Strawberry Banana Coconut Smoothie

I love carnivals.

There's something very nostalgic about it. When my sister & I were little, my parents would take us to every carnival our town would have. I can't recall a time we didn't go to the carnival when it was in town.

As we slowly grew up, we slowly stopped going to the carnivals. I want to go back.

One thing we tried to do when going to the carnival was avoid the food & drinks there. They're way overpriced for what you get. So we would sometimes just eat before we went & bought drinks if we got thirtsy. Sometimes if my sister & I were being good little girls we would get cotton candy.

Cotton candy is so gross.

One thing I did like from the carnival was their frozen strawberry drinks. My go to flavors when I was little was watermelon & strawberry.

Now it's coconut.

So the other day when I got a new case of coconut water I thought to myself, what would happen if I tried to combine my little girl-self & my...not so little girl-sell, together?

Well, a strawberry banana coconut smoothie would happen, that's what!

Let me tell you something, this recipe is so good & refreshing, I ended up drinking the second half of my leftover. Oops.

At least it's healthy, so I don't feel bad.

Strawberry Banana Coconut Smoothie

Ingredients

♥ Half Ripe Banana

♥ 2-3 strawberries (more for tangy, less for less tang)

♥ 1/4 Cup Unsweetened Shredded Coconut (or to taste)

♥ 1 Cup Fresh Coconut Water

♥ 2 Tbsp Honey or 2-6 drops liquid stevia (or to taste)

♥ Ice Cubes (depends on how icy you want it, use your judgement, I used 5 large ice cubes)

Directions

♥ Mix all of the smoothie ingredients in a blender until you reach your desired consistency

Enjoy, my hungry little hearts!

Pretty Protein Pancakes

Breakfast is my favorite meal.

Let's face it, who doesn't want to get up & eat first thing in the morning?

I love pancakes but I don't always eat it in the morning. Mostly because it's never available in the house. I am slowly trying to cut out processed foods, not knowing what's really in my food brings a chill down my spine.

So I began experimenting in my kitchy kitchen to make the perfect pancakes. Lets just say that after a few trial and errors, I've finally found the one!

I really like how you can make practically any kind of pancake you want. All you need is a basic pancake batter recipe & then get creative!

From this batch I made 4 different kinds of pancakes.

1) Walnut

2) Chocolate Chip

3) Coconut

4) Vanilla

This is probably the start or my pancakae obsession. I can't help it!

The name of the recipe is "Pretty Protein Pancakes" and the secret to getting pretty pancakes is by following these 5 tips:

1. Use a non-stick pan with cooking oil
2. For any shape, use a pancake pen like this OR a pancake mold like this
3. Slightly shake the pan back and forth to spread the batter so that you get a nice, round & not so thick pancake
4. Re-oil the pan when you can no longer see the oil on the pan BUT make sure you spread the oil this time so that the cooked brown oil does not cause your pancakes to get brown/burnt
5. Don't leave your stove at the highest temperture. I found that cooking my first pancake at the highest temp was perfect but after that, not so much. I turned down my temp to 5 (half on my dial) and took the pan off the stove while I poured the batter. Placed it back onto the stove & would turn up the temp if it needed to cook faster.

Pretty Protein Pancakes

Ingredients

♥ 2 Cups Egg Whites (I used the one in the carton)

♥ 2 Cups Quick Oats (you can use gluten free here)

♥ 2 Ripe Bananas

♥ 1 Cup Low Fat Cottage Cheese

♥ 2 tsp. Cinnamon

♥ 2 tsp. Vanilla Extract

♥ 2 tsp. Liquid Stevia or Honey

Directions

♥ Blend all the pancake ingredients together in a blender

♥ Spray a small non-stick pan/skillet with cooking spray

♥ Pour desired amount of pancake batter (mine was about 1/4 cup) into the pan

♥ Cook until the edges are dry and bubbles on the top have formed. You can tell if it is ready to flip by slightly lifting the edges on the pancake with your spatula. If it is dry all around, it is ready to be flipped. If it is still wet, let it cook a little bit longer

♥ Flip the pancake over & cook for another couple of minutes

♥ Finish cooking the rest of the batter

♥ Top with honey, yogurt, fruit, or whatever your little heart desires!

Enjoy, my hungry little hearts!



Skinny Shamrock Protein Shake

I really want to travel. 

Ireland is one of the many places I would love to travel to. There's something about their land that is so beautiful and I'm always in awe every time I see a picture. Maybe it's the simple fact that they have so much land while here in America...not so much. Although I'm sure I could still find some pretty nice land here.

St. Patricks day always makes me think of green, Irish people, & leprechauns.

But most importantly, shamrock shakes!!

This shamrock shake is chock full of protein & uses one unique (okay, weird) ingredient that you may or may not want to use.

But I promise you you can't taste it and it's FULL OF PROTEIN! How could you say no? Plus, this ingredient is what gives it it's thick creaminess.

Skinny Shamrock Protein Shake

♥ 1/2 cup low fat Cottage Cheese

♥ 1/4 cup Vanilla protein powder

♥ 1/2 tsp Mint Extract (or to taste)

♥ 2-3 packets of Stevia (or to taste)

♥ 5-10 Ice cubes

♥ 4 oz. Water or Silk Coconut Milk

♥ 2/3 drops green food coloring or a handful of spinach to make it green

♥ 1-2 tbsp Sugar Free Instant Pistachio Pudding Mix

If you don't want to use cottage cheese, you can replace it with vanilla greek yogurt or vanilla frozen yogurt or use cottage cheese & add an additional scoop of protein powder. I haven't tried any of these variations though!

Directions:

Mix everything, blend, & enjoy!!

Enjoy, my little hungry hearts!

The Water Project ♥ Fundraising

SUTWU ladies...

Did you know that nearly 1 billion people don't have clean water to drink?

I'm helping raise funds to provide clean, safe drinking water to people who suffer needlessly without it in the developing world, and could really use your help!

Our donations will be used to construct a specific water project. We'll get pictures, GPS coordinates, and reports from the field, as they happen. We'll see the actual results of what we've done!

Did you know that $10.00 will provide 1 person with clean water for 10 years??

With summer coming right around the corner all I can think about is my hot summer workouts. They usually consists of me sweating like crazy & clenching onto my water bottle that I run with. I need my water so that I can stay hydrated & keep my sanity...and don't pass out.

I sat down the other day and thought about how much water I drink.

When I go to school, I pour one bottle of water into my Camelback, that usually gets me through my classes because they are short. I come home and usually end up drinking two bottles of water through out my day. When I am about to workout I grab another bottle of water and drink it while I workout and I always finish drinking my water. After my workout, I grab another water bottle. By this time it is usually 9 - 10 p.m. so I'm winding down & getting ready to bed.

So if my calculations are right, I am drinking 5 bottles of water a day, which is approximately 2.5 liters.

But that's 2.5 liters more of clean water than what some people around the country get to drink.

Here are some statistics about water: Read More Here

♥ It takes approximately 6k (4 miles) of walking to get to the nearest area to fill a bucket with unsanitary water.

♥ Around 700,000 children die every year from diarrhea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation – that's almost2,000 children a day.(WaterAid 2012/WHO 2008/The Lancet 2012)

♥ The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is commonly 40 pounds, the same as an airport luggage allowance.

♥ Children in poor environments often carry 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at a time. (UNICEF)

♥ In the developing world as a whole, around 90% of sewage is discharged untreated into rivers, polluting them and affecting plant and aquatic life. (UN)

SUTWU fundraiser

My mission is to raise $100 by August 24, 2013 in honor of my 3 year anniversary of when I decided to change my life! Take the step today & help change the lives of families around the world. I have set it to $100 but will lift the bar if I see that others are donating & know that we can raise more than $100.

For every $50 raised, I will run 6k (4 miles) like the women & children do in order to get water on a daily basis. You can join too & take photos of yourself while you're running/walking!

PLAN:

• Raise $200 by August 24, 2013
• Run 6k for every $50 raised

I plan to do this every year. So every January 1st, I will launch a fundraiser & donate the money to a nonprofit organization in honor the SUTWU ladies.

How can you donate?

♥ Buy from a collection of my 10 beauties

{10% of the proceeds will go to The Water Project}

Listed Price: $29.99

Your Price: $22.90

You can buy these beauties in the store!
Meet the beauties:

♥Heartbreaker

♥Candy

♥Bubblegum

♥Violet

♥Emerald City

♥Alice In Wonderland

♥Cobalt

♥Red Velvet

♥Daisy

♥Clementine
{The water bottle names are not printed on the actual item}

OR

♥ Donate directly to the SUTWU fundraiser here

You can always share the fundraising page with your friends on facebook, twitter, or any other social network.

Stay connected with me to see the journey, donations from others & eventually, our mission accomplished with pictures & reports from the field!

♥ FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/shapeuptowakeup
♥ TWITTER: www.twitter.com/shapeuptowakeup

Healthy Valentines Day Dessert!

Happy Valentines Day all my loves!!

Valentines day is my favorite holiday!! Not so much because of the actual sweetie pie celebration BUT have you seen the stores?!?! They're all decked out in PINK & HEARTS & GLITTER & CHOCOLATE!!

That's my kind of store yall ;)

Enjoy some of these quick, easy & partly healthy desserts with a stud muffin...or a cupcake (you) if you're flying solo ;)

Indulge without the bulge!

Chocolate Dipped Fruits!

• any kind of fruit
• dark chocolate
• lollipop sticks or fondue sticks
• Just melt your chocolate & let the dipping begin!! I have a pro chocolate melter from my baking days so that is how I melted the chocolate. You can heat it in the microwave taking it out every 30 seconds until melted. Or you can use the double boiler method

 Look at those pretty chocolate melts!! Pink!!

Now although these are artificial and not all healthy for ya, it's just a little bit for ONE DAY so it's okay :) Besides, you're pairing these with something healthy. I think.

Chocolate Covered Pretzels!

• Pretzel Rods
• White, Pink, Red candy melts (can be found in the baking section, Wilton brand)
• Valentines day Sprinkle
• Melt your chocolate, dip the sticks & decorate them! Yum!!

Now onto my favorite part!!

Heart shaped ice cube trays!! How much better does Valentines day get?!

Chocolate Heart Melts!

• Dark Chocolate, White Chocolate, Pink candy melts (Wilton)
• Heart ice cube tray
• Melt the chocolate and pour into the ice cube tray. I put mine in a plastic bag, cut a hole and piped it in, it was easier that way. You can put them in the freezer for 5 minutes and that way they will harden faster (if you're in a hurry)

So there you have it, a healthy & still indulging Valentines day! :)

Share these with your sweetie! Or to yourself ;)

The Big 3; The Runners Guide To Burning Fat

I think there's a misconception with the saying "Eat whatever you want & still lose weight!"

If that were the case then America would not have an obesity epidemic.

However, the term does prove right when you eat whatever healthy food you want AND workout & still lose weight!

We've all heard that "abs are made in the kitchen" and I agree with that a lot. But to get rid of the excess fat and tone your body, you have to workout.

A lot of people think they can eat all the same dirty foods they've alway eaten, workout, and lose weight.

Well guess what, your body just isn't going to work like that...because again, if it were that easy, America would not have an obesity epidemic.

So here are 3 nutrients you need to be consuming, especially if you're a runner!

The 3 nutrients you need, especially if you're a runner!

(I typed it out just in case you can't read it)

Carbohydrates

• Why you need it
• The body prefers carbs as the main fuel source when you run, so they should be the cornerstone of a runner's diet.
• How Much
• Around 50% of your total calories
• Where to get it
• Fruits, Vegetables, whole grains, beans, and lentils are rich in complex carbs and fiber (both slow digestion and supply steady stream of energy), as well as vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that speed recovery and protect against diseases.

Fats

• Why you need it
• You need this nutrient to absorb fat-soluble vitamins; foods high in fat also keep you satisfied, so you eat less.
• How Much
• 25% of your total calories
• Where to get it
• Nuts, seeds, and avocados are rich in heart-healthy mono and polyun-saturated fats. Olive oil contains oleic acid, and may help suppress your appetite. Other healthy choices include canola, grapeseed, flaxseed and hempseed oils.

Protein

• Why you need it
• Protein speeds muscle repair and recovery. HIgh protein foods are satisfying and take longer to digest.
• How Much
• 25% of your calories
• Where to get it
• Cuts of beef and pork labeled "loin" and skinless poultry have a healthy protein-to-fat ratio. Fatty fish are rich in omega-3s. Tofu is a lean protein source, while low-fat dairy like milk and yogurt provide calcium. Eggs are loaded with vitamins A, K and D.

I hope this information has cleared up any confusion you may have about eating right and working out. Remember that both eating right & working out go hand in hand!

Booty Call Workout!

Happy Monday!!

How are you?? I hope you're doing awesome! I've been so inspired by all of the requests pooring in on Facebook and Instagram! Now you can follow me on Twitter and subscribe to SUTWU's YouTube channel!

Use #shapeuptowakeup on both twitter & instagram so that I can see all of your pics! :)

So many amazing things are happening this year and I can't wait to share my journey with you!

You can become a Shape Up To Wake Up Girl and receive all the latest posts, news, recipes & so much more! Did I mention giveaways?!

All you have to do is email angel.redefiningbeauty@gmail.com with the subject line "SUTWU GIRL". It's free, fun & fiercely fabulous!

I'm so excited today because today is the day I release my very first workout video! All the ladies spoke and mostly wanted a booty workout!

Click the video above & begin your Booty Call Workout!

Click "Read More" to get the Booty call Workout printable & a delicious post workout recipe!! :)