Good morning everyone! It’s Wednesday – which means YOUR almost to the weekend & I am getting ready to leave for BOSTON to see Heather!

If you’re from the Rhode Island/Boston area –we are having a meet up (I think closer to RI) on Friday night.

E-mail me Kasey@Powercakes.net if you’re interested in details!!

Last night, I laid in bed scrolling through our #plantPOWER hashtag on Instagram, & couldn’t get over the awesome pictures!

• alyymayb with her steel cut oats & PB!
• @jocelyn_cowan & her spinach salad with mushroom stuffing!
• @melissaroz & her spaghetti squash meal!
• @fuel_for_thought & her superfood smoothie!

Awesome job ladies, way to TRUST your cravings & eat the food you enjoy!

Speaking of TRUST…hm, looks like a T word to me? & it just so happens to be “T”day of #plantPOWER…

Trusting your body & listening to what it’s telling you is so important.

The past couple of months I’ve really be in tune with my body & listen to it more than ever. I watch for signs of bloating or irregulatiry after eating certain foods. I’ve talked about it often on here that for the last 10 years I’ve had digestive issues but hardly ever correlated food to it until recently. It’s amazing what our bods will tell us! I feel a lot better eating about 90% plant based with some seafood every now & then. I’m still learning what works for ME & you’ve got to take the time to find what works for YOU. #beTRUEtoYOU because everyone is so different! Not one person has the same digestive system as the next.

For example, the other night I was so hungry for dinner & just pulled a bunch of stuff out of the fridge to make this…

*Black bean noodles (from a local health food store) topped with roasted peppers, tomatoes, roasted brussels, & a whole avocado!

YES a whole one. I was craving FATS and my body LOVED it.

Another example was last night when I came home from an awesome CrossFit Workout..

This workout was no joke – I used a 75lb for the powercleans to work on form & it was still a tough one!

When I got home, my body was telling me – FEED ME!

& that’s exactly what I did…with some Squash & Cheesy Sesame Spinach!

Directions:

1. Heat some coconut oil (1-2tsp? I didn’t measure) & minced garlic in a medium heat pan on the stove.

2. Once heated, add a few cups of spinach to sauté.

3. After cooked down mix in some coconut aminos, a few TB nutritional yeast (hence the “cheesy”), rinsed @skinnynoodlesUS rice, some fresh cracked pepper & cook for a few more minutes.

4. Lay down the acorn squash ring & fill with “cheesy” spinach.

• (earlier in the day I washed the squash, cut into slices, roasted at 375 for about 25-30 minutes)

5. Top with roasted asparagus

• (earlier in the day I roasted the asparagus at 350 for about 15 min)

6. Sprinkle with sesame seeds for crunch & top with another small spoonful of coconut oil to melt over top. (Optional but SO good)

7. EAT!!

➡ As you can see, I prepped a bunch of this earlier in the day then when I got home from CrossFit I just heated up the cheesy spinach on the stove (just took a few minutes!) & pulled out the squash & asparagus from the fridge (I like most of my food cold) anyone else with me on that? Anyway, YUM. My body is thanking me for this #REFUEL after an awesome workout

I ate this around 745pm & at 9:15 I was absolutely STARVING again.

So, I ATE more! My metabolism was revved & I wasn’t going to ignore what my bod was telling me.

I had a BIG spoonful of sunflower seed butter, healthy chocolate sauce, mulberries, & PUMPKIN PIE CHIA PUDDING.

Served with my amazing Chobani spoon that came with an awesome package from them! I love a good spoon.

Pumpkin Pie Chia Pudding

• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 1-2 TB Chia seeds
• 1 TB Coconut Flour
• 1/4 cup milk of choice
• sprinkles of cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice
• splash of vanilla extract
• a few drops of liquid stevia

*Mix all ingredients & let sit in the fridge for at least an hour to thicken up!

That’s it! – you’ve got a yummy dessert with hardly any effort.

I trusted my body & listened to it telling me FEED ME AGAIN.

Even though it was just an hour or so after I ate dinner, I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying this tasty treat!

T is also for Technology!

Why? Because the awesome @BassAssFitCEO hooked me up with this amazing UP BRACELET from Jawbone!

I am so obsessed with this thing & I can’t get enough. Hence the thumbs UP!

This is seriously the coolest thing EVER – it tracks your steps, workouts, food intake, & sleep!!

I’ve always wondered about my sleep & all you have to do is just press the little silver button &  a moon lights up to let you know that it’s in “sleep” mode. Once it’s in that mode, it tracks how long it takes you to fall asleep, your light vs deep sleep, & if you woke up at all! The other cool thing is that you can set goals for yourself. For example, I aim to get 8 hours of sleep a night & 10,000 steps a day. When you plug in your bracelet to your phone to “sync” it shows you a graph & if you reached your goal!

This was after I slept with the bracelet on and synced it in the morning – It knew that I slept for 7 hours and 47 minutes!

It shows how long it took you to fall asleep, deep vs. light sleep, & how many times you woke up!

It also does this when you’re moving throughout the day to show a graph of when you were the most active!

You can check out more info [here] with @BadAssFitCEO ‘s review!

They’ve partnered with Maxwell health so if you search under #MeetMaxwell, you can find out all about the benefits this includes!

So, side note; we all know that I am a Food Network Junkie (I may or may not have the “Screenshot” picture from when they followed me on twitter) with dreams to one day have my own show. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she? Anyway, I got a very nice e-mail about a new project that the George Washing Medical Faculty has been teaming up with a Food Network icon to make some pretty cool recipes.

Chefs from the world renowned George Washington Medical Faculty Associates (GW Hospital) have teamed with some of the nation’s finest celebrity chefs and former Food Network host Marc Silverstein to produce a cookbook and videos. The weekly video blog called Epicure which has recipes for healthy eating. It is hosted by a different famous TV Chef each and former Food Network Host, Marc Silverstein.

They have two videos that I’ve checked out & the recipes look great!

• The Society Fair about healthy aphrodisiacs- http://www.gwdocs.com/epicure/s1e2-society-fair
• Healthy Pregnancy Tapas – http://www.gwdocs.com/epicure/s1e3-hamilton.

All of the recipes look great, are tried and tested by professionals but easy for the average American to cook at home.  We both believe that increased knowledge of healthy food is SO important for the American public so check out their awesome story!

What is your favorite “T” food?
Do you Trust what your body tells you?