Wednesday, May 29, 2013

30 day results!

I have finished 30 days of Insanity and Shakeology! 
I would have normally quit in the first week but because of the challenge group I am in I have stuck to it. Having others hold me accountable is what has gotten me through this first month! I can't wait until month 2! 
I have lost my measurements from the beginning, but I took them again at day 15. So from day 15 to this morning, I have lost a total of
11 inches!
and since day 1 of Insanity, I have lost 3 pounds! I am excited for this next month and to see more amazing results! 
We have new challenge groups starting each month so let me know if you might be interested.


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Kid Friendly

One of my favorite things about Shakeology is the fact that my kids can drink it. A few days ago I was talking to a friend about the shake that she drinks so I was curious about it and looked it up. One of the very first things that stuck out to me was one tiny little sentence that said...  For ages 12 and older. What does that mean? Why is it safe for you but not for children under 12? Why would you put something in your body that you wouldn't be able to give to you kids?
I don't know about your kids, but I have a hard time getting mine to eat fruit and veggies. Since we have changed our lifestyle they will eat them more, but not enough. So I love that I can give them Shakeology and know that they are getting all the nutrients. They love it and I love knowing that it is safe for them to drink, healthy, and that it is 100% natural.




Monday, May 20, 2013

No Bake Energy Bites

I don't know what it is about Sundays, but for some reason being home all day with family makes me want to bake some yummy treats!
 For so long I have just avoided making anything because I don't know how to make anything sweet and yummy without making anything fattening! 
Luckily my coach posted these delicious No Bake Energy Bites. 
When I first saw the list of ingredients I was a little intimidated because I have never used wheat germ, ground flax seed and chia seeds before, I didn't even know where to buy them! My coach told me that she goes to Winco in their bulk food section. I found everything I needed there plus some! It's my new favorite place. If you don't have a Winco by you then try a whole foods store, or I even saw some of the ingredients at Walmart. 
I also found some agave at Winco while I was there, so I used that instead of the honey. These were so easy and yummy! My whole family loved them! Perfect little treat or snack! Give them a try!







No Bake Energy Bites
There are so many variations of this type of no bake cookie. Just throw whatever nuts/seeds/dried fruit that you have and experiment. 

1 cup old fashioned oats
2/3 cup toasted coconut flakes
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (optional)
1/3 cup honey
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix everything together really well in a large bowl and let chill in the fridge for half an hour. Once chilled roll into balls. I used a tablespoon to measure them then had to squeeze them pretty well to make it all stick together. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Workout clothes!


No judging! :) This is straight out of bed with no makeup and major farmers tan! 
I wanted to share with you my workout gear. 
I love this tank top from Old Navy. It's a must for me and is loose and breathable! 
I normally wear some running shorts, I got a few pairs from Old Navy and target for cheap. 


I workout at home, so for a while I did it without shoes. I noticed my knees hurting after my workouts so I have started wearing them again. I got these Nike runners from Kohl's a few months ago.



That's it, that is all I need. One thing I love about Insanity is that you don't need any special equipment, it is all about using your body! 


Tuesday, May 14, 2013

12 weeks




I love this and I can't wait to see the changes! All of my hard work will pay off! This has been one of the hardest things I have decided to do but yet it is so rewarding. I never thought in a million years that I would be able to do Insanity. I can. So can anybody else that wants the change. If you want it bad enough you will fight for it!
Shakeology has given me the energy I need to get through these workouts and not want to take a 3 hour nap afterwards. I love that I get so many healthy ingredients each day in one little shake. It tastes so good that I crave it! I love this program. It works. It has changed my life. I can't wait to say that I have finished the Insanity workout program and you better believe that I wont stop after I am done. This is just the beginning!







Monday, May 13, 2013

Oldie but Goodie!


This is an oldie but goodie! I love my kitchen and the changes that we made! At the end of this long post I have current updated pictures of my kitchen today. Lucky for you, I cleaned before taking them :)


           
                                                                                                                                   

                                    .....................................................................
                                                                 May 2012

Here is the long awaited kitchen cabinet makeover!
I am so excited to share because I love, love, love, how they turned out!

These are pictures of our kitchen before we even moved in and painted. I fell in love with the house because of the kitchen. I love my huge island, the room to move around, and the openness into to the living room. I just wasn't a fan of all the dark colors. The floors were the same color of the cabinets, there was no contrast. So before we even moved in my plan was to paint these cabinets.



  We first started by labeling all the doors and drawers with numbers then removed them. Then we taped all around the inside (the kit doesn't give enough paint for the inside, I wouldn't want to do that anyways, too much work!) and outside of the cabinets. We covered the floors and counters with plastic.


I had a big package of Red cups from Costco which came in handy for the whole project. We put the hardware in cups and labeled which door they belonged to. I didn't want any screws, hinges, and knobs to be lost. This was a great way to keep track of them all. 


We bought Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformations. The kit is supposed to be a quick easy project. No sanding or stripping, just deglossing. The deglossing took forever! I read all over the Internet that if you don't degloss very well then the paint won't stick and can chip. So we deglossed till our arms fell off. After delossing all the drawers and doors We were still a little worried about just using the deglosser so we created an extra step for ourselves and decided to use a high grit sandpaper and sand everything. (The lower the grit the rougher the sandpaper is. The higher the grit, the smoother the sandpaper.) I am sure it would have been fine without sanding, it was just about a peace of mind for me!


The red cups came in handy when it was time for painting and drying. On the instructional video they suggested using a 2x4 with screws that are screwed in just enough so it can hold the doors. On one blog I read, she said that the screws just left marks, plus, that seams like a lot of screws and 2x4's. The cups were much easier and left no damage.


Once all the dust was cleaned off, the real fun began! Painting! It was fun for about 5 doors until we realized that this was going to takeforever. The doors are supposed to take 2 coats of paint and one coat of the finish. The kit also comes with a glaze to give it a more wood look, but I like the Linen color by itself so we skipped the glazing step.


 I found this cabinet door at DI for Kambree to paint. I knew there was no way that she wasn't going to help. She loved helping and she did a pretty good job!



There are 2 sizes to the Rust-Oleum kit that we bought. We measured the kitchen and figured that we only needed to by the small kit. We even ended up with extra paint. The problem was from going from extreme dark to extreme light the 2 coats didn't cover all the way. It needed 3 coats of paint. UGH! We had enough extra to paint the cupboards, but not enough for the drawers and doors. So we had to go buy another kit. So, if you are going to paint your kitchen cabinets from dark to light and your not going to use the glaze, then you should probably make sure that you are going to have enough paint for 3 coats.

This whole thing was a lot of work but totally worth it. With Brian working and 2 sick kids, it took us about 9 days from start to finish. A lot of the blogs or tutorials I read say that this is a quick weekendproject. We did give ourselves extra steps as far as sanding and the extra coat of paint. I still don't think that if we skipped those extra steps we could have finished in a weekend.

Anyways, it is done! I am so excited! I love how they look! Totally worth all the hard work!
What do you think?

{before}


{after}

Friday, May 10, 2013

Food is Fuel!




It has been about 3 1/2 weeks since I started Insanity and although I am much stronger, have better and longer endurance, more energy, and better recovery time, I still have been frustrated with my weight. The pounds aren't coming off like I thought they would. I have been doing everything right by eating healthy, drinking lots of water, and working out every morning except on Sundays. 

So whats the problem?  
I was talking to my friend Brinlee yesterday about this and after doing the process of elimination we have figured out that I am not eating enough calories. I have been counting my calories and making sure that I don't go over 1200. Doing the workouts that I am doing I should be eating 1600-1800 calories because I am burning off so much.. I thought that if I stick to my 1200 and do the workout then this fat would just fall right off. I was so wrong. 
My body is in starvation mode and holding on to everything I eat. So here I am taking 1 step forward and 3 steps back. I am now re-focusing on my eating. This doesn't mean that I am going to load up on a bunch of empty calories, I am going to eat more of the healthy foods that I am already eating.
I am using an app on my phone to help with this called My Fitness Pal app. It keeps track of my calories burned, calories in, and calories out. The best part is you can scan the bar code of of most of your food and it will log it right in for you! Check it out!
Moral of the story is you wouldn't starve your car of fuel and expect it to run efficiently. Just like our bodies, we need the right amount of good fuel. Successful weight loss is not about starving yourself. It is all about fueling your body with the healthy and low calorie food it needs to help you lose weight!

food is fuel!


Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Insanity Fit Test

Today was day 15 of Insanity and we did the same fit test that we did on day one. I was dreading this day because I thought that I would do worse than my first fit test. I was so wrong! Here are my stats.

                                         Day 1               Day 15

Switch Kicks                        58                   116
Power Jacks                         28                    38
Power Knees                       60                     75 
Power Jumps                       20                     32
Globe Jumps                        5                       9
Suicide Jumps                      8                      12
Push-Up Jacks                      0                       4
Low Plank Obliques              20                     44


I was so excited about my results. It amazes me how much stronger I am. I also didn't even come close to puking like I almost did during the first fit test. My endurance is much better and I can last longer. I love Insanity. The feeling I get when I finish a workout is amazing! I love pushing myself and I can't wait to see the results. 


Friday, May 3, 2013

Music

My sister LOVES music. That is an understatement. I just downloaded some music from iTunes that she played during our drive up to Utah. One is Kid Cudi's album Man on the Moon and the other is Lana Del Rey's Born to Die. Good music. Two totally different artists, but I like just about anything when it comes to music! I like to get the edited versions. Check them out :)


Thursday, May 2, 2013

Miss Nicole

Out with the old and in with the new!



Every morning at 7 am my best friend walks over to my house to do Insanity with me. I am not sure how I talked her into it but I am so glad that she is making this change with me! 
Today I was talking about how my scale is a piece of crap and how it tells me my weight then 30 seconds later it says I have gained or lost 2 lbs. 
A little after our workout this morning she came over and brought me a new scale!
How lucky am I! 
She is so awesome and I am so glad that she is doing this with me because honestly if she wasn't at my house every morning then I would be sleeping in till 8 rather than waking up at 6:45! 
Thanks Miss Nicole! (that is what my kids call her!) 
You made my day!

Also, she is blogging too! Read about her journey here!

October post...

Okay so I am looking back as far as I can in my phone at pictures. I was looking for crafts that I have finished so I could post about them here, but I am the Queen of starting projects and not finishing them! So I will post about Birthday Parties! I love to go all out on the kids birthday parties. I would do it for a living if I could. This is all about Kaden's 2nd Birthday and I am already thinking about what I am going to do for the next one. Anyways, Kaden loved Toy Story, and at the time especially loved Woody. (He goes back and forth between Woody and Buzz). So we did a little cowboy party. 


I got the idea for the banner from Etsy. She was charging more than I wanted to pay for it so I decided to make my own. It is made out of cardboard. I printed the letters from my computer and traced them onto the cardboard. Cutting the letters out was the biggest pain, I used scissors and an x-acto knife. If you are thinking about doing one out of cardboard just be careful, it would be easy to cut yourself. After everything was cu,t I painted them, distressed the sides with sandpaper, and used a little bit of brown glaze on the edges to make it look more aged and cowboy like. I love the way it turned out!




I made his cakes myself and they were super easy. I usually make my own fondant but this time I used pre packaged fondant from Walmart for the rope and cow spots. The sprinkle cake was so easy, I just cut out #2 out of paper for my stencil and put sprinkles all over the top. 



For the table and island I used a roll of brown packing paper from the Dollar Store, then I placed bandannas from Hobby Lobby on top of the paper. I also used some raffia and some hay bundles to decorate the tops. The napkins I found at the $ store and used twine to tie the rolled silverware. I did a western BBQ for food. We had corn bread, rolls, honey butter, chips, corn, fruit, mac-n-cheese, baked beans and ribs. We drank fruit punch and root beer out of mason jars. I found the cow balloons at Hobby Lobby and took the package to Party City to have them blow the balloons up. 












It was such a fun day. Even though it is a lot of work and stressful, I love to plan parties!