2015’s Best Protein Powder

While in Petco tonight, I was questioning my normal choice for dog food and needed assistance. Under great duress due to my indecisive nature and love for our animals, I decided to head over to a reliable website. While we might look to Amazon and Yelp for reviews or thumbs up on YouTube for that matter, we often forget that anyone can contribute to those ratings. The result is something far more subjective and far less consistency.

When I need to make a more important decision, I might head over to Cnet or review.com because I know that they are professionals, getting paid for what they are doing, and therefore to a certain degree, their lives depend on providing high quality and far more objective reviews. While I don’t know them personally, their reviews seem to be extremely in-depth and considerate of more than just, “we’ll give you some money to recommend our product.” Sadly that happens far too often, especially in the fitness and nutrition industries!

Gotta get our protein on to stay hungry and fit!

Jun242015

How to Like Greek Yogurt

I’ve been there. I’ve been handed my first Greek yogurt (it was the new magical thing), I’ve dug my spoon into the yogurt with anticipation, and I’ve stuck my tongue out with disappointed disgust. For me, at least, Greek yogurt was not a love at first sight. It was a hill to climb to enjoy it. The thickness, the sourness–it was hard to get down. I’m pretty sure I made a retching sound and handed it back to whoever gave it to me in the first place. Not dramatic at all. Why am I telling you this? Because now I love Greek yogurt! I got there because it’s full of protein and it’s a great part of my nutrition. And you can too. Follow these 5 steps.

Jun202015

Super-Powered Protein Powder

How’s that for an internal slant rhyme! Alright, down to business. You’ve heard us talk about Sunwarrior protein powder and all its goodness before. Can things really get better for this one-protein-fits-all? Apparently, they can! Sunwarrior recently came out with the Classic Plus.

Jun162015

Fuel Your Adventures

What are summers for? Adventures. Beach-bumming, camping, road trips, cookouts, picnics, backpacking, and so on. Are you getting excited yet? I am. Tastes of grilled cheeses, s’mores, sangria, burgers, and ice cream. Now, you must be getting excited. Summer adventures are the best: the remaining shades of sunburn on your skin tingling as the sun dips down into nightfall where family and friends galore get together for some grub. Everyone has their own summer dream and that’s what’s fun about it: with everyone’s differing ideas, you get to experience a little of everything.

May062015

Do Pre-Workouts Actually Work?

Well, I’ll tell you one thing, they won’t do anything if you don’t! Performance enhancing drugs enhance… performance but they don’t magically give people biceps bursting out their sleeves and eight packs. Now, it’s up to you if you want to spend a part of your hard-earned paycheck on some powders with artificial flavors and food dye to make them actually look like “fruit punch.” Obviously, just like any other consumer good, there are better and worse products based on the principles and practices of the companies that create them. Without naming any names, I’ll say that companies that constantly talk about the science behind their products and are more transparent are safer bets. If a company relies on using sex, popular people, flashy labels, and other marketing tricks to sell their sub-par products, save your money. And, if you have any specific questions, feel free to send me an email!

Apr222015

How to Be a Vegetarian

Often times, when people find out I’m a vegetarian, they look at me sadly like they just found out I have a terminal illness. Funny thing is that I choose to be a vegetarian. And many other people do too! Now, the transition into being a vegetarian isn’t always so heartfelt and easy. There are tons of books out there with the purpose of instructing one on how to be a vegetarian. This is going to be a much simpler guide. I’m not telling everyone to be a vegetarian, I’m just showing you how to in case you were ever curious–how to get enough nutrients in a plant-based diet. Sometimes people turn into starch-atarians when they go veggie, but fear not–there is plenty of protein when you come this way!

Feb282015

One-Protein-Fits-All: Sunwarrior

I have a friend at work who struggles to get enough protein as a kind-of-vegan (she just doesn’t eat cheese and milk by itself) and who also can’t eat soy. I can suggest all the protein powders in the world, but they usually end up having either milk proteins or soy in them! It’s been a tough case to try to find one that would work for her. As fitness professionals, we run across a lot of people who are soy or dairy limited, so it can be a struggle to provide enough options for good protein. Here at Hungry and Fit we finally found a one-fits-all product! Enter Sunwarrior (epic name, right?).

Sep112013

Chocolate Protein Rounds [No Baking Required]

My friend made me a batch of these for my birthday last week and I devoured way too many. Like wayyyy too many. But who cares, you only have a birthday once a year, right? Luckily, these things are pretty healthy and help me get my daily protein intake, so I wasn’t too worried. She had given me the recipe a long time ago, but I just never got around to making them. The original recipe doesn’t necessarily call for chocolate protein powder, but it’s all we have so I decided to give it a go. Really glad I did–super easy. And it’s nice not to bake when it’s 80 degrees out! I altered it somewhat and it turned out well!

My own version of a Hershey’s Kiss…without the slave labor!

Ingredients

1 cup oats
1 cup chunky peanut butter
2 cups chocolate protein powder (you could do vanilla, though)
1 tbsp honey
2/3 cup Silk Vanilla Unsweetened Almondmilk (you can use regular)
1 tbsp dried cherries (you can use any dried fruit)
1 tbsp raisins
2 tbsp walnuts
1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl

Dry ingredients mixed together

Mix the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. It’s tough at first because of the peanut butter, but I just whisked it down until it was well-mixed and of one mixture
Slowly mix the wet into the dry ingredient bowl. First I used a whisk, but in the end I had to use a wooden spoon to really mix it well.

Take out a cookie sheet and place wax paper on top. Then scoop out bite-sized pieces of the mixture and line it up on the wax paper.

Put into the freezer for 30 minutes. Remove from the freezer and then wrap them individually with wax paper, otherwise it’s a sticky mess. Place in fridge until ready to eat!

Ready to go in the fridge

I am so glad the chocolate protein powder worked out. This is such a good snack before or after a workout. Gives you a bit of energy, but doesn’t weigh you down and has a good amount of protein to keep your muscles happy. It’s an unbelievably easy recipe and a great way to stay hungry and fit!

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BONUS KITTY PIC

Sajah caught sleeping on the job

Aug182013

Green Protein Smoothie

This may surprise you, but I’ve never really done “juicing” or used spinach in my smoothies. Sure I’ve had carrot/apple juices, but it’s just not something I’m into (nor am I against it–just don’t have a juicer). However, when I saw this recipe from one of my favorite bloggers, I had to try it immediately! Yes, it has spinach in it, but don’t let that deter you! It also has peanut butter, banana, and greek yogurt in it! Those are the ingredients that pulled me in. I actually wanted to make this a few days ago, but we had everything except bananas (I had just made these muffins). I was heartbroken. So the next day, we went and got bananas so I could make this first thing. I changed this recipe a little: went from smooth to chunky peanut butter, used almond milk instead of regular, and, of course, threw some protein powder in there.

Macros (per serving)

Calories: 261
Fat: 5.7g
Carbs: 28g
Protein: 28.6g

Ingredients

1 cup raw spinach
1/3 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt
1/2 cup Silk Vanilla Unsweeted Almondmilk
1 tsp chunky peanut butter
1 tsp honey
1 scoop unflavored protein powder (but a vanilla flavor would do well too)
5 ice cubes

Directions

Throw the ice, milk, yogurt, banana, spinach, peanut butter, and honey into the blender. Press “ice crush” a few times to get that ice down to bits. Then blend.
Once it starts to become mixed, throw the protein powder in.
Serve!

Yum

Pretty easy directions and it serves well anytime of the day. I was a little cautious about trying it, with spinach being the main ingredient of the smoothie. However, I threw a straw in and went for it. I was so pleased and surprised–it was delicious! You could taste all the subtle flavors. The spinach didn’t overpower it at all but rather shared the palate well with the peanut butter and banana. I wish I had two servings because it was so tasty, but I was actually quite full and satisfied just after one. And I absolutely love the natural color the spinach brings out–a light fresh green. Use this recipe to stay hungry and fit!

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BONUS KITTY PIC

Aug052013

Easy Chicken Parm Recipe [Made By a Vegetarian!]

This is my first time making Chicken Parmesan (or better known–Chicken Parm) and I think I did pretty darn well! I’m a vegetarian, so I can’t taste while I cook, which I don’t particularly like, but I was able to feel it out and follow directions and made ’em nice and tasty. I found this easy recipe here and changed it to fit what I wanted. This is a quick fix for any hungry meat-eater and boy did Chris like it!

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 7-10 minutes
Serves: 2-3 people (or JUST Chris)

Ingredients

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp dried oregano
1 egg
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup marinara sauce (I used homemade)

Directions

Wrap the chicken breasts in some plastic wrap. AND BEAT IT! JUST BEAT IT! Really, smack the heck out of it until it’s around 1/3 inch thickness. Or just eye it.
In a bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, cheese, and oregano. In another bowl, combine the egg and salt.
Now roll those smacked-up chicken breasts first in egg and salt mix, and then, once coated in that, roll it in the breadcrumb mixture. Really coat it.

Heat up some oil and once it’s nice and hot, place those breaded-up suckers in. It should only need about 3 minutes on each side, but just keep an eye on them until they’re golden brown. The original recipe calls for putting mozzarella on top, but, ummm, I forgot to put it on and it was just fine without it.

Heat up some marinara sauce (I made mine from scratch) and pour on top of the beautiful golden breaded chicken and serve!

It was delicious and Chris literally ate all 4 chicken breasts. I served it with a broccoli-zucchini mix on the side. It’s the perfect meal for after work because it takes less than 30 minutes to make and it’s DELICIOUS. It feeds a whole family if you don’t have a freak like Chris who can eat the world (hi Vishnu). Use this recipe to stay hungry and fit!