Golden Energy Balls

Look at these gorgeous balls of sunshine!

I adapted a recipe by Joy McCarthy of Joyous Health to make these energy balls and they are simply delicious.

Packed with anti-inflammatory and gut healing ingredients these little golden nuggets only took me ten minutes to make and have stashed away in my refrigerator for a post walk or workout snack.

This is easy and nutrient dense eating.

Oats, hemp seeds and apricots form the base of the ball, making this a fibre rich snacking option. Fibre is the midlife womans best friend as it supports her liver to clear excess hormones from the peri-menopausal dance out of the body.

Hemp seeds are a beautiful source of plant based protein, oats are a ‘slow burn’ carbohydrate and apricots are packed with vitamin A for health eyes and tissues and also energy boosting plant sourced iron. (plant sourced iron does not constipate)

Coconut provides a gut healing healthy fat to the mix and helps to ignite our metabolism, so that it is easy to feel satiated and maintain a healthy body weight and turmeric offers depression busting anti-inflammatory and anti-cancerous properties.

I tweaked the original recipe to add Brazil Nuts. Packed with the mineral selenium that is a co-factor for thyroid hormone conversion, Brazil nuts deeply support the health of our thyroid gland at midlife. This is important if we want to feel confident, energized and comfortable in our bodies as we navigate hormonal change.

This recipe could not be simpler as we whizz all of the ingredients into a ‘dough’ in the blender.

If you are experiencing exhaustion and overwhelm, gut health issues such as gassiness and bloating after eating or have issues with your thyroid gland such as hypothyroidism or Hashimotos disease, this is your go to snack.

The recipe tells me I should make 15 energy balls but could only manage 14, which tells me that I like my balls a bit larger!

Victoria Beckham has the nickname of Golden Balls for David, so I did have a little giggle as I made rolled the dough.

Ingredients

1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1/4 cup hemp hearts

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup dried chopped apricots

1 tsp ground turmeric

4-5 Brazil nuts

2 tbsp lemon or lime juice

Instructions

Add all of the ingredients to a high powered blender and whizz on high until a ‘dough ‘ is formed.

You may have to keep pushing the ingredients down the side of the blender with a spatula.

Put the energy ball ‘dough’ on a chopping board and using a teaspoon measure out into 15 balls.

Roll with your hands to make 15 even balls

Refrigerate for up to a week and freeze for up to 3 months.

Beet Hummus

When we pass through peri-menopause we have two options of how we approach our health and the discombobulating symptoms that we are feeling from this natural hormonal change.

1. We can fall into a victim mindset and bypass the learning that comes for the experience by jumping straight onto the HRT train delaying our inevitable transition into peri-menopause or worse, suffering and complaining for up to 10 years because we buy into the story that this is what it means to be a woman…that we suffer from our own bodies and hormones. Not a happy place to be.

2. We can begin to take greater care of ourselves, to nourish ourselves deeply with dense nutrition and listen to our bodies and learn from our symptoms to discover exactly what our minds and bodies are needing during this time of hormonal change.

The joy of an empowered approach to peri-menopause is that the path is paved with delicious health promoting recipes that build health for the next chapter and supports our bodies as we metamorphosis into strong and vibrant women with energy, excitement and robust health striding into the next chapter.

If I had to pick one recipe that supports midlife health in a myriad of ways it would be this gorgeous scarlet bowl of Beet Hummus.

Beets are rich in betalains that support stage 2 of the detoxification process in the liver. Our livers are our greatest ally in managing fluctuating hormones as it deconjugates and binds excess hormone ready to leave the body.

The liver also needs a fibre rich diet to function effectively as the body wants to detox daily when we poop leaving us free of circulating hormones that cause our night-time sweats, daily hot flashes and weight gain.

Fibre is the midlife womans’ best friend helping her to balance hormones, protecting heart health and supporting digestive health.

Chickpeas are fibre rich and packed with the B group of vitamins for energy and plant-based protein.
Chickpeas and sesame seeds found in tahini also contain phytoestrogens that trickle feed our bodies a safe plant-based mimic for estrogen. This benign estrogen helps us to get our mojo back and feel like our juicy hormone is balanced in our bodies.

So much gorgeousness here. The colour, a burst of flavour and the dense nutrition supporting our midlife bodies.

Besides it’s gorgeous colour the secret beauty of this dish is that it only takes 10 minutes to make and sits in the fridge ready to add a nutrient dense, liver loving snack or lunch option to your day at any moment.

 Ingredients

3 medium/ 1 large beet
1½ cups (15-oz can) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3 cloves garlic 
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp sea salt
½ lemon, juiced
¼ tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp tahini (optional)

Instructions

I have made this dish with both cooked and raw beets.
I have cooked beets in the oven with a little salt and pepper. I have thrown chunks of raw beet into the blender. I have bought a vacuum sealed pack of cooked beets from Costco. The hummus always tastes great.

Throw all of the ingredients into a blender and blend on high until the hummus is smooth and whipped.
Season to your taste.

Serve with gluten free crackers or chips.

Savoury Breakfast Muffins

What if peri-menopausal/midlife weight gain and the ubiquitous midlife muffin top has nothing to do with calories and instead is a symptom of dis-regulated metabolic hormones?

What if we did not need to lose weight to make ourselves healthy but that our bodies will naturally release excess pounds from around our middle and maintain our ideal body weight WHEN we are fully healthy?

In my one-on-one coaching practice and in my 12 week program, I spend a disproportionate amount of time encouraging women aged 40+ to eat MORE; more nutrition and more nutrient dense whole foods so that their bodies can release the weight they are sick and tired of carrying.

This recipe for Savoury Breakfast Muffins is a perfect example of building dense nutrition into your day and eating MORE health promoting food so that your body can achieve the all round, mental and physical health you working towards.

Let me explain:

As we pass through midlife and the hormonal stage called peri-menopause, we are enter into a crazy hormonal dance as a result of the depletion of estrogen and progesterone from our bodies as our ovaries finally work towards getting the rest they deserve.

In a nutshell we drop out of our regular hormonal cycle we have come to know so well for decades and enter an unpredictable hormonal pattern that creates hormone based symptoms throughout our bodies.It is discombobulating.

In this hormonally turbulent stage as we lose estrogen, it is very easy for our bodies to become dominated by our stress hormone cortisol.

Cortisol increases our appetite, causes cravings for sugar and carbs and robs us of our sleep at night. Cortisol triggers our fight or flight response, sending glucose into the bloodstream, releasing insulin and causing the liver to lay fat down around our middle. The classic middle aged muffin top.

The truth is that as much as we may have cursed our menstrual cycle over the years, the presence of estrogen in our bodies is important for many areas of our health.

One of roles of estrogen is to increase our insulin sensitivity throughout the years after our puberty making every cell in our bodies more effective at handling excess sugar in the blood stream.

As estrogen depletes, so does this protection and just as a result of being peri-menopausal we slide gently towards insulin resistance, a state of pre-diabetes purely as a result of being a midlife women.

Don’t panic! We can manage this metabolic change in our bodies with the food we eat and when we eat it.

If you were ever going to take your health seriously and make changes to your habits to build a nourishing routine and lifestyle, peri-menopause would be that time.

Both of these recipes are gluten free and contain eggs to boost the protein content.

These are recipes to riff off.

Add in seeds that you love, add the vegetables that you have in your refrigerator or frozen and on hand. Use the recipe as a guide and make them your own.

…and here is my favourite way to serve these muffins in a completely satiating, blood sugar balancing breakfast. Additional protein; and a gorgeous piece of grilled salmon or left over chicken would work perfectly here, and additional healthy, satiating fats in the form of avocado. Don’t forget the hot sauce!

Sweet Potato Breakfast Muffins

Ingredients

Olive oil to prepare the muffin pan
Parchment paper
600g or sweet potatoes or 1/2 a butternut squash grated
4 spring/onions finely chopped
1-2 red chillies finely chopped
6 large free-range eggs beaten
3 tbsp cottage cheese
250g/ 11/4 cups corn meal
11/2tsp baking powder
50g/ 1/4 cup parmesan cheese finely grated
!/4 cup sunflower or pumpkin seeds
1 tbsp poppy seeds

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 375F/190C
Prepare a muffin pan by coating the wells with olive oil or lining each well with parchment paper
Put the corn meal, baking powder, parmesan cheese, sunflower seeds and poppy seeds into a large bowl and mix to combine
Add the spring onions, chillies and sweet potatoes or butternut squash and mix thoroughly
in a separate bowl add the cottage cheese and eggs and mix to combine thoroughly
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined
Place the mixture into the oiled muffin tray and bake for 30-40 minutes until cooked through and fragrant
Place on a cooling rack until the muffins reach room temperature and can be frozen

Savoury Breakfast Muffins

Ingredients

8oz Organic Chicken Breakfast Sausage
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups of baby spinach or 1 bunch of parsley finely chopped
1 cup vegetable (Frozen sweetcorn, diced red pepper, diced Zucchini
I small apple diced
3 green/spring onions finely chopped
2 cups corn meal
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
6 tbsp organic butter melted/hemp oil/olive oil or pumpkin seed oil
1 cup buttermilk or coconut milk and 2 tbsp lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 cup sharp cheese grated

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 375F/190C
Remove the casing from the sausages and cook on a medium heat in a small frying pan with olive oil until cooked through.
Add the spinach/parsley and vegetables for the last minute to cook through
Prepare a muffin pan by coating the wells with olive oil or lining each well with parchment paper
Put the corn meal, baking powder salt and pepper and cheese into a large bowl and mix to combine
in a separate bowl whisk together the butter milk and eggs add the melted butter or oil of choice
Grate the cheese and dice the apple and finely slice the green onion and combine with the flour mix
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined
Add the sausage and vegetables and stir for a minute longer to combine to a veg rich savoury batter
Place the mixture into the oiled muffin tray filling the wells generously and bake for 30-40 minutes until cooked through and fragrant
Place on a cooling rack until the muffins reach room temperature and can be frozen