweeteners. It’s best to just buy a big tub of rolled oats which is the cheapest choice anyway.

Just booked my ticket to Panama! I've been reading up on the country to prepare for my trip so I wanted to share some fun facts about Panama.

• Panama has the most varieties of birds anywhere in the world, 900+ including the Fruit Loop bird, the toucan!
• Panama was the first Latin American country to adopt the U.S. currency as its own.
• Senator John McCain was born on a military base in Panama. In 1999 all U.S. bases in Panama were closed and our military forces left the country after a 88-year presence until 2009 when Panama reopened 2 American naval bases.
• The Panama Hat is really made in Ecuador but was shipped from Panama hence it got its name.
• In Panama, you can swim in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean in the same day and it's the only place in the world where you can see the sun rise on the Pacific and set on the Atlantic.
• Panama City is the only capital city that has a rainforest within the city limits.
• Panama is slightly smaller than South Carolina.
• The movie Contraband with Mark Wahlberg was filmed in Panama.

I've already looked up if they have vegetarian restaurants and found out they have the Loving Hut which is a chain that I've been to in NYC. I also bought the white linen pants below a year ago with my next tropical adventure in mind so I'm excited to have them make their debut! In the meantime I think I need a countdown clock to my vacation. Do you ever feel like that too? I guess it would be pretty obnoxious to have a big sign on my desk at work! lol

When you start on a weight loss journey you need to create a blueprint of your plan. When you decide that success is your only option, you will find a way to achieve it! But remember success is never a straight line, it's a squiggly one because everyone has bumps along the way to reach their finish line so don't be discouraged by plateaus and setbacks. If you read the story of any famous actress or singer, no one got where they are overnight, it was a difficult path that took a lot of work. Likewise your weight loss is going to be the result of you changing to a healthy lifestyle, and that takes patience to see the results of your hard work.You deserve to achieve your goals! So you need to remove the mindset of being a quitter and turn off that negative voice in your head that says you will always be where you are now. 

I'd say this is my favorite holiday after Halloween! No you don't have to be Irish or like beer to celebrate it.
You can make the day fun by eating green food! Start your day off with green pancakes, waffles or green eggs by adding food coloring to the mix. For lunch you can have a cucumber tea sandwich and avocado deviled eggs. Then for dinner get some green pasta (the semolina mixed with spinach) or regular pasta with a pesto sauce and a side of asparagus, peas, or broccoli. For dessert  you can have green grapes, kiwis, and honeydew. For a fun cocktail mix midori with champagne for a shamrock cocktail.

I made Chalene Johnson's Greenberry Shakeology Shake recipe:

• 8 oz of almond milk
• 4 oz of water and ice
• splash of peppermint extract
• 1 tsp of peanut butter
• 2 tbsp of sugar free vanilla or cheesecake jello instant pudding mix
• packet of greenberry shakeology

Another recipe to try is the Shamrock smoothie:

1 cup almond milk, unsweetened
1 kiwi fruit, peeled and diced
¼ cup fresh mint leaves
1 tsp. pure maple syrup
1 scoop Greenberry Shakeology
1 cup ice cubes

Both recipes are a whole lot healthier than McDonalds Shamrock Shake, read what the ingredients are.

I wanted to share a style collection I made that you can find affordably at Target this month. Thought this would be a great outfit to wear to work and happy hour afterwards. I already have similar pieces myself so you will see me in this combo.

Sure you could bookmark the blog but will you remember to go back? The easiest way to see all your favorite blogs at once is to use a free service like Bloglovin. It installs a tiny button on your browser and puts a number next to it when your favorite blogs have new posts. Then you click on the button and it takes you to a site that shows a preview of all your favorite blogs all on one page, how neat is that! It's like pinterest but for blogs. You can also chose to get a once a day email with the same summary. If you're like me you have a long list of bookmarked sites, so long that you don't bother to go through the hassle of scrolling through them because you can't remember what most of them are for anyways. Bloglovin makes reading blogs fun and easy!

If you're currently using google reader, its shutting down in July. Feedburner that most blogspot users use to send out email updates was bought by google and last year said they were no longer supporting it. It's still up and running (for some people) for now, but without the bells and whistles so don't expect it to last for long.

I personally love blog lovin, it's takes 30 seconds to sign up, it's easy, no ads, there's no catch. There's even a free App for iphones.

If you'd like to link to my blog in the links section of your blog feel free to use my button below or use the grab and go code on my sidebar.

I wanted to encourage you not to use disposable plastic bottles so I'm sharing my favorite containers that I use.

I'm sure you've read all about the dangers of soda and how harmful high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners are to you. So I wanted to suggest some drinks other than water that you can consume.

My favorite tea is Tazo Passion, you can get it at Starbucks, Whole Foods or Safeway.  It's described as "an exuberant herbal infusion of hibiscus, cinnamon & tropical fruits." It's a sweet red tea. I love this tea hot or cold. In fact I've found that you can make 2 cups out of one tea bag, so I'm saving some money there. I boil water, pour it into 2 cups, then rotate the tea bag between each cup and add a drop of liquid stevia (for added flavor I squeeze a lemon slice in). Then I put both cups in the fridge, and the next day I have iced tea! I will also mix this into my shakeology.
I don't drink regular Crystal Light because it contains aspartame, one of the most dangerous artificial sweeteners. I do drink their new Pure version in the summertime when I have a craving for lemonade.
I buy the Trader Joe's label called fast flavor sticks lemonade but I gather they are the same product. One packet is 2 servings but makes a tall glass of 30 calories with no sugar.

I've had the same purple ipod shuffle for 7 years, can you believe that! Never lost it and don't have to worry about playlists, because I can dump all the songs at any time and reload a new list. I find that having a fun playlist makes working out much easier! With the DVDs I know really well, I will blast my own music while I workout with it. Here are some of my favorite songs right now:

Casely, Lil Jon, & Machel Montano - Sweat
Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris- We Found Love
David Guetta & Nicki Minaj - Turn Me On
Rihanna feat. David Guetta- Right Now
Calvin Harris feat. Florence Welch - Sweet Nothing
Swedish House Mafia - Don't You Worry
Katy Perry - Part of Me
Havana Brown - We Run the Night
Dev - In the Dark
Shakira - Waka Waka
Jennifer Lopez - Dance Again

I took my first yoga class in college and I was hooked! Yoga is great for stretching out your body and it tones your abs, I've seen the difference! All those chaturanga pushups will tone every muscle in your arms, I usually feel sore the next day. The best part about yoga is that if I do it in the evening I  find it helps me sleep better, it truly does the trick for me!

Now that I have my videos down I put on my own music to it. For yoga I love new agey music like the song Krishna Das - Namah Shivaya  for flowing yoga. Then I dim the lights, put 3x4 pillar scented soy candles on a gold charger to create atmosphere while I do yoga, as if it were candlelight yoga.

I read this awesome book titled Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin where the authors discussed why it matters what kind of candle you use. The authors recommend to use soy candles because traditional candles are made from paraffin wax which is waste from petroleum production. Soy wax was only invented 17 years ago and is American grown, biodegradable and cleans up with plain old soap and water.  The black smoke/soot you see coming out of regular candles pollutes the air and your health. But even with soy candles you have to find out what kind of wick they use and that it's not made from lead, but rather cotton and fragranced with essential oils. I really like Archipelago's soy candles available at Whole Foods.  100% soy candles can't hold their shape so they will be in jars, but you can find candles that are a mix of soy and palm oil that are free standing pillars. Soy wax has a lower melting point than paraffin wax and because of this soy candles will burn longer than paraffin candles. You'll see the difference when you burn them as there will be no black soot coming out and you can feel good that it didn't emit any toxins into your air.

Are you looking for an adventure that's crazy, fun and dirty?! Remember all those fun obstacle course TV shows when we were kids? Well last year I participated in Warrior Dash which is a 5K obstacle course race and they have 40 races around the country, so check and see if there's one near you!

I used to be an OPI addict but I made the switch a year ago to Zoya. It's made from toxic free ingredients so you won't find toluene and formaldehyde in it. A couple times a year they offer promotions like free nail polish, which is how I got into the brand. Most of the colors are very opaque so you can paint just one or two coats. All the colors are womens' names. Here's a few of my favorites.

Now maybe the only time you've had coconut is when lounging on some tropical beach or in dessert, but let me tell you about the benefits of it. Coconut water is the liquid that's found in young green coconuts. The hydration it gives you is like a natural Gatorade, so you get that extra energy after a workout. It has more potassium than a banana which is key in maintaining muscle and nerve function. It's also a great hang over remedy because it hydrates you from the inside out. Back during World War II they mixed coconut water into blood transfusions, can you believe that! The value of coconuts have been seen all around the world for centuries, the top growers are in Asia and Brazil, but its popularity is just recently catching on in America.

I was watching Dr Oz and he did a comparison between different brands and said Zico is the only brand to have all the electrolytes it advertises. You use lose electrolytes when you sweat. Zico's plastic bottles are recyclable and partly made of recyclable material, plus they are made domestically. It comes in different flavors but I like to stick with the original that is 100% coconut and not filtered down with juice or flavoring.

I make ice cubes out of the coconut water and put it into my shakeology.