New Beginnings

 

I know this is a week late, but better late than never! I love New Year's. I always wake up New Year's Day refreshed and motivated. I am one of the many who writes down lists of new year resolutions...goals that I wish to accomplish over the next year. Do I accomplish everything on my list? No, I never complete everything on my list. But, I still try.  One of my biggest goals in 2013 was that Cody and I had a number we wanted to see in our savings account and I am proud to say that we reached it. That was definitely the biggest goal we had last year and it feels great to accomplish it. 

This year, as always, I have a new list. It is quite the list but I am determined to complete it. The one thing I am doing differently this year, is that I am going to set markers along the way to make sure I am on track and put a plan in place to help move the goals along. A few of my goals are below:

Health:

No Gluten

Limited Dairy (1-2xper month) unless meal shake or protein

Focus on cheat MEALS not cheat DAYS

The health goals will be tough but I will feel better overall. I feel like crap when I eat dairy and gluten. I don't want to commit myself to 100% because I don't want to set myself up for failure and some occasions may come up where I want to have a little bit, but the key is to keep those moments few and far between. I already eliminated them about 90% of the time so I don't think it should be TOO hard. Cheese is the biggest part of dairy that I will miss so that will likely be my 1x per month

Crossfit:

5-3-1 Wendler Program for Upper Body

Get HSPU and Bar Muscle Up

210# Front Squat

230# Back Squat

125# snatch

160# Clean and Jerk

I am going to commit to 2 strength days a week to accomplish these goals. In June I will reassess and if I am really close or if I have met these goals, I may increase the weight on this.

Personal:

Volunteer 1x per month

Church every weekend we are home/do not have plans during that time

Read 10 Books

More organized with clothes/bathroom

Church is the biggest challenge for me. Our church got rid of Saturday night service and Cody and I have a hard time getting up to go to church on Sundays...we love being lazy on Sundays! I am going to start out with 2 times a month and then hopefully improve. I listen to Joel Osteen's sermons a few times a week to make up for not going but going or listening together will be awesome for us. God is something Cody and I want to focus on more as a couple this year. We were doing really well and then got caught with our busy schedules and noticed ourselves getting more distant from church. Whether it is church or praying together, we are definitely putting more focus on this as a couple this year.  

As far reading goes, I am in the middle of reading 2 different books and am putting together my list for the year. I love reading. It is so relaxing and allows me to shutoff from my busy life.

Well, that is a hefty list and I am excited to see what I can accomplish off it. I think this is going to be a GREAT year for Cody and I and we are kicking it off with a bang by going to Mexico in 1 week for a much needed break from our busy lives!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Zoodles!!

Recipe of the day: Zoodles!!


This is probably one of mine and Cody's FAVORITE healthy meal options. Before I made these, Cody didn't really eat zuccini, but for some reason he LOVES zoodles! This is great for lunch or dinner and is low in calories and carbs, and makes for a GREAT pasta substitute!



For this, you will need 2 tools in addition to your regular pots and pans:
1.Julienne Peeler:


2. Potatoe Peeler


Okay,  this is so incredibly simple.

First, you peel the skin off the zuccini with the potatoe peeler.
Second: Take that julienne peeler and start peeling that zuccini
Third: Heat a pot or pan with a little bit of olive oil or coconut oil and toss the zoodles in. Cook them until they start to get soft (about 10-15 minutes).
Fourth:Throw in meat of your choice and sauce of your choice.
ENJOY!!

You can garnish with cheese if you wish as well. I try to stay away from dairy so I personally don't usually do that (occasionally I will). I normally throw in some low sugar and no salt added marinara sauce (Trader Joes has a great one) and some ground turkey. Sometimes I go no sauce and mix in other veggies..point it-there are SO many variations with this recipe. It is great if you have kids and are trying to get them to eat veggies..they won't even notice a huge difference.

Nutrition in 2 Cups Zuccini Noodles with 4oz ground turkey and 1/2 cup of Trader Joes Marinara Sauce:
Calories: 230
Carbs: 20g
Fat:2g
Protein: 32g

You can add a side salad with this for some extra healthy cals if you wish..sometimes this goes GREAT with a glass of red wine :)

ENJOY!

Beards

I know I said this blog was meant to be for healthy tips and recipes, but it is also for my own sheer enjoyment and today, I want to talk about beards. Beards are interesting. I feel like they have their own lifecycle. They hit that point where they look really good and it is "coming in nicely" and then BAM! You have a beard! There is a point where they are good looking and then there is the dirty overkill (Duck Dynasty anyone?) I mean...what is the point in having a beard that long? Things can get stuck in there! Anyways, in honor of my WONDERFUL husband, below is a lifecycle of beards. I only had a few of Cody so I had to insert some other ones, but you get the idea. :)

Stage 1: "Too lazy to shave" (






     

 Stage 2:"Wait, I think he trying to grow one?!"


    

Stage 3: "Yep, he is definitely trying to grow one"

Stage 4: Yep, that's a beard"

Stage 5...skipping to full on beard here:





  


I personally think Cody looks GREAT with a beard...but a maintained beard :) I wonder how long he is going to go? I dared him to go until we go to Mexico in January...we shall see!

Eat Your Breakfast!

You know what they say- breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I have gone back and forth with fasting through breakfast and eating breakfast, and I have found that what works best for me is to make sure I am eating SOMETHING. When you skip breakfast, you are basically keeping your metabolism in "sleep mode". You want to wake it up as soon as you can so it starts working for you!

BENEFITS OF BREAKFAST

• Increases Metabolism
• Helps to maintain/lose weight
• Enhance your mood
• Stimulate Intelligence
• Enhance your immune system

I find that days when I eat breakfast, I am able to control my hunger more whereas days I skip, I find myself eating way larger portions at night..spacing your calories out throughout the day rather than eating them all right before bed gives your body a chance to burn through them.

Here is my challenge for the week-eat something every morning. I don't care if it is a shake, eggs, meat, oatmeal, whatever...just try it. You should try to make sure to get some protein in there since protein helps keep you full longer and preserves muscle. Below is a super easy go-to breakfast for me with recipe that I eat AT LEAST 3 times a week. The pic isn't the best..I should probably work on taking better food pics :)

Eggwhite Pancake with Almond Butter:

Recipe:
6 eggwhites
pumpkin spice
nutmeg
cinnamon
1 TBL Almond Butter

1. Heat pan (medium heat) and spray with nonstick spray or oil
2. mix eggwhites and spices in a bowl
3. Pour into pan-cook it like a pancake and flip on both sides to cook
4. Once cooked, remove from heat and spread almond butter on it
5. ENJOY

 This breakfast is great when you are wanting something a little more sweet and provides you a good amount of protein and healthy fats keeping you satisfied throughout the morning. The nutrition info for this is below:

Calories: 245
Carbs: 3g
Fat: 9g
Protein:34g

Until next time...stay warm and EAT BREAKFAST!

Calories:

RE-Debut of Blog

A few years ago I created this blog with EVERY intention to keeping it updated with what is going on in my life. The main purpose was so I could share it with my family and friends back home since Cody and I live away from our families. However, life got busy and I stopped updating it.

Over the past few years, I have really been on a health journey. I feel like I have learned a lot about nutrition, been able to experiment with different recipes, and have helped other people find health and happiness while trying to find the same for myself. Recently, I have been getting asked more and more for recipe ideas, workouts, eating plans, etc.. I was talking with my sister about this a few weeks back and she said I should just start a blog. Share my ideas, recipes, thoughts, etc... While the thought of having a successful blog sounded amazing, the thought of finding the time to update it seemed daunting.."just another thing to add to my laundry list of things to do".

However, helping people get healthy has ALWAYS been a passion of mine so I thought I would give it a go. There are so many ideas and thoughts that I think I can share through this blog. Who knows if anyone will read it, but if anything, it can serve as a healthy, fun hobby for me when I am unwinding after a long day.

I am excited to share my first post..so STAY TUNED... :)

Life Is Short

Life is so short-and is often times taken for granted. Why is it that it takes a tragic event sometimes to remind people of this? Today I went to a funeral for someone that I really didn't even know. He was a friend of Cody's family and Cody wanted to go show his respect so we went. I remember hearing about when he was diagnosed. I remember hearing about when he died. I remember during both of those times how I thought about his family and how much pain they must be in. My heart went out to them. I prayed for them and kept them in my thoughts and called and text my family back in TriCities to tell them I loved them. Today, going to the funeral, I was nervous. I didn't know why I was nervous. I mean, I had only met this man a few times. I was more nervous for those awkward moments. You never really know what to say to someone who has gone through something like this; especially when you really don't know them all that well and haven’t gone through it yourself. I wasn't sure what to expect and funerals are never fun. However, what I observed was so beautiful to me and gave me a sense of peace.

One of the speakers at the service quoted Winston Churchill saying "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give" It was apparent to me that this man gave A LOT. Looking around the room, it was a packed house. People were standing outside trying to listen. I looked around the room, standing right outside, and couldn’t help but think about how many lives this man has touched and changed. It made me think about my life. Whose life have I changed for the better? If I were to leave this earth, what would people remember me for? This thought stayed with me for the rest of the day, and has made me do a lot of soul searching. All day today I have been constantly thinking about this thought and my life. I have thought about how selfish I can be and how some of the things I stress over are really nothing worth stressing over. I thought about what makes me happy in life. I thought about the amazing  family and friends I have. How helping people and just making people smile LITERALLY makes my day and how I need to do that more. I thought about how I need to focus on the positive things I have in life and take time to enjoy the small blessings life has to give. I thought about how I need to improve my relationship with God. How I have gotten out of the habit of going to church these past few months because of “being busy” and how I need to make that a priority again. I have been pretty blessed in life…and sometimes I think about how I don’t deserve it. I still have both my parents, most my grandparents, and my siblings. I may not see my family as often as I would like, but when I do see them, it is like things haven’t changed. I have great relationships with my family. We truly treasure every chance we get to see each other. I am surrounded by love. Today, as I watched the family, I wondered how they did it. How are they so graceful and together right now? They handled themselves with SUCH grace and through their sad eyes, asked how everyone else was doing as they were greeted. I don’t know what I would do if I were to lose a member of my family. I am scared for the day it happens because I know it will eventually happen.That day when you can't just call and talk for a few, can't go visit..I pray that doesn't happen for A LONG time.

Waking up today, I didn’t expect it to be hard. I expected it to be a little uncomfortable at the funeral, but I didn’t expect it to be hard. However, I can’t stop thinking about that family and how I would be if that happened to me. I take so much for granted. Some of the things I stress most about are really silly. I am healthy, I have a great family, I have great friends, and I have the most amazing husband. I have Love. I am surrounded by Love. That is all you need. Some of the things I stress most about seem so selfish to me now. I want to be unselfish. I want to put others first. Even though I don’t think I deserve it, I am so thankful that God has blessed me and given me so much love in my life.
Today, I was reminded of all my blessings and I thank God for allowing me to be humbled by them. As I left the funeral today, I text my mom, dad, brother, and sister to tell them I love them. Don’t wait until tomorrow to tell someone you love them. Tell them today. Life is too short not too.

Advocare=AdvoFUN

WOW! It has been soooo long since I have updated this thing! Here I was thinking that I would be keeping up with this blog and then life just sort of happened and we got really busy. Cody and I are constantly going; we are always off doing some sort of outdoor activity or visiting family or working. We hardly ever have days where we just sit around and do nothing. I am not sure how often I will update this as I feel we are even busier than before, but I wanted to share a little about Advocare.

Advocare is a nutritional program that fell into my lap from a gal at my gym. I have heard about it before and have always been skeptical. I have been mostly paleo for quite some time and thought that was good enough for me. However, the fall brought a sort of hiatus with my diet and exercise routine because I was so busy and then the holidays came. By the time January 1 rolled around, I was ready to get back at it. Cody and I decided to kick the new year off with a Paleo Challenge. Last year when we did this challenge we saw some pretty good results and were able to maintain it (until fall when we just got crazy busy with work). Well, we went 30 days strict paleo following the Whole 30 guidelines. We saw some change, but not as much as we did before. I was sort of sad about not seeing the results I wanted so I decided to take on Advocare. Advocare, in my eyes, is pretty paleo. There are a few things I eat on this plan that aren't such as Spark, and the protein powder, but other than that, I only eat paleo foods on this plan. You can learn a little more about Advocare here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLHK1In_ebY&feature=player_embedded

February 7th I kicked off my 24 Day Challenge. I decided to take the plunge not knowing what I was getting into, but was ready for something different. The challenge was hard, as there is lots of prep worked involved in ensuring success, but I stayed 100% and in 24 days I had lost 5lbs and 15 inches! 5lbs isn't a lot but 15 inches!! That was INSANE! I was so happy with my results. On top of that, I had more energy in my crossfit workouts, more energy throughout the day, was sleeping better, had clearer skin, and just felt better overall. With these results, I decided I wanted to continue using Advocare's products and start selling it on the side. The goal for this was to sell enough to where I could get my products paid for....so if you are interested, let me know :P

Also with my results, Cody decided he was interested. Now, a little side note-he ate close to the eating plan without all the supplements when I was doing the challenge and had lost a little weight when I was doing it. He started his ACTUAL 24 Day Challenge on March 12th. His last day was yesterday and he got AMAZING results! He ended up losing 10lbs and 11 inches!! He looks and feels incredible! I am not going to lie, I was jealous taking his final measurements this morning because it just isn't fair to me the results guys get, but I am so stinkin proud of him! We are both going to continue eating this way with a few days built in for "cheat meals". We have both learned a lot about what our bodies truly need during this challenge and we can definitely say that Advocare was a "lifestyle change" for us (as cliche as that sounds).

You can find pictures of Cody's results at the link below!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17xKs_2WthpagzT1pF5J-rthPviU8uo3dQMB-LKQndlM/edit