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No Sugar (& STILL Yummy) Peanut Butter Cups

July 19, 2019 By Lindsay Gee Leave a Comment

Most people who know me know that the two things I love most in life (aside from my kids) are peanut butter cups and wine. Not together. But sometimes. Occasionally. Okay, a lot. Most times.

Sigh…go ahead and judge, I don’t mind.

But, there are times when I find myself cruising at mock speed on the sugar train and decide to cut added sugar for a bit to put the breaks on my sugar addiction and get back on track. That means I need to say “no!” to Reese peanut butter cups and “hi!” to these beauties.

Okay, okay…listen…I’ll be honest…they ain’t no Reese. No one, and I mean no one, can compare. However, when you’re not on sugar but you still love a sweet treat, these do the trick.

But listen up…you get ONE a day. ONE. O.N.E. Capiche?

One.

You need to keep these in your freezer, too. The fridge works too, but I like mine in the freezer.

Give ’em a whirl. You’re gonna love ’em.

Print Recipe

No Added Sugar Peanut Butter Cups

Delicious no sugar peanut butter cups will help you curb your sweet tooth without loads of sugar and WITH good fat.

Prep Time5 mins

Cook Time15 mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: no sugar, peanut butter cup

Servings: 12

Ingredients

2 tbsp coconut oil melted
1/4 cup smooth natural peanut butter
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp stevia optional
2 Tbsp coconut oil melted
1/4 cup smooth natural peanut butter
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp stevia optional

Instructions

Line 12 mini muffin tins with liners.

Bottom Layer

Melt coconut oil in a small pot on the stove.
Stir in next 4 ingredients (peanut butter, vanilla, cocoa powder, optional stevia.
Pour melted and mixed ingredients into 12 mini muffin liners.
Place into freezer for 5 minutes.

Top Layer

Melt coconut oil.
Stir in remaining ingredients.
Pour melted ingredients onto a somewhat set bottom layer.
Place the peanut butter cups into the freezer for at least one hour.
Place in an airtight container and keep in your freezer.

#PushingForAwareness for Childhood Mental Illness- DAY 50!!! WE DID IT!

June 30, 2019 By Lindsay Gee Leave a Comment

50 days. 50 pushups. All to raise funds and awareness for childhood mental illness.

Today is Day 50 and I’m so proud to say WE DID IT! We made it through all 50 days and we did at least 50 pushups every day. There were hard days, happy days, sad days and everything in between days. There were days when we absolutely did NOT want to do pushups, but we did them anyway.

Why?

Because kids don’t get to decide what days that have a mental illness. Kids don’t get to decide if it’s a “good” day for depression or a panic attack. So, we got up and we did them. Every day for 50 days.

So far, we have raised over $4400 and have a goal of $5000. Please donate if you can!

CLICK HERE TO DONATE!

My son, age 10, diagnosed with panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety and depression wants to educate everyone about childhood mental illness. He wants other families to have the resources we didn’t have as we began our battle against mental illness. He’d love his classmates, teammates and the adults in his world to understand him just a little better.

My son, age 10, fights every day against his illness and he wants people to know this is not a choice and he would give anything to not have anxiety and depression.

My son, age 10, has more grit, determination, perseverance and desire to educate about a difficult subject than 99.9% of the adults I know.

He’s done 50 pushups for 50 days and we’ve had many conversations about childhood mental illness in random places like grocery stores, baseball games and tournaments. We’ve learned a ton of terrifying stats about childhood mental illness. We’ve educated ourselves and learned about resources like FamilySmart that help families learn about helping their child with mental illness.

But the greatest thing about this campaign is the pride in my son’s face as we’ve gone through the 50 days. He checked our campaign daily to see how much money we’ve raised to help others. He’s given gratitude to those acknowledging his hard work and now…he’s asked what’s next.

Apparently, we’re not done after this campaign is over and I couldn’t be more proud of my son for wanting to continue to educate and help and let others know they’re not alone in their battle against mental illness.

He’s thinking sweatshirts. So, stay tuned for more information on that!

But for now, I’m going to revel in the fact that my son and I accomplished this goal and battled mental illness every single day of this campaign. We won every battle. Some days left us a little battered and bruised, but we’re still here, standing together and figuring it all out.

Thank you for your support. Thank you to everyone who fundraised for Owen’s campaign and thank you to everyone who donated to our campaign #PushingForAwareness.

We are humbled by your support and so very grateful to each and every person involved in our campaign…whether you donated, completed your pushups or just had a conversation with us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Burpees & Booty Workout

June 22, 2019 By Lindsay Gee Leave a Comment

I adore burpees. Love, love, love them. I feel like they are the most epic full-body workout (if done properly) with a snazzy bit of cardio for your heart health pleasure. See? I can make them sound so great.

I do not, however, love leg day. Truly, I can’t stand it. So I thought the best way for me to get in a good leg workout is to combine it with a lot of burpees.

Fair warning: This is an intermediate to advanced workout, so if you’re starting, I recommend you start with a more basic workout and learn proper form, get stronger and then tackle this beast. Try my 5 & Thrive series…it’s a week-long series of 5-minute workouts targeting different body parts each day. Linked below is Day 7, it has links to all five daily workouts.

CLICK HERE to try out 5 & Thrive.

The Workout:

There are 4 types of burpees and 4 leg exercises. Match up a burpee and a leg exercise, complete 20 reps of the burpee exercise and 50 reps of the leg exercise. Match up another burpee with another leg exercise and continue on until all four burpee and leg exercises are done.

You do not need to do these in order, switch up the order to do what feels “good” to you.

Want a challenge? Think 20 and 50 reps are too few? Okie dokie…I challenge you to 50 burpees and 100 reps of the leg exercise.

Enjoy! Let me know if you give this workout a try! I’d love to know how “burny” it was for you! Because my legs were screamin’ by the end! Good luck! You’re amazing.

Off you go!

It’s Okay to Have a Vice – Just Use It Wisely

June 17, 2019 By Lindsay Gee 2 Comments

I love peanut butter cups. If you know me at all, you know I LOVE peanut butter cups. Love, love, love them. In fact, during a speech I was making one year, people threw them at me when I started to get teary to make me laugh and stop crying (tears of joy, btw).

I also have a peanut butter cup present giver who leaves me random cups on my doorstep every now and then. I have no idea who it is, but I love him or her with all I am.

Here’s the thing…I celebrate my vice. I know that if a peanut butter cup is put in front of me, I’m gonna eat it. No ifs, ands or buts. I used to try to tell myself “Lindsay, no. No. Those aren’t good for you”.

Screw that, old Lindsay. You take those cups and gobble them up.

Life is way too short to not enjoy the things I love. Life is way to precious for me to make myself feel bad for loving something so yummy. Life wouldn’t keep putting peanut butter cups in front of me if I wasn’t supposed to enjoy the heck out of them.

Sure, they’re not healthy. Sure, they’re loaded with sugar and fat and all the things that taste amazing. But…I work hard. I train daily. I sweat. I eat relatively healthy most of the time.

So, I’m not going to balk at eating a peanut butter cup.

I’m here to tell you it’s time to embrace your vice….

With conditions:

You may have SOME of your vice…NOT ALL OF IT. And you may do so guilt-free. Enjoy it. But don’t overindulge. There’s a line between honouring your vice and being unhealthy and ridiculous.

If your vice is at all harmful (e.g. drugs and/or alcohol), this article is not for you. This is for silly vices like peanut butter cups, sweet tarts, chocolate chip cookies or small bags of chips. This does not apply to serious addiction issues.

Life is hard, my friends. Embrace your vice. Don’t fight it…you’ll just overindulge and feel awful the next time you have it. Better to have a little here, a little there. Don’t punish yourself by withholding what you love. Have a little, enjoy the heck out of it and move along in your day.

Don’t think twice about it. OR, if you must, think how your truly deserve your small treat. Because you do. You deserve the things that bring you joy and happiness.

If mine is peanut butter cups, who are you to judge? Even more, who am I to judge? I appreciate me and all I do. I get to treat myself and have ZERO guilt about it. Zero. Zip. Zilch.

How about we’re just a little nicer to ourselves? How about we just love up on ourselves every now and then and take a moment to say “HECK YES!” to our vices. Enjoy, my friends. Seriously…enjoy it.

Too Tired to Give a F**k

June 14, 2019 By Lindsay Gee Leave a Comment

I was recently at an overnight camp with about 50 Grade Five students and I’ve realized some things just never ever change:

The girl drama is still rampant and the goss (that’ gossip for all you oldies that don’t know what it means) is still flying, big time. The dialogue is everything. And, I mean…like, everything.

“OMG…she said ______”.

“And then I was like ________”.

“So then I ________”.

“OMG can you believe that?”

As I sat there and listened to the drama I remembered feeling all those emotions. I thought to myself “Man, everything is just so BIG at that age”. Even the discussion about who took whose shoes and who knocked on whose doors…they’re big. Big problem. Big drama. So. Much. Energy.

I found myself rolling my eyes and thinking “Jesus, this is what they worry about?“.

Then, I checked myself. I was the same when I was their age. The little problems were BIG problems. That one sentence you said about so-and-so can determine how life will go for the next few weeks and if you screw it up…you may find yourself sitting alone at recess. It’s odd…but…it’s not abnormal. Don’t even get me started on the riveting game of Truth or Date.

I truly believe that it’s not only confidence and discovering who we are that aids in our ability to not give a flying fuck about what is said about us. I think we’re just tired.

“Omg…she said ______”...something I totally don’t give a fuck about.

“And then I was like_____”… okay…you go do you, I’ll be over here trying to figure out how to squeeze 25 hours into this day.

“So then I ______”…stopped at Tim Horton’s and picked up an XL coffee to help me through the day.

“OMG can you believe that?”…Yup, totally can and totally don’t care.

The dialogue changes when you’re older. The big things aren’t big and you let a lot more slide off your back.

People will constantly try to pull you down, put you down, make you feel shitty…and I’m just so very tired that I truly don’t have the energy to fight against them. I don’t want to and I don’t care. I don’t have the energy.

I need to conserve my energy for the shit that matters. The time spent worrying about the shit said about me is, well, a waste of my precious energy. So, I let it fly because I simply don’t have the energy to give to that kind of chatter any longer.

Go ahead and talk your talk and do your thang, Little Miss Gossip. Me? I’m just over here trying to raise kind humans, inspire a nation and lead by example….on a thread of the energy I used to have to worry about whether “OMG…she’s wearing the same shirt as I am!”

Sure, I’ve screwed up, made mistakes, etc…but I’m also too tired to give a fuck about anything that doesn’t help me move and grow as a human any longer. I have no time for the bullshit and want to only surround myself with people who bring the good energy back into my world. I’m too tired to give a fuck about the rest of it.

Truly. In my 41st year of life…I finally get it. And, I have complete and total fatigue to thank for it. Thank you bone-deep fatigue for truly allowing me to focus on the important stuff in my life and let the other shit go. It is quite liberating. For once, I truly see the benefit of getting older…and being tired.