You can't ask a big Jewish family to keep any secrets. Since March I was planning to go home to surprise my grandpa for his 75th birthday, with high hopes of pulling through with the surprise, but what was I thinking?! Of course my family can't do surprises. 

I flew home to Florida last weekend and as I was getting of the plane, my sister calls me from Israel, literally across the world to talk to me and the first thing she tells me is that my grandpa knows and the surprise is no more. Awesome. And my sister of all people who wasn't even in the country tells me! I think my family was going to try to play it off to make me feel better. Although it was ruined, it was still a blast. It's such a treat to go home to sunny florida and soak up family time, beach time and pool time. Happy birthday Poppies, I know you're reading this! Yes, I still call my grandpa Poppies. In fact, the whole family does. 

It was back to the grind this week! Can I just say how much I love my job again. I actually can't quite call it a job when I get to train freaking awesome people all day and teach group fitness. What is life?! I'm so grateful.  I had a client last week touch her toes for the first time ever in her life and she was so happy that she cried. And then I almost cried. Definitely one of my top trainer moments so far and I haven't been doing this for that long. This is why I get so excited to go to work everyday. It's the best. 

Raspberry Swirl Chocolate Chip Bread

[yumprint-recipe id='26']YUM! This bread is my favorite. It's easy to make and the swirl makes it feel oh, so fancy.

Have a great Wednesday beautiful people!

XO - Rach

Can your family keep a surprise a secret? 

Good morning! I have an easy breakfast recipe for you to make you feel a little fancy on those mornings when you need it. Do you ever just wake up and the weather is all dreary and it makes you want to curl up and not do ANYTHING?! That's a bit like how I'm feeling this week - the weather is sad and it's really affecting me. It always amazes me how much the weather really does affect my mood. Boy, do I really miss the Florida sunshine and heat sometimes.  Anyway, enough complaining...let's talk about this Berries and Cream oats recipe. They're delicious and so so easy. Also I've found a new love for full fat yogurt, which I dolloped on top. I don't eat much dairy. Cheese sometimes in my eggs or on top of salads or meals and that's about it. I'll go in and out of phases where I love yogurt or hate it. Lately I've been loving it I've promised myself that I'll never buy non-fat or low-fat yogurt again. You guys, once you try a full fat cream yogurt (I've been buying this one from Trader Joe's) you'll never want to go back to non-fat. For one, the taste is incredible. It tastes like straight cream and I'm totally okay with that. Secondly, it is minimally processed and it contains HALF the amount of sugar as any of the other non-fat or low-fat plain yogurts. When products are stripped of the fat, companies will add in sugar to make it taste better. NO, BAD. It also contains a boat load of calcium. Go full fat, I dare you. I promise you won't get fat. 

Berries & Cream Oats

[yumprint-recipe id='25'] I just devoured my bowl and it was DELICIOSO. Now I'm off to go take a yoga class that I'm hoping will allow me to take a nice little nap before I go into work for the afternoon and night. I'm totally a morning person, but it really catches up to me when I'm training until 9pm at night. How do I teach myself to sleep in?!?!?

Have a great Tuesday!! 

XO- Rach

What's your favorite oatmeal combination?

Does the weather affect your mood?

Dreary weather - love or hate it? 

Good morning, happy Monday friends! I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine was eventful to say the least. Michael and I had our second Rover experience and it was definitely a little different than our first. The first dog we got was perfect. Literally. Well-trained, adorable, sweet and just wanted to cuddle and sleep. This time around we got two dogs, one a puppy, who were not very house trained and very needy. I don't think I've ever cleaned up so much dog pee in my life! So for all you Rover sitters...definitely make sure that the dogs you watch are house trained. TRIPLE CHECK. That shit is not fun. BUT it was an experience to say the least. 

I'm hoping that our next Rover puppy looks like this...

Or this...

Or this (sorry last one...)

In other news this week, I'm running a little food prep contest with my clients at the gym. I'm asking that they send me photos of what they're cookin' up for the next week and the following week! I've already seen some delicious meals and I'm so proud that they're trying harder each week to be better and get healthier! 

And on that note, if you like to bake healthy snacks to have on hand I've got a delicious and healthy Cinnamon Raisin Sweet Potato Bread..

Cinnamon Raisin Sweet Potato Bread

If you can't tell, I'm kind of obsessed with the cinnamon raisin combo. For one, it's such a classic and two, cinnamon, raisins and sweet potatoes are very cheap. I've been trying to cut back on the dollars I spend on food. Therefore I eat all the sweet potatoes, cinnamon and raisins. 

[yumprint-recipe id='23'] 

XO - Rach

Let's chat:

How do you save money while grocery shopping?

Have you ever baked with sweet potatoes before?

Cinnamon raisin flavor fan?