Downward Spiral

So I had a rough week at work last week, Friday being the worst. I came home and informed my husband I would be drinking..... Hard.

I decided to work my way through the rainbow of rum drinks. Now when is the last time I drank.... Christmas. The last time I drank hard liquor.... At least 3 years ago, if not longer. 

In my defense, I got a workout in every day this weekend, two on Sunday.

I also ate out.... Lunch and dinner on Saturday. Huge family lunch on Sunday.... out for supper that night.

I like to call that a downward spiral.

Stepping on the scale.... Well I haven't yet lol no point in facing the reality I already know!

So today I picked myself back up and got my sweat on.

I made better choices and submitted to the misery that is what I call bad food hangover.  I am committed to eating well until Easter :) 

Here is my meal plan for last week that kept me on track...guess I should have extended it into Saturday and Sunday!

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Breakfast	¾ cup yogurt 1 cup berries Agave/Honey to taste	1 cup berries ½ whole wheat bagel	2 hard boiled eggs ½ whole wheat bagel	2 scrambled eggs ½ cup veggies Can make egg cups	¾ cup yogurt or Shakeology 1 cup berries Agave/Honey to taste
Snack	Shakeology	Shakeology (Or Protein Powder) 1 tsp peanut butter	Shakeology 1 cup berries	1 cup yogurt or 1  serving Shakeology 1 cup berries	Orange 3 tbsp sunflower seeds
Lunch	6 inch tortilla shell 3 slices turkey/ham ¼ cup shredded cheese ½ cup lettuce ½ cup veggies Mustard to taste	2 cups lettuce ½ cup mixed veggies 3 tbsp dressing 2 hard boiled eggs OR 1 cup shredded chicken	2 cups lettuce 1 cup chicken cooked with taco seasoning ¼ cup shredded cheese Salsa	6 inch tortilla shell 3 slices turkey/ham 1/4 cup lettuce and 2 tomato slices 3 tbsp sunflower seeds Mustard to taste	6 inch tortilla shell 3 slices turkey/ham 1 hard boiled egg Mustard to taste
Snack	Apple 3 tbsp sunflower seeds	1 cup cottage cheese	Apple 3 tbsp sunflower seeds	¼ cup hummus 1 cup raw veggies	¼ cup hummus 1 cup raw veggies
Dinner	4 oz. steak 1 cup steamed veggies ½ cup rice	1 6 inch tortilla shell 1 cup chicken cooked with taco seasoning ¼ cup shredded cheese ¼ cup lettuce ¼ cup tomato Salsa	Sliders ¼ pound patty 1 cup steamed veggies ½ baked potato OR whole sweet potato OR 80 calorie and delightful bun	Mixed veggie stir fry 4 oz chicken OR steak ½ baked potato OR whole sweet potato	4 oz. chicken breast with seasonings 1 cup steamed veggies ½ cup rice
Snack	1 cup celery 2 teaspoons PB ½ cup cottage cheese	1 cup berries	If you need a snack, save breakfast snack berries for now	½  cup cottage cheese 1 cup berries	1 cup celery 2 teaspoons PB ½ cup cottage cheese

Can substitute Shakeology for 2 hard boiled eggs, 3 egg whites, ¾ cup yogurt, ½ cup cottage cheese or other protein shake

Meal List:

5 servings Shakeology OR the following substitutes for each serving of Shakeology (2 hard boiled eggs, 3 egg whites, ¾ cup yogurt, ½ cup cottage cheese or other protein shake)

PRODUCE

Baked or sweet potato (1 baked potato per person, 2 sweet potatoes per person)

Medium Orange

Mixed berries (7 cups-1 person)

Apple (2)

Romaine lettuce (5 cups)

Tomato (1-2 depending on family size)

Mixed veggies for snacking and steaming

• 1 c for wraps/split across 2 days
• 2 cups raw veggies for eating w/hummus
• 4 cups steamed veggies per family member (3 family members,   need 12 cups steamed veggies)

Bell pepper/Yellow onion for egg cups

Salsa

Green beans (1 serving per person)

1 stalk celery

Hummus

Meats:

Turkey or ham slices

• 9 slices for lunches

4 oz steak or chicken

• X however many people in your family example:  3 people= 12 oz of steak or chicken

4 oz. steak

• X however many people in your family example:  3 people= 12 oz steak
• Hot dogs or other meat for kids if they don’t eat steak

¼ pound hamburger

• X however many people in your family example:  4 people= 1 pound of hamburger

Shredded chicken

• I buy a rotisserie chicken and then remove skin and shred it
• Need 2 cups for lunch
• Need 1 cup for supper per family member

Chicken breast

• 4 oz per family member

Grains

6 inch whole grain tortillas

• 3 tortillas for lunches
• 1 tortilla per family member for supper

Rice

• 1 cup per family member

Whole Wheat Bagels

• 1 bagel needed for breakfast per person

Dairy:

Eggs

Shredded cheese

20 oz. 2% cottage cheese

20 oz. plain Greek yogurt

Other:

Sunflower seeds

Mustard

Peanut butter

Extra virgin olive oil

Taco seasoning

Dressing

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30 days to 30.... Except I can't count

Where do you start when you haven't posted in 19ish days? Do you complain about how insane life has been.... Do you just write a regular post and pretend like it didn't happen? What is proper blog etiquette?

Who the hell knows....

I have been so insanely focused on Lucas turning 2 (2!!), that when it happened I realized my life had paused until it did. 

And THEN I realized I was going to turn 30. So on Monday I vowed to start a 30 day clean eating to 30... With the exception of Palm Sunday and Easter... And then I realized I only had 29 days. And then I ate a bar today. Fffff. Lol.

On the plus side I am nailing my workouts and have officially started Week 1 of marathon training.

Thank you gorgeous Minnesota spring weather (I know we will get a blizzard soon) for the outdoor runs. I've been putting my Garmin and Flip Belt to good use and I cannot wrap my head around how I trained for my half last summer without them. Life changing! 

I keep trying to tell myself food is fuel.... Food is fuel. And I've done pretty good.

But that's because I keep reminding myself how I ate this last week....

Yup.... The whole freaking cake. Lucas maybe had two pieces. I am still slightly mortified when I recall that... It was over 4 days but still..... 

Balance of life has been thrown lately and I am struggling to find my groove. But with the warm weather and daylight savings time, I am hoping it will hit soon because this mama wants to turn 30  looking better than I did at 20... Wait, already did that. Ok, 18! 

Some new things to share- Oreos and almonds edition

It's been 10 days since my last post- yikes. I'm not on a food binge bender like  I normally am when I quit posting, but Lucas has been cutting teeth and has a cold so sleep has been minimal at this house. Despite all of that, I am maintaining some semblance of eating heathy and have been working out consistently since Sunday ;) 

Here are some finds that I want to share: 

One of my favorite Instagramers recommended this.... We clearly don't share the same tastes in everything. Yuck. 

These are more my jam! My husband's Valentine's Day gift to me.... (Plus 22 minute Hard Corps when it gets released in March) 

These are also good.... 

But these are the best! 

Clearly the whole family loves Oreos. Poor kid was so tired he couldn't even lick the frosting. 

This kind is not as good as the ice cream blend but not as terrible as the birthday cake kind so.... Half win? 

Blue Diamond is coming out with all sorts of new flavors and I haven't found one yet that I haven't loved!

Stay balanced my friends! It's an every day struggle! 

A White House Meal Plan and Prep

Here is the meal plan that I set in place for last week:

Pre-workout: Energize

Post-workout: Recover

Breakfast: Shake with fruit and PB toast 

Snack:  Eggs 

Lunch:  Spaghetti squash with spaghetti meat, butternut squash, and sweet potato 

Snack:  Celery with PB and fruit and nuts 

Supper:  Red, Yellow, Green 

Ham with potato and veggie

Crockpot potato, turkey and veggie

Steaks with veggie and potato 

Banana oat pancakes with eggs 

Snack:  Fruit

Here is what I needed to do for my meal prep:

I love the Lucas scribbles- I'm so fancy as you guys know :)

I baked the spaghetti squash and butternut squash together on 350 for an hour.

We had spaghetti the night I meal peepers and so I just made a double batch for my lunches for the week.

And then it was just a matter of using my 21 Day Fix containers to measure everything out!

I cannot rave enough about the Banana Oat Pancakes from the Fixate cookbook. You can pick up your copy here: 

Fixate™ (US):

http://www.teambeachbody.com/shop/-/shopping/FixateCookbook?referringRepId=917703

It made enough that I actually substituted it for my breakfast the next day. What I love most about the cookbook is that it tells me how many 21 Day Fix containers each recipe is so it makes it pretty mindless as far as planning goes.

The crockpot turkey recipe turned out really gross so nothing to share there :( and we are still eating ham haha 

Hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing President's Day! 

Super Meal Plan and Prep for Super Bowl Sunday

Here is a meal plan and prep for you while you watch the Super Bowl this evening:

Pre-workout: Energize

Post-workout: Recover

Breakfast: Overnight oats (Red, yellow, purple)

Snack:  Shake (red)

Lunch:  BBQ Chicken with sweet potato and veggies - broccoli (Red, Yellow, Green, Orange)

Snack:  2 veggies (carrots, celery) w/ ½ a blue of hummus and PB and ½ serving nuts

Supper:  Red, Yellow, Green 

Snack:  Fruit

Have another fruit to work in as hungry 

As always, I make my list of what I need to do to meal prep:

- Make oats

- Cook chicken in BBQ sauce on low in crockpot 6-8 hours and divide using red container

- Put broccoli in steam bags to be steamed later

- Cook sweet potatoes 

- Bag veggies

I make all my overnight oats at the same time- works out well.

My grandma made me this sweet potato bag- microwave for 8 minutes, cooked potato. I cut it in two and cook one every other day.

Always wash my fruit so it's ready to go.

Same with the veggies.

I seriously cannot get enough of this combination lately. So delicious!

And I could eat these every single meal too!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Super Bowl Sunday! 

Making time for your relationship

So I don't know if it is the month of February and all the damn Valentine's Day crap that is everywhere (yes, Costco, I DO want my husband to spend $150 to deliver me a tropical bouquet from you... HECK NO. I want a new pair of running shoes for that price!)... or the 2 x 4 I got hit with yesterday when the assignment for my Superstar Bootcamp was to watch this video, but I feel the need to talk about relationships tonight.

It's a little over half an hour but if you are in a relationship, I promise you it is worth it. 

I have been feeling pulled in so many different directions lately.  Work has been overwhelming, Lucas was sick and then going through a growth spurt, my mom breaking her hip, trying to start a business, getting sick myself.... and the easiest thing to do has been to neglect my husband. 

Let's be honest, he is gone for half the month.  So for half the month, I am not even purposely neglecting him.  He is not around that much.  Lucas and I do our thing, I put him to bed, and then I do my Tasmanian devil thing of running around the house, trying to shower, and trying to do some business things.  So when he is here, it's an adjustment for me to stop and remember to let him be a part of our life again.

We have been together for 15 years this March and will celebrate our 5 year anniversary this year and I think (ok, I KNOW) when you are with someone that long, it's easy to just let them become part of the blur of life.  But it doesn't make that person feel very special I'm sure.  So I am going to actively focus on making my husband and our relationship stand out from that blur.

Tonight's assignment for my Bootcamp focused on scheduling your time out which is something I did when I read 168 Hours (See Books tab above for a review) but I haven't gone back since Lucas changed his sleeping schedule from long ago (I will his current 8:45-6:15 with 1 one wake up to his 6-6 with wake ups every hour!) and with my Beachbody stuff.  So that is my goal for tomorrow.  And part of that is going to be not only to check my marriage (which is something we have started forgetting to do) but also to set aside some time for my marriage.  Even if it's just a 5 minute time where I just sit and let Mike talk and make eye contact (I'm really good at multitasking listening and being on my phone), I need to put some time in there for my husband.

Time to adjust the balance of my life and remember that the #1 F is family!

Ways to have a FULL Life But Save Money

So yesterday I posted about how we are debt free and I wanted to share a little bit more about how we did that…. Or maybe what we did NOT do to do that.

 

Our biggest household expense was groceries.  As you all clearly know, I’ve been trying to keep our family eating 80% healthy, 20% treats.  Which can get really expensive and can be difficult do on a budget.  So here are a few things that I did to decrease costs:
 

1      I planned what we were going to eat every week.  This helped in two ways- one, I was able to plan if we could have a meal that took a long time to cook because Mike was off or if I needed a quick, easy meal because it would be just me and Lucas cooking.  You all remember what happened when I let Lucas cook eggs with me right?  The second thing it does was keep us from running out to eat at a restaurant because we were out of food.

      When we do go out to eat, we picked places that had $5 specials (thank you Dairy Queen!) or we ate at Costco.  Our family of 3 can eat there for under $10.  I can’t tell you the last time we went to a nicer restaurant as a family if someone else wasn’t paying for it…. Maybe when we were on vacation last summer?  It’s just not something that we DID.  It was a short-term sacrifice that we made to have long-term financial success.
 

3    We aren’t just stopping at Costco to eat…we are stopping there to SHOP.  Yes, it is a 45 minute drive for me but it is worth it to get fresh, organic produce and foods to stock up on.  Their prices are amazing and the quantity of food often lasts us 1-2 weeks, depending on what it is.

But what about activities… did you just sit in the house all day and stare at each other?  Of course not!  But we planned out what we would do.
 

1.   We bought passes to the Butterfly House and Sioux Falls Zoo.

     For the price of what it would have cost us to go twice, we were able to go multiple times and can continue to go for the entire year.  This is so nice with a toddler because his interest can last 30 minutes or it can last hours and I never have to worry about wasted money.

    I make different things at home for Lucas to do using supplies from the Dollar Store.  You can check out the full post on this HERE.

3.       I plan, plan, plan what I am going to buy Lucas for birthday/Christmas.  I spent more time than I would like to admit planning out our Black Friday shopping.  But I was able to get Lucas twice as much as what I could at any other time of the year.

4.      I buy toys that he will enjoy NOW and in the future.  We don’t have a lot of plastic Fisher Price stuff because I know he won’t use it a few months from now.  We have blocks and magnets and things that require him (and us!) to use our imagination.  I’m not saying he doesn’t have ANY of it, but I would say 75% of his toys are ones he will continue to use for the next 2-3 years. 

5.       We go to FREE local events.  Our Community Ed program doesn’t do nearly as much with Lucas’ age as I would like, but when they do something, we are THERE.  I also pay for Lucas to go to the Early Childhood Family Education program (which has a sliding fee scale) so we can do that one time a week.  If the library has something that I can take Lucas to, we go.  Actually, we usually go one time a week to let him run around in a new environment and check out some new books.  In the summer, we go to all of their events!   We are big readers in our house! 

6.       We went on vacations that were close.  For Mike’s 30^th birthday, we rode tripped to Yellowstone and back.  We packed groceries, made our meals, and had a set budget.  

When we went to Omaha, we did the same thing.

 

And to be honest, when we do our family vacation this summer (Location TBD), we will probably STILL do that.  Old habits die hard!

I can’t look back on any one thing and say I regretted not doing that because we were trying to save money.   Lucas is a healthy eater and most of what we buy for him is organic.  Although the below was a total FAIL on my part… poor kid. 

It tastes like dirt. Please do not feed to your child. 

We have all had great experiences and made fun family memories!  And now that we are debt free, we get to continue to make fun family memories without the stress of debt on our minds!  If you're looking for other ways to better manage your money or help with savings for retirement, head over to Personal Capital's web site.  They have some great free financial tools that can help you!