Pie for Breakfast

What?!?!?  Yup I said it!  Pie for breakfast.  And not just a slice…the WHOLE pie!

I thought I would recap some of my breakfasts I have been preparing myself if I have the time before I get to my morning clients or workout.  If you have time in the morning, I guarantee these are worth the prep and cooking time to make them as pancakes, if not you can throw it all in a pie dish and bake it the night before.  Just take it out of the frig in the morning, add your toppings and enjoy.

The basic ingredients to them with slight variations:

either coconut flour or rolled oats

pumpkin

egg whites

baking powder

vanilla

cacao or chocolate protein

stevia

2 protein pumpkin oat pancakes

Coconut Protein Pumpkin Breakfast Pie

Chocolate Pumpkin Protein Breakfast Pie

All of these pies are gluten free, dairy free, meat free, sugar free and low car (except the oat one will have more carbs in them).

I am a firm believer, as some of you might know, of the importance of breakfast.  It is important to fuel your body from the fast it has been under while sleeping, but more importantly it is important to fuel your body with healthy whole foods!  Food is your bodies medicine.  Give your body the proper nutrients and it will pay you back by giving you great energy and fuel to tackle your day.  I feast in my breakfast in order to fuel myself for the day ahead.  The other food I consume during the day is to just keep me going until bed.  Your day should not be little food in the morning with a huge dinner at night.

Why is it necessary to eat a lot at night?

-Either you didn’t fuel it properly during the day and now your body needs fuel to store since it thinks it will be starved again tomorrow

or

-you are eating out of gluttony

There really are no other reasons so stop eating so much for dinner!

Fuel properly right away and make sure you eat less and less as the day comes to a close!

Swiss Ball Trifeca

am not a fan of exercise machines.  I hardly use them myself and I definitely don’t use them much with my clients.  I do think they are a great tool for my clients to use when I am not around to take thinking out of the equation for them.  However they are what I call the lazy man’s workout.  Your whole body goes into relaxation mode except for the one muscle the machine is working.  Stop doing the lazy working and get ALL of your muscles working at once!

A great way to burn extra calories and get multiple muscles working at the same time is to incorporate more muscles into each exercise.  From things as simple as a biceps curl into a shoulder press is more effective in increasing the heart rate and effectiveness of the muscle burn than the two exercises alone.

A couple exercises I love to do with my clients who are at an intermediate level involves a swissball aka exercise ball.  For the first series all you need is a swissball and for the second series all you need is a swissball and a set of dumbells (you have to wait for my second installment to see those excersies-so stay tuned!).  How simple is that?!?  Basically no gym required.

Pike. Push Up. Bear.

Grab your swissball and place your hands on the ground and your feet on top of the ball.  The more stabilizing position on the ball will be to put more of the front of your calves on the ball.  The most unstable position is having your toes on the ball.  Now that you are set up, get ready to move.  All three moves are done in order with no rest.  Keep in mind that you want to keep your core nice and strong to help with the balance.  DO NOT SAG YOUR HIPS.

Start in Plank.

Pike

Plank

Push Up.

Plank

Bear.

Then just shoot those legs back out and you are back to your starting plank.

Try to accomplish 10 rounds of the 3 moves without falling off to be an advanced Swissball user!

Simple Breakfast.

I also want to take a moment to address breakfast.  Breakfast does not have to be complicated.  There is nothing worse than someone not eating breakfast.  Trust me you are doing the worst thing you possibly could by not eating breakfast.  Breakfast does not have to be complicated.  You can honestly throw odds and ends together in a bowl and just mix.  For instance, my breakfast this morning was completely just odds and ends.  No prep time required, no cooking required, no thinking required.  If you still don’t think you have time then take that bowl with you in the car and chomp at a read light.  Please please do not skip breakfast!!!!  Here is a sample of a simple odds and ends breakfast I whipped up this morning in a crunch.

Two Degree Odds N Ends. (dairy free, gluten free, meat free, but full of protein)

1 serving coconut milk yogurt-plain (you can use any plain 4 oz yogurt)

1 scoop plant fusion chocolate protein powder (any chocolate protein powder will do)

1/4 cup erewhon brown rice gluten free cereal (any rice krispie cereal of your choice)

1/2 Two Degrees Bar (freebie from whole foods) 

Finished Result

318 calories, 23g protein, 24g carbs, 10g fat