Carmen's Life Blog

Coconut Banana Mash

2011-09-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

Okay...so I found this coconut ice cream over the weekend at Whole Foods but I still hadn't eaten it.

I usually have some fruits in the morning in my protein shake after working out....but I had an epiphany, I thought of something super yummy to do with the ice cream and the fruits. This is what I did....
I got a scoop of the coconut ice cream, half a banana and 2 tablespoons of crushed almonds and mashed it all together. I only have one word to say.....HEAVEN!!!!

My New Obsession

2011-09-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

Can someone enlighten me and tell me if this is normal or am I going crazy...all I can think of is exercising, eating (Paleo), buying groceries and workout outfits!!! I'm in the process of getting my Masters in Mental Health Counseling, yet I should be able to control myself....but seriously this is all I think about!!! During work, in class, at home!!! It's funny but I find any excuse to go to Whole Foods, Milam's even WinnDixie, who cares. The thing is to go buy something, come home and eat!! I wanna bake, I wanna cook, I wanna eat!!
Then there's the workout outfits. I want to be dressed and ready to crossfit at all times. Prior to 3 months, I only wore sports bras, workout clothes or tennis shoes was just to do crossfit and the occasional times I went to Bally's. As a matter of fact, the only pair of tennis shoes that I owned was because a friend of mine gave them to me. I hated tennis shoes. I wore platform sandals with everything. For goodness sakes, I would go to Disney World in platforms (no lie). Now, not only do I have my own pair of Nike's but I use my daughters cheerleading one's as well and I feel as if those aren't enough (or good enough). I want to get either INOV-8's or the New Balance crossfit ones also. At least I can say my feet are much nicer and smoother since they're always nice and covered!! Not only that but I've gone crazy buying sports bras, tank tops and shorts. Well the good thing is I can go to work with them as well.
Anyways, CrossFit Kitty, personally suggested that I put up more pics....so here it is. Me this morning before going to crossfit in my NEW outfit!!! Ooops, you can't see the shoes...maybe when I get my new ones!!

Someone please stop me.....or is this ok???

Weekend

2011-09-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

So this past week I went 4x to crossfit and ate paleo all the way. Friday night, I even baked these yummy coconut macadamia cookies. I know, I know...my food pictures suck, but #1 I don't have an awesome camera and #2 even if I did I suck at taking pictures anyways. I'm trying my best here considering the time I have to blog. It's a good thing I gave facebook a break because between farmville and cityville I didn't even have enough time to pay attention to my kids (no joking here)! Back to my eating....everything was fine until Saturday night that my daughter went to eat at Chili's with her friends. Low and behold, being the great daughter that she is, she comes back home not only with all her friends and her left overs (those aren't a problem) but she brings me my all time Chili's favorite, Skillet de Queso.

When she told me she had brought me that because she knew how much I loved it, I had mixed feelings. LoL. I didn't know if to hug her or kill her!!! So, I did the inevitable and had a few. I can count with my fingers how many I had and I'd have fingers left over. Can I say how saaaaaaalty it was!!! Did they put extra salt this time or was it my taste buds aren't used to all the extra salt that is put into food!?!? I felt good though. I had a few chips and dip but can honestly say that I am no longer interested, in skillet de queso that is.

Now onto Sunday. I would like to give a shout out to my very good friend and co-wife, Crossfit Kitty, for finishing Level 1 crossfit trainer course this weekend. I'm sure she did exceptional on the test and that we'll be celebrating this weekend the accomplisment!!! But an early celebration started at Big Pink. Ricky had a salad with skirt steak and mine was with salmon. Sorry Carolina...but my can this girl eat!!! She had a humongous hamburger with cheese and who knows what else was in there and a bucket of french fries. Then to top it off she got a brownie sundae. After a weekend crossfit training course....really??? Did you have to? (You can count on the huge comment she'll be leaving me) Well, I couldn't resist the temptation and had 4 spoonfulls of this delicious creation!!! Oh and Ricky had exactly 1 spoonful. I think I would have bathed in it if I could!!! Should have taken a picture of it.

So, the coconut macadamia cookies....although a bit dry they're not bad to munch on. The blogger I got the recipe from, Civilized Caveman Cooking Creations, added chocolate chips. I didn't have any at home so I just did them without. I'm sure they would have been even better with the chocolate chips. Also, his looked much better than mine did, but hey...it's the taste that counts!!! Here's how I did them....

Ingredients:

1 Cup Coconut Flour
1/2 Cup Coconut Oil
1/2 Cup Raw Honey
4 Omega 3 eggs
1/2 Tsp Vanilla extract
1/8 Tsp sea salt
1/2 Cup Macadamia Nuts, food processed to your consistency liking,
1/2 Cup of shredded unsweetened coconut

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375
In a large bowl, combine coconut oil, raw honey, eggs, vanilla extract, and sea salt.
Add in your coconut flour.
Stir in the macadamia nuts, shredded coconut.
On foil lined baking sheets, drop heaping tablespoons of cookie batter.(Ensure you form them to look how you want for a final product as these do not rise or spread like conventional cookies, which also means you can place more on a baking sheet without worrying about them touching)
Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from the oven, transfer to a cooling rack and then enjoy!

Avocado Cilantro Dressing

2011-09-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

I made some chicken last night for dinner and I needed something to dress it up with. I found this recipe in a fellow blogger's page (PaleoOMG) and with a little bit of tweaking this is what I came up with:

2 avocados, pitted
1 bundle cilantro, stems removed
juice of 1 lemon
6 garlic cloves
salt and pepper, to taste

All you need to do is put all those ingredients in a food processor until it becomes a nice thick paste. Then you can add it to any meat, marinade it or dip it. I'm even thinking of using it as salad dressing. Try it...it's delicious.

Labor Day Weekend

2011-09-07T19:56:00.001-07:00

I was out of bed today by 8:45am. That's a drastic change for me who usually gets up no earlier than noon and who's even been known to stay in bed all day. Not only was I up but by 9am I had set up and pressed play to a P90X Yoga cd. That's right, yoga. I wanted to make it out to my box for the class but opted to do it from home since it was the first time ever doing it. I'll be honest, I only lasted 15 mins.
Anyways, the key lime pie I made Saturday night was delicious. I was going to take it over to my aunts house since we were having lunch there but thank goodness I didn't. No one would of appreciated it since they consider anything organic or paleo just plain bad! Considering it was my grandmother's 91st birthday luncheon, I did pretty good. I ate pot roast (no potatoes) and avocados. I stayed away from the Cuban bread, white rice and black beans, flan and bread pudding. It wasn't difficult at all. From there we went to a friends daughter 3rd birthday party. Now, here is where the difficulty began....the buffet consisted of ceasar salad, croquettes, beef empanadas, guava and cheese pastries, fettuccini alfredo, chicken fingers, pizza and french fries. I had no choice but to have 2 plates, not 1 of ceasar salad croutons and all. I had 3 glasses of sangria and why lie....but 2 pieces of my all time favorite rum cake. I mean really, did they have to have my favorite cake?
But not to worry, I fasted for the rest of the night. And it was back on track on Monday.

Paleo Key Lime Pie

2011-09-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

OK, so it's a rainy Saturday night and we're not going anywhere. So we decide to make a key lime pie recipe that I saw on a fellow bloggers page.....Paleo-Zone. We head over to Whole Foods and what can I say.... I felt as if I was at Disney World!! I just love that place. I don't ever want to walk into a Winn Dixie ever again, much less one of those Latin supermarkets.
Apart from the necessary ingredients, we got Mexican Shrimp Salad, Beef Satay, Turkey Meatloaf, Ceviche, and almond veggies. Oh, and Lemon Snaps!!! Totally Paleo!! (Again, fellow Paleo experts, please call up on any mistakes that I make)

We got home and made our key lime pie. It's in the oven now as I write. So, I will let you guys know tomorrow how it came out!

Is the government controlling what we eat?

2011-09-02T11:32:00.000-07:00

This is a great article I found on a fellow blogger's page which I follow, Why You Are Never Too Old For Crossfit... It's about how the government "encourages" us to buy and consume certain products, not always to our benefit. The Paleo diet is mentioned as one of the healthier ways to eat although the article is not written to promote Paleo eating. Click here to Check it Out

There's also this documentary that I saw one day switching channels called "Killer At Large." It's an eye opening documentary that takes a look at many causes of obesity including the toxic food environment, the problems with school lunches and vending machines and the impact food lobbyists have on determining government policies. It also includes stories about young people who've had gastric bypass surgery or liposuction. Plus, there are interviews with dozens of people who have tried to bring attention to the obesity problem including former president Bill Clinton, Kelly Brownell of Yale University and consumer advocate Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. This one I don't have a direct link to it...just google it and you could either buy it or watch it free online somewhere.

First Whole Week of Paleo

2011-09-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

So enough of practice and cheating like the past couple of weeks. As of this Monday it has been completely Paleo for the hubby and I! Not one piece of bread, rice or dairy in this body for the past 5 days. I must say though that it's been pretty easy. I've been satisfied, not hungry at all. When I've been hungry between meals I've snacked on some raw nuts and I've felt great. Also, we've been hitting crossfit like mad men, 5 times this week!! Here are a couple of things that I've eaten. I would have more pics but I always forget to take pics. (I still haven't gotten used to having a blog. I forget to post daily and take pics!)

Here you have ground beef with mashed carrots, sauteed squash and zucchinis with coconut oil (delicious), and avocados. The big plate is for my hubby and the small one for me.

Now, this is one of my favorites...churrasco. I will mention though that this is done by my chef Ricky who Bar-B-Q's in underwear's. I would post pics of that but he got upset when I posted it on Facebook the last time he did it! Anyhow, we accompany this with veggies again in coconut oil and some homemade chimichurri which consists of cilantro, garlic and olive oil.

This was a salad brought to me by a dear friend from a really good organic restaurant in Coral Gables, Green Gables Cafe. It's seared tuna with organic baby spinach, shaved organic carrots, diced organic cucumbers with tossed in organic miso. I don't know if miso is paleo or not, so all you paleo experts out there please call me out when I make a mistake!! Yummy!
For breakfast we've been having egg whites with tomatoes and fruit, either strawberries, blueberries or cantaloupe. Should of taken a pic this morning, it looked real nice....but I forgot of course.

Crossfit Summer Crush Games 2011

2011-08-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday were the Summer Crush Games and I'm very proud to say that my box I AM...Crossfit took first place in the team division. Congrats guys!!

Rob Silver took 4th place in the men's Rx division, Juan Rojas took 3rd place in the men's scaled division, and Team Vida took 2nd place in the team division. I must say that it was very exciting being there and watching everyone compete. All of the athletes out there who competed did an amazing job. My hubby and I will be training extra hard so that hopefully for the next competition we will be in better shape overall to compete!!

Breaking the habit

2011-08-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

So we've decided to go paleo so the first thing we do is get rid of all bread, rice, pasta and grains in my kitchen. But wait hold on, that's almost everything!! Of course I would never throw away food, therefore I just stopped buying it and waited for it to be all gone. Vegetables are the replacement. But who would know that eating healthy and the paleo lifestyle would cause a huge commotion at my house. According to my 15 year old daughter, “there isn’t a thing to eat” at our house. What about the $168 I spent yesterday buying groceries? I guess vegetables, nuts, meat and fish aren’t anything!!! Therefore she had her grandmother take her grocery shopping and when they got back guess what she brought? Yep....bread, pasta and tons of ice cream!! (Now that's food) Coming from a Latin family where every meal needs to have rice and beans....it's difficult. We're all accustomed to this, therefore breaking the habit will be a tedious job. But I will do it. Even if it means having to cook 2 meals, one for the hubby and I and one for my 2 girls.
I really am trying over here. But, I will tell you... the most difficult part of all this is breakfast. My daily morning routine is going to a gas station near my house where they bake fresh bread every morning and getting a wheat panini "tostada" with butter and a cafe con leche. Rain or shine you can find me there at about 9:30 am. But I'm sticking to my guns and this entire week no tostada or cafe con leche for me!

New Blog!

2011-08-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

I'm starting a blog today, in lieu of writing in an "old school" diary or journal which by the way I've loved doing since I was a little girl. I've hard many journeys and adventures throughout my 38 years, but I'll focus now on the one that I'm going through now....health, crossfit, and paleo.

It wasn’t up until about a year and a half ago, April of 2010, that I discovered crossfit. I was hooked. Who can resist? You’re in and out in less than an hour and see results almost immediately. I know, I know…crossfit is about being healthy, fit and an overall athlete but I can’t deny the side effects are amazing!!! Immediately, my flabby thighs started getting hard and I actually got a butt which by the way was completely flat. Although I admit, that crossfit and all, my food intake wasn't the best. I didn't count calories and I basically ate anything I wanted. Until now, weather it is luck or genetics, I can say that I'm pretty much healthy and not overweight. Now, it wasn't up until a few weeks ago that I started reading up on paleo and have decided that I definitely need to change my eating habits. Therefore, I plan on starting my new paleo lifestyle and sharing here with all of you. There are a few great blogs (which I'll give credit to a soon as I learn how to work this blog thingie) that I'm constantly reading and plan to follow.

I won't bore you with a huge introduction, but I will be posting as much as I can on my new journey into PALEO!