My workouts have been quite unstructured lately. Tessa recently posted about taking a week off from some serious workouts. I sort of hopped on the bandwagon as well. Once Kyle returned home, workouts definitely hit the back burner. On our trip to Boston, we decided to skip workouts and spend the day walking around and eating.

After 4 days of horrendous eating – desserts, bags of sugar coated nuts, a half a pizza, burgers, fries, more junk food, and little to no “workouts” – I assumed the worst: I would come back a blimp who lost endurance and muscle strength.

In reality: I didn’t gain weight, I came back into my workouts feeling better than ever, and felt rejuvenated!

I know the benefits of rest days but to take a few multiple rest days in a row helped my body to recover overall.

Rest days allow the body to

• replenish energy stores and repair damaged tissues
• It prevents a person from overtraining and leading into a possible worse injury – sidelining them from their goals even longer
• Little detraining only happens after you take off more than 2 weeks
• Prevents mental burnout

Runners world has a great article about it here!

So on my recent rest day I decided to do what I love most and bake!

Protein-packed pumpkin smores’

Ingredients: Protein bar recipe (cut the bread in half length wise), protein pudding, Jet-Puff

Protein Pudding:

• 1 scoop chocolate-peanut butter ON casein (I’m sure whey would work as well but may need to vary liquids)
• 1/2 cup almond breeze (liquid varies depending on preference of thickness)
• 1 TBSP PB2 (optional)

Mix the ingredients together. I occasionally add 1/2 TBSP flax to thicken it up as well if I add too much liquid. Kyle LOVES this stuff. I make it in bulk for him. He spreads it on everything from ice cream, protein bars, or just eats as pudding.

We put it in the fridge to firm up a tad. It’s an awesome protein filled dessert.

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What are some of your favorite night time snacks?

Favorite protein powder?