My Simple Banana Pancakes

Clean eating is often as simple as replacing the ingredients in our favorite recipes with ingredients that are simpler and more true to their most natural state. Banana pancakes are a favorite in my household so we make them a bit healthier. We replace refined white sugar with Sucanat, which is pure dried sugarcane juice. We replace refined white flour with whole wheat flour. Also instead of pancake syrup, which is mostly high fructose corn syrup, we use 100% pure maple syrup. Enjoy!!!


My Simple Banana Pancakes


Ingredients:

2 cups Whole wheat flour
1 tbsp Sucanat
2 1/2 cups 1% milk
1 mashed up ripe banana
Real Maple Syrup

Directions:

Coat skillet with organic cooking spray and heat on stove on medium heat.

In a mixing bowl, use a fork to mash up one medium sized ripe banana into a sauce like consistency. Add flour, Sucanat, and milk to banana sauce. Whisk all the ingredients together, until well blended.

Pour mixture into hot skillet forming a 8 inch round pancake, flip when batter is bubbling and edges formed. Remove when cooked though, repeat until batter is gone.

Drizzle maple syrup on pancakes as you serve.

Makes about 11 pancakes.

My Fun Cardio!

I gotta tell ya, getting on a treadmill or exercise bike is not my favorite thing. In fact, I can easily talk myself out of it. It can be boring! It's hard to keep going when all you have to occupy your mind is the ticking of the timer, right? 5 mins...5 min, 1 sec... 5 min, 2 sec....and on and on, ticking away....holy boring! Sometimes I can bring a book and distract myself reading on the recumbent bike, but then I find myself slowing down because I'm paying more attention to the book than my heart rate. I can sometimes run on the treadmill at the gym while watching tv with headphones on, but I have the same attention problem...plus I am always looking at the timer, ticking away.

Like me, you make not be the kind on person that enjoys the mundane. If it's not fun, I don't want to do it. BUT, cardio is soooooo incredibly important to our health. Our hearts need exercise, but do all cardio workouts have to involve a piece of stationary machinery?...NOPE! Let me tell you about the way I LOVE to get my cardio in...and it's fun!

I weight train 4 to 5 days a week. Sometimes at the gym, but in a lot of ways I prefer to do it at home...because I can't dance between sets at the gym :). ... A.) I am not a very good dancer and B.) unless you are in a Zumba class, no one there is dancing. At home, I crank up music that gets me moving, and if I am not doing my weight set, I AM DANCING! I normally try to do 3 sets of 14 reps of each weight lifting exercise, then rest that muscle for 30 seconds between sets, and during that 30 seconds I dance... Energetic, probably goofy looking (though I think I am a dance goddess in my little gym) dance. cardio is all about keeping your heart rate up and dancing surely does that. If I dance between my weight sets, I have accomplished weight training and cardio all at once.... Plus if my dance involves that of the Latin variety I have also worked my abs!

So what's your cardio exercise of choice? What do you do to make cardio more fun? I'd love to hear your ideas!!!

This puts the state of our health today in perspective....

From Dr. Hyman's blog. Not to pick on the poor cop, because he doesn't look much different than a good portion of the world today. The point is that what used to be considered "mind blowing" in terms of being overweight is now commonplace... But reversible... And it's never ever too late to turn things around!

Simple, Tasty, and Healthy Breakfast

Breakfast is the foundation, upon which we build our healthy day! Within the first hour of being awake, you should ALWAYS drink a big glass of water and then have a breakfast that combines a protein and complex carbohydrate for optimal energy. Like our cars, we will not function properly without the right fuel in our tanks. It takes fuel to lose weight and be healthy... Skipping meals (especially breakfast) makes you gain weight and is unhealthy...

This breakfast is super easy and probably one you have every week already...

My Open-Faced Breakfast Sandwich

-Two eggs, over easy
-One piece of organic whole wheat toast
-Organic butter or organic butter spread like Smart Balance Organic
-as much spinach as you like
-pinch of sea salt and pepper

Toast and lightly butter your whole wheat toast. Place cooked over easy eggs on top. Sprinkle salt and pepper and top with a bed of spinach.

The over easy egg and butter make this a nice moist breakfast and the ingredients deliver a good carb/protein balance that will surely jump start your healthy day! Enjoy!