The Best of 2017: Favorite Recipes, Travel & Fitness

I hope that your 2018 is off to a wonderful start!

The beginning of January is a great time to take a breath after the madness of the holidays, and to come up with goals for the year. I also love looking back at the year before and reflecting on my favorite memories, so today I wanted to share my best of 2017. Let’s get to it…

Recipes.

I make these banana oatmeal protein pancakes on a weekly basis. I love them so much because they give me my fancy pancake fill, while still being healthy. {vegan + gluten free}

potato black bean soup. This veggie-packed soup made for a hearty, healthy meal! {vegan + gluten free}

Healthy muffins remained a go-to snack of mine throughout the year, including these strawberry banana muffins with a cashew crumble. {dairy free + gluten free}

healthier fettuccine alfredo with spinach & tomato. I’ve made this recipe about a gazillion times, and it’s perfect when you’re craving a creamy pasta dish, but don’t want to overdo it with your calorie intake.

Career-wise, I did a lot more freelance food writing in 2017, which I absolutely loved. I regularly created recipes for Shape and FITNESS, & here were a few of my favorite ones:

chocolate chip pumpkin mug cake. {vegan}

pomegranate bejeweled cheese ball. {gf}

orzo caprese pasta salad.

Travel.

I did some awesome traveling in 2017,  but my favorite trip was a vacation over Thanksgiving with my hubby to Spain. We got to do lots of sightseeing in Malaga and Barcelona, which was neat because we experienced a lesser known area of Spain, then got a taste of a touristy, well known Spanish city.

We also got to see Sweden and Morocco during our vacation. I’ve only begun to recap the trip, and I’ll be talking about it a lot more in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

In terms of favorite travel within the U.S. in 2017, I went on a trip to Portland, Oregon to celebrate my 30th birthday (oh yea, that happened in 2017!), where I ate so much yummy food, spent a glorious day in wine country, hiked Multnomah Falls and biked around the city.

I also made several trips back to where I grew up in New Jersey for my little brother’s wedding, the holidays & just to spend time with my family.

And since I love road tripping, I can’t leave out my top California getaways of the year! We went on an awesome getaway to Santa Barbara, and spent a long weekend in the little mountain town of Idyllwild.

Fitness.

From cycling, barre & yoga, to boxing & HIIT, in 2017, I had no shortage of workout fun. Not surprisingly, some of my favorite workouts were outdoors, including biking excursions, tennis sessions and stand-up paddleboarding in Coronado.

 I also went on a number of fun hiking adventures, including hiking via the PCT to Eagle Rock on my 8th anniversary weekend. Over the years I’ve done so many hikes in Southern California, so recently I shared my seven favorite hikes in San Diego County on the blog.

I also did my fair share of workouts at home last year. I used my bike trainer a ton, and added some equipment to my at-home workout arsenal. I blogged about some of my favorite workout routines, which included this shoulder, bicep & leg burner HIIT workout &  this cycling + strength circuit workout of threes.

Healthy Living Mojo.

In 2017, I made it a conscious focus to live fearlessly. I wrote about getting out of your comfort zone by feeling the fear and doing it anyway after I got my yoga sculpt instructor certification. A few ways that I got out of my comfort zone were by going skydiving for the second time (it was scarier than I remembered, but absolutely exhilarating!), and attending several food and fitness conferences.

As a health coach, I love attending educational seminars focused on various health topics, and one that really fascinated me was the IDEA World session I attended in Las Vegas about epigenetics – how we can change our DNA behaviors with a healthy lifestyle. Every thought, mouthful, and movement changes your DNA expressions and the messages that are being sent to your body – how amazing is that?!

I wanted to practice gratitude as much as I could, so throughout the year I added things I was thankful for, accomplishments, and memories to my gratitude jar. My husband surprised me with a frame for it so that we can pick out our favorite notes to collage together, to remind us of all we had to be thankful of throughout the year. I enjoyed having a gratitude jar, and I’m going to continue doing it throughout 2018.

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Happy New Year friends!

Tell me… What were a few of your favorite recipes/workouts/travels of 2017?