Gone Bananas for Barre

I took my first barre class on Saturday, and yup, it's worth the hype. I wasn't really sure what to expect, and I was a little apprehensive about going because,well, I have bad memories of taking ballet and tap when I was four. In my one recital, we hopped along in white tutus and bunny ears. I spent the entire five minutes on stage fighting with my bunny ears, which kept falling off. So, dance was never really my thing.

But barre class isn't anything like dance class. Health.com's Rozalynn Frazier summarizes it well: "You’ll do a lot of reps of small, pulsing movements (we’re talking lifting and lowering limbs a mere inch or two), targeting the muscles in your core and lower body (many classes also hit your top half), with big emphasis on form and alignment. They sometimes throw in a bevy of other props, too, like yoga straps, exercise balls and hand weights."

via Self

We're talking serious burn but fun (in the sense of satisfaction from working out hard...that kind of fun). The only workout that I've ever done that results in pain compared to barre is the P90x plyometrics (knicknamed "the beast"). That was much, much worse. And not fun.

Run, squat, jump, 180 turn.

After barre, I stayed for hot yoga. Needless to say, I was wiped out and hungry like a bear afterward. So, I spent the afternoon resting/nesting, making mini banana bran-flax muffins and butternut squash soup.

As you can tell from the photo, which is exceptionally bad, I didn't have a mini-muffin pan, and the mini-muffin liners just don't fit in the regular muffin tins. They taste a lot better than they look! And I've convinced myself that they're healthy, despite the stick of butter and cup of sugar.

Banana Bran- Flaxseed Mini Muffins

2 eggs

3 bananas

1 cup flour

1/4 c bran

1/4 c flaxseed flour

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c sugar

1 tsp milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1 stick of butter

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix the butter, brown sugar and white sugar together until creamy.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, bran, flax, baking powder, cinnamon.

In another small bowl, mix the eggs and milk, and mush the bananas. 

Add the dry ingredients to the sugar and butter mixture.

Then, add the eggs, milk and bananas.

Bake for 25 minutes.