Healthy chocolate chip cookies???

I made these cookies and it turns out it's a very tasty cookie. I found this paleo cookie recipe. I had my doubts it would be good but I was happily wrong. There is a caloric breakdown after the recipe.  


Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe, Makes 16-20
5 oz (1 1/4 cups) very finely ground blanched almond flour (sift the flour through a sieve)
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup raw agave nectar (or 1/4 cup raw honey plus 1 to 2 tsp water.)

1/8 cup macademia nut oil (I couldn't find this so I used coconut oil.)
1 tsp vanilla extract
A scant 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips. I used 72% cocoa.

• Heat oven to 325.
• Mix almond flour, salt, and baking soda well. In a small bowl, mix agave nectar, Macadamia nut oil, and vanilla. Combine wet and dry ingredients, mixing well. Add dark chocolate chips. Batter should be thick enough that you can roll a small ball between your palms and set it on the cookie sheet without it drooping or losing shape.
• Make 16 - 20 small balls of cookie dough and space them evenly on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Press the cookies down as flat as possible with the palm of your hand. This is important! The cookies will NOT spread out on their own.
• Bake about 6 minutes. Watch closely and remove when the edges start to brown. . . they could be done at 4 minutes or at 8 minutes depending on the size of the cookie and your oven calibration.

125 g almonds 726 calories, 63g fat
25 g 72% chocolate 162 calories 9.25g fat 
50g honey 160 calories, .1g fat
.25g coconut oil 258 calories, 27.4g fat
1 tsp/4g 12 calories


16 cookies  
82 calories, 6.2 g fat per cookie


Comparison to regular cookies
252 calories, 11g fat per cookie

Moroccan Braised Beef

I made this for dinner last night without the raisins. I'm not a big fan of raisins. It is very delicious.

Check out the caloric breakdown on yummly.com

3 tbsps olive oil (divided) 2 12 lbs boneless chuck roast (cut into 34 inch cubes) 2 cups onions (chopped) 3 garlic cloves (chopped) 1 tbsp garam masala 1 tbsp paprika 1 tsp ground cumin 12 tsp turmeric

12 tsp cayenne pepper 1 cup dry red wine 12 cup dry sherry 2 cups beef broth 14 12 ozs diced tomatoes (juice) 1 12 cups golden raisins

1

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Sprinkle meat with salt and pepper. Add meat to pot; sauté until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Transfer meat to bowl. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in same pot. Add onions; sauté until brown, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and next 5 ingredients; stir 1 minute. Add wine and Sherry; boil until reduced to glaze, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Add broth, tomatoes with juice, and raisins; stir to blend. Add beef and accumulated juices; bring to simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer uncovered until sauce is thick and beef is tender, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Season stew with salt and pepper. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Cool slightly, chill until cold, then cover and keep chilled. Rewarm before serving.)

2

*An Indian spice mixture available in the spice section of many supermarkets.

Monday morning workout

Week 2 has begun. After my leg intensive workout on Saturday, Everything below my waist is sore. Tomorrow should be better.

The leg exercises included the following.

sets 3/reps 10/squat 10 kg
3/10/jumps 10 kg
3/10/lunges 10 kg
3/10/side lunges 10 kg
3/10/skater jumps 10 kg
3/10/leg lifts 90 kg
3/10/calf lifts 50 kg
plank 1 min

I didn't have time for treadmill this time. Usually I like to finish any exercise routine with 20 minutes of hill intervals on the treadmill. The whole routine took me about 25 minutes to do.

I've got the exercise/weight loss part of my resolutions down. Now I need to focus on the other two parts: learning Swedish and sketching.

My first weigh in

I spent Thursday and Friday sick in bed. It really sucks and kind of derailed my exercise routine. I'm better now but I took four days off to rest up. I still did my first weigh in and I have to say I'm pleased with the overall results.

My starting weight is 100.1 kg/220 lbs. I didn't gain any weight over the holidays. In fact I lost 3 kilos.

I'm also doing measurements to track in case i don't drop any more pounds. I'm measuring my arms, legs, chest and waist.

Arms = 34 cm/13 in
Legs = 58 cm/22 in
Chest = 107 cm/42 in
Waist = 97 cm/38 in

The last time I did a 12 week routine, I lost 13cm/5cm off my waist. So at the very least I should see a similar drop even if I don't lose any weight. I don't expect that to happen this time. I will be very surprised if I don't see a drop in weight this time.

One additional thing I'm doing is tracking my caloric intake. I should be around 2200 calories a day to get down to 185-190. I'm using fitday.com to track what I eat. It breaks down the calories by nutritional graph, average daily calories and how much I've eaten compared to how much energy I've burned.

Right now I'm getting 1900 calories a day at best. I need to eat a larger lunch or a larger breakfast. I can't super load all my missing calories before bed. 

Exercise routine 2

Today is my body cardio day. In many ways it's harder to do than weight days as you are using your own mass against you. I started doing these back in April 2011. It's been a great way to get my core solid and as the fat goes away, I'll have a nice muscular frame. At least that's the idea.

I dropped 15 kg/33 lbs in about three months. By the end of the year, I hadn't lost any additional weight but I lost 5 in/12 cm. So that is about two pants sizes. I can't complain much about that.

Here is today's routine.

Prisoner squats 3x10
Seal jacks 3x40
Plank 3x1 min
Mountain climber 3x20sec
Burpees 3x10

Treadmill 20 min

Tomorrow is a rest day. 

New exercise routine

Today I started a new exercise routine. I am going to the gym four days a week. Usually Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Because of recovering from New Years Eve, I switched to Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

I start the week with heavy weights, do low reps and only take a minute break in-between sets. It takes me about 20-30 min to get through these exercises. It's a good way to start the week. The second day will be only body cardio exercises. The third day will be the same the first day but with high reps and low weights. The fourth day will be legs intensive.

Today I did the following:

I do one round of the following then take a minute break before starting the next set.
3 sets, 10 reps, barbell lifts 50 lbs (5 squats, 5 jump squats, 5 chest lifts, 3 dead lifts)
3 sets, 10 reps, dumb bell squats 10 lbs
3 sets, 10 reps, kettlebell swings 20 lbs

I then do one round of the following with a one minute break in-between sets
3 sets, 10 reps, chest flys 35 lbs
3 sets, 8 reps per arm, biceps curls 35 lbs
3 sets, 8 reps triceps pulls 50 lbs

Plank 1 min

20 min tredmill - level 9, 3.5 speed

It's a full workout that leaves me a sweaty mess. I also use a prework-out supplement called Jack3d. It's a nice little boost to get you going especially at 6 am. I'll talk about prework-out supplements later.

Huh...

It looks like I started this blog in 2010 and never did anything with it. Well, now it's time to correct that. I finally have something to talk about. This year is going to be a little different. I'm going to do more stuff. This year I will do the following things:

Learn Swedish
Lose 30 lbs
Start drawing again

I'll be logging all those things here. It should be an interesting year and by the end of 2012, I should be a different person. Maybe better, maybe worse.

I've been actively losing weight since April 2011. So far I've dropped 30 lbs/15 kilos and plan on keeping up with the current program. I'll post all my dietary, exercise and weight programs.

After living in Sweden for four years, I will get off my ass and learn the language. I know four years is too long to live in a country and not know the language. I've tried a couple of times to learn and never really did very well. Now is the time to at least be able to converse with people.

I loved to draw and still like to doodle. I used to be a decent artist and I've missed it. Now that my daughter is older, I can get back on that horse and not have to fight with her for drawing space. I just need to invest in a few items like pencils and paper.

Things I will do less of in 2012, spend time online and watch TV and movies. These are too passive and I'm going to take a more active role in life.