BCAA gummy recipe

Happy Monday everyone. 

So I'll post this update with more details in another post but we've switched shows and I am just under 11 weeks out from the stage! That means 11 more weeks of prep and reduced calories.. actually 13.. but again that's another post.  So last week I messed with my meal times.. It was a horrible idea! I was saving carbs for post workout (I had been carb loading in the morning previously).  So I stretched out the time between my meals earlier in the day and there were a few days were I was STARVING between meals.  

One day I ate a handful of giant mints.. which turned out to be about 30g of carbs total! yikes! So I decided to look around for some alternatives for snacking between meals. (besides gum which also has sugars and piece after piece can add up during the day) 

So I had seen a few posts about BCAA gummies. So I looked into them a little more. I really had no idea they had no added sugar and it was just gelatin which is protein.  I used watermelon flavored BCAA powder and they are yummy! They were pretty easy to make too. I have plastic molds so I dusted them with cornstarch but still had to fight a bit to get the gummies out. I think I will use silicone next time as I think it's a little easier.  I don't have small silicone molds but I think I can just dice up the gummies into pieces once they have set.  So here's the recipe

Ingredients:
1 scoop BCAAs ( I used watermelon Rescue)

1/2 cup water

3 envelopes unflavored gelatin (3 tablespoons)

Procedures:

Mix the above ingredients together and let sit a few minutes

Heat mixture until gelatin is dissolved.

Pour into molds 

Freeze for 20 minutes

This made a lot of gummies. I didn't do a macro breakdown per gummy cause they weren't the same size (because my molds were different) but for the entire recipe the macros are:

Fat: Zero

Carbs: Zero

Protein: 24g 

The truth about eating healthy

The thing about eating healthy is, it takes work. It requires effort. It's not as easy as fast food or prepackaged meals (though you can pay for prepared healthy meals now). It seems so easy when people ask how I lost weight and I respond with "diet and exercise." But the truth is, eating healthy takes work. It takes research. I still research when I'm putting meals together. What are the macros in a serving of green beans? How does that compare with a serving of spinach? What about chicken instead of beef? All foods aren't created equal and it requires efforts to calculate what you need to fuel your body and meet your daily goals. 

But there are tools that help. And it doesn't require an unreasonable amount of effort. If you really have a goal in mind and you're focused on that, the effort will be well worth it when you achieve that goal.  I plan on blogging an entire day of food soon. But for now here is my typical dinner (presently) 

We have here 3 oz baked salmon

1 cup raw mustard greens (sautéed in 1 tablespoon coconut oil and garlic)

1/2 cup diced avocado 

I typically have been eating green beans for dinner (and also lunch) it took a bit of playing around in myfitnesspal to find some exchanges for the green beans. But it's worth having the variety. I was getting a bit sick of eating green beans. I was being a little lazy in finding alternatives. But in all honesty it probably took me 15 minutes to find 3 alternatives. Which will be well worth it over the next 15 weeks. It'll help me stick to my plan and reach my goals. Yes, It takes some planning. Spontaneous meals generally tend to be less healthy. But while it's not super easy, it's not that hard to eat healthy. And you don't have to eat weird stuff. 

And you're going to eat unhealthy once and a while. That's ok. Eating healthy doesn't mean you never indulge or treat yourself. Just that you don't do that at every meal. Or even most meals :) Everything in moderation.