Super-Powered Oatmeal Recipe

Even if you have a regular 9-5 office job, you still need to find something to get you through the day. And forget just getting through the day, why not power through the day?! Thus I bring to you….super-powered oatmeal: a recipe to give you a happy belly and charge you with energy for the day. It’s really quite simple and I use what ingredients I have in my pantry. It doesn’t take long and I find it’s a lovely way to start the day. Cooking is a form of creativity and creativity itself often lends energy to the creator. I like to cook this simple oatmeal recipe while sipping on fresh cold lemon water and a cup of tea. If you’re wary of cooking breakfast, this is a good recipe to start with: it’s hard to screw up.

Feb132017

Simple, Healthy Cranberry Sauce

We still have five more weeks of winter here in the northern hemisphere. While that might not mean a whole lot for us Californians (though we have been getting lots of wonderful rain!), it means most of the country is shivering each day. Well, I have a little warm comfort for you! Although you may associate cranberry sauce just with the holidays, I’m here to tell you it’s a great companion all the way through the winter (and beyond)! You can have it cold or hot, but cranberry sauce can add a certain something to whatever you’re eating. I could put cranberry sauce on nearly anything. However, I don’t like the super sweet jellied stuff, so if that’s what you’re into, this is not the droid you’re looking for. This recipe has much less sugar than most so it maintains its beautiful tartness. I’ve also added some orange zest to brighten it up even more.

Jan182017

Going to a Fitness Expo (LA Fit Expo 2017)

Every year, our experience at the Los Angeles Fit Expo (and IHRSA… and IDEA…) is different. It’s reflective of what is going on in the fitness industry. Some years, you’ll see more drastic changes in the landscape based on what’s popular with different health and wellness trends. There are also always dozens of booths that represent brand new companies. The world of fitness is so interesting because you generally have very passionate people who are involved for two reasons.

Jan122017

Almond Butter Chocolate Protein Bites

This new year has been so busy already! However, I’m finding more time for creative outlets, like: cooking, baking, recipe-trying, writing, and such. It provides such a great counterbalance to the other stresses of life. Being creative helps relieve that tension, burden, and stress…at least for me it does. Hungry and I have been doing a tough if not repetitive program for the whole month of January (more to come on that later) and we need all the protein we can get to help our poor muscles rebuild each day. I follow the Minimalist Baker and was inspired by one of her recipes found here. Although this recipes differs from her original, it has the same base ingredients. I wanted something easy to pop in the mouth while still getting good nutrition. So, I came up with almond butter chocolate protein bites, and I’m really trying not to eat them all in one go. The ingredients are simple and the macros are great. They are a touch sweet with wonderful texture and you know you’re eating something healthy!

Nov292016

How to Get Over…Overeating

If you were in America last week, you probably celebrated Thanksgiving. I don’t want to get into the politics of Thanksgiving at this time, so let’s talk about what type of eating goes down during Thanksgiving. A ridiculous type of eating…eating to the point of making yourself sick. Thanksgiving meals are usually feasts with bounties of different dishes. Alcohol doesn’t help either. Also, if you’re cooking for the event, you have more of a chance to snack while you go. All in all, that Thanksgiving day is a day to go big or go home. And most of us go too big so that we can’t move in order to go home. One of the worst things that follows this meal is…guilt. Yup, an emotion that can have a powerful negative effect on you for a long time. So let’s talk about how to get over it. These tips aren’t just for Thanksgiving overeating, they apply to every time you overeat!

Nov182016

Optimum Nutrition 30th Birthday Giveaway!

(This post was written and the computer deleted it, so good luck to our memory to write the exact… same… thing. We keep it real over here.)

30 years. I think you’d have a hard time convincing a lot of people who modern-day supplement companies have existed for over three decades, but that wasn’t the case at the 2016 Olympia when Optimum Nutrition, the gold standard in the industry, threw a huge party in Vegas. Although I grew up in gyms and around fitness, I really didn’t start taking any supplements until 2007, but for the last decade as I’ve grown both personally and professionally in the fitness industry, there have been very few standards that have remained constant. Optimum Nutrition has been one of them, and they’ve done so by taking a smarter approach than any of their competition.

Nov082016

No-Bake Pumpkin Protein Balls

We haven’t made recipes in way too long here at Hungry & Fit. We pledge to post more recipes and more fitness advice! Getting back to our roots. Lately, we’ve committed ourselves to stick to a budget. We used to spend WAY too much money on food (think above $500 each) per month so we made a goal of eating in most of the time. We’ve made true of that commitment so far, eating in for almost every meal! We’ve gotten to cook more and fatten up our wallets. We also feel better since we know what we’re putting down our throats. Yay for budgets and eating well!

I’ve been wanting to get back into the kitchen for a while. I saw Carrots ‘n’ Cake’s recipe and decided to do my own spin on it. It’s no-bake pumpkin protein balls–an incredibly simple recipe with very few ingredients. This recipe also has that canvas for being creative. Try putting different wet and dry ingredients in! I went with pumpkin since…’tis the season after all!

Oct202016

Optimum Nutrition Opti-Bar Review

When you do it, do it right. I think that’s the first and last… and only impression that Optimum Nutrition (who I’ll refer to as ON for the rest of the article) wants to make. Even though they only have a few products with the name “Gold Standard,” it’s obvious that they want their name associated with being the best. For the past few years, you might have found your cabinet filled with their Whey Protein, Multi-Vitamin, and Creatine. More recently you might have added their BCAAs, AMINO Energy, Preworkout, Protein Water, and newer flavors of whey to your collection. Now, you can really take ON with you anywhere you go; meet the OPTI-BAR.

A protein bar is a protein bar, right? To a certain degree. While we shouldn’t need to explain to you that a protein bar is a few bites of nutrient-rich food that generally has a single texture, we do want to highlight some of the things that make the Opti-Bar stand out, or at least make you feel more comfortable consuming it. The reality is that when you go to a convenience store like 7-11, you don’t want to be inconvenienced trying to figure out which option to choose. You consider a few things so let’s address those directly.

Oct192016

New PowerBar Protein Bar

Who hasn’t heard of PowerBar before? Decades ago, when you were a young athlete or a parent raising a child who played soccer every Saturday morning, when you went into 7-11 last minute to get them something with nutritional value there were two things you could rely on… Gatorade and PowerBar. PowerBar (who we’ll refer to as PB moving forward) was one of the first companies, along with Tiger’s Milk to create a candy-bar sized and shape product that had some nutritional value to it. Which leads us to the next question, who hasn’t had a PB before?

Aug172016

Muscle Egg: Pure Protein

I have to start by apologizing to both all of you and Muscle Egg for taking so long to get this out to you. This company has beyond top-tier customer service. When I reached out to them, they were timely and professional. When I continued to reach out to them, they were quick to respond and efficient. You can’t ask for more and you can tell from the picture below that they value getting their high-quality to their customers. I could count on one hand how many times I’ve received a product packaged as thoughtfully as Muscle Egg. It was like opening a Christmas or birthday present, in the best way possible.

Part of the reason they are so mindful in their packaging is the nature of the product. The Muscle Egg containers (pictured below) is frozen when you receive it. You can choose to keep it frozen or throw it right in the fridge. If frozen, it stays for quite some time but once you refrigerate it and open it, its shelf life decreases significantly. Remember, it’s essentially egg whites so think about proper keeping of dairy products when you’re considering how you want to use it. We found our three go-to ways of using Muscle Egg.