Meal Ideas

So after the gym's been closed for maintenance the last two weeks, it's finally reopening tomorrow! I've severely slacked the last two weeks. :S I spent most of today cooking and getting my meals ready for the week. Here's what I'm doing this week:

Breakfast: Oatmeal with a little bit of brown sugar, raspberries and blackberries.

Morning snack: Yogurt, almonds and a string cheese. Confession. I know Greek yogurt is much better and higher in protein. But I don't like how it tastes. If anyone knows of a YUMMY Greek yogurt, I'm all ears! lol!

Lunch: Spaghetti squash w/ marinara sauce and a broccoli/cauliflower salad. (For the salad, chop up a head of broccoli and a head of cauliflower. Cook up some bacon, and throw in some cashews. Mix mayonaise, sugar and vinegar to taste for the dressing. I don't use a lot of dressing on my salad, just enough to get the flavor.)

I absolutely adore spaghetti squash! To prepare it, cut it in half and scoop out all the "guts." Just like a pumpkin. Poke holes in the skin, turn the halves squash side down, and bake. (I baked it at 350º for about 40-50 minutes.) Using a fork, scrape out all the "spaghetti."

I cut off all the fat before I even cook the bacon. Make it a LITTLE bit "healthier." hahaha!

YUUUUMMMMM!!!

Afternoon snack: Sugar Free Jello Pudding Snack thingy. Chocolate mousse. Hits the spot! I didn't take a picture of it. lol

Dinner: BBQ Chicken over brown rice. I used Stubbs chicken marinade. I WISH I had a bbq here!! It's the only way to have chicken!

Hopefully that gave you some ideas for meals and snacks!! I'm closing in on my 6 month deadline for my first goal, and I'm so far away still. Hopefully there will be no more set backs so I can push through and hit my goal! :D


Have an amazing day everyone!!

The Goal Project

As I was driving home from work last night, a sudden thought hit me. And it overwhelmed me.

I have a lot of goals. SOOO many things I want to do in my life. I need to write them down. I don't want to call it a bucket list. That sounds so morbid. lol! So I'm calling it my Goal Project.

I've really loved the idea of an art journal, but I'm horrible at journal keeping. Even an artsy one. So I kind of took a twist on the art journal, and am making a goal journal. Of course, I had to make it all cute and fun! And it's not finished yet, but I wanted to show you what I started. I wanted it to be made of fabric. I thought being able to use different fabrics would make such a fun background! I'm going to include pockets for pictures and journal cards and things like that. I'm so excited!!!

Here's what it looks like(ish):

Here's how I did it:

Take 2 rectangles of fabric and a slightly smaller rectangle of the heavy duty white stuff that's not interfacing, but you find it in the same spot in the fabric store. (If you haven't figured out this about me, I am SOOO not technical or precise when I craft. LOL) If anyone knows the name of that stuff, I'd love to hear it. haha!

I wanted a lot of fun texture on my cover, so I took a strip of netting and sewed down one side of it and gathered it. (It does not have to be cut straight. In fact, having a completely uneven cut only adds to the fun look of it at the end. You'll see what I mean.)

See how the uneven cut gives it different levels of dimension? LOVE IT! So pin your gathered netting about 3" from the bottom. And sew it on.

I sewed it so far over to make sure I got it all sewn. With it gathered so much, I didn't want to miss any spots.

I cut a strip of lace and fan folded it to "gather" it. Then I laid it over the netting and pinned it down.

I sewed it across the top, then along the bottom in two spots to make sure it was tacked down well. I intend to use this for a LONG time, and don't want the lace falling off.

Then I did a zig zag stitch around the whole thing, leaving about 3/4" of space on the edge.

I left that much space so I could go around with pinking shears.

I found some cute ribbon from my stash, and used Glossy Accents to glue it down.

I love ribbon!!! I'll post more pictures as I add to it and get it "finished." :)

I repeated that for my inside pages, minus all the trims and ribbon. I will sew things like pockets onto those pages, to hold photos and things like that. 

I'm going to use the Crop-A-Dile to "three hole punch" it, then I'm going to use binder rings to hold it together. I want to be able to add more pages to it as I go. I'm sure I'll find more goals to reach for in life! I want to have a page for each goal, and as I achieve them I can add things to my pages like photos or journal cards, memorabilia from whatever the goal was.

Here's my list of goals. So far.

• Travel the world!
• Get back in to theater/film. London or New York. I'm good with either option. ;)
• Volunteer on an archeological dig. (My dream from when I was 11 was to be an Egyptologist. lol)
• Swim with dolphins. (My other dream was to be a killer whale/dolphin trainer at Sea World. I love me! haha I'm so random!)
• Get back into a shape that is NOT round. (In progress - more on that in my next post!)
• Do a triathlon (I was SOOO close before! GAH!)
• Design a scrapbook line. (In progress!)
• Own my own craft company. (Also in progress! YAY!)
• Travel all over teaching crafting.
• Start a scholarship for single moms.
• Write a book.
• Write a screenplay. (In progress.)
• Write a song. (Also in progress. Working on a lullaby for my kids.)

I think that's a pretty good list for now. lol! What are some of your goals?

PUT THE BROWNIE DOWN!!

Ok, I honestly don't care that much for chocolate. But there was a pan of brownies sitting on the counter, and chocolate seems to be a (generally) universal temptation for everyone. Unless you're abnormal, like myself. hahaha So it worked well for this picture. But seriously. . . I've got plenty of things that I need to just put down and walk away from. Puh-lenty!

Over the last few, uh, months, I've been analyzing and thinking and pondering and just in general wondering what the heck went wrong when I was training before. Yeah, I was insanely hardcore into it. (Two workouts a day, two hours each. Obsessive much? hahaha) Yeah, I had some personal setbacks that made me turn back to emotional eating. And yeah. . . The thinner I got, the creepier the guys got. (Remind me to tell you the story of pool boy sometime. . . . *shudders* That's a classic creeper guy story) 5 months, 40 lbs down and then I just stopped. SO close to my goal!! And sadly, a year and a half . . . wow. . . almost TWO YEARS later, I've put it all back on plus some. (a lot) BLEH!

SOO not happy about this.

I've repeatedly tried to get back on the proverbial wagon since I took a flying head dive off of it. I just totally lost all drive and motivation. (I'm being totally honest in this post. No more sugar coating or dancing around the harsh truth for me!) But I just couldn't find my groove again. My gym time turned to commute time after I moved away from living up the street from work. That definitely didn't help. It's hard to find motivation when it's hard to have any consistency in a work out schedule.

So. I've come up with my new BRILLIANT plan. (Cause aren't all my plans brilliant? Ok. . . except for maybe a few. . . ;)

I'm building a mini gym in my room. AND I've outlined a new diet/exercise plan for myself. For the next year!

My idea is this. A big problem for me before was I hit that 40 lbs lost, and then I just plateaued. Nothing I did or changed helped. I was stuck. I don't want to hit that point again. So. I'm going to switch it up monthly and not allow my body to get used to anything before I've moved on to the next month. I've given myself one year to hit my goal. And believe me, it's a pretty lofty goal.

I seriously couldn't sleep last night, I was up until way too late outlining this, and I'm so excited to share!

Last week I took the kids to the Roberts Crafts family night that was designed by the Crafting Chicks. I'm using the Inspiration Journal to write all this down. (I had to throw that in. Bossman will be happy. hahaha)

How CUTE are these?! Seriously. :)

Ok. So the plan is simply this. Try a new diet and a new exercise plan each month. I know when I was training, we changed my workout each month. But my diet stayed the same. I can't help but wonder if that was part of the problem of my plateau. 

April
Diet: Vegetarian
Exercise: Cardio
Objective: Cleanse and jump start weight loss.

May
Diet: High lean protein, low carb, low fat
Exercise: Strength training
Objective: Continue weight loss by building muscle to burn more calories

June
Diet: Low calorie
Exercise: Yoga
Objective: By increasing flexibility you can increase muscle area that can be built up. More muscle = more calories burned per workout.

July
Diet: High fiber
Exercise: Endurance
Objective: Train the body to fill up on less food. Also build up strength by increasing endurance.

August
Diet: Low carb
Exercise: Strength AND Cardio
Objective: Cut carbs, increase protein, build muscle. By combining strength and cardio you will see an increase in weight loss and fat percentage loss.

September
Diet: High lean protein, low carb, low fat (by far my favorite "diet")
Exercise: Pilates
Objective: Continue to build strength to fuel weight loss.

October
Diet: Low sugar (seemed a fitting month for that)
Exercise: Zumba
Objective: Sugar amounts should already be cut drastically. Focus on maintaining this month. Shake things up and have fun with an entertaining workout like Zumba.

November
Diet: Low calorie
Exercise: Tae bo
Objective: Jump start maintaining through the holidays. Allow yourself to enjoy the holidays, but watch portion sizes. Great cardio and intro to kickboxing with the Tae Bo.

December
Diet: High lean protein, low fat, low carb
Exercise: Kickboxing
Objective: Fuel body and de-stress. Take holiday stress out by learning some good fighting moves in kickboxing.

January
Diet: Vegetarian
Exercise: Cardio
Objective: Cleanse and refresh.

February
Diet: High fiber
Exercise: Strength & Cardio
Objective: Push through the last "candy & treat" month.

March
Diet: High lean protein, low carb, low fat
Exercise: Endurance
Objective: Push yourself to goal.

So by April of next year I WILL be at my goal. :)

I'll outline in detail my weekly meal plans. Last night I was able to get through the first month before I finally crashed asleep around 2:30am. lol

I'm sure not everyone needs a full on year to hit their goal. This is just my personal year long fitness goal that I'm sharing with everyone and anyone who reads my blog. And, it definitely doesn't hurt to follow along whether you need weight loss or just a plan to stay fit. Or just to follow and have a year of workouts and meals planned for you. lol

Good luck everyone!! Sorry for the extra long post today. I'll do another post a little later with April's meal plans all laid out for you. :) Believe me, with three kids, a full time job and trying to start my own business, I keep ALL my meals pretty simple and easy to throw together. Cooking is one thing I do NOT have time for.