Healthy for Life

I’m about to leave for the day! I’ve really been enjoying my work schedule because I’m always working with two of my good friends! What could be better than hanging out with people you like and getting paid at the same time?!

Today I’ve given myself 1.5 hours of time at the gym. My goal is to do about 50-60 minutes of cardio consisting of Arc Trainer, Running, and Elliptical. I’ll probably do 20min of each. THEN I have go get myself to do some weights. I’m usually pretty tired by the end of my cardio and find it really hard to push myself with weights!

My focus will be on ABS and upper body today because I’ve been feeling a little weak and flabby lately.

OK have a happy workout everyone!!! (unless you’re already done, in that case good job!!!)

I have been eating oatmeal EVERY day for breakfast lately! Nothing else sounds good to me! It’s so warm and gooey and I put my mom’s home-made granola on it, mmmmm!!

Oatmeal also played a role in a diet plan that I am going to start following again. Last year right around this time, I gave my diet a major make-over and lost about 7lbs. Part of the “diet” (it was really just a shift towards healthy-eating at every meal) was to eat oatmeal and an apple for breakfast every day, so that’s what i’ll be doing for a while now!

Since the changes that I made last spring worked really well, I’m gonna just repeat the process! For me, I have to have a lot of structure to my meals every day in order to not convince myself that I worked out enough to sneak a bite of chocolate after lunch…and dinner… If I eat mainly the same things every day, I can tell if I’m eating more or less on a given day!!

Hope everyone’s Wednesday is going well!!

Today’s workout started with 25 mins on the elliptical, attempting to keep my heart rate in the “fat burn” zone so that I could shrink my buns a little bit. I watched Million Dollar Listing, one of my favorite gym shows. Do you have any “gym shows”, shows you would ONLY watch at the gym and no other time? My favorites are The Doctors, any Judge shows, Dr. Phil, and Salon Makeover. I would never watch any of these shows at home but they are somehow very entertaining while working out!

I also cranked out 25 mins on the Arc Trainer which was tougher than usual due to the very loud, sweaty, smelly treadmill user to my right. He was stomping his feet on the treadmill and chugging water from a bottle that he then practically threw back into the bottle holder after he was done drinking. Very distracting! Good thing I had some fancy 6+million dollar houses keeping me entertained!!

Hope everyone had a good workout today!! and if not, just remember: going to the gym is better than doing nothing, even if you don’t feel like your workout was stellar.

Positive thoughts everyone!

this makes me believe that there is such a thing as land without snow!!

Yesterday we had SUCH a big snow storm hit VT. I ended up going to work b/c my dad was able to drop me off on his way to work. That meant that I had to work until he could come back to get me so I ended up doing an 10.5hr day. It was exhausting!!

The store was d.e.a.d. hardly any customers until around 5 or 6 when people were finally able to get out of their houses!

Unfortunately, the snow meant that I couldn’t get to the gym since I was relying on my dad for a ride…I tell ya, this winter has been so hard as far as not getting to the gym!! I really have had to adjust my goals a lot because they were no longer realistic once I realized that I couldn’t go to the gym 5days a week…

Obviously, I’m a little upset that one of my goals for the week is already un-attainable (going to the gym mon-fri) but it’s ok, I’ll just make tues-fri really quality days at the gym and I’ll feel great by the end of the week!!

I hope everyone’s having a good tuesday so far!!

TURBO WEEK!

What’s that, you might ask? WELL, my man is gone for a whole week and whenever he goes away for break, I like to make it my goal to look really good when he comes back! Although it’s only a week, I can think of a few things to do that will produce some noticeable changes :)

1.) No Processed Sugars - The only sugars that I will consume all week are honey and maple syrup (I put both in my coffee rather than granulated sugar) I mentioned sugar in my healthy tips post from a few days ago. Cutting it out, even if for just a few days, can really make your body feel slimmer and less “bloaty”

2.) Pack all Lunches for Work - This way, I won’t be tempted to buy whatever I feel like eating at work. I work at a health-food store and, if I buy my lunch at work, not only am I wasting money, but I usually want to end every meal with chocolate-covered pretzels. If I bring all of my food to work, and make my meals very appealing, there will be less temptation to sneak some pretzels in :)

3.) Drink 32oz water in the am and CONTINUE to drink throughout the day (i often assume that my water quota has been filled after my morning drink and then forget to drink any water during the day, which leads to me not feeling so hot)

4.) Get in a SOLID cardio work-out every day this week!! (Mon-Fri) and really work on eating whole foods.

5.) Remember to take my multivitamin every day! I take this kind of multi and I really love it. It even contains greens! WOO!

Let the TURBO CHANGES of TURBO WEEK Begin!!!

Forgot to do a Friday Favorites post this week!

SO here’s some stuff I’ve been into for the past week:

1.) The first favorite is Random Got Beautiful. Click on the “about” link and this is the description you’ll find: Nikki Farquharson created Random Got Beautiful in March 2007.It is open for public participation. The concept is to take photos containing dominant colours out of their original context and place them together to create a new one.

I just really like this idea and think it would be fun to send in a few pictures! I’ve been looking for ways to get more creative with photography.Right now, my favs are green, orange, and pink…but that changes every time I look at a new color!!

2.) This favorite is one that I found a while ago and forgot about until this week! Skin Deep Cosmetics is a website where you can type in the brand of beauty product that you’re curious about and find out how safe it is for your body! It’s a really

3.) A new blog that I’ve been reading and really enjoying is Cotter Crunch written by a couple who are both very active and very cool. They share some great workout ideas as well as tasty recipes. They’re all around just really inspiring people :)

OK well I hope everyone’s having a good weekend so far!!

Better late than never!! These are some photos of a fancy dinner that my sister and I made this week. The noodles are mixed with ribbons of zucchini and yellow squash, yummm!! and the tart is puff pastry with sauteed onions and mushrooms and topped with goat cheese.

We got the recipes from a cook book that my sister has. All of the recipes in the book require 4 or fewer ingredients so they’re fool-proof! (which is good for us because we tend to be scattered when we’re cooking. haha)

The pasta was so light and delicious and the tart tasted like it was much more difficult to make than it was. My parents loved it too, which was a bonus :) !

I’m about to head out to celebrate Mardi Gras with some friends this afternoon! They said they’ve already started making mimosas…mmmmmmmm! They’re a fun group of people to hang out with b/c they always like to celebrate with good food and tasty drinks. Hopefully they don’t have too many chip/dip/snacky foods at their apt b/c my stomach feels like a bottomless PIT today and i’ll find it hard to say no to snack foods. But I can do it, I’ll just think about how good it felt to run today and let that be my motivation to stick to healthy snacking options :)

aaand Mia is passed out on the couch next to me! I think our run tired her out for the day!

have a happy saturday everyone!!