Copycat IHOP Harvest Grain & Nut Pancakes

And here is that recipe, from recipezaar.com. It’s actually rather healthy sounding – lots of good stuff in there.

• For the health benefits of almonds
• For the heath benefits of walnuts
• For the health benefits of oats
• For the health benefits of whole wheat

Although there is not much sugar or oil in the recipe, (1/4 cup for the whole recipe), here are some ways, if you wanted, to make it even healthier. You could sweeten the pancakes with a different method, eg. stevia, or reduce the amount of sugar and use cinammon (or similar) to give the sensation of sweetness. As for the oil, choose a heart-healthy oil or substitute apple sauce or pureed prunes for some of it. Here is a link to a fact sheet on substitutions to make recipes healthier.

Anyway, here is the recipe as it first appeared:

Copycat IHOP Harvest Grain & Nut Pancakes

SERVES 4 -8

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup Quaker Oats
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped blanched almonds
• 3 tablespoons chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Lightly oil a skillet or griddle, and preheat it to medium heat.
2. Grind the oats in a blender or food processor until fine, like flour.
3. Combine ground oats, whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.
4. In another bowl combine buttermilk, oil, egg and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth.
5. Combine dry ingredients with wet ingredients, add nuts and mix well with mixer.
6. Ladle 1/3 cup of the batter onto the hot skillet and cook the pancakes for 2 to 4 minutes per side or until brown.

Getting off the wheel

I want to share with you a couple of posts I made on a fellow TT Transformation Challenge participant’s log.

It all started when she wrote this:

I totally totally totally suck

You know, I lost about 9 lbs and a bunch of inches. That was prior to this weekend. Now I feel as if I gained it all back in two days. I hate the lack of control that I feel over my eating habits. I’m so angry with myself.

Another of our fellow contestants (getfit2009) replied:

Relax – there’s no way you can add 9 lbs in a weekend – just get back on track again.

Do you know if there’s anything special that leads up to the situations where your bad eating habits take over? – might be a good place to start to see what you can do in those situations instead.

And I followed with this:

As for the internal messages we take from the words we use – hon, you don’t “totally, totally suck”! You made a poor choice in one situation. But you have made many, many good choices, which is why you are now closer to your goals than you were, say, a year ago. Get it right more often than not and you will get there. If you are trying never to make a mistake, you’re not in the right place. Try Pluto!

If you want to make a better choice next time, like GF2009 said, start to look at why you are making those choices in those situations.

We all still love you. Your family still loves you. Your friends still love you. Here’s to making better choices next time.

Anyway, that seemed to work for a while, but then today came this from our poor benighted fellow contestant:

Frustration rears its uglyhead

Aaaargh!!! Need to vent!!! Doing pretty well overall although not perfect which I’d really like. Was planning on fasting yesterday after breakfast ’til breakfast today. Didn’t happen. Just wasn’t feeling it. I was feeling sesame chicken and ben and jerry’s, unfortunately, which I really enjoyed but probably gained a lb of fat and some water, too. Been trying to do ESE instead of cutting and tracking my calories daily. Prob is, I feel like I get SO few calories to begin with!!! Anyway, I’m fasting today but I’m so cranky. Having an angry fast day which sucks (especially for my kids who are feeling my wrath). Feel frustrated over a lot of things. Torn between being happy for all of your successes and envious that I feel like such a freak. Want to be happy with how I look and feel without having to eat 1300 calories a day for the rest of my life. Hubby will be making whole wheat and walnut pancakes this weekend and I’m angry that I won’t be able to have any.

Thanks for letting me vent……

And my reply made me realise, yet again, what strides I have made in the last few months. This is what I said:

Have the damn pancakes. And post the recipe. Like you said, this is your life. You’re not going to get another one.

I have been unhappy with my weight for nearly 30 years now. I’m 40. I’ve learned to loathe myself whilst getting progressively fatter and fatter.

At the beginning of this year I made a decision. There is a history of heart disease, obesity, diabetes etc in my family. I was 40 years old, my blood pressure had just jumped into the hypertension range for the first time after being ‘normal’ for years, I was carrying around at least 6 stone (84 pounds) above my ideal weight, and I was a statistic waiting to happen.

I decided to make some changes, but I also made a decision that I would not make myself miserable over a number. My husband loves me and finds me attractive. I would learn to be a little easier on myself. I would not do ANY programme that did not let me lead a normal life. I didn’t want my life, and my practically every waking thought to be about food – did i have enough calories/points left? was it over 3 hours since my last meal? did this food have [insert banned food of choice] in it – was it allowed? was there enough protein in my snack? Did I have my cool box with my 24 meals in it for the day before I left the house in the morning? Had I earned my carbs? Etc Etc.

As a result, I am not following a meal plan as such. No ESE. No PN. No Weight Watchers. No calorie counting. Nada. I try to eat more nutritious foods on a weekly basis. Increase my portions of fruit and, especially, vegetables. Drink more water. Choose whole grains. Pick lean organic meats and dairy. Avoid processed foods and words I can’t pronounce. I knew that I would lose weight more quickly by following one of the other programmes, but I’ve been there before, and I guess you have too. By trying to be healthier, you are loving your body and yourself, rather than punishing yourself on a daily basis. This is for ever.

Anyway, I have lost 18 pounds of weight and 5.2% body fat since the beginning of the year. I have eaten goujons, and drunk Dime Bar milkshakes. I’ve eaten out with friends, drunk wine, even had the odd plate of potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce. Yet I am seeing changes in my body, my energy levels, and most importantly, my self respect on practically a daily basis.

I had an epiphany a while back. I wrote on my blog:

I no longer have good days or bad days, as defined by what I put in my mouth. They’re just days.

And then, after a weekend staying with friends, where friends cooked dinner, and I enjoyed them, the food, the company, the wine and the garlic bread – all in moderation:

I promised myself a month or so back that I would no longer define a ‘good day’ or a ‘bad day’ by what I put in my mouth. A bad day is when a school collapses in an earthquake and 200 children are killed. My garlic bread consumption is just another day in my ongoing journey to be a better me.

You seem to be on a treadmill (or a hamster wheel) of deprivation and regret. You don’t need to work harder to be ‘good’. You need to get off the wheel. It is this cycle that got you to where you are now. Old saying: if you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got.

I truly hope some of this is getting through to you. One day, on your death bed, you are not going to look back at your life and think, damn, I really shouldn’t have eaten those pancakes. If only I’d lost more weight…

I’d like to recommend a couple of books to you.

The first one is Fed Up and is written by a doctor, psychiatrist and ex-eating disordered woman, and includes a lot about the science of how dieting/restriction affects our moods and our physiology. Despite this it is an easy read, a real eye-opener, and you will no doubt identify yourself in much of it. There are used copies available on amazon.com from $0.01!

The second one is The Body Fat Solution, Tom Venuto’s new book. He is an ex-champion body builder, yet despite his undoubted expertise in the fine tuning of transformation, he has a very common sense approach to the simple improvements that ‘ordinary folk’ can make to massively improve their health and fitness. This book claimed to be about overcoming emotional eating, and that comprises the first half of the book, and it was something in this book that finally got through to me and has been propelling me throughout the year. But there is also some very sensible nutrition stuff in there, general guidelines that will get you to where you want to go without turning it into rocket science. (There’s also workouts, but you don’t need to follow these – they are extremely TT-like with the exception of additional isolation exercises – no doubt, a throw back to Tom’s body building days – that add little other than time to your workout. Still, it is an easy read and I would recommend it.

I think you need to reconsider what you want to achieve in this challenge. Use this time, and the people here, to help you change your life, rather than your body. It is not a race. And most of us will never see the prize money, which, let’s face it, is hardly of the life-changing variety. We are here for the support and the accountability. Use the contest to learn to become the person you want to be.

Sorry for going on and on on your log. It’s just you remind me so much of myself, and I am so glad that I am (mostly) off that wheel. I will always have to be ‘careful’ about what I eat, and continue to workout, if I don’t want to revert to the blob I was at the start. But I now realise that I can do that without giving up the things that make life worth living.

ps. Don’t forget that pancake recipe!

Will let you know if I get the pancake recipe.

I’m getting fitter

I have just been searching for something I remember writing a while back. I eventually found it. Posted July 2007! Had to go back a long way. I found it by checking the comments, rather than my posts, because I remember someone had commented on it. As a result, I’ve just reread a bunch of comments going back two years. There were so many people who I haven’t seen in ages. If you’re still out there, thank you for still visiting, and how are y’all doing? I’m going to have to start tracking you all down and see how you’re doing. Anyway, this is what I was looking for:

Today, on our way back to the UK, we came through two airports. Everytime I rounded a corner and saw a flight of steps my heart sank. When there was an escalator too, I took that. At one point, waiting for my mum to come out of the ladies’, I watched various people, of all shapes and sizes, young and old, come round the corner and walk straight up the stairs, ignoring the automated version completely. That’s my goal. I want to be one of those people.

Anyway, the day before yesterday hubby and I delivered my old weight bench to a kid (university student) who lives near us and bought it off me on ebay. He lived up two flights of stairs and the three of us carried it up there (it needed all three of us because we had had to take it apart to fit in the car). At the top, despite the fact that he had been living there for a year, this nineteen year old kid was puffing and panting, and hubby and I who live in a ground floor flat with no stairs, were absolutely fine. Hubby actually takes stairs at work daily but for me this is a MAJOR improvement. We both felt quite chuffed with ourselves.

Well, it’s apparently taken nearly two years, but I am noticing these improvements more or less on a daily basis: from walking up the stairs, to dancing at a festival without getting winded, to doing tougher and tougher workouts but feeling better after them than before.

The last couple of days I have had a bit of sore throat and chesty (asthmatic) cough. I’m already off to a bad start for the week with my nutrition goals (more protein, more fibrous veg), having had soup and nothing else for breakfast and lunch today. But following the neck up/neck down rule I did my TT workout anyway. I didn’t much feel like it but just repeated my mantra: thinner, fitter, healthier until it got through. The workout went a little bit better than previously – I did all three sets of step ups without having to swing my arms to give me momentum, so my legs are getting stronger. But the real improvement was noticeable when I did my intervals:

I upped my top speed for my 30 second RPE 9 intervals from 10kph to 10.5kph. I’m not sure what my max HR was because I seem to have exceeded the capacity of the HRM built into my treadmill – it doesn’t seem to go above 169! But I felt better at the end of my 90 sec RPE 3 recovery intervals than I have been doing previously, and my HR one minute after stopping at the end of my workout, was 109 – lower than it was when I got on! Up until now my 1 minute recovery HR has ranged from 116 to 126 bpm after this workout (TT Advanced Intervals Workout A). So despite not being completely well, and running my fastest and furthest yet, my recovery was quicker than it has ever been before.

I’m starting to feel a whole lot better about those measurements yesterday.