Today is my Best Friends birthday! We have been friends since my oldest son was just a couple of months old so almost 8 years. She is absolutely MY go to girl when I need to laugh, cry, need someone to pray with me, or make me an insanely large bowl of guacamole.
If you have read any of my latest blog posts you know without a doubt that I am a huge fan of Chalene Johnson. The woman has helped me lose over 30 pounds this last year. And, if that wasn't enough the woman inspires me every day to do more, be more, and love more. She has it going on and then some. So, when she talks, I listen.
A while back I read a post on her blog about some snazzy little device she was wearing on her arm. It was a watch, calorie burning tracker and pedometer. With it you gained access to a website where you can input your calorie intake and then upload the information it recorded during the time you wore it. The website then put it into graphs and charts (so easy to read) that allowed you to see what you burned compared to what you took in and how that would affect your weight loss. So Cool!!
The snazzy little gadget? The Bodybugg.
I ordered one for my birthday and since then I have worn it most everyday. I have on occasion forgotten to take it off and charge it so I've missed a bit of time here and there, but I love it. I love being able to check it during the day and see how many calories I've burned, how many steps I've taken, how many calories I'm burning per minute right then! It is especially great when I'm in the middle of my workouts because just by glancing at the digital display I can see if I need to step it up to reach my calorie burning goal or if I can bring the intensity down a little. It also lets me know at the end of the day if I've reached my calorie burn goal for the day. If not, another workout is in order or a slightly smaller dinner or a evening walk with the boys.
Chalene just posted this video with her thoughts about the Bodybugg on her blog. I wanted to share what a fitness "professional" thought about it with you. Oh yeah, and all the contestants on The Biggest Loser wear one at all times. And you've seen their results!
This was another project I did for a class. This one was for Technology in the Classroom. I think it would be neat to do these for the students and have them playing when the parents come in for teacher conferences. Smilebox has a ton of different templates you can use, this one is more scrapbook like, but they have slide shows and other themes. Its a really neat site if you want to check it out, click here.
My dad sent me this through e-mail... I don't know if its made the rounds before or not but I thought it was funny! Enjoy!!
The first man married a woman from North Carolina . He told her that she was to do the dishes and house cleaning. It took a couple of days, but on the third day, he came home to see a clean house and dishes washed and put away.
The second man married a woman from South Carolina . He gave his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and the cooking. The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done and there was a huge dinner on the table.
The third man married a girl from Michigan . He ordered her to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed, and hot meals on the table for every meal. He said the first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything but by the third day, some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, and his arm was healed enough that he could fix himself a sandwich and load the dishwasher.
1. I am an adrenaline junky, just don't make me wait for an hour and a half before the thrill. The wait kills me, but once its time my game face is on and I'm ready to roll.
2. I am a sap. I already knew this, but I have embraced it. I mean geesh, what is so wrong with crying during WallE? Or Up? Or Pride and Prejudice? Or, whatever other movie I happen to be watching? All it says about me is that I get sucked in to a story and am able to empathize with the characters. It happens in real life too... I hate to see people in pain and would much rather bare that burden for them.
3. I am spontaneous. I am a make a decision and live with the consequences kind of girl. I do not like hemming & hawing (are those real words?) about anything. Just make a decision and go with it.
4. I want to live life fully. I do not want to sit at home on my sofa and watch it pass me by. I have been given this one life, this amazing gift and I am not going to squander it. I am dreaming big dreams and I am moving toward them.
5. I like to be organized. I like to have a place for everything and everything in its place. Chaos and I do not mix well. It stresses me out and makes me grumpy (yes, I get grumpy *gasp*).
6. I like being active, and I like being active with other people. I am much more likely to go for a walk, rollerblading, bike riding, running, or whatever if I have someone to do it with. So, if you like to do those things and you want a partner, give me a call!
7. I have a lot of interests. I can't even name them all... but I love learning about and doing different things. In fact, one of the things I am studying in my Human Biology are bones and I LOVE IT! There are something like 265 bones in the human body. I only have to learn and be able to identify 50, which is why I have a pelvic bone and a scapula in my school bag right now.
8. I really like lip gloss, toenail polish, 4 inch heels and jeans that fit juuussssttt right. I like to feel pretty.
9. I am strong and I can overcome. These are huge for me. I have always been a start the project, feel overwhelmed by project, quit the project person. It was all about feeling insecure in my ability to accomplish the task. But, this year I learned that I am strong, physically and mentally. I can do what I set my mind to I learned this during my lifting workouts. I pushed myself harder than I thought was possible and ya know what? I was successful every time. That doesn't mean it was easy, not at all. But I CAN became my favorite phrase and it has carried over to every part of my life.
Part of living a healthy lifestyle is find ways to incorporate healthy choices into some of our favorite foods. This recipe is one I found on Chalene Johnson's blog and I love it!! There are a couple of things I do differently. First, when it comes to cooking the chicken, I like to have it done ahead of time so I can just throw the rest of the stuff together and have dinner ready in 15 minutes.... I don't like to cook, I want OUT of the kitchen as soon as possible. So, I usually put my chicken breasts (about 4-8 pounds) in a Crock pot and cook over night with only a little salt and pepper, no water. I end up with super tender chicken which I shred. I freeze half and put the other half in the fridge. We use it on salads, nachos (as this recipe calls for), barbecue chicken sandwiches, etc. But its already cooked and ready to go.
I plan on posting more healthy recipes. Some of them will be my own, but mostly ones I steal from other people. I will do my best to tell you where I get them from. Enjoy!!
Ingredients
A bag of Multi Grain Chips
1 can Black Beans
½ can of sweet corn
1 cup of chopped tomatoes
1 large Avocado diced
3 pieces of Chicken breasts
1 bag of low fat shredded cheese (4 Cheese Mexican Cheese blend)
Salsa of your choice homemade or store bought
Preparation
Grill the chicken breast pieces on both sides until cooked (no pink in the middle), juice 1 lime fresh and add while grilling and season to taste (salt & pepper)
Dice the chicken after grilling
First empty the chips into the serving dish,
Mix black beans, sweet corn, tomatoes, and avocado, season to taste (salt & pepper), add ¾ of the cheese and pour over the chips
Pour the remainder of the cheese on top to cover the rest of the ingredients and serve (if you prefer you can melt the cheese).
Every year just before Christmas when the new year is looming I start thinking about what I want to accomplish during the next year and I write those goals down. Last year I wanted to get into better physical shape, which included losing some weight and learning how to eat better and I was successful with that goal.
The other BIG goal I had last year was to be more real. I don't know about you, but putting the "real me" out there has been difficult to say the least. For some reason or another I started tempering who I am. I don't know if that is something you can relate to or not but it was where I found myself, and I had been doing it for a very long time. Last fall I started having a heaviness on my chest, constant jitters, not sleeping, that sort of thing. My mom thought I was going through a midlife crisis. I though maybe my thyroid medication was off. But, when you aren't sleeping at night you tend to do a whole lot of thinking, and some of what I thought about had to do with life dreams and being real. I realized that somewhere along the line I stopped living the life I was born to live and started living the life I thought was expected of me. And I got lost in the shuffle and ended up feeling trapped.
So, last year I decided to let myself out of the box I had put myself in. And you know what? Most of the time it feels great. There are days when I still want to stifle who I am because I am afraid that if someone truly knows me, and all the little quirks that make me, they won't like me... But, I'm working on it. And I am trying to remember that if they don't like who I truly am then they really aren't worth wasting my time on. Because there are people who love all of me, quirks included, and those are the people that I want in my life. They are the people that won't ditch out when things get hard or messy.
I made a new list of goals for this year. Some of them are big, life experience sort of goals. Others are more along the lines of the "get the basement cleaned and organized" sort. They are all written down in a journal and also kept on my phone. I look at them often and that helps me to stay on track and working towards them every day, sometimes in big ways and other times by taking a small step. But each step is one step taken.... one moment lived.... one touch of success....
Many of you know that over the last year I have lost 30plus pounds doing the Beachbody workouts Turbo Jam and ChaLean Extreme. It has been a great process and I have loved every step of it. But, one of the things that I (and apparently, others) have noticed is that I do not have a butt. At some point after having kids it just went away. And you know what? I want my butt back. I want it to be the good 'ol round booty it used to be. So, this morning I added a new workout program to my routine.
Now, I know you have all seen pictures of the beautiful ladies in Brazil on the beach with their cute little behinds. I mean, geesh, they even have their own style of bathing suit. What better workout could I do for my Bum Bum (pronounced boom boom) than The BRAZIL BUTT LIFT. I mean really... if anything is gonna bring this whimpy booty to life its gonna be that...
I took before pics last night. I don't think I am brave enough to post them on my blog. I mean, I have lost 30 pounds, but still, I'm no supermodel... Maybe after I go through the program and see some amazing results (which I don't doubt for a minute because all of Beachbody's products deliver) I will post the befores with the afters.... maybe. I am not committing to that at all.
If you are interested in any of the workouts that I've talked about, just click on the name. It will take you right to the information. If you want to know more about The Brazil Butt Lift watch the video below...
All of the workouts are available through Beachbody. If you are interested in placing an order either click on the picture on the sidebar under "Visit My Beachbody Site" or go to TurboKristy.com
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