3 Minute Breakfast Carrot Cake

Happy February! One month closer to Warmth… :mrgreen:

I started my morning off with a delicious new breakfast cake. This one was ‘baked’ in just 3 minutes!

3 Minute Breakfast Carrot Cake

Carrots are high in beta-carotene, Vitamin K, Potassium, and Vitamin C. Carrots also are a great source of antioxidants. Eat carrots with nuts to supply fats for cartenoid and Vitamin K absorption.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup almonds or walnuts
• 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats (not instant)
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 2 t pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 banana
• 2 t pumpkin pie spice (or a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger)
• 1/8 t fine sea salt
• 1-2 T scoop Manitoba Harvest Hemp Vanilla Protein Powder (optional)
• 1 and 1/4 cups almond, soy, rice, or hemp milk
• 3 T raisins (optional)

Directions: Throw all ingredients into blender except raisins. Blend until desired consistency. Pour into three small microwave safe or oven safe dishes. Add raisins (or you can add them after cooking, up to you!) and pop into microwave for 3 minutes on high. Let sit until it cools down. Add desired toppings such as nut butter, yogurt, coconut oil, maple syrup, vegan margarine, walnuts, cacao nibs, etc. and enjoy!

I swirled on top of mine some soy yogurt, cashew butter, walnut crumbs, and maple syrup. To die for!!

Makes 3 servings. Per serving (without optional ingredients):

Note: The sodium should actually be in half. I put 1/4 t instead of 1/8th t by mistake.

Some of you mention that these breakfast cakes are high in fat. In this case, the fat is derived from the Omega 6 fats in almonds which are extremely healthy. We need good fats and it is ok to eat them. :mrgreen:

After fueling up with breakfast, I did yoga as the sun rose! As part of my Spring Training Plan that I will be revealing tomorrow, I have scheduled in some weekly yoga to balance out the strength training I will be doing.

I also did the last session of Whittle My Middle 2!! Can you believe today is the last day?! January flew by. I will be talking about my thoughts on WMM2 tomorrow, as well as talking about my Spring Training Plan.

Where You Live And The Pressure To Be Thin

Missed these?

• Do You Feel Pressure From Your Job To Be Thin?
• Jobs and Weight Pressure Part 2

When I was struggling the most with my body-image, my external environment had a huge impact on how much pressure I felt to be thin. I also noticed this theme to be very prominent in the comments of the previous two topics.

For example, while in university, I felt so much pressure to be thin. It seemed like being thin, or even underweight, was the norm around campus and this created a lot of pressure for me to ‘fit in’. The campus I went to was 70% female and it seemed like it was one huge competition of who could be the thinnest.

During my Master’s career, Eric and I moved to Toronto and the pressure I felt came not from the campus, but from the city itself. Like many huge metropolitan cities, Toronto is a very thin city. Research even shows that people tend to weigh less in big cities, in part because of how much more people walk, take public transportation, and have more access to health food and gyms. The women in our condo building (and area) were about half the size of me!

Last year, Eric and I moved out of Toronto into a rural area. I felt that pressure instantly disappear. There is no pressure to be stick-thin or to look like you just stepped off the cover of Vogue out here. While people are still thin and enjoy an active lifestyle, it’s not as ‘in your face’. 

Now mind you, I don’t think that one’s environment is 100% responsible for pressure that one feels…no way, no how. I truly believe that we are responsible for our own thoughts, no matter what environment we may be in. I had to accept this when I sought treatment for my eating disorder. I realized that I was the only person who was ever going to take control and change my thought processes and I couldn’t blame my environment for my problems. With this being said, I still fully believe that some environments (campuses, big health conscious cities) create pressure to be thin more so than others.

Do you feel like your environment has an impact on how much pressure you feel to be thin? Have you noticed the pressure is greater or less in different areas/cities?

I hope you have a wonderful Monday! Make it great. :mrgreen: