PaleOMG – Paleo Recipes – Almost 5 Ingredient Pizza Spaghetti Pie

Ooooo, y’all I found a good one. 

You know how you are scrolling around and you find a great recipe and think, oh I really need to make this one. You keep reading and jumping around and before you know it, you’ve forgotten the recipe, the site it was on and then all hope is lost. 

Well I’m happy to report, that didn’t happen this time.  

PaleOMG has a fabulous Pizza Spaghetti Pie recipe. I loved it, my husband loved it and it passed the kid test as well. 

I did make a couple of changes to the recipe. 

First, I didn’t use jar sauce. I did use canned tomato sauce but I combined it with sautéed onion, red bell pepper and finely chopped kale. I also added about 4 large cloves of garlic. We love garlic in the FitBit household. A little salt and Italian seasoning and you have a luscious tomato sauce with extra veg in it.

Secondly, I cheated the strict Paleo route and added about ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese to the top. And not that nasty green canned stuff. Use the yummy honest-to-goodness Parmigiano .

And thirdly, I doubled the recipe to have left overs. However, no need to get 2 squash. 1 medium size beauty will do.

 

Best recipe find in a while. It’s filling, tasty and great as leftovers (and I’m a leftover snob.)

Ok, so be sure to mark this because you'll want to try it.

  PaleOMG – Paleo Recipes – Almost 5 Ingredient Pizza Spaghetti Pie

Here Comes the Sun

The sun was so beautiful yesterday. I just soaked it up. I think I am solar powered because I sure feel different when it's dreary and cloudy.

Vitamin D! We all know that extreme tanning is not good for our skin. Excessive sun exposure may not only lead to aged looking skin but to skin cancer as well. But 10-15 minutes of sun exposure a day can work wonders. It triggers your body to produce lovely Vitamin D that boosts mood, immune system, helps regulate insulin, promotes heart health and decreases risk of several types of cancer.

A couple of interesting facts:

1. The darker (melanin) your skin, the less UVB rays your skin absorbs. So you may be at greater risk of Vit. D deficiency. You might need to add some D rich foods to your diet if excessive sun exposure is a concern.

2. Vitamin D is fat soluble. Research has shown that if you are overweight, your D production system may not be functioning properly. More fat cells trap the Vitamin D and it doesn't get to circulate to trigger those immune responses, insulin regulation and such. So additional sun exposure or supplementation may be needed.

3. Most tanning beds deliver UVA rays. UVA rays do not trigger the production of Vitamin D. You need good old fashioned sun for that.

4. There is a new wrist gadget that will tell you when you've reached your limit of sun exposure. The Sunfriend can alert you when it's time to put on sunscreen. One drawback however is that it only measures the sun exposure of your wrist. You do need to account for the other parts of your body getting exposure. 

Sun screen vs. sun exposure is a controversial subject. Weigh your options carefully but for me a little bit of sun does my body good.

Sources:
How Stuff Works - How much vitamin D do you get from the sun.
Harvard Health Publications- Time for more vitamin D 
Science Daily - Shining light n damage from daily sun exposure 
Skin Cancer Foundations- Understanding UVA and UVB 
Examiner.com - Which sun ray is responsible for the production of vitamin D: UVA or UVB? 

Strength!

Body Image Challenge

I've been a fan of Girls Gone Strong and Molly Galbraith for a while. They promote strength and overall health and fitness as opposed to weight loss at all costs.

Molly just started a 28 day challenge to help others begin to shift their mindset from body hate to body acceptance and love. Sounds like a great idea to me. 

Please take a few minutes to pop over to Molly's site and read some truth from and about fitness professionals regarding their body image issues. (Hint: they have rolls, cellulite and stretch marks!)

Just like almost every other woman in America, I've had and continue to have issues with parts of my body.  I'm getting better and better with self acceptance but it is a work in progress. The picture above is a prime example. I would never have posted that before but I'm feeling inspired to share in an effort to help myself and others get over some of these flaws that are only of concern to ourselves. 

No one else really cares that I have back fat (pictured above.) Guess what, I have rolls, cellulite, wrinkles and other stuff.  Guess what, no one cares. Guess what else, I'm still awesome.  And so are you.

I urge you to take the challenge. If not for you then do it for the young girls in your life. 

Working with 3rd through 6th grade girls, I've witnessed the despair, heart ache and anxiety over their body image and weight in particular. It breaks my heart to hear a 3rd grade girl call herself fat. What's even worse is when that 3rd grade girl is well within the average range of weight for her height and age. I'd like to say that I only witnessed that once, but that would be a lie. Time and time again as I weighed these girls I heard these body hating comments. I felt like I was at the births of many eating disorders. And that is probably the sad truth. Some of those girls will have or at least flirt with an eating disorder. I can only remember 1 girl that held her head up high and had obvious self worth when it came time to weigh. Guess what, she was a young athlete in the making. She was the girl playing tag and swinging from the monkey bars. She was a girl that liked being strong and agile. And I'm willing to bet that her mom had a pretty healthy body image as well.

I don't have a daughter but if I did, I would want that mindset for her. I would want her to know that a body is for running and jumping and working and playing. I'd want her to know that her body will carry her to do good and great things for others. I'd want her to know that her body is a home that houses her soul and carries it around to bless the world it's in. I'd want her to know that her body runs best on good wholesome food but that ice cream on a summer day (really any day) is glorious. I'd want her to know that she will be knocked down and beaten up in this world, but her body can and will carry her through it. I'd want her to know how fearfully and wonderfully she is made and that her worth is not a number on a scale. I'd want her to know how to treat her body  preciously, respectfully, guardedly and lovingly. Most importantly, I'd want her to know, to her very core, that her true beauty lies within. It can't be seen in a mirror. It can't fit into size 6 jeans. It can't be quantified because it's potential is infinite.

We are all works in progress. Never ever give up.

#LoveYourBodyChallenge