pulled pumpkin crockpot chicken & pumpin’ some iron

i’m about to hit you with 3 good things in this post.

THREE.

ready for it?

because it’s the season of everything pumpkin, and because sundays are a usual cook maniac-ness day, i wanted to roll with something different, out of the ordinary but still easy-peazy

i bring to you..

pulled pumpkin crockpot chicken

don’t hack it until you try it, i assure you it’s delicious.

ingredients:

• 2-3lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 15oz can of canned pumpkin
• 2 apples (of your choice!) i used a gala & a granny smith, chopped
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• pinches of salt, cumin & oregano

get out your monstrous and highly underused crockpot, plug it in and turn it on high (or low if you have more time, but it was 1PM by the time my breasts defrosted, so high it was)

into the crockpot goes…everything!

put your chicken breasts (whole breasts because you will shred them later), the can of pumpkin, 1/2 cup water, diced apples & spices into the pot, put the top on and let it do it’s job!

<---bad lighting!

but about 5-6 hours later your breasts should be tender and ready to be pulled. if you’re not ready to shred the breasts, just turn your crockpot on warm and let the juices sit & sim simmah.

when you’re ready, just simply take a fork & pull apart the chicken breasts (it should be SUPER easy because the chicken will be nice and tender and basically pull apart on it’s own)

let the shreaded chicken sit for about 10 more minutes, on warm, in the pot so all the juices can really get into the chicken

bowl it up! we served ours with a big salad, some alexia sweet potato fries & the chicken

i had mine on a big old bed of kale and topped it off with some goat cheese

guys i’m telling you it was FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC. sweet & savory combined and definitely a win-winnah. everyone in the golean family agreed.

and just because no sunday dinner is complete without dessert, i took my stress to the kitchen and made the eat clean diet chocolate almond cake to finish out the meal

the cake was fabulous!

my substitutions included: 

• half whole wheat flour & half coconut flour
• vanilla almond milk instead of buttermilk (because i didn’t have any on hand)
• blueberry flaxseed (ground) instead of regular flaxseed (what i had on hand) but

it was a hit! super moist & delicious, and not to mention healthy!

sunday success? i think so!

now for the pumpin’ iron part.

i’ve had TWO great workouts the past two days

sunday i started off with some elliptical intervals for 30 minutes then went to the weights to do a quick & efficient, hit every upper body muscle at least once kind of workout

sunday-funday full/mixed upper-body

- assisted pull-ups, 5x10 (50-60lbs assisted weight)

- bench presses, 5x 8-10 reps (55-65lbs) alternated with burpee pushups, 5x10

- hang clean & press, 5x10 (40lbs) alternated with weighted suspended ab twists (5x15, 25lb weight)

- v-rope tricep pressdowns, 5x10 (40-50lbs) alternated with tricep dips (5x12, bodyweight)

lovely!

this morning i had spin on the agenda, i swear i did! i’m a lucky ducky and have off today because the campus i work for is closed for the holiday, so after catching the beginning of the kardashian divorce (ha ha) i hit the hay with the intention for spin.

next thing i know…it’s 6:40 and spin is over in 20 minutes! where am i? laying in bed.

whoopsies! instead i rolled out of bed, and headed to the gym to do my own thang

back & biceps + stairmill HIIT

i went through each circuit really fast, and by fast i mean moving from the exercises in each circuit without rests (or when rests were needed) i saved my rests mainly for in between circuits and loved this style workout!

circuit one: 4 times through

exercise	weight	reps
t-bar rows	35lbs added weight	10 reps
lateral pull-downs	65lbs	10 reps

circuit two: 4 times through

exercise	weight	reps
single arm cable bicep curls	30lbs	8 reps
standing lateral press-downs	40lbs	10 reps

circuit three: 4 times through

exercise	weight	reps
cable reverse flys	15lbs each side	10 reps
pushups	bodyweight	12 reps

circuit four: 3 times through

exercise	weight	reps
dumbbell bicep curls	20lb dumbbells	10 reps
dumbbell bicep curls	10lb dumbbells	15 reps
bent over reverse fly	15lb dumbbells	10 reps
bent over reverse fly	10lb dumbbells	15 reps

circuit five: 4 times through

exercise	weight	reps
lower back extension	120lbs	15 reps
reverse crunches	bodyweight	20 reps

delicious! and then i ended the whole shibang with 20 minutes of HIIT on the stair master

WOW. that’s a lot i just threw at you first thing of the week.

i’m off to do some food prep for the week, head into the city to drive jenna back to school & chill out! after all that’s what holidays are for, no?

love to love you <3

-julie

cawfee tawk! i’m working on deej’s diary #2 and would love for you to submit some questions for deej and her weight loss/exercise/health journey! you can check out the first post here. have fun!