At-Home Saturday Morning Workout

Hellooooo I have another workout for you guys! This one is kinda similar to Thursday's workout with a mix of lighter weights and HIIT moves. Whenever I do any type of circuit work or total body this is my favorite way! I can do it continuously without any rest, which saves me time and keeps my heart rate sky high. 

I've gotten asked before about what equipment I think is best to invest in at home and my answer is to always keep it simple (and cheap haha!). Dumbbells and resistance bands are my number one recommendation. I have some other things that I've collected over the years like an over-the-door pull-up bar, stability ball, ab wheel, and exercise sliding discs. All of those have probably cost me under $50 total though! If you have a Five Below around you they have tons of at-home accessory gear for good prices, and it lasts, too. 

A couple of years ago, Amanda and I found our set of dumbbells at Dick's Sporting Goods and only paid about $50-60 for the set but it's adjustable so it's like you're getting multiple dumbbells. I like that it takes less space than a set of each dumbbells, too but we also had a set of 8 and 10 pounds one that we got from Target. I highly recommend investing in some of those pieces of equipment because they're fairly cheap but extremely versatile! 

My family has a treadmill, but I haven't run on it in over a year. It was as a back-up plan for when the weather was bad but for the most part cardio can be free outside in the form of running, walking, incline walking (hills), track workouts, and hill sprints. Those are my main forms of cardio and they don't cost me a dime! Honestly, though, if you're looking for a piece of cardio equipment but don't want to break the bank then I would look into stationary/spin bikes. I don't own one but it's just a thought! 

So here's the workout: 

20 kettle bell swings

10 push-ups

10 burpees

10 upright rows

20 pulsing sumo squats (1 full rep + 1 half rep = 1)

50 flutter kicks

30 banded face pulls

Sprint stairs 5x

30 single arm rows (15 per arm)

30 ice skaters

40 jumping Bulgarian split squats (20 per leg)

10 overhead press

20 tuck jumps

30 stationary lunges (15 per leg)

20 shoulder taps (in a plank position)

15 stability ball hamstring curls 

Repeat! 

If you try it out let me know what you think! Usually I put these together based off moves that I like so it's always helpful to get feedback :) 

30 Minute Total Body Workout: Mix of Weights & HIIT

Good morning! I have a new workout coming your way. It's been awhile since I've done any type of circuit work but I've been put out of lifting the past week. My sciatic nerve on my right side began acting up and it is quite literally a huge pain in the butt haha! There is a sciatic nerve branching down on your right leg and also one on your left leg from the lower back. Basically, it serves to connect the nervous system with the muscles in your leg. Sciatica is also very common as it's a very sensitive nerve.

Anyway, when it first started I could hardly bend down or lift my right leg up towards my chest without severe shooting pain down my butt. I had no idea what it was but I knew that it'd be plain dumb to go squat that morning like what was programmed. After talking with some friends, they explained it was sciatica and gave me some home remedies: massage it with a tennis ball, rest, and apply some heat if I wanted.

I've been taking it easy since last Thursday but that has not been easy for me! Lots of walking helps, though, so I've been doing a combination of some treadmill incline walking plus taking Layla for her daily walks. Things were definitely on the mend and this morning I finally woke up without pain! I didn't want to push my luck and lift just yet so I put together a little circuit to see how my body would handle it. When I first did the burpees, I had some slight twinges but it wasn't anything serious and once my body got going I felt just fine. I even felt better after I was done working out! I made sure to heavily massage the nerve both before and after working out. I'll also put some heat on it later when I get home just in case. I still don't have any pain but I don't want to mess this up!

Okay so enough about my nerve pains haha! Here's my workout from this morning:

20 kettlebell swings

10 lateral raises

10 burpees

20 pulsing goblet squats

50 russian twists

30 walking lunges

sprint stairs 5x

20 frog stair hops

run ladder drills 10x

10 push-ups

20 lying leg raises

20 cross body curls

20 jumping lunges

1 minute shuffle drill

21 bicep curls (7 bottom half -7 top half-7 full reps)

20 plank jacks

repeat!

For the pulsing goblet squats, I did one full rep then came up for a half rep (keeping the tension) and then went back down. One full rep plus one half rep equals one!

If you don't know what the frog stair hops are here is a video where she explains them. Fast forward to about halfway through. These are a killer burn! If you don't have stairs then you can just sub in jump squats or something similar. Also, for the stair sprints my staircase is about 15 stairs just for reference of how many I did.

For the ladder drills, if you don't have an actual rope ladder then you can always lay done some sort of resistance band or jump rope to guide you or you can just pretend like I've done haha! It's just about doing an agility exercise to move your feet and getting your heart rate up. I do the length of my living room back and forth for a total of 10 times.

The shuffle drills you do standing in place and do just what it sounds like: shuffle your feet. You'll see football players doing this drill a lot where they'll stand in place and shuffle their feet as quickly as possible. Here's a video of what that looks like but just take out the burpee!

The whole thing took me 30 minutes exactly. I did two full rounds and each took me 15 minutes. Of course you can always add in more rounds if you want! If you try it out, let me know what you think!

Random Catch-up: Double Dog Week, a Sweet Surprise, & Trail 5k

So we had a visitor staying with us the other week, Denver! I've talked about him before but just to refresh your memory he's the dog of Amanda's good friend who sometimes stays with us. All of her family live back home in Tennessee so when she travels, he comes to visit. Layla is of course always thrilled because the more the merrier plus she gets a play buddy for a week. 

Now, Denver is by no means a bad dog buuuut at the same time he always makes me appreciate Layla so much more haha! It's just the little things that I take for granted with her such as not waking me up in the morning, being able to be off-leash, not counter-surfing, and answering all my commands. It just shows me how much she really has learned over the past couple years, and reassures me that even though I doubted what I was doing half the time (lolz) that I did put a lot of work into training her. Denver is a sweet boy and like I say he's not a bad dog but he's just a little rough around certain edges is all haha. 

But, I always get him shaped up whenever he comes to stay with us because I've told Amanda there are certain, uh, quirks of his that I will not tolerate. Such as darting out the door as soon as you open it and nearly dislocating your shoulder by pulling on the leash. So, he learned (my way slash sort of the hard way) that he must be first invited out of the house and then has to politely wait right outside the door on the front porch for you while you shut the door. Something that I take for granted with Layla is that she will not automatically follow you out the door like when I'm trying to leave for work, and that she has to be told that she can come outside. Otherwise you can leave the door wide open and she'll just patiently let you leave. 

One thing is for sure: these two make a cute duo! They're basically dating. 

Denver definitely kept us busy for the week but I'm glad he came to visit. 

I also came home to THE SWEETEST surprise from Rachael the other week and pretty much sobbed tears of happiness reading her card. True story: it's propped next to my bed and every single time I see it or read it my heart explodes with love. The way God works never ceases to amaze me. Rachael definitely sent this to me just when I needed to read her sweet words. I'll keep it short on here but basically my calling for the future has me overwhelmed at (most) times, and it's taking a lot for me to keep my faith planted firm in God's plan. Also please note: 99% of the goodies are now gone haha! 

This flavor by Wild Friends is ah-mazing! I put it in my strawberry zoats, and I have no words for how delicious it was. Thank you again Rachael! 

Also, my friend at work introduced me to Gaucho! It was actually one of the top restaurants named in 2015 or something, which I was surprised about. Pittsburgh is definitely stepping up it's foodie game! It's in the Strip District (I live right outside Pittsburgh) so my friend and I took a trip there. I can't even remember what salad I got but it was the king of all salads. 

I mean this picture says it all: 

It had grilled chicken (with some sauce that I can't remember but I wanted to buy by the jar), grilled asparagus, roasted red peppers, potatoes, slices of avocado, and some fresh greens and radishes. I got the half size and it was the perfect amount! Everything was so fresh, flavorful, and the price is extremely reasonable. It's kind of fast-casual dining, and the atmosphere was great with friendly staff. If you're ever in the Burgh I recommend picking up a meal at Gaucho! 

My friend and I did a trail 5k last Saturday morning, which was a lot of fun! I've never done a trail run before and I'm not sure what I was expecting but I guess I wasn't expecting it to be so dangerous haha! There were tons of roots, rocks, and uneven hills. A lot of people actually fell and got hurt (nothing serious thankfully) but apparently bumps and bruises are perfectly normal during trail runs. That might have been my first and last trail run. I'm still glad that I tried it out, though, where's the fun in never trying anything new! 

My family has been trying out a new church, and I'm soooo excited! I've gone there before several times with a family friend and I can't wait until I fully switch and call it my church! Layla and I took lots of celebratory selfies that I actually did my hair for once haha but as usual she got completely fed up with all the picture-taking! I swear she has the most expressive face in a dog that I've ever met. But, in my defense, look at that face. How could you not want to take pictures of her sweet face?! 

...I may or may not but definitely have a whole album dedicated to her on my iPhone..

I've also been doing lots and lots of studying! But that's for another time and post ;)

In the meantime, I have a few other things in the works so stay tuned over the next several weeks! I promise that my bad blogging/frequent absence has to do with a greater purpose. 

How to Reign in Dominant Muscles

I've talked before about how I am ridiculously quad dominant when it comes to lifting. Like seriously, I could do a back exercise and my quads would want to take over. Obviously that is an exaggeration but if I am doing anything lower body that is not supposed to be quad-focused I have to actively concentrate on not using my quads. 

First off, when I say I'm a quad-dominant lifter it means just that-- my quads are the dominate muscle used most often. If I let my body naturally do its thing and don't try to interfere, my quads will do all the work. They are my muscles that grow the fastest, get the strongest, and take the most to tire out. Now, this is based on my genetics and will not hold true for everyone. We all have our own dominant muscles, it just depends. For me, I'm fairly certain at this point that my quads are secretly hatching a plan for world domination. 

The problem with being a quad dominate lifter is that I have to be very conscious about my lifts and that I don't allow my body to take the path of least resistance. Let's talk about squats for a minute so that I can explain what that means in a real example. During a squat you are supposed to keep the weight in your heels, but if you are quad dominant like me then this can pose a particular challenge. At the bottom of the squat, you are supposed to use your hamstrings to keep the weight in your heels but often what can happen as you come up you feel yourself sliding the weight onto the middle and front part of your feet. That is shifting the weight from your hamstrings to your quads, which is an example of taking the path of least resistance. Basically, it's your body's version of a shortcut to make the lift easier. Your hamstrings can't hold the weight so your quads go "don't worry, boys, I got this" and take the weight. It causes you to drift forward because your quads are now shortening more as the muscles contract to take the weight.  

Now before you start thinking "well, aren't squats supposed to be for quads?" the answer is yes BUT a squat is also a compound lift i.e. takes more than one muscle. Hamstrings are a synergistic muscle during squats which means they assist your quads during the lift which is the prime mover muscle a.k.a. doing most of the work. MOST being the key word, not ALL. The reason that squats hold the title of the king of all exercises is because no other lift works your entire body like a squat does. Your legs won't just reap the benefits but your whole body will.

Okay, I'll stop myself now before I start obsessing over squats because the point of this post is to tell you how to reign in dominant muscles.

For starters, you want to strengthen any weak muscles to prevent any other muscles over-activating to take on unnecessary weight. This will prevent injuries such as muscle strains. If you are quad-dominant like me then work on your posterior chain (ex: hamstrings, gluteus maximus, lower back, etc.). I can't even tell you the amount of time I have invested in specifically targeting my hams and glutes to strengthen them. In particular, my hamstrings as I didn't have much of a weak booty to start with haha! If my quads didn't take over first then my glutes definitely would, but gluteal muscles is a group that also includes not just your butt muscles (the gluteus maximus is typically thought of) but your gluteus medius and gluteus minimus, which often get left out. Most people just focus on building up their gluteus maximus (the booty) without considering the medius and minimus, which are near your hip. However, all three are important muscles and can affect your form if they are weak.

Some great exercises to target hamstrings include: Romanian deadlifts, lying leg curls, good mornings, high stance leg press, and single leg deadlifts are some of my favorites. For glutes: walking lunges, Bulgarian split squats (farther stance, slight lean to target the glutes), deficit curtsey lunges, hip thrusts, and dumbbell sumo squats are all good to give the booty a burn.

My second piece of advice is the mind-muscle connection. It's not just a myth or willy-nilly idea that is totally useless, but can really enable you to override any dominant muscles. Your brain controls your muscles so if you are actively concentrating on a muscle and using it then that is much more effective than just doing an exercise with the best hope that it's targeting the muscle you want. As I'm doing an exercise with a less dominant muscle, I focus all my concentration on using that muscle. I make sure I feel the movement in that particular muscle, and focus on not using my more dominant muscles. Another example is with traps and delts. Your traps are much stronger than your shoulder muscles so a lot of the time you will have to focus on hitting your delts rather than allowing your traps to make any compensations. For instance, a common thing I see with lateral raises is people using more of their traps (the muscles near your neck) to move the weight rather than their delts.

My third piece of advice is drop weight. If you have weak muscles and they can't handle the weight then the muscle that is stronger, and the one you don't want taking over the weight, will take over. That is why I started basically at square one weight-wise with squats because I knew my hamstrings weren't as strong as they should be and I wanted to make sure I nailed my form this time around. Last time I got injured because my hamstrings weren't strong enough, I would slide forward too much on my quads which would cause me to bend forward too much, and strain my lower back. Eventually injuring my lower back is what turned me off from squats for awhile until I learned the errors of my way. Now that I have built up my hamstring strength I have no problems with breaking parallel, keeping the weight in my heels, and not straining my lower back. Sometimes you have to suck up your pride and go with a lighter weight. No one in the gym will care and it's much better to have proper form.

Let's bring in another example: the leg press. I use this not just for quads but will utilize many different foot placements to target different areas of my leg. I use it for hamstrings all the time by placing my feet very high so that the edge of the machine hits the middle of my foot and keep my feet about shoulder distance apart. If you have them too wide or too narrow then the outer and inner thigh muscles will be worked. I only use about 1/3 of the weight compared to when I leg press to hit quads because a) my hamstrings aren't as strong and b) I want to make sure that I am really isolating my hamstrings and not letting other parts of my legs compensate. The foot placement helps in addition to the lower weight because it targets my hamstrings and not my quads as much. Now, let's not underestimate my quads because they definitely COULD take over the weight haha if I let them! But I don't since I strategically plan my foot placement and weight so that my hamstrings do the work.

So to sum up this post here are my general suggestions:

1) Build up weak spots

2) Utilize the mind-muscle connection

3) Lower the weight

Hope that helps! If you guys enjoy more of these informative-type posts please let me know! I appreciate any and all feedback :) I can certainly work on more of these in the future and I'm more than happy to share on here!

Hope you're all having a good start to the weekend!

Top Recipe Picks for Macro Newbies

When you first start tracking macros, it's overwhelming. I get it, I've been there. So I figured it might be helpful to post some good macro-friendly recipes to start you out! I just gathered up some of my favorite recipes that I've posted on here before and put them into their categories to organize it for you guys. Most of these are my go-to's that I have on a regular basis and they are so simple to make!

Breakfast

Blueberry Zoats
Egg-white Oats
Greek Yogurt Pancakes
Spinach & Feta Egg-white Scramble

Lunch

Healthy Chicken Salad
Hummus Wraps
Roasted Vegetable Salad


Dinner

Chicken Pesto Bake
Ground Turkey Lettuce Wraps
Mustard-Glazed Salmon
Roasted Spaghetti Squash
Salsa Chicken
Tortizzas
Zoodles


Desserts

Cake Batter Proyo Bowl
Deep Dish Chocolate Chip Cookie
 Macro-Friendly Hot Chocolate
Mini Protein Cheesecake Cups
Vanilla Bean Doughnuts


Snacks

Banana Bread Cookies
Overnight Oreo "Pudding"
PB Yogurt Dip
Strawberry Snickerdoodle Smoothie

Deload Week

One of the best things you can do for your body is gift it with a deload week. I find that this becomes a necessity after awhile because my body could easily become burnt out with all the lifting I do on a weekly basis. Of course, Sundays are always my rest days where I don't even touch a weight and my toughest workout is a long walk or hike with Layla. 

But about every 7th week I factor in a deload week to give my muscles a break. I don't exactly have the weights or workouts planned out but I simply just let my body rest and if I'm not feeling a workout I don't push myself. I stick to light cardio maybe a couple times that week and I might throw in one or two light lifting days. I sleep in so I can catch up on sleep, and I give my body a break. 

I also find that this helps my mental sanity. We're human and there all comes a time where we lose motivation to go to the gym, feel burnt out, and just want a break. I like to schedule deload weeks because a) it keeps me from getting to a point like that and b) it gives me something to look forward to. I would rather take scheduled breaks to give myself a mental and physical break then keep pushing and pushing week after week until I get to a point where I'd dread my workout. Plus, I'm always refreshed and rejuvenated after a deload week and ready to tackle the regular grind! 

Injury can be another real threat to any athlete so of course allowing your body rest is one of the most important things you can do in injury prevention. If you keep pushing your body til the brink of exhaustion, you are basically asking for an injury. During my deload week, I focus on stretching, foam rolling, and taking care of any tender spots. I'll be honest and say that I don't always take the time to stretch or foam roll like I should but I really am trying to get better! Deload week especially helps me catch up and I will sometimes do some cross training exercises to strengthen any weak muscle areas. 

My point is, though, that rest does not equal weakness. You see so often that people brag about their streak of no rest days, and I don't know how they do it! I LOVE my rest days and I look forward to them every week. I also love my deload week because I know that come the next Monday I'll be itching to get back to my regular programming. I did use to have problems with taking rest days back when I thought I had to "earn my food" but now I'm all about rest days! 

I've learned to love my deload weeks because I've learned to love my body. I know that my body needs rest, repair, and care so I make it a priority. Sometimes unscheduled deload weeks happen like when I was sick a little over a week ago but I'm feeling so much better now, and I'll take another deload week in about 5 weeks. It's taken me awhile to learn some of these things and how to treat my body properly but I'm glad that I've learned it at any rate. 

You only get one body so it's important to take care of it! 

Cauli-oats

 So I've tried out and posted about zoats before but cauli-oats were another thing I was itching to try out. Cauliflower is another veggie that you can add to your oats for added volume, barely any carbs, and the best part is you can't taste it! Now that I've had both of them I think I prefer zoats but don't get me wrong these were good, too. The Trader Joe's by my house FINALLY began stocking the frozen rice cauliflower that I've been dying to get my hands on. It was so much more popular than they thought that there ended up being a waiting list! You'd put your name on it and when it was your turn they could hold a bag for you but honestly that was just too much trouble for me. They caught up though with the demand and now it's pretty easy for me to get a bag #blessed haha! 

Anyway, you could totally rice your own cauliflower but let's be honest I'd rather Trader Joe's do all the work for me. I don't defrost it but just stick it in frozen and it cooks pretty quickly in the oatmeal. A serving size is also huge so I did about 1/3 of it (56g) and it was still a ton of cauliflower! It was volume city in my oats but that was kinda the point. 

So here's what you'll need: 

30g quick oats

50(ish)g riced cauliflower (frozen or thawed)

1/4 cup liquid egg whites

vanilla extract (I just pour in whatever amount looks good, maybe 1/2-1 tsp)

stevia to taste

How to make 'em: 

1. Weigh out your oats and cook them for about 1 minute

(not exactly sure why I took a picture mid-way through weighing but I did in fact use 30g and not 27g)

2. Mix in the egg whites, vanilla extract, and cauliflower. 

3. Cook for another 2-2.5 minutes stirring about every 30-45 seconds. 

4. Prepare your coffee while you're waiting! (optional but is it really?)

5. Then top the oats with whatever you want! I just mixed in honey roasted peanut butter because I didn't have a lot of extra carbs to spare for toppings. But it was still delicious! 

I'd say the main difference between zoats and cauli-oats is that the texture is different. You still can't taste either vegetable in the oats but the cauliflower chunks give the oatmeal a different texture where as the zucchini is smoother. I didn't mind it at all and the cauliflower cooked nicely so they weren't crunchy chunks but it still just gives a different texture than zoats. 

If you try either one out, let me know! I'd love to hear your opinion about them. 

April 2016 Goals

I was talking to a friend of mine about some of my goals for April so I decided I would share them on here! I've decided that I'm going to be much better at planning (for those of you who know me planning does not come naturally to me haha!) because I want to train with deliberation. The past two years I have been lifting just for fun and because I love it, which neither of those has changed, BUT I do have some ideas in the works so I want to get smarter about my goals. 

To do this I have decided to develop my lifts each week with certain percentages, rep schemes, and overall strength goals. For example, by the end of this month I want to hit 215 for deadlifts so for the next four weeks I'm going to be very strategic with my numbers for deadlifts in order to reach this goal. The way I do this is playing around with different percentages of my max. It can't always be just going for the PR max because I approach lifting the same way I approach running. The shorter runs during the week matter just as much as your long run on the weekend because it's building upon a base of endurance. The same exact thing is with lifting because you are building upon your foundation of strength. At least this is how lifting makes sense to me so I plan my percentages and rep schemes that way. In any given week, I am working with weights 60-100% of my max. 

So I've been taking the time to plan out my lifts over the next few weeks and hopefully reach my goals! 

For this month: 

1. Hit 215 PR for deadlifts

2. Squat 150 (pain-free)

3. Bench press at least 2x a week (not my favorite so I tend to cut back on it a lot)

4. Do 4 unassisted pull-ups

5. Continue my reverse diet

As you can see some are a mix of actual numerical goals while others are more along the lines of just making sure I stick with things. I definitely need to reverse diet a little more and get those carbs up because right now I squat 3x a week and deadlift 3x a week (usually different days) in addition to bench press and my accessory lifts with a dash of cardio thrown in so I NEED FOOOOOD. 

The pull-ups is something I'm always working on because honestly it might be the hardest movement for me ever. I've never been able to do even 1 (slightly embarrassing) but I can now do 2 and a half (the half is very important haha!) which has taken me a ridiculously long time to build up. My strength there just takes forever to develop but I really want to push for that final 1 and a half so that hopefully I can get to 4 by the end of this month. Deadlifting a lot more has helped my back as well so I'm optimistic! 

Overall, having goals in mind keeps me productive, moving towards something, and focus. I think it's fun to set goals for myself because I love a good challenge. A worded math problem? Not so much. But tell me that you want me lifting x amount of weight in a certain time period and I'm all over it! 

What are some of your goals for this month? I want to hear about them! 

Deep Dish Chocolate Chip Cookie

I finally got around to doing some baking this past weekend! I used to do a lot more experimenting with recipes but honestly life has just gotten pretty busy the past few months plus it's easier to plan macros when you eat all the same foods haha! I got this idea from The Macro Experiment, and decided to make a few tweaks. Side note: she has a TON of great recipes and I definitely recommend checking her out! 

I've been cutting back on whey protein for awhile now because it doesn't seem to agree with my stomach or my skin. I have also been cutting back on gluten for the same reason so I wanted this to be gluten-free and whey-free. It was already gluten-free with the coconut flour so to get rid of the whey protein powder I decided to substitute the applesauce for greek yogurt for a protein boost. I had to up the coconut flour a bit since I made the swap and added in a dash of almond milk. 

So here's what you'll need: 

10g coconut flour

4g unsalted butter, melted

4g brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract 

1/2 tablespoon of almond milk

1 tablespoon liquid egg whites

1 oz plain greek yogurt

1/2 tsp baking powder

14g mini chocolate chips

stevia to taste

To make the cookie here's what you do: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350

2. Melt the butter in the microwave. Add in the vanilla, greek yogurt, and stevia. 

3. Once those are mixed in and the butter is cooler, you can add the egg whites. I generally wait to add eggs to any hot batter as you can easily scramble them so I wanted the yogurt and vanilla to cool down the butter. Mix in the coconut flour, baking powder, and brown sugar, too. 

4. Once that is all combined, add in the almond milk (if you have to). This might be an optional step depending on the thickness of your batter and if everything is incorporating properly. 

5. Mix in half of the mini chocolate chips and then save the rest for putting on the top. That way you get plenty of chocolate in each bite :) 

The ramekins that I had were too small and were deeper than I wanted but I found these cool baking cups at Target! They were the perfect size that I wanted (4 in diameter) and they're like a super reinforced cupcake liner. They worked perfectly and the package has about 30 cups and it was around $3-4 I think. I just set it on a cookie tray and popped it in the oven and it worked great! 

(just ignore my ratchet food scale ha I should probably get a new one soon)

6. Bake for about 10-15 minutes depending on your oven. Mine probably took a little closer to 15 but I would set it for 10 minutes first and then just check it to see if it's done. I just stuck a toothpick in the middle each time until it came out clean. 

Enjoy! 

And here are the macros. If you try it out let me know what you think! 

Blueberry Zoats

As I talked about before, I finally started adding some zucchini to my oats to give them some added volume. It sounds like a strange thing to do but trust me on this! You can't even tell there's zucchini in the oats, and I've heard cauliflower works, too. The Trader Joe's by my house finally started stocking pre-riced cauliflower so I picked up a bag, and plan on using it for my oatmeal. 

So here's what you'll need: 

30g oats (I use quick-cooking)

100g zucchini

1/4 cup egg whites

30-40g blueberries

stevia to sweeten

vanilla extract (optional)

You can definitely play around with those amounts as I just did mine based off my carbs for the day. Also, I grated the zucchini ahead of time and didn't cook it before using it. I'm not sure if other people cook their zucchini first but raw turned out just fine for me. 

To make the zoats: 

1. Cook the oats for about 1 minute 

2. Add in the egg whites, zucchini, and vanilla. I always like to add vanilla to my oats for additional flavoring but you don't have to! 

3. Cook for about another 2-2.5 minutes, stirring about every 30 seconds. Just cook them until they're fully cooked and the oats are nice and fluffy. 

4. Add in the stevia and blueberries or whatever toppings you like! 

They're definitely not very pretty but they're delicious! I'll let you guys know when I try out the cauliflower oats! 

Enjoy your Friday :)