Healthy Chicken and Waffles!

In our previous post we mentioned that we decided to get some outside help with nutrition and we signed up with a

nutritionist to give us a meal plan. We were hesitant to sign up for it because we didn't know if it would be worth the money. I just always figured I could eat fairly healthy, workout a lot and I would lose weight.

Well my definition of "fairly healthy" varied from week to week, I would usually do great and eat healthy for a week or two and then my standards would start to drop a little bit and I wouldn't lose weight anymore. I guess the old saying is true "You can't outwork a poor diet!" I started to get confused on how to enhance my training and facilitate weight loss long term, instead of these short "fad diets" that are impossible to sustain.

We opted to sign up with Max Muscle and that was a great decision for us. It takes a lot of the thinking out of the equation which is always a nice thing. I have to think enough for school and there is only so much room in my brain! 

Max Muscle has some great software that tells us everything we need to know and do. We get scanned on their InBody machine weekly (learn more about the InBody machine here )and based on all that information and how much exercise we do each week, the software tells us exactly how many calories we should be consuming and how much carbohydrates, fats and proteins we should be eating. Then the nutritionist goes through and compiles meals and snacks that meet all these requirements. The best part about this plan is that it is flexible regarding what you can eat. For example if I wanted some sugary cereal at night time I put that in there and it tells me exactly how much I can eat, usually I would eat about 2 or 3 bowls, but this may tell me that I can have 3/4 a cup with about 1/4 cup of milk. It has been extremely helpful in our training and in our weight loss and the best part about it is that it works!

When we started on our meal plan we ate a lot of the same things for meals, chicken, brown rice with some guacamole and salsa or some small variation of that. We started playing with the software and realized that I can eat 2 waffles and Kassia can eat 1 and that matches our calories and our carbohydrates perfectly, then we can add a few other things and meet our protein and our fats. We were really excited about this because who wants to eat chicken, brown rice and broccoli every meal? I definitely do not, meal plans or diets like that are not sustainable unless you have no taste buds or you are not human. 

Throughout this whole thing the one thing we want to teach everybody is that eating healthy doesn't have to be gross, it can be good and sustainable.

We were stoked to eat waffles and then we got thinking about how we can meet our protein and our fat... then I got thinking about one of my favorite meals ever... Chicken and Waffles! We came up with the perfect way to make them healthy.

For our actual waffles we always use Kodiak Cakes, they are delicious and a healthier alternative to other pancake mixes. 1/2 cup which makes one waffle is only 190 calories with 14 grams of protein and 30 grams of carbohydrates.

To meet our fat and protein numbers we used chicken breaded in almonds and BOOM our macros and calories are met! Seriously this meal rocks, it's delicious and the best part is it is healthy. 

Here's the recipe for 2 waffles:

1 cup of Kodiak Cakes powder mixed with 1 cup of water

1 TBS of nutmeg

1 TBS of vanilla extract

Minced Onions and Garlic Powder (however much you want)

Sriracha hot sauce (any type of smooth salsa or hot sauce, since we made this one we have used Frank's Hot Sauce instead and it is even better!)

2 chicken breasts halved

24 almonds (we did 24 to meet our required amount for fat)

1 egg yolk

1 egg white

Mix nutmeg, vanilla extract, minced onions, & garlic powder together in the waffle batter, spray waffle iron and cook.

For the chicken, whisk the eggs and Sriracha together.

Put the almonds in a food processor and blend until smooth. Then put the chicken in the egg mixture and sprinkle the almonds on top. Bake in the oven at 450 degrees for 20 minutes. 

When the chicken is done, put it on top of the waffle, add some hot sauce and then we use a low calorie sugar free syrup. That's it, it's a piece of cake! I promise you'll love it. 

We have been on such a waffle kick that we have come up with 7 different  healthy dinner recipes and we will be bringing them to you for the next 7 days. We promise you'll be licking your plate when it's all gone!

Thanks for reading, 

Brady