For the past couple months, I've hit a major plateau with my weight loss. There has been slight changes with my body, but my measurements pretty much stayed the same. So the BF and I have been tweaking a few things with my diet to see if we could bust through this pesky plateau. I tried limiting the amount of oatmeal I was eating each day by having a very minuscule amount of oatmeal in the morning and a small amount of oatmeal baked into my protein loafs for my post-workout meal. This only left me to feel as though I was starving all day and even brought on few unnecessary benge sessions from time to time. After that didn't work, I decided to try cutting out all of the grains and replacing them with starchy veggies and potatoes to see how my body responded to that. Instead of my usual oatmeal in the mornings, I was eating either sweet potatoes or kabocha squash. These keep me full and still give me energy throughout the day. So far it has worked well, I've gone down two pounds so far and I feel great! I have no complaints as of now, so I think I will stick with this for a while and see what kind of progress I can make with this little change.

To keep up with my trial grain-free diet, I decided I needed to update my pumpkin protein loaf recipe and make a grain-free version. I replaced the oatmeal in the recipe and switched it out for almond flour and some ground flax meal. In my opinion, I think the grain free recipe tastes better then the oatmeal recipe, but that's just me!

I used the same recipe to make muffins and a loaf, both turned out amazingly moist and delicious!! I even used my cute new square silicone muffin cups and it was a success!

Grain-Soy-Dairy Free Pumpkin Protein Loaf or Muffins:
Loaf:  makes either 7 slices (1 slice per serving) 
Muffins:  makes 12 muffin cups (2 muffins per serving)

• 3 scoops protein powder - I am currently using Vitol Egg White protein powder - Vanilla Ice Cream Flavor
• 1/2 cup ground almond meal
• 1 cup egg white
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix) 
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 2 tbsp flax meal
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of pumpkin spice
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract 
• Sweetener of choice - I used 8 drops of liquid stevia
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder

Loaf : Nutritional info for 1 slice:
Fat: 5.5g
Calories: 147g
Carb: 8g
Protein: 17g
Sugar: 2.5g  

Muffins : Nutritional info for 2 muffins:
Fat: 6g
Calories: 171g
Carb: 9.5g
Protein: 20g
Sugar: 2.6g
  
*The nutritional breakdown is an estimate based on the specific ingredients that I use in my recipes. The breakdown for your recipe may vary slightly depending on the ingredients that are used.

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl together.  Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl, and then mix the two bowls together. Prepare a 9x5 loaf pan OR muffin cups with non-stick spray if needed and pour in batter. Cook for 35 minutes. Let it cool enough to separate the loaf from the pan with a spatula and then place on a cooling rack. Once they have all finished cooling completely, cut loaf into 7 thick slices or pop out muffins, place in snack baggies and refrigerate or freeze. The nutritional breakdown is for either 1 slice of the loaf or 2 muffins, but depending on your goals you might need to eat 2. Bon Appétit!