Living Life Balanced Blog

Boost

3/26/2018

Do you “diet” often, only to lose a few pounds and gain it all back plus more when you return to your normal way of eating? Do you deprive yourself from your favorite “unhealthy” foods, cut calories, and then end up binge eating all the food you deprived yourself of, only to feel guilty and start cutting everything out again?

I do not believe in diets or cutting out any food group or specific foods. I believe in living a healthy, balanced lifestyle, where you eat well, but also enjoy your favorite treats and the good foods this world has to offer, but in moderation.

Boost is a great introductory course to help you be on your way to living a confident and happy life. Throughout this program you will follow along at your own pace as we work on meal planning, getting active, eating healthy on the go and planning to feel more energized. This flexible program will help you learn the basic behaviors of what you need to get started living a healthy lifestyle that you can customize to make work for YOU!

If you are ready to make permanent and sustainable changes to your mindset and lifestyle to feel comfortable, strong, lose weight, get energized, and feel ready to take on the world every day, this is the program for you!

Find out more information HERE.

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Mini Spinach Hash Brown Bites

3/19/2018

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I was trying to think of something healthy, easy and "Irish" to make for a St. Patrick's Day party and I came up with this recipe. While it is not Irish, it utilizes potatoes and they were green, so to me they were perfect! You can very easily change this recipe up to incorporate any of your favorite flavors for breakfast or for appetizers! While I used goat cheese, next time I would like to try it with Kite Hill almond style cream cheese or ricotta to make it dairy-free. It would also taste great with bacon or really, any other meat or vegetable. Be creative! I will definitely be making these again and trying out new flavors, although this one tastes perfect as it is.

Servings: 24 mini cups
Prep/Total Time: 60 minutes

Ingredients:

1 16 oz bag of frozen shredded hash browns, thawed
4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 16 oz bag frozen chopped spinach, thawed
1 Tbsp garlic, minced
8 oz goat cheese (or your favorite creamy cheese/cheese alternative)
4 Tbsp unsweetened original pea milk (or your favorite milk/milk alternative)
2 eggs
1/4 cup green onion, chopped
2 tsp Tabasco sauce
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F and grease mini cupcake tin.
In a medium bow, mix together hash browns with 1/8 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper, and 3 Tbsp olive oil making sure all potatoes are coated.
Press hash browns into mini cupcake tin by creating a well in the middle and pressing hash browns up the sides to make a compact "nest."
Bake at 400 F for 25 minutes or until lightly browned and crispy.
Reset oven to 375 F.
Saute spinach in remaining 1 Tbsp olive oil with garlic for about 5 minutes.
Drain any remaining liquid and/or press out excess liquid with a cloth.
In a medium bowl combine the goat cheese and milk until smooth and creamy and then beat in the eggs.
Add spinach, green onion, Tabasco and remaining spices to the cheese mixture and mix well.
Fill the hash brown cups with about 1-2 tsp of the spinach cheese mixture and bake at 375 F for about 20 minutes or until cooked through.
Let cool for about 10 minutes. Use a knife to loosen the edges and pop out. Eat right away or keep in the fridge until ready to serve. Serve cold, or reheat in the oven on broil until warm.

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Welcome to My Blog!

3/12/2018

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Elena McCown, LLC Health Coach in Franklin, TN

Hello! I am Elena McCown, CEO/Health Coach of Elena McCown, LLC. If you haven't met me in real life yet, or this is your first time visiting my blog and website, I want to take the time to say hi and introduce myself! I know that I was made to help people; to empower you and give you the tools to live your healthiest, happiest, best life. My goal is to guide you into living a balanced life!

While I encourage you to enjoy ALL foods, I also understand that you might have sensitivities/allergies/etc. that might prevent you from being able to enjoy it all. After years of suffering from stomach pain, intense nausea, and other intestinal related problems that I won't dive into right now, I finally discovered the root of my problem...gluten. Dairy has always been another issue for me as well, yet I can tolerate some and just try to avoid it most of the time.

All of my recipes are gluten-free and dairy-free (or include goat cheese which my body can handle a little better), yet they also can very easily be converted to include cow dairy and/or whole wheat flour in place of my substitutes. I am not recommending anyone to go gluten-free/dairy-free. If your body can handle them, then it is important to keep them in your diet! I only encourage you to pay attention to your body and see how you feel after eating certain foods. My recipes are for everyone, but are also a great place to look if you DO have any allergies. As I believe that you should enjoy ALL the food groups if you can, I also want to provide delicious alternatives for those who can't.

Take a look around. Let me know if you have any recipe requests to make allergy friendly or just an unhealthy recipe that you would like to be made healthier! Along with recipes, I will be posting informative wellness articles, exercise/activity ideas and will also start holding local events around Franklin, TN that I will announce on here! Enjoy!

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Throwback Workout Videos

3/5/2018

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Back when I was at Texas State, one of my classes had us all create a "workout video" based on a specific exercise. I was given the squat and plank. I decided to make them a little more interesting by explaining and showing how to do a card squat and a front/side plank. So here they are! Throwing it back to 8 years ago when I was in college and just beginning my wellness career/journey!

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