Give More Than You Get!

Earlier today I was reading at the Pioneer Woman and saw her post for the Monster BLT.  I love BLTs. In fact, I would say they are my all time favorite sandwich. Needless to say, after reading her post I really wanted a BLT. So tonight I made myself one, well I made myself a BELT,  to be more exact.

Now you might be thinking BELT, what the heck you made the ate an accessory used to sometimes keep your clothes where they belong. But no I made this.

A bacon, egg, lettuce and tomato sandwich and it was so good.

What is your favorite type of sandwich?

I love the combination of peanut butter and banana with a little cinnamon. It is so good!

This morning I had a pb and banana protein shake for breakfast.

Look at the lovely tan hue from the peanut butter!

This one had:
1/3 C egg whites
2/3 C So Delicious Almond Milk Plus Protein
2 T of PB2
1/2 a frozen banana
1/2 a scoop of vanilla protein powder
Pinch of xanthan gum
Healthy sprinkle of cinnamon

After I blended it up (and took the picture) I added a tablespoon of chia seeds. So yum!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Tuesday! I am off to eat meal #2, man my metabolism has been on fire lately!

So I am in Austin for work right now. I miss my family…

Today after I left, my son’s basketball team won their tournament! They had not won a game all season until this tournament, but it looks like they might be geling as a team. So hopefully they win more when I am home!

Don’t they look happy!

My hotel is right by the Congress St bridge so I went down to see the bats. It was really cool, I wish I had a better camera with me because I have never seen that many bats at one time! If you are in the Austin area in late spring you need to check it out!  (if you don’t know what I am talking about Google it!)

I will leave you all with the view from my room.

Goodnight from Austin!

So today was the last official day of Spring Break. BOO! It will be good to get everyone back on their regular schedules.

As I am sure you all know yesterday was Saint Patricks Day. How did you celebrate? My parents came over and had our traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner with us this year. We had Irish Car Bomb cupcakes for dessert.

They were so yummy! I highly recommend that you try them. You can find the recipe at quickfeetgoodeats.com.

So the Hunger Games movie comes out this week and I can’t wait to see it! One of my goals for the year was to read a book each month, I read Hunger Games in December, Catching Fire in January, and then Mockingjay last month (for those who haven’t read the series those are the three books in it ). I really liked the series. The books were just really well written, at least in my opinion they were, and kept me reading because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I highly recommend them, if you can’t tell.

My exercise last week went like so:

Sunday – rest day!

Monday – 75 minutes of cardio and weights (legs)

Tuesday – 90 minutes of kickboxing

Wednesday – 90 minutes of kickboxing

Thursday – 60 minutes of interval training and weights (lower back & biceps)

Friday – 20 minutes of interval training + live fit JNL workout

Saturday – 70 minutes of kickboxing

Something I hear often at my kickboxing class is that many people think they just can’t get a good workout at home. I know you can, you have to find something to help you push yourself, maybe wear a pedometer and aim for a certain number of strides or timing yourself to see if you can finish the same workout in less time than you have before, just find what works for you.  Here is what works for me…

Seeing that I am a sweaty mess! The more I sweat the better!

Hope you all have a wonderful evening!

It is spring break here, and I had so many fun things planned for the kids and me. We were going to lunch several times with friends and family, going to the pool, having a picnic, shopping and so on. But then the plans had to change yesterday, when my daughter woke up with a fever, 102.4 to be exact, and said her ear hurt. So we went to the doctor’s office in the afternoon to go confirm that she had an ear infection and get a prescription for some antibiotics to clear it up, unfortunately she didn’t have an ear infection she had the flu. Talk about a plan changer. We are now at home so she can rest, which in her case means waking up early (4:30 this am, that was rough), watching movies, and running around like a crazy girl. At least, she does not feel bad, that makes this mom’s life easier!

With the change in plans though it makes me focus on stuff around the house one thing is studying for my middle school math certification exam.  And the other is this…

My garage. It also contained these before the pic above.

Sacks of my kids old, too small clothing and shoes. The intention has always been to resale the clothes that the kids did not destroy, but I have decided everything will just be donated now.  IT MUST GO!

We have several old magazines.

Commemorative plates,  my Mamaw got them everywhere she went.

And china, also my Mamaw’s but no one wants it.

There are three old pc towers, that need to be wiped and disposed of, an old tv, so many other things that I have no idea what all is in there.

So now my plans are to work on the garage,  study, workout and hopefully get in a little spring break fun!

So tonight I finished application form for an alternative teaching certification program and plan to turn it in tomorrow. I have also been studying for my certification test, but not as much as I need to (or feel I need to).

Doesn’t this look like a page turner?    Actually I do like it, full of interesting info!

I just have a hard time motivating myself when I know I a few months before it needs to be finished.

How about you all do you have the same problem?

I have eaten one of these daily for the past few days. You might be thinking what is it? A milkshake? No! It is a egg white smoothie!

I saw this on the side of the egg white carton and then did some research on recipes before making it.  One recipe used sugar free pudding powder as the “flavoring” so I decided to use it.

This is my recipe:
1/3 cup of egg whites
1/3 cup of vanilla chobani
2/3 cup of So Delicious Almond Milk Plus Protein
1 T of pudding mix
1 T of protein powder

I usually blend all of these up and leave it like this, but if I am wanting a little more flavor I add some fruit or natural peanut butter to the blender.

Then I put it in the freezer for an hour and a half or two to make it like a milk shake.  It is so yummy and satisfying, but also healthy! SCORE!

So my exercise log for last week goes like so:

Sunday – 1 hour of interval training and weights (back and biceps)

Monday – 1 hour of interval training and weights (legs)

Tuesday – 1 hour of steady state cardio, ~30 minutes, and weights (chest and triceps)

Wednesday – 1 hour of kickboxing

Thursday – REST DAY!

Friday – 1 hour of kickboxing

Saturday – 60 minutes of interval training and weights (back, chest and shoulders)

I hope you have a good Tuesday!

So we have been incredibly busy with church and basketball games. How about you all, do your lives feel really busy lately?

Luckily, spring break is 2 1/2 weeks away! And best of all, I am off with the kids the whole week!

So last night,  after my son’s basketball game (the boy’s won!) I came home and made some protein bars for myself and the rest of the family.

First, I made these for me, because they were lower in sugar and calories and most importantly they looked yum in the pictures!

I ended up using almond flour, because I didn’t have any coconut flour. I have to say that I liked the bars in made last week more, but these might be better with coconut flour. I will have to try it sometime.

Then I made these for my husband and son. There is a lot of peanut butter and honey in this recipe,  can you go wrong with that combination?? The guy’s were both unanimous about really loving them! SCORE for mom!

My bars are thicker than the recipe said to have them but that was how the batter worked in the pan I got out, so they stayed a little softer, but it doesn’t bother my family. 

So my workouts last week went like this:

Sunday – 45 minutes of cardio

Monday – 60 minutes of interval training and weights (back and biceps)

Tuesday – 60 minutes of cardio and weights (legs)

Wednesday – Ash Wednesday = Rest Day!

Thursday – 60 minutes of kickboxing

Friday – 30 minutes of interval training in the am + 15 minutes of weights (chest and triceps) + 60 minutes of kickboxing

Saturday – 60 minutes of kickboxing

I hope everyone is having a good week, hey it is almost half over!

Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, otherwise known as the day before lent begins. I saw several posts about how people should choose to make it Fit Tuesday. In our house I try to make our lives balanced, we usually eat healthy, balanced meals, but indulge on special occasions. And Fat Tuesday is a special occasion! We are catholic, so we indulge a little in preparation for our lenten fasting (catholics fast on Ash Wednesday) and penance. But this year our Fat Tuesday wasn’t so fat. My husband had surgery on Monday to relieve his abdominal pain, so our menu consisted of homemade pizza for the kids, tomato soup with a grilled cheese for my husband, for me some homemade veggie soup with a grilled cheese, and for dessert sugar-free angel food cake with fresh berries and whipped cream (vanilla Greek yogurt for me, which was so nice and creamy, better than the whipped cream would have ever been).

Today we rushed around after work to get to evening mass to get our ashes. I love how the homilys (sermons) our priest gives make you think about what he is saying,  and tonight was no different.  He spoke about how people are always giving something up for lent, in other words looking at the process as a negative. But we should be looking at the lenten season as a positive (hey Jesus did give his life for us) and giving in a positive way. I think that is what I am going to do this year, I am going to learn more about this religion that I married into (I converted to Catholicism when my husband and I got engaged). How am going to do that?

The little black book. Specifically, the Little Black Book of Lent meditations cycle B.

You probably thought I was joking, but see here is the first page.

Well I am off to read my meditation for today.

What do you do for lent?

Tonight while looking up recipes to use some leftover pumpkin I came across this recipe for pumpkin cake protein bars. I had all of the ingredients, or at least thought I did, so I decided to give it a try.

As I was measuring the yogurt I realized that I did not have enough yogurt, so I subbed my apple cinnamon chobani (if you have not tried this flavor you need to, so good) in place. Then my dough came out really thick so I added 1/3 cup So Delicious Almond Milk Plus Protein.

I have to wonder how pumpkiny (is that even a word?) they would be because they taste like apple cinnamon awesomeness. Maybe the apple cinnamon flavor is just that much stronger than the pumpkin… I really don’t know, but I decided they should be called Apple Cinnamon Cake Protein Bars. My 13 year old son and 3 year old daughter loved them (I love that because I am always looking for a way to get healthy snacks in them)!

(They are so moist and yummy, perfect for a small snack pre-workout.)

My Week in Workouts

Sunday -1 hour of interval training

Monday – 26 minutes of plyos in the am before work (to help rev up the metabolism, I try to do this several times a week), 20 minutes of weight (chest & triceps), & 80 minutes of kickboxing

Tuesday – Valentine’s Day = rest day

Wednesday – 26 minutes of plyos in the am before work, 20 minutes of weights (back & biceps), & 60 minutes of kickboxing

Thursday – 26 minutes of plyos in the am before work & 60 minutes of a mixture of cardio &  weights (legs)

Friday – 75 minutes of a mixture of cardio &  weights (chest & triceps)

Saturday – 60 minutes of kickboxing

When I go to the gym and do a mixture of cardio and weights, I normally will do intervals for 10 minutes and then do 3 set of 2 different weight lifting exercises and repeat this cycle until I have completed my weights workout for the day.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!