Protein Pumpkin Muffins

A couple weekends ago I was at Safeway when I found a can of Libby’s Easy Pumpkin Pie mix. I love anything with pumpkin and had to snatch it up figuring I would have no problem thinking of something to bake.

Then I found a recipe for crumble-top pumpkin muffins. Perfect. But instead of just making regular old pumpkin muffins I thought to spice it up a little and add some protein. These were already pretty low-calorie and healthy-ish, why not make them a little better?

The original recipe:

Crumble-Top Pumpkin Muffins
Prep: 25 minutes Cooking: 16 minutes Yields: roughly 24 muffins

4 cups all-purpose baking mix
1 cup raisins (optional)
2/3 cup quick or old-fashioned oats
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 can (30 oz) Libby’s Easy Pumpkin Pie Mix
2 large eggs
Streusel topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Paper-line or grease 24 muffin cups.

Combine baking mix, raisins, oats, sugar and cinnamon in large bowl. Combine pumpkin pie mix and eggs in medium bowl; mix well. Stir into oat mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling 3.4 full. Sprinkle with Streusel Topping.

Bake for 14 to 16 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pans to wire rack; cool slightly. Serve warm.

For Streusel Topping: (which I didn’t use)
Combine 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 3 tablespoons granulated sugar and 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon in small bowl. Cut in 2 tablespoons butter with pastry blender or two knives until mixture is crumbly.

My changes:
I used 2 packets of cinnamon spice quaker instant oatmeal (it’s just over 2/3 cup) and cut the sugar down to just under 1/2 cup. I also added 2 scoops of protein powder, no flavor, from Wildflower Market. I’m not a fan of raisins so I didn’t use those either.

I made half the batter into muffin tops and the other half into standard muffins. They are a great snack after a morning workout before I want to eat my full breakfast.

Nutritional breakdown (from the recipe, without any changes)
Calories: 180
Calories from fat: 20
Total Fat: 2g
Cholesterol: 20mg
Carbs: 38g
Dietary Fiber: 3g
Sugars: 16g
Protein: 5g

“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”

Half day

Today’s going to be a good day for this girl over here. I’m leaving work at noon because I’m going to California this afternoon! So much to get done before then.. to do lists you have nothing on me today.

When I walked outside this morning to head to take Shelby for a walk it was gorgeous out. Fall is coming, slowly but surely!

I promise I change breakfasts every once in a while!

 

 

Breakfast was my typical Thomas Whole Wheat English muffin with peanut butter and honey. Shocker.

I had a protein pumpkin muffin after the gym to hold me over until I ate my breakfast at work (recipe to come soon).

 

 

 

Since I know I can’t get a workout in this afternoon, I knew I had to get my booty to the gym this morning.

I wasn’t feeling anything in particular so I created a hodgepodge of cardio hopping from machine to machine..

• 5 minutes annoying elliptical thing (technical term it’s not a regular elliptical and I don’t know what it’s called)
• 15 minutes incline walk on treadmill (I started out at 10% incline and 3.5mph and ended at 20% incline 4.2 mph)
• 15 minutes Stair Master
• 10 minutes incline walk on treadmill (17% incline, 4.2mph)

Last night’s quick weights workout looked like this..

• 20 minutes elliptical
• 60 second plank
• 15 lateral raises
• 15 shoulder press
• 15 chess press
• 15 flys (back on exercise ball)
• 15 reverse flys (stomach on exercise ball)
• 15 tricep dips
• 60 second plank

I did 3 sets of each and increased my weights a little from what I usually do since this was a quicker workout. Usually I add push-ups and mountain climbers in between some of the sets but I had to get home to pack and study.

I hope everyone has a good day! I’m going to do my best to update the blog while I’m gone but I don’t think the little hotel we’re staying at has wifi..

Try and get it, I dare you.

No post is complete without a picture from this little one.

Stormy weather

I know most people probably hate seeing pictures of rain since they get enough, but we definitely don’t get enough in Phoenix so I was pretty excited

What’s your favourite place to vacation?
When was the last time you took a vacation?

Lightning storm

Well my planned master’s swim workout didn’t actually happen last night. I got home from work and within 10 minutes it was raining outside. While rain normally wouldn’t sideline my swim plans, the lightning does indeed. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not get electrocuted.. So instead I decided to use yesterday as my rest day instead of tomorrow and sat down with my LSAT books and studied for a couple hours.

After playing with Shelby of course

That looks yummy.. can I just have a little bite?

Little stinker tried eating some of my Kashi! We have a little game and if she’ll show me where her cookies are, she can have one. So I asked her where her cookies are and followed her inside to find them. Now, I moved her cookies the other day so it truly was a test to see if she’d be able to sniff them out in the cupboard.

Gimme gimme

And we have a winner! Excuse the finger print at the top, apparently people don’t know how to use my camera..?

Anyways.. on to the food..

Look familiar?

I told you I’m a creature of habit.. had another Thomas Whole Wheat English muffin with Peanut Butter and honey for breakfast.

I had to run a bunch of errands on my lunch today and since I’m leaving tomorrow for California and have no food, I stopped at my favourite Mexican food restaurant, Don Jose to grab a bean burro to bring back to work. I’m severely lacking on the veggies, so those will definitely make an appearance in my dinner tonight.

I could probably live off of Mexican food and especially salsa. Wish I had more of a balance with veggies but it’s better than McDonalds, right?..

Workout:

Since I didn’t get my butt up to run yesterday morning, I made sure to get up this morning and get a quick easy 3 mile run in. The weather was actually somewhat decent, although a little too humid. Good thing about Arizona, we rarely have humidity, especially anything over 30%.

I didn’t actually burn 662 calories during that run, that would be insane so I’m not sure why it’s showing that.. I’ll have to play around with my Garmin later. I’m going to do a weights workout after work. I decided to take Shelby for a walk instead of doing weights. Priorities

Time to panic

I have exactly two and a half weeks until I take my LSAT.. I just got an e-mail from LSAC about it and I realized how completely unprepared I am right now. I have a lot of room to improve and know I can do so much better than I am currently, but I haven’t been able to focus on studying. Time to buckle down and get working!

This is probably 1/32 of the books I actually have to study..

And I am now $100 poorer after signing up for my first half marathon. I’m working out some tweaks in my training plan, but I’m planning on posting my general plan soon. Probably after this weekend because I am going to beautiful sunny California where I can run on the beach everyday and hopefully see some old friends

Manhattan Beach

I probably won’t post my food all the time because I’m a creature of habit and tend to eat the same things every day. But here goes for today..

Breakfast:

Mmm..

This morning I mixed it up a little from my usual Kashi and had a Thomas Whole Wheat English Muffin with peanut butter and a little bit of honey drizzled on top.

On the side I had a nectarine which wasn’t all that great, too ripe in parts and not ripe enough in others :\ Oh well, I love fruit.

 

Lunch:

Since I’m leaving for California on Thursday, there really wasn’t any need to get a whole bunch of groceries. So instead of starving (because we all know I couldn’t find anything else in the fridge ) I went to Sak’s Art of Sandwicherie for lunch!

My sandwich included turkey, sprouts, dill pickles, spinach and avocado on whole wheat bread. I had the other half of my chicken ceasar salad from yesterday, a handful of carrots and a snack size peanut butter snickers. Delicious.

 

Workout:

I skipped my planned 3 mile run this morning to sleep in because I’ve been feeling extra tired lately and I know I needed to give my body a break. LSAT class is cancelled tonight so I get to go to Master’s swimming. It has been almost 2 months since I’ve been so it’s going to be a rough workout, but I am ecstatic I can finally go again! I love my master’s swimming friends and we always have so much fun together, especially when we go to the bar in my gym (yes, my gym as a bar, I don’t ask questions) to get drinks and cheese crisps after

Last night I went to yoga but we had a different yoga instructor who was just too slow for me. I have a hard enough time in the more athletic ashtanga yoga my gym offers, so to move even slower was nearly impossible. The class is an hour and 15 minutes and I made myself stay an hour, but I knew I had a huge To Do list to do so I snuck out as the class was winding down. I always feel terrible leaving classes early, but the instructors are usually extremely understanding, and I let him know before class started.

I found this article earlier about increased appetite and consumption when training. I think a lot of people (including myself) feel like they have an excuse to eat everything in sight because of they just ran 15 miles and burned 1,500 calories. I am a huge advocate for balancing healthy food with not-so-healthy food every once and while but the worst thing you can do is deny yourself the foods you love because it only makes you crave it more. It’s all about moderation

Questions:

Have you ever left a fitness class early?

What’s your favorite “guilty” snack?

Mine definitely has to be ice cream, home made cookies, or both together

What are your favourite veggies?

Carrots. I could eat carrots all day everyday and I definitely prefer them raw.

Hope you’re having a great day!

Crazy canines

My blog is feeling really bare so I will introduce the blog world to my puppy (and by puppy I mean 11 year old German Shepard), Shelby.

Leave me alone, I'm trying to get my tan on.

Shelby is a little princess and notorious for stealing lounge chairs, recliners, couches and even chairs at the kitchen table. According to her, if the humans get them, she has every right to use them as well.

On to lunch..

There weren’t many options in the fridge last night when I was packing my lunch so here’s the basics..

Oroweat whole wheat sandwich thin with sliced deli chicken, and half a Caesar salad kit from safeway. I found a bag of snack size snickers in the fridge so I obviously made sure to throw one in with my lunch On a side note, I have an unhealthy obsession with snickers and have recently found peanut butter snickers (!!!) which are infinitely better than regular snickers, as is anything made with peanut butter.

Sorry for the substandard pictures, I have no idea where my camera is so I’m stuck with using my phone for the time being.

Going un-pictured is my iced tea from AJ’s and a sample of an apricot croissants from their bakery. This is what you are greeted with when you walk into AJ’s. To the right of this are displays full of cakes, more cookies, croissants, pies, tarts and every other baked good you could imagine. Glorious.

Back to work, have a great day!

First post!

Hey blog world! My name is Ally and I am a 22 year old fitness enthusiast who is just trying to figure out what I want to do “when I grow up”. I’m training for my first half marathon and triathlon and after a couple months of reading other blogs, I decided to take the plunge into the blog world as well! Hope you enjoy