No Blueb Left Behind

I feel refreshed this morning.

Wait a minute, who am I?  I never feel refreshed.  But so far this week I have gotten at least 7 hours of sleep a night (and slept through the night!!!), and I feel a world’s difference.

Last night I really pushed my body.  I taught Kickboxing with a very cardio intense playlist (got some glares in class!), and then I had my Circuit class doing Fridays’ mini-circuit workout from the bootcamp program I’ve been following.  I honestly think this is one of my favorite workouts we’ve done so far.  It involved setting a timer for ten minutes and completing as many rounds as possible of the mini circuits in that ten minutes, focusing on proper form and controlled movements over speed.  There were three sets of mini circuits all together, each made up of three different exercises.  Having the clock “running” does make a difference in how hard I push myself.  This was a fun one to teach because everyone got to go at their own pace.  I will be teaching this one again in next Thursday’s class so that my morning folks get to try it as well, and anyone that comes to both classes gets to try to improve their total rounds number.

Here’s that beauty of a 90’s hip hop playlist I used:

These jams definitely helped keep me going through all the circuits!  We finished class with the ab circuit I skipped on Tuesday after my 5/5 Cardio Intervals and a couple extra arm moves.  I went to bed feeling that ‘so exhausted in a good way after a workout’ feeling.

One aspect of this bootcamp program that I absolutely love is the community vibe I’m getting from it.  While this is an online program so it’s not like we are all gathering at a field somewhere in person, Tina has done a wonderful job fostering our little virtual community.  Every day I love checking the Best Body Bootcamp Facebook page to see how everyone’s progressing, what challenges people are facing (because we all have SOMETHING that’s difficult for us), and participating in the Facebook group discussions.  Each day there is also a “Link Love” section where bloggers can share their posts from the day, which is a) great for Fitness & Feta exposure, and b) always fun to find new blogs to read!

Yesterday one of the women asked, “Anyone have any make ahead breakfast ideas?”, which in turn sparked a huge commenting spree of breakfast fun.  Last night when I came home and was assessing my groceries only to realize that I had three bananas and a carton of blueberries that were going bad, I remembered that one of the bootcamp commenters posted a recipe for blueberry banana bread.

And well, that was just dandy timing, because I didn’t want any blueb (or nana) to be left behind.

Thank you, Anna, from Lou & Esi, for your recipe!  It saved my fruit, and I hate wasting fruit!

Whole Wheat Blueberry Banana Bread

Note:  For this recipe, I used an 8.5 x 4.5 inch loaf pan

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1/4 cup almond meal
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup low-fat plain yogurt
• 1 tablespoon low-fat milk
• 3 ripe bananas; mashed
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup blueberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Lightly grease your bread pan and/or line with parchment paper.
3. Whisk together the whole-wheat flour, almond flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and set aside.
4. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, yogurt, milk, and mashed bananas to combine.
5. Add in the vanilla extract and cinnamon.
6. Slowly add the flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed until all combined.
7. Pour half the batter into the bottom of the prepared loaf pan and spread half the blueberries on top.  Press the blueberries into the batter.  Pour in the remaining half of the batter and spread with the remaining blueberries and press into the batter.
8. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes for a full-sized loaf pan, or until the banana bread is nicely golden and a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean.  (Mine was done around 48 minutes!)

Lesson Learned:  If you don’t cool the bread properly, it will sink a bit.  See?

Instead of taking the bread immediately out of the even, try cooling in the oven with the door open for about 15 minutes to prevent sinking, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  I wish I had seen this note last night, but I guess it doesn’t really matter since the bread tastes the same and I’m not taking it anywhere.

Sunk or not, this made for an extra yummy breakfast this morning, topped with plain yogurt and fresh strawberries!

And a cup of coffee of course.  Twas a nice mix-up from my usual breakfast go to’s.

Two questions for you today, one fitness and one food!  1) When you work out, does it help to have a timer or “challenge” to keep you pushing yourself?, and 2) Do you try to salvage your fruit that’s going bad?  How?

Time to tackle my day!