Sunday is Prep Day! If you work Monday-Friday then Sunday is the day you cook all your food for the week. Once it becomes Thursday then Friday I start jotting down a grocery list of things we are running out of. Before bed, I look online for a tasty dish and either make my own healthy version of it or I follow a recipe from some of my favorite paleo/primal cookbooks. After that, I write down the list of ingredients that I will need for the recipe and put it on my shopping list. Saturday is the day I shop. Sunday is the day I cook. If something comes up Sunday and I don't have time to cook. I will shop on Friday, cook on Saturday. Whatever works for you BUT you must do it to be a successful, healthy eater!  Just like anything in life to be successful you must plan, be organized and make the commitment. NO EXCUSES. We have one body we must take care of it! 

10 tips on being successful with your weekly meal planning:

1) Make your favorite meal according to your taste buds! Research recipes of foods you enjoy eating. There are a ton out there. For example, do you feel like buffalo chicken? Google paleo buffalo chicken dish or healthy buffalo chicken dish. So many will come up. You will have plenty to choose from OR simply look on my website for ideas(: You can use the search folder on the right side of the page.

2) Once you find a few recipes, make a list of ALL the ingredients you need. Healthy food  tastes delicious. You should enjoy eating it!

3) Accept the fact that meal prep is work. Don't fight it. Preparing meals for you and your family is time-consuming. My favorite quote by Edward Stanley...“Those who think they have no time for exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”  The same goes for eating clean!

4) Make the cooking fun. Teach your kids how to cook. My daughter cooks with me all the time. It is one of the ways we bond.

5) Make a rule with your family...if one person cooks, everyone else does the dishes. It is a group effort. I LOVE this one. My friend Michelle suggested that to me once.

6) If you have more than 2 people in your family, I highly suggest doubling your recipe. If you are making soup or chili get some containers and freeze individual servings.

7) Making a healthy dessert? Freeze 80% of it. Ziploc bags work great. Put one serving in each snack size ziploc bag so you are not tempted to over eat it. Take one out when you have the urge.

8) Make a BIG salad and put it in a container so you have it ready on hand for those weak moments when you get home from work and are tempted to grab something not so healthy.  Make it easy for yourself to get at a salad. Set yourself up for success! 

9) ALWAYS have protein readily available so you can put it right on top of your salad.

Nothing tastes better than chicken cooked on the grill then put on top of a salad!

10) Critique your meals. Ask your family their opinion of it. Give it a gold star if everyone loved it. My son is brutally honest. It used to hurt my feelings if he was too honest but now I appreciate the honest feedback. When he loves a certain recipe he talks about it for days. If he doesn't like it you better believe he lets me know. Lol

I hope these tips help you out. Please share any more ideas that you may have that will make my readers more successful with their meal planning. Thank You!!

It is February 23, 2016, and if you are obsessed with CrossFit like me then you know there are only 3 days until The CrossFit Open 2016! I am so freakin' excited for Dave Castro to announce what the first WOD will be. He makes the live announcement on games.crossfit.com on Thursday night(2/25) at 8 pm. Click HERE to learn more. Honestly, I am praying that the first WOD does not have any DUS (double Under's) in it. I have been practicing like crazy but would LOVE one more week to perfect them. Pray for me(: Seriously, Thursday cannot come fast enough. It is like waiting for Christmas morning to come when you are a kid.

Anyhoo, my new Paleo Banana Bread With Cinnamon and Chocolate Swirls is sinful. It does not taste Paleo. I feel like I am having a cheat snack when I eat it. It tastes that delicious. Enjoy life Chocolate Chips are dairy-free, nut-free and soy-free, gluten free, wheat free, zero sodium, and zero cholesterol per serving. When using the enjoy life chips in this recipe, each small piece of bread has less than 7 grams of sugar per serving. If you would rather no sugar at all use the 85% cacao chocolate chips instead of the enjoy life chocolate chips. As you can see all the ingredients in this recipe are nutritious and natural so go ahead and indulge! Each piece has a great combo of carbohydrates (bananas), protein (eggs and nut butter) and fat (nut butter and butter). As always, portion control is key!

INGREDIENTS:

4 large very ripe bananas
4 extra large organic eggs
1/2 stick Kerrygold grass-fed butter (1/4 cup)
1/4 cup raw, creamy, salt-free, cashew butter
1/4 cup raw, creamy, salt-free, almond butter
2 nustevia
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup coconut flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt

FOR THE CHOCOLATE SWIRLS:
3 stevia or 1 tbsp raw honey
2 tbsp grass-fed butter or 1 tbsp coconut oil melted
2 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup enjoy life chocolate chips or 1/2 cup 85% cacao chips

STEPS:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9X5 loaf pan with parchment paper.

2. Combine the bananas, eggs, butter, almond butter and cashew butter in a mixer and mix until well blended.

3. To the almond butter mixture add the coconut flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nustevia, baking powder, vanilla and sea salt. Mix all ingredients together until well combined.

4. In a small pan over low heat add the chocolate swirl ingredients...nustevia, butter, cinnamon, enjoy life chocolate chips. Stir until melted. Do not burn.

5. Pour batter into loaf pan, then pour chocolate mixture on top of batter. Holding 1 knife in each hand swirl the chocolate around in batter so you can see the swirls.

6. sprinkle coconut sugar and cinnamon on top or nustevia and cinnamon.This is optional but it makes it taste soooo delicious!

6. Bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool 15-20 minutes.

This banana bread is perfect for an afternoon snack with a cup of tea!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! Mark and I celebrated Valentine's Day yesterday late afternoon. We went to The Mill Wharf in Scituate, Ma for an early dinner.  This restaurant is right on the water in Scituate Harbor so the view is the ocean and boats. Absolutely breath-taking. Dinner was delicious. I am still amazed at the serving sizes they give you. We had to take everything home. I simply cannot eat that much. 

Remember the saying...“You got peanut butter on my chocolate!”  The peanut butter eater would complain, “You got chocolate in my peanut butter!”  ... Two great tastes that taste great together, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. You MUST remember! Now you can have this taste without the fat, calories, added sugar, processed crap that is in a real Reese's. My Chocolate peanut butter cups are a delicious combination of almond butter, sunflower seed butter, and chocolate. The mild, nutty flavor of the sunflower seed butter compliments the rich, nutty flavor of almond butter perfectly so you get just enough flavor of each nut butter without either of them being too over-powering. Enjoy life chocolate chips are nut free, dairy free, soy free and wheat free. You can also use 85% Cacao chocolate if you prefer.  

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of creamy raw, no salt almond butter
1/2 cup of creamy sun-butter
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tablespoon of honey or 2 stevia's if you want it to be sugar-free
1 tablespoon coconut oil
pinch of sea salt
1 package of enjoy life chocolate chips

STEPS:

1) Place all ingredients(except chocolate chips) in a blender, a mixer or stir well by hand.

2) melt an entire package of enjoy life chocolate chips in a pan on low heat on the stove. Stirring constantly.

3) Add a spoonful of melted chocolate into 10-12 of your mini muffin tins then place in freezer for 10-15 min until hardened. You don't need to grease tins. ** you can also use parchment paper muffin liners. These work really well!

4) Add a spoonful of "peanut butter" mixture on top of hardened chocolate.

5) Add a spoonful more of melted chocolate on top of "peanut butter" mixture.

6) place in freezer until hardened(about 30 minutes). They should pop out easily once completely hardened using a sharp knife if you are not using the parchment paper muffin liners.

Products I use for this recipe....

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