Breakfast Egg Cups #LiAR Style

Breakfast Egg Cups #LiAR Style

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!

Advocare for the New Year {2015}

Advocare for the New Year {2015}

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?

All Things Advocare Cleanse

All Things Advocare Cleanse

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?!

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Dinner

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Dinner

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!

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Lunch

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Lunch

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.

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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

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.

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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!

Friday Food Finds {1}

We are so fortunate these days with how readily available information is to us especially with blogs! From our own blog posts about the times we’ve done the Advocare cleanse to providing you with healthy recipes we think y’all know we are always on the look out for doing what’s best for our bodies.  Blogging, twitter and instagram have all played an awesome part in connecting our blog with other bloggers and finding food bloggers that share delicious and healthy recipes.  Delicious and healthy recipes that we love! So we wanted to periodically share some of the foods we find elsewhere and are constantly making at home with you!  So without further ado let’s really get to what this post is all about:

Fit Foodie Sam – Wonton Tacos: These are delicious and a fun twist to turkey taco meat!  This dish has become a regular at our house and they are easy to put together and don’t take long to bake at all.  I’ve also heard Sam has done a pizza spin on this recipe as well, which will be tried soon!

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Peas & Crayons – Confetti Pasta Salad: If you are look for a dish to bring to your next potluck, to a pool party, to a 4th of July party or if you happen to already be looking for dishes for Labor Day Weekend – look no farther!  This is your dish!  I have made Jenn’s dish multiple times in the past couple of months and have heard nothing but good things from everyone who has gotten to have a serving!

Happy Friday! And happy cooking! 🙂

Tasty Tuesday: Clean Eating Balsamic Chicken & Green Beans

We have had quite a few people asking us about the clean eating turkey meatloaf recipe we posted back in October and we have totally misplaced it! 🙁  Yes, the title of this post has nothing to do with turkey and/or meatloaf, but we are bringing you another recipe that is Advocare Cleanse approved!

So if you are cleansing right now! Try this for dinner in the next few nights?!  If you are not cleansing and just what a tasty and healthy meal then you try this for dinner!

This recipe we found from Clean Eating Magazine which we both love!

Ingredients:

1 lb of fresh green beans, trimmed and rinsed

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil, divided

16 oz button mushrooms, sliced

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1 yellow onion, cut into 1/4 inch thick rings

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, sliced 1/2 inch thick

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp sea salt

1. Prep all of your veggies and meat so they are ready to go.

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2. Fill a pot halfway up with water and bring the water to boil.  Add the green beans, reduce heat and steam until they are crisp (approximately 5 minutes).  Set aside.

3. In a large non-stick skillet, heat 1 tsp of olive oil on medium heat.  Add mushrooms to saute for approximately 10 minutes, stir occasionally.  When the mushrooms are almost done stir in the lemon zest, lemon juice and garlic and saute for three minutes.

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Remove the mushrooms from the heat and transfer to a large bowl.  Combine the green beans and the mushrooms in the bowl and toss well.  Cover the bowl to keep the veggies warm.

4. In a large non-stick skillet, heat the remaining teaspoon of olive oil on medium heat.  Add the onion rings and saute for approximately 5 minutes. Add chicken, thyme, vinegar and salt, and cook, stirring often, for 8 minutes or until the thickest part of chicken is cooked through.  Remove from heat, serve with green beans and any remaining juice from the skillet can be poured over your chicken and/or veggies.

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And voila! Dinner is served.  Sorry, we were too hungry to remember to capture a photo of the final product, but it was also husband approved!

Expect to spend about 35 minutes preparing the food and 35 minutes cooking.

For a printable version of the recipe please go HERE.

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Our Survival Tips

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?

Cheaters, Cheaters, Pumpkin Eaters!

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! 🙂

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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.