Healthy Hump Day: Homemade Cheeseburger Pasta [GF & Vegan-friendly] + WIAW

Howdy Friends! It’s hump DAAAAAYYYY! Did ya’ll read my last post on showing yourself a little TLC?? If so, how’s that coming? Have you felt happier or more mindful of making sure you’re taken care of before you take care of others? One of the ones I need to work on is waking up early enough to have a relaxing breakfast! 😛

I come to you bearing a new recipe! Before I started eating right for my body, I used to looove Hamburger Helper. Or anything with carbs and cheese in it, really.

So at the IDEA World Fitness Convention, I got these noodles from a brand called Explore Asian. I don’t usually eat pasta (even though I miss it dearly!), I’ll usually sub it out for spaghetti squash or zoodles. HOWEVER, these Explore Asian bean pastas are changing the game. They are around/under 200 calories per serving, contain 10g > net carbs, high in fiber, and have 20-25 grams of protein. WHAT?! I just blew your mind. Go clean it up. I’ll wait.

Now that you’ve cleaned up your mess, you must be thinking “But Elyse! Pasta is carbs is pasta is carbs and whaaaaat????” Well, dear friends, as you hopefully know, grains are not the only source of carbohydrates, and meat is not the only source of protein. The noodles in question, my curious kids, are made from either mung bean, black bean, or adzuki bean and water. That’s it. Two ingredients. Seriously.

You’re probably questioning that if it’s not even real pasta, and it’s made from weird beans you don’t even know about, it probably tastes funny, right? Wrong, mostly. The mung bean fetuccini’s texture is slightly different than regular pasta..probably closer to that of whole wheat pasta. Other than that, it cooks fast and tastes great! My favorite is probably the adzuki bean spaghetti. I made it last night in a stir fry with chicken, butternut squash, peppers, onions, and Go Veggie! smoked provolone ‘cheese’. (Side note: I sauteed some Japanese Aomori Fermented Black Garlic in the pan prior to cooking. Yay for new and exciting flavor combos!) Sorry I didn’t provide a picture – I was too hungry to make it look pretty!

This past weekend, had a hankering for something cheesy, so I whipped up this recipe and now I’m going to share it with all of you lovelies!

Healthy Cheeseburger Pasta:

List of Ingredients

 

• 1 lb ground beef or beef-style crumbles
• 1 package of Explore Asia pasta (mung, adzuki, or black bean), zoodles, spaghetti squash, or your choice of pasta.
• 1 t. onion powder
• 1/2 t. garlic powder
• 1/2 t. worcesterschire sauce (optional)
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Paleo ‘Cheese-Sauce’

• 1 egg
• 1/4 c. + 1 c. extra light tasting olive oil, separated
• 1/2 t. mustard powder
• 1/2 t. salt
• Lemon or lime juice to taste
• 2 T nutritional yeast

Or instead of ‘cheese-sauce’…

• 3-4 Go Veggie! Cheddar Cheese Style Slices

 

How to Cook

For the Cheese-Sauce:

1. Combine egg, 1/4 c. olive oil, salt, and mustard powder in a bowl and blend using an electric handheld mixer or immersion blender until ingredients are completely blended.
2. Continue to blend as you SLOWLY drizzle in the remaining cup of olive oil. The mixture should thicken and look more white in color.
3. Blend in lemon or lime juice and nutritional yeast. Set mixture aside.

For the meat/pasta:

1. Cook pasta according to your product’s directions. (If using spaghetti squash, bake at 425 degrees for 25-30 minutes) I usually add a little salt and olive oil to the pot of boiling water to add flavor and help the noodles not stick together.
2. Brown 1 lb of ground beef in large skillet with onion powder, garlic powder, and worcesterschire sauce. Drain in a collander when finished.
3. Add pasta, ground beef or beef crumbles, and cheese-sauce or cheese slices to skillet and stir until combined. Serve with fresh steamed veggies! 🙂

Hope you all enjoy that as much as I did! There’s nothing better than comfort food after a long day 🙂

What I Ate Wednesday

I haven’t done one of these in a LONG time! Here are just a few of the things I’ve been eating.

I’ve really been digging these Go Veggie! cheese slices ever since I tried them at the IDEA World Expo!

 

Grilled low-carb flatbread with Applegate Farms organic turkey, tomatoes, avocado, honey mustard, and smoked provolone Go Veggie! slices with rainbow carrots and a side salad with peppers, spinach, blueberries, and snap peas.

 

Hari Tea – jasmine & ginger green tea from a mason jar. LOVE mason jars 😉

That’s all for now folks! Feel free to email me at run2yourownbeat@gmail with any questions, suggestions for posts, or just to say Hi! 

Happy Healthy Hump Day!

BlogFest Recap: Day 2

Happy Fit Friday everyone! Hope your week has been good to you. It is time to share the escapades of my second day at Idea World Fitness BlogFest with Sweat Pink!!

I was by far even MORE excited for this day for one reason in particular…. JILLIAN. MICHAELS

But before that, we had an awesome bootcamp led by Caroline (The Trendy Trainer) and Moe Faherty (Fitness MoeJo). They’re East Coast girls just like me! Caroline and Moe were super motivating early in the morning and I loved how they incorporated partners into the bootcamp circuit. Afterwards, I re-fueled with a mini GoMacro bar that I got from the expo the day before, and Kiwi-strawberry Propel.

Bottom left: my workout partner and I. She’s from Turkey!

We had a bit of time between bootcamp and our next session, so naturally we went to go get an iced coffee from Starbucks (duh!)

The first presenter of Day 2 is Cassey Ho (aka Blogilates!! AH!) The session was about turning your blog into a business/brand. I couldn’t think of anyone more perfect to give a speech on that topic. Cassey has workout videos, meal plans, and a new line of workout clothing called BodyPop. She is one of the reasons I’ve been so inspired by this convention to ‘re-invent’ my blog, or at least the way I run it.

The next speaker was….drumroll…JILLIAN MICHAELS OH MY GOD I WAS LOSING MY MIND AND SCREAMING INSIDE LIKE A TEENAGE GIRL AT A ONE DIRECTION CONCERT SHE WAS IN THE ACTUAL ROOM WITH HER ACTUAL AWESOMENESS SPEAKING ACTUAL WORDS AND BREATHING THE SAME ACTUAL AIR THAT I WAS BREATHING.

I mean..Jillian Michaels. NBD.

Jillian Michaels – Badass b*tch 100% of the time.

She was simply amazing. I asked her a question about when to push your clients and when not to push them and she responded with a great answer.

The biggest takeaway for me and many others as well was the quote, Why not me?” I can think of at least 10 ways this can apply to many different areas of my life.

The following Tweet Break was from Merrithew Health & Fitness – we received a Fitness Circle Lite to go with the DVD we got in our ‘Welcome’ bags!

 

 

Following our tweet break, we had a presentation on the Business of Blogging from Ashley Long (an attorney), Jessica Mishra (an accountant – beamingwithhealthsf.com). These sessions were important to me as a blogger because should I decide to turn my blog into a business, I’ve got all the info necesary to keep me out of legal or financial trouble!

Following that session, Kayla and I headed back to the hotel to shower, and returned to the convention center for our next session – a panel entitled Bloggers Tell All. We got lots of great tips and insight into life as a professional blogger from Julie at PB Fingers, Monica at Run Eat Repeat, and Gina at The Fitnessista.

Then, another Tweet Break! I loved these breaks because not only did they get us up and moving a little bit, the brands that presented to us gave us great insight on their company. This Tweet Break was presented by Under Armour. We learned a little bit more about the UA Women’s campaign “I Will What I Want.”  (More on that in a later post!)

After lots of different workouts in the past 48 hours, it was great to have a relaxing yoga session led by Tara Stiles, founder of Strala NYC.

Yoga selfie – naturally

The lightning round of Blogfest was one of my favorite presentations. (let’s be real – they were all amazing!!). The bloggers who presented had a unique challenge – they had 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide, and the presentation auto-advances. They had to make sure they said what they wanted to say when they wanted to say it before the time was up. Tricky huh?! These women were amazing in what they had to say – so much so that I definitely need to write a separate post about that.

Following the lightning round, we had a BlogFest networking party, and afterwards, Kayla and I went out to dinner at a place called Fire & Ice with about 10 other bloggers.

 

Spices & sauces

Meat, poultry & fish

Can you see the circular griddle surface behind the food? I want one of those!

I’d never seen a place where you could basically build your dish to your liking – down to the spices and everything! It was an amazing feeling to connect with other like-minded individuals.

Photo Credit: Christiana at Spilling Coffee ‘n’ Dropping Things!

After that, we pretty much passed out back at the hotel room!

Questions for you:

• What’s one quote that’s really inspiring you this week? 

BlogFest Recap: Day 1

Happy Thursday, everybody! It feels like a great day. Doesn’t it feel like a great day? I think it’s going to be a great day!!! There’s something in the air…..it’s got to be all the new information I learned at Sweat Pink Blogfest/Idea World Fitness Convention the past several days! I just feel like there is so much to talk about that I learned and experienced. I don’t want to overwhelm you with pictures and information, etc. so let’s just take it one (or two) days at a time!

Our flight was at the butt crack of dawn (possibly even earlier..more like the lumbar spine of dawn!!) I wish I could say I slept much of the plane ride, but it’s just so uncomfortable and loud that all I did was wriggle and writhe around in my seat for 5 hours!

After arriving at LAX, we soon learned that our rental car was at an off-location facility – not in the actual airport. Exhausted and sort of sweaty, we flagged down our shuttle to take us to get our car. After sitting on the shuttle with no A/C for 45 minutes, we got our rental car and booked it to our priority destination – Whole Foods. 😉

I’ve never been more excited to grocery shop in my life.

Um..here’s what our ‘mobile pantry’ looked like! Healthy people problems….

Gotta have our oatmeal!!!

We finally made it to the hotel, Paradise Pier (a disney hotel). I’ve never been to Disney before, so I got a first timer’s button! I may or may not have been a little too excited about it.

Our room was adorable – beach themed! And we had a great view of California Adventureland to boot!

We checked into the conference at the convention center – only a short 20 minute walk away from our hotel – where we saw the biggest ficus EVER. Kayla and I call it our ‘love tree’!

We’re heeeeere!!! Several minutes were spent getting the PERFECT selfie. Naturally.

We put on real clothes (by real clothes I mean clothes that are clean, and not workout/lounge clothes) and went out to dinner in Downtown Disney at the House of Blues.

I’m pretty sure that after a long day of travel, this was my first real meal that day.

We passed out like babies at 8:30 pm Pacific Time and slept through the night. We’d been awake since 3 am EST!! AHH!
Thursday, August 14th:

6:00 am – Kayla and I met our fellow blogger friends for an early morning group run organized by Tiffany over at RunningHutch.com. She is awesome, hilarious, supportive, and genuine. I really enjoyed chatting with her throughout the weekend!

I finally met Becky, Alyse, and Jamie from Fit Approach, LLC (Sweat Pink) and put names to faces. Usually when I’m doing a run with other people, I get worried that their pace will be faster than mine, then I’ll fall behind, then I’ll get discouraged because I’m behind, and I’ll totally lose my mojo. With this group, There wasn’t any time where I was running by myself behind everybody.

Have you guys ever heard of an app called RunGo? It’s a GPS running app in which you can find pre-programmed routes that will give you directions as you run. As a special thank you for using the app and meeting for a run, we all got portable phone chargers – a complete LIFESAVER this weekend. I don’t think I’ve tweeted or instagrammed that much in a long time!

 

It ended up being a beautiful run and I felt good about my pace and energy levels.

6:40 am – Kayla and I headed back to the hotel room to freshen up just a bit for the day.

8:00 am – First session sponsored by Lorna Jane Active. They suprised us all and had all different tank tops waiting for us at our seats. Naturally, I’ve got my Starbucks in hand 🙂 Luckily there was one right in the convention center!

Lorna Jane Clarkson, the brand’s founder, is so down to earth and so genuine. She speaks with a thick, Australian accent which makes her that much more fun to listen to! Usually when you see somebody advertising a specific brand through social media, they are often paid to do it. What I love about this company is that they don’t pay people to wear their product – If you see someone endorsing it with rave reviews, it’s because they genuinely love the product. When Lorna sees people wearing/enjoying her designs, it inspires her.

10:20 am – 12 pm – IDEA World Opening Ceremonies. An a capella group called Filharmonic opened the presentation, and we had some amazing speeches from accomplished, inspiring individuals such as….

Elaine Lalanne (Jack Lalanne’s wife) – possibly the most fit 88 year old I’ve ever seen. (She can still do push ups! WHAT??!)

Lynn & Augie Nieto (Augie’s Quest; ALS fundraising) 

and Diana Nyad (swam from Cuba to Florida after four failed attempts in 35 years).

In between the opening ceremonies and our next session, we had roughly two hours to explore the expo center. There was just so much to see – we certainly couldn’t do it all in one day.

So basically…you get the gist. Lots of informative presentations, discussion panels, sponsored tweet breaks, and networking. Some of the sessions we had on the first day included one such as meal prepping and food blogging, approaching brands, and blog design tips on a budget.

Naturally, we had a workout later in the evening. We did PiYo, led by its founder Chalene Johnson. Now, I love to lift heavy and I love feeling strong – but this workout challenged me in a way that I am not used to. I hardly ever take classes such as this because in the area I live, there aren’t a whole lot of options for challenging, unique classes such as this. I enjoyed it so much that I’m considering becoming PiYo certified!!

Mid-PiYo session. Don’t let my face fool you – I loved it!!

Throughout the course of the day, we had 20 minute long ‘Tweet Breaks’ sponsored by different brands, including Reebok, Dannon Oikos, and others. Here’s some of the awesome sponsored ‘swag’ I received on my first day at BlogFest:

 

And…Drumroll please…..my new Reebok Cusion One Running Shoes!!!! BIG thank you to Reebok for this awesome gift!!!

 

At the end of the day after two workouts, Kayla and I were exhausted. We went out to eat at the restaurant in our hotel, went upstairs and passed out shortly after. Despite not being out late and partying, this was still one of the best trips I’ve ever taken thus far. The feeling of being immersed in like-minded individuals is a liberating experience.

Hope everybody has a wonderful Thursday – I will be updating with more about the convention tomorrow!

Questions for you:

Think about your day. Do you think you could’ve done it just a fingernail better???