the easiest homemade cauliflower tots (gluten-free, low carb)

Hey hey! Happy Tuesday! How’s the day treating ya? Hope you’re having a great one. I’ve got an easy cauliflower tot recipe for you below!

Yesterday ending up being a busy one over here! In addition to the Monday shuffle, I taught a morning barre class, caught a quick Peloton 30-minute cycling class (to country music! It would not be my #1 music genre of choice, but I loved it!),

(Source. I had to borrow a pic since the one I took on my IG stories disappeared already)

and also spoke at an event centered around Aging Well. The owner of Art + Soul (<— where the yoga studio is located) asked me to speak a while ago. While I loathe public speaking -I can teach fitness classes all day but ask me to talk to a group and I turn into a shaky, awkward goober- I decided to go for it. I love Angela (the owner) and wanted to help out, plus, you can’t get better if you don’t practice, right?

Here’s a little snippet of my 15-minute breakout session on health and fitness:

(Writing this post helped me practice what I was going to say! It was actually pretty challenging for me to put together because there’s SO MUCH I wanted to talk about, but I had three 15-minute rounds, and wanted it to be something that wasn’t super technical.)

Let’s start off with a question: raise your hand if you think health and fitness is easy.

[No one raised their hand.]

That’s exactly right. Living a fit and healthy lifestyle can be really HARD.

We have jobs, families, social lives, friends, chores,

and there’s a lot of conflicting information out there. It can be really confusing to hear that you need to be Paleo, gluten-free, vegetarian, Keto, whatever, all in the same day.

But when you strip down the fluff from some of the most successful diet and eating plans, they actually have a lot in common, and I’m going to break it down for you.

They focus on real food: food that comes from the earth, not from a factory.

They focus on some type on movement, whether it’s strength training, cardio, Pilates, yoga, or a mix of different training strategies.

They focus on steps that you can maintain consistently.

Whenever I make a health and fitness change, I ask myself if it’s something I want to do forever. If the answer is no, then it probably isn’t a good idea. If it’s too hard to maintain on a long-term basis, it will likely lead to burnout and feeling like a “failure.” So often I hear people say that they “fell off the wagon.” There is no wagon! And usually it’s because they were trying to do something that wasn’t maintainable for the long haul.

Consistency is the key to long-term success.

When you want to make a change, start with one thing, and build onto it each week.

Some things you can do right now:

1) EAT. Eat whole, healthy foods. Eat like a PRO, with an emphasis on PROtein and PROduce in each meal and snack. Try to have green veggies or a salad at least once a day for fiber and nutrients. Try to eat the rainbow, with a variety of colors and textures.

2) MOVE. If you’ve been sitting at the desk or watching your favorite show for an hour, take a break to walk around, have a little dance party or stretch.

[We did the desk stretches from this post as a way to show we can still be moving while we’re seated.]

Try wearing a Fitbit or something similar to count your steps. Even if you don’t officially work out -you don’t have to scan your key card at the gym for it to count as a workout- you may be getting in plenty of movement.

3) SLEEP. Focus on getting quality sleep each night. Some people need 7 hours, others need 8 hours, some people need 10. (I personally love 10, but my kids don’t agree with me on that one.) Quality sleep will enable the body to repair and restore itself. When you don’t sleep enough, it can increase cortisol which encourages the body to hold onto fat.

Along with consistency, another key factor is motivation. Make sure that you’re doing the things you LIKE to do, and you’re much more likely to stick with it. If you hate kickboxing, don’t sign up for a kickboxing gym thinking you’ll go everyday. Sign up for the dance class that makes you excited, or even just walk for 20-30 minutes each day listening to an audiobook. Friends and family members can be awesome for motivation, too. They make great workout or cooking buddies!

I opened the floor up for questions (we talked a lot about crash dieting, easy goals to set, extra ways to get in veggies, and why macro counting can be a bad idea), and then spent the rest of the evening gabbing and eating snacks with all of the ladies.

It was an amazing event, and I was so grateful to be included in the fun.

Easy Baked Cauliflower Tots

For today, I have a new snack recipe for ya! I’ve seen these homemade veggie tots floating around the Pinterest machine, and decided to try and make my own. When I made them, I thought about how I’m the only person in our family who likes cauliflower, so more for me?

A lot of the cauliflower tot recipes floating around involve two things that I don’t love: chopping cauliflower in the food processor, and shredding cheese. Ain’t got time for that.

Thank goodness for the cauliflower convenience packs popping around everywhere. This one is the winner: it has cheese already in it. (which would also make this cauliflower bread sandwich extra convenient!)

All I had to do was heat it up to melt the cheese, stir in some almond flour, spices, roll into cute little tot shapes,

and bake it up.

They were so easy to make, and P and I ended up eating the entire batch!

I was trying to take pictures, and her little hand snuck into the frame.

And then she said, “These are mine now.”

They’re so cheesy, gluten-free, low in carb, and an awesome way to get in extra veggies. We dipped ours into Primal Kitchen goddess dressing (from Thrive Market) but they would be bomb with some marinara sauce.

Here’s the quick and easy recipe if you want to give it a try!

Print

Public speaking: yay or nay?

Country music while working out: yay or nay?

Current fave veggie side?

Have a wonderful day and I’ll see ya soon!

xoxo

Gina

PS. Don’t forget to sign up for Barre Bootcamp here!