Excuses are useless. Results are priceless.

Fitness is the topic for today. Oh, how I love this topic! Can talk about it for hours and hours. Thanks to my dedication and determination, I'm getting fitter. The waist line is getting slimmer, my stamina is increasing, I can push myself more and I'm enjoying the feeling the way my body feels these days, though there is a super long way to go.

So, the change is that I've stopped going to the gym and now I work out at home itself.

I do these super short 12 to 15 minutes bodyrock.tv workouts every day. And by my own experience, I can say they are AWESOME and very intense.

You can check out their website here, and let me tell you this is NOT a sponsored post. I am talking about my own views and experience here.

I have been doing these workouts for 8 -10 months now and I love the fact that they are short and can be done at home. You don't have to go to a gym (though you definitely can) and hence all your excuses of not having time and such nonsense can be trashed in to the bin! You can have Results or Excuses. NOT BOTH.

12 minutes everyday - now that's not a big deal people! And need not mention, Slow Progress is better than No Progress. At least give it a try!

We all can do this much at least for our bodies. Leaving for you to decide!

Stay Strong. Stay Fit.

Yours truly

Ritika

Morning Fitness

Have you ever wondered why do you feel more alert and energetic if you exercise in the morning? It is because a morning workout has many positive effects on our body and mind. First, exercise jump-starts our metabolism, and second, helps us keep burning calories at a higher rate all day.

Below are few ways which can help you stay motivated for the morning workout. So ditch the comfort of that bed and train hard to see results.

1. Every Sunday night, create your workout schedule for the coming week. Tell yourself, for example, “This week, I’m getting up at 6 a.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and running three miles before work.” Schedule your morning workout just as you would an appointment. Following your morning workout routine would be easier if you write it down.

2. Keep you exercise clothes and equipment ready the night before. That way you don’t waste any time getting dressed and ready for your workout. One possible disadvantage of exercise in the morning is that your time may be limited — overcome this limitation by having a set routine and not wasting time looking for your shoes or your track pants.

3. Thanks to social media like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you can tell everyone about your morning workout routine. Post your exercise plans on Facebook. Once you do so, it’s harder not to follow through with it. You also can use social media to boast of your accomplishments. They surely will be impressed, and it will motivate you to keep up your workout schedule.

 At first it may be difficult not to turn off the alarm and go back to sleep, rather than jump out of bed to exercise at the gym or go on a 30-minute walk. But after about a week or two, your body will adjust to your early workout schedule and it will be easier to get up and out of the house and head for the gym. Here’s why: When you exercise regularly, you sleep better at night. And when you sleep better at night, you wake up fresh and exercise is easier to do.

If you get up early and meet your exercise goals for the whole week, then treat yourself for the good work. You may get a manicure done, watch a new movie with a friend, or go to a baseball game. Buy a new workout outfit, or go shopping — find what motivates you and use it to give you that push out of bed each morning for your workout routine.

You may want to eat something quick, like a banana or a handful of almonds, to give you a boost of energy before your workout routine. Then after you cool down, have your real breakfast — and make it special as a reward for your efforts. But don’t waste all your exercise efforts by eating a high-fat muffin or fried eggs. If you promise yourself a healthy, satisfying breakfast, such as eggs with veggies or oatmeal with fruit and nuts, when you get back, that will motivate you as well.

Cheers
Ritika

Eggless Chocolate Cake

After reading endless cake recipes, yesterday I finally decided to make one myself. I marched up to the grocery store immediately and bought myself all the baking items required. Needless to say, I was pretty nervous about baking as I never ever baked anything before today! And to my surprise, the cake turned out quite yummy and my hubbs darling loved it (not lying, seriously!!)

I also shared the cake pictures with my friends and was asked about the recipe, then it struck my mind, why not put the recipe as a post itself!

P.S. As I did not have any prior plans of putting the recipe on the blog, I do not have the cake making-in-progress pictures, however, next time for sure I would take more pictures for reference!

This easy chocolate cake has no eggs and also no butter and can be prepared in a few minutes as you do not have to beat the eggs or the butter.

So here goes, the super-duper simple recipe of my eggless chocolate cake -

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups white flour (all-purpose)

1 Tsp baking soda

1 Tsp salt

1 cup powdered sugar

1/3 cup cocoa

Wet Ingredients:

1 Tbsp white vinegar

5 Tbsps canola oil

1 Tsp vanilla

1 cup warm water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, mix all dry ingredients (it is better to sift all the dry items in the bowl, to avoid any lumps later).

2. In a separate bowl, mix all the wet ingredients and stir.

3. Than make a well in the center of the dry ingredients bowl and pour in the all the wet items. Beat well for about three minutes. You may also use a blender here.

4. Coat cake tin with canola oil and then powder it with cocoa powder. Pour batter into tin. Put in oven for 20 mins.

Allow to cool completely before decorating...

Few Tips:

1. If you do not plan to put icing on the cake (like me), you may want to add 1/3 cup of sugar more, otherwise you may feel the cake is less sweet.

2. To test if your cake is done, insert a small toothpick into the center of the cake as far as you can. It should come out clean.

3. Another way to test if a cake is done is to lightly press the cake surface. The depression should spring back if the cake is cooked thoroughly.

4. Use shiny pans. If your pans are dark, the edges of your chocolate cakes will darken and harden as they bake.

5. Select a pan such that the batter is close to 3/4th of it or slightly above 1/2 of it. And the time for baking depends on the cake pan and oven too, mine got baked in exactly 20 mins.

Hot out of the oven

After flipping upside down! (Be careful here)..!

Try it out and let me know how it came up!

Happy Eating!!

Cheers

Ritika