Breakfast Egg Cups #LiAR Style

Breakfast Egg Cups #LiAR Style

January 27, 2015 by · Leave a Comment

We will be honest, in some ways we use our own blog as a cookbook for ourselves.  It’s a great resource when we are out grocery shopping without an exact plan for meals for the week.

We have been making egg cups for quite some time now since they are a perfect breakfast item on the Advocare Ten Day Cleanse. So really these are the easiest recipes ever for a healthy protein packed breakfast with the least amount of clean up possible especially now that we’ve found the perfect cooking utensil when making egg cups. We can’t rave enough about how easy they are and we pretty much promise you can’t mess them up.

Here is a general formula to use and then we gave some examples about what we use the most.

– 12 eggs (use all 12 whole eggs or any combination of whole eggs and egg whites with the 12)

– A veggie or two

– A meat if you want

How too: Crack eggs in a large bowl, dice veggies pretty small, cook or brown any meat that you are going to use. Mix all ingredients together. Bake your cups at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until the eggs are no longer runny.

No measuring necessary. No need to worry about a long drawn out recipe. Just add what you want in the 12 egg mixture and you are good to go.

Are you ready for our secret to the least amount of annoying clean up?

If you are like us you probably have bake ware that is horrible with eggs and everything gets stuck and you have to soak the pan forever and half the time the eggs are still stuck on there, we hate that! In comes silicon baking cups to the rescue!

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silicon baking cups from Amazon

The eggs do not stick, you don’t have to use any non-stick sprays or oil, and they are super easy to clean, plus they are only like $5-6 on Amazon. We have seen them for $12-14, but DO NOT PAY THAT. And the egg cups keep in the refrigerator all week and heat up what amount we want each morning for breakfast.

Sometimes it’s easy to get stuck in a rut, so if you have found yourself in one we have put together some of favorite egg cup recipes:

Spinach/tomato

12 eggs

Handful of spinach

1 Diced tomato

½ Diced red onion

6oz chopped up bacon

Southwest style

12 eggs

1 Diced tomatoes

Ground beef with taco seasoning (about a cup)

1 Bell pepper

½ Red onion

Denver omelet style

12 eggs

Cup of chopped ham

1 green bell pepper

½ onion

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There you have it! Go forth and make all of the egg cups! Another bonus to owning the silicon baking cups is that when your kids are old enough for you to make lunches for them to take to school if you use the bento box method they are great in there as well!

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Advocare for the New Year {2015}

Advocare for the New Year {2015}

January 5, 2015 by · Leave a Comment

Happy New Year! We know it’s already several days into the new year, but now that everyone is getting back into a schedule we just wanted to put a reminder out there that we do sell Advocare.  If you are looking for a way to jump start your fitness goals this year then why not checkout the Advocare 10 Day Cleanse?

We’ve both done the cleanse several times and have tried to put together as much info as we possibly could to make it easier for you!

If you are looking for some recipes that we have used during the cleanse, well, those can also be found within our Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner posts.

If you’re looking for what days you should drink the fiber drink? When you should take catalyst? Well, those types of questions can also be found throughout the Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner posts.

Survival Tips – are you looking for how to survive those 10 days on the cleanse? Look no further than our survival tips post with tips like – Do the cleanse with a buddy to keep yourself accountable! Don’t worry there are more tips than just that! :)

We have also come up with our own list of Dos and Don’ts while on the cleanse. For instance DO eat all the water and DON’T drink alcohol! So sorry!

To bring this post to an end here are in list form important Advocare posts we have done that might be useful to you:

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Breakfast

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Lunch

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Dinner

Our Survival Tips

Dos and Don’ts on the Advocare Cleanse

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: What We Are Eating

Please remember that mistakes do happen if you happen to eat something you shouldn’t, well, just don’t keep eating it. Once you realize that you ate something not approved for the cleanse then stop eating it and waiting until the cleanse is over to have it again.

It is hard to be 100% accurate with these types of things so we normally suggest using the 80/20 rule which means you need to make sure your eating is on point 80% of the time and if you mess up well don’t let that percentage be more than 20% of the time.

Now, what questions have we left unanswered?

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All Things Advocare Cleanse

All Things Advocare Cleanse

November 5, 2014 by · Leave a Comment

We get a TON of questions about the 10 day Advocare cleanse and we love it! Hopefully we are being super helpful to you as that is our ultimate goal!

One way we thought we could REALLY help out is by bringing all of our Advocare 10 Day Cleanse posts together into one post as an easier tool for you to utilize as you prepare for the cleanse and/or participate in the cleanse!

Maybe you’re looking for the basics like what your schedule should look like throughout the day and we have that in our Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner posts.

Are you looking for some recipes that we have used during the cleanse? Those can also be found within our Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner posts.

If you’re looking for what days do I drink the fiber drink? When do I take catalyst? Well, those types of questions can also be found throughout the Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner posts.

Survival Tips – are you looking for how to survive those 10 days on the cleanse? Look no further than our survival tips post with tips like – Do the cleanse with a buddy to keep yourself accountable! Don’t worry there are more tips than just that! 🙂

We have also come up with our own list of Dos and Don’ts while on the cleanse. For instance DO eat all the water and DON’T drink alcohol! So sorry!

To bring this post to an end here are in list form important Advocare posts we have done that might be useful to you:

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Breakfast

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Lunch

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: Dinner

Our Survival Tips

Dos and Don’ts on the Advocare Cleanse

Advocare 10 Day Cleanse: What We Are Eating

Now, what other questions do you have for us?!

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Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Dinner

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Dinner

November 20, 2013 by · 1 Comment

OK! You have almost made it through your day and just have 2 meals left! Here is how dinner and your late night snack go. Make sure you have been drinking an annoyingly large amount of water! Make sure to drink a glass with each of these following meals and one at the end of the day. Water will help flush your system. We all need a little reminder sometimes.

Also a little word of advice from past experience, don’t drink Spark after about 2:00 p.m. If you are using Spark I would make sure you don’t drink any for dinner or later in the afternoon. We do sometimes workout in the afternoons and we will still take the Catalyst about 15 minutes before a work out, if you are taking that it is still OK to take in the afternoon.

DINNER

Timing: Should be about 3 hours after your afternoon snack to help control hunger.

Advocare products to take: Take 2-4 Omegaplex tablets WITH this meal. Drink lots of water!

What you can eat for Dinner:  This is basically exactly like lunch. If you can make it without the complex carb that is the BEST for weight loss on The Cleanse, but if you need it eat it. You will be fine!

Choose 1 protein from this list: Grilled chicken, salmon, tuna, turkey (not processed), 3 eggs or lean ground beef

Choose 1 complex carb (only if you need it) from this list: ½ cup of brown rice, sweet potato, or brown or whole wheat pasta

Choose as many veggies as you would like: Anything green is your first option and yes avocado is ok. Lettuce, broccoli, zucchini, green beans, asparagus, spinach, cucumber or celery. Also tomatoes and onions are OK.

*If making a salad use salsa or fresh lemon and lime.

 

LATE SNACK

This is only if needed! You do not have to eat this if you are feeling fine! Just listen to your body.

Timing:  varies but hopefully about an hour before bedtime or more.

What you can eat: Fruit. 1 serving

The lower on the glycemic index the better! Think berries, cherries, apples, pears, grapefruit, apricots – these are all lower in sugar.  If you go with melons, mangoes, papayas, pineapples – these are all higher in sugar.  They won’t ruin your cleanse at all and they are obviously healthy, but if you think about it go less sugar for the 10 days.

 

RIGHT BEFORE BED:

Take your Herbal Cleanse Pills on days 1-7 with a HUGE glass of water.

You are done! Sleep tight!

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Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Lunch

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Lunch

September 30, 2013 by · 4 Comments

If you look back at the breakfast post then you will know how to make it to the 3rd meal of the day. We will combine the 3rd and 4th meal of the day together because that just makes it a little easier to understand.

What you would need to take from Advocare:

Advocare Products used during this time are both optional. Let me repeat: Advocare Products used during this time are both OPTIONAL. If you want to take something  you would take up to 3 catalyst 30 minutes before lunch.  You could also take a spark drink with lunch or with your after lunch snack. Both optional, but we wanted you to know you have that choice. Some people also take up to 2 Omegaplex, take either here or at dinner. That is up to you and will not mess you up if you alternate or switch.

advo-catalyst

Lunch Food options:

Choose 1 protein from this list: Grilled chicken, salmon, tuna, turkey (not processed), 3 eggs or lean ground beef

Choose 1 complex carb from this list: ½ cup of brown rice, sweet potato, or brown or whole wheat pasta

Choose as many veggies as you would like: Anything green is your first option and yes avocado is ok. Lettuce, broccoli, zucchini, green beans, asparagus, spinach, cucumber or celery. Also tomatoes and onions are OK.

*If making a salad use salsa or fresh lemon and lime.

Afternoon Snack:  Choose 1 thing from below

1 cup of fruit (same list from breakfast)

Serving of nuts (same list from breakfast)

1 Rice cake and peanut butter

Raw veggies (as much as you want)

food photography of ripe fruits at the market

 

Things to avoid:

• Alcohol (You’re on the Cleanse – hold off for 10 days!)

• Coffee, Sodas, Energy Drinks (only drink Spark or Slam)

• White foods/Starches (e.g. white pasta, bagels, white bread, white rice, processed foods, crackers and chips)

• Sauces

• Cooking with Oils (it is best to cook with Water or Broth)

• Sugar, Honey, Desserts- (except for fresh fruits – these are good sugars on the 10-day Cleanse)

• Cheese & Mushrooms (both are “molds” and will help keep toxins alive)

• If at all possible, avoid Dairy Products (cow’s milk, yogurt, butter, etc…dairy products contain lots of sugars and will feed the toxins)

• Fatty Foods, Fried Foods, Fast Foods, Meat with skin or breading

• Salad dressings (due to the fat and oil content – use Salsa or fresh squeezed lemon juice and spices instead)

• Canned fruit or vegetables

• Dried fruit coated with sugar

• Instant rice or oatmeal (cook the real deal)

Things we have eaten:
• Amazeballs a.k.a. Clean Eating Meatballs

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• Southwest Quinoa Salad

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• Vegetable Tuna Salad

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• Chicken Taco Meat Salad

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• Green Chili & Vegetable Soup

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• Stuff Bell Peppers

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• Tosca Reno’s Slow Cooker Mexican Chicken

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Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Breakfast

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Breakfast

September 17, 2013 by · 6 Comments

We get tons of questions about how exactly to do the Advocare 10 day Cleanse and typically it is just about the food choices one should or should not be making.

Advo 3

It seems to range from What the heck can I eat? to Can I actually eat anything? as well as timing and really anything else you can think of we’ve probably been asked it! 🙂  Trust us we’ve been asked some crazy questions which we actually love!  It has helped us learn a lot more and get that much more knowledgeable!  In an effort to help YOU we wanted to share this information and perhaps make the cleanse easier.

Over the next week or so we will be breaking down each meal for you so that we can clear some things up for everyone and again, make it SO much easier!

Naturally, we thought we’d kick things off with breakfast – that makes sense right??

When you wake up:

  • Take the Fiber Drink (days 1 – 3 and 8 – 10) and Probiotic Restore (days 4 – 10) – drink a large glass of water
  • Optional: Drink a Spark for energy and take catalyst before eating
  • Thirty minutes later (don’t freak out – you will not ruin it if you do eat in that range of time) eat breakfast.

Timing:

Wake up, immediately take the fiber drink, wait 30 minutes (or just get ready for work), eat your first meal after the 30 minutes, wait approximately 2 hours and then eat your second meal of the day.

What to eat:

This can get a little confusing because the Cleanse says to eat 5 to 6 small meals a day.  The first two small meals I like to just refer to as “breakfast” and will often times swap the order out depending on how I feel so the options below would work for your first two meals of the day (Advocare refers to this as “breakfast” and “mid-morning snack”).  These are in order of preference on the Cleanse for weight loss:

1. Bowl of fruit of your choice (about a cup to a cup and a half)

  • the lower on the glycemic index the better! Think berries, cherries, apples, pears, grapefruit, apricots – these are all lower in sugar.  If you go with melons, mangoes, papayas, pineapples – these are all higher in sugar.  They won’t ruin your cleanse at all and they are obviously healthy, but if you think about it go less sugar for the 10 days.

2. Meal replacement shake.

  • Advocare has a replacement shake, but if you have a favorite you already use then you can use that.

meal rep shake

source

  • Be creative! We do protein with a mixture of fruits and veggies with water.  Sometimes we use a little bit of unsweetened almond milk, but this is not the *best* as some people stall with weight loss using milks so it’s not ideal.
  • Spinach, celery and kale all lose their flavors when mixed with fruit! 🙂

3. Three eggs (cooked however you want, but try not to add to them with any oil or butter and do not be afraid of the yolk!)

  • Omelet with veggies (spinach, peppers, mushrooms, onion, tomatoes – it’s all OK!)
  • Pouched
  • Scrambled
  • Hard-boiled
  • Make egg cups with veggies

4. Plain oatmeal (limit carbs like this to 1 time per day)

  • Do NOT go to Starbucks or the drive through at McDonald’s because they have convinced you this is a healthy choice – it’s fully of sugar!  We are talking PLAIN oatmeal with an emphasis on the PPPLLLAIN.  This means made at home, you control the intake, plain oatmeal.  If you must add things stick to fruit, stevia or cinnamon.

5. Nuts (2 ounces, we would also say stick with tree nuts, i.e., macadamia nuts, brazil nuts, cashews, almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, chestnuts, beechnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, gingko nuts and hickory nuts)

pine nuts in cup in the shape of heart on sack cloth

 

Tips:

Do NOT over think this!

Eliminate all processed foods

Think protein before carbs

If it is not real food do not eat it

Drink TONS of fluids

Get a friend to join you!

It is only 10 days.  You will NOT die and you can add things back later that you might have missed so do not think we took all dairy from you for life or bread for that matter! Neither are the best for you, but you can have some back later.

Happy Cleansing!

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Tasty Tuesday: AMAZE-balls a.k.a. Clean Eating Meatballs

March 26, 2013 by · 9 Comments

These things are seriously AMAZING. I don’t know about you but every time I have ever tried to make meatballs on the stove I have ruined them. I typically burn the outside and the inside is raw, or they fall apart or are just gross. PLUS, you really can’t make that many at the same time. It had never occurred to be to bake them. This recipe is a super easy baked meatball recipe that literally might change my eating life! OK, that’s dramatic but…. I figured this would be horrible and it turned out to be the easiest thing ever. Little mess, no half burnt/half raw balls of meat and it makes a ton. I ate these things for a week.

What you need:

2.5 lbs of lean ground turkey, beef or chicken (just use what you like, although the calorie count below would change)

1 (16oz) package frozen spinach (or whatever else you would want you could probably use kale too)

1 cup of onion (I used red)

¾ cup bread crumbs ( I used gluten free)

2 eggs

1 garlic clove

Sea salt and pepper – I used about a tsp. of each

2 tbsp. Worcestershire, or soy sauce, or A1, or BBQ (I used Worcestershire but all will work)

½ tsp. each of thyme, oregano, crushed red pepper

1/3 cup Chicken broth

Olive oil

How to:

1.       Preheat the oven to 400.

2.       Heat olive oil in the pan and add all spices and the onion. Sautee until the onions are tender

meatballs 2 (2)

3.       Add Worcestershire sauce, chicken broth, and spinach. Cook down until there is very little liquid left in the pan

4.       Meanwhile, mix meat, bread crumbs and egg in a bowl

meatballs 4 (2)

5.       Add the spinach mixture to meat mixture and mix together

meatballs 5 (2)

6.       Using a ¼ c measuring cup section out the meat to ball and place on a greased pan. They don’t expand much so they can be pretty close. I had 20 on a pan. Ball out until mixture is gone

meatballs 6 (2)

7.       Place in the oven for 20 minutes

8.       Voila! I served mine over quinoa and added marinara

meatballs 8 (2)

My fitness pal nutrition facts (calories are per ball, based on 38 total made)

Calories: 48.7

Fat: 1.2g

Carbs: 1.1g

Protein 8.1g

For a printable version of this recipe please click HERE.

**Advocare Note: If you make this recipe during your 10 day cleanse you’ll need to count that as your one carb for the day!!**

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Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Our Survival Tips

October 19, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

After completely another cleanse we want to share with you some of our tips to help you get through it. 🙂

– The fiber drink you drink on the mornings of Day 1, 2, 3, 8, 9 and 10 you want to CHUG IT.

– But before you even get to that stage mix the fiber drink packet with COLD water and feel free to add some more water in as you get towards the bottom (it has a weird consistency, not a taste thing, but a consistency thing).
-A newer tip we learned and tried this time around – if you buy Spark in the orange flavor mix your fiber drink packet with one spoonful of Spark and it’ll taste more like you are drinking OJ with pulp.
-Some people might actually find the Peaches n Cream flavored fiber drinks to be way better than the Citrus flavored fiber drink. Look into that!
-Do the cleanse with a buddy to keep yourself accountable!

-Plan all of your meals ahead of time so you are set! Preparation is clutch. We set up on Sunday for the 1st seven days and then Sunday to the end! Plan ahead of time to make sure you will have the least distraction within your 10 day time frame and whatever you do AVOID birthdays, big life events, etc!

There you have it!  Remember you can buy the Advocare cleanse or any of their products here through Teal.

Have you done the Advocare 10 day cleanse before, is there any advice you would give that we have left off?

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Cheaters, Cheaters, Pumpkin Eaters!

October 18, 2012 by · 3 Comments

If you saw our Wordless Wednesday post yesterday and you guessed that we cheated on our cleanse then CONGRATS you are correct!

Now pat yo’self on the back! 🙂

(source)

We aren’t really ashamed to admit this because we are after all HUMAN.  We hopefully have mentioned before that it is really hard to find 10 consecutive days that work to cleanse.  We discussed a couple of different start dates before we determined October 8th would be the day for us, and now we can see where these 10 days got us.

Life happens much like with when you are trying to block out 16 weeks to dedicate to a marathon, and you might miss a training run or two.  Beth had 3 last minute Birthday parties to attend one of which also included Teal (hence where the cheating pictures came from). Every Wednesday the culinary art students at Teal’s school cook and last Wednesday all of the counselors were going to eat their food?  Yep, a Wednesday during our 10 day Advocare cleanse.

Despite the hiccups (a.k.a. cheat moments) the cleanse is still a good reset for your body!  We both still reaped benefits from it – Beth is 5 pounds lighter and Teal is 5 pounds lighter.  Not bad, right?

We are officially off of the cleanse though we both are trying to keep our eating habits similar to it as much as possible for the next 9 days! 🙂  We’ll be back tomorrow with our survival tips for the 10 day Advocare Cleanse.

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Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: What We’re Eating

October 16, 2012 by · 52 Comments

The cleanse is actually very easy to follow in terms of what you can and cannot eat, and once you have that down, making meals is pretty easy.

These are the bulk of what Teal will eat for the 10 days.

For Breakfast I am drinking Shakeology. Yes I am cheating on Advocare with this one and not using their meal replacement shakes. *gasp* I like Shakeology way more. Shhhh don’t tell them!

Here are the three main meals I made to mix in as either lunch or dinner throughout the time.

1. Southwest Quinoa Salad  ( 5 servings)

Approximate Cost per serving: $4.15

Ingredients: 1lb of chicken breast, ½ of a large red onion, one can of organic black beans, 1 cup of organic quinoa (technically this is 2 full servings and will be split over 5 meals), cherry tomatoes, spinach, salt and pepper to taste.

2. Vegetable Tuna Salad  (6 servings)

Approximate Cost per serving: $1.68

Ingredients: 3 cans tuna, ¾ cup celery chopped, ¾ cup carrot chopped, ½ of a red onion, 1 English seedless cucumber chopped, 2 tablespoons mayo. ( this is 2 servings spread over 6 meals so this is ok)

Serve over salad or use a cucumber and mini sweet bell peppers instead of crackers to eat! They crunch so you just have to trick yourself!

3. Soup:  have no clue what to call this because it’s like 2 recipes combined (6 servings)

Approximate Cost per serving: $3.45

Ingredients: 4-6 cups low sodium organic chicken stock, 1lb chicken breast, 1 can organic gazpacho beans, 1 can organic corn, 2 tomatoes diced, one small white onion, 2 green bell peppers chopped, cilantro, 1 jalapeño chopped, juice of 1 lime, cumin, chili powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes.

Snacks if needed: cucumber, carrots, mini sweet bell peppers, raw almonds or cashews, tangerines, apples, almond butter.

And for Beth the bulk of what she will be eating is as follows:

1. Chicken Taco Meat Salad (5 servings)

actually ate it without quinoa most of the week, but that is something you can put in this salad for sure!

The chicken in this form really goes a long way for me and this is usually me getting 2-3 organic chicken breasts.  You might remember seeing this meat from a previous Tasty Tuesday post from us.

Ingredients: Organic chicken, 4 cups low sodium chicken broth, and 1 packet of low sodium taco seasoning for just the meat.  For the salad I did green bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, and spinach leaves.

Approximate Cost per serving: Yah, Brent and I split the groceries so it made our receipts weird. I’m the slacker here. :-/

2. Turkey Meatloaf (4 servings)

Ingredients: 1.5 pounds of 99% lean turkey breast, 1 cup chopped onion, 1 cup frozen spinach, 3/4 cup of salsa, 1 egg (or two egg whites), 1/3 cup of oats, 1 teaspoon of paprika, 1 teaspoon of ground mustard, 2 tablespoons of dijon mustard, pepper to taste and 2 tablespoons of worchestire sauce.

3. Mexican Chicken Lime Soup (6 servings)

Ingredients: 2 Tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, 1 onion (finely chopped), 6 gloves of garlic, 6 skinless, boneless chicken thighs cut into 1/2 inch pieces, 2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, 6 cups of chicken broth, 1/2 cup of fresh cilantro, juice of 2 limes, salt and pepper and 1 hass avocado.

4. Egg Frittata (6 servings)

Ingredients: a dozen eggs, 1/2 of one roma tomato, one squash, 1/4 of green bell pepper, 1/4 of red bell pepper, garlic and salt & pepper to taste.

There was also turkey taco meat but I figure a lot of people know that one already and overall made about 29 meals to split between myself and Brent.

With some preparation on your part you can make doing this advocare 10 day cleanse easy to follow! We’ll be back with a post on our tips to surviving the cleanse! 🙂

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