impromTuesday: This Girl Can

I can't remember if it was Facebook or Fit Bottomed Girls that first introduced me to this awesome YouTube Channel. But I love what This Girl Can stands for! Here is what they have to say in their YouTube Description section:

"Worried about what people think when you exercise? You're not alone. Fear of judgement is stopping many women from taking part in physical activity. But it doesn't have to.

This Girl Can celebrates the women who are doing their thing no matter how they do it, how they look or even how sweaty they get. They're here to inspire us to wiggle, jiggle, move and prove that judgement is a barrier that can be overcome."

Be sure to check them out HERE!!

Menu Monday - Our Turkey Chili

This week's menu looks pretty sad on our calendar due to a lot of action/traveling happening. 

First off, by the time you read this, I'll be in Las Vegas at a business conference.  The conference started Sunday and will go through Wednesday...this leaves my husband to fend for himself and our daughter in the food category for 4 nights.

Our menu this week is basically chili every day that I'm gone.  Thursday evening we're making baked chicken and then Friday - Sunday we are making a trip to visit my husbands family.

At least it's beginning to feel more and more like the fall/cold season, so today I'll be featuring our personal chili recipe.

Highlighted Recipes: Our Turkey Chili

Sassy Saturday - Week 23 of Pregnancy

Some fun things I've really noticed this week:

• This baby can predict when I'm getting ready to eat something! I swear, as soon as I start thinking about the delicious food we're cooking or getting ready to pick up s/he starts kicking and getting excited.  I wonder if there is some internal change that triggers this.
• I can actually SEE the baby kicking from the outside. So it's not a huge prominent bump or something, but when it kicks you can actually see my tummy vibrate in that location. :-D
• My energy is still going strong and I'm really enjoying that with all the activities I've been trying to do every day.

Some not so fun things I've noticed this week:

Fitness Friday - Wogging

Since the weather is definitely getting nicer in our area, it's been in the 60's & 70's, I thought I'd talk to you about a little something I like to call Wogging. This is where I combine random intervals of fast pace walking with jogging and it's something I've become highly fond of!

I bring it up now because 1) It's much more fun to wog outdoors and 2) It's a good thing to look into if you're not a huge fan of running.

Thankful Thursday - My Family

The more that I've learned and emersed myself the thinking of a Lifestyle Change, the more I've discovered that it's not just about the exercises you complete or the food that you eat...it's also about having a healthy mind set.  One thing I feel many of us need to work on, myself included, is to reflect on things that we should be, or are, thankful for.

This week I'm going to share with you a little more about my family and why I'm thankful for them!

Weigh-in Wednesday - Meal Planning

Something I'm a huge believer in is meal planning.  I started this when I was a poor college kid trying to stretch a dollar as much as possible and it's continued over the past 10 - 11 years!

Meal planning isn't just great for budgeting, but it's also wonderful for living a healthy lifestyle and making those healthy food choices. Not only can you plan a balanced meal, but you can also avoid the urge to swing through a drive thru since you already know what you'll be eating at home!

Today I'm going to tell you how we do meal planning for our family with some of my personal tips to make this stick for your own...

imprompTuesday - Wicked the Musical with my Husband

My husband and I are both big fans of musicals and one of our absolute favorites is Wicked. Wicked tells the story of how the Wicked Witch of the West (from the Wizard of Oz) became...well, wicked.

Let me tell you, this is an AMAZING musical!!!! I've seen it 3 times before this year and Tony has seen it once before.  However, we've never seen it together and it was very exciting to have that opportunity this go round!!

Check out some of our photos from our date day in Kansas City and a couple of my favorite songs from the musical!!

Sum Up Sunday #3

This was a fun week for the Fit Bottomed Girls October 11 - 17 challenge. However, I will be honest and let you know that I wasn't able to complete all of them due to the fact that we are having some intense interviews at our office for another sales associate, another me, and that took up the majority of my focus, time and energy Wednesday - Friday.

Here is what I did complete this past week and what they have in store for us the week of the 18 - 24!!

Menu Monday - Homemade Sloppy Joe's

Monday, October 19 - Sunday, October 25

Monday: Turkey Shepherds Pie
Tuesday: Chicken Spaghetti w/Mushrooms
Wednesday: Left Overs
Thursday: Homemade Sloppy Joe's w/Veggies
Friday: Baked Taryaki Chicken with Rice and Veggies
Saturday: Left Overs
Sunday: Chili

Highlighted Recipe - Homemade Sloppy Joe's

Sassy Saturday - Week 22 of Pregnancy

**I apologize for the delay in posts this weekend, it was a hectic weekend with lots of activity!**

Not much to report on this week, still feeling very good and my energy is staying very consistent. I've had a few days of feeling uncomfortable if I'm sitting in a certain position or have eaten some very spicy food (hello heartburn), but overall feeling very good.

Enjoying the fact that I can really feel our little baby moving and shaking.  I've been able to feel the flutters and movements since the beginning of August, right around the end of the 1st trimester and beginning of the 2nd. However, they are definitely becoming more prominent!

I honestly feel like this child knows when I'm getting ready to eat because everything I start thinking about food or preparing lunch/dinner it starts kicking around like crazy.  LOL. Very active...so I'll be interested to see if it's a sound sleeper like it's sister or if it is very active and wakes up every 30 minutes wanting to be active. 

This week I:

Fitness Friday - My Personal Full Body Routine

Today I wanted to share with you my personal Full Body Workout.  This incorporates dumbbell and body weight exercises. The best part about this is that you can do it as many times in a row as you want and you can use whatever weight you want!

I'd highly suggest giving this a shot and be prepared to get ripped. :-P ;-)

Thankful Thursday - Fall Weather

Due to a lot of action happening at work this week interviewing for a new employee and getting things cleaned up for our next round of busy season prior to the holidays...I was unable to do my original Thankful Thursday post.  I'll be moving that to next week, but still wanted to share something that I'm extremely thankful for.

Fall Weather!!!!!!!! I absolutely love the Fall and we've been getting lots of teasing waves the past few weeks.  It's in the 40's in the morning and then gets up to the 80's and 90's by the afternoon.  Although, some afternoons get up to the 70's, again, lots of teasing. LOL. However, it looks like the next few days are supposed to be in the 60's and 70's and I'm extremely excited!

I love the Fall for many reasons, these include:

Weigh-in Wednesday - How to Drink More Water

One of the many things you hear when putting more research time into living a healthier lifestyle is the need to drink more water.  Typically the average person does not consume enough water in a day. I truly believe that most of us, who do not already make a conscious decision to watch our water intake, would be baffled at how little they actually drink.

For this reason, I wanted to share some tips and tricks that my husband and I have used to ensure that we are getting at least 64 oz of water each day. (This is actually drinking it and not calculating the water that is in food and other beverages.)

imprompTuesday - Fitness Bucket List

One of the challenges from the Fit Bottomed Girls for September was to create your fitness bucket list. They had some really good examples that really got my creative, and adventurous, juices flowing!

Today I wanted to share my Fitness bucket list with all of you and challenge you to create one of your own. :-D

Menu Monday - Herb Baked Tilapia

Monday, October 12 - Sunday, October 18:

Monday: Tomato Soup w/Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Tuesday: Hamburger Mac n Cheese w/ Cheesy Vegetables
Wednesday: Herb Marinated Tilapia w/Rice and Veggies
Thursday: Pan Seared T-Bone Steak w/Mashed Potatoes and Veggies
Friday: Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches
Saturday: Skillet chicken with creamy lime sauce, w/cilantro lime rice and veggies
Sunday: Chili

Highlighted Recipe - Herb Baked Tilapia

Sum up Sunday #2

Q4 Health Challenge at Work:

This was our first week of the Maintain Campaign and I have officially increase .68% of my body weight so far. Obviously, that is still under where I'm shooting for, but we have 13 weeks left and three major holidays that tend to revolve around food.

Now for the Fit Bottomed Girls challenge week of October 4 - 10, here is what went down:

Sassy Sunday - Week 21 of Pregnancy

This week we had our 20 week appointment and had the opportunity to discover what we're having!! We are very excited, but decided to try something different this pregnancy and not tell anyone else until our baby shower. We figured this would give our families a fun surprise and ensure that we get a lot of unisex items at the beginning.

I guess I have two reasons for wanting to do this: 1) After having a girl the first time we know that people will automatically gravitate towards buying a bunch of pink stuff for a girl and a bunch of blue stuff for a boy and we like to be different and steer away from those typical steryotypes.  (Now I'm not saying we don't dress our daughter in pink, but we like the variety of dressing her in green, blue, purple, yellow, brown, etc...). 2) This will also... help us having more items for baby #3 depending on what we have.  If we are expecting a girl right now and then have a boy for baby #3 we'll have unisex stuff to pass down.  If we are expecting a boy right now, we already decided that we'd go through and purge a lot of Jera's old baby clothes that we've horded...so if baby #3 is a girl then we'll have more clothes to utilize when she's first born.  See...we are thinking strategically here. :-P ;-)

I started gaining some weight and seem to have gone back to not having gained any weight. I did start out at ~30 lbs overweight, but I'm still a little shocked that I haven't really gained anything.  My doctor is not worried about it, so I'm not going to be worried about it. I was blessed that after having Jera I had lost a bunch of weight and was very close to my goal weight...so maybe that's just typical for my pregnancies and for that I can't complain. (I think it's because I'm more conscious about what I'm eating and tend to become more active.)

This week I (Saturday - Friday):

• Craved salads...I had chicken salads, chili salads, turkey salads...basically anything we made I wanted to just put it on a bead of lettuce and call it delicious!!
• Drank more pop than I typically do...this baby has been craving some Diet Dr. Peppers. :-( I need to watch this though since days I drink more pop I tend to drink less water...
• Logged 66,209 steps on Fitbit
• Clocked in 27.57 miles on Fitbit
• Totaled 11 workouts on MapMyFitness plus 2 weight lifting sessions!

Fitness Friday - Darebee

For today's Fitness Friday I bring to you Darebee...an amazing site with SOOOOOOOO many resources at your finger tips AND it's FREE!!!!!! This is a site that one of my coworkers introduced to my husband and I, and I'm so glad that he did!

 

There are so many things to highlight about this amazing site it's hard for me to even wrap my head around what I really want to share with all of you! Here are my highlights:

Thankful Thursday - My Daughter

There is always something to be Thankful for and today I'm sharing with you 11 reasons why I'm thankful for my beautiful, goofy, sensitive, independent and just overall wonderful daughter, Jera.

Weigh-in Wednesday - Switch Things Up

I know several people out there enjoy one or two types of exercise and they stick to doing just those one or two things on a daily/weekly basis. While you may feel this really increases your performance in those activities you enjoy the most, I personally feel there are several advantages to switching up your normal workout routine.  These advantages have a positive effect on you AND your favorite activities!

For this weeks Weigh-in Wednesday, I'm going to share with you my top three reasons why switching up your routine is vitally important to living a successful healthy and active lifestyle.

imprompTuesday - Home Gym Clean-up

September 17th of the challenge put on by Fit Bottomed Girls was to do one of my fitness bucket list items. However, all of my bucket list items will not be able to be completed until after this pregnancy is over...and take some preparation.

Now one project that we've been putting off for awhile is getting our home gym back up and running. Basically since about April/May it's been completely cluttered up and continually used as a catch all for things we didn't want in our house. This has really been bugging me, and now that we're going into Fall/Winter I really wanted it set-up.

So my husband and I spent about 3 solid hours of team work and got our gym back up and running and I wanted to share the results with everyone!

Click below to see the amazing pictures!!

Menu Monday - Rotisserie Chicken & Strawberry Salad

Menu Monday - Oct 5 - Oct 11

• Monday: Five Bean Chili Recipe
• Tuesday: Turkey Shepherd's Pie
• Wednesday: Chili Cheese Dogs w/Left Over Chili and Turkey Hot Dogs & Veggies
• Thursday: Spaghetti w/ Ground Turkey and Mushrooms
• Friday: Sloppy Joe Grilled Cheese w/Veggies
• Saturday: Kansas State University Football Game = Tailgate
• Sunday: Rotisserie Chicken & Strawberry Salad

Highlighted Recipe - Rotisserie Chicken & Strawberry Salad

Sum up Sunday #1

I

Work Challenge Update:

At my office we try to do quarterly health challenges to keep people active, if they want to participate. Our Q4 challenge just started up and it's our "Maintain Campaign". Everyone who wants to participate can choose to maintain their current weight or lose weight from now through January 8th.

Everyone puts money into the pot and at the end the person who loses the highest % of their body weight gets 1/2 of the pot and anyone who actually maintains their weight gets put into a random drawing, whoever is chosen gets the other 1/2...

Sassy Saturday - Week 20 of Pregnancy

Things have actually been treating me very nicely throughout this pregnancy, a much different experience then I had with my daughter.  I'm not cranky, I have a lot of energy (now that I'm in my 2nd trimester), I've been able to stay active and I haven't had any high blood pressure...which is a big deal and you should check out why HERE.

Since my pregnancy with my daughter was a bit tougher on me, I'm really trying to savor every moment of this pregnancy.  All the fluttery kicks, the growing belly and the extra love my hubby has in his eye whenever he looks at me.  It's all been a true blessing so far and I thank God for that!

Fitness Friday - Warrior X-Fit

Today I'm going to highlight an amazing website that was introduced to me when I was taking Taekwando classes in college.

Warrior X-Fit is a free online program that combines cardio and strength training workouts in a 20 minute workout.  These workouts can be done anywhere because it's a fully online program that uses a resistance tube and your body weight for the workouts...

Thankful Thursday - My Husband

My husband is an amazing man and I definitely lucked out to have him in my life.  He's a huge supporter for me in everything and I'm blessed that he enjoys being as active as me.

When we first started dating, Tony was very active and worked out on a regular basis...I did not. Thankfully he has the patience of a saint and continued to work with encouraging me to become healthier and more active. Once I was finally ready, during my pregnancy with our daughter, he was right there and ready to start giving me advice and encouraging me on every walk.