Here’s the recipe for the pumpkin oatmeal muffins I am enjoying this week. The ingredients have been modified by the brilliant Miss Amyella to allow you to have TWO dense, moist, delicious muffins as one carb serving.

Genius!

Maggie’s Note: I subbed 1/2 cup of wheat bran for the 1/2 cup of Fiber One cereal and 5 oz. of unsweetened apple sauce for the 5 oz. of baby food prunes in this recipe and still had great results.

As some of you might have noticed, Amyella recently switched her blog to private/invitation only because she was being pestered by some sad, mean-spirited commenters. If anyone is interested in an invitation to view Amyella’s blog (which is full of great recipes for clean eats), please contact me with your email address and handle used to comment on her blog in the past (if applicable), and I will pass on your info to Amyella (aka She Who Issueths The Invitations).

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Amyella’s Low-Cal Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups rolled oats, ground in food processor
1/2 cup of Fiber One cereal
1/4 cup oatmeal, dry
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
5 oz of baby food prunes
6 egg whites
13 packets of Splenda
1 1/4 cup canned pumpkin

Macros for one muffin:
59 calories, 13 g carb, 3 g protein, .4 g fat, 1 g fiber

Yield: 12 muffins (6 servings)

Yay for 2 muffins = one serving

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray two loaf pans, muffin tins, or 9×13 cake pan with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Combine flour, cereal/bran, baking soda, salt, oats, and spices in bowl and set aside.
4. In large bowl, combine sweetener, applesauce/prunes and egg whites and whisk or mix with an electric mixer until well blended.
5. Combine in dry ingredients until blended.
6. Pour into pans or muffin tins.
7. Bake approximately 25 - 30 minutes (20-25 minutes for cake pan) or until fork inserted in center comes out clean.
8. Allow to cool completely and store in airtight container or cut into pieces to be individually frozen.

Today’s workout is done, and I had a new personal record in sumo squats this morning: 185 pounds on that barbell! I will stick with that weight for another week since my vertebrae were not jumping for joy when I stepped away from the squat rack with the bar across my traps, then try to get up to 205 pounds. I am determined to squat over 200 pounds by January 1, and possibly 250 by February 14. At some point, if I keep up with the food and cardio, I may even be doing 2x my own bodyweight. I know this isn’t much compared to Ms. Kyra’s mega squat record, but I’ve never pushed that hard with squats since my legs pack on muscle even at lower resistances.

I’m also officially starting my 12-week Turbulence Training transformation challenge today. (I’ll post full details about this contest soon.) I’m finishing out my 9 weeks with the Shapeshift program this month, then switching to four weeks of TT 2K3 in January and a final four weeks of TT 2K4 late January through mid-February. Both of the TT 2K workouts are from the Turbulence Training for Fat Loss manual. I’ve already printed all of the workouts out and will review them to make sure I know what each one entails. That $2000 first prize will come in mighty handy in paying off my husband’s MBA early.

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WORKOUTS
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- Shapeshift Top PC
Warm Up Circuit: BW Squat, Pushups, Rev. Lunge (2×8)
1) Sumo Squat (4×6 @ 65, 95, 135, and 185 lbs)
2A) DB Reverse Lunge (3×8 each side @ 35 lbs)
2B) Cable Lift (3×12 each side @ 40 lbs)
3A) Wide-Grip Seated Row (3×8 @ 90, 105, and 112.5 lbs)
3B) Standing Cable Crunch (3×15 @ 70, 80, and 90 lbs)

- Interval run (6 sets of 60 sec @ 8.5 mph / 60 sec @ 3.5 mph; 3 min warm-up and cool down @ 3.5 mph)
- Walk (15 min @ 3.5 mph)
- YF Flexibility (15 min)

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NUTRITION
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M1: 2 pumpkin oatmeal muffins, 1/2 scoop protein powder
M2: Pineapple soy protein shake
M3: 3 oz. chicken breast, 3/4 c. asparagus veggie mix, small banana, small orange
M4: 1 apple, 1/2 oz. walnuts
M5: 3 oz. BBQ pulled pork (Oxygen recipe), 3 c. spinach salad
M6: 1 c. light soy milk, 1/2 scoop protein powder, 1/2 oz. walnuts

Supplements: 1 multivitamin, 1 calcium 500 mg + D, 6 fish oil capsules, 1 vitamin C, 5g l-glutamine

I’ve been listening to and reading the writings of financial talk show host and author Dave Ramsey recently, and it has really struck me how many of the things he says about financial responsibility and freedom correlate to fat loss and fitness as well. I’m in decent shape both financially and physically thanks in equal parts to a no-frills, frugal upbringing, a series of smart, informed choices in money and lifestyle, and a decent amount of self-motivation, but I wouldn’t say that I have reached my ultimate goals in either arena yet.

At various times, in my own sometimes hard core, sometimes laid-back way, I have come close to being completely debt-free or reaching that elusive 15% body fat/130 lbs. I’ve even hung out at both of those milestones for a few months at a time…. But then something always comes up–a $1000 car repair that had to go back on a credit card because I didn’t have an emergency fund yet, a big crunch at work that derailed my workouts, an unexpected out-of-state wedding that set me back both financially and fitness-wise–and I am back to trying to reach that $0 debt baseline and 16% body fat again instead of being able to move forward by SAVING up for emergencies and actually training to IMPROVE performance.

On the occasions I’ve actually reached both goals, they didn’t stick for more than a few months because I hadn’t completely changed all of my old ways. I’ve never fully fallen back into stupidity, but I keep giving myself too much leeway with impulse gadget/book/software/game purchases, “cleanish” or downright bad food choices, and inconsistent workouts before I’d maintained my financial and physical statuses for a stable three month minimum. I’ve had too much of a “Yay! I’ve reached my goal! Now I can let up!” attitude, when I really should have been saying, “Yay! I’ve reached my goal! Let me get used to maintaining this for another 6 months to make sure I have enough savings to withstand the next unexpected car repair and that I have a grasp of how much I should eat and work out to keep my physique the way I like it before I start easing up on everything all at once.”

Ramsey says that you must live like no one else (meaning working your butt off and doing without the frills for a while) now so you can LIVE like no one else (meaning financially secure and enjoying all of those things you sacrificed before…but without debt this time) later.

I think this rationale can and should be applied to fat loss. What it boils down to is that neither financial freedom nor a lean, fit physique is achieved without hard work, sacrifice, and a willingness to go against the American norm. (This last item shouldn’t trouble you overly much since the “norm” these days is fat and broke!)

(more…)

This is a rather large 300 KB animated GIF of me and Chris jumping into Wekiwa Springs on Trash the Dress day, so I’m going to spare the low-bandwidth readers the tedium of downloading it automatically by just adding a thumbnail link here. Click if you want to see us hit the water!