Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal

So it's literally been years since I've posted a recipe here. Sometime in 2015 I think? Oops! This morning I threw together a pumpkin pie oatmeal and it was delicious, so I thought I'd share!

Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal

(makes 6 very generously-sized bowls)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 6 cups water
• 3 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1 can (15 oz) Libby's 100% pure pumpkin
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp coconut oil
• Toppings, as desired (chopped pecans are excellent)

Directions:

In a large pot, bring the almond milk, water, oats, pumpkin and spices to a gentle boil. Allow the mixture to boil for 3 minutes (like photo below). After 3 minutes has passed, turn off the heat and let the mixture sit for at least 20 minutes, so the oats can continue to absorb the liquid.

After the mixture has set up, stir in the brown sugar. You can add the coconut oil now, or put a tsp into each serving bowl. Top oatmeal with whatever sounds good and enjoy! I love using chopped pecans, or semi-sweet chocolate chips.

It's also nice to enjoy the oatmeal without the pumpkin, spices and sugar. It's so creamy and delicious that you'll never be able to make oatmeal like the container suggests again!

Always Eat After 7 PM: A New Lifestyle for Me

This post is brought to you by my sponsor, "Always Eat After 7 PM." The opinions expressed below are my own.

I'm back to update you on my progress with the new diet plan I've been following for the past three weeks from "Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks - While Burning Fat Overnight" by Joel Marion. I told you a few weeks ago about how I've been wanting to get serious about shedding some excess weight, increasing my energy and just feeling better on an everyday basis. 

Another week on plan and I'm definitely feeling better than I have in months, yet I still don't feel like I'm "dieting" because we're enjoying so many awesome new meals while still losing weight! The best part is that this new way of eating isn't an inconvenience for our normal routine. I don't know about you, but I have a husband that works a lot and we don't normally sit down to eat until at least 7 pm most nights. This would go against the normal dieting train of thought, but not this plan! I can enjoy a later dinner and even a bedtime snack with no guilt. Yes, you read that correctly. Bedtime snacks are encouraged. I'm sold for life. Please tell me I'm not the only one who likes to sneak back into the kitchen after their kiddos are tucked away in bed and enjoy a snack in peace and quiet?? Haha! Joel explains in his book why it's ok to ditch our old ways of thinking:

Research shows that the average person's metabolic rate is no different during sleep than during the day. In short, your metabolism doesn't slow down at night. Nor does your body store fat at the end of the day. Whether it's 8 am or 8 pm, you use food energy the same way.

So no, when your mom told you everything you eat after 7 pm gets stored as fat, she was wrong. Sorry, mom. But that's good news for us! Joel goes on to explain why the bedtime snack is not just allowed, it's encouraged:

Scientists have established that consuming at least 20 grams of protein stimulates muscle protein synthesis for two to five hours after eating a meal. However, recent research also shows that protein synthesis drops to unexpectedly low levels during sleep, even if you eat ample protein during and after evening exercise. This has led researchers to speculate that this process may fall off during sleep if you don't eat protein prior to bedtime.

So what should you eat before bed? You can find Joel's top 12 bedtime snacks below. He goes into detail in the book about why they are great choices and what they each have to offer you. In his research, he found:

Specific higher-carbohydrate foods (including berries and cherries) support your fat-burning metabolism while you sleep, providing your body with a steady steam of fuel throughout the night. The trick is knowing how to combine them with other evening and pre-bedtime fat-burning foods to fuel your metabolism as you sleep.

As I explained before, there are 3 phases to this plan. We have now completed the 14-day acceleration phase and the first week of the main phase. We saw quick results those first two weeks. Weight loss has slowed now, but that was to be expected as we've increased our calories a bit and upped our carbs. The first phase is more restrictive to get you jump-started. He explains in the book that eating what he refers to as "super carbs" is actually quite helpful.

Despite all the bad press over the years, certain carbohydrates play an important role in balancing your hormones and regulating your metabolic rate, while avoiding the dreaded weight loss plateaus that accompany conventional mainstream diets. Furthermore, when you eat these carbohydrates, you'll feel much better than you would if you were following a traditional diet.

Nothing against those other super carb-restricting plans from me, but I like carbs. I'm pretty sure I need them. I need a eating plan I can sustain long-term and not be miserable, so this one fits the bill for me. And don't forget cheat meal/day. Let me eat my favorite comfort foods once a week and I can stay on plan forever! That's definitely the hardest part of sticking to any diet in the long run for me. That feeling of missing out on things I love. Let's face it, food is a very social thing. Now I won't have to go to gatherings with friends and stand around awkwardly while everyone enjoys good food and drinks. I can make that my cheat day for the week! Then I just get back on track the next day and continue towards my goals. Easy peasy. 

I can't wait to update you in another month to let you know how we are doing with the plan. In the meantime, if you're interested in checking out more details for yourself, check out "Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks - While Burning Fat Overnight" by Joel Marion. It is now available to purchase. Learn more about the book and how to purchase here.

This post is brought to you by my sponsor, "Always Eat After 7 PM." The opinions expressed above are my own.

Always Eat After 7 PM is Producing Amazing Results

This post is brought to you by my sponsor, "Always Eat After 7 PM." The opinions expressed below are my own.

I'm back to update you on my progress with this awesome new plan I've been following for the past two weeks from "Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks - While Burning Fat Overnight" by Joel Marion. I told you a couple weeks ago about how I've been wanting to get serious about shedding some excess weight, increasing my energy and just feeling better on an everyday basis. I'm happy to report that after just 2 weeks of following this plan, I am down 9 pounds!! I never rely on just the numbers on the scale though - I like to take pics to see my progress. I had some serious stomach bloat going on when I started and that has been eliminated. Yeeeessssss. I had also begun struggling with some acid reflux prior to starting this plan (something that flares up when I'm not eating right), but I haven't had any issues since starting. Yay!! My husband has been following the plan with me and he has also seen great results - down 10 pounds! We both agree that we feel great, this diet hasn't left us hungry (even with a bit more physical activity) and we've truly enjoyed the meals we're eating, which includes some awesome new recipes from the book.

I've tried out a lot of the recipes from the book now and they are seriously delicious. So much flavor. And the best part is that I've been able to make these meals for the entire family, without needing to make the boys something completely different. These first two weeks, I've definitely added in some healthy carbs for them that we passed on, but having a main dish that feeds everyone and is on plan for us is perfect!

Yes. These are all delicious items we've been eating the past 2 weeks that you can find in the book! Honey garlic pork loin, spiced tilapia, pot roast tacos with chimichurri, turkey and bacon goulash, shrimp curry with cauliflower rice, garlic-roasted salmon and broccoli, turkey burgers, blackberry chia seed pudding, and chocolate buttons (a fast favorite for all of us!). This is not a "salad only" kind of diet. I would not do well with that. Sure, I like some salads, but I don't want to eat them all the time. I love food, so I've thoroughly enjoyed the meals I get to eat on this plan. They really knocked it out of the park with the recipes they've included in the book. I'm excited to continue trying some new ones this coming week! Check out some of Joel's favorites below.

As I explained in my last post, there are 3 phases to this plan. Today is our last day of the 14-day acceleration phase. I've phased out breakfast and I'm having a morning ritual drink (on plan coffee for me!), lunch, dinner with dessert and a bedtime snack! I honestly didn't think I'd be able to get rid of breakfast and still be active in the mornings, but I've done surprisingly well with it. A part of this plan is following an intermittent fasting protocol. As Joel writes in the book:

Going without breakfast is part of intermittent fasting (IF), also called time-restricted feeding (TRF). IF is a pattern of food consumption that cycles between fasting and eating in specific time periods. There are various ways to do it; one of the most common is the 16/8 protocol, which involved 16 hours of fasting - typically done overnight - with an 8-hour window in which to eat each day.

I haven't been able to hit the 16/8 most days, but I've been doing at least 14/10 on a regular basis now, sometimes 15/9. Joel explains why this is helpful with weight loss:

Always Eat After 7 PM is a three-phase program that teaches you how to lose big by strategically eating big when you are naturally hungriest - in the evening. This may sound too good to be true, but let me assure you it is no gimmick. It's all about making strategic and smart food swaps, and you can still eat your favorite foods.

He goes on to say:

Those who ate breakfast ended up eating about 260 calories more a day, the review found. Those who skipped breakfast were about one pound lighter than those who ate breakfast. These findings led the researchers to conclude that eating breakfast isn't necessarily a good strategy for losing weight. The science isn't really there. Breakfast could very well be the least important meal of the day.

Another study found the following:

Late-night eating also curbs calorie intake the next day. In a four-week study, dieters added a snack to their daily regimen 90 minutes after dinner every night, and check this out: late-night eaters ate an average of 397 fewer calories per day.

Based on surprising science, Always Eat After 7 PM debunks popular diet myths and offers an easy-to-follow diet that accelerates fat-burning and allows you to indulge in your most intense food cravings: Eating majority of your calories at night. But don't worry, if you're a breakfast lover like I am, it's not gone forever. As part of the main phase, you're allowed one cheat meal, or day (if you exercise), a week. And it's actually encouraged! Breakfast that day is totally acceptable. Yay! With a bit of tweaking, I can continue to enjoy some of my favorite breakfast meals I make for my family without feeling guilty. In short, this program is making dieting easy and eliminating my reasons for resistance. I think enjoying this cheat day once a week will be what allows me to continue with this plan instead of abandoning it like so many others I've tried. It won't feel as restrictive and won't make me give up everything I love for good. As long as I can stick to the plan 6 days a week, I can look forward to a little splurge at the end of each week. Perfect.

Interested in checking out these recipes for yourself? "Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks - While Burning Fat Overnight" by Joel Marion is now available to purchase. Learn more about the book and how to purchase here.

This post is brought to you by my sponsor, "Always Eat After 7 PM." The opinions expressed above are my own.

Always Eat After 7 PM is the Perfect Plan for Me

This post is brought to you by my sponsor, "Always Eat After 7 PM." The opinions expressed below are my own.

I'm back! Last week, I let you know about a great new book I'm reading - "Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks - While Burning Fat Overnight" by Joel Marion. You can check out that post here. As a quick recap, the Always Eat After 7 PM plan consists of:

• A 14-day Acceleration Phase to kick-start the program and see rapid results
• A Main Phase where you'll learn exactly which foods to eat when, in order to achieve your weight-loss goals
• A Lifestyle Phase to keep the weight off for good

After just a week on this diet, I already feel like it's helping me reach my goals. I'm losing weight, feeling better, and haven't had this much energy in awhile! Daily walks and lifting weights again is going great. Yay!!

I recently interviewed the author, Joel Marion, to learn more about why he wrote the book. When asking him about his inspiration for this book, he said: 

After authoring 6 best selling books, it was glaringly obvious there were 2 huge misconceptions about dieting that needed to be exposed. The first is that you can't eat late at night or before bed, which science now shows is NOT true. And second, you can't eat large portions that satisfy your natural instinct. This book solves both these problems by providing an evidence-based, enjoyable approach to dieting that can be used by any person to quickly achieve their weight loss goals.

I'd have to agree that those were definitely misconceptions that I believed before starting this plan. I've always been told to not eat too late and that multiple smaller meals were the way to go. Following those recommendations always left me wanting more, hungry before bed and starving by the time I awoke in the mornings. I have 4 boys. I don't have time to make 6 little meals a day for myself! This plan is so much easier to follow. I can fix a dinner that all of us can eat a huge portion of and then even sneak a snack in after I get them put to bed! Perfect.

I dug deeper to find out what he thought was the most surprising discovery when he was researching the scientific data for the diet. He said:

That almost everything my college education and certifications taught me was NOT grounded in published scientific research.

Wow. I can relate to that one! As a Health Promotion and Education major in college, we had exactly ONE class dedicated to nutrition. Yep. You read that correctly. Not only did we receive very little in the form of nutrition education, it was just the basics. We didn't cover scientific research at all in that intro course, much less learn any information we could actually use. Obviously, much of the research has changed since I was sitting in that nutrition class 20 years ago, but it makes me wonder what they are teaching there these days. I also went through a year of graduate classes in the same major, again with just one nutrition class. We touched more on scientific research there, but nothing like the amount of info I learned just by reading Always Eat After 7 PM. It's a constantly changing field, so we (both practitioners and consumers) need to be sure to stay up to date with the current research.

Check out more about the science behind the diet in the video below from Joel.

Circling back to why this book stands out from the others he has written, he said:

Although many of the concepts are similar [in the 6 best-selling books I've authored], the biggest difference is that you don't have to deprive yourself of your favorite foods. You don't have to deal with the burden of eating every few hours. And you don't have to skip the carbs at dinnertime or avoid eating before bed.

Yes! Again, eating too many times a day just doesn't work for me and my family. And I love carbs. I don't want to give those up! He writes in the book:

Fact is, most diets are extremely narrow with regard to food choices and variety, and many even limit entire macronutrients altogether over the course of the entire program (think low-carb and low-fat diets). Three months with no carbs? No thanks. Such practices not only are entirely unnecessary, but make for a miserable, unsustainable experience.

Thank you!! Finally, a diet where I can keep eating the foods that I love and not feel miserable and cranky all the time. Trust me, my family doesn't like a hangry mom! ;)

"Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks - While Burning Fat Overnight" by Joel Marion is now available to purchase. Learn more about the book and how to purchase here.

This post is brought to you by my sponsor, "Always Eat After 7 PM." The opinions expressed above are my own.

Always Eat After 7 PM...Say What?!?

This post is brought to you by my sponsor, "Always Eat After 7 PM." The opinions expressed below are my own.

I have been wanting to get serious about shedding some excess weight for awhile now. Then hello, quarantine weight! Ugh. Now I really need to get serious...like, yesterday. In addition to losing weight, I'd really like to increase my energy and just feel better in general, so I jumped at the chance to receive an advance copy of "Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks - While Burning Fat Overnight" by Joel Marion. Over the next month, I'll be sharing my experience with the book and diet (and hopefully some awesome benefits and results!). Basically, the Always Eat After 7 PM plan consists of:

• A 14-day Acceleration Phase to kick-start the program and see rapid results
• A Main Phase where you'll learn exactly which foods to eat when, in order to achieve your weight-loss goals
• A Lifestyle Phase to keep the weight off for good

Count me in! Can it really be this simple? Eating late? Isn't that going against one of the biggest diet "rules"?

Right away, Joel begins addressing this. Providing studies and his own experience battling weight, this book gets right to it. After doing research, Joel decided to put his theory to the test and the results were awesome. Twelve pounds down in the first 2 weeks, 46 lbs after 16 weeks, flatter abs and more energy. Sign me up. But what really struck a chord with me was this:

"At my next medical checkup, my doctor was shocked at how good my blood work had gotten, so quickly. And let's not forget the most important part: for the first time in months, I had the energy to keep up with my little girls."

Having the energy to keep up with my 4 boys is at the TOP of my list of health goals. I'm not getting any younger, and they're getting bigger and faster, so I need to start making changes now. I'm excited to dive in and I'll post an update next week, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, find out more about Joel and his inspiration to write this book!

Learn more about "Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks - While Burning Fat Overnight" by Joel Marion and how to purchase here!

This post is brought to you by my sponsor, "Always Eat After 7 PM". The opinions expressed above are my own.