Ingredients:
2 bananas (0pp)
1 cup oats (8)
1/4 cup craisins (4)
Baked for 15 minutes at 350 on a non-stick surface.
Points+ = 12 for the whole thing. Split into 8, 1.5 per bar, and I’m rounding up to 2.
They’re small, but the goal is to eat one or two whenever I might otherwise skip a meal, like in the morning.
Just made the most delicious homemade granola bars! Seriously addicting…
Today’s omny nomny breakfast. I blended a cup of strawberries in a food processor, crushed a peanut butter granola bar and sliced up two bananas and just mixed it all in a bowl. Yummy goodness. :P~
After looking back at my high school years here are the things I should have done more! I really took these tips and put them to use during college and ended up finally sticking to a healthy lifestyle!
(via losing-every-extra-pound)
@4 months ago with 5780 notes8 Healthy Ways to Start the Day
Source: sparkpeople.com (edited)
Wake Up Earlier
When you have a stressful morning, chances are that you’re going to be feeling stressed for many hours to come. But it doesn’t have to be that way! By simply waking up 20-30 minutes earlier than necessary, you can enjoy a leisurely morning without the usual hustle and bustle.
Eat Breakfast
You’ve been sleeping for seven to eight hours or more, so your body needs fuel to wake up your metabolism and help you power through your morning. Eating breakfast prevents you from overeating throughout the day, and people who eat an a.m. meal are less likely to be overweight than people who skip it.
Veg Out
Once you’ve gotten in the habit of eating breakfast, take it one step further and try to sneak in a serving of veggies with your morning meal. Add some mushrooms and tomatoes into your omelet, or try blending a little spinach in with your smoothie.
Take a Multivitamin
Although you should strive to get all the nutrients you can from your food, taking a multivitamin will help you fill in the gaps in case you fall short on any given nutrient during the day.
Drink Water
You’re going to need something to wash down your multi-vitamin with—so gulp a big glass of water! Not only are your fuel stores depleted when you wake up, but you’re also probably mildly dehydrated.
Sneak in Exercise
Working out in the morning is one of the best things you can do to get yourself on track for the day. Not only will you not have to worry about exercising later on in the evening, but you’ll also feel proud that you did something good for your body while most people were still asleep!
Stretch it Out
If a full-blown workout isn’t going to happen for you in the early hours, try a simple stretching routine, instead. You’ll still get your blood and endorphins flowing, while centering your mind.
Jot Your Thoughts
If your a.m. routine leaves you feeling scatterbrained by the time the sun is up, you may benefit from taking a few minutes to write down your morning thoughts. Journaling has been shown to boost self-esteem, and is a powerful way for you to work through any issues you might be experiencing.
(via losing-every-extra-pound)
@1 day ago with 6 notesThis quarter, I had the bright idea to do a yoga class from 8:30-9:30 before doing back to back two-hour classes from 10 AM-2 PM. I also ride my back to and from school. Needless to say, I get hungry in the seven or so hours I’m either riding or in class, but I don’t really have a break in there to eat a meal. I load up on little snacks to eat throughout the day, preferably things that aren’t loud to chew so I’m not that obnoxious person eating chips during class while everyone else is trying to listen. Naturally, the perfect choice for this would be a good granola bar but then there’s that whole celiac thing. I used to not be very sensitive and I could get away with eating Clif bars, even though they have malted barley extract in them. Now? No dice. Those things really mess me up. Luckily, there are Larabars.
I discovered Larabars a couple of months ago, and I’m telling you, these things are the bomb diggity. They are so good and they’re free of preservatives, chemicals, added sugar, gluten, and dairy products. Delicious, gluten-free, vegan granola bars. Great. Sign me up. Except, as is the case with most foods like this, they come with an absurd amount of packaging. And they’re very expensive. I don’t dig that. But because there are so few ingredients in them, it was really easy to figure out how to make my own at home. I started out just throwing some dates, dried cranberries, and almonds in my blender. That worked, but took forever, and I vowed never to make them again until we had a food processor. Along with my desire to make hummus, pesto, salsa, peanut butter, and apple chips, this convinced my mom to buy a food processor. I made another batch, this time adding walnuts. Turned out great both times, but it was really just a hodge-podge of dried fruits and nuts. This time, I decided to make some peanut butter ones.
You guys. They are like peanut butter, oatmeal cookies. Except they’re good for you. Go make these right now.
Ingredients
-Pitted medjool dates (I use 2 lbs)
-Around two cups of rolled oats
-About a cup and a half of peanuts
-About a third of a cup of peanut butter
1) Blend up the dates in a food processor until they form a paste. Remove from food processor and set aside.
2) Blend oats and peanuts in the food processor.
3) Slowly add dates bit by bit. If you add all of the paste at the same time, it will be hard on the food processor. Adding it slowly helps get it thoroughly mixed with the dry ingredients. If it starts to ball up, stop the food processor, break it into smaller pieces, and keep blending.
4) Once everything is thoroughly blended, you can do one of two things. Number 1 (aka the easy way, which is obviously what I do) - Roll the mixture into balls and store in an airtight container. Super simple. Number 2 - Place the mixture between two pieces of wax paper and roll it out with a rolling pin. Then you can cut it into bar shapes.
Boom. Done. The quantities given above will make a LOT. I probably got about two dozen balls out of this. You can definitely make less, I just wanted to use up all of the dates I had.
Tips:
1) Don’t be afraid of buying dates that aren’t pitted! Pitting them is not even a little bit hard. You basically just squish it between your fingers and it’ll separate in half. Pull the pit out. That’s it.
2) This recipe is very easy to try variations on. In the picture, the two different colored ones are ones I made with almonds, walnuts, raisins, and dried cranberries. If you do the ones in the recipe and add cocoa powder, it tastes like Snickers bar. The next one I’m going to try is apple pie flavor.
3) Don’t try this if you don’t have a food processor. Seriously. It’s so much work and it takes forever. If you don’t have a food processor, borrow one from a friend or wait for a really kickass sale to come up. I got mine for more than 50% off at Macy’s and I use it several times a week.Let me know what flavors you try making!
@1 day ago with 5 notes
All The Things in My Cupboards Bars (~140cal/bar)
It’s really exactly what it says. I got inspired to make my own granola bars after seeing so many amazing ones on Tumblr, but I wanted to avoid processed sugar and adding fats as much as possible.Ingredients:
1+1/3c oats
1c chopped nuts (I used almonds)
1c raisins
1/2c honey
1/3c brown sugar
3tbsp cocoa powder
6tbsp shredded unsweetened coconutPreheat oven to 350F. Mix the coconut and oats together and spread out on a baking sheet. Toast them for about 10 minutes or until they just start to brown. While that’s toasting, cut up the almonds and mix together with the other ingredients. Remove the oats and coconut from the oven and mix thoroughly.
It might seem like there’s not enough honey, but don’t worry, if you mix it well enough it’ll get nice and dense!
Press into a parchment-paper lined baking sheet and bake for about 12-15 minutes. Allow to fully cool, then cut into pieces.
Makes 20 bars.
The recipe definitely needs some tweaking. You definitely don’t need the brown sugar unless you have a real sweet-tooth, and my next batch I’m going to add in an egg so that it’ll hold together a little better.
The best thing about these bars is that you can add almost anything! Don’t be afraid to experiment with other grains, quinoa, cereal, other fruit, nuts, molasses and other liquid-form sugars, so on and so forth!
Reblogging this everytime I see it!
(Source: thatgoodgirl, via sailor-lunaa)
HEALTHY ENERGIZING BREAKFAST SMOOTHY - “THE MINTY ‘NANA”
- 1 banana
- 1 kiwi
- 1 plum
- 1 handful frozen berries
- 1 small cup orange juice
- 1 small cup water
- 5 stems of fresh mint
Cut up banana, plum and kiwi. Throw fruit and mint into blender with orange juice (apple or pineapple juice is also nice) and water. Blend blend blend. NOM NOM NOM.
WHY IT’S WONDERFUL
Where to start? Kiwis contain a high amount of Vitamin C (more than oranges), Vitamin A and Vitamin e, as much potassium as bananas and a good amount of beta-carotene. Plums are plentiful in minerals like potassium, fluoride and iron. Mint is rich in Vitamins A and C and also contains smaller amounts of Vitamin B2. Mint also contains a wide range of essential minerals such as manganese, copper, iron, potassium and calcium. I could go on and on but at the end of the day, you know this smoothie is epic.
(Source: theveggieblackboard, via healthylolitalifestyle)
Just made the most delicious homemade granola bars! Seriously addicting…
This quarter, I had the bright idea to do a yoga class from 8:30-9:30 before doing back to back two-hour classes from 10 AM-2 PM. I also ride my back to and from school. Needless to say, I get hungry in the seven or so hours I’m either riding or in class, but I don’t really have a break in there to eat a meal. I load up on little snacks to eat throughout the day, preferably things that aren’t loud to chew so I’m not that obnoxious person eating chips during class while everyone else is trying to listen. Naturally, the perfect choice for this would be a good granola bar but then there’s that whole celiac thing. I used to not be very sensitive and I could get away with eating Clif bars, even though they have malted barley extract in them. Now? No dice. Those things really mess me up. Luckily, there are Larabars.
I discovered Larabars a couple of months ago, and I’m telling you, these things are the bomb diggity. They are so good and they’re free of preservatives, chemicals, added sugar, gluten, and dairy products. Delicious, gluten-free, vegan granola bars. Great. Sign me up. Except, as is the case with most foods like this, they come with an absurd amount of packaging. And they’re very expensive. I don’t dig that. But because there are so few ingredients in them, it was really easy to figure out how to make my own at home. I started out just throwing some dates, dried cranberries, and almonds in my blender. That worked, but took forever, and I vowed never to make them again until we had a food processor. Along with my desire to make hummus, pesto, salsa, peanut butter, and apple chips, this convinced my mom to buy a food processor. I made another batch, this time adding walnuts. Turned out great both times, but it was really just a hodge-podge of dried fruits and nuts. This time, I decided to make some peanut butter ones.
You guys. They are like peanut butter, oatmeal cookies. Except they’re good for you. Go make these right now.
Ingredients
-Pitted medjool dates (I use 2 lbs)
-Around two cups of rolled oats
-About a cup and a half of peanuts
-About a third of a cup of peanut butter
1) Blend up the dates in a food processor until they form a paste. Remove from food processor and set aside.
2) Blend oats and peanuts in the food processor.
3) Slowly add dates bit by bit. If you add all of the paste at the same time, it will be hard on the food processor. Adding it slowly helps get it thoroughly mixed with the dry ingredients. If it starts to ball up, stop the food processor, break it into smaller pieces, and keep blending.
4) Once everything is thoroughly blended, you can do one of two things. Number 1 (aka the easy way, which is obviously what I do) - Roll the mixture into balls and store in an airtight container. Super simple. Number 2 - Place the mixture between two pieces of wax paper and roll it out with a rolling pin. Then you can cut it into bar shapes.
Boom. Done. The quantities given above will make a LOT. I probably got about two dozen balls out of this. You can definitely make less, I just wanted to use up all of the dates I had.
Tips:
1) Don’t be afraid of buying dates that aren’t pitted! Pitting them is not even a little bit hard. You basically just squish it between your fingers and it’ll separate in half. Pull the pit out. That’s it.
2) This recipe is very easy to try variations on. In the picture, the two different colored ones are ones I made with almonds, walnuts, raisins, and dried cranberries. If you do the ones in the recipe and add cocoa powder, it tastes like Snickers bar. The next one I’m going to try is apple pie flavor.
3) Don’t try this if you don’t have a food processor. Seriously. It’s so much work and it takes forever. If you don’t have a food processor, borrow one from a friend or wait for a really kickass sale to come up. I got mine for more than 50% off at Macy’s and I use it several times a week.Let me know what flavors you try making!
All The Things in My Cupboards Bars (~140cal/bar)
It’s really exactly what it says. I got inspired to make my own granola bars after seeing so many amazing ones on Tumblr, but I wanted to avoid processed sugar and adding fats as much as possible.Ingredients:
1+1/3c oats
1c chopped nuts (I used almonds)
1c raisins
1/2c honey
1/3c brown sugar
3tbsp cocoa powder
6tbsp shredded unsweetened coconutPreheat oven to 350F. Mix the coconut and oats together and spread out on a baking sheet. Toast them for about 10 minutes or until they just start to brown. While that’s toasting, cut up the almonds and mix together with the other ingredients. Remove the oats and coconut from the oven and mix thoroughly.
It might seem like there’s not enough honey, but don’t worry, if you mix it well enough it’ll get nice and dense!
Press into a parchment-paper lined baking sheet and bake for about 12-15 minutes. Allow to fully cool, then cut into pieces.
Makes 20 bars.
The recipe definitely needs some tweaking. You definitely don’t need the brown sugar unless you have a real sweet-tooth, and my next batch I’m going to add in an egg so that it’ll hold together a little better.
The best thing about these bars is that you can add almost anything! Don’t be afraid to experiment with other grains, quinoa, cereal, other fruit, nuts, molasses and other liquid-form sugars, so on and so forth!
After looking back at my high school years here are the things I should have done more! I really took these tips and put them to use during college and ended up finally sticking to a healthy lifestyle!
(via losing-every-extra-pound)
