Monster Muesli giveaways and competition

Rave Reviews launching this week

Thank you to all those that have expressed interest to be part of our Rave Reviews team. We will select 5 FFS Rave Reviewers and touch base with you this week, so you too can experience this weeks delicious food product.

We have collaborated with Monster Muesli this week so please come and like their Facebook page. As a bonus you also have a chance to win a hand blender by submitting your favourite muesli recipe ideas CLICK HERE. So everyone's a winner, each entry receives a muesli sample! Open to Australian residents only.

Monster Muesli 

Submit your recipe

My all time favourite recipe has to be my muesli bars. Especially with our kids back to school this week. So this is what I have submitted on their Facebook page. Make sure you like their page to be eligible for your chance to win the hand blender and receive your free muesli sample.

healthy muesli bars

Ingredients:

2 eggs 
200 g (2 cups / 7 oz) rolled oats1/2 cup desiccated coconut 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon1/2 cup cranberries1/4 cup honey or pure maple syrup1/4 cup macadamia nut oil (or you can use olive oil, coconut oil etc..)

Method: 
Line your preferred baking tray with baking paper
Mix wet ingredients with dry
Spread and flatten with spatula and cook until golden brown

Fitness 
Another week and the sore muscles have subsided. Freeletics is amazing, I need to post my before pics pretty soon before I start becoming buff :-) ha ha


For those that want to join our 15 weeks challenge you have the option of registering for the free Aphrodite workout and if you like what you see, come buy a guide of your choice. I am doing the cardio program which has so many workout variations and totally challenging. I love it! Grab your Freeletics workout here.

Freeletics workouts 

Happy Monday and see you tomorrow!
XxDani 

Workout Wednesday and reset your goals

Reseting my goals. Seriously I have dropped the ball this winter, I know...... 5kgs 11lbs isn't a big deal but that's when I get comfortable and just keep eating crapola, not exercising and before you know it!!! 20kgs later you are wondering how the heck you got here?

Are you ready to reset your goals? Here are a few simple things to remind us.

I will help you by listing what I will be eating and my exercise regime.

So breakfast is going to be purely based on goodness from now on like this amazing apple & strawberry crumble sprinkled with cinnamon. 

Breakfast

Apple and strawberry crumble for breakfast

Morning and afternoon snacks will consist of fresh fruit and vegetables, protein based products such as yogurt and cottage cheese. Also for those busy days, a smoothie on the run is always a winner!

Morning and afternoon snacks

Morning and afternoon snack ideas

Can't forget my amazing 180 Nutrition protein drinks for pre and post workouts. I love the chocolate protein powder with a banana, walnuts, vanilla essence, your choice of milk (or you can use water) and I add some oats to fill me up even more. Simply delish. 

Smoothie

Healthy chocolate protein smoothie

Lunch will depend if I am at home or I take it away. Here is a fresh lunch idea which you can have at home and also take with you if you are on the go! 

Store in an airtight container and drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice when you are ready to eat. Grab whatever seasonal vegetables/salad you have in your fridge, wash, chop, grate and slice your vegetables. For added protein add either a tin of tuna/salmon, legumes or cooked meat. 

Lunch

Healthy lunch ideas

For dinner, I like to eat light and not too heavy so I will either omit the heavy tummy feeling I get from eating ordinary pasta and replace it with vegetable ones or wholemeal pasta. Here is my zucchini pasta (simply use a vegetable peeler and slice your raw zucchini) served with bolognese sauce. 

Dinner

Fresh healthy dinner ideas

As far as those nights that I feel like something sweet, I will either drink water or herbal teas to curb my cravings but if I am really desperate I will make these amazing peanut butter chocolate filled raspberries. Simply mix cacao powder with peanut butter.

Healthy snack ideas

So as you can see, we can do this together. We just need to plan and be prepared for those times we just grab a take away meal or a bad food choice. The main point to remember is you will eat what you buy. So please stock up your pantry and fridge with goodness.

Fitness

This is the other thing I am committing to. The Freeletics program is really intense so I want to ensure that I am getting enough sleep and fuelling my body. The next session I am doing is burpee max and between you and I, I loathe burpees but it's a total body workout so I know it's doing me good. For those that haven't registered or got their Freeletics guide CLICK HERE. 

We can also track one another on the app on iTunes so come find me and please join our 15 week transformation challenge. I will post my before pics ASAP to give me motivation not to give up over these next 15 weeks.

Please list your goals below as we strive to get back on track. 

Much love and friendship,

XxDani 

Banana pancakes

Life should always be this easy. Got some bananas? Got some eggs? Check this out...............

Banana passiona (pash-i-ona) pancakes

Banana pancakes with passionfruit yogurt 

All you need is 1 banana and 2 eggs. Of course there is 6 of us so I tripled the ingredients and here is baby Zali showing you how simple and easy this recipe truly is.

I use a hand blender to ensure the mixture is blended perfectly hence the little bubbles appearing when I pour the mixture in the fry pan (which has been lightly oiled with olive oil).

Be very careful when turning them over as they are pretty delicate but once you get the hang of it, you will be a pro. Unfortunately you can't flip these pancakes like I do in this picture but you will enjoy eating them.

Here's a birds eye view of these little beauties.

Banana and passionfruit pancakes

There you have it! Experiment with different toppings (of course with no added sugar) we mixed passionfruit with some natural yogurt and the kids had some maple syrup. We have done them with blueberries, check them out here.

What is your quickest and easiest recipe?

Xx Dani

Day 7 - no added sugar challenge

We're half way there!!! Woo hoo!! How good!!!

I'm pretty excited myself, the sensational R&B artist Craig David (7 days) is following me on Instagram so in commemoration along with motivating me for a further 7 days, here is the wonderful Craig David below. He's looking in tip top shape I must admit.

Craig David 7 days

Today was another hot day but managed to squeeze in my FYM workout and was happy to get a few chores done while Zali was asleep. Things can get on top of me if I don't do little things every single day. If I leave one little thing, it's double the amount the next day.

How are you going? What's your eating been like, minus all this sugar? Are you bringing your snacks? Making your lunch, choosing healthy meals when not at home? Doing your meal preps etc....?

Here's mine for the day.

Breakfast

Poached eggs with smoked salmon and asparagus 

Snack

Vegetable sticks with sweet potato dip

Lunch 

Salad in a wholemeal wrap
180 Nutrition protein shake

Snack

3 serves of fruit and handful (5-6) of walnuts

Dinner

Salmon grilled with vegetables

Quick bbq tonight and made life real simple by placing the zucchini and sweet potato on there as well. Dinner ready in 10 minutes!!!

Dessert
Choc berry mud sorbet from Sarah Wilson I QUIT SUGAR ebook

I really had a terrible day today with a banging head ache and really super duper lethargic! Feeling better now as I type but sheesh I hit a slump between 12-5pm!!!

Hope you are feeling well and look forward to reading your comments below. Half way there!!! YAY! So proud of you!!!

Xx Dani

Day 6 - no added sugar challenge

It was a super duper hot day today. Lucky we have our pool now, huh? The only drama I am faced with these days is the leave in conditioner or treatment I need to have for having my hair wet all the time! Yeah right, like that's a real dilemma in my life.....

Seriously who has time to do their hair at school pick up time? Swoop it all up in a bun, clip one of those funky clips in it and I'm off. Just need to air out the hair and rewash and treat it with care over this hot heat and salt/chlorinated pool. Otherwise, I will be abusing my hair!
Any whooooo!!! I sound like I need some sugar, don't I?

HOW HAS DAY 6 BEEN FOR YOU?

Relatively breezy, easy, lemon squeezy here. Only because I have been down this road before and I can't stress how important it is to have a meal plan. YOU NEVER FAIL. Back in my corporate days my manager used to say plan your work, work your plan and that I did!!!!

So here I am bringing those skills to you LIVE! on Fitness Food And Style!!! :)

Breakfast

Organic corn flakes with almond milk and 1 banana

Snack

Hard boiled eggs x2 with sugar snap peas and cucumber

Lunch 

4 beans salad mix

Snack

Yogurt fondue with cantaloupe, kiwi & strawberries

Yogurt fondue

This was super refreshing today and such a great idea when you have visitors over. I sometimes also make flavoured yogurt fondue by blitzing a mango through it, or some walnuts, chia seeds etc....just for some texture when you dip your fruit in it!

Dinner

BBQ meat platter with grilled vegetables and salad

BBQ meat platter with lamb chops and stuff mushrooms

I typically season our meat with S&P, crush some garlic and with lamb a sprig of rosemary in the mix. The mushrooms I also seasoned and crushed some garlic and added some beautiful Meredith Goats Cheese, sprinkled some parsley.


Dessert
Avocado and coconut popsicles recipe in Sarah Wilson I QUIT SUGAR ebook

These went down a treat! Our kids are used to things looking a bit green as we typically make our SHREK or HULK smoothies after school with a banana, handful of spinach, chia seeds and milk/yogurt.

Okay, I'm off to jump in the pool to cool down. See you back here tomorrow. Nearly half way guys
Xx Dani

Day 2 - no added sugar challenge

How amazing is this challenge??

THANK YOU foremost for taking the time to come visit and read my blog every day. Truly. Thank you.

It's so amazing to see so many of you take charge and embrace this challenge with me (along with @tonnedtannedandfit  and @littlemissnutrition who are also collaborating with me in IG land). It never ceases to amaze me all the wonderful comments I receive daily. If I ever miss them (particularly on Instagram as it only gives me the last 2 minutes feed) please ensure you leave a comment on my blog as I have more control of viewing comments and responding here to you.

So what's news pussy cat??? For those that don't know already.....

Our challenge was featured in the amazing Move, Nourish and Believe blog!!!! This is a dream come true!!! One of Australia's most recognisable active wear and fitness-inpsired brand names Lorna Jane and @lornajaneactive team are participating and supporting our no added sugar challenge this month!!!


What I ate today.....

Breakfast

Scrambled eggs (2 eggs) with spinach, tomato and spring onions

Snack
Skin refresher juice (I use a HUROM juice extractor)
1 cucumber
1 red delicious apple
6 sprigs of mint
1 handful of parsley

(thanks to beautiful @chaudsjuicetherapy for posting this and supporting our no added sugar challenge, please go and like her Facebook and Instagram page)

Lunch 

Tuna vegetable salad

Snack

1 pear with 1.5tsp peanut butter & sprinkled cinnamon 

Dinner

Beef quinoa soup with vegetables

Quinoa vegetable beef soup

I make things pretty quick and relatively easy for myself so this is what is cooking in our kitchen this afternoon.


Ingredients:
1 onion finely diced
2 garlic crushed
500g beef strips (you can use whatever meat/poultry you like)
1/2 cauliflower head
1 carrot julienne sliced
1 brocolli head
1/2 red and green capsicum (AKA bell pepper) finely diced
1ltr beef stock (or however much soupy you like, add more water)
handful of chopped coriander
1 cup of cooked quinoa
S&P

Quinoa vegetable and beef soup

Method:
1). In a large pot sauté onions, add garlic, carrots, capsicums and lightly cook until golden.
2). Add beef and continue cooking.
3). In the mean time cook quinoa as per packet instructions
4). Once everything is cooked, add broccoli and cauliflower, beef stock and simmer until cooked.


I am so grateful I watched 60 Minutes that night when they featured Sarah Wilsons I QUIT SUGAR journey. As I too start and learn to omit sugar completely from my family's diet. I was a bit hesitant cutting it out completely last year when I grabbed the book, but willing to give it a go this time....


SO YAY!!! For Day 2 everyone and for those that accidentally had sugar today, always remember that you can make the change next time you eat. How did you go today? What was the hardest thing?

See you tomorrow!!
Xx Dani