Low-Carb Cinnamon Cookie Bites

No matter what I try, my child will not eat my attempts at homemade desserts. Doesn't matter if I think it's the most delicious treat ever invented, it's like she knows I made it myself and she refuses to eat it. Does she have a sixth sense about these things?! For the love of God, what child doesn't want to eat a fat-filled whipped cream and powdered jello mixture?! Ok, that may not be a great example, but most of the treats I make for her are downright tasty. To me, anyways.

Pumpkin Spice Protein Shake

It's the first day of October! And since I'm the most basic girl of them all, I made a delicious pumpkin spice protein shake to celebrate!

Free Sample Meal Plan

I feel like I've been MIA. Practically all of my free time has been spent either napping or packing. Why? Because in all my brilliant glory, I  decided moving with only 8 weeks until this baby is born was a great idea. I mean, it really is. We're in a two bedroom condo now, and there just isn't enough space for us all. Plus, babies come with their own storage unit full of necessary stuff. So we're moving to a house! With a yard! And everyone can run and frolic outside while I nap peacefully inside. Ahhh, a girl can dream.

Fitness Friday

Yep. It's Friday. Maybe you haven't gotten around to working out this week. Maybe you accidentally ate fast food every day. You're probably thinking you'll just start over next Monday. But why wait? You wake up every morning with a blank slate. Made a bad choice (that's the lingo in kindergarten) at lunch? Blank slate starts as soon as that meal ends. Make a better decision the next meal, the next morning, the next workout. It's never too late. And you never have to wait until Monday. Start right now. This very minute. With this workout.

This can be done at home with no equipment, which means no excuses! Do the entire circuit as many times as possible for a full 20 minutes. You can do it!

Low-Carb Sausage Biscuit Balls

All of Reagan's doctors and specialists are about a 5 hour round trip away. Sometimes that means we go the night before and stay in a hotel for a morning appointment. Sometimes we wake up at 4am to make the trip. She never complains. So every now and then, on one of these early trips, we'll stop at McDonald's for a sausage biscuit. I know, I know, that's nowhere near clean eating, but it's not a regular thing, so I've already forgiven myself.

Keto Cupcakes

The girls had their first birthday party invite since Reagan started her diet. Since her sole reason to attend a party is the cake, I decided I needed to find a suitable replacement to spare her the sadness of watching everyone else indulge in sugary cake and gooey icing. And so, the almond flour cupcake with strawberry cream icing was born!

Fitness Friday

Friday?! Between doctor's appointments, meetings with teachers, opening day of baseball, and picture day I almost forgot it was Friday. Almost. Plus I just started my third trimester, so I pretty much can't even remember my name. Lucky for you, I did remember to create a workout circuit for you. And, once again, no equipment needed! So no excuses! Do it in your living room. Do it in your bedroom. Do it in your yard or at the park. Just do it!

Complete the whole circuit once, rest 2-3 minutes, then repeat for a total of three times.

Is your schedule crazy now that school has started again? Leave a comment!
 

Spaghetti Squash Lasagna

I'm not much for Italian food, but every now and then (maybe once or twice a year) I get a craving. But pasta is so full of calories that I usually try to avoid it altogether. Last night I happened to have a large spaghetti squash sitting around the kitchen, so I thought, why not make lasagna? And I had all the other ingredients already. #winning!

Now, I didn't measure anything out for this, just used what I had. So this is going to be a loose ingredients list. It should still be super easy for anyone to whip up.

Ingredients

Large spaghetti squash

15 oz ricotta cheese

Bag of shredded cheese

16 oz ground beef (or any ground meat)

Jar of spaghetti sauce

There are many ways to cook a spaghetti squash. I've done it in the oven, slow cooker, and microwave. The microwave is always my fave because it only takes a few minutes (depending on size). Just poke a few holes in it, stick it in a microwave safe dish, and start out at about 5 minutes. Then flip and do 5 more minutes. Once it starts to feel soft to the touch it's probably good to go. If you cook it too long, it will explode, leaving you a huge stringy mess to clean out of the microwave. I'm just guessing. Cut it in half, then scoop out the seeds and scrape the spaghetti like strings into a casserole dish, pressing down to form a thick, even layer. 

Then add a layer of cooked ground beef, followed by a layer of ricotta cheese. Just dump the entire cheese container and use a spoon to spread evenly. Next, pour the sauce over, using as much or as little as you like. Last, sprinkle the shredded cheese over it.

It's literally that easy. Pop in the oven heated to 350 for about 30 minutes. Remove, let cool, and serve! You've got a delicious, clean, healthy lasagna that tastes just as good as the real thing for a fraction of the calories and carbs! 

Fitness Friday

It's Friday! I don't know about you, but this week flew by for me! I think with my babies in school and me rushing around to get all my errands done before pick up it makes the days seem really short. That and all the keto cooking. 

Today's workout is a great one to try while you're at the park watching the kiddos play. A park bench or picnic table is perfect for the step ups and box jumps. You can also do this at home if you have a sturdy chair or even a coffee table. But make sure to test it first. I am absolutely not responsible if you go crashing through a table in your living room!

As you can see, I forgot to save the workout so I had to swipe it from my Instagram (which you should be following, by the way). Go through the entire circuit, rest three minutes, then do it again. Should take around 20 minutes. Good luck!

Have you ever worked out at the park? What's your favorite type of workout? Leave a comment!

Ketogenic Update

Whew! This keto diet is kicking my butt. I feel like I'm spending my life researching and testing new recipes that Reagan might like. And did I mention it's only Day 2???!

Fitness Friday

Happy Friday, friends! My babies have officially finished their first week of kindergarten without hating it! And I've been super busy designing meal plans, creating workouts I'm far too pregnant and out of shape to do at the moment, and napping. It's a tough life. 

My week was pretty low-key, but maybe yours was long and stressful. And to help you decompress, here's a good sweat-inducing, no equipment needed, mood boosting workout!

How was your week? Any fun plans for this weekend? Leave a comment!

Coconut "Fried" Chicken

Chicken is by far my favorite meat, and pretty much the only meat I ate as a child (with the exception of a pork chop here and there). And who doesn't love fried chicken? My Southern cook of a mama to this day fries anything that doesn't fry her first. I'm talking fried hot dogs, fried cabbage, fried squash, you name it. But I just can't eat like that. All that fried food feels so heavy to me (although I absolutely will not turn down her homemade French fries or fried cornbread). So I came up with this easy 3-ingredient "fried" chicken that even your little ones will enjoy.

Putting My Kid on a Diet

I'm putting my kid on a diet. At almost six years old, she is around 43" tall and weighs 42 lbs, both of which are completely average for her age. So why the diet?

Fitness Friday

TGIF! Do you guys remember watching that tv lineup back in the day?! Family Matters, Step by Step. I don't remember what else, but it was classic 90s television, and it was great! Those days are obviously long gone, but today is Friday! So be thankful, and enjoy today's workout.

I call this the 500 challenge because you'll be doing four sets of 25 of each move, for a total of 500 reps. Do 25 reps of the first move, then move immediately into 25 reps of the second, with no rest until you've completed the entire circuit once. Then repeat. Easy enough?

Did you watch TGIF back in the day? What was your favorite show? Leave a comment!

Kindergarten Babies

I did it! I sent my babies to school today. To kindergarten. They entered the rat race, and I walked them there. And so begins the next 13+ years of their lives.

Clean Chicken Noodle Soup

Sometimes when it's 95 degrees out you just crave soup for no good reason. No? Maybe it's just me. Regardless of the temperature outside, I needed soup. So I threw a few things from the fridge and pantry together and came up with this:

Ingredients
4 cups broth (I use Pacific Low Sodium Chicken Broth)
1 cup water
2 cups brown rice noodles
1lb chicken breast
1 cup shredded cabbage
1 cup diced carrots
Salt to taste
Garlic to taste

Cut chicken into 1 inch pieces, sprinkle with salt and garlic powder, and cook on medium heat in a lightly oiled pan. Once chicken is cooked, add shredded cabbage to pan and lightly sautee.
Add carrots to the broth before bringing it to a boil. Cook noodles according to package, using broth and water, and DO NOT drain.
Add cooked chicken and cabbage to the cooked noodles and broth.

It's just that easy! And so much yummier than any soup from a can!

What's your favorite kind of soup? Do you eat it any time of year, or are you a winter soup eater? Leave a comment!

Fitness Friday

But didn't we just work out last Friday??!! If this was your first thought, then please put down your phone or computer immediately and DO IT! I promise you won't die. You won't even get hurt, although you may be sore later. But it's totally worth it. So without further ado, here's this week's Fitness Friday workout:

Do each move for one minute.

Did you workout this week? Did you avoid exercise like the plague? Leave a comment!

Crispy Eggplant

Remember that awesome farmer's market I found in this post? Well, I also snapped up a $2 basket of eggplant. I think the lady selling the $2 baskets might be my favorite because you just can't beat that price! The basket had three short, fat eggplants in it. 

Now, let me just say that I never even thought about eating (much less cooking) an eggplant until I was in my late 20s and I was looking to introduce a variety of foods into the girls' diet in hopes that they wouldn't be picky eaters like their mama. The easiest thing to do with an eggplant is cut it, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle a little sea salt, and pop them into the oven. And that's how I used to make them. But the texture was just a mushy mass, and there's no way I could get through a whole bite. I'm really weird about food textures.

My current dilemma? How to cook all this eggplant. Now I do love the little eggplant pizzas with tomato sauce and shredded cheese smeared over a thin eggplant round, but I wanted something different. And I found it! I used this as inspiration, and turned it into this:

And it was so easy! 

Ingredients
1 cup coconut flour
2 organic eggs
1 eggplant sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
Sea salt to taste

Whisk the eggs in a small bowl and put the flour on a plate. Dip each piece of eggplant into the egg wash, then coat each side with flour and place on cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Cook in oven preheated on 375 for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.

I should mention that these were a little dry the first time and begged for a marinara dipping sauce. I think it may be because I was so nervous that that be mushy that I let them all sweat for a couple of hours before cooking. I think you could avoid the dryness by pan frying them in just a little coconut oil, especially because I find coconut flour in general to be a little dry compared to other types of flour. Regardless, they were still super yummy and definitely a new way to cook them!

Do you like eggplant? What's your favorite way to cook it? Leave a comment!

Fitness Friday

It's our first Fitness Friday! Every Friday I'll be posting some sort of workout to challenge you. It may be a video, it may be a list of exercises, it may be a lifting workout. Try it and see how you do, even if it's outside of your comfort zone. Don't have a gym membership? No problem. Many of these will be things you can do in your living room or yard! No excuses.

As an extra challenge, see how many times you can complete the circuit in 30 minutes. Good luck!

Do you prefer at-home workouts, or do you belong to a gym? Did you like this workout? Let me know in the comments!

3-Ingredient Slow Cooker Plum Jelly

Last weekend I checked out a local farmer's market for the first time. And can I just say, I loved it! I'm a sucker for a good farmer's market, but I've been disappointed by the ones I've visited since moving to South Carolina. This one was super cute, enclosed in the middle of an old historic downtown area (which I'm also a sucker for). 

Farmer's markets are gold mines for finding fresh, local produce at bargain prices. I wasn't disappointed. I scored a basket of plums for $2. Yep, $2. Now, I don't even like plums, but my girls do, so I snapped them up. Only problem is there's no way they can eat that many plums before they go bad. What to do? Scour Pinterest, of course. I loosely followed this as inspiration.

The result? A little jar of deliciousness.

I absolutely love jelly. In fact I love it so much that I once made 52 jars of homemade strawberry jelly so I'd have one for each week of the year. But let's face it. Those 52 jars of delightful summertime berries were basically refined sugar with a few strawberries tossed in. This recipe allows me to enjoy jelly without the unnecessary junk. The plums are the star of this show.

   
I didn't bother to go through the canning process because I knew my recipe wasn't going to make enough to last very long. This only made about a cup and a half of jelly. Next time I'll definitely make more!

Ingredients
7-8 plums
1/2 cup organic honey
Juice of half a lemon

Puree the plums in the blender, then add them to the slow cooker on high. After one hour, stir and leave lid cracked open so it can thicken. Stir once every hour. After 5 hours, add the honey and lemon, stirring to mix. Cook an additional hour or until jelly is a good, thick consistency. Remove from slow cooker and put in jar. It should keep fine in your refrigerator for about a week.

Have you ever made jelly or jam before? What's your favorite flavor? Leave a comment.

Baby on Board

I'm not a cute pregnant girl. Before you respond with, "but your body is creating a miracle" or "pregnancy is beautiful" or any of those other usual comments, let me say I don't disagree. It is amazing that what was once basically nothing somehow becomes a human growing inside you. And I fully agree that lots of people are super cute with their rounded baby bellies. I'm just not one of them.

I found out I was pregnant not long after I just wasn't feeling it with my intense workouts anymore. I had plateaued, probably because I was being super slack with my eating habits. I felt like I needed a break. I had just joined a gym that is pretty much nothing but one hour of intense circuit training, thinking I just needed to shake things up. About two weeks into it, an hour left me having to go home and put in another nights sleep. Literally. I was drained. How mysterious. Until I peed on that little stick and it all became clear... 

I thought this time around would be totally different from the first. I wasn't serious about exercise back then, and my only knowledge of dieting was the Atkins diet. This time I'd work out everyday, eat healthy, maybe gain 15 pounds! I'd be cut! I'd be hot! Um, no. Turns out all I could do that first trimester was sleep and eat crackers. Boxes of crackers. Every variety. No cracker was left unturned. Forget about working out.

Can I just tell you how hard it is to get motivated after taking weeks and weeks off? Which then turns into months? All while your body is getting to a large state you forgot existed. That sure doesn't make it easier.

So I decided to cut myself some slack. Do I wish I had maintained some sort of fitness routine? Sure. But I am trying to walk a few days a week, which is definitely better than nothing. And I won't be pregnant forever, so for now I'm just going to relax and enjoy this.

Did you workout during pregnancy? Did you love every moment of being pregnant? Or did you feel completely uncomfortable? Leave a comment! 

Basil Cauliflower Fried Rice

You know what I love? Chinese food! I've honestly been eating it since I was a baby, and it's one of the guilty pleasures I'll never give up. Lo mein, pork fried rice, beef and broccoli. Yum. But I don't love that I have an all day stomach bloat going on afterwards or that my mouth becomes dryer than the world's driest, most parched desert. Ah, the sacrifices I make. But what if I told you there's a way to enjoy fried rice without all those side effects? Sold! And so I give you cauliflower fried rice.

Don't like cauliflower? You will now. I promise you won't even realize it's cauliflower once it's all made up.

 

Ingredients
1 head cauliflower
1 T sesame oil
2 T coconut aminos
1 inch piece of ginger
1 cup chopped carrots
2 cups broccoli
1 egg
Handful fresh basil
Salt

In a large pan or wok on medium heat, toss in sesame oil, chopped carrots, broccoli, and finely chopped or grated ginger. While that's cooking and veggies are softening, do a rough chop of your entire cauliflower head, then toss it in a food processor or blender to "rice" it. It should be close to the consistency of rice.

Add cauliflower to the pan, stirring in veggies and oil. Let cook 5 minutes. Now for the egg. You have a couple of options here. You can make a little well in the center of your cauli mix, crack the egg into the hole, then let it cook, or you can scramble it in a separate pan, then add it to the mix, or if you're impatient (like me) you can just crack the egg over the entire mixture and stir. If you choose the last option, the egg will basically coat the cauli and you won't get little pieces of egg in your fried rice. Your choice. It tastes delish regardless.

Pour in your two tablespoons of coconut aminos, your finely chopped basil leaves, and salt to taste. Stir it all up, cook another 5 minutes, and serve. 

*A few tips*
If you want to serve this as your main dish, add cooked chicken, sausage, or beef to the pan.
Don't have carrots or peppers? Use whatever's in the fridge! Mushrooms, peppers, chopped greens. Anything works.
I use coconut aminos as a substitute for soy sauce. It's soy free and clean, and you can't taste the difference. You can find them at Whole Foods or check at your local health food store. Another option would be liquid aminos, which seem to be easier to find in the healthy section of lots of chain grocery stores.

What's your favorite food that there's no way you'll ever give up? Do you have any healthy alternatives for it? Ever tried coconut aminos? Let me know in the comments!

Welcome!

Welcome to Conquer Health & Wellness! My name is Alicia, and I'm pretty much just like you...a 30-something with twin girls about to start kindergarten and another (surprise!) on the way.

I love nutrition, especially meal planning and creating healthy versions of traditional recipes, even though I still struggle to make the right choices like so many of you do as well. And I'm kind of in love with lifting weights. Although that (and pretty  much all diet and exercise) immediately flew out the window when I found out I was having another little one. Oh, well. That just means you and I can go through this entire process together!

I graduated college with a degree in Finance, then a Masters in Business with a concentration in Healthcare Management. I worked as a property manager for many years, before staying home with my babies. Somehow I decided I was really meant to be a teacher, so I got a teaching certificate, only to figure out it takes a VERY special person to teach children, and I am by no means one of them. It took me a while to realize that THIS is what I love. This is my passion. So I became a certified personal trainer with a certificate in sports nutrition. And here I am, loving every minute of it!

This is my journey. Food. Fitness. Life. Join me!