Oatmeal Toppings: The Balanced Edition

This post is part of a weekly series, Oatmeal Toppings, featuring a few of the best healthy living posts on OatmealinmyBowl.com.

Here are some of the best articles that have been found on Pinterest, read on Facebook, been retweeted on @OatmealBowl and @CaitPlusAte, and read in RSS subscriptions this week.

Fit Food & Indulgences, With a Side of Healthy Advice

• Mardi Gras King Cake – If you’re looking to celebrate Mardi Gras this Tuesday and keep the calories light, check out Julie’s recipe for King Cake. She makes it with regular milk and cream cheese, but gives handy suggestions for substitutes that can be used to make a lighter version, which makes this a great post for all kinds of readers! She also tell us the history of Mardi Gras and King Cake.
• Elliptical Workouts While Pregnant (Or Not) – Katie stopped running about 25 weeks into her pregnancy, and has found the elliptical to be a good alternative. She compiled four great workouts into one post to fight that cardio-machine-boredom, and also includes how many weeks pregnant she was at the time of the workout, calories burned, and miles covered.
• Socca Mexican Pizza – Chelsey used chickpea flour to make an awesome socca crust for her vegetarian Mexican pizza.  Refried beans and avocado supply the protein and healthy fats to make this a dinner winner!
• Cheesy Spinach Sauce – The ingredients Kelly used in this cheese sauce are certainly not what you’d expect. Yes, there’s cheese, but also PUMPKIN and, as you can guess from the title, spinach! Those two ingredients add an excellent dose of nutrients to the sauce and it comes out a fun green color.
• 7 Healthy Habits for Work – I’ve called out healthy work lunch links here before, but Clare’s list goes beyond just packing a healthy lunch and also takes activity and hydration into consideration.
• Layered Lunch – Jillian came up with an AMAZING lunch sandwich combo – refried beans layered on toast with runny egg. The photos in this post are drool-worthy and my bean-and-egg craving is now on fire. Did I mention there’s pepperjack cheese involved too?!
• Run. Eat. Don’t Repeat. – Charlotte’s answer to a reader’s question about issues with exercising simply to eat is filled with helpful tips that anyone can probably use. Her thought-provoking advice is very interesting and I’m sure that everyone can or knows someone who can relate to the feelings she writes about.
• A Love for Pizza (Cauliflower Crust) – What an AWESOME idea from Stefanie! She’s got a unique recipe for making pizza crust using egg whites, grated cauliflower, nutritional yeast, flax meal, and more. How cool is that? Have your pizza and eat it too!
• Cake for Breakfast – The title says it all, right? Jana practically had me drooling all over my keyboard on Valentine’s Day with these red velvet waffles.
• Greek Pizza Bites – Claire blew me away with this recipe for pizza bites, and I also got some nostalgia for Bagel Bites, those good old processed frozen mini pizzas. These look a thousand times better and healthier though!
• Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies (picture) – by Breakfast to Bed

STUFT Mama’s Flatout Parmesan Crisps

If you have trouble viewing: http://youtu.be/IAYC5nV1YYY

Kristin aka STUFT Mama and her two adorable kiddos – oh, and her hairless cat! – show us how to make some tasty looking parmesan flatbread crisps. These are hearty and nutritious, Kristin’s rocking some awesome arms, her kids are too cute, and the cat is so…hairless! This video has it all, and her little boys are excellent helpers. Even if you don’t plan on making these, the vid is worth a viewing just to check out these mini chefs (and their hot mama of course)!