Time to Eat… Again?!??!

I eat more than you want to know. I eat more than most people I know. I eat so much, my man likes to tell people, “feeding her is a full time job.” And it is, but it’s a job I love. As much as I love eating, and talking about eating, and trying new things to eat, and as often as I eat,  I am still amazed by it. How can someone who looks like me eat like a hippopotamus (and I mean the literal animal in this reference, you should see me mow down a plate of good paleo food!)?

We both prefer natural, whole foods and large portions of vegetables 🙂

Just to re-iterate the fact that I eat A LOT, here’s an example of my daily food schedule:

5:00 coffee

6:00 breakfast

7:30 second, lighter breakfast

9:00 snack

11:00 lunch

1:00 snack

3:00 second, light lunch

4/5:00 pre-dinner snack

6:00 snack on whatever I’m making while cooking dinner (I always need extra)

6:3o/7:30 dinner

8:00 snack

9:00 snack

It kind of seems like I’m kidding when I write it down, but in all honesty – I EAT THAT MUCH. I don’t eat until I’m gorged and full, but until my body is satisfied. That has been a huge shift for me. A year ago, before I transitioned to a Paleo lifestyle, I would eat less often, but eat until I was full. Back then instead of saying feeding me was a job, my man would say, “my girl eats like a man and looks like a lady.”  I would still eat the same amount in a day, but it was crammed into three or four sittings. The food wasn’t whole or natural, and I was always feeling lethargic and bloated. Luckily, (thank god and my parents) I never gained the weight I should have with my habits. Seriously, I should weigh as much as I deadlift (215), but in reality I’m weighing in at 60% of that.

Now I’m not saying eat like you have a tapeworm and you’ll get abs. There are a lot of factors to developing your physique. What I’m saying is, LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. When you remove the confusion chemicals and overly processed foods create in your body, it begins to speak to you. You will crave the types and amounts of foods that you need to fuel it properly. Trust me it works.

And since this post is about food…. MMMM food….

Well, here it is. After eating my post dinner snacks (celery with almond butter and organic raisins for round one, and organic frozen date paste rolled in unsweetened coconut for round two) I can’t stop thinking about breakfast in the a.m. So here it is, my favorite breakfast recipe. I will share my version of Paleo pancakes and post a link to my favorite recipe for banana pancakes.

Paleo Pumpkin Pancakes with Pecan-Apple Topping

Makes approximately 3 servings

Pancake Ingredients

1 cup almond flour

1/4 cup organic pumpkin puree

1/3 cup coconut milk *add in increments, you might use just a tad less

1 Tbs Agave

sprinkle of cocoa powder

cinnamon to taste * I pile it on

2 eggs *separate the yolk and egg when adding them to the mix

small dash of vanilla

Coconut oil

 

Topping Ingredients

1/2 cup crushed pecans

1 medium/large apple cut into small pieces

Agave or locally harvested, all natural maple syrup

Cinnamon

 

Directions

1. Mix the pancake ingredients. These aren’t flour pancakes. The mix will appear a little lumpy and dry compared to what “traditional” pancakes look like; that’s okay. If it is too dry, use the entire 1/3 cup of coconut milk.
2. Heat a skillet or pan and put in enough coconut oil to fry your pancakes. Pan sizes vary, so the amount of coconut oil does too, but it’s important to remember the other term for pancakes is fry cakes. You want to fry these suckers to help them hold together since they aren’t as easy to work with as traditional, grain based mixes.
3. Cook/fry your pancakes in the coconut oil. Keep them on the small side.
4. While you’re frying them up and dodging the popping coconut oil, make your delicious topping. I didn’t put an amount for the agave or maple syrup because it depends on how you like your topping to be. I will caution you on the cinnamon here though (weird because I’m a cinnamon monster and can’t get enough of it) because the pumpkin, apple and pecan flavors complement each other very nicely – you don’t want to drown any of them out.
5. Serve the pancakes with the topping and enjoy them. Don’t bother saving left overs, these are too good to pass up!

Now, if you’re not interested in these flavors, or if you want to try something new, here’s my favorite banana pancake recipe. Nobody else in my house likes them (which makes me think they are all aliens!) so I haven’t been able to mess around and create my own version, but you better believe I will post it when I do!

http://fastpaleo.com/recipe/everyday-pancakes/