Tag: healthy

February in Review, March Goals

On By SaraIn Self Improvement, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Ever have one of those months where nothing goes as planned? That was definitely February for me. It can be really rough to go through the month knowing you’re not making the progress you hoped you would.

I did get a lot done though, just not the things that I had planned on. I made a lot of progress on my jewelry and a few new DIY projects. I had a wonderful last couple weeks and I’m really looking forward to seeing how March goes!

February Goals

  • Keep working at that morning routine – Up no later than 6:30 all days except Saturday (This will start once my back is feeling better…my neck hurts too much to work out for at least a few hours after waking up. Hopefully next week.)

This did not happen. But it was not for lack of trying. As I said at the beginning of last month and in my fitness update, my back was hurting. Then I got sick. Then my back (but a different part!) was hurting again. Then I got sick again, but worse. Yeah…the first 1/2 of February was not very nice to me. But now I’m doing better and I am getting up on time, so yay!!

  • Keep active 6 days a week – Until my back heals up, LISS. After that, it’s back to Kayla Itsines’ BBG for round 2!

Yeah…for the same reasons as above, it was pretty much LISS for most of the month. But I am now starting Week 2 of my second round of BBG and so happy for it! (Very, very sore…but happy!) I didn’t make it 6 days a week when I was sick, but I did push myself to be as active as possible.

  • Spend at least 30 minutes a day working on either the blog or my art.

Yes! I actually manage to do this almost entirely. I’m sure I missed a day or two, but for the most part I have actually done very well on this one!

Favorite Pictures from February

Sweet Potato Banana Bites
Chocolate Cookie Dough Protein Bites
“Thaw” Winter in Iowa
Monthly Photo Project – Ada Hayden
Wall Art – playing with my camera
A very sad rottweiler pup
One of my favorite jewelry pieces so far: fused glass, white with blue dichroic and black, wrapped in silver-coated wire
Another new piece: fused glass, white with red and black dichroic, wrapped in copper
My first time building something with tools in a very long time! I can’t wait to show you all this new project once it’s done!

March Goals

  1. Keep working towards establishing that morning routine! – I’ve done okay this last week, but I really need to make it through at least a whole month. I know I feel better when I get up early, get my workout in (with time to warm up and stretch) and get ready at an easy pace. I just need to stay focused on those positives and make sure I get to bed at a decent time!
  2. Add yoga into routine at least 3 days a week – During workouts and yoga is about the only time right now that my mind quiets down. I think this will help my productivity and overall mental state
  3. Add guided meditation to routine at least 3 days a week – This goes along with my second goal and I think will achieve the same ends. Plus it’s just a good practice anyways.

That’s it for this month! Do you set goals for yourself each month? How do you deal if the month doesn’t go as planned? I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below!

Sara (1)

Want to start setting goals but aren’t sure how to go about it? Check out my Top 5 Planning Tips!

 

Fitness Mini-Update

On By SaraIn Self Improvement, Uncategorized2 Comments

It’s been one month since I finished Kayla Itsines Bikini Body Guide! Sadly, I can’t tell you that I’ve been doing much since then 😕 My body seems to have turned on me (again). It does that a lot, doesn’t it?

That is not saying I haven’t been able to work out some…it’s just been limited to mostly treadmill and exercises they gave me in Physical Therapy.

Setbacks can be difficult to deal with. I know I’ve had some ups and downs over the last month. Times where I felt like I was never going to get back into my fitness routine. Heck, there were times it felt like I was never going to feel well again at all!

Of course, that was (mostly) in my head! I am feeling better now, though I have come to the realization that the PT exercises for my back have to become a part of my daily life.

I am hoping to start BBG1 round 2 next week and can’t wait to get going again…hopefully with less injuries this time! 😀

How have your workouts been going? Have you been struggling this winter with your routine or had any setbacks? How have you dealt with them? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Sara (1)

Weekly Food Prep

Sunday Meal Prep: February 14, 2016

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized1 Comment

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I am super excited to share this week’s meal prep with you!

You ever have those weeks where you are trying to plan out your prep and it just isn’t coming to you? That was me planning out this week. But in the end it all fell together! It didn’t take me as long to cook as some weeks, but that definitely doesn’t mean it was lacking in taste!

Enjoy!

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As you can see, we have more Island Pulled Pork for this week. Draz seems to be on a new kick! 😛 Along with that, we have one old favorite, one that we’ve had once and a new recipe as well!

I am always happy when we add Jambalaya on to the menu. It’s been one of my favorites for over 10 years! The repeat recipe was Slowcooker Beef and Broccoli and I love how this one turned out 🙂 I do think I used a different cut of beef than last time though. It didn’t fall apart in quite the same way that it did the first time I made it. But that doesn’t really matter, because either way it was really tasty!

This Tortellini Chicken Noodle Soup was delicious! The one thing that I will say is that I wish I would have increased the broth some…It ended up a little thicker than I would prefer for soup. But it was still wonderful and I love the addition of the tortellini!

Not pictured: my grapes and cheese snacks and one batch of our breakfast burritos.

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A little peak behind the scenes…my photography “helper”!

Jambalaya

How was your prep this week? Do you ever have difficulty picking meals when planning out your prep? What do you do if/when you do? I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below!

Also, don’t forget that the Jewelry Giveaway ends on Tuesday! So if you haven’t entered yet, head over and let me know which one you want!

Giveaway

Sara (1)

Want to get started meal prepping yourself? Check out these posts for my top tips and my staple recipes!

Need some extra inspiration? Check out last week’s meal prep for other recipes and ideas!

Kayla Itsines’ Bikini Body Guide Round 1 Complete!…Well, Kinda Complete

On By SaraIn Self Improvement, Uncategorized4 Comments

Ever since I started Kayla’s guide the first time I have been looking forward to this moment. Through all the setbacks, the injuries, everything…I’ve been looking forward to being able to say I had completed it once and showing off these fantastic progress pics. Only…that didn’t really take real life into account.

This first round through has been full of difficulties. 3 injuries, 2 sets of stitches, 2 months of physical therapy (which I’m still needing to continue at home sometimes, this week included), sickness, the holidays, etc. All of those things were things I didn’t plan on when I started the guides. But that’s life. And that is a lesson that I think I needed to really learn when I started this journey. It’s a journey. It’s a lifestyle.

Life isn’t always smooth sailing. While I knew that, I don’t think I fully appreciated how that would play into my workout program, especially this workout program.

Weeks 9-12 fell during and directly after the holidays. Now, I’m not making excuses. I could have pushed myself harder some of the time and been more on top of things. But between work being crazy due to the season, the “winter blues” hitting me a bit and just a general feeling of exhaustion, I did not do as well during the last four weeks of the guide. I skipped some workouts, did LISS directly after my resistance workouts other times and just in general didn’t do as well as I had hoped to.

For a while towards the end and right after, I was beating myself up pretty good over my lack of performance. But I’ve come to the realization that just because I had an off few weeks doesn’t mean I failed or anything like it.

I am still in the best shape of my life! I can (usually) do 10+ push-ups in a row before I need to go to my knees! I can do box jumps and tuck jumps and all sorts of other jumps that I couldn’t really do before!

So while I may have not done every resistance workout and these progress pics aren’t as impressive as I had originally hoped they would be, I’m counting this first round as done and as a success! I have made so much progress over these last 4 months and I can’t wait to see what the next round of BBG brings! (Hopefully less injuries than the first round!)

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We did take measurements, but our methods weren’t practiced enough for me to be sure of the accuracy, though I think we are getting better at it! I am pretty positive that a few things changed though, especially one that can’t just be user error!

  • Waist: 37 in –> 31.5 in!

Things to Improve On During This Next Round

  • Go back to working out when I wake up instead of after work. I kinda fell out of that habit over the last month.
  • Keep LISS separate from resistance
  • Keep tracking diet for this whole round

I am currently having some issues with my back again, so I’m down to exercises from my physical therapy, LISS and yoga until it stops hurting so much. I can’t wait to start round 2 of BBG though!

How are your fitness goals coming? Did you have any difficulties over the holidays or due to the “winter blues” like I did? I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave me a comment below!

Sara (1)

Sunday Meal Prep: January 24, 2016

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized8 Comments

Hey everyone! I am super excited to bring you this week’s meal prep! This week I am highlighting recipes from Eat Yourself Skinny. Kelly creates wonderful dishes that are not only healthy and filling, but full of flavor too! If you haven’t checked out her blog yet, you definitely should!

You’ve seen recipes from her a few times, particularly the Skinny Chicken Enchiladas that have been making an appearance the past few weeks. That one has quickly become one of Draz’s favorites, so don’t expect to see it going away anytime soon. Each week it’s “What would you like on the menu for next week?” and his response has been “Enchiladas!?” each time!

Now, on to this week’s meal prep!

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Along with our Mason Jar Salads, Sweet Potato Banana Bites, my grapes and cheese and the Skinny Chicken Enchiladas, I made three new recipes this week!

Sausage and Veggie Stir-fry: Her recipe calls for spicy chicken sausage, which I sadly couldn’t find. I did use the Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage of the same brand and it turned out wonderful! Hopefully I can find somewhere that sells the spicy version, because I would love to try it 🙂

Slow Cooker Turkey Chili: Kelly is not exaggerating when she says it is the best turkey chili you will ever taste! If there is another, better recipe out there, I haven’t tried it. Quick to prep, easy, tasty, and healthy?! I think this will be our new stand-by for chili from now on!

Crock Pot Salsa Chicken: I like the versatility of this shredded chicken. So far I’ve used it in a couple wraps with some cheese and it was really good! I want to try it with some taco fillings…I think it will be even better!

That’s it for this week! Expect to see many more recipes from Kelly’s blog in the future. Her recipes are just too tasty!

What are you making this week? Any new recipes? I would love to hear your thoughts, so leave me a comment below!

Sara (1)

Want to get started meal prepping yourself? Check out these posts for my top tips and my staple recipes!

Need some extra inspiration? Check out last week’s meal prep for other recipes and ideas!

Sunday Meal Prep: January 17, 2016

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized5 Comments

Have you or your significant other loved a dish so much that you just want it week after week? Well…that is the case in our house right now. These Skinny Chicken Enchiladas have recently been on here and probably will be again soon! Draz is just loving them, plus they are so easy to make and individualize for both of us!

Outside of that, I picked out a couple of my own older recipes that caught my eye this week. Our breakfast burritos are back too! Our large stock in the freezer is finally running low, so it was time to make some more. Enjoy!

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I promise these dishes taste better than they look! (I really need to work on my photography) Chicken was the focus of the week, but with such varying flavors. That is one of the things I love about cooking with chicken.

And that’s it for this week! Make sure to check out the recipes below! They are both easy and delicious!

What are you cooking this week? Bringing back any old favorites? I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave me a comment below!

Want to get started meal prepping yourself? Check out these posts for my top tips and my staple recipes!

Need some extra inspiration? Check out last week’s meal prep for other recipes and ideas!

Sara (1)

Easy & Yummy Slow Cooker Chicken

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Ingredients:

~2 lb boneless skinless chicken breast

2 (10 oz) cans cream of mushroom soup

1 (2 oz) envelope onion soup mix

1/2 c milk

1 c carrots, chopped

6-7 medium-large potatoes, cut 1″-1.5″ (I use red potatoes)

Put chicken into slow cooker. In a bowl, mix soup, onion mix, and milk; stir. Add into slow cooker. Add cut vegetable’s to the slow cooker and mix. Cook on low for 7-9 hours; mix before serving. Enjoy!

Easy Parmesan Garlic Chicken

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Ingredients:

2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 4-6 portions

1/2 c grated parmesan cheese

1 oz Italian salad dressing mix

1/2 tsp garlic powder

Preheat oven to 400. Mix cheese, dressing mix and garlic powder. Moisten chicken with water; coat with cheese mixture. Place in shallow baking dish (non-stick or foil-lined) Bake 20-25 min.

Can serve alone or with spaghetti.

 

 

Sunday Meal Prep – January 10, 2016

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized8 Comments

Hey everyone! I hope that your first full week of 2016 went great! Our week had some hiccups, but if anything they just reminded me how happy I am that we do meal prep! I spent a couple days on MUCH less sleep than I usually prefer and let’s just say I don’t function well on less sleep. It was really helpful to not have to worry about what we were going to eat!

This week I tried out a new recipe, plus one that is quickly becoming a household favorite! Enjoy!

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These Skinny Chicken Enchiladas are so wonderful! Enough so that I made some extra shredded chicken specifically to freeze for future batches. Draz is requesting this on a regular basis, and one of the things I love about it is that I can use regular white tortillas for his and whole wheat for mine. One dish fit to both of our preferences!

New this week is Slow Cooker Beef and Broccoli. I don’t think I can say enough about this one! The meat was a little pricier than what we usually purchase, but it was well worth it! The beef just fell apart and it was a very flavorful dish. I definitely see us making this one again. 🙂

And that’s it for this week! What are you making? Any new dishes? I would love to hear your thoughts and what you are cooking up, so please leave a comment below!

Sara (1)

Want to get started meal prepping yourself? Check out these posts for my top tips and my staple recipes!

Need some extra inspiration? Check out last week’s meal prep for other recipes and ideas!

Sunday Meal Prep – Jan 3, 2016

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized9 Comments

Welcome to 2016! I think it’s only fitting that my first post for the new year is my favorite weekly staple! Meal prepping really transformed my life last year and it’s not a habit I plan on stopping anytime soon. This week is pretty small, what with the holidays and all.

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Not pictured are my usual Sweet Potato Banana Bites, which were made but somehow didn’t make it into the picture. As for our Cookie Dough Protein Bites, we had a bunch left over (too many holiday sweet eaten instead!), so I decided to finish those up this week instead of making more.

Both of this week’s main dishes are new and from Ali over at Gimme Some Oven. If you haven’t checked out her site yet, you should! She has so many wonderful dishes on there!

The Cashew Curry Chicken was so tasty! I’ve never actually cooked with cashews before, but I love trying out new ingredients and this one was a hit. In her recipe Ali talks about blending the sauce or leaving it as is with some chunks. We left it as is and loved it!

As for this Tortellini Soup….If you haven’t noticed yet, I have a serious love of both soup and pasta! This recipe is delicious and combines my two favorite things! This recipe is wonderful and it will definitely be made again! I did make a few adjustments, based on what we had available. I used:

  • dried oregano instead of fresh basil (sad, I know, but sometimes you have to make due),
  • 1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes and 1/2 can plain crushed tomatoes instead of the 28 oz can fire-roasted crushed tomatoes
  • 4 c homemade vegetable stock and 2 c chicken stock. I didn’t thaw the correct amount of vegetable stock beforehand. On the upside, this was the first recipe I used my homemade stock in!
  • red onion instead of white
  • And a little more sausage than the recipe calls for, but not by much

And that’s it for this week! I hope you all are having a wonderful start to 2016! What are you cooking up this week? Any new recipes? I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please comment below!

Sara (1)

Want to get started meal prepping yourself? Check out these posts for my top tips and my staple recipes!

Need some extra inspiration? Check out last week’s meal prep for other recipes and ideas!

December In Review, January Goals

On By SaraIn Self Improvement, UncategorizedLeave a comment

So if you saw Tuesday’s post, you may be wondering why I’m posting again about goals. Well, while I talked about my goals for the year yesterday, I still want to make sure I’m keeping myself accountable for my monthly goals.

December Goals:

  1. Continue with BBG, 6 days a week – I did continue with BBG..I did not manage 6 days a week. I got sick partway through the month with a nasty cold, took a week off to recover and have been fighting my way back into a routine ever since. I am going to get back into it though, no matter what! Now that the holidays are over and my schedule should mostly be back to normal, this should be easier to accomplish.
  2. Try again to incorporate active rest days – About 50% successful. I did really enjoy the days where I managed this! But between the week I was sick and our Christmas celebrations, I missed adding yoga in to a few rest days.
  3. Finish 3 DIY projects – I only finished 2, but I’m really happy with how they turned out!
  4. Less TV time, especially while writing! – I did pretty good at this for the most part! I still wrote some while watching TV, but the majority were written at my desk while listening to instrumental music. This is definitely a habit I’m going to keep up!

December Fav Photos (Other than the DIY projects above, which are some of my favs too!)

January Goals

  1. Start establishing a morning routine – Wake up 30 minutes earlier. I know I’ve tried to get up earlier in past months, but I think I was trying to push to get up so much earlier too quickly. I’m instead going to try to wake up 30 minutes earlier each day this month, making sure to use the time productively.
  2. Start at least one art project – By this I’m not referring to the DIY projects I do, but instead one of the art pieces I’ve been wanting to start on.
  3. Active rest days – I’m going to keep working on this one. Hopefully with a much calmer month now that the holidays are past, I can finally manage to add this in to my routine!

That’s it! Are you planning on setting goals for this month, or are you working on your goals for 2016 instead? Or are you doing both, like I am? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Sara (1)

Sunday Meal Prep

On By SaraIn Meal Prep, Uncategorized1 Comment

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas earlier this week!

I decided to mix things up a bit this week and I’m so glad I did! Enjoy! 🙂

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Draz had a roll of pepperoni that he let me take a few slices off of for my grapes and cheese snacks. It was a really nice ‘treat’ for this week!

On a side note, you will be seeing the Peanut Butter Banana Oat Muffins a little less often from now on. I realized that, between those and the Sweet Potato Banana Bites, I was eating sweets up to 2-3 times a day sometimes. Healthy treats, yes, but still more often than I probably should be. So I’m trying out freezing some of the muffins and having them over a 2 week period!

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Turkey Chili Mac with Jalapenos: Half of this went into the freezer. I love meals that can prep me for busier weeks in the future!

Balsamic Pork Chops: I love these! They are really quick to make and so delicious. I served them with steamed jasmine rice and Balsamic Brown Butter Asparagus.

Skinny Chicken Enchiladas: These are one of Draz’s favorites. One of the things I really like about these is that I can make some for him with white tortillas and a few for me with wheat tortillas.

BalsamicAsparagus

That’s it for this week! What are you cooking?

Sara (1)

Want to get started meal prepping yourself? Check out these posts for my top tips and my staple recipes!

Need some extra inspiration? Check out last week’s meal prep for other recipes and ideas!