Those of you who know me, know that I have a love for Star Wars. You may also know that I have become pretty passionate about organic food and purchasing foods that are labeled Non-GMO.
If you don’t know what a GMO is, please feel free to check out the blog I did on them by clicking HERE.
While searching the web tonight I stumbled upon this video. I thought it was funny, so I decided to share. Hopefully my fellow Star Wars and healthy living fans will enjoy it too.
Filed under Health & Fitness
As I confessed last week, I fell off of the fitness wagon. An injury followed by getting sick started a chain of events that lead to almost 3 weeks of no exercise.
Thankfully, today I was feeling better and did X-Stretch from P90X, which my body truly needed.
While running some errands today and feeling like a loser for not working out in so long, I realized that these things happen and sometimes they happen because they need to happen.
During my “workout vacation” I was able to truly focus on my nutrition which is something I have always struggled with. The cleanse that I started back on the February 1st has done wonders for me. I have been pretty disciplined with it so far (as you know I already confessed to 2 cheats and I should add a third, but why go there right now) , I’ve tried new foods and I have renewed my love for cooking. These are all things that needed to happen but I didn’t always have time for while cramming workout sessions in on a daily basis.
In a lot of ways I think my body needed this break from the workouts. I have put my body through hell for a year and a half with rarely more than 2 days off at a time. When I would take those 2 days off, I usually ended up pulling doubles the next day, which is quite a lot for the body to handle.
Am I upset that I didn’t complete round 3 of P90X? A little. However I’ve done the program before and I know that I could just restart Phase 2 if I really wanted to, but I don’t think I will. I think it’s time to try something new. Plus my schedule has been pretty crazy and I don’t have that hour to truly commit to my workouts everyday.
For the next 30 days I will be trying Jillian Michaels “30 Day Shred”. I know a few people who have tried it and really enjoyed it. Will I complete the 30 days? I don’t know. I have to test it out and see if I enjoy it.
Some of you may think I am all over the place since completing Insanity, and you are probably right. I started the hybrid and dropped it after 30 days for P90X. Then I did 30 days of P90X before having to stop and here I am talking about the 30 Day Shred now. Maybe since it’s only 30 Days, it’s just what I need. Who knows. The important thing is that I keep fueling my body with healthy foods and that I keep moving. This is a way of life for me now and I sometimes just have to follow the detours and hope that I end up back on course.
Filed under Health & Fitness
Forgive me #insanecrew for I have sinned….
It has been two weeks since my last workout and I have no valid excuse for this.
Seriously…two weeks!
I have no idea why I fell off the wagon, it just happened. The last thing I remember was doing Chest, Shoulders and Triceps, then MAJOR chest pain set in and I decided to take a few days off to heal. Those few days turned into a week…that week turned into two weeks. Finally, I broke the two week workout drought yesterday with some Turbo Jam. (hangs head in shame)
On the bright side, I really focused on my nutrition since I am doing the cleanse and I feel great. Nutrition is something I have always struggled with and I have put more focus on it these days. Wait…I cheated twice. I had some meat as well as some gluten over the weekend. (if I’m in the confessional, I might as well get it all out, right?)
I am not sure if I will restart Phase 2 of P90X or just do my own thing for a while. This is the first long break I’ve taken since I started my health & fitness journey back in May 2009…it’s uncharted waters for me and it goes to show you that even the most disciplined person can “fall off the wagon” from time to time. The important part is that you climb back on and get back on the road to success.
Right now I just need to focus on getting back into my daily workouts and keeping my nutrition on track like I have been. I’m sure once I do, everything else will fall into place.
Please be gentle with my penance as I’m a first time major slacker offender.
Filed under Health & Fitness
Many months ago when I started this journey and decided to once and for all take control of my weight…and my life…I didn’t quite realize just how much weight I needed to lose. I never sat down and said “I want to lose ___ amount of pounds.” I didn’t weigh myself constantly hoping to drop weight quick or look for any quick fix “magic pills” like I did in the past. I just decided to make healthier choices with my diet and become more active.
As the weeks went by, I saw results, felt better and made more changes. I fell in love with exercise and realized I could cope with thoughts and feelings without a bag of cookies or pint of ice cream. I realized that I was a strong person who was capable of more than I could have ever imagined. I was proud of ME. I was driven and no one was going to stop me from reaching my dream of finally being in shape.
Fast forward to when I completed INSANITY…I stepped on the scale and realized I was very close to a monumental weight loss number. It had never really dawned on me before that I had lost THAT much weight but I also never realized I needed to lose THAT much weight.
I thought I had reached my all time high weight while pregnant with my daughter (240+ lbs – only around 10lbs gained while pregnant) but to my horror and surprise I found photos from before and I looked much heavier. (I was never a fan of the scale and have always struggled with my weight so just how much I have lost will remain a mystery)
Well, the other day I weighed myself and I reached that major milestone. I’ve lost 101 pounds since that all time high weight! (Probably more since realizing that wasn’t my all time high…eek)
It has not all been done on this journey (I had lost 20lbs over a few years before fully committing). It has not been because of a diet program or with any “magic pills” (although P90X, ChaLEAN Extreme and Insanity have all played a large roll). I has been done over the course of years in a gradual way until I made that decision to take control. I reached this milestone with hard work, sweat and plenty of tears. It may have taken me years to do, but it has been done and that feeling is priceless.
While sitting and looking at old photos of myself I cried. They were tears of joy that I was no longer trapped in that body, unhappy and unwilling to make the changes I needed to make. They were also tears of sadness, because I wasted so many years of my life being miserable and unhappy when I had the power to change myself long ago.
Overall, it was a surreal moment. I didn’t jump up and down and shout it from the roof tops. (Heck, it took me three days to decide to even blog about it). I felt a range of emotions, but mostly…….I felt empowered.
**A special thanks to everyone who has believed in me and helped me along the way. XOXO
Filed under Health & Fitness
Today I noticed I had a bunch of bananas that were getting way to ripe for my liking. Usually one or two of those end up lingering around and they get tossed into a protein shake and all is well. However this time I had about 6 of them so I needed to come up with a better solution.
I ended up doing a web search for gluten-free banana recipes (as many of you may recall, I am doing the cleanse from Tony Horton’s book Bring It!, in which gluten is one of the things you wean yourself off of during the 3o day period) and I was happy to come across this recipe on a website called “Book of Yum“.
As usual, I tweaked the recipe just a little bit by using apple sauce instead of oil. I also didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to make this, so I used 3/4 cups of sugar, 1/4 cup light brown sugar and 1 tbsp of vanilla extract instead.
The bread was very simple to make, made the whole house smell wonderful during the cooking process and was wonderfully moist and flavorful.
As a matter of fact, my kids even liked this bread! That is a huge thumbs up as they can both be quite picky!
Gluten-Free Banana Bread
(recipe courtesy of Book of Yum – this is also a dairy-free recipe)
Ingredients:
2 cups white rice flour or your favorite simple gluten-free flour blend
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups mashed, ripe bananas (about 5)
1 cup vanilla infused sugar (leave vanilla bean in sugar overnight and then remove bean)
1/2 cup canola oil
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray medium bread pan with nonstick cooking spray. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and then make a well in the center. Add eggs, banana, sugar, and oil to the center and combine them before folding into the rest of the dry ingredients. Pour or spoon batter into your bread pan. Bake for an hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes before removing from pan, and then cool on a wire rack until you can’t stand it any longer (Ideally until bread is entirely cool, but hey, you’re only human.) Slice and enjoy!
I honestly couldn’t tell a difference in taste between regular all-purpose flour I have used in the past, and the gluten-free flour I used to make this. I’m happy with the way this turned out and will definitely be making it again in the future.
If you try this or have any other variations, please feel free to share in the comments section below.
Filed under Recipes, Snacks & Treats
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