Will Workout for Cute Workout Clothes & NSV's

This is kind of a non-weightloss related post...sort of...

The hashtag that defines my hair is #whitegirlproblems (no offense to anyone). My hair is stick straight and baby fine. It is a struggle to find headbands that stay on my head during my workouts because my hair is so fine and straight.

I am an etsy addict. I have bought literally 7 headbands from etsy to workout in. I have lost 6 of the 7. Why? Different reasons but mostly because they fall out of my hair and I stash them somewhere and forget where I put them... 

Enter new adorable workout headband. Do you hear that sound? Its me cheering why? Because I bought a headband that actually doesn't fall off when I workout! It actually lives up to its non-slip promises. I did burpees at the gym tonight & my headband actually stayed on! I was so excited! 

My headband is also super cute! I bought the anchor one because there is less than a month until my cruise! Last year I just randomly had a headband in my makeup bag and due to the wind on the boat it ended up being the thing I was most glad I packed! This headband will be doing double duty! Keeping my flyaways out of my face on the windy shipdeck & keeping my hair out of my face during my workouts. 

Here is the website where I got my headband, I gotta give credit where credit is due:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/FleurtyBands

Here is a pic of me rocking the headband:

This is my Burpess Suck!! Face!

Today is Monday. A great day to set goals for the week and recap NSV's (Non Scale Victories), from last week.

Goals:

1) Minimize eating out this week. Cook at home..since I spent a ton of $$ at the grocery store this week.

2) Run 5k distance on your own. I'm skipping my Saturday Country Music 1/2 training this weekend b/c ill be traveling. My goal is to have the discipline to run the distance on my own Friday before I leave.

3) Stick to the meals I planned this week

4) Loose weight this week. Really hoping for a loss at weigh in this week so I can say I lost two weeks in a row!

NSV's this week:

1) I meal planned! I sat down & came up with a week's worth of healthy meals for Breakfast, lunch & dinner this week. I made Breakfast burritos, Bought spinach flat-out wraps to spice up my boring turkey lunch sandwich, and came up with some exciting healthy dinner ideas for this week! 

2) I ran 6 miles!! I RAN 6 MILES!!! The best part about CMM 1/2 training is that each week (with the exception of the drop weeks), Im running the farthest I've ever ran! I look back to the beginning of the summer when Running for a whole minute felt like an eternity! Progress is real! 6 miles is almost 1/2 of a 1/2 marathon!

Its going to be a great week!

My ode to Spaghetti Squash

To the tune of all about that base:

Because you know i'm all about that squash no pasta, i'm all about that squash about that squash no pasta. I'm bringing veggies baaacccckkkk, them other carbs just don't know to act.

I've been seeing the recipe for spaghetti squash on Pinterest for weeks. I finally decided to try it. I dont follow any clean eating plans or Paleo, but i'm always looking for easy healthy recipes. Most of the time the stuff I see on Pinterest never actually gets made. This time something healthy from Pinterest actually got made & it wasn't a Pinterest fail! I am so proud of myself.

To make this recipe I googled microwave spaghetti squash and found the nom-nom paleo recipe. I put my own spin on their recipe, I cut my squash in half (Thats the hard part!), sprayed it with olive oil cooking spray sprinkled it with a little garlic salt & Parmesan cheese. I put in the microwave for 3 rounds of 5 minutes. While the squash was being micrwaved I put a little olive oil & garlic in the skilled, let it get hot then added some chopped zuchinni, spinach, and mushrooms. I debated added ground turkey to make it even more spagehtti like...but my ground turkey wasn't defrosted and "ain't nobody got time" to wait for ground turkey to defrost. After the squash was done in the microwave I shredded it with a fork & added it to my veggie mixture in the skilled.


The squash soaks up the sauce so well I really just used a little bit of sauce off the top of the can. I forgot to measure out the sauce to one serving size (1/2 cup) to calculate the WW points for the sauce.

Here's a pic of my spaghetti sauce. I added a little bit of shredded mozzarella & wham bam thank you ma'am you're eating veggies instead of pasta & its ah-may-zing! (It really doesn't look appetizing..but trust me on this one, its really great!)

Here's my source for the Recipe. (I did two years of graduate school...its now a permanent habit to site my sources..) http://nomnompaleo.com/post/7080566496/microwaved-spaghetti-squash

Don't Be Fooled & You don't have to try so hard

This post is inspired by all of the spam Instagram follower requests I get from people selling wraps and pills etc. No offense to anyone selling these products, but im not buying & im not interested. I work my butt off in the gym & try my hardest to have a healthy lifestyle! There is no quick fix to loose weight & im not going to spend money on quick fixes. The problem with these quick fixes is that you dont learn anything. A wrap or a shake or diet pills dont teach you the discipline nessecary to have a healthy lifestyle change. This article I found on a website describes it perfectly..End Rant!

http://www.fitbodybootcamp.com/fbbcblog/dont-fooled/


Im sitting here eating banana protein pancakes & hot chocolate! Healthy food can be good! I posted my recipe for my agave hot chocolate on my previous post. For my pancakes I bought this mix on amazon (im an amazon prime addict, there might need to be an intervention). The mix is called Flapjacked protein pancake mix. I got the Banana Hazelnut flavor and its 5 WW points for 1/2  cup. I mixed it with water and added 1 serving of chocolate chips (30 chips..yes I counted).

This week is a stretch week..meaning im stretching every penny I have until payday. So that means no eating out until payday. I have a bad habit of eating out for breakfast. So to keep myself from eating out for breakfast this week I made pumpkin overnight crockpot steel cut oats. I had steel cut oats in the pantry & some leftover frozen pumpkin in the fridge. I used this recipe & it makes a ton of oatmeal. I put the oatmeal in mason jars & then grab one every morning to take to work & heat up in the microwave! These are so easy! I put everything in the crockpot the night before & their done in the morning. Easy Peasey!

http://skinnyms.com/overnight-slow-cooker-pumpkin-pie-steel-cut-oats-no-sugar-added/


Two posts in one weekend! This has to be a record for me so far! Also posting my new favorite song below. Love this song "You dont have to try so hard"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXoZLPSw8U8

Non- Scale Victories, Getting Back on the Wagon, Running, & Hot Chocolate

I weigh in weekly at Weight Watchers. This week I gained. I usually have a pattern loosing several pounds in a week then gaining a few of them back the next week. I think it has to do with rewarding myself for loosing. Unfortunately I tend to reward myself with food, so its a vicious cycle. My goal for the next two weeks is to loose consecutively 2 weeks in a row.

Theres a pattern and a term in all of these weight loss blogs and instagram accounts I follow. Its called a Non-Scale victory. A non scale victory is exactly what it sounds like. Its a victory that has nothing to do with pounds or points or what you weigh. My Non Scale Victory or NSV this week is runnning. Actually my NSV this week is actually getting up to run. It was 12 degrees this morning when I woke up. So I put on all my layers and headed to run with my group. It's only week two but I am LOVING my running group. I dont really know anyone in the group & I havent really talked to anyone (yet, its only week two). But I am loving the sense of community so much. Someone commented on my FB page that I was insane for running when it was this cold & that I could just run in the gym. I could run in the gym but I HATE the treadmill with a passion. I have treadmill ADD. Today I ran (outside) for 55 minutes or 4.87 Miles. There's no way I could run the treadmill for 55 minutes Id get entirely too bored. So yes, Im insane, and yes it was cold...but I loved every minute of it...& you warm up when you start to run. I heard a saying that turned into a funny joke today while running. What do you listen too while running in the cold? Coldplay hahahahha..(ok I thought it was funny). My NSV for today was running the longest ive ever ran. I think ive done 4 miles on the greenway before, but I dont think ive ever gone past 4! Today I ran 4.87 miles!! for 55 whole minutes!! I didnt die and I made it through the whole run!

My usual Saturday morning breakfast after a run is an egg white omlet. This is what I put in my omeltte:

Egg Whites -->Measured out to 1/4 cup

Spinach-->Several Handfulls

Mushrooms-->From the produce section, not the canned kind

Shredded Cheese-->1/4 cup--> I measure this out too bc if not I will go cheese crazy...

I also add whatever else I have in the fridge. For example this week I added some cubed ham I had leftover. 

I usually have a Kind bar on my way to my Saturday Morning run (Im addicted to the Kind healthy grains peanut butter bars).

This weekend I also added hot chocolate to my Saturday breakfast routine. I know what youre thinking, Hot Chocolate! Thats not healthy! But wait!! Dont give up hope! Im not doing any specific diet (other than WW), but I do like the Paleo diet, Whole30, and clean eating.  A few years ago I walked the Country Music Half Marathon (The current race im training to run). After every training run I would drink chocolate milk (Just regular chocolate milk). I really like Chocolate milk & it has some good benefits after a workout, but most brands have yucky nasty High Fructose Corn Syrup in them. So I wanted to add chocolate milk back into my routine, but dont want to deviate from eating healthy & I have a feeling that regular chocolate milk would not aid in my weightloss journey. So all of this to say, I made this really amazing hot chocloate today. I googled clean eating hot chocolate & paleo hot chocolate, but unfortunately a lot of them called for complicated ingredients I didnt have (like raw coconut sugar..ya that's not exactly lying around in the pantry). Have no fear, I found a recipe that doesnt call for strange ingredients & I also happened to have a bottle of Agave (sugar replacement) thats hardly even been touched. I was so excited to find a decent fairly healthy hot chocolate recipe. I also bought chocolate soy milk this week at the store with the intention of drinking a glass after my run today. So after my google search I found this recipe on another blog: 

http://stephcupoftea.blogspot.com/2008/10/hot-chocolate-with-agave-nectar.html

The only modifications I made to this recipe is that I used the chocolate soy milk I already had in the fridge. It was really good! I loved the cinnamon in it! 

Its been a tough week as far as eating and staying on track. I learned I really have to work at being strong & staying on track, Bingeing on the leftrover Christmas chocolate at work isnt doing me any good. I had every intention of staying on track Friday night at Chilli's by ordering off of their lighter menu...but my intentions were squashed when I decided to eat an order of chips and queso This week im going to try harder to stay on track! Every time I want to eat that chocolate at work im going to remember how much it stinks to stand on the scale at my weekly WW weigh in and see the number go up! Out of sight out of mind really is the truth. If I keep the cookies and candy out of sight then I will have less of a chance to binge on them!

To wrap up this (really long) blog post my goal for this week is to get back on track! Sub goals:

 1) Get back on track with my workouts. 

--> I fell off the workout wagon this week because it was cold & I got lazy! None of that this week! 

2) Stay away from the junk at work! This is just self control

 --> I dont have to eat every cookie, candy, and junk food that comes my way at work! I have to be strong and stay away from it this week!

THIS WEEK I WILL NOT GO OFF THE RAILS! I WILL STAY ON TRACK! <-- my mantra for the week

Long term goal:

There are about 30 days until my big cruise! (Woot woot!) & Im planning on giving myself a little vacation from "being good"  on the cruise, So that means that for the next 30 days I need to stay on track!

Thanks for reading this incredibly long post! Cya next time!

The Mug I put my hot chocolate in! Mad props to my BFF http://heyheythirdgradeblogspot.com/ for getting this for me!