LOVE these chips and so does everyone who tries them!!  Even my one kid who is skeptical about ANYTHING green can’t put them down!! Minimal Ingredients: Whole grain corn flour, sunflower/canola oil, spinach, kale and sea salt!!

No gmo’s, lots of fiber and 10 chips is a 130 calories!  With that kind of calorie count you can dip them in 1/4 cup of salsa, hummus or guacamole and they work great as a BodyInstinct style snack!  I haven’t tried dipping them yet because they are so good all by themselves!!!  I found these in my regular grocery store but not in the chip aisle but over by the deli department.  If your favorite grocery store doesn’t carry them, put in a request!  My clients, my friends and I do this all the time at our  grocery stores and they always get us whatever we ask for  Enjoy!!

This recipe was given to me by a friend who found it on the internet and since I am a HUGE buffalo chicken wing fan, I decided to try it!  Well as you can see they came out looking more like Buffalo Chicken Blobs than Buffalo chicken balls but I don’t care because they tasted soooooo good and so good for you too!  FYI  I think I might have overmixed them and it specifically says not to do that. xoxoxo

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Gather

Step by step

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Line a cookie sheet with foil and coat with nonstick spray.
3. Cut the celery, carrot and green onion into large chunks and throw into a food processor.
4. Pulse to chop into small bits.
5. In a large bowl, combine the vegetable mixture, chicken, egg, breadcrumbs, garlic powder, salt, 1/2 the hot sauce and the blue cheese.
6. Gently fold together to combine, but don’t overmix.
7. Form the mixture into small meatballs – you should get about 28 small meatballs.
8. Place the meatballs on the cookie sheet.
9. Bake for 20 minutes.
10. While the meatballs are baking, put the rest of the hot sauce and the butter into a microwave safe dish.
11. Microwave about 30 seconds, until butter melts.
12. Stir well to combine.
13. Remove the meatballs from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.
14. Place the meatballs onto a serving dish and drizzle with butter/hot sauce mixture.
15. Enjoy!

Nutrition

This is one of my favorite BodyInstinct Style “go to” breakfasts!  Except for the oatmeal I change out the ingredients all the time to keep it interesting.  Here it is:

1/3 cup dry oatmeal that I just put in a bowl and add a small amount of water and microwave for 60 seconds

1 tablespoon chia seeds OR Ground Flax meal

1/2 cup of Fage 2% yogurt OR Lowfat organic cottage cheese

1 tbsp of some type of nutbutter (eg soy butter, peanut butter, almond butter etc OR just nuts themselves)

I fill the rest of the bowl up with some type of fruit so it’s probably 1/2 cup of any fruit or fruit pieces (eg bananas, strawberries, blueberries sometimes even raisins if I have no fresh fruit)

Mix it all together into one lovely yummy mess and enjoy! xoxoxoxo

Would you hire the guy who lives here to redo your house??? Of course not!  So don’t let out of shape trainers, instructors or people give you fitness or nutrition advice!!!  I was inspired to write this today because there is someone in my town who happens to be pushing a nutrition concept that is just plain silly.  It will not get you leaner OR healthier.  The interesting part is the person (although extremely nice) has a pot belly, no muscle tone whatsoever and couldn’t run a mile to save their life yet, people are flocking there to buy his products because it’s the new “in” thing.  If your trainer, instructor or “nutrition adviser” can’t do it for themselves what makes you think they can do it for you???   Now there are times when  your health/fitness consultants will go through body changes due to pregnancy, vacations, illness, or just normal body fluctuations and that’s normal.  In fact it can be very inspiring to watch a health/fitness consultant who may get somewhat out of their normal shape do what it takes to get right back into shape.  Maybe your health/fitness consultant is new to the business and is still working on themselves as they are helping you.  As long as you see them making steady progress then you know what they’re doing works.  No body is perfect.  There are all different types of bodies and no two people are exactly the same so there is no criteria to meet except when you see someone they just look healthy and in good shape!  So when someone wants to offer you nutrition or fitness advice, take another look and make sure they are looking healthy and in shape or well on their way! Make sure they are walking the walk and not just talking the talk! xoxoxo

It’s national “suck it in” week!  Help celebrate by sucking in your belly at every red light for this entire week and then at the end of the week you can celebrate a flatter belly!  Think it won’t do much to get your tummy flatter?  Then think again!  There are 2 types of muscle fibers in every muscle:  endurance fibers and power fibers.  Your ab muscles are made up mostly of endurance type muscle fibers because they do mostly endurance type work (Mainly holding you upright all day) so they need to be worked in a more endurance type fashion which is why you typically do alot more reps when working abs than you do when working other body parts.  Pulling your abs in as strongly as you can every time you stop at a redlight is creating an isometric endurance workout for your abs!  Do that over and over at every red light and it DOES make a difference!  You have to sit there anyway so why not use that time wisely by adding a mini ab workout in!  Do it for a week and you WILL see a difference!  Now WHERE you initiate the pull in does make a difference too.  You want to initiate your isometric ab pull in about an inch below your belly button for it to be most effective.  If you don’t do anything for your abs right now this will certainly help and if you are already eating right and doing ab exercises this can be the icing on the cake!  The little extra something you needed to flatten out those abs!  Just as a little back up story:  A long time ago I knew a guy who never did an ab exercise in his life but always practiced isometric pullins during commercials when he was watching tv and he had an amazing flat stomach and abs.  That’s when I added the iso ab pullins into my regimen and I really noticed a difference! These days we usually just fast forward during commercials or don’t have the time to watch tv but redlights still stop us all day long! So try it!  What do you have to lose?  Except may your belly.  Don’t forget to share with your friends!

The front of the package says it all!! Or does it??? Yes, this is a great healthy cereal which promotes right on the package: 40g of whole grains, 7g of fiber and 7g of protein!!   However, make sure you read the ENTIRE label of new foods you’re about to bring into your repertoire!  I agree this is a cereal that is low in sugar and with very healthy ingredients.  That being said do you see that 1 cup measurement full of Engine 2 cereal in the pic?  That one cup of Engine 2 cereal is 420 calories.  In comparison, that same amount of Cheerios is 100 calories.  That small bowl you see holds 2 cups of cereal so if you filled up that small bowl with Engine 2 cereal you would be eating 840 calories for breakfast BEFORE you added the milk.  In comparison, that small bowl full of Cheerios would be 200 calories before you added the milk.  The lesson is be careful of just fixating on what the food manufacturers want you to see on their label.  Turn that box around and get the full story!!!  I actually ate Engine 2 cereal for breakfast today with a modification:  I had 1/2 cup of Engine 2 with 1/2 cup of Cheerios and then filled the bowl up the rest of the way with sliced bananas and of course some organic lowfat milk.  Yummy, without an excessive amount of calories!! xoxoxoxo

The Two times of year when our bodies are most driven by hunger are fall and spring!  Why?  Because those are the two times of the year when it was crucial for our ancestors to eat.  Long before grocery stores when people were still hunter gatherers, their instincts drove them to eat in fall to store up for the long hard winter and again in Spring as they came out of the long, cold, food sparse winter.  Springtime meant animals coming out of hibernation to hunt and plants starting to bloom and grow again to eat.  Instincts, low food intake during the winter, and renewed food availability drove our ancestors to eat as much as they could  in spring.  It’s kind of like coming off of an extremely restrictive diet and walking into an all you can eat buffet.  You’re gonna overeat.  Ok, so that was hundreds of years ago and we now have grocery stores and restaurants offering a nonstop food supply 12 months out of the year so why are so many of us still REALLY hungry this time of year?  Instincts.  It takes a very long time for our instincts to catch up with the times.  Just like we have a 24 hour Circadian rhythm (which is what the BodyInstinct Program is based on) we also have a seasonal body clock that drives our sleep/wake cycles as well as metabolism.  So what to do with this increased spring hunger?  Just knowing what it is is very helpful to work as a reminder to not overeat and most importantly, knowing it will pass helps too! xoxoxoox

Tomorrow is the first day of spring!!!  A time for renewal, growth and a fresh start!!  A great time to start working out or renew and revive your current workout routine!  Get outside (or stay in) and do a bootcamp style class!  I teach one here in South Florida BodyInstinct Fitcamp  but they are everywhere!  Cross Fit and Orange Theory are two popular franchises that teach a  bootcamp style class!   Tried hot yoga yet?  I love the Yoga Joint in South Florida but there are great hot yoga classes everywhere too!! There’s kickboxing, martial arts, pilates, spinning, the list is endless!!!  The important thing is to make sure you have an instructor that doesn’t push you but encourages you to push yourself while honoring your body’s limitations. Tomorrow Celebrate the first day of spring by stepping out of your comfort zone and exploring a new possibility in your health & fitness regimen!!  xoxoxo

Hi everyone!  We were not going to do another Sheila update until her 40th birthday which is coming up in May but, so many of you have asked about how she’s doing on the BodyInstinct Program since we haven’t done an update on her progress since before the holidays so…………………….here ya go!  A picture speaks a thousand words!! This is Sheila this past weekend with her incredibly supportive husband Jack!  Amazing!!!!  It’s important to remember that Sheila did not hit some kind of “weight loss lottery” to get to this point.  She earned every “penny” of it through focus, determination, sweat and consistency!  She truly demonstrates a possibility for everyone!!!  Check out how far she’s come in my blog testimonials!  You go girl!!!  Stay tuned for the big update coming in May!!!xoxoxo

Have your chocolate and eat it too! Without all the guilt or extra bodyfat!!  We are getting dangerously close to Valentines Day and it’s a good time to remember:  It’s not about “deprivation” but “manipulation”!  Go ahead and enjoy!  But………be smart about it and you can have it all!! Chocolate AND a lean body!  First of all, have a Valentines Day lunch or brunch!  You can indulge early in the day without the indulgence turning into bodyfat.  Your metabolism is rocking before 3pm and ready to burn up whatever you throw at it.  Valentines Dinner is so not worth it.  First of all, the restaurants are crazy and work like an assembly line for Valentines Diners.  They are super busy and take extra reservations which always ends up making your dinner even later than you expected.  So there you are wanting to eat at 7pm (which is late already) and you end up actually eating at 8:30 or 9. Too much food, too late in the day!  Now you are taking those same Valentines calories but eating them late in the day when your metabolism is at a slow crawl.  What do you think is going to happen to all that food??? You may as well smear it on your belly or sit your butt down in your plate cuz that’s where it’s going to end up anyway.   Plan ahead this year and take control and make lunch or brunch reservations and remember to ask for dark chocolate!!! xoxoxoxo