Category: Healthy Living

Posted on

The Five Tools I Implemented to Lose 20 Pounds

Hi everyone! If you’ve been following along on my journey, you know that in the recent months I have lost around 20 pounds. Now I am not trying to promote anybody feeling like they need to lose weight or need to change the way that they look. You are beautiful just the way you are! But, I have always been an active person and I was beginning to feel constantly fatigued, uncomfortable in my own skin, and just not like myself. Losing weight is definitely not the most important step in being comfortable in your own skin… I also learned to love myself at every stage instead of only consuming myself with losing weight. Getting healthy + fit again was the goal… losing weight can come with implementing more healthy decisions (usually). These are the top 5 habits & apps I implemented into my life to get my results– I am not a doctor or have any kind of degree in nutrition & fitness– this is just what worked for me and maybe you can find an app or habit that you can add into your own lifestyle!

Tracking
Some people track macros or calories and some people just intuitively eat. I kind of do a mixture of all three! I use the app My Fitness Pal. I find that the calories they suggest for you are far too little, so I did my own research based on my lifestyle to see what calories/ macros fit for me. I like that you can create your own calorie amount and are not stuck with what they suggest. At the start of my health journey, I was tracking every meal to be sure that the calories I was taking in was less than the calories I was burning off. Present day, I don’t track as strictly because I have learned what calories and macros I eat regularly.

Exercise
You hear it all the time… nutrition + exercise are the key components to losing weight and getting healthy and that is for a reason! With my ever-changing, demanding work schedule I decided that 3-5 days a week would be sufficient for the goals I was trying to achieve. On days when I can’t make it to the gym or fit in a workout, I make it a priority to still be moving throughout the day. I try to get at least 10,000 steps on those off-days. If I have any advice when it comes to exercise… it is to find a type of exercise that you ENJOY! Whether it’s weight lifting, running, Orange Theory, Yoga, Boxing, Biking… as long as you enjoy it, it’s going to be something you are going to WANT to do and not something you feel forced to do.

Sleep Cycle
Sleep is very vital to living a healthy life. Adults need between 7-9 hours of sleep a night (I thrive when I get a full 10 hours of sleep and am a monster if I don’t– LOL) and I can guarantee most adults do not get that. When you are exercising consistently, your body needs rest to repair your muscles. Not only is it vital to your exercise routine, getting enough sleep helps with brain health, is linked to a decrease in heart disease, and reduces stress. I am someone who likes looking at patterns and what I can do to improve any situation so I have been utilizing the app Sleep Cycle. It tracks your night’s sleep and determines how long you were in REM sleep. It also allows you to set an alarm with a 20 minute increment so it can wake you up gradually and not abruptly which can often leave you feeling super groggy at the start of your day.

Waterlogged
It’s shocking to me how many adults hardly drink water throughout the day… HOW?! At the start of my health journey I made the goal to drink a gallon of water a day. Drinking water helps with so many aspects of health and fitness, but I find I crave a lot less when I am constantly replenishing my body with water, my skin is clearer, and I don’t bloat as much. As I’ve said before I am super visual and like to track patterns, so I use the app Waterlogged to track my water intake throughout the day. It has a cute water bottle you fill throughout the day 🙂

Notes
I am super organized and need to have a plan in order to do anything 100%, so I utilize my notes app A LOT when it comes to creating and following a workout. Throughout my workout I check off the exercise once it’s done and it helps me to stay focused and on track during my workouts. Failing to plan is planning to fail!

Again, these are all just tools and habits that have helped me in my health journey and this is in no way saying these are the only ways to do it! In all, I think being mindful and recognizing bad habits and patterns can really help you on your journey of health!

Happy healthy-ing!
XO

Posted on

What We Learned Becoming Vegetarian for a Week…

I have quite a few friends who are either vegetarian or vegan and have always been intrigued by the notion of cutting out meat and animal products from my diet. I knew there were benefits from opting to not eat meat, but was unsure of the actual pros & cons of doing so and wondered how potentially difficult that may be. Considering I grew up and still currently live in meat and potato central, meat-based protein was/ is always the center of any dish. I somehow got Kevin to agree to going vegetarian for a week… well, a work week. Before diving into the meatless week, I did some research and found that these were the most prevalent reasons that becoming vegetarian could be beneficial:

Positively Impact the Environment

Animal Welfare

Combat Disease/ Improve Health

Avoid Toxins

Knowing all of these benefits, it made me even more interested to see how easy going meatless was in practice. I perused Pinterest for some lunch & dinner inspiration, in addition to the already vegetarian meals I have in rotation (these are few & far between, but I do have a couple!) and made my shopping list! In addition to discovering how easy becoming vegetarian would or wouldn’t be, I also wanted to see how much it would affect my grocery budget and how we would feel throughout the week. During the week, I have the same thing for breakfast every morning- two scrambled eggs, 1/2 an avocado, and a pinch of cheddar cheese- which is already a vegetarian meal so I didn’t need to brainstorm a meal for breakfast. Below is the menu I came up with for lunch and dinner, including ingredients:

Monday
Lunch: Lasagna Roll-Ups
Lasagna noodles, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, cottage cheese, pasta sauce
Dinner: Creamy One-Pot Zucchini, Mushroom, and Pea Pasta
Spaghetti noodles, heavy cream, grated parmesan cheese, sweet peas, mushrooms, onion, zucchini

Tuesday
Lunch: Lasagna Roll-Ups
Lasagna noodles, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, cottage cheese, pasta sauce
Dinner: Zucchini Taco Boats
Hollowed out zucchini stuffed with Spanish rice, tomatoes, corn, black beans, onion, and cheddar cheese

Wednesday
Lunch: BBQ Ranch Chopped Salad
Pre-packaged Dole Salad from Hy-Vee
Dinner: Buffalo Chick Pea Bowl
Chick peas, sweet potato, zucchini, buffalo sauce

Thursday
Lunch: Lasagna Roll-Ups
Lasagna noodles, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, cottage cheese, pasta sauce
Dinner: Creamy One-Pot Zucchini, Mushroom, and Pea Pasta
Spaghetti noodles, heavy cream, grated parmesan cheese, sweet peas, mushrooms, onion, zucchini

Friday
Lunch: Lasagna Roll-Ups
Lasagna noodles, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, cottage cheese, pasta sauce
Dinner: Cheese Ravioli Spinach Artichoke Lasagna
Layers of cheese ravioli with spinach, artichokes, cream cheese, sour cream, heavy cream, garlic, mozzarella in between

Now that you’ve got a blueprint of what we actually ate throughout the week, I am going to evaluate how becoming vegetarian for a week affected our budget, cooking, and how we felt.

Budget: Like I have said in previous blog posts, I try to keep our grocery bill to around $100 per week and was pleasantly surprised when our grocery total came to $86.90. That was an early check in the pro column 🙂

Taste & Ease of Cooking: Lasagna Roll-ups are a meal that I prepare for us on a regular week so this is one that we already knew we would like and was easy for me to batch prepare and “meal prep” for my lunches. (Kevin had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for his lunches!) Monday’s dinner is also something I have prepared before and we definitely enjoy. Because it’s a one-pot dinner, the ease of preparing & cooking this meal was pretty simple. The zucchini taco boats on Tuesday are something I have previously done, but typically I add taco seasoned ground beef. Because I cut out the ground beef, it took me 10 minutes less than it typically does- another plus in the pro column! I actually have a post where I dictate exactly how I prepare the buffalo & sweet potato bowls I made on Wednesday. You can view it here. This was an easy swap and took much less time than the chicken usually does. The last meal was a Kevin find… and looking at the ingredients, I think you can see why. LOL. He came across this meal on Facebook and told me this was his one request for the week… so of course I had to make it! This meal was very dairy heavy, so definitely not vegan-friendly, but it was super delicious! (Like, super delicious!)

How We Felt: I’m not going to lie, I think I would have to give up meat for 2-4 weeks to actually see how beneficial it would be and try to not use as much dairy in my recipes 🙂 Because quite a few meals were pretty heavy on the dairy ingredients, I did’t feel less bloated, however; I did feel much less sluggish!

Now, I don’t see us giving up meat any time soon… or ever… but I definitely think the benefits of incorporating more meatless meals outweighs any cons. It was much easier to do than I was anticipating and honestly, the hardest part I thought would be getting Kevin to agree- and that was surprisingly easy! This is my way of telling you that it is worth looking into and becoming more educated about why others choose to eat plant-based and why it might be beneficial for you to consider a “Meatless Monday”… or be super daring like us and try an entire week without eating any meat!