All in (MORE than) a Day's Work

Hello, long lost bloggin' friends!

It's been a little over half a year since I last blogged!  Life has been extremely busy (aren't we all?!)!  N came home from deployment in October, and we have been in a huge whirlwind since then!  We moved to a new state, got new jobs, bought a great house, joined an awesome gym, our puppy turned 2, went on vacations, and we are now working on our 2nd year in our new state!  We have made lots of progress on our house - from laying new floors to remodeling bathrooms!  We have really enjoyed the journey of creating and brainstorming concepts together for our home.

Instead of overwhelming all of Facebook's news feeds, I'm sharing our recent health kick on my blog, so I can share recipes, meal plans, and workouts.  We are on a huge (and, hopefully, sustainable) health kick right now!  We have taken on the challenge of clean eating for over 40 days!  We've made it through our first week, and have discovered some great recipes.  Our "diet" has consisted of green vegetables and high quality meats, as well as "good" carbs - sparingly!  We have also become gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, and low-carb for every meal.  We are each drinking close to a gallon of water a day.  The easiest way to succeed in drinking that much water, for us, is the investment of Nalgenes.  Our Nalgenes hold over 32oz., and we each have two that we take to work.  After an 8-9 hour workday, I have drank all of my water (and peed about 90 times, which is extremely difficult for a teacher!).  Before gym, and through my workout, I drink another 32oz.  I, then, drink about 48oz before bed (between dinner, and post workout).  Whatever we eat for dinner at night, we have made enough to have leftovers during lunch the following day.  We also went through about 36-45 eggs in one week, as we are eating egg whites for breakfast, and before workouts (for protein).

It is incredible to believe the amount of dedication, and, honestly, hard work it takes; however, the rewards have far outweighed the struggle of the week, for us!  In just a week, we have lost a collective 10 pounds (N=6, me=4).  We have consistently eaten healthy, and are reaping the rewards.  We have also kicked butt in the gym lately, ensuring we've gotten in both cardio and weight training throughout the week.  N has a great workout regime, where he does something like CrossFit about 3-4 times a week.  It is a grueling workout (I tried Friday!), and he's seeing lean muscle gain.  My meal/workout regime this week has consisted of...

• Sunday:  Spaghetti Squash (good carb) with lean hamburger meat sauce (homemade, so no additives), paired with roasted broccoli (30 minutes in the oven - amazing!)

• Monday:  High Quality (grass fed) steak and chicken fajitas, wrapped in green leaf, or hydroponic, lettuce.  We also paired some scallions and avocados with our fajitas for extra flavor.  Our fajita seasoning is a homemade taco seasoning I make (found on Pinterest).  WORKOUT:  1 hour Les Mills' BodyPump weight lifting class (I have worked up to squatting about 40lbs., chest pressing 15lbs., arms' focus biceps and triceps at 14lbs., and clean and press about 35lbs. in the past 6 months)

• Tuesday:  Lemon-herb Roasted Chicken with Quinoa (good carb) and roasted broccoli!  WORKOUT:  Today was a rest day...mainly because N had an allergic reaction to something (but we did workout all the weekend before)!

• Wednesday:  Lean beef steak, roasted asparagus and broccoli; WORKOUT:  1 hour Intense Kickboxing
• Thursday:  Chipotle-seasoned Chicken and roasted red potatoes (carb) - tonight was a night where we did not have time for a veggie (which is horrible); however we had a movie date night to see "Lone Survivor" (go see it if you haven't - it's moving, emotional, and absolutely patriotic!).  WORKOUT:  1 hour Kettlebell class (together, yay!)
• Friday:  Dinner on the run - Moe's "Earmuff" with grilled chicken, black beans, romaine lettuce, and rice; WORKOUT:  My once weekly workout with N in his grueling workout class -- a multiple of workouts in pyramid-style, including abs, kettlebell back and quad work, pull-ups, burpees, chest presses, leg lifts, running

I've linked the some of the recipes of some of our delicious meals from the week from their former owners via Pinterest!  I absolutely LOVED the Lemon-herb Roasted Chicken, as well as the phenomenal chipotle seasoning I found.  This week, I also made an absolutely zesty and flavorful Italian-Viniagrette, which we used on green leaf, hydroponic, and spinach lettuce for salads with our proteins for lunch a couple days this week.

We have, of course, had some bloopers, including 1) forgetting protein with your salad for lunch, and 2) a complete fail on homemade gluten-free tortillas.  We have, however, discovered some amazing things we never would've eaten before 1) turkey bacon (not as crispy, but close flavor), 2) Beanito's black bean chipotle chips (smoky, thick flavor chips), and 3) unsweetened green tea.

Press on, healthy-conscious people!  If you're not confident you can be health conscious, believe in yourself!  You have no idea how much lighter I feel just from clean eating and kickbutt, sweaty workouts!

--  H --