Surprises, heart rates, and calories.

SunButter has won me over, again. And on Valentine's day! How perfect.

I received a package in the mail today, and it was SunButter's newest product: a creamy, no-stir sunflower seed spread. I couldn't wait to try it, so I opened the jar and ate a couple of spoonfuls. Thanks so much, SunButter!

Also included in the package were heart-shaped cookie cutters.

To break in the new jar, I made some Chocolate "Peanut Butter" Vegan Soft Serve.

1 frozen banana blended with 1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder, 1 heaping spoonful SunButter, and a splash of almond milk.

Great dessert and great substitute for a regular protein shake! And if you haven't tried SunButter, it tastes really similar to peanut butter, which is pretty awesome for people like me who are allergic to PB.

On a completely unrelated note, I just wanted to mention something. I taught Zumba yesterday, and one of my close friends, April, said this after attending the class.

"Dancing to those songs just made me feel so happy!"

I think that's why I was also suddenly sucked into the Zumba craze. Although one hour of running does burn more calories than one hour of Zumba, I'd still choose Zumba because of the fun factor (not to mention that Zumba is an abdominal, arm, and leg workout in disguise). Have I convinced you to try it?

Since we're on the topic of fitness, according to my heart rate monitor, I burned 536 calories in my TurboKick class today. I was actually quite disappointed with this number (if anyone from my class is reading this, I'm sorry for sounding so disappointed at the end of class...woops!). And a few of the girls actually approached me afterwards and tried to explain to me that it's probably because of my size/am in "shape" that my calorie count was so low. I'd just like to think the good ol' heart rate monitor is inaccurate. Especially when it comes to calculating my heart rate. (Don't even ask how high my heart rate jumped after the Turbo section). Hopefully that convinces you to try kickboxing!

In other news, I've decided that this week is kabocha squash week. (More info on that later). But I also bought a sweet potato because it was on sale. I thought I'd use the sweet potato today.

However, I'm really having bad luck lately in regards to my recipe planning not matching up with my recipe results. Today, as a pre-workout snack, I thought I'd make a sweet potato hash brown. 

Sounds like a cool idea, right?

Unfortunately, it didn't pan out. What did result was a crispy sweet potato hash. Close enough.

I cooked the sweet potato by boiling it for 5 minutes. (Don't forget to poke holes in it beforehand!)

Allow it to cool and then peel and cut the sweet potato. I cut it into small, thin strips. [Edit: I used only half the sweet potato for this recipe.]

Heat a skillet with some butter.

Gather your chopped sweet potato and place it on the skillet. This was my original plan:

But instead, I did this:

I seasoned it with salt, pepper, and 1 teaspoon of nutritional yeast.

Stir frequently for 5-7 minutes, or until the slices brown.

Or you could eat it like this:

This picture refuses to rotate. My apologies.

Hope everyone remembers to eat chocolate in moderation today!!!