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When I am bored, I love to bake. I love trying new recipes, creating my own recipes, and just relaxing as I focus on the creation I’m making. I did not grow up cooking or baking much. I ate mostly T.V. dinners, hot pockets, or the occasional pot roast. We were not the picture of healthy eating😬.

When I got married, I did not know how to make anything! I’m not kidding! I had no idea how to cook chicken in the oven, or even how long to boil noodles for pasta. It was embarrassing! My husband did all the cooking at first until I learned how. I mostly learned by trial and error (a lot of error), and cookbooks that I would find at the thrift store. Googling something wasn’t a thing back then😆.

Now I love cooking and baking, I do it every single day, and I’m much better at it. I still have things that don’t turn out right, but most of the time they do. I modify just about every recipe I find to make a healthier version of it, and I love finding new ways to change up a recipe. I have attended several cooking classes, and went through nutrition school, so cooking/baking has become apart of who I am, besides fitness of course!

I really enjoy crepes. I love the versatility of them, and how easy they are to make. However, I don’t like how unhealthy they can be, so making my own gives me the ability to change that. If you want a healthier crepe to make at home, try out the recipe below.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 flour ( I used bread flour)

2 3/4 almond milk ( I used Califia Farms milk)

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp sugar ( I used organic raw sugar)

Directions:

Heat 1 tbsp coconut oil in a small pan. Mix ingredients well until the batter is smooth and without lumps. I whisked mine for a few minutes. Pour 1/4 cup of batter into pan and gently rotate pan to allow batter to spread out. Cook until bubbles start to appear and then flip. Cook another minute or two until done. They should be very lightly browned. Repeat until all of your batter is gone.

Filling:

You can fill a crepe with just about anything! I heated frozen fruit on the stove until it became soft and gooey. Then I filled each crepe. You can make sweet or savory crepes. I chose sweet crepes for today.

Lay your crepe out and fill with whatever sounds good to you! I don’t know the technical way to fold a crepe, so I did 2 different styles. Both taste good, so it doesn’t matter how you fold them in my opinion.

Let me know if you try these!

HIIT workouts are great for getting an intense workout in a short period of time. Many HIIT workouts include plyometric exercises, but low impact HIIT is a great option too!

This workout has 3 rounds, with 5 exercises per round. Perform each exercise for 1 minute, followed by a 30 second rest. Repeat each round twice!

Round 1: 1 minute per exercise, 30 sec. rest

-squat leg lift

-March front, front, back, back with punches

-knee pull right

-knee pull left

-push ups

Round 2: 1 minute per exercise, 30 sec. rest

-squat step touch

-sumo touch down

-airplane arabesque

-low impact jacks

-knee diamond push-ups

Round 3: 1 minute per exercise, 30 sec. rest

-cross punch, jab, knee pull (R)

-step back knee pull (R)

-cross punch, jab, knee pull (L)

-step back, knee pull (L)

-full sit-up

Check out my Instagram page for a video demonstration of this workout👍🏻.

On Instagram @Julie.jonesfitness

Losing weight can be hard! People often look for a diet they can follow, food tracking apps, and the advice of others. None of those things are bad, but often times they only work for a short period of time. The hard part is adopting something you can make into a lifestyle, rather then a quick fix. Losing weight is not a fast process, and it often requires changes in your daily life.

I don’t think it needs to be complicated though. You don’t need to follow a strict diet to lose weight, count every calorie you eat, or weigh yourself daily. You can do those things, but you don’t have to. My advice is to keep it simple. Focus on adding foods to your diet that nourish your body, and reducing foods that harm it. Before you choose a food to consume, ask yourself if it is nourishing your body or harming it. I think we can all agree that an apple is far healthier then a handful of chips, right?

Don’t forget that liquid calories count too! A trip to your favorite coffee shop can add 500+calories to your daily calorie intake. A soda or alcohol can add extra calories in as well. It’s easy to forget about things we drink.

So where should you start? My advice is to focus on what you can add to your meals. Do you have a veggie (no butter or dressing), fruit, whole grains, lean protein, or healthy fats on your plate? If you focus on those things first, it leaves little space for the highly processed, unhealthy options. Before you grab a sugary coffee drink, soda, or alcohol, ask yourself if you have had water today.

The next step is to eliminate foods from your cabinets and fridge. If they are not there, you can’t eat them. Replace your highly processed items with healthier options. Drink water before every meal too! It will take effort, but it’s worth it!

Lastly, add daily exercise into your routine. You can start small by adding a 30 minute walk to your day. Find a buddy to walk with to make it more fun! You can also add light weight lifting into your routine to start toning your muscles or hiking, swimming, sports, or classes. The options are limitless!

My family loves Mexican food! We have tacos, burritos, or enchiladas every week! Most enchilada sauces are too spicy for my youngest daughter, so I make a homemade sauce that she loves! I have no idea where I got the recipe, but I have been using it for years.

Ingredients: 3 tbsp butter or ghee, 3 tbsp flour, 3 cups water or broth, 1 cup non-fat plain green yogurt, and 1 can mild diced chilies.

Directions: melt butter or ghee is sauce pan. Add flour and stir. Add water or broth and bring to a boil over low heat stirring occasionally. Once it reaches a soft boil, add Greek yogurt and chilies. Stir until well combined. Heat for one more minute and then remove from heat. Pour over enchiladas, chicken, or any other dish you like.

I like to store leftover sauce in a mason jar and use for other meals. Let me know if you try making it!

Here is a quick and simple breakfast recipe for delicious Banana Oatmeal Pancakes. There are very few ingredients and it is very filling!

Ingredients: 1 mashed banana, 1/2 tbsp almond butter, 1 tbsp coconut flour, 1/2 cup steel cut oats, 1/4 cup coconut or almond milk. You can add more milk if you like a thiner consistency. You can also add fruit, chopped nuts, ground flaxseed, chia seeds, or protein powder.

Directions: mash the banana first, then add the rest of your ingredients. Mix until you reach a smooth consistency. Scoop mixture onto a heated griddle and cook until lightly browned.

You can make a few large pancakes or several smaller ones. These store great for later too!

Choosing the foods to fill your plate with can be tricky. What should you include in order to have a healthy meal? Most people would agree that veggies are an important thing to include on their plate, but how much space on your plate should you dedicate to them? Is 10% enough? Um…..no!

The best way to fill your plate is 50% greens, 25% lean protein, and 25% whole grains. For some people that might sound like way too many veggies, but that is what your body needs! A large majority of people put 50% simple carbohydrates, 40% protein, and only 10% veggies. Your body does not need that much protein or simple carbs.

I know this can be a hard transition for some people. Adding in that many greens can seem overwhelming and boring. Start slow! Little by little start giving veggies a bigger part of your plate until it makes up 50% of your meal. I also recommend eating your veggies/salad first. For one thing, it helps get your digestive juices flowing. Second, it will fill you up faster on the foods your body needs. I ALWAYS eat my salad before I touch anything else on my plate. That way I know I got the most important foods in my body. If I get full before I finish, I won’t be neglecting the greens.

Start creating more space on your plate for greens. Fill your plate with healthy, whole greens to nourish your body, and eat them before you touch anything else on your plate. Taking care of your body is important, so commit to fueling it right!

Have you ever looked at how much salt you ingest? It is probably more than you think! The current guidelines for sodium intake is 1,500-2,300 mg of salt per day according to the CDC. Most people consume over 3,300 mg per day! Wow! That is a lot of salt! Where do you think you fall?

Salt can be a tricky thing. It hides in foods that we least expect it too, it is added to practically everything, and it can be hard to avoid if you consume processed foods on a regular basis. People will often look at the amount of calories, carbs, fat, and sugar in a food item, but most forget to look at the sodium levels. Do you ever check?

So let’s talk about the foods that are highest in sodium. Some of the biggest culprits are bread and rolls, pizza, sandwiches, deli meats, cured meats, soups, burritos and tacos, cheese, eggs and omelets, savory snacks, pretzels, popcorn, chips, chicken, and crackers. There are plenty more, but these are some of the more popular ones.

Take out/fast food, pre-packaged meals, and restaurants are also places to find high sodium meals. The sodium levels can be double what your daily amount is for one meal! Salt is often added to increase flavor, and then people will salt their food when it arrives in front of them to further add to their salt intake. Talk about salt overload!

Pay attention to how much sodium is in the foods you consume. Is it a healthy amount? Challenge yourself to stay below 2,000mg each day. Can you do it?

Your body needs a certain amount of healthy fats to function properly. Fats help insulate our organs, help regulate body temperature, give us healthy hair, skin and nails, support our immune system, and are the structural part of our cells. We need fat! However, not all fat is created equally. Some fats harm our body more then they help, so it’s important to be mindful of the fats we select.

So what is a healthy fat? A healthy fat is a monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, and omega 3 fatty acid. That includes things like avocado, olive oil, nuts & seeds, grass fed butter or ghee, salmon, chia seeds, avocado oil, nut butters, and eggs. These fats help keep our body functioning properly.

Unhealthy fats are saturated fat and trans fat. That includes things like margarine, whole fat milk products, red meat, pork, poultry skin, lamb, certain cooking oils, lard, and some highly processed foods. These foods can cause severe issue within your body and lead to problematic health issues.

Let’s talk about healthy oils you can cook with. There can be a lot of confusion regarding cooking oils. There are varying opinions on which oils are healthy and which are not, so I am going to give you my opinion based on what I have learned. The oils that you should have on hand and use are olive oil, avocado oil, grape seed oil, and ghee. I think coconut oil is acceptable occasionally, however, it is a saturated fat and should be used sparingly. It is also perfectly fine to cook without oil. You can use water or broth to cook with instead of oil. It works great, unless you want to fry something, but fried foods are not healthy anyways.

Some of the oils I feel you should avoid are vegetable, canola, peanut, soybean, cottonseed, sunflower, and corn oil.

Try adding healthy fat into your diet. Swap out highly processed, unhealthy fats, for whole, healthy fats. Use moderation, as even healthy fats can cause weight gain too.

We are three days into this clean eating challenge, and so far we have talked about increasing water consumption, eating more veggies, reading labels and picking foods with fewer ingredients, and now we will talk about sugar 👍🏻.

Sugar can be a very hard thing to reduce or eliminate if it is your weakness. Some people are not tempted by sugar and lean more towards the salty and savory foods, but some of us LOVE sugar! Sugar is my weakness. I can pass on chips and salsa, but place cookies, ice cream, or brownies in front of me, and I have to dig a little deeper to resist diving in. I call it the Sugar Monster syndrome. My grandfather loved sugar, and I remember as a kid, seeing his box of See’s candy, cabinet full of cookies and treats, nightly bowl of ice cream, and thought of him as a sugar monster. I think I actually called him that! I didn’t mean it as a put down, but more as an endearing nickname. I just knew he loved his sugar. Now I can be a sugar monster if I allow myself to be😆.

There are times when I allow more sugar into my diet then I need, but for the most part, I keep it under control. I know the harm it causes my body, so I choose to walk away from it. I also see the effects it has on my body. I become more bloated, I have less energy, my clothes get a little tighter, and I just feel blah! Keeping sugar out of my diet makes me feel so much better, keeps my clothes fitting better, reduces the bloating, and gives me more energy.

So how much sugar should you allow in your diet? The current recommendation is 25 grams per day ( 6 tsp) for women and 37.5 for men. That really isn’t very much! A Starbucks drink can have 50-80 grams of sugar! That is just one drink! Imagine adding that on to what you consume for the rest of the day. A can of soda has about 39 grams of sugar, so well above your daily allowance. Have you ever considered how much sugar you consume each day?

Today I challenge you to reduce the amount of sugar you eat or drink, and pay attention to see how much sugar is in the things you normally reach for. You don’t need to eliminate fruit. That is a natural sugar, and not the same as processed sugar. Check your coffee creamer, snack items, sauces, salad dressings, ketchup, bread, ect….

Can you stay under 30 grams of sugar today?

When it comes to the amount of ingredients in our food, less is more! The less ingredients listed, the better. When you pick up an item at the store, with an ingredient list of 5-7 things or more, that should be a red flag. It is especially alarming if that list includes dyes, additives, preservatives, or words you cannot pronounce.

Clean eating has become a trendy term, and it can be misused for marketing purposes. To make it simple, clean eating includes foods that are from nature (not created in a factory), with zero to very few added ingredients.

Here are a few examples of what to look for on an ingredient list:

Be a food detective! Read ingredient lists, choose fresh foods whenever possible, and look for food items that have 5 or less ingredients. Your health, and the health of your family, is important. It doesn’t matter how you were raised eating or what others do around you. You can educate yourself and take responsibility for your food choices. You are in control of what you feed yourself and your family. Choose wisely😊