Prepping meals and progress
I want to share some of my meal prep from last week. I just finished prepping some veggies for this week. It takes me a couple of hours and keeps me from spending time with hubby, but it has paid off. (More of that after the pictures)
Homemade taco seasoning
Roasted Asparagus
Roasted Butternut Squash
Washed a ton of salad
These made an appearance in some meals during the week….
Turkey “tacos” over salad with guacamole
Blackened tilapia with roasted asparagus and roasted butternut squash
Bacon wrapped rosemary chicken with broccoli, salad and avocado
Breakfast this morning – excuse the cupcake, it was a treat! (Spinach omelet, avocado and nitrate free bacon!)
I joined myfitnesspal last week, so if any of you are on there, please add me (mp1117). I have been tracking workouts and calories and I am happy to report – I lost 4.5 pounds! It is amazing what eating clean/primal can do for you!
Going Primal
It has been almost 2 weeks since my husband and I have tried this better eating thing. I’ve had my weak moments, trust me. My husband is trying very hard too. Funniest thing that happened last week – I had a dream that I ate a pile of french fries. It was delicious!
I fell off the wagon so to speak on Wednesday and it will continue on this weekend, with a girls night out, my husbands birthday (saving dessert for that night) and Mother’s day on Sunday. I am going to try my best to keep eating better.
I’ve changed our diet to a Primal diet – mostly meat, vegetables and diary. I have tried a Paleo recipe which epically failed! Since I’m tired of writing, I’ll show you food pictures instead.
Turkey meatballs (no bread crumbs just spinach and zucchini), steamed veggies and half an avocado
Parmesan kale chips
Saturday night dinner – baked salmon and cheating a little with the bottled dressing
Egg white and spinach omelet with turkey sausage
Paleo ingredients
Failed Paleo pancakes, more like pancake crumble
Cheat meal – Anthony’s Coal Fired pizza – garlic cauliflower
I would love to say that I have lost about 15 pounds since starting (ha), but I haven’t lost a pound. However, I do feel stronger, leaner and less bloated. Oh did I mention the intense amounts of energy? I can’t say that I have any right now though. To be continued …
Starting over, yet again
Okay, I have to chuckle at this title because it is the title of a self help book that was recommended to Charlotte (via Amazon) in Sex and the City …..
Well my fitness journey is restarting, yet again. Seriously, I can’t win! Once I get in the groove of things, I either get a bad injury or a bad cold. A few weeks back I got a bad cold that took a while to get over and then I had some weird stomach bug. Ugh.
Last week I started Phase III of NROLFA and holy moly was my body sore. The DOMS certainly kicked in and I had to fall into chairs in order to sit down. I really need to focus on finishing this phase, but I want to incorporate running. Although I am happy with my strength, I am not happy with the weight. UGH. I know I shouldn’t look at the scale, but it is SO hard not to see that little number creeping up. I need to get lean!
I talked to my husband tonight and we are going to start clean eating ASAP. I am looking at new recipes and going to revamp our diet. We aren’t going to do Paleo or Primal because we can’t resist dairy, but it will certainly have elements of it. I also need to start taking my vitamins regularly so I have enough energy during the day. I hate relying on caffeine to wake me up! Wish me luck!
At Home Gel Manicure
If there’s one thing I’ve loved for a long time, it is nail polish. When I was a teenager I had a great collection of funky colored nail polish. When I moved out of my house I decided to junk all of it because I hadn’t used them all that much and they were turning to gunk. I also wasn’t all that great at painting my nails. I could never get the hang of it!
Well fast forward to about five years ago, when I restarted my nail polish collection and finally learned how to properly paint my nails. Maybe one day I will share my extensive collection, but I find that a little embarrassing!
I started getting gel manicures done at my favorite nail salon a couple of months before my wedding. I really wanted my nails to grow and for my polish to be chip free. My nails don’t grow and if they do, they break. Nail polish doesn’t really last more than a day for me.
As you can see, this all leads to frustration for me because I want a nice manicure but I have so many nail issues. I was recommended this pin/site by a friend of mine and decided to give it a try.
‘ top coat, gel top coat, polish, cuticle remover and drying drops
I think this whole entire process took about 30 minutes, tops. If you didn’t click the above link, here’s how it goes:
- 2 coats gel coat
- 1 coat nail polish color
- 1 coat gel coat
- 1 coat nail polish color
- Top coat and then I apply the drops. My nails are almost immediately dry
Ps – you should let your nails dry in between each application
For my color I used Zoya’s Valerie:
Pretty purple sparkle!
And here are my pretty polished nails:
Just need to clean the edges
So far my manicure has lasted 2 days, chip free. There is one microscopic chip on one of the nails, but it is so little, I wouldn’t even count it. It had the ultimate test Thursday morning – switching weight plates, dropping weights and picking up bars. So far I am very impressed and the best part is that there is no need for a UV lamp and it comes right off with nail polish remover. No need for soaking!
And so another week begins…
Well Ryan, looks like you’ll be watching me Tuesday and Saturday of this week. As part of the NROLFA program, I am adding an extra minute of metabolic finishers at the end of each workout. This means 12 minutes of 8-10 burpees and 12 minutes of 10-12 kettlebell swings. OUCH. Honestly, I just want to throw in the towel right now. The idea of doing almost 100 burpees is killing me! (I’m doing 8 per minute)
I decided to try something different tonight for dinner, so I decided to make pork carnitas. I found a crockpot/slow cooker recipe for the pork. Well, I thought I had saved the one I really wanted but I didn’t, so I had to look up an alternate recipe.
I totally apologize for the lack of appetizing photography skills. I was starving!
It isn’t bad, but I think eating it with salsa, sour cream and cheese really helps the flavor. I think part of the problem is that I didn’t pierce the meat (pork shoulder) so it could get some of the sauce in it. I know so many people are in love with slow cooker cooking, but I only make a handful of items – mostly chili and soups. I try to stick with those items because I did try something different once and it was just gross. It was one of those one pot meals and every single thing in the dish was the same color – brown. It was just gross.
For tonight’s dinner I used flour tortillas and I warmed them up over the stove. I really think this is a Latino thing. Side note – I really don’t think I could try Paleo. No beans?! Oh my ….
Thursday I am doing workout B in the morning and then later on at night I am going to my first Zumba class in a very long time. I need to make something quick for dinner or at least something that can cook in the slow cooker. Since I try and plan out meals ahead of time, I know that chicken thighs are on the menu for Thursday. Do any of my lovely readers have any suggestions for slow cooker chicken thighs?
