Pumpkin Spice Protein Pancakes

Happy Fall everyone! I wanted to post a recipe blog since I haven't done that in a while and I feel it is the perfect time of the year to post a pumpkin flavored recipe. I see everywhere I go there is food that is just being bombarded with pumpkin! I know fall is the time of the year for it but I think its gotten a little out of hand with some of the pumpkin flavored food I have come across. You name it, some company has infused pumpkin flavor into it. In my own personal opinion, I think its a bit overboard but hey, people buy the stuff! Any ways, with all the pumpkin foods out right now, I decided to try my own variation of a pumpkin protein pancake that I have seen people make on Instagram and through another website I like to look at, rippedrecipes.com If you get a chance, check it out for some awesome healthy meal ideas and snacks. With a little tweaking of ingredients, here is my version of Pumpkin Protein Pancakes that I cannot get enough of! Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1/4 cup 100% pumpkin
1/2 cup oatmeal (ground up into flour)
1 scoop protein powder (vanilla and chocolate both work)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 egg whites
3 packets Truvia 

Directions:
Mix all ingredients into a bowl to make a thick batter. Heat a pan of the stove with medium heat. Spray pan with non stick cooking spray and pour batter onto pan into desired sized pancakes. The above ingredients yields roughly 3 regular size pancakes. 

Macro-nutrients:
Calories: 344
Protein: 38g
Carbohydrates: 52g
Fat: 5g

Its been a while...

From the title post you can probably guess what this small blurb is going to be about. So its been a while since I have been on blogger and I definitely should have not let that happen. For one, I feel like if there were people out in this crazy cyber world that were reading my blog they were all probably wondering where I went and did I fall off the the face of the earth. I am still here and continue to be here for a couple of different reasons. 

When I started blogging I was enjoying it because it gave me a way to express what is on my mind and share it with people. I originally started this blog so I could share my journey with people into my first bodybuilding competition. It was going great until I decided to slam the breaks on that and wait until next year to do a show. At that point, which was just a couple of weeks ago things started to go downhill for me personally. I decided since I was not doing a competition any more I can let up on my diet and start enjoying the foods around that I have deprived myself of for so long. It was especially easy for me to do this with the fall season approaching and all the apple and pumpkin flavors of food were being released. Let up on my diet would be just a tad bit false on the route I dove into. I completely let go of "clean eating" and it created a monster in me I am not proud of. 

As I write this blog entry, I am reflecting back on the last 2-3 weeks and realize how dissapointed I am with myself with my eating habits. I lost touch with myself and the values I possess and tried "fitting in" with the crowd around me. Particularly the people I work with. A quick background of where I work is in a distribution plant for a convenient store here in Upstate New York and Western Vermont. There is always free food in our break rooms and that is where my downfall begins. When I say always free food of some sort, I mean ALWAYS!!! We are talking multiple boxes of donuts, free bags of chips, frozen chicken patties, sausages, egg patties, burgers, boxes of muffins and the item the company is famous for in my opinion, its ice cream. On top of this, we have big coolers in each of our break rooms that stock multiple flavors of drinks, milk and bottled water. 

All these goodies being out in the open for the taking started my downfall of terrible eating habits. I have been consuming all the food they had to offer and then some. When I was dieting and not eating any of that kind of food, I could easily pass by a table filled with free donuts, muffins etc. and not blink or think twice about it. My will power was crazy and I loved that about myself. I started to eat this food and my taste buds were loving it! Unfortunately I was loving it too much. I couldn't just stop at having one donut, I had to have two or even three. I would then have some take out food that my co workers would order and have some more junk to eat. Every day would start to be like this and I have now noticed a significant increase in my weight, the way my body physically looks and my motivation to do anything gym related went out the window. 

I literally fell of the wagon and was being dragged and beaten down. Well today, enough is enough. I am not happy right now with how I feel or even I how I look. I am starting my normal gym routine up again, I am going to start eating clean again and I am very excited about this. I am also going to keep up with my blog posts and also posts some recipes that I come up with or have tried and want to share. 

I know this blog post is very unorganized and all over the place. If you have made it this far into the post, thank you for interest and patience with reading this post haha. I needed to get this off my chest and I knew this would be a good place to do it. I also want to just say thank you to my AMAZING wife who has kept my head up and keeps me in a positive state of mind. She supports me and my goals no matter where I am with them in my life. She is such a positive person and it really rubs off onto me and keeps me going. You can see this in her blog posts as well and if you are not following her, you should. She will make a bad day into a good one just by reading one of her posts. The link to her blog will be at the bottom of this post. 

"Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now"  -Denis Waitley


My amazing wife's blog! Check it out!!  Run like a G! 

Unfortunate News...

Hello my blogging friends. This Saturday the 24th of August should be my 7 week mark until the New York Grand Prix bodybuilding contest. I hate to inform you but I will not be competing in this event. After looking into getting everything together that I would need for the competition, it would not be a financially smart decision for me to enter. As weird as that sounds, it would cost me A LOT of money for this one day event. This is not to to say that I will not compete because I will and and I cannot wait for that day to come. It will be in the year 2014 however. 

In the bodybuilding/physique/figure competition there are different organizations that hold the event. The organization that is holding the New York Grand Prix is the NPC. This stands for the National Physique Committee. The NPC is a very large and very well know organization and is a great place to start a bodybuilding career. I knew that there was a "card" I would have to possess in order to compete in a NPC event. I knew that it was going to cost me $100 to obtain this card. What I did not know is that it is only good for the current year. So in a nut shell, I would be paying $100 for the card, the fees to compete in the actual show itself, money for my posing suit, money for my tanning or services for tanning if I go that route, as well as the expense of gas to get to the venue which is about 2 1/2 hours away. This is a lot of money for a one time event for the year 2013. I am going to wait until the 2014 year to obtain a card that way I can compete in multiple shows and get my bang for my buck. 

This really frustrates me that I am pulling out of the show because I somewhat feel like I have let a lot of people around me down. I was on a good schedule for training, my diet was in line and I could see the changes in my body from it. I am trying to stay positive about the situation and not feel like a quitter because I will be stepping on stage, just not until next year. 

I sort of went on a mini food binge and my body really reaped the effects of it. I felt bloated, looked bloated, felt guilty about what I had just consumed and it really sucks because I was just enjoying the moment and not focusing on the effect it would have in the future. I am not one to say eat clean 100% of the time because it is good for you mentally to have that ice cream or go out and have some pizza and wings. I have to just learn to control how much of it I take in at one time because it will always be there. 

I will still continue to train hard and eat "clean" but be more open on what I can and cannot have I guess you could say. If my wife and I want to go out to dinner one night during the week, I am not going to beat myself up because of ordering something full of carbs on the menu. I am going to learn to enjoy these times until I have to go back on a competition style diet. Life is too short to feel guilty about things like this and I believe in the end I will be more happy. 

Enough negative ranting on the topic, so that is the unfortunate news in my life at the moment. I will stay positive, keep training hard and come 2014 I will be stepping on stage and I cannot wait for that day! 

8 Weeks Out

Here we are another week down and only 8 left until I step on stage. Ahhh!!! There is still so much to do but I feel more confident than ever about stepping on stage after today. Reason being is that I had a killer gym session with my buddy and had him take some progress pictures for me. I only did a couple poses for now but it really shed light on where I am. 

The first picture taken was called a back double bi. This one I am very proud of as far as progress goes. I am really getting a lot of detail to come out but still need thickness in my overall back. 

The second one is called a lat spread. This is a hard pose to hit and do correctly to show off the width of your back with your lats. I will be working hard to perfect this over the next 8 weeks. 

On a side note, if you are wondering what the mark is on the center of my back, it's a bruise/mark from the barbell while I was squatting last week. 

Will continue on my journey to perfect my body to be stage ready with solid consistent dieting and cardio. More progress pictures will be added to show where I am with future posts. Take care until next week blogging friends! 

Raspberry Cheesecake Protein Shake

Hello blogging friends! I bring to you another recipe that I just came up with while going through some videos on YouTube. I love to make protein shakes and there are a lot of different combinations that you can add to your shake to change the taste and make them more fun, yet keep them healthy. One of the videos I was watching, a guy used a fat free sugar free cheesecake instant jello mix to his and I thought this was genius for whatever reason. I remembered that I had some of that very jello mix and thought well why not try it. I decided to keep my shake simple because I wanted to use it as a pre work out shake/meal and not go overboard with the ingredients. I give to you my Raspberry Cheesecake Protein Shake!! Now you can use whatever berries you would like or even a different kind of fruit if you prefer. Here is the recipe and I hope you enjoy it if you decide to make it :) 

Ingredients: 
1 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
1/2 cup frozen raspberries 
1 scoop Cellucor Cor-Performance Whey (Whipped Vanilla Flavor)
2 tablespoons Sugar Free Fat Free Instant Jello Mix Cheesecake Flavor
1/4 cup Old Fashion Oats 
1 packet Truvia 
3 Large ice cubes 

Directions:
Put all ingredients in blender and blend for 30 seconds. 

Macro-nutrients:
Calories: 272 calories
Protein: 30 grams
Carbs: 33 grams
Fat: 6 grams

9 weeks out

Whats up my blogging friends?! I am 9 weeks out and it has been a great week as far as training and keeping on track with my diet. My workouts have been killer (in a good way) and my dreaded cardio is on point. My training is going to get harder as the weeks count down and I start to alter my diet which is going to mean less energy (boo!) BUT I have a secret weapon to combat that. Just recently, my good friend recently moved back into the area and joined the gym I train at. This is exciting news for a couple reasons. First thing, he brings the intensity to make anyone train hardcore when your in the gym with him. We flip a switch and go into total beast mode making the weights our prisoners! Second, he helps to keep pushing me when I want to give up and get out a couple more reps. I train with music and usually have my heavy metal blasting through my ears but I can still hear him talking in my ear saying "lets go!! 10 weeks! Stage is waiting!'" This just makes me dig deep and push my training to a level that I need.

As I write this, I am getting ready to hit the gym with him and we are doing my final workout of week 10....Legs. Now I know there are crazy people out there who say they love to train legs but I will be the first to tell you, I HATE training legs. I will be blunt and don't care what you think of me but it sucks! It hurts, they are sore for days and you feel like a baby horse trying to walk for a first time when you have a good leg session. So why do I continue every week to hit my legs and make my body feel this way you may ask? Well its because I like to pride myself in being called a bodybuilder and you are not a bodybuilder unless you train your ENTIRE body and that includes legs. Over my years of training, I feel I have developed a descent set of legs or "wheels" as we sometimes like to call them in the bodybuilding world. I may not be able to squat as much as some other guys but I go in and I still do my work and they are still continuing to grow and get bigger and that's all I can ask for!

The weeks are getting shorter and the journey is one I am enjoying. I will keep you guys updated mid week and also post a new recipe :) Take care and keep positive! 

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Protein Cookies

I follow a lot of fitness related people and subjects through my Facebook, Instagram and on Youtube. I am always looking to learn a new recipe or a new workout tip and incorporate it into my daily routines. I of course love love love to cook and bake and try and make healthy recipes that are tasty. Well one of the people that I follow on Facebook is a guy named Chad "JackednStacked" Coles. For one thing, this guy is freaking HUGE! His nickname is 100% right! He posted up a quick simple oatmeal cookie recipe a couple weeks ago and I knew I had to try them. It takes literally five minutes to mix up the ingredients, throw it on a cookie sheet and then into the oven. I tweaked the recipe by using a casein protein powder instead of a whey protein powder and I personally feel they are better! Give them a try and I promise you wont be disappointed!!

Ingredients: Yields 6 cookies

1/2 cup oatmeal

2 egg whites

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon creamy natural pb 

1 scoop vanilla protein 

Directions:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl to form a batter. If you use a whey protein, the batter should be at the right consistency with the above ingredients. If using casein protein, a little bit of water is going to be needed to make more of a batter consistency. It should be a little bit sticky and not to runny. Take a spoon and place batter onto sprayed cookie sheet. Put in oven set a 350 degrees. If using whey protein powder, try 10 minutes but keep an eye on them and make sure they don't over cook other wise they will turn "rubbery". If using casein, 15 minutes should be the right amount of time. 

6 cookies                                                          1 cookie

Calories: 421                                                   Calories: 70

Protein: 43 grams                                          Protein: 7 grams

Carbs: 73 grams                                              Carbs: 12 grams

Fat: 12 grams                                                    Fat: 2 grams

Follow Chad "JackednStacked" Coles on Facebook for great motivational posts, healthy recipes and helping you become the best you!