Blueberry Protein Cheesecake Bites

We are currently living in a furnished month-to-month condo in the Summerlin neighborhood of Las Vegas. It's a beautiful area and living in this condo feels a lot more normal than living in the hotel. We will be here until we find and purchase a home. We are also only five minutes drive from Golds Gym where the IFBB pros Dennis Wolf and Amanda Latona call their home gym. Today Mike and I were demoliating our Quads when Dennis Wolf walked in with an entire film crew who filmed his chest work out. Dennis Wolf is HUGE! If you're not familiar with bodybuilding he placed 5th last year at the Olympia (FYI, the Olympia is the Superbowl of professional bodybuilding). After our workout, we came home and ate some lunch. Then Kellen went down for his long 3 hour afternoon nap. I used this time to put together a recipe that I thought up in my head this past weekend. It's super simple, only 5 ingredients. I call it my Blueberry Protein Cheesecake Bites.

1 8-ounce package of 1/3 less fat cream cheese

5 egg whites

5 packets stevia (or sweetener of choice)

4 scoops vanilla protein powder

1 cup frozen blueberries

Directions: Bring cream cheese to room temperature. Mix cream cheese, eggs, stevia and protein powder. Add in one cup frozen blueberries. In a Pam sprayed 9x9 inch pan, spread the mixture evenly. Bake at 325F for 30 minutes or until set. Let cool completely before cutting. Serves 8.

Nutrition:150 calories, 4 carbohydrates, 7 protein, 7 fat

Help! I don't want to ruin my diet!

My time here in the hotel is coming to an end... Yippee! I can't wait to get back into a house and start living normally. I know it may sound fun to live in a hotel but it looses it's appeal after about 3 days. Anyways, as from previous posts you can see that all I had was a microwave and a mini fridge. While I tried to eat out of my "dream kitchen" as often as possibly sometimes we just couldn't escape having to eat out. I'm proud to say that I found the best thing on the menu AND even tweaked those choices to be even better. If you walk away learning only one thing from this post it's to ask your waiter (or the cashier at a fast food restaurant) to make the dish the way you need it made. After all, you're the paying customer and 99.9% of the time it's not a hassle for them to prepare it your way.

Live by these rules on the road and you won't break your diet:
1) Pretend you have food allergies. Most of the time the extra calories are what's going to kill your calories for the day. Cream sauces, cheeses, butter, etc are all very high in bad fats and if you say from the start you have milk allergies the restaurant will omit these items and therefore omit hundreds of unhealthy calories. And while you're at it, pretend you have celiac as well and leave off those croutons and crispy tortilla chips!
2) All calories are not created equal. When you're looking at a menu makes sure the dish is primarily made of vegetables, then a lean protein source, and finally slow digesting carbs (preferably non processed such as potatoes, beans, corn etc). If all else fails order side salad and pay for them to add grilled chicken.
3) Download a food diary app for your phone. While looking over the menu you can quickly look up a foods caloric nutrition as well as the macro nutrients. If you don't have a fancy smancy phone ask the restaurant to provide you with their nutrition information. Try to keep meals below 400 calories.
4) No drinks here, just a nice tall glass of water (or coffee or plain tea).
5) If the dish is too large in portion, immediately ask for a to-go container so you can put away what shouldn't be eaten at this meal time. If it sits on your plate, you'll be likely to pick at it even after you're full.
6) Think paleo. As in paleolithic time period. If you chose dishes that could have been made by a caveman then most likely you'll be ok. So think chicken, lean cuts of beef, lean cuts of pork, avocado, nuts, vegetables etc.
7) Skip dessert (unless dessert is fresh fruit).

I've also decided to include some of the dishes I ordered so you can't get a feel for what you should order.
Baja Fresh: Chicken Ensalada with no cheese, no tortilla, extra salsa.
Chipotle: Chicken Salad Bowl, chicken, black beans, lettuce and salsa only.
Sweet Tomatoes (Soupplantation if you live in Cali): Salad bar was a free for all. One bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup (I fish out the chicken so I get more chicken than noodle). And some grapes for dessert.
Chilis: Light Salmon, plain no butter or oil. Broccoli steamed only, no cheese.
Promenade Cafe (kinda like Jim's Family Restaurant : Vegetable omelette, no cheese. Sourdough bread served dry. 

Tabata and Salads

For 4 days Mike worked a 12 hour shift, that left me with Kellen in the hotel all day long. I couldn't make it down to the "dream gym" on the second floor so I knew I'd have to exercise within our hotel room. I decided the best way to go about my fitness plan for these 4 days was to do bodyweight exercises using the Tabata method. If you're not familiar with Tabata, it's a very intense but short in time duration type of training. It incorporates a brief 20 second period of intense exercise followed by an even more brief 10 second period of rest done for 8 total repetitions. The entire set lasts only 4 minutes but by the time you're done that four minutes should have gotten your heart rate more than just elevated and the target muscle properly fatigued. I downloaded a free interval timer onto my iPad and set the work sets to 20 seconds, rest time to 10 seconds, with a total of 8 rounds. My first exercise? Burpees! I don't like them but I know they're a great full body exercise. After my first Tabata I rested 2 minutes then did two additional Tabatas, first was push ups, second was jump squats. I then performed some planks and crunches followed by stretching. My entire workout required no equipment and lasted only 20 minutes from my warm up all the way through my cool down. I did this high intensity interval training 3 of the 4 days in my hotel room. The other day Kellen and I went down to the pool and frolicked! As for my diet I've made myself a rule, eat like a lizard! Lol, yep, I've been eating salads like its no ones business but mine! It's been working for me in a sense that I can control my calories, I know I'm getting all my servings of veggies, I'm well hydrated and... I keep regular. And by regular I mean no constipation here! My family, friends and clients always complain about getting "backed up" while on vacation. Most of the time this is contributed to a high fat, low vegetable and low hydration issue. So if you eat a salad for lunch and dinner this resolves that issue. I know some of you are thinking, "I really don't want to eat salads on my vacation!" but let me tell you I've had some of the most delicious salads ever these last two weeks! My favorite place by far is Sweet Tomatoes because I make my own salad. My favorite toppings are beets, carrots, corn, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, cucumbers and olives. So yum diddly um. Kellen likes Sweet Tomatoes too, he prefers the plain rotini pasta, olives and cucumbers. Then he always chooses the grapes over the chocolate brownies. Is that weird my kid chooses fruit over the processed food?! I'm a proud momma! 

Baja Fresh and Migraines

I think I'm officially addicted to Baja Fresh. Today, the third time I've ate there in the last four days, I walked in and both the manager and cashier said welcome back. Kellen and I are becoming regulars. I ate the Skinny Chicken Bowl but substituted the rice for lettuce. Kellen ate half a veggie burrito. In the gym today I did a 30 minute circuit style workout including uphill sprints in the sets to keep my heart rate up. The workout included dumbbell push ups, shoulder presses, lateral raises, tricep overhead extensions and 1 minute 15% incline sprints. That is one whole set. I completed this circuit 5 times and then did light stretching. Around 2ish I felt a migraine coming on so I took a nap in hopes I could deter it but I awoke an hour later and it was there, nausea,  eye pain, sensitivity to light. It's no walk in the park taking care of a toddler with a migraine. The gift shop in the lobby didn't carry any Exedrine so I went back to the room and tried a more homeopathic way of relief with peppermint oil. Hopefully it will go away by tomorrow.

The Ultimate Fitness Facility

Like my hotel "kitchen" I was less then impressed with the fitness room in our hotel.
When I walked in and realized I didn't even have 1/8 of the amount of equipment I usually train with I knew I'd have to get inventive with my workouts. There was only 3 treadmills, 3 benches and a rack of free weights ranging from 15-55lbs. Eek!
I figure to get my heart rate up and properly fatigue the muscle group I'm targeting it'd be best to incorporate giant sets and circuit training. Since it was leg day I did 3 different giant sets targeting both quad, glutes and hamstrings. First: dumbbell squats, sumo squats, box jumps. Repeat 3 times then moved onto next giant set. Second: dumbbell pull through, straight leg deadlift, dumbbell swing. Repeat 3 times then moved onto third and final giant set: wall squat, frog squat, hip bridge. Took 45 minutes and I was a hot sweaty mess in the end. As for food, I ate some tasty Salty Oats for bkfast (1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup egg whites, 2 tbs sunflower seeds in cup microwaved for 2 min). Lunch was a huge salad and bowl of chicken soup from Souplantation. And dinner, well I haven't gotten there yet but I'm thinking another salad... I'm trying to eat my weight in vegetation!