Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

I'm a self-proclaimed carb junkie. I love anything and everything baked, especially muffins. Unfortunately, muffins have never loved me back, until I discovered a great recipe in one of my new cookbooks, Rocco Dispirito's "Now Eat This! Diet". If you aren't familiar with his work, Rocco Dispirito is a chef who focuses on finding ways to cut the fat and calories in traditional "off-limits" foods without sacrificing taste. As an added bonus, he also uses natural ingredients. Oh and did I mention he's gorgeous? His books are full of pictures of him cooking. (Add a couple pictures of him vacuuming and washing dishes and it'd be lady-porn.) Ok ok, enough fantasizing. Back to the muffins. These muffins are great because they're delicious, low in fat and calories, made of all-natural ingredients and they're high in fiber, so they fill you up and keep you satisfied. I have one every morning with 2 egg whites and a cup of coffee and I'm good to go until lunch time. Plus, agave nectar keeps your blood sugar normal, so you don't crave sweets mid morning or suffer a sugar crash. They're practically miracle muffins!

His recipe is for banana-walnut muffins, but since one of my all-time favorite flavor combinations is banana and peanut butter, I tweaked the recipe a little to be able to add peanut butter chips without adding a bunch of calories.

P.S. - The recipe calls for whole wheat pastry flour, which is an important distinction. If you use regular wheat flour, your muffins will come out very dense and chewy. Pastry flour will give you the light and fluffy texture you'd get from white flour, but the fiber and nutrients of whole wheat.

Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

Ingredients:

Non-stick cooking spray
2 cups + 2 tbsp whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 packets (4 grams) powdered stevia, such as Truvia or SweetLeaf
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup skim milk
1/4 cup agave nectar
2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp banana extract
1/2 cup liquid egg white substitute
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
12 walnut halves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-ct muffin pan with paper baking cups and spray each cup lightly with non-stick spray.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, stevia and salt. Stir to combine well, and set aside.

In a medium-size mixing bowl, combine milk, agave nectar, mashed bananas, applesauce, vanilla, banana extract and egg substitute. Whisk until well blended. Slowly pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and fold together to combine. Stir just until well-blended. Add in peanut butter chips and stir.

Spoon batter evenly into each paper cup and top each with a walnut half. Bake 18-22 minutes. Muffins are done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Another great thing about muffins is that they can easily be frozen and defrosted as necessary. Just put them in a plastic freezer bag and they'll keep for up to 3 months. To defrost, just place one on a plate and microwave it for 1 minute 30 seconds. Then you're out the door with a hot, yummy and healthy breakfast.

Oh the guilt...

One of the hardest things I've had to learn about losing weight, is not to stress about what I eat or feel guilty for enjoying an occasional treat. Last summer, I got into doing weightloss challenges to keep myself motivated. The challenge that I signed up for was one where everyone pitched $25 into a pot and at the end of the 12-week challenge, the top 3 people with the highest percentage of weightloss split the pot. I'm competitive, so I thought it sounded like a really good way for me to keep losing. The first time I did the challenge, I started out really strong and lost weight quickly, but the as the weeks went by and it got closer to the end, I'd get increasingly focused on winning and increasingly worried that I wasn't losing enough. By the end of the challenge, even though I watched every single calorie that I put in my mouth, I followed all of the healthy guidelines, exercised everyday and drank more than enough water, I was struggling to lose just two lbs a week.

It frustrated me to no end, since I had no idea what was going on. The more frustrated I got, the more I just slid backwards. My coach had no tips for me, my powerlifter husband had no ideas... I was at a complete loss for where to turn. I ended up dropping from 1st place to 3rd and while I still lost 34 lbs in that challenge, my competitive self was crushed. In the second challenge I competed in, the same thing happened. I started out strong and slowed down, despite the fact that nothing in my diet or exercise regimen had changed. I ended up dropping from 1st to 2nd by the end of that one and only lost 14 lbs. After that, I decided to take a break and work on maintaining good habits without the threat of a weekly weigh-in.

A few weeks later, my husband and I went on our honeymoon to Puerto Rico for a week. It was the first time in 6 months that I had relaxed and not worried about every bite I took or every mile I logged. I swam, I snorkeled, I kayaked and hiked the rainforest... and I enjoyed the food. All of it. Stews, pastries, sandwiches, desserts, cocktails - I fully expected to gain 10 pounds by the time I went home. But, to my pleasant surprise, when I stepped on my scale the next morning, I had lost 3 lbs during my week of relaxation! Imagine, months of dieting, working out, counting every calorie, just to try and lose a single pound, and when I finally relaxed - 3 POUNDS! Who says you can't lose weight on vacation?

Finally, the reason for all of that frustration just clicked. Stress was the culprit behind my weight gain. I started doing some research online and discovered that stress causes the same chemical reactions in the body as the hormones from your period or pregnancy. It facilitates the storage of fatty tissue and causes water retention. Learning to relax, while still exercising and not completely pigging out, created a better balance then logging miles and freaking out over every calorie.

A few months ago, I read an article in Shape Magazine. It was an interview with supermodel Brooklyn Decker about how she stays in such good shape. She said something in it that I'll never forget, because it was so incredibly insightful. She was discussing food guilt and how it was something that she had learned to deal with. She said, "It's not the brownie that makes you fat. It's the guilt." It's so true. One pound of fat is 3500 calories. A brownie is what? 200? 300 calories? That's a tiny fraction of a pound. The stress over eating it is what causes you gain weight. Not the brownie itself. (Not that you should go brownie binging, but the ocassional brownie is not going to cause to blow up like a balloon.)

So, that's what I've been working on lately. I've been learning to indulge in some of the things I love without feeling bad about it. If I want ice cream (one of my major downfall foods), I get it. I just make sure that I walk to the ice cream shop and back and that I get one scoop in a cup. It's enough to kick my craving, there's no unnecessary calories from a cone, and I've burned it off by the time I get home. All of that helps me feel fine about the indulgence, and I'm still losing weight.

So next time you want to treat yourself, do it. But do it knowing that you work hard, you live healthy and you deserve a little treat in your life. You earned it, and you should never feel bad about it, because, "It's not the brownie that makes you fat. It's the guilt."

Bye-Bye booze, bye-bye social life

If you want to find out who your real friends are, give up drinking. I assure you that the room will clear out fast. I'm not sure why that is, but non-drinkers rank right up there with lepers on the social pariahs list.

I found this out when I quit drinking two years ago. The decision wasn't a moral one and I have nothing against alcohol or people who drink. In fact, I'll be the first to admit that nothing quit hits the spot like a cold beer on a hot day, and the occasional drink actually has health benefits. I just don't drink anything with calories in it (which really baffles people when I bother to explain it). The day they learn to make a calorie-free beer that doesn't taste like pee or water, I'll be the first in line. In the meantime, I'll stick with water.

Of all of the changes I've made in my attempts to get healthy, giving up alcohol has had the biggest effect on my life in general. Even my closest friends have been strangely absent. Gone are the invites for margaritas with the girls, nights out with the guys, even movies at the local cinema/grill. I would be perfectly happy with water and good conversation, but no one ever seems to believe that. Instead, they've moved on and found other people to share their booze and conversations with them, while I spend my evenings at home with my daughter - me with my water, and her with her apple juice.

And that's ok. I like my new drinking buddy better anyway.

Hi! I'm Kim, and you are...?

Let me start off by saying that I hate blogging. I'm not a "blogger." My thoughts on a day-to-day basis aren't that interesting, and even I wouldn't want to read them. I am, however, a writer, and I'm currently in the middle of an attempt at writing a pretty daunting book. The problem is, my brain is jammed with so much information, that I can't even organize my thoughts. That's why I'm forced to attempt this whole blogging endeavor. I need to get some of it out to make room for the new.  And hopefully, I have some information that people, such as yourself, would be interested in.

To tell you a little bit about me, I'm a super-nerd. I love to learn, and when I find a subject that excites me, I get more than a little obsessive about it. For the last 18 months, the object of my obsession has been nutrition, specifically in the areas of fitness and weightloss. I've always been chubby, for as long as I can remember anyway, but when I gave birth to my daughter back in 2008, I was beyond chubby. I was obese. 265 lbs, to be exact. I wasn't alone, however, since aproximately 700 million people in the US fit into the obese catagory, so that, on it's own, probably wouldn't have given me the real motivation to change. At that time, I was also diagnosed with malignant melanoma skin cancer. Between the ob/gyn, the dermatologist, the plastic surgeon and the psychiatrist (post-partum depression), I spent a LOT of time in doctors offices. I hate doctors. I always have, and I always will. I decided that I would do whatever possible to avoid ever going to the doctor again, or at least as little as humanly possible. That meant getting happy and healthy. I set a goal to lose weight, get in shape and become the healthiest woman ever to turn 30 (I still have a year and a half, by the way).

October 2009

May 2011

Operation "Get Awesome" officially began New Years Day, 2010. Since then, I've completely changed my diet, lost 90 lbs and I'm in the best shape I've ever been. It hasn't been easy, and I'm still chugging along to my goal, but I've learned a ton. It's that knowledge that I want to share with people. I want to help anyone else who wants, or needs to get healthy. Whether it's tips and tricks that I've picked up, recipes I've found that were especially good, or just plain old scientific knowledge, I'll share it all. And if you have any questions, feel free to email me and I'll answer them as best I can!