Before & After Success Story (Nikki)

Hi all!  Today, I'm introducing you to Nikki (Hello Stripes) and sharing her weight-loss success story.  I hope you are inspired! Thanks so much Nikki- you look amazing!

* * * * * 

So, I've been on my Advocare journey (more about what Advocare is at the end of this post) for 14 or so weeks now (I say journey because I don't see it ever ending). 
Here I was post baby no. 2 (October 1, 2012 - he was 6 months - note: I gained the majority of my weight after baby. Yay!) at around 180# and 25.5% body fat. I was drinking a bottle of wine a day (no joke, I had it with breakfast - that's what they do on RHONJ, right?) and as it turns out, that was adding up to a whole lotta calories. I woke up one day and decided this is not cool. I was sick of my thighs rubbing together and this bat wing thing happening on my arms - I had no energy and even less self-confidence.

So, by complete kismet, I found my now dear, dear friend Danielle and long story short, started Advocare right away. And here I am now (January 23, 2013) at 159# somewhere around 18% body fat. Update: As of March 17, 2013 I am at 155# and 15% body fat and I have triceps and calves for the first time in as long as I can remember.

I followed Honey We're Healthy and was so inspired by Megan. She works, has an adorable little boy, a house that's to die forand was still able to live a healthy life style. I figured if she could do it, so could I.  I followed Megan's lead and started (and finished!)Jamie Eason's 12-week LiveFit program and LOVED it, but then read Jenna's story and decided to take the plunge and start CrossFit. Advocare also has a killer DVD with 24 minute workouts. It's great for super busy people who can't necessarily commit to the gym everyday, but still want to get fit. CrossFit and Advocare have taught me so much. I know it sounds silly, but I am a better mother, wife, friend and person because of them. I've gained so much confidence (and energy!).

What is Advocare, you ask? It is so many things to me, but basically, it's a comprehensive line of nutritionally advanced supplements that SUPPLEMENT your diet and exercise program(s). It's not magic in a pill, it's elite nutrition and really, it's notjust supplements, it's a lifestyle. A lifestyle I wanted, but didn't know where to start. I was in a place where I think a lot of people are "I want to get healthy but don't know how. Just show/tell me what to do and I'll do it". Advocare also has a TON of big name, unpaid endorsers and a solution for everyone, be it a stay-at-home mom or an NFL player. 

Advocare has taught me that nothing worth having comes easy and it doesn't happen overnight. It gave me the support and motivation to keep going when the going got tough (and believe me, it did) and just take it day by day. 

The 24-Day Challenge is the core of the line and it's meant to kickstart your weight loss or break through plateaus. You can read more about that here. And although weight loss is often a result, the whole goal of the Challenge, and all of Advocare really, is health and nutrition. 

So, here's what my day looks like - I'm still nursing baby no. 2 so, I have to do a modified routine. I think it's taken me longer to get results than most people, but I am just thankful that these particular Advocare products are safe for pregnant/breastfeeding mom's. Pretty awesome.

Supplements:

SPARK (oh how I love thee)

Probiotic Restore ULTRA

OmegaPlex - Dr. Oz endorsed

CorePlex w/ Iron

Catalyst (I HIGHLY recommend if it's tone/definition you're after)

Meal Replacement Shakes

Post-Workout Recovery (like a little treat. SO good)

Muscle Gain

Rehydrate (only if I have a super hard/long workout)

And here's what my usual daily diet looks like. I don't advocate cutting out any food groups (Atkins-type 'diets') but, I will say that I have cut out gluten (about 98% of the time) and diary (with the exception of the whey protein in some of my Advocare products) and have never felt better. 

Diet:

Upon waking:

Spark + Catalyst +  OmegaPlex

30 - 45 minutes later:

Meal Replacement Shake (on workout days) OR scrambled egg whites with avocado and sriracha and (2) slices of Udi's Whole Grain Gluten Free Bread toasted

After workout:

Post Workout Recovery Shake 

Mid-morning snack (on off days):

Apple with handful of almonds OR banana with almond butter OR Tuna Salad 

Lunch:

Savory Stuffed Sweet Potato

I hold the dairy products and add avocado and sriracha (hmmm...I'm seeing a trend here)

I also use a TON of Megan's recipes. This is one of my absolute favorites right now. 

Mid-afternoon snack:

Spark

Turkey Muffins OR Protein Bars

Dinner:

Here's where it gets tricky. My husband is a meat and potatoes kind of guy so, I've had to figure out meals that will please us both. I've got some tricks up my sleeve (I've managed to go gluten free without him knowing...)

Again, I use a lot of Megan's recipes and I have a lot pinned to my Clean Eating board that I pull from. 

I basically follow the equation (? is that what you call it? It's been a long time since algebra)

Protein + Vegetable + Complex Carb

Before Bed:

Muscle Gain + CorePlex + OmegaPlex

I won't go on and on about every dish or ingredient but please email me if you'd like me to send you a list.

It's easy once you get into a routine. I think that's one of the many benefits of the 24-Day Challenge, it's short enough that it doesn't overwhelm you but, long enough to get results, break bad habits and build a new routine. 

I have learned that it's so important to set goals for yourself and BE PATIENT! It won't happen overnight, but I promise if you stick to it - it will happen.

 Healthy living is only sustainable when you are intentional about it. It also really helps to have a support system and/or accountability partner. All of this has really helped me 're-calibrate'. I no longer consume an entire bottle of wine, a glass is almost too much. I now eat to perform. I eat what makes me feel good. I eat for nutrition. 

That's not to say I don't have my splurges, I do - I actually think that allowing yourself that actually helps you stay on track and in it for the long haul. 

I truly hope that my journey inspires you in some way to start your own if you haven't already. If I can do this with two wild boys (2.5 and 10 months), you can do it too...promise :)

I want to sincerely thank Megan and Danielle for inspiring and supporting me.

Please feel free to comment or contact me with any questions! I'd love to help you with your health and fitness goals too :) If I can do it, you can do it! It's all about doing something you never thought you possibly could.

Food Reward Friday

This week's "lucky" winner... milkshakes!

Read more »

Workout Binder (Workouts Post 12-Week Program)

Now that I've completed the Jamie Eason 12-Week Training Program, I needed to figure out what to do next.  The last couple of weeks I slacked off on my workouts, so time to get back to it!  I want to continue the strength training (especially on my legs/glutes) and picked a few of my favorite workouts from the Jamie Eason program and will continue to do those to build muscle.  I think they are all from Week 7 of the program.  I'm also looking forward to trying the spin classes at my gym, and now that the weather is warming up here, I'm going to start jogging outside again.

I went ahead and printed the workouts (Arms, Back, Shoulders, and two Leg workouts), wrote in the weight I typically lift for easy reference, them laminated them so I can use them while I work out.  I could commit them to memory, but this is easy and mindless so I don't have to think about what comes next.  

I have printed out all of the workouts from the 12-week program and keep them in a binder, along with my measurements so I can track my progress.  The binder is just an inexpensive 1-inch white three-ring binder with a plastic cover, so I inserted something to motivate me on the front. 

I love the shot of this strong woman climber and the quote that accompanies it.  

And on the back, I included a shot of a muscular and feminine physique I admire.  That booty- dang! 

Those pages are from Oxygen magazine.  The binder lives in my workout bag along with my mini i-Pod, workout gloves, and water bottle.  

How do you keep track of your workouts?

* * * * * 

spin class

running

Drs. Francisco Cervantes and Marivic Torregosa, and the 2013 Ancestral Health Symposium

Last year I traveled to South Korea to give presentations on nonlinear structural equation modeling and WarpPLS (). These are an advanced statistical analysis technique and related software tool, respectively, which have been used extensively in this blog to analyze health data, notably data related to the China Study.

I gave a couple of presentations at Korea University, which is in Seoul, and a keynote address at a conference in Gwangju, in the south part of the country. So I ended up seeing quite a lot of this beautiful country, and meeting many people. Some of my impressions regarding health and lifestyle issues need separate blog posts, which are forthcoming.

One issue that kept me thinking, as it did when I visited Japan a few years ago as well, was the obvious leanness of the South Koreans, compared with Americans, even though you don’t see a lot of emphasis on dieting there. Interestingly, this phenomenon also poses a challenge to many dietary schools of thought. For example, consumption of high-glycemic-index carbohydrates seems to be relatively high in South Korea.

The relative leanness of South Koreans is probably due to a combination of factors. A major one, it seems, is often forgotten. It is related to epigenetics. This term, “epigenetics”, is often assigned different meanings depending on the context in which it is used. Here it is used to refer to innate predispositions that don’t have a primarily genetic basis.

Epigenetic phenomena often give the impression that acquired characteristics can be inherited, and are frequently, and misguidedly, used as examples in support of a theory often associated with Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, better known as Lamarck.

A classic example of epigenetics, in this context, is that of a mother with type II diabetes giving birth to a child that will develop type II diabetes at a young age. Typically type II diabetes develops in adults, but its incidence in children has been increasing lately, particularly in certain areas. And I think that this classic example is in part related to the general leanness of South Koreans and of people in other cultures where adoption of highly industrialized foods has been relatively slow.

In other words, I think that it is possible that a major protection in South Korea, as well as in Japan and other countries, is the cultural resistance, particularly among older generations, against adopting modern diets and lifestyles that deviate from their traditional ones.

This brings me to Drs. Francisco Cervantes and Marivic Torregosa (pictured below). Dr. Cervantes is the Chief Director of Laredo Pediatrics and Neonatology, a pediatrician who studied and practiced in a variety of places, including Mexico, New Jersey, and Texas. Dr. Torregosa is a colleague of mine, a college professor and nurse practitioner in Laredo, with a Ph.D. in nursing and a research interest in child obesity.



As it turns out, Laredo, a city in Southwestern Texas near the border with Mexico, seems like the opposite of South Korea in terms of health, and this may well be related to epigenetics. This presents an enormous opportunity for research, and for helping people who really need help.

In Laredo, as well as in other areas where insulin resistance and type II diabetes are rampant, there is a great deal of variation in health. There are very healthy folks in Laredo, and very sick ones. This great deal of variation is very useful in the identification of causative factors through advanced statistical analyses. Lack of variation tends to have the opposite effect, often “hiding” causative effects.

Drs. Cervantes, Torregosa, and I had a presentation accepted for the 2013 Ancestral Health Symposium (). It is titled “Gallbladder Disease in Children: Separating Myths from Facts”. It is entirely based on data collected and analyzed by Dr. Cervantes, who is very knowledgeable about statistics. Below is the abstract.

Cholesterol’s main role in the body is to serve as raw material for bile acids; the conversion of cholesterol to bile acids by the liver accounts for approximately 70 percent of the daily disposal of cholesterol. Bile acids are then stored in the gallbladder and secreted to aid in the digestion of dietary fat. It is often believed that high cholesterol levels cause gallbladder disease. In this presentation, we will discuss various aspects of gallbladder disease, with a focus on children. The presentation will be based on data from 2116 patients of the Laredo Pediatrics & Neonatology. The patients, 1041 boys and 1075 girls, are largely first generation American-born children of Hispanic descent; a group at very high risk of developing gallbladder disease. This presentation will dispel several myths, and lay out a case for a strong association between gallbladder disease and abnormally high body fat levels. Gallbladder disease appears to be largely preventable in children through diet and lifestyle modifications, some of which will be discussed during the presentation.

Many people seem to be unaware of the fact that cholesterol production and disposal are strongly associated with secretion of bile acids. Most of the body's cholesterol is used to produce bile acids, which are reabsorbed from the gut, in a cyclical process. This is the reason behind the use of "bile acid sequestrants" to reduce cholesterol levels.

The focus on gallbladder disease in the presentation comes from an interest by Dr. Cervantes, based on his many years of clinical experience, in using gallbladder disease markers to identify and prevent other conditions, including several conditions associated with what we refer to as diseases of affluence or civilization.

Dr. Cervantes is unique among clinical practitioners in that he spends a lot of time analyzing data from his patients. His knowledge of data analyses techniques rivals that of many professional researchers I know. And he does that at his own expense, something that most clinical practitioners are unwilling to do. Dr. Cervantes and I will be co-authoring blog posts here in the future.

Neuronal Control of Appetite, Metabolism and Weight

Last week, I attended a Keystone conference, "Neuronal Control of Appetite, Metabolism and Weight", in Banff.  Keystone conferences are small, focused meetings that tend to attract high quality science.  This particular conference centered around my own professional research interests, and it was incredibly informative.  This post is a summary of some of the most salient points.

Rapid Pace of Scientific Progress

Read more »

Food Reward Friday

This week's luck winner(s)... pastries!!

Read more »

Healthy Granola Bites

Hi, lovely readers!  It’s Jennifer from The Chronicles of Home and I’ve got another healthy little treat for you today.  I started making these granola bites a few weeks ago as a way to satisfy my daughters’ late afternoon snack attack without ruining their appetites for dinner.  And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t dip my hand into the bowl a lot of days, myself!  

They taste like a cross between granola and cookie dough and my girls would probably put down the entire batch of them if I didn’t limit them to 2 or 3 at a time.  They’re really filling and satisfying and full of healthy ingredients, so a perfect snack or even breakfast on-the-go if you’re really strapped for time, though we haven’t taken it there ourselves yet.

I like to make these in the food processor because it makes it that much quicker, and I like to have some of the raisins and chocolate chips chopped up into smaller bits.

The “dough” can be both a little crumbly and stick to your hands (seems like those two wouldn’t go together, doesn’t it?).  I didn’t really roll them into balls as much as press them into balls by squeezing back and forth between my hands and shaping into balls.  When they started to stick to my hands, I’d give a quick rinse to get off any sticky bits and then start again with damp hands.  I had to do this maybe twice during the making of them.

I store the granola bites in the fridge to keep them really fresh, though they might do fine at room temperature as well, but I can’t say how they hold up on the counter since I’ve always put mine in the fridge.

Hope you (and your kids) enjoy!

Granola Bites

Ingredients

1 c. oats

3/4 c. unsweetened shredded coconut

1/2 c. raw almond butter

3 tbsp. flax seed meal

1 tbsp. chia seeds

1/4 c. semisweet chocolate chips

1/4 c. raisins

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 c. light agave nectar

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until well mixed.

Scoop tablespoons into your hands and shape into balls.

Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

Thank you for this post from contributing writer, Jennifer, of The Chronicles of Home.  You'll definitely want to check out her blog for more amazing recipes, beautiful home decor, and easy-to-follw DIY projects!

Mediterranean Chickpea Salad

Are you in the mood for a hearty salad?  I found this mediterranean chickpea salad recipe in Barefoot Contessa's latest cookbook, Foolproof and enjoyed it all last week!  It's healthy, delicious, colorful, and very fast to assemble.

Dice a couple of tomatoes, a cucumber, scallions, and add some chopped basil.

Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas.

For the dressing, you add lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil and whisk to combine. 

Toss it all together. 

Then add feta cheese.

For a hearty accompaniment, I baked two pita bread slices at 350 for about 10 minutes.  A touch of olive oil and they're good to go! 

I couldn't get enough of this salad.  Hope you like it! 

* * * * * 

Food Reward Friday

This week's lucky "winner"... fried Coke!

Read more »

Atherosclerosis in Ancient Mummies Revisited

Many of you are already aware of the recent study that examined atherosclerosis in 137 ancient mummies from four different cultures (1).  Investigators used computed tomography (CT; a form of X-ray) to examine artery calcification in mummies from ancient Egypt, Peru, Puebloans, and arctic Unangan hunter-gatherers.  Artery calcification is the accumulation of calcium in the vessel wall, and it is a marker of severe atherosclerosis.  Where there is calcification, the artery wall is thickened and extensively damaged.  Not surprisingly, this is a risk factor for heart attack.  Pockets of calcification are typical as people age.

I'm not going to re-hash the paper in detail because that has been done elsewhere.  However, I do want to make a few key points about the study and its interpretation.  First, all groups had atherosclerosis to a similar degree, and it increased with advancing age.  This suggests that atherosclerosis may be part of the human condition, and not a modern disease.  Although it's interesting to have this confirmed in ancient mummies, we already knew this from cardiac autopsy data in a variety of non-industrial cultures (2, 3, 4, 5).

Read more »

Quick Morning Oatmeal

Busy mornings are typical in most families and ours is no exception.  I'm a coffee-first-thing-in-the-morning kind of gal, but I also never go without breakfast.  A super quick and healthy breakfast is oatmeal.  Some mornings go so fast, I put my oatmeal in a cup and eat it in the car- shhhh!

My oatmeal is simple, just oats, sliced almonds, raisins, cinnamon, and topped with a little skim milk.

I toast the almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat for a few minutes to make them more flavorful and crunchy.  Watch them closely though- they can burn easily. 

Then I combine all the ingredients in a large canister and give it a good shake.

I keep a plastic scoop in the canister for easy scooping. 

And the whole mixture sits on the counter next to my coffee. 

You can also portion the dry oatmeal mix into 5 small plastic baggies and take them to work to eat in the office in the morning if you don't want to eat in the car! 

I add water, microwave for one minute, then add a little milk.

What's your quick go-to breakfast?  I also like toast and natural peanut butter.

* * * * * 

The 2013 PLoS ONE sugar and diabetes study: Sugar from fruits is harmless

A new study linking sugar consumption with diabetes prevalence has gained significant media attention recently. The study was published in February 2013 in the journal PLoS ONE (). The authors are Sanjay Basu, Paula Yoffe, Nancy Hills and Robert H. Lustig.

Among the claims made by the media is that “… sugar consumption — independent of obesity — is a major factor behind the recent global pandemic of type 2 diabetes” (). As it turns out, the effects revealed by the study seem to be very small, which may actually be a side effect of data aggregation; I will discuss this further below.

Fruits are exonerated

Let me start by saying that this study also included in the analysis the main natural source of sugar, fruit, as a competing variable (competing with the effects of sugar itself), and found it to be unrelated to diabetes. As the authors note: “None of the other food categories — including fiber-containing foods (pulses, nuts, vegetables, roots, tubers), fruits, meats, cereals, and oils — had a significant association with diabetes prevalence rates”.

This should not surprise anyone who has actually met and talked with Dr. Lustig, the senior author of the study and a very accessible man who has been reaching out to the public in a way that few in his position do. He is a clinician and senior researcher affiliated with a major university; public outreach, in the highly visible way that he does it, is probably something that he does primarily (if not solely) to help people. Dr. Lustig was at the 2012 Ancestral Health Symposium, and he told me, and anyone who asked him, that sugar in industrialized foods was his target, not sugar in fruits.

As I noted here before, the sugar combination of fruits, in their natural package, may in fact be health-promoting (). The natural package probably promotes enough satiety to prevent overconsumption.

Both (unnatural) sugar and obesity have effects, but they are tiny in this study

The Diabetes Report Card 2012 () provides a wealth of information that can be useful as a background for our discussion here.

In the USA, general diabetes prevalence varies depending on state, with some states having higher prevalence than others. The vast majority of diabetes cases are of type 2 diabetes, which is widely believed to be strongly associated with obesity.

In 2012, the diabetes prevalence among adults (aged 20 years or older) in Texas was 9.8 percent. This rate is relatively high compared to other states, although lower than in some. So, among a random group of 1,000 adult Texans, you would find approximately 98 with diabetes.

Prevalence increases with age. Among USA adults in general, prevalence of diabetes is 2.6 percent within ages 20–44, 11.7 percent within ages 45–64, and 18.9 percent at age 64 or older. So the numbers above for Texas, and prevalence in almost any population, are also a reflection of age distribution in the population.

According to the 2013 study published in PLoS ONE, a 1 percent increase in obesity prevalence is associated with a 0.081 percent increase in diabetes prevalence. This comes directly from the table below, fifth column on the right. That is the column for the model that includes all of the variables listed on the left.



We can translate the findings above in more meaningful terms by referring to hypothetical groups of 1,000 people. Let us say we have two groups of 1,000 people. In one of them we have 200 obese people (20 percent); and no obese person in the other. We would find only between 1 and 2 people with diabetes in the group with 200 obese people.

The authors also considered overweight prevalence as a cause of diabetes prevalence. A section of the table with the corresponding results in included below. They also found a significant effect, of smaller size than for obesity – which itself is a small effect.



The study also suggests that consumption of the sugar equivalent of a 12 oz. can of regular soft drink per person per day was associated with a 1.1 percent rise in diabetes prevalence. The effect here is about the same as that of a 1 percent increase in obesity.

That is, let us say we have two groups of 1,000 people. In one of them we have 200 people (20 percent) consuming one 12 oz. can of soft drink per day; and no one consuming sugar in the other. (Sugar from fruits is not considered here.) We would find only about 2 people with diabetes in the group with 200 sugary soda drinkers.

In other words, the effects revealed by this study are very small. They are so small that their corresponding effect sizes make them borderline irrelevant for predictions at the individual level. Based on this study, obesity and sugar consumption combined would account for no more than 5 out of each 100 cases of diabetes (a generous estimate, based on the results discussed above).

Even being weak, the effects revealed by this study are not irrelevant for policy-making, because policies tend to influence the behavior of very large numbers of people. For example, if the number of people that could be influenced by policies to curb consumption of refined sugar were 100 million, the number of cases of diabetes that could be prevented would be 200 thousand, notwithstanding the weak effects revealed by this study.

Why are the effects so small?

The effects in this study are based on data aggregated by country. When data is aggregated by population, the level of variation in the data is reduced; sometimes dramatically, a problem that is proportional to the level of aggregation (e.g., the problem is greater for country aggregation than for city aggregation).

Because there can be no association without correlation, and no correlation without variation, coefficients of association tend to be reduced when data aggregation occurs. This is, in my view, the real problem behind what statisticians often refer to, in “statospeech”, as “ecological fallacy”. The effects in aggregated data are weaker than the effects one would get without aggregation.

So, I suspect that the effects in this study, which are fairly weak at the level of aggregation used (the country level), reflect much stronger effects at the individual level of analysis.

Bottom line

Should you avoid getting obese? Should you avoid consuming industrialized products with added sugar? I think so, and I would still have recommended these without this study. There seems to be no problem with natural foods containing sugar, such as fruits.

This study shows evidence that sugar in industrialized foods is associated with diabetes, independently from obesity, but it does not provide evidence that obesity doesn’t matter. It shows that both matter, independently of one another, which is an interesting finding that backs up Dr. Lustig’s calls for policies to specifically curb refined sugar consumption.

Again, what the study refers to as sugar, as availability but implying consumption, seems to refer mostly to industrialized foods where sugar was added to make them more enticing. Fruit consumption was also included in the study, and found to have no significant effect on diabetes prevalence.

Here is a more interesting question. If a group of people have a predisposition toward developing diabetes, due to any reason (genetic, epigenetic, environmental), what would be the probability that they would develop diabetes if they became obese and/or consumed unnatural sugar-added foods?

This type of question can be answered with a moderating effects analysis, but as I noted here before (), moderating effects analyses are not conducted in health research.

Food Reward Friday

This week's lucky "winner"... Yoplait Go-Gurt!

Read more »

Healthy Huevos Rancheros

Hi all!  Jennifer from The Chronicles of Home here, back with another healthy breakfast-for-dinner idea for you (remember that sweet potato hash from a little while back?).  This time it's Healthy Huevos Ranchos.

I actually had plans to make these huevos rancheros for breakfast last weekend on my husband Scott’s birthday.  Anytime we have breakfast out somewhere and huevos rancheros or some kind of breakfast burrito is on the menu, there’s a pretty good chance that’s what he orders.  So I wanted to make him something a little special for his birthday...but, wouldn’t you know, I came down with another bad cold.  And Scott wound up getting up with our daughters on his birthday morning so I could sleep in.  What a guy!

I decided to repurpose the huevos rancheros as dinner a few nights later instead and they were a perfect breakfast-for-dinner meal.  Hearty and filling and delicious!  As we were eating dinner I said, “This is what I’m going to send to Megan for my Honey We’re Healthy post this week.”  And Scott said, “These are healthy???”  Apparently they taste just indulgent enough to be sneaky-healthy!

A few notes on the ingredients.  You can use corn tortillas, which are the classic choice for huevos rancheros.  I used organic whole wheat because my store was out of corn the day I was shopping.  Refried beans can be quite good for you and also really not good for you.  Make sure you read your ingredients.  I used 365 Organic Refried Pinto Beans, which were high in protein and fiber, low in fat (1.5 g per 1/2 cup), and really flavorful.  If you like spice, a good splash of hot sauce on these would be great!

Healthy Huevos Rancheros - serves 6

Ingredients

2 tbsp. grapeseed oil, divided

1 medium yellow onion, diced

1/2 red pepper, diced

1/2 yellow pepper, diced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 large tomatoes, chopped (about 2 cups)

1 tsp. cumin

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. chicken broth

6 whole wheat flour tortillas

cooking spray

6 eggs

15-oz. can refried beans

2 avocados, large-diced

Preheat oven to 350º.

Heat 1 tbsp. oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add onion and saute until translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add red and yellow peppers and garlic and cook 2 minutes more.  Add tomatoes with their seeds and juices, cumin, and salt and cook until tomatoes start to break down, about 5 minutes.  Add chicken broth and increase heat to high to bring to a boil.  Lower heat and simmer uncovered until thickened, about 15 minutes.

Arrange tortillas in a single layer on two baking sheets.  Spray lightly with cooking spray.  Place in the oven until starting to puff, about 5 minutes.  Turn heat off and leave in oven to keep warm.

Heat remaining tbsp. of oil in a large nonstick skillet.  Crack the eggs into the hot oil and fry until whites are set, then flip carefully and remove from the heat.

Put the refried beans in a microwave safe bowl and microwave until warm, about 2 minutes.

Put one tortilla on each of 6 plates.  Spread with beans and top with an egg.  Spoon sauce around the egg and top with avocado.

* * * * * 

Thank you for this post from contributing writer, Jennifer, of The Chronicles of Home.  You'll definitely want to check out her blog for more amazing recipes, beautiful home decor, and easy-to-follw DIY projects!