Clean Eating is getting progressively harder. This is not because I am getting sick of what I am eating or that I am running out of choices, but merely because it is hard to stay away from temptations when going out to dinner, celebrating a birthday, or trying new products at my workplace (and yes…looks like I found a downfall to working at Mars…who would have thought?). But since the end is in sight, I am keeping with the diet and testing my discipline….less than 2 weeks left!
Since I am sure there are others of you out there having some difficulties with a clean eating diet, I have included both a clean snack and dessert to help curb those cravings! (PS…..can anyone tell what I was craving this week?)
Chocolate Peanut Butter Grizzly Bares
This recipe is great to give you a little extra energy (and protein) before an intense workout. Anamal and I have been eating these religiously about an hour prior to our insanity workouts every day. At this point, I don’t know if it is our drive that keeps us going or if it’s something in these little miracle bars!
½ cup honey
½ cup agave nectar
1 cup natural peanut butter
2 cups rolled oats (uncooked oatmeal)
½ cup Chocolate Whey protein powder
½ cup raisins
¼ cup sunflower seeds
¼ cup almond slivers
1. In a 2 quart pan, add honey and agave nectar and bring to a boil on medium-high heat. Reduce heat to a simmer and add in the peanut butter, once melted, remove from heat.
2. In a separate bowl, combine oats, sunflower seeds, almond slivers, raisins.
3. Add the protein powder to the peanut butter mixture.
4. Once combined, pour mixture into the dry ingredients and combine well.
5. Press mixture into a 13x9 pan and allow to cool.
6. When cooled, cut into bars, store in the refrigerator to preserve for up to 2 months.
Servings depends on size of bar. I typically cut them into 24 bars.
| Ingredient | Calories | Fat (grams) | carbs (grams) | protein (grams) | Fiber (grams) |
| Peanut butter | 1530 | 131.7 | 49.8 | 65 | 15.2 |
| Rolled Oats | 532 | 4 | 117.6 | 18 | 19.2 |
| Protein Powder | 219 | 7.5 | 15 | 60 | 3 |
| Honey | 480 | 0 | 136 | .5 | .4 |
| Agave Nectar | 480 | 0 | 128 | 0 | 8 |
| Raisins | 217 | .4 | 57 | 2.3 | 2.7 |
| Almonds | 156 | 13.7 | 5.3 | 5.8 | 3.2 |
| Sunflower seeds | 207 | 19 | 6.9 | 5.8 | 3.4 |
| Recipe Total (24 bars) | 3821 | 176.3 | 515.6 | 157.4 | 55.1 |
| Per Serving | 159 | 7.4 | 21.5 | 6.6 | 2.3 |
Clean Chocolate Ice Cream
4 bananas
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 Tbsp Agave nectar
1. Slice the bananas and put them in the freezer at least 24 hours in advance so they are nice and frozen.
2. Put all ingredients in a blender and mix well!
3. Serve immediately!
8 servings
| Ingredient | Calories | Fat (grams) | carbs (grams) | protein (grams) | Fiber (grams) |
| Isotonic Banana | 484 | 1.6 | 124.4 | 6 | 14 |
| Non-fat Milk | 90 | 0 | 13 | 8 | 0 |
| Cocoa Powder | 30 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Agave Nectar | 120 | 0 | 32 | 0 | 0 |
| Recipe Total | 724 | 2.6 | 172.4 | 15 | 15 |
| Per Serving | 90 | .3 | 21.5 | 1.9 | 1.9 |
Does not store well! Adjust recipe accordingly to prevent leftovers!
Insanity:
Day 22: Max Cardio & Conditioning: Today I experienced first-hand the absolute horrible feeling when you eat too much during the day and try to do Insanity in the afternoon. Even though I stuck with clean eating, I definitely ate too much this past weekend and way too much during the day today. It was Anamal’s birthday, and even though we stuck to eating fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, etc…there is such a thing as too much. I pushed through the workout and gave it my all while holding back that acid reflux feeling throughout the duration of this workout. One thing I have learned from this experience is that I definitely do NOT want that to happen again! The workout itself felt good…well…other than that I want to puke feeling!
Day 23: Cardio Core & Balance: This workout was more a recovery workout (though not officially a recovery workout), which was a nice break up from yesterday’s insane workout. This workout focused on slower, more concentrated moves. By using muscles restraint and control, I was really getting a good sweat on. This workout will definitely help me with my core strength and balance. After this workout, I supplemented Insanity by doing a quick 10 minute abdominal routine. Right now I am feeling pretty great and not only am physically seeing results, but I am also noticing that I am getting significantly stronger.
Day 24: Max Interval Circuit: All day I was dreading this workout because I knew what was in store for me….60 minutes of ass kicking! I went into this workout with the mentality of keeping a steady pace and controlling my movements. By concentrating on this, I was able to keep my form, maintain a consistent speed and create a fluid movement. On the exercises that I knew would fatigue my muscles, I picked a number (ex. 25 frog jumps in 45 sec) and tried to reach that number throughout the duration of the interval. By setting these mini goals, it was easy to meet and exceed these goals. Overall, this workout killed my legs and there is definitely room for improvement in that area.
Day 25: Max Recovery: This recovery routine was a nice change up from the cardio recovery routines I was doing the previous weeks. This routine was approximately 48 minutes and really worked on fatiguing my muscles, not just stretching. There were a lot of holds, planks, and push-ups which help strengthen all the smaller muscles around your major muscles groups (quads, glutes, abdominals, etc). By strengthening all these smaller muscles, this will really help with keeping up with those quick, high intensity movements scattered throughout the Insanity workouts. After this recovery workout, I did a super set of bi’s and tri’s to further fatigue my muscles and concentrate on toning my arms. When working on my arms, I noticed that I have increased the weight I use significantly (by approx. 30%) and am feeling the same amount of muscle fatigue as I did prior to starting Insanity. This can only further exemplify how much my strength is increasing. Right now I am feeling pretty ripped, but I hope I don’t regret that extra workout during tomorrows Insanity!
Day 26: Max Cardio Circuit: I was little nervous going into the workout today because I know how intense this interval is and I am currently feeling a little under the weather. But as my theory has always been, the best way to get rid of a cold is to sweat it out of you. Most people take that as curling in the fetal position in bed in 3 sweat suits and goose down blankets, I take that as getting in the gym and sweating bullets. To my surprise, Insanity didn’t seem too difficult and I was able to keep up with the Shaun T pace. Now that could also be due to another factor…today I decided to use a recovery formula to aid my workout (Scivation Xtend….don’t get caught up in the name, this supplement is a performance enhancer, HOWEVER, not the performance enhancer I am sure you are all thinking of). I have used this supplement before and have been very pleased with the results and decided that in order to get the max results, I should add this as a supplement to take during the workout. Overall, I was very pleased with the results and am excited to see how the remainder of the Insanity challenge will be with Xtend.
Day 27: Max Plyo Circuit: I woke up today with the same cold as yesterday, so it doesn’t seem like I worked the cold out of my system, however, at least I didn’t make it worse. Today is a completely new Max workout and is a plyometric workout, which typically have been my least favorite of the Insanity workouts. And today I forgot to bring my Scivation Xtend to the gym, so this work out was completed sick and supplement free. This workout is like the rest of the Maximum Insanity workouts in that the moves are more complex and are working multiple groups of muscles in one motion. I have to admit, I absolutely HATE this workout. The first interval had a lot of floor jumping with absolutely killed my arches and hindered me from going hard throughout the entire first interval of the workout. I was very disappointed because I felt like I didn’t get a good workout during this time and that I wasn’t able to fatigue my muscles. Though I hated the first interval, I absolutely loved the last interval that was one circuit but each exercise was a variation of a simple exercise, my favorite being side push-ups. Though today was hard for reasons other than the intensity of the workout, I still worked my muscles and felt overall fatigued. The stress on the arches really bothered me though and is making me question as to if I want to do this specific Max workout again.
Day 28: The infamous day of rest!
