Healthy Holiday Substitutions

We *love* the sweet stuff, just as much as the next person! There are a couple of things we've found that help us indulge our sweet tooth without totally blowing our progress out the water....

The first is that we always make our own goodies versus buying the packaged/boxed versions. This is like healthy living tip #1....learn it, live it, love it. :) Even if it's higher calorie or higher fat, your body will process real ingredients better than it will anything pre-packaged/fake. End of story.

The second is substitutions. Especially when you're baking some sweet goodies, substitutions are an easy way to make these yummy noms healthier! Here are some of our favorites:

• White Flour Substitutions 
• Nut flours
• Our favorites are almond and coconut flours. 
• Black beans 
• This is a great substitution when you're making brownies! 
• Whole wheat flour 
• If you aren't quite ready to experiment with the above mentioned, take it slow and just swap your white flour for wheat flour.
  
• Sugar Substitutions 
• Applesauce 
• Great at keeping the goods nice and moist (yikes, dirty sentence).
• Vanilla extract
• Stevia
• A little goes a long way here, be careful!
  
• Butter/Oil Substitutions
•  Greek Yogurt
• Adds lots of protein. 
•  Applesauce
•  Prunes
• A good way to get a little cleanse action :)
•  Avocado
• Great, healthy fats! 
•  Banana 

We found this great image on Pinterest that goes into further detail about these substitutions and measuring differences.

Here's to enjoying the holiday sweets while staying on track with your healthy lifestyle!

In Health,

Lindsay and Tim
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These are a few of our *new* favorite things...

A couple items you might want to keep an eye out for in your next shopping trip!

Disclaimer with this first product: We wouldn't say this is the healthiest or cleanest thing to have, but hey...sometimes, you just want some cinnamon butter! :-)

Land O'Lakes Cinnamon Sugar Butter Spread....this stuff is the bomb.com!! It goes wonderfully on a slice of gluten-free bread. It's 70 calories per tablespoon (so go easy) and has 4 grams of sugar. For those interested, the ingredients list is pretty good, just cream, sugar, canola oil, water, cinnamon, salt, and citric acid:

Another item new to our kitchen is powered Chia seeds. Chia is all the rage (probably largely due to Dr. Oz's endorsement), but in all honesty, it does have great nutritional value. Chia is full of healthy omega fats, protein, antioxidants, and dietary fiber. Chia POWDER is even better for you than the SEEDS. Any seed that has been germinated (made into a powder) is easier for your body to absorb nutrients. This is also true for flax seeds/flax powder.

The serving size for this particular brand is two tablespoons for only 25 calories! We put it in our shakes and cannot taste it! You could add it to your shakes, oatmeal, put it in virtually anything you make and get good support for your intestinal and cardiovascular health!

The last item involves a subject that is very near and dear to our hearts.....peanut butter. GLORIOUS peanut butter. Clearly a gift from the gods, but even the natural kind, is high calorie and high fat (albeit good fat!) Well the good people at Bell Plantation took note of this and created an even more amazing product: PB2!!

It's peanut dust! Powdered peanuts!! You get the taste and texture of peanut butter WITHOUT the high calories and fat. GENIUS! Just mix with water to get actual "peanut butter" - but we mostly use this in our shakes. One tablespoon is enough to turn chocolate Shakeology into a Reese Peanut Butter Cup delight!

Have you tried any of these products? What are your thoughts? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment or send us an email! fitwithfarrar@gmail.com


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In Health,

Timothy & Lindsay