5 Things I'm Digging

I’ve seen a lot of Bloggers recently post 5 things they are digging, or thankful for.  Here’s a list of the things I’m diggin’ lately: 

 Lost

I know I’m realllllly late to the party(like…7 years late), but I am ADDICTED to this show! Mike and I started watching this on Netflix two weeks ago and each night we watch an episode or two before sleepy-time. Daaaang.  What a brilliant show. I am typically not into shows like this, so I was shocked that I got sucked in, but now I definitely see what all the hype is about! I love all of the characters so much, and I can really see how they are developing.  Honestly, I loathed Jin for the first few episodes(like when he yelled at Sun for wearing a bathing suit?! Shut up, yo), but now I absolutely love them together. And also, could Sawyer be anymore dreamy?! Yum.

 

SOURCE

My dog

Yep. You knew she’d have to make this list. How could I resist her cute little face?? A coworker just lost her dog, and got the phone call today saying they found her and that she was dead when they found her. So.freaking.sad. This lady was sobbing her eyes out, and left immediately, and it just reminded me how much we sometimes take our loved ones(whether they are pets or “real” family members—but as far as I am concerned, pets are part of the family) for granted.  So yes, as big of a pain in the butt Sophers is, I heart her to pieces, and all of her annoying habits(ya know, like barking every time I take a shower, or dragging the T.P. roll through the house, etc.) are worth it.

  

  McDonald’s Chocolate dipped cone

If you’re craving a sweet treat, you should hit up your nearest Mickey D’s and try this baby.  It’s only 7 Points Plus, which really isn’t bad for a splurge treat on the weekend, especially with how hot its been!  I tried one last weekend, and boy did it ever hit the spot! I kind of can’t wait for this weekend to treat myself to another one. ;)

  

   The pool

I got some much needed Vitamin D last weekend, and it feels good to finally have some color on this Casper skin of mine.  I got a little burnt, but it was worth it.  Am I the only person that no matter what I do, my legs still stay Casper-the-Friendly-Ghost white?!?! #Frustrating

  

  Dresses

(Please excuse the dirty mirror!Eek!)

Maybe it’s because it’s been as hot as the 7^th circle of Hell all week, but I am lovin’ the summer dresses lately.  I’ve worn a dress every single day this week!  I also may have went a little crazy at Target last weekend and possibly bought 4 dresses + one green skirt; I will neither confirm nor deny that fact though.

What are you diggin’ this week?

Sunday Funday: Batch Cooking & Meals for the week

Phew. Where did this weekend go to?!  I feel like I need an additional day added onto the weekend, in order to feel ready to take on the week ahead.

After spending a few hours in Mike's parent's pool this morning/afternoon, I decided to get my grocery shopping done and out of the way.  Once I was done with that, I decided to start cookin' for the week! This week is going to be chaotic with work, so my meals are really quick and easy ones.  I will not be spending a lot of time cooking in the kitchen this week since I will be working long, late hours.

This afternoon I batch cooked breakfast and lunch for the week!  For breakfasts, I so made another batch of the spinach and mozzarella egg bake that I just posted about.  Seriously looking forward to munchin' on that for breakfasts this week! For lunches, I made black bean wraps.  I took a whole wheat tortilla, some canned refried black beans, a little cumin, and some reduced fat cheddar cheese.  I spread the beans/seasoning on the tortilla, tossed some cheddar on there, rolled 'em up, and place on a cookie sheet for 10 minutes in the oven.  I hope they taste delish! I saw that Laura made something similar for dinner last week, and had to try my own concoction out!  The wraps come out just 6 points, and should be pretty filling with all that fiber! Woot


My quick dinners for the week look like this:

Monday:

Whole Wheat spaghetti with olive oil, fresh garlic, and crushed red pepper flakes

Tuesday:

French Bread Pizzas w/ frozen steamed veggies

Wednesday:

Whatever my aunt cooks

Thursday:
  
Grilled Cheese on Jalapeno Cheddar french bread(this stuff is seriously amazing. If you have a Jewel Osco near you, do your tummy a favor and go get some from their bakery!)

Friday:

Depending how late I stay at work, I may or may not be grabbing dinner with some friends, but if I can't get out of the office on time, I will be grilling up some hot dogs + Alexia frozen fries 

So there you have it as far as my nomming goes for the rest of the week!

What are you planning on making for meals for the week?

 

Recipe Review: Spinach Moazzarella Egg Bake

Who's addicted to Pinterest? *Raises hand*

Yep, that's right, I'm addicted to Pinterest and proud of it!  Everything anyone ever dreamed about can be found on there, basically.  That being said, I have a baaaad habit of posting a gazillion recipes, organization, and beauty tips without ever doing anything with them.. Hmm... That kind of defeats the purpose of this website, no?

So, I made it a personal goal to incorporate some of the ideas I've found on there on a regular basis.  This week, I wanted to try a new, quick recipe, and found Spinach Mozzrella Egg Bake! You had me at mozzarella, I tell ya!

I didn't go crazy with the spinach because the rest of the family are not fans of spinach, even though I heart it.  Next time, more spinach WILL be added! This was AWESOME. Seriously, absolutely delish!  I give it a 4.5/5 stars.  The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because I think next time I will add something else to it-- maybe some center cut bacon or lean turkey breakfast sausage to take it up to the next level.  Next time I will also serve it with some hashed browns because it didn't really work so well as a main dish for dinner.

I enjoyed this dish so much, that I've added all the ingredients to my grocery list to make tomorrow to take for breakfasts for the week!

The best part about this quick, easy, yummy meal? It's only 6 Points Plus for 1 decent sized square!

Zumba playlist

I have a confession: For the last 5 months(since I've been regularly attending Zumba classes), all I've listened to while in the car, at work, cleaning the house are songs from Zumba.  It's probably a bit unhealthy really.

Every time I dig a tune at Zumba, I Google and Youtube the heck out of it to try and figure out what it is, who it's by, and if I can download it to my iTunes.  I figured it was time to upload my most recent collection of Zumba songs here! Normally I don't listen to crappy pop music, so I am a bit embarrassed that I have religiously been blaring music that is for the most part not even in English, but what can I say? It's catchy as all heck!

(J. Biebs may or may not be on this Playlist...So ashamed..)


WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE ZUMBA AND/OR WORK OUT SONGS?

Birthday Challenge Weigh-In: June 8

Have you ever done really, really well one week; so well that you expect to see a gigantic (in my case, gigantic is anything over 1 pound) loss? And then when you get on the scale, and loss is like .2 or .4, and you get so pissed off you want to throw your scale out the window and then run it over and over with your car? Oh, no? That’s just me?  Well, that’s fortunately NOT this week’s case, though I truly was expecting it to be a super tiny loss!  I was so surprised when the WW Receptionist exclaimed, “You’re down 1.6 this week!” I’m pretty sure I did a, “whaaa-? Are you SURE? Mouth-gaped-open” face. 

So what went right and wrong this week?

I started out this week with good intentions: track every morsel, make it to Zumba twice, go on walks on my lunch hour; none of which happened, hence the surprise good weigh-in!  I was super snacky this week(I can think of a reason or two), and my exercise was pitiful.  I only made it to Zumba once this week, and it wasn’t even a great burn. I only burned 460 calories because of a few reasons: for one, it was a new instructor so I have to learn her moves instead of just grape-vining my little heart out wondering what the heck is going on.  Two, I have a skin issue and it was hurtin’ like hell, so I was trying to take it easy so that I don’t make the skin issue worse.  Even so, I was proud of myself for going after work, and getting some activity in.

Thursday, the day before my weigh-in, my coworker Natalie asked me if I wanted to grab lunch with her.  “Um DUH. I NEED to get outta here” was my reaction; then immediately silently panicking to myself, oh crap, weigh-in is tomorrow…Sodium overload.  I didn’t want to retract my lunch acceptance because I honestly needed to get out and spend some one-on-one time with one of the ladies in the office who keeps me sane, so when she suggested Naf Naf, I was relieved.  You can make some really awful choices here, but I planned ahead and got a grilled chicken breast pita, and we split an order of their foodgasmic homemade French fries. Yummy.  Afterwards, she wanted to check out a new Fro Yo place that opened u p, so she bought me some Fro Yo and I ate half, and tossed the rest.  I was full, but not overly stuffed, so I was pleased that I tossed the rest.  When we got back to work, I chugged a boatload of water.

This week I decided to take pictures 4/7 days and kept a food log on my Spark People.  This was a bit eye-opening, and a lot of my SP friends had some good insights for me.  Some recommended that I include more protein in my diet, which I KNOW I struggle with.  Cheese is a trigger food for me; it just leaves me wanting more savory snacks, so that isn’t really an option on how to get more protein in.  I did hardboiled eggs for weeks and weeks, and seriously, if I look at another one anytime soon, I may just toss my cookies.

This week ahead, I am truly motivated to rock it out.  You see, when I just lose another OUNCE, I will reach a new weight “decade”. Ya know, get the F out of decade I’ve been stuck in for MONTHS because my body has rebelled against my hard work?! Yes, please, and thank you. My plan for this week is to make it to Zumba 2 times(Tues/Thurs), and MAYBE(if I get the kahunas) try a Body Pump class. I’ve been hearing such fab things about Body Pump, and I know the benefits of strength training are so much more important than cardio, but after trying a Step Aerobics class months ago and loathing it, I’m a bit terrified to try a new class.  My eating will be on par this week, and I hope to continue my food log over on SP a few days this week to see if I get any other good advice.

My b-day is in 4 weeks, and my goal was to lose 10 pounds by then.  So far, I’m down  2.4. That means, I still have 7.6 pounds to lose in 4 weeks.  That’s roughly 2 pounds per week, and I doubt I will be able to achieve it, but I hope I can come close!

So I leave you with this question:  What is your favorite way to get filling foods/protein into your diet?(That does not include cheese + hard boiled eggs)

Birthday Challenge

Well hello there!

This is my first official blog post on here, and it's honestly something I've been wanting to get started for a while now, but just never got it going!  While talking with my partner in crime slash best friend, Angie, we both decided that our creativity has been lacking hardcore since graduating college a few years back, and that we should both work on expanding our creative outlets for sanity reasons.

With that being said, I've been reading other bloggers' blogs for a few years now, and was inspired to get a blog going because of some of them.  http://bethsjourney.com/ , http://backtoherroots.com/ , http://iowagirleats.com/ , and  Laura's blog are just some of my faves.  I'm no stranger to counting calories, and trying to live by the 80/20 rule-- that is, tracking and on plan about 80% of the time, and being more flexible the other 20%.  Some weeks are easier than others, that's for sure!  I've been a Weight Watchers member on and off for years now, and finally recommitted at the beginning of last year. I'm also the girl who hates working out, and will do just about anything to get out of it.  That is, until I found ZUMBA! I've been going to Zumba since the beginning of February, a few times a week, and would do it every single day if I could.  The hour flies by, and it just feels like I'm making an ass of myself and having fun, instead of watching the darn clock and counting down how much longer I need to work out for.  I love it, even if I look like a giant assclown.  Since recommitting to WW and getting in a ZUMBA routine, I have lost 27.8 pounds, and still have a ways to go, but I am hoping that this blog helps me meet some more of my milestones!

I don't want to keep droning on about my weight loss history, but it helps me make mini challenges for myself to stay motivated and persevere. The last challenge I set for myself was an 8 week Vegas Challenge.  Did I get close to my "goal" for that challenge? Sadly, no.  However, keeping my goal in mind for those 8 weeks before my Vegas Vacation definitely kept me on track! And ya know what? Sometimes or bodies are juts stubborn and don't want all of our hard work to pay off immediately.  Is it frustrating? Oh, absolutely.  But what's the alternative?

Therefore, my next mini challenge for myself is my Birthday challenge.  I am in Week 2 of my challenge, and my goal is to lose 10 pounds by July 8. So far, I've lost .6 pounds.  Not a very good start, and I have no idea why that darn scale is being so stubborn, but I'm just going to keep doin' what I'm doin', and hope that my hard work pays off!  I plan on blogging each week with how my challenge went to keep myself accountable.

Thanks for reading!

~V

How do you keep yourself motivated to stay healthy? What are your favorite healthy snacks?