Delicious Semi-Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Sugar Free Banana Pancakes

This year is a year of lots of changes for me. If you’ve read anything I’ve written previously you’ll likely know that I’m on a mission right now toward 3 things– get out of debt, make money to afford adoption, and get healthy. So today I’m going to tell you the story of how and why we’re eating semi-vegetarian, gluten-free, sugar-free banana pancakes!

I’m doing well so far on the first, and only so-so on the second and third.

But, I’m not discouraged, I didn’t expect it to happen overnight and I know that things that are really worth it often come only after struggle, lots of time, and sacrifice. And I’m in it for the long haul!

As part of our goal to get healthy we’ve decided to make some big changes to our diets as well as start exercising regularly again.

Life Makeover

In an effort to be transparent, for accountability, I will tell you that over the last two years that I’ve lived in Seattle, I’ve gained about 40 lbs. Which is WAY too much for my 5′ 0″ height. And frankly, it’s made me feel pretty miserable about myself.

I have Hypothyroidism as well, which already makes it like 100 times harder for me to lose weight than a person with a normal metabolism. Pair that with the fact that I’m now in my mid-forties, which is also a factor that makes losing weight more difficult than if I was in my twenties– it just felt overwhelming thinking about trying to change that.

I know it’s going to be hard– really hard. But, as I said, this is a year of growth, changes, learning, and not taking the easy road. (Which is what I hope this blog inspires you to do as well!)

So we joined a gym again a few months ago. We’ve been trying to get there at least 3 times per week so far, and I usually do about an hour of light cardio while my husband does physical therapy for his ankle problems in the pool.

A little history about me, I used to run, A LOT. Like, I ran half-marathons and 5k’s all the time. But it’s been about five years since I was working out regularly and running races, and it has made a big difference in my health. A decline.

My knees hurt now, my ankles don’t seem as strong, and the extra weight I’m carrying around doesn’t make running, which is hard in and of itself, an easy thing to do.

But, I’m all about discovery- trying to be real with myself and figure out the root causes of issues and work through them. And I think I know the main reason I’ve gained weight again. (Again meaning that I’ve gone up and down 20-30 lbs. every 5 years or so since I was about 30)

The job I took when I first moved here was awful.

It was in a call center where I took calls from angry people all day every day. The product/service they had purchased from the company I was working for was very expensive and the customer’s were not getting the results they wanted.

I got depressed working there. And that led to snacking, all day long. I was also sitting more of the day than I had in years, and not exercising, so, it just all added up to gaining lots of weight.

Slowly my clothes started getting tighter, and I knew it. But in the middle of depression sometimes it’s hard to stop yourself.

My husband knows from past experience that I’ve got to want to do it on my own. That I’m not going to change or fix anything unless I’m good and ready. So while he’s been worried about my health and always encourages me to do those things that are good for me, I resisted for a long time.

I’m so grateful for his support though. You’ve got to have support when you make big changes like this.

The New Diet

We’ve tried all kinds of different diets over the past few years. Once summer, back in 2013 I believe; I did a raw diet for two months and lost 20 lbs.

It was amazing how quickly the weight melted off back then. But it was probably two of the hardest months of my life and I don’t know that I could do that again.

So, we wanted to find something that we could do that would be sustaining in our lives. Make a change that would be lasting and livable.

That led us to trying to focus on a more vegetarian way of life. My mother-in-law has practically been a vegetarian for years, so she’s been giving us good recipes to try. And I’ve really come to love vegetables more than I ever have in my life.

(HINT: you have to try a food around 20 times before you will start to like it or get a taste for it)

Now we are eating primarily vegetables and fruit. We allow ourselves to have gluten-free Spelt flour bread, quinoa, rice, oats, millet and barley. But we say no to white flour, and only allow for 100% whole wheat bread if there are no other options.

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We’ve cut back on dairy and oils, limiting ourselves to eggs and butter only. We’ve switched to almond milk and rarely if ever eat cheese anymore. (which has been the hardest change for me, I love cheese!)

And the biggie is that we’ve cut down to only eating meat twice per week or less. That has been a really hard adjustment, especially at first. BUT, I am happy to report that the longer we’ve been doing this, the less I crave meat now.

We’ve developed so many good dishes that I seldom even realize that there isn’t any meat in our recipes. I highly recommend you try it.

The benefits have been good for us so far. We’ve been improving our cholesterol, blood pressure, energy levels and more. It’s been a good change.

I wouldn’t say we are vegetarians, we’re definitely flexitarian.

The last thing we’ve changed in our diet is trying to do more intermittent fasting.

That just means you limit yourself to only eating for a certain time window per day, and fast the rest of the day. We’re trying to do the 16/8 method which just means you allow yourself to eat during an 8 hour window, and fast the other 16 hours per day. (Right now I’m doing noon-8:00 PM)

Only time will tell as to how it goes for me! My husband has definitely lost weight already, more than 10 lbs so far. Granted, he doesn’t have hypothyroidism and men seem to always lose faster than women, but he’s been a great motivator to me. I’ve only lost a few pounds as of yet, but I’m keeping on it, not giving up!

New Recipes Too!

The best thing about trying a new diet or way of eating is that you get to come up with all kinds of fun recipes!

We’ve been trying to adapt our faves into friendly-for-our-diet versions and I have to say the Banana Pancakes we made tonight, were SO delicious! I just had to share with you!

I based the recipe off of one that I’ve previously used on allrecipes.com. We just altered some of the ingredients and went with it. They turned out SO good!

Here’s the recipe I used:

• 1 C Spelt Flour (instead of white flour)
• 2 Tbs of Light Agave (instead of sugar and vegetable oil)
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 1 Egg, beaten
• 1 cup Almond Milk (instead of cow’s)
• 2 ripe Bananas, mashed

It’s a pretty simple recipe, you just throw them all in a big bowl and mix them up! The only thing that you might want to take care to do is to mash up the bananas before you put them in with the other ingredients so they mix in well.

The only other thing that I might recommend is if the batter seems a little too thick, just add a tiny splash of water to help the consistency.

Also, just one other mention to add, you could use Applesauce instead of the egg to make it fully Vegetarian. And my husband can’t have coconut or you could use 1 teaspoon of coconut oil for 1 of the Agave teaspoons. But still do at least 1 tsp of Agave no matter what.

Then, just pour onto a hot griddle or pan and cook like a regular pancake, that’s it! You can add butter to the pan before you pour in batter if you’d like, but it’s not necessary.

And let me just tell you how good they turned out!! YUM! My husband even had seconds!

Here’s the result:

You can see we topped them with blueberries, but you can add any fruit. We also used pure 100% maple syrup and had an egg on the side too for a some more protein to keep us feeling full longer.

You could also add sugar free jam, or a number of other yummy toppings too.

So, there you have it! Do you think it sounds good? Are you going to try it? Let me know in the comments below!

Happy Cooking!