Motivation and Muffins

I love health and wellness meetings at work.

No.

Seriously.

I really do.

I have so much fun at them. We're very blessed that the speaker/leader of our meetings, Jimmy, is the Executive Director of Health & Fitness for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes living in our own backyard. This guy has spoken at FCA meetings all over the nation and the world, and he lives right here.

We usually have healthy little snacks to show how "good" we're being. This time around, I decided to go all out.

I brought with me...the chocolate box.



Yes. Yes, boys and girls, THAT is a box full of CHOCOLATE! HOLLA!

I got that bad boy for $10 the day after Valentine's Day. I call the day after Valentine's "National 50% Off Valentine's Day Candy So I'm Gonna Go Buy My Own Chocolate Heart Because No One Ever Gets Me One But I'm Not Bitter About It" Day! It's not really a national event, but it only takes a spark, right? Next year, it will spread like a wildfire. Just you wait.

When I casually walked in and announced I had snacks for the meeting, the horror plastered upon Jimmy's face was priceless. Score. He's got a great sense of humor though and it played perfectly into his little motivational speech. And it was motivational. Let's just say that it was so motivational that it motivated me to reconsider eating breakfast again.

I'm not a big breakfast person, but I recognize that my body needs fuel to get it going...the question is what fuel to put in. With hypothyroidism, you're not supposed to have dairy or fortified items within 4 hours of taking your medication. That rules out cereal. I like eggs, but I don't always feel like making them, cleaning up the pan, etc. It's nice to do something that's a no-brainer.

Breakfast muffins are easy to make and even easier to grab and go, so I decided to start messing around with recipes for them. My goal is to pack as many nutrients as I possibly can into one muffin: whole wheat, flax, wheat germ, sprouts, protein, broccoli, if it looks/sounds healthy, I want it. I feel better about myself when I know it's got stuff like that in it. Seriously. Don't you? I hear "whole wheat-wheat germ-blueberry-pecan-muffins" and think, "That must be good for me. I'll take two!" But since I'm being healthy, I only eat one and save the second one for my dreams.

Here's the first of a few that I've tried out. Thankfully, these are full of fiber, whole grain, Vitamin E, antioxidents...and there was no need to add broccoli. The original recipe can be found here. Naturally, I've tweaked the recipe, so feel to try mine out and do some tweaks of your own (just don't tell me; I'm a middle child and I'll hyper-focus that you didn't think my recipe was good enough).

Whole Wheat Blueberry Pecan Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup raw wheat germ
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 Tbls baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup blueberries


Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Stir together dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a different bowl mix together egg, milk, and applesauce, then add to the dry ingredients and mix lightly. Gently fold in blueberries.

Spray a muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray, and fill cups about 2/3- 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20- 25 minutes until edges are brown and muffin tops bounce back when pressed lightly.

Makes 12 muffins.