Wild times at Wildwoods

We spent our weekend cozied up in our camper next to our friends Jeff and Brenda (and their two adorable little daughters) at a campground in Medina NY. The weather fully cooperated allowing me to get the glowing tan I had anticipated and desired.

The camp ground was nice, we had full hook-ups (for all those non-campers out there it means that we had electric, water and sewage hook ups for our camper). There were lots of things to do for the kiddies although we choose to take walks, play with play-dough and generally stay in our own self-contained area, and enjoy the company of our friends.

Love!!!

Jamie and I had set out with “camping healthy” in mind, which turned out quite well. We grilled up chicken, turkey burgers and Jamie ate some Salmon burgers (gross…) but he said they were delicious! We were able to boil up corn on the cob, and salt potatoes and kept our snacking to a minimum.

We did well but the last we could call ourselves was saint-like. I mean I did eat my fair share, as well as a few extra smore’s but I am not going to be too hard on myself about it. I mean the FIRST thing I did after greeting my much missed puppies and unpacking the camper was head to the gym and pick up the weights.



One of our roaring fires (perfect for smores
by the way)



Speaking of weight, I am holding strong at 168… I am hoping to be down another 10 in a month or so, my plan is to tighten up my snacking habits by doing two things:

1.       Not keeping anything that could be misconstrued into a snack in my house.

2.       Work eating 4-5 small meals a day.

I believe this is safe enough for now.

I don’t know about anyone out there but the time between after work out and cooking dinner is the hardest. I think I snack the entire time I cook, and I believe it is because I am completely depleted. My plan is to have a pre-work out bite (as in apple, banana or peanut butter (natural of course) with almonds) as well as a post-work out protein shake in order to beat the snacking epidemic that has run rampant on my counter as I cook.

I swiped this picture off of the website
but to be honest it looks just like that
when you cook it!!!

***As a side note, I bought a new cook book that I have been using twice a week and it had the best recipe for grilled broccoli. It is perfect for summertime grilling and really, really easy!!! Ithinking of adding cauliflower next time for some variation. Click here for the recipe!!!

A perfect...

I am so excited. I have been working so hard, eating…. ummmm, good...ish, working out, getting enough sleep and the rewards just keep paying off. I am bubbling with exhilaration! I just bought and fit into my first size 8 pants. SAY WHATTT??!!!!

I don’t remember if I ever fit into a size 8. So this is a bit of a big deal. Let’s not mention the fact that it they are dress pants which usually run a little large than jeans but still. That’s a big deal!

It was enough of a big deal to make my day better, and help with the stress I have been dealing with at work…

There is also news on the diet front. I completely commend people who can eat clean every day, not drink, or eat pizza. It is not for me, at least for now. As far as my dieting practices go, I have decided to jump back on the WW band wagon. Weight watchers or WW as I fondly refer to it has been an area of great success. It has been driving me crazy trying to figure out how to eat clean and with summer rapidly approaching I would rather concentrate on making overall healthier choices and manage my portion sizes, rather than eating six small meals a day with all the other things.

I am excited to try to lose the last 20 pesky pounds, but I have also decided I can’t be soooo hard on myself.  Have a healthy day!

Work out the work stress...

Obviously it has been hard for me to post every day, it must have been a lofty goal but it came from a good place at least!

This past week has been very hectic and stressful. Work has caused most of the stress… Without going into too much detail, I am having a hard time teaching when I seem to care more (about their lives, education, etc.) than my students. To say my attitude is downtrodden would be an understatement. I just can’t seem to undo this pit in my stomach.

I think the hardest part is the way it affects me in my outside of work life. It carries over and I am cranky and tired when I get home.

Thankfully, the gym is a life saver for me. I plug in to my iPod crank David Guetta and Nicki Minaj and work it off. It got me thinking, I wonder if my readers would be interested in my work-outs. I know “abs are made in the kitchen and not in the gym” but a good workout helps. A lot.

So I typically focus on body parts with a six day a week schedule.

Monday- Legs

Tuesday- Chest and Bi’s

Wednesday- Legs

Thursday- Shoulders and Tri’s

Friday- Legs

It's the TRUTH TRUTH!!!!

*todays work out will include:

Front Squats

1-Legged Deadlifts with dumbbells

1-legged leg press

Inner/Outer Thigh Machine

Bench Jumps

Side Lunges with Dumbbells

Saturday- Back and abs

Each day I do 40 min to an hour of cardio, and Sundays I usually try to get an additional session of cardio in, or take a rest day. It is a lot but I make it my priority. I feel like I would rather call into work than miss the gym. It just ranks first for me. I have to allow myself the hour and a half of me time a day. Maybe it sounds selfish but the rest of my day is spent worrying, thinking, obsessing about everyone else, my students, family, friends, etc. so I depend on that time for myself to unwind. I don't think anyone should ever feel bad about making time for themselves.

Writing this post has helped me tremendously. I already feel better about the day! Have a happy and healthy day! I know I am going to… or at least try J

Motivation Where Art Thou?

Friday Night Fun!!! Jason,
Jamie, Logan and Shelby
in a sketchy tree fort!!!

The past few weeks have been a real struggle for me. My motivation has been at an all-time low. I can literally feel myself becoming complacent and content, which is not bad necessarily, but I still have goals I want to reach. Motivation don’t fail me now!

This weekend was especially challenging…

Friday rolled around and I was completely and utterly drained. We were having Katie, Jason and her son Logan over for dinner and I didn’t have time to go to the gym. Actually, I didn’t want to go to the gym. And quite frankly the thought of doing a 40 min cardio session, followed by weights made me want to lose my shit. It was official; I had reached the state of “burned out”.

Rather than go home and get ready for our guests (which is why I “didn’t have time to go to the gym”), I went shopping with Jamie, which was fun but by the time I got home the guilt started to set in. I went home and started putting away my purchases, the guilt got worse, so much so that I almost cried to my dishes. But instead, I whined to Jamie. To his credit he listened well and tried to make me feel better, but I didn’t.

Thankfully Katie came over and I told her all about my guilt and how I was literally tearing up thinking about letting myself down. Katie, being the person she is listened and gave me feedback, and by the end of the conversation we were laughing and I did feel better. We had a lot of laughs Friday night and all was well, until I was forced to eat frozen custard!

Curse the delicious twist in a dish soft-serve custard!!! By the way, when I say forced I mean that I was motivated by a being higher than myself. It projected me through the line at Hanks, opened my mouth and verbally vomited out the request for “twist in a dish”. Then like an overly eager child I gobbled it up. All of it.

Refusing to let one bad day keep me from reaching my goals!

Let the rain of guilt begin!! And with the guilt came the excuses… the “I’ve done so well”, “It’s not like I have gained any weight”, etc. In all reality, the excuses are the one thing I need to set aside if I ever want to make my goals; I have to let it all go. I have to break my patterns of complacency.

Thankfully, I woke up Saturday bright and early feeling refreshed and ready. I went to the gym, the public market, and out running around with Jamie. We had a good day and I didn’t eat that bad.

Allison, MB, Me and Megan- 5k crew.
P.S. I shaved almost 6 min off of my time
from last year!!!

Today, being mother’s day is naturally a day to over indulge, I mean, I am a mother… to my two dogs. But that counts right!? Well anyways, my day began with a banana and a 5K and ended with a small dinner serving and cookie cake. Not the exact end to my day I would’ve hoped for, but I tried, and thankfully, tomorrow is a new day.

Just have to keep reminding myself!

Over this past weekend I did a lot of thinking, and talking about my diet/working out/weight loss goals and have decided that I am going to try to lose another 10lbs June 15^th. I know I can do it, but I also know it will be hard. I will keep you posted on my progress!!

A Healthy Start

Thursday morning I decided I was going to eat a healthy hearty breakfast. I whipped up a spinach and turkey sausage breakfast burrito. Here is the recipe:

Pre-Wrapping



1 whole egg

¼ of Egg whites (or 3 egg whites)

1 teaspoon of red hot (it helps boost the metabolism and adds flavor! Yay)

½ chopped spinach

2 Turkey Sausage Links

2 tablespoons 2% sharp cheddar

1 whole wheat fajita size burrito

Post-Wrap, Pre-spill all over myself in the car...

Begin by stirring Spinach, Red Hot, and Eggs over medium heat. I scrambled my eggs but you could totally fry them or cook them to your liking. Then at the point of almost done, I added my cut up turkey links. After cooking the egg all the way, I dumped the mixture into my whole wheat burrito with the cheese, folded it up and threw it back in the pan and grilled it on either side.

It was the best way to start my day! (I actually tripled the recipe so I had enough for the rest of the week and they warmed up really well tooJ) I was able to make it and take it, which is super convenient.

However, as convenient as it was I still managed to dump it all over the front of my outfit while I drove into work… Luckily it was a black pants sort of day so I just wiped it off, burrito in hand, and driving. What can I say, I know how to multi-task.  

Weekend Blunders

All in all, I had a blast this weekend. Jamie and I made the trek to Westchester, NY just outside of NYC for some shopping fun with, whom else our, PIC’s (Partners in Crime, among other things) Katie and Jason.

As an introduction to those of you that don’t know, Katie is one of my very best friends and has been my gym partner for a long, long, long time. We have become very close over the past few years and I am extremely delighted that her husband and mine hit it off so well. Coincidentally, Jason is Jamie’s gym partner as well, so together; we work through the highs and lows of dieting, exercising and overall living a healthy lifestyle, and I have to say having friends that are trying to achieve the same goals we are helps soooo much!

With that said, it doesn’t mean that we don’t fall off the band wagon together too. The weekend began with generally healthy eating habits, for everyone. It changed when we stopped at subway, which happened to be in a gas station that also served one of my favorites; soft serve ice cream. So, yes, you guessed it, my first blunder. As we progressed from our driving trip there were no more slip-ups for me. We had healthy snacks, waters, and diet pop the rest of our drive there.

Saturday we woke up, went to a local dinner, and I ate an egg-white wrap with ham and cheese. It was even in a whole wheat wrap! I only ate half because I wasn’t that hungry. Lunch was a chicken salad and dinner was a half-honey roasted chicken and French fries…

If I could identify a place where it all began it would be the French fries. I woke up Sunday to make the trek back home and had Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. A ham, egg and cheese on an English muffin, not the worst start to a day but it certainly could be healthier.

Then all hell broke loose, we stopped a grocery store called Stew Leonard’s. There were snacks at every turn. Delicious snacks I might add.

Then Applebee’s for lunch, spinach and artichoke dip, fries, grilled chicken sandwich, diet Pepsi. Then McDonald’s frozen yogurt. Then there was the pizza, the delicious, thin crusted goodness that is Wegmans pizza. Two slices of greasy pepperoni and cheesy goodness, then a tall glass of chocolate milk to top off the evening, with a chocolate covered rice cake.

Maybe some abs that look like this...
Yeah, that would be nice!!!

Again, I am finding it extremely hard to eat clean. It is easy for me to keep falling off the bandwagon because I don’t have a direct goal insight. There is no vacation to prepare for or fitness competition, or deadline. I am finding it harder to concentrate on the goal at hand. I need to keep going back to my original goals.

Here they are:

ü  Healthy eating habits/lifestyle

ü  Drop another 20lbs

ü  Get a Flat stomach

I am going to find something that will help motivate me and keep me motivated. I will keep you posted!

Dirty With a Side of Sugar

Ok. Maybe it’s not as easy as I thought. I am struggling with the whole Clean Eating thing. I am pretty sure it is because my life has been turned upside down in the last few weeks. Here is a time line of my life in the last 2 months:

·         March 1^st: List house with Greg Crandall (Remax)

o   Cleaning, Gym, rearranging, etc.

·         March 20^th: Accept offer on house… They want to close April 30^th!!!

·         April 1^st: Last Month of Grad School forever!!! Can’t wait but lots to be done.

·         April 7^th: Get on a plane to Vegas



Vegas- Jamie and I infront of Paris Hotel, at
The Bellagio Fountains



·         April 8^th: Should be worrying about things like the million assignments I have to get done for grad school, home that is in shambles, my job etc. but instead I am cozied up with my husband by the pool at the fabulous Vdara Hotel & Spa. (this is much better than worrying about everything else)

·         April 12^th: Get off the plane and immediately start packing for our big move.

·         April 13^th: Oh yeah… and homework

·         April 14^th: Oh, I still have a job that needs attention too… Whoops!

·         April 20^th: Complete move, now new house in shambles…

·         April 23^rd: Yup… Still have that Job, oh yeah and homework

·         April 28^th: Close on old house

·         May 4^th: School done, Old house done, new house: ehh- good enough.

Whew… I am exhausted just thinking about it! But nevertheless, I decided in the midst of all of this that I would try a new lifestyle. Yeah, and who was I kidding.

So, here we are a week into it and I have already eaten Chinese and a pound of skittles… Not quite clean eating. More like dirty with a side of sugar.

I am going to continue do the best I can, while it is really hard eating 5-6 small meals a day, I will continue to work with that and I do love cooking so it is not that hard for me to come home and cook a healthy dinner. The real problem is eating before 9pm! I recently downloaded a tool from Tosca Reno’s website that will hopefully keep me more organized and on the right track. I included the link to it here.

The one constant in my life has been the gym, while I haven’t been going my usual 6 days a week, (it’s been more like 4) it has continued to level me out, and keep me focused on my goals: To become the healthiest, hottest 30-almost 31 year old I can.

Here’s to being hotter at 30 than I was at 20!!! With that said, off to the gym I go J



Planet Hollywood. Vegas was beautiful at night.



A little blurry but cute all the same! We were on our way to
see Zumanity- an amazingly sexy show BTW!!!

Goldfish

I have been trying to eat clean since Monday, but it is really hard without a stove.  My husband (Jamie) and I moved from our beloved first home in Webster and bought his mother’s house in Ontario. We moved in about 2 weeks ago and had been without an oven. Thankfully Jamie’s dad Steve came to our rescue and ran the gas line but we still don’t have a working oven (only the stove top works). So my post-collegiate dreams (yes, I just finished grad school!!) of baking and cooking delicious, healthy and satisfying meals have been put on hold, at least for the time being.

There has been a lot of grilled chicken and Wegmans steam in the bag veggies. Not too much fun. Too make matters worse; I can’t stop thinking about the bag of Goldfish that my co-worker brought in that is on the counter in our office. They are so crunchy and salty and cheesy and did I say salty? It is literally taking every ounce of will power I have not to rip the bag open and gobble up the tasty treats.  

Goldfish, however, do not fall under the principles of eating clean. In fact they may fall under the “Avoid all calorie-dense foods that contain little or no nutritional value”.  But I digress.

It is my hope that I will be able to cook Chicken Pepperoni and Baked Eggplant tonight for dinner. It’s one of our favorites and it is relatively low-carb and I can make it without any processed foods, except the cheese and the pepperoni but I will use antelope pepperoni from the antelope Jamie shot in Wyoming, it’s sort of organic right!?

Off to the gym I go! Have a healthy, happy day… And avoid the goldfish ;)

Getting Started

My intention was to start a blog to help motivate myself and hold myself accountable, in order to do so I feel that I owe my readers an explanation. Here it is…

Long story short, I was an extremely active teenager (playing soccer 24/7) with terrible eating habits who turned into a moderately active adult with terrible eating habits and a slowing metabolism… HELLO!

I slowly and steadily put on weight. I eventually crept up to 212lbs. As side note, I always vowed I wouldn’t tell anyone that, and here I am posting it up on the internet… Crazy but I hope that I can help motivate others because you never know if there is another moderately active 5’5” adult weighing 212lbs that is looking to make a positive change. 

My real journey started about two years ago. I saw this picture of myself.



I literally started crying! How
did I let this get so bad!!

I was almost unrecognizable. Immediately my eyes filled with tears and I thought: who is this person?! Initially, after the sting of the photo dissipated, I went into denial, it must have been a bad photo, and I couldn’t possibly look like the stay puff marshmallow man had interjected fluff into my face could I?

Then another photo surfaced, and I knew something had to change.



This is "the other"
photo!

Soon after I decided it was time to shed some weight, I was diagnosed by OBGYN with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). This is a syndrome that affects women to varying degrees in ways of weight gain/inability to lose weight, acne, and infertility. Sounds like a trifecta right! So I had a tough road ahead of me.

I worked out on an off since I graduated high school with one of my best friends. Katie and I always support each other and she has been a big part of my journey (as have all my other family, friends and of course my Hubby!). So when it came time to pick a new gym I was eager to start at the GOLDS GYM of Webster with her. Working out was the easy part, I had always been an athlete and my muscle memory was good. I struggled with my diet. It was always the hardest part, but I forced myself to put down the Mountain Dew and pick up the water.

The weight came off painfully slow at first, but I persisted. I had lost 6-8lbs my first 3 months. Eventually I joined weight watchers, and that helped a lot. Working out made me feel so good.  So I never gave up and here I stand 2 years later and more than 40lbs lighter. I saw 169 for the first time since I was 21. I am proud of myself but I want to push myself further. I am challenging myself to forever change my eating habits.

I downloaded Tosca Reno’s Eating Clean Diet Recharged to my kindle and I am intrigued. I am going to give it a try for 6 weeks while also watching my carb intake. I am not going to cut them out completely because I do need them for mental clarity and energy. Bikini body here I come!

Here is a picture of me from St. Patty’s day this year (2012).