Friday, August 26, 2016

Kodiak Protein pancake mix vs Birch Benders Protein pancake mix

On one corner we have Kodiak Cakes Protein Power Cakes, easily found on most stores, specially our fav Costco. On the other corner we have Birch Benders Protein & Waffle Mix, found at Whole Foods, Wegmans and Target. Both are easy to mix (i put the mixture in a blender add almond or coconut milk and occasionally add an egg for some fluffiness and bam! you are done mixing)

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front): If you prefer your pancakes to taste more like your typical flour pancakes go with Kodiak Cakes, they are also more easily found on your typical store baking aisle and if you have a Costco membership even better. At the end of the day you can't go wrong with either, they are both easy to make when in a hurry and I get no complaints at Casa de Ish when I make them.

Casa de M2N tip: Make a whole batch for the week on Sundays and then put them in the freezer. In the morning just put them in a toaster or microwave and booyah, quick breakfast.


Tale of the Tape:
Kodiak Pancakes
Birch Benders
Ingredients:


Kodiak Cakes
Birch Benders
​            








Notes:

Kodiak Power Cakes: Easy to mix, easily found on most stores and as close as you can come to an all flour pancake mix. Love the texture and the fluffiness. You can use water, coconut milk or Almond Milk. They are macro friendly (post workout breakfast y'all) and my daughter (a harsh critic of everything I make) gives them a thumbs up.

Birch Blenders Pancakes: Easy to mix, a little harder to find than the Kodiak Power Cakes and made with ingredients you can pronounce. Not as fluffy as I prefer but still get no complaints from the family. They are macro friendly and very easy to mix.

Ish
Macros and Muscles Nutrition
#m2nsquad​

Food Prep Sunday

Hannas Fridge

Each Sunday, I take about an hour or so to prepare myself and my family for the week.  I wanted to be very open here and share with you some of the things that I do to help me stay on track with my nutrition during the busyness of each day.  What this also does is allows me to know that my family will also have a well-rounded and balanced assortment of food.  So I will just start at the top and work my way down.

Top Shelf: My lunch already packed for the next morning.  My Post Workout Super Shake ready for my 5 AM workout.  I will be posting recipes for these soon.  Reddi Whip cool whip for a late night sweet treat if I’m dying for one.

Next shelf:  A lot of eggs. I love eggs and they make for a cheap any time of the day protein and/or fat source.  Note underneath of them is another container- these are hardboiled. I make about a dozen as well for quick snacks.  I often use egg whites as quick protein with very little fat.  Next to my eggs is lean ground turkey which will be the meat we use for our tacos on Tuesday night.

Under the two shelves of eggs are my prepared vegetables.  Each week I pick about three different ones that I will cut up into serving sizes and put them in ziplock bags so that each day I can grab a few on my way out of the house.  Again, this is also great to hand to my husband or kids for a healthy snack.  If it’s already cut, you are more likely to grab it.

First pull out drawer: this is my meat and dairy section.  I personally do not eat a lot of dairy, but I do every now and then put a slice of cheese on a wrap.  I make sure this drawer is stocked with Boars Head lower sodium chicken breast, at least one shredded rotisserie chicken with no skin, and a few grilled chicken breasts.  I keep with these items my Lavash bread.  These amazing wraps have become my happiness each lunch time.  They are really large so you have the satisfaction of a full lunch when packed with turkey or chicken, mustard, and lots of sprouts.  They are packed with great macros! One wrap has 16 C/12 P/ 3 F so it works really well into the day’s worth of food.                     
Middle pull out drawer: this is full of my dinners that are already prepared.  This week was have a Sweet Potato Lasagna already prepared in a container, the rest of my taco ingredients, salmon and asparagus, and kabobs put together.  After we finish these meals, I will pull the lean ground beef out of the freezer to be prepared into burgers and served with sweet potato slices on the last night of the week. While I prepare each dinner, I go ahead and log it all into My Fitness Pal for the night I plan to eat it.  If something changes, I can go ahead and delete it. But by logging it early and having a plan, it sure makes everything run smoothly.

Last drawer: this is actually our yogurt drawer.  Again, I don’t personally eat yogurt often so this is my husband and my girls’ drawer.  My girls love to have a chobani yogurt daily.

On the door shelves you will see some different cooking supplies such as lemon juice and lime juice and of course four different types of mustards to keep each lunch different.  You will see my girls’ whole milk and then my unsweetened almond milk that I enjoy in my post work out smoothies.

In our pantry you will find raw nuts, some things like ground flax seed, cacao powder, protein powder (I use very little), oatmeal (traditional and also lower sugar quick pouches), lara bars for my girls and quest bars for my work days, some regular peanut butter and PB2 for me.  You will also find on the counter a very large glass bowl full of fresh fruit.

So when you are first starting to try and plan out your week better, I suggest starting a list of foods you eat more often and then write up your dinner list.  When you go to the store, only get what is written on the list, do not stray from it.  Set aside the hour or two on a given day and prepare as many things as possible.  By taking this initial preparation time, you will be ready to succeed for the entire week.

Love deeply, eat well, and floss daily,

Hanna

Thursday, August 25, 2016

My Fitness Pal vs My Macros+


MFP vs My Macros +
On today’s blog, MyFitnessPal (MFP for those in the biz) goes mano a mano with My Macros+ (MM+). These two calorie counter apps are among the most popular in the fitness community and if you are an IIFYM/Flexible Diet follower, one of these apps is a must. So without further a due I give you MFP vs MyMacros+

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):
-With an enormous database of food and drinks (over 5 million as of present), its integration with a vast number of supported apps (Withings scales, Fitbit, etc.) and the ability to post your pics within the app and compare them as times go by, it’s hard to beat. The premium version is $9.99 per month or $49.99 a year.
-On the other hand, if you are into simplicity and just need an app to track your macros/calories/weight and prefer a more user friendly/simple app then go with My Macros+. It costs $1.99 per month or $19.99 a year.

MFP Premium (MFP):


MFP
-Is a calorie counter and exercise tracker that rules supreme.

-The search functionality and enormous database is hard to beat, and you can also scan the barcodes of all your foods.

-If you have a Withings Wi-Fi weight scale, it will sync all the data every time you weigh yourself. It will show you a graph of your weight progress and you can add a pic next to your weigh-in…say whaaaat?! But my CrossFit coach said I shouldn’t weigh myself cause it’s just a number and I’ll get all depressed. Boo hoo. It’s just a tool, use it wisely to track your progress. Here at Macros and Muscles Nutrition all your data points are used to figure out if we need to change your macros!

-It gives you the option to compare two pics boom! How else are going to track your progress? By weight only? What more do you want?

MFP Weigh Graph
MFP Pic vs Pic
-One word of advice, MFP for some reason does not calculate calories correctly, it has shown to be at times 6% off (holy macros batman!) so stick to your macro numbers and don’t worry so much on the total calorie number. There are a lot of conspiracy theories of why it does that… Here are some: It rounds up the
calories; it adjusts for thermic effect of food; adjust for the absorption of fiber. Who knows???

-The Premium is available on iOS and Android now, priced at $9.99 monthly or $49.99 per year. Yes, there is a free version but seriously, get the premium, it allows you to set your macros, do a food analysis, track your exercises without increasing your daily calorie goals, and set custom calorie or macronutrient goals by day.










MyMacros+  (MM+):
MM+ Weight Graph

MM+
This app was created by a former bodybuilder nerd (I mean that in a good way) and it’s a very comprehensive app that delivers a lot of bang for your buck. Also here at M2N we like to support small businesses so I really want to like this app. I just love the user interface and visually I like it better than MFP. This app will let you save different macro goals by day, help you track all your calories and you are able to manually input your weight. Unfortunately, the food database (2.5 million foods) is not as comprehensive as MFP and the lack of tracking your weight thru a supported device or pic comparison option just puts it below MFP for us tech nerds. But if you are looking for a simple, easy to use cheaper app this is the one for you. Lastly I like that I can see my macro count on the same page.







MFP Premium Features






MM+ Premium Features

-Ish
#m2nsquad