Food & Fitness Fridays

*I meant to post this on Friday, but I didn't get around to it till tonight, sorry!

Hello Friends! I've been thinking a lot lately that I wanted to incorporate food and fitness into my blog since it's such a huge part of my life. I thought the best way to do it would be by making a Food & Fitness series for Fridays! So, every Friday I plan on posting some fun workouts/fitness tips, a fun healthy recipe (it'll probably be a dessert recipe since I'm addicted to dessert), or a post on one of the cool hole in the wall restaurants that I've come across on my hunt for restaurants that are both more on the healthful side and that fit my special dietary specifications. Special dietary specifications you ask? Well, its a bit of a long story, but I'll do my best to condense it. At the beginning of last year I watched Forks over Knives and it completely changed my outlook on food. I have always striven to eat healthfully but this movie just totally made me reevaluate my definition of "healthful". After watching the movie, I tried veganism for a few months. My goal, though, was to still eat grass fed, free range meat once a month so I would still be keeping the word of wisdom. Anyway, after trying it out for the better part of a year I realized that to avoid eating animal products I was filling my body with other extremely processed replacers and soy (which is REALLY bad for you, but that's a different story) which was kind of defeating the purpose of being kinder to my body. Also, it was just REALLY hard to give up eggs. So after that, I decided to just be vegetarian. Except, I would be really careful about the animal products I consumed. I feel like the large demand of animal products now a days is one of the biggest culprits for the treatment and poor quality of life that is afflicting the animals we eat. I didn't want to have any part of the way these animals were being treated. When I eat eggs they're cage free eggs, the meat I eat once a month is grass fed, free range. They can cost a pretty penny but I'm lucky that I have amazing parents that buy the groceries. I'm also blessed with an amazing mother that knows of all the best farmers markets to go to, and local small farms to get the best quality meat from animals that weren't filled up with all kinds of crazy chemicals and were actually allowed to roam around instead of living in a tiny enclosed space. I try to adhere to a largely plant based diet to be kinder and more respectful to my body and other living creatures. Now that my shpiel is done, here is my first Food & Fitness  Friday post! Tonight I had a girls movie night over at my place. Featuring: John Tucker Must Die, Baby Mamma, and The Proposal. My DVD player was malfunctioning so we ended up watching Pitch Perfect on the PS3, and episodes of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix. I decided to go with two treats, a creamsicle smoothie and chocolate vegan cupcakes (I know I'm not technically vegan anymore but it's a good recipe). I can't remember exactly which health food magazine I got the recipes from anymore, but I think it was "Clean Eating Magazine". Now, without ado here are my slightly revised versions of the recipes.

Creamsicle Smoothie

1 cup cold coconut water, no sugar added (the best place to go for this is Sprouts)
1/3 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt (I used a brand called Chobani that I bought at Winco)
3 tbs Simply Orange orange juice
1 cup frozen mangoes
1 cup ice

Blend coconut water, yogurt, mango, orange juice, and ice in blender until smooth. Makes 2 servings!
Per Serving: 103 calories; 1 g fat; 0 mg cholesterol; 10.5 g carb; 9.5 g sugar; 4 g protein; 3 g fiber
Nutritional Bonus: Calcium, Vitamin C, Potassium & Vitamin A

Glazed Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes
Makes 12
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa  powder
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 avocado, pitted and peeled
1 cup of pure maple syrup (I got mine at Sprouts, but they sell it anywhere. Also, beware, It's close to $10 for about 12 ounces so you will use most of it all at once.)
3/4 cup of soy milk (I used unsweetened almond milk since I'm completely against soy.)
1/3 cup of canola oil. (I didn't have canola oil on hand so I just used Mazola corn oil)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Glaze
(Ok the version from the magazine called for tofu, which is made from yucky soy, so I actually ended up doing it differently. Here is my version)
2 tbs heavy whipping cream
1/3 stick of softened butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
3 tbs pure maple syrup
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

To make cupcakes: preheat oven to 350F. Line 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in bowl. Puree avocado in food processor until smooth. Add maple syrup, almond milk, and blend until creamy. It should resemble baby poop at this point, sorry for the comparison but its true. Whisk into flour mixture. Spoon batter into cupcake cups. Bake 25 minutes. Cool.
To make glaze: whisk together heavy whipping cream, softened butter, vanilla, and syrup. Add in salt and cocoa powder, and mix until even and smooth. Gently spread onto cooled cupcakes.
*I don't have the nutrition information for this one quite yet since my glaze is made differently and has fewer calories. Once I know for sure I will let you all know! My ballpark guess would be somewhere around 200-250 calories per cupcake?

This is what the batter should look like once all the ingredients have been mixed!

After Baking!

After Glaze! You can't even tell eggs are missing from the recipe! The cupcakes are MEGA soft and moist

Yummy sweet treats for a girls movie night without breaking the calorie budget, plus tons of nutrients to boot!