20/20 Challenge Week 2

Another week another weigh in and a new leader. Bootchez takes the lead, congratulations, a monster week for her. I had a pretty good week as did Velma. It looks like it’s been a tough week for some with status quo being maintained and few folks have slipped back into negative territory! Still there’s another 9 weeks to go yet.

Bootchez nominate whose $20 you’re claiming and don’t let it burn a hole in your pocket!

I picked Racing Weight: How to Get Lean for Peak Performance during the week, well it arrived from Amazon on Friday, it makes for an interesting read for sure, I’ll keep you in the loop on it as I read through it. Personally I am starting to see some benefits of the weight loss, I had a killer 8 miler on Saturday and nailed my 10k split in 42 and change see the last post where I blow my trumpet all about that; well somebody has to, right!

I also posted on Twitter about the making of some protein bars during the weekend, several people asked for the recipe. It’s an ongoing debate in our household about giving the kids healthy snacks and actually finding something where there second ingredient (and sometimes the third and fourth and fifth) are not sugar or a syrup of some kind can be tricky and you know they’re not going to always want fruit.

I found this recipe in a freebie magazine and gave it a go, I am still tweaking it, the most recent tweaks are in parenthesis, it’s not bad.

• 1 c. quinoa flour (wholegrain flour)
• 2 oz. whey protein
• 1 oz. apple pectin powder
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ c. sundried cranberries (raisins)
• 3 dates (dried apricots)
• 2 oz ground pistachios (or sunflowers) (tried with and without)
• 2 tsp orange zest
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 4 oz brown rice syrup (tried agave syrup and honey)
• 1 oz ground flax
• 1 oz unsweetened applesauce
• 1 tbsp of soy nut butter
• 2 tbsp of egg whites

Directions:

1. Preheat Oven to 350°

2. Combine dry ingredients, dried fruit and ground pistachios in a bowl.

3. In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients and stir well. Pour onto dry ingredients.

4. Spray 9” cake pan with nonstick cooking spray.

5. Bake for 25–30 minutes.

6. Cool and cut.

I have been using a 1½” square as a mid morning and afternoon snack, it’s amazingly dense and really fills you up. Once you have nailed the ingredients (Whole Foods) give it a whirl, it’s pretty good stuff!

20/20 Challenge Week 1

Well the votes, are in, well they are not votes but you know what I mean! It seems the weather, travel and a some status quo have all taken their toll.

It’s ok we have another 10 weeks to go and this is early days. All things being equal not a bad week for the first one and especially as I seem to have won…er not quite the point here folks! Still all is not lost as this means I get to claim the $20 RRS Gift Certificate from, well, me! So that was easy and painless, next week someone will need to put their hand in their pocket, you can follow who has here.

I got a couple of emails asking how this exactly will work, so think of it like a pool and each week the winner claims from it; RRS allows you to send a Gift Certificate to someone else, so starting next week the winner will claim from the pool proper, no more claiming your own!

Ok moving on. Today I posted on Twitter that I was making Mac-n-Cheat and someone asked for the recipe. so here you go. it’s a dead easy recipe, and is way healthier than your typical Mac –n-Cheese. You will need:

6-8 medium to large carrots, box of pasta, half block of good cheese, I prefer cheddar, the quality of the cheese offsets the lack of quantity. Ratio the carrots to cheese at 2:1.

Boil the carrots until they are soft enough to puree and them, well, puree them. Using the same water boil up the pasta, drain and then mix in the puree and the cheese and voila. Significantly less calories then your typical version and for fellow parents it’s an easy way to get one portion of veggies inside picky kids, and if I say so myself it’s really tasty too!

Here starts Week 2, let’s get it on, off!