Protein Powder Pancakes

Been dying for pancakes. Really didn't want a shake today. So for my brunch I made some!

With about 19.5g of protein in them.

I made some for my mom too she loved them!!

Since buying the Quest brand I've been trying to find a equivalent to it to make pancakes. This is what I've come up with. I don't like spending sooo much for protein powder.

Basic Protein Pancakes:

1 scoop vanilla protein powder ( I use EAS) 

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp imitation vanilla extract

1 egg (I used medium)

1/4 cup self-rising flour

Water (your idea of pancake batter lol)

I fried mine on a non-stick pan, with zero calorie Olive oil spray, zero calorie Butter spray is good too. :) 

Served with light butter and sugar-free syrup.

Thanks for reading!

Gina ❤️

Ultimate Turtle Cheesecake

For Father's Day I wanted to make my husband a yummy cheesecake.

I've never made one so I found a easy one from Kraft

I altered it a bit but it still came out great!

Made it a little bit (just a little bit) less calories. 

Here is the original recipe.

What you will need:

• 20 finely crushed Oreo cookies (or about 2 cups)
• 6 Tbsp. light butter, melted
• 1 cup chopped Pecans
• 3 pkg. (8 oz. each) 1/3 less fat neufchatel cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 2 oz. Semi-Sweet Chocolate
• Smucker's Sugar Free Caramel Sundae Syrup

Heat oven to 325°F.

Grease pan.

Mix crumbs and butter; press onto bottom and 2 inches up side of 8-inch springform pan.

Mix caramel sauce and nuts together. Pour half into crust. Refrigerate 10 min. Refrigerate remaining caramel mixture for later use.

Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl with mixer until blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each just until blended.

Bake 1 hour 5 min. to 1 hour 10 min. or until center is almost set. Run knife around rim of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing rim.

Refrigerate 4 hours.

Microwave reserved caramel mixture 1 min.; stir. Pour over cheesecake. Melt chocolate as directed on package; drizzle over cheesecake.

Tips:

• Reduce oven temperature to 300°F if using a dark nonstick springform pan.
• After completely done let set overnight for best flavor and texture. Trust me make at least a day ahead of time. Its worth the wait!

Test out this recipe and let me know how yours turned out!
Share pictures and links in the comment section below!

MyFitnessPal My 240th Day! (Post #2)

I haven't made a recent before after photos

Day 1: I weighed 220 pounds. I am 5ft 3in. in height. I wore a pant size 16/18.

As my friends may know on my Facebook today is my 240th day on MyFitnessPal. I mean they should. Ever since I started this journey on January 11th, 2013 I have been posting how I wanted to change. After trying many things to get my weight down and all of them failing I had about given up until my husband bought me an iPhone 4s. 

Before I was able to acquire a smartphone I had done some research on MyFitnessPal for about 4 months, though knowing I wouldn't hold fast to logging my foods on my laptop all the time I didn't make a membership. But once I heard that my husband bought me one that was the first free app I downloaded. 

For the first day was a bad day. I mean bad. Right from the get-go I went over my calorie intake. My whole day consisted on:

• McChicken Sandwich -360 cal.
• McDouble Burger - 390 cal.
• 12oz Coca Cola- 140 cal.
• Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich - 270 cal.
• Diet Green Tea - 0 cal.
• 1/2 Red Barron Special Deluxe Pizza- 760 cal.

Yes my calorie intake was only 1,550 calories in the start, and I ate 1,920 calories though I was still hungry and CRAVING soda, knowing I had already screwed up Day One I told myself tomorrow was going to be better.

That night I told my husband Andrew what I was doing and he liked the idea. Which I wasn't sure if he would since we had to log everything and scan our foods. I showed him how to do it, its all pretty simple. Scan the barcode of your product and nine times out of ten it pops up. If not you can quickly add calories or make your own product code. Andrew started on his the very next day and so far he has been right there with me ever since.

I KNEW I had to get off at least regular sodas. I know diet soda is BAD but its better than drinking all those calories. Anyway drinking I know 1-2 2L of soda A DAY was terrible I knew that but being an pop drinker for as long as I could remember was going to be hard going going cold turkey. I even told my uncle I wouldn't be caught EVER drinking a Diet Coke. Dang I ate my words.
Plus I hated water. Love to swim in it. Not to drink it. Go figure. I think it was a childhood thing not going into that piss some family off for that one.

 I SWEAR The month of January was HELL for me. Everyday I would give myself a 12 oz of soda. then go down to 6 oz then 4 oz and ect. until I FINALLY quit it. I felt like a meth addict coming off crack. It wasn't fun at all.  But somehow I did it. I do drink a lot more water now. I even crave it somedays. Which is good. 

Within the first week of using MyFitnessPal I lost 5 pounds. FIVE POUNDS. Nothing else had worked. But this FOOD MODERATION worked. DANG I really wished I had listened to my teachers in health and Foods in high school she wasn't joking when to stay healthy you needed to watch how much you ate. 

Day: 240: I now weigh 180.1lbs and can wear a size 12/13 (depends on the maker) pant/shorts

So Far I've lost a total of 40 pounds!

Mr.Wii Fit can be a real buthole because everytime I go to step on him he says "Oh!" .... Butthole! 

I've done made this post WAY TOO long so I guess I'm going to stop it here. I'm going to try to back track using my memory and go by month by month, or couple months by couple of months. We will see.

You can Add me on MyFitnessPal my username is MrsGinaTaylor or you can click the link HERE

 And Let me know if you have any questions on my journey or on the MyFitnessPal App or website.

Thanks for reading!!

XoXo Gina oXoX

Follow My Journey Here:

In the Beginning... (Post #1)

Weight Loss Update! (Post #3)
My Journey (Post #4)

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own and no compensation was given.

Homemade Fiber Rich Banana Bread

Yummy yummy! Even though I skipped an ingredient but you can't even tell whoopsie!! Lol

Ok ok. Well Wanting to add Flax Flour and Wheat Brand I couldn't find a recipe so I had to make one. For THIS exact bread:

• 2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 Ripe Bananas
• 1/2 Cup Flax Flour
• 1/2 Cup Wheat Bran
• 4-5 TBS water
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon for mix

• Topping
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 TBS Brown Sugar

Preheat oven 350 degrees; Grease 8-1/2 X4-1/2 inch pan; set aside.

Mix dry ingredients in bowl; 

I separate bowl smash bananas, add egg and cinnamon.

Mix in bananas; slowly incorporate; add water as needed. Do Not Over Mix.

Pour in pan; add topping (More of you like), swirl, and bake.

Bake for 55-60 minutes.

Serving size. Cut in 10 slices; Each slice 133 Calories Approx. Less if cut smaller.

Now the recipes that I was basing this from called for 1/2 a cup of butter/margarine BUT I forgot it. It's up to you if you want to add it in. I didn't and my family thought it was good without it. Hey we saved some calories not adding it. LOL

PaidViewPoint.com

Again I have found another great website for earning Paypal Money!

It's called PaidViewPoint.com

Almost everyday they will send a link to your email saying that you have a survey to take.

It consists of really easy questions and normally there isn't that many questions 5 to 10 or so. 

All it asks is like ie. What hobbies do you enjoy: Painting, Archery, horseback riding, speed reading ect. 

And you just click none, any or all. Whatever you enjoy.

Then time to time they might send you an extra survey that might be .14 and they might be fill in the blank or something.

I know .10 or .14 isn't much but take 5 seconds out of the day to do this along with the other websites I have shared you might have a good bit saved up for next Christmas!! That's what I am hoping for!


Go check it out HERE

Easy 3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

It's almost Christmas and I love making sweets during this time of year. So I was looking up different cookies because I have 9 dozen to make in a week but I ALWAYS get so antsy to make things up until I make them. Hehe

Well I had ran across this easy recipe from BubbleCrumb and thought I could give it a try. 

What You need

• 1 Cup - Sugar
• 1 Cup - Creamy Peanut Butter
• 1 Egg

In a bowl, ( I used my kitchenAid Mixer but you can do it by hand my lil man loves to help use it!) combine the sugar, peanut butter, and the egg.

Then spoon, (or roll as I did) teaspoon size balls, then use a fork for the traditional checkered top.

Bake in over at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Mine took a little longer about 14 minutes but I found out that different types of peanut butter varies it. 

Let cool on cooling rack and serve! They will be gone in a flash!


Thanks BubbleCrumb for your easy recipe!!

(Variation you could add semisweet chocolate chips to the mix!)

I halved the recipe and it made 12 of the larger cookies, and  25 small cookies.

Thanks for stopping by!

XoXo Gina oXoX

Lightning Mcqueen Pinata!

We are having my son a Cars birthday bash in June. We are heading to one of our favorite campgrounds Deer Run Campground. A few months back I was looking around for a Cars pinata. I looked and looked but couldn't find the perfect, or easiest to go by. But finally I found the best one ever! Hers was the one I had been looking for! Things I like to Make had the best Lightning Mcqueen pinata! Even though I didn't have everything that she called for I easily switched a few things. 

Here is her Tutorial on Her Lightning Mcqueen. She also has other things from her Party!

I would have taken photos as I made it but I knew if I had of I would have never got it done. I'm weird like that. hehe. Anyways...

I was lucky enough that as I was thinking of attempting to make a cars cake I found a man with all his stickers. I emailed him and he kindly emailed them all to me!

I left the top of the Kix box for the opening for the candy. Slightly cutting it so it was a smaller opening.
                                                

Sorry my husband had to get me in my jammies. I told him not to.

I really think the off brand Gatorade bottles made it wheels pop! Then adding the "Lightyear" Stickers to them made them look really good!

 

In all I think I did a pretty decent job!

I really didn't want to pay $20.00 for the ones at Walmart were all the little kids have torn off the stickers and punctured holes in them. Over all I paid maybe $4.00...maybe.



I used.
4 Off Brand Gatorade bottles
1 Kix Cereal box

1 Can flat black spray paint

1 Can of red sprat paint

1 Mac & Cheese Box

1 Cookout Chicken nugget Foam container

Tape

1 TP tube

1 piece of red Construction paper

1 roll of Party ribbon

Print Off Stickers
News paper & Flour
Fishing twine
1 pack of Crepe paper Rolls

I had most of it.




Thank you Things I like to Make (FB Page) for your wonderful tutorial! It really helped me alot!

Go check out her Pages! She has some awesome things!

Thanks for reading! If I have people ask me how I did it step by step I'll post but otherwise Things I like to Make has the best one!

I'll be posting some more later!