I am SOOOOO excited to share with you, my very FIRST GUEST POST! It is very fitting that this post comes from my dear friend Carianne. As she explains below, we first met at Zumba and we became fast friends as we bonded over our love of food and fitness. She is also the very sweet lady that kindly designed my Running to Bake logo for me (and it's so perdy!). She is a wonderful person, inside and out and I'm SO lucky to call her my friend!
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| Cari and I at COLOR ME RAD this year! |
She was also the first one to introduce me to the world of Paleo Eating. While I don't follow the diet, I think it is quite interesting and I admire her commitment to it. I was also pleasantly surprised by the amazing muffins she'll tell you about below. She brought them as a post-workout snack to a class we did together and I couldn't believe how delish they were. I'm going to go ahead and say I enjoyed them even more than the kind made with regular flour.
Read on below for how SHE was introduced into the world of Paleo, her incredible story and for her amazing muffin recipe!
- Lisa
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Hello Running to Bake readers!
My name is Carianne, and I am so excited
and honoured to be featured on the blog today! Lisa and I met a few years ago
at a fitness class, both near the beginning of our journey to health, and
became fast friends. While we both already had experienced some success, we had
not yet found our niche. I am so excited and proud of the both of us to now
find ourselves here, feeling fantastic, and making the right choices for US.
I also love to run, bake and eat. I must
stress the eating part. I love to eat. Most of my day is spent deciding what I
will be eating next, and how delicious it will be! However, food is both my
friend & foe. Although it seems to comfort me when I’m down, it very
quickly becomes an enemy when I’ve devoured an entire bag of chips and that
bloat starts to set in. I found myself at a weight a few years ago where I knew
it was time to make a change. Change is SO hard! I joined a weight loss
program, lost a bunch of weight, and was so proud of myself. Then I got bored,
and lazy, and started ‘rewarding’ myself for all my hard work. However, my
‘rewards’ started outweighing my healthy choices. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t
seem to claw my way back to that lifestyle.
While continuing my struggle with food, my
husband got very ill. Fast forward a tough year, and a tough diagnosis of Lyme
disease, we found ourselves presented with a very difficult diet plan for him
to follow. We struggled through the first six months trying to figure out what
we could prepare for him, when we stumbled across the paleo lifestyle. It fit
perfectly with his new rules of eating! He had not eaten a baked item in close
to a year, and the first paleo muffin recipe I made blew our minds! Thinking
back on it now, and it was nothing compared to what we make now, but it was a
start! It took awhile, and a lot of courage before I decided I would do this
with him and commit to leading a paleo lifestyle. I was super nervous, and to
be honest not that confident that I could do it. I was so pleasantly surprised
when I had been eating this way for a month, had lost a few pounds, felt
INCREDIBLE, and didn’t crave any of my old food choices! I also love to cook,
and this gave me the opportunity to try so many new recipes and learn new ways
to prepare some of our old favourites, but with just a few substitutions.
I have been following this lifestyle for
about a year now, and although I’ve ‘fallen off the wagon’ a few times, I’ve
never found it difficult to re-commit myself. Today I am so excited to share
with you one of my FAVOURITE muffin recipes! I do hope that you’ll give it a
try, and let me know what you think!
Paleo
Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Makes
6 muffins
Dry
Ingredients
1/3 cup coconut flour, sifted
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp sea salt
Wet
Ingredients
4 eggs
¼ cup pure maple syrup
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
2 tsp lemon zest (about 1 lemon)
¼ cup coconut oil, melted
Add
In
2 tsp poppy seeds
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Place the dry ingredients in a medium bowl
and whisk to combine.
Add the wet ingredients, except the coconut
oil, and blend well with a hand mixer.
With the mixer on low, slowly pour in the
coconut oil. Blend well.
Stir in the poppy seeds.
Fill 6 paper lined muffin cups two-thirds
full with batter.
Bake 21-25 minutes, or until golden brown
on top and the center of each muffing springs back when pressed lightly.
Cool 5-10 minutes in the pan. Serve! You
can store any leftovers (which I doubt there will be!) in an airtight container
for up to 3 days, or freeze them!
Thank you SO much for having me here today,
and letting me share my story with all of you!
Hey these sounds delicious but I just have to ask is there really only 1/3 cup coconut flour in them? It seems like there needs to be more dry ingredients? Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteGreat question! I'll double check with Carianne and let you know!! :) - Lisa
DeleteYes, there is only 1/3 cup of coconut flour! Nut flours and coconut flour react differently when mixed than regular flours do. I've baked a few things that have only a few tablespoons of flour! It sounds crazy, but I promise it works!
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