There is only 24 hours in a day

Oh Hello! You have probably forgotten who I am by now right? It has been over two months since my last post, although, trust me, I have thought about posting often, time just doesn't allow. 

There has been so much happening the past few months. The weather is finally beautiful and warm so we have been outside a lot. We have been on the go and have no signs of slowing down anytime soon. I have so much stuff on my brain but I will stick to my health in tonight's post. 

Let's go back to April when we had Easter. I did get into some mini chocolates which caused me a bit of a slippery slope for a week or two. Thankfully I didn't gain from that but it did cause me to miss my next weight goal by 0.8 of a pound.

My goal was to get under 200 pounds by May 17 which is when I left for a week in BC. I was SO close that it stung to miss by such a little amount especially when I know that I didn't do my best for two weeks. But it was also hard to be too upset because I had worked really hard and still felt great.

For the past few weeks I have been teetering RIGHT above 200 pounds. I went from 200.8 to 200.4 to 200.2. Last week I was FINALLY under 200 pounds. I weighed in at 198.4!!! I was SUPER excited to see a 1 in front of my weight instead of a 2. 

I do love the summer weather. I have been walking often, still going to the gym 2-3 times a week, playing soccer, on top of all of our house work and gardening. I have been pretty good with my eating, all while still enjoying my summer treats (as I sip my Bud Light Lime beer). This summer I have ventured out into the world of vegetable gardening. I bought all of my vegetables already started and planted them all a few weeks ago. My garden is now in the weeding stage where I have to weed it often. Perhaps I did not prep my soil properly? Next year I will look into some kind of weed killer before starting to plant my vegetables. I bought a lot of plants so hopefully we will have a successful "crop" this year and get some good eats!

So how am I doing it all?! Good question...I wish I knew haha! I have had to really focus on what is important to me. I am very organized so I still do my meal planning and grocery shopping the same as before. I squeeze in my workouts when I can and that includes utilizing our workout program during lunch times some days. On top of eating healthy and exercising I have still been following our automatic body program and taking the Nutrie products. It definitely helps with my energy level that's for sure.

One thing that has been very over whelming to me is trying to make the best health choices for myself and my family (especially my daughter). I am having a very hard time trying to educate myself on things that are natural and good for her. I can't tell you how many hours I spent researching and deciding if I was going to give her cows milk. My over whelming decision right now...sunscreen. There are SO many arguments that say that the chemicals in brand name sunscreens are worse for you than getting hit with the sun. Rylee (like myself) is very fair and would burn easily. I use a natural sunscreen on her BUT that being said with all of the trickery out there on word plays ect how can we know what is actually natural or not?!

It is absolutely exhausting. Part of my wants to just give up and take the easy way out. Part of my thinks "well giving her a chicken breast that is not certified organic is better than giving her kraft dinner". And part of me only wants the best for my family but I don't even know where to begin. I try to pick small changes that we can manage like changing our lunch/food storage containers to glass instead of plastic. But like I said I can't tell you how many hours I researched and seriously stressed over the decision to give her milk or not and that is only ONE small piece of her everyday food consumption. 

Some choices are easy - like juice. We do not give her juice. period. She LOVES, and I mean LOVES water - so why give her juice and make her not like water anymore? The odd time (maybe once a month) she gets diluted juice at daycare which I am totally fine with her having once in a while but it is NOT a daily occurrence. My mom also makes Rylee popsicles out of water with a bit of juice for flavour. So for US the right choice is to not give her juice. I understand that this is not the right choice for every family so as long as you 
have figured out what works for you then more power to you.

The problem today is labels. They are there for you to read but the amount of trickery that goes into the wording is UNREAL. You think that you are getting meat that is "Free Range" yet really Free Range is the NAME OF THE COMPANY that supplies the meat! Same thing with McDonalds 100% real beef. That is the name of the company that sells McDonalds their meat and so they advertise their products as 100% real beef. 

Food has become a huge problem in today's society and I don't even know how or where to begin to find correct, unbiased, non-judging information. 

So I apologize for not having written more posts lately but when it becomes a choice between the blog of fitness - fitness will win everytime ;)

Playing in the kitchen...again

I am going to toot my own horn as I would consider yesterday a very successful day. Yesterday marked the beginning of my new week for meal plan and all that fun stuff. On Thursday I made a new menu plan that I was very pleased with and then Thursday evening we went to the grocery store and stocked up on all the healthy foods. I also included some new recipes - something I've been doing a lot more of lately!

Yesterday I tried two new recipes and they were both a huge hit so I thought I would share them all with you. I found them both on Pinterest (seriously love that site). If I had used the recipes I found on Pinterest exactly how they were I would have just linked you to them for copyright reasons, however, I changed both of the recipes as I went along to suit what I wanted to I will post them here for you.

Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus

1 can chickpeas
1 package sun dried tomatoes (I found them in the produce section of the Superstore)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup water

1. Peel the skins off the chickpeas (you can do this by gently squeezing them out of their shell. It took my husband and I about 5 minutes to do the whole can and we had never done it before).

2. Rinse the chickpeas and put them in the food processor (I used a blender which I feel was MUCH harder to do and the most time consuming part).

3. Cut up sundried tomatoes into small pieces (I used scissors since it was too tough to cut). Add them into the food processor.

4. Chop finely 1/4 c. cilantro and add to food processor.

5. Add pepper and salt to taste.

6. Add 1/3 c. oil.

7. Blend until smooth. *Up until now the items have only been sitting in the food processor, not blended already*

Now that being said: as I mentioned I used a blender since that was all I had and it wasn't going to well so I slowly added a bit of water to keep things moving. I also feel like I could have gotten away with a lot less oil and a bit more water. I really don't even like hummus but this was a big hit!!! I had it with cut up veggies. YUM! Next time I think I will add some roasted garlic to this dip!

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

1 head cauliflower

1/4 c. flour (you can use regular/whole wheat flour or a gluten free flour like coconut flour - I used regular white flour)

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp Italian seasoning - I just used what ever spices I had in the pantry

1/2 tsp garlic powder

2 tbsp yeast

2 large eggs

1. Place cookie sheet in the oven and preheat to 475F. I used a round pizza cookie sheet.

2. Use a cheese grater or food processor to grate the cauliflower into very small pieces.

3. Place the cauliflower in a bowl and microwave for about 4 minutes on high. Remove from microwave and dump into a clean tea towel. Let cool for a few minutes. roll the cauliflower up and make sure it is in there good and secure so you won't loose any. Over the sink, squeeze the cauliflower like you are wrapping a candy (in opposite directions). I had my husband do this part for me since he is stronger and he wore the silicone oven mitts as the water was coming out was quite hot. You want to get as much water out as possible.

4. Mix cauliflower and all other ingredients into a large bowl - then mix with your hands. I mixed for about 3 minutes since I didn't know what the "dough" was to look like. It was very sticky to my hand and I thought FOR SURE this was going to be an epic failure (but it wasn't). Then I put a piece of parchment paper on the counter and put the dough onto it and pressed it into a pizza crust formation (scraping the dough off my hands as I went as it was quite sticky).

5. Remove the hot cookie sheet from the oven and put parchment paper on it then return it to the oven to cook the crust for 8-10 minutes (or until golden brown). While crust is cooking chop and prep pizza toppings.

6. Remove crust from oven and top with your choice of pizza toppings. I used pizza sauce, green pepper, onion, mushroom, pineapple, a small amount of "light" old cheddar, and some feta. Some chicken would have really made the pizza better as well.

7. Bake until cheese is melted (about 6-8 minutes).

I was concerned that this wasn't going to turn out - but it was SO good. Granted it was a lot of work, but in my opinion it was worth it. The dough only made enough for one pizza so if you were wanting it for more people you would need to adjust the recipe to the amount of people you were making it for. I am still drooling over this and if I didn't have a yummy dinner already planned for tonight I would be strongly inclined to make it again.

_________________________________________________________________

Yesterday reminded me of something very important and that is how I feel when I make healthy choices. There is not one part of me that feels bad when I make healthy food choices. I feel so strong and confident which moves into all areas of my life especially my workouts. I had a great session with my trainer yesterday and pushed myself hard (did a few next exercises I wasn't found of, but got to push myself). Granted we may have chatted a bit too much during the session to but it was fun and I definitely got a good workout done  ;). 

I also know that when I have healthy foods on my meal plan that I like and am excited for it makes it MUCH easier to stay on track and not eat unhealthy foods - for example, if there is something I really like for dinner that night and we are asked to go out to eat instead I am much more likely to say no thanks when there is something good for dinner that night. I do realize that this does take a bit of extra planning - but in the long run it is totally worth it! You are worth it!

Pity party for 1

I was going to write a post last night but I was too busy holding a pity party for 1.

I have been working on my sleep hygiene and it is actually really tough to get into a sleep pattern. I am still really really tired and hoping that I start to feel the benefits soon (Google says it's about two weeks before you notice a difference). I've been having a very hard time saying awake during the day, and especially in the evening. My sleep time is 10 pm so it is very tough to stay away that long especially when I am SO tired. I have been waking up with headaches everyday too, that go away shortly after having a shower and eating.

So after work yesterday I met Sean at the gym and we got changed to do our workout. Then we sat there for 5 minutes and complained that we were both so tired and just wanted to go home. We contemplated leaving before working out but I was like that would be SO lazy and lame to get dressed then just change again and go home when we were already there. So we pursued our workout. I started my warm up walking on the treadmill and then went to the mats to do a good stretch. When I was stretching there were three females that were working out in the area that were super fit and it made me feel really crummy. I know you shouldn't compare yourself to others but I was down on the fact that I had let myself get like this (put some weight back on). I ended up doing a half an hour cardio workout then we went home.

I am feeling a bit better today, although still down, but I am trying to focus on the positive. The good thing is that I did NOT go home and eat my feelings! I made dinner, ate good portions, then had a portioned snack. Previously I would have just said "forget this" and eaten what ever I wanted. I am still determined to lose 8 pounds this month - and I am going to do it!

Today I am going to try a new idea - right as I am leaving work I am going to have a lift off to help power me through my workout. I have a really good workout plan for this week so I just have to stay focused on it.

Monday - gym
Tuesday - Lee
Wednesday - soccer
Thursday - gym
Friday - Lee
Saturday - gym
Sunday - hiking with Sean and Levi

I am going to finish this Debbie Downer post with three things that I am grateful for right now:

1. My back is no longer hurting me (for the most part)
2. I have a lot of exciting trips to looks forward to
3. I am starting to feel like my old self, little bit by little bit - but I notice them more obviously when they happen little bits at a time.