30 Days of Thanks

It's November 1st. The month of giving and being thankful. In honor of my my favorite month and my absolute favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, I would like to challenge YOU to a 30 days of thanks challenge. 

This challenge will be done through Instagram. Each day, take a pic of something you are thankful for. Then tag it with #30daysofthanks and #learningtoloveme. Simple as pie. How many people can we get to participate?

I'll be posting my pics on IG and sharing them via FB. Here's my day 1:

I hope to see what you are thankful for this month!

<3,

Kell

Homemade Guacamole

Ok. I'll admit it.

I'm addicted to avocados. 

This isn't something that I just discovered in my healthy new lifestyle. I have ALWAYS loved avocados. I can eat an entire one in a sitting.

I know. That's probably not the best idea - but - DANG - they are good!

Our local grocery store, Giant Eagle, had avocados on sale this week for a dollar each. That's a steal for these parts. So I bought a bunch. My first thought was to give one to my daughter instead of her green beans or peas for dinner. 

Then we went to my dad's house for dinner on Sunday night. He and my step-mom served us wonderful homemade spaghetti and meatballs. As an appetizer, they had guacamole and Stacey's pita chips. I was in heaven! I asked my step-mom where they got the guac and she told me that they made it. Of course, being the nerd that I am, I had to know how she did it.

When she told me, I WAS FLOORED! It was sooo easy! Why hadn't I made this before?

I made some and it has been my topping on my shredded salsa chicken wraps this week. Oh, you don't have the recipe for the shredded salsa chicken? I'll give you that one tomorrow!

Are you ready for your mind to be blown with this recipe??? 

Ingredients:

• 1 ripe acocado
• 2 Tbsp salsa
• A squirt of lime juice

Directions:

• Pit the avocado.
• Scoop the flesh of the avocado into a bowl.
• Mash up with a fork to whatever consistency you like.
• Add the 2 Tbsp salsa to the avocado.
• Mix together.
• Add in the squirt of lime juice.
• Mix all ingredients agin.
• EAT IT!

Seriously. It's that easy. And it tastes WAY better than anything you could buy in the store!

Now go out and make some GUAC!

<3,

Kell

Weeks 1 and 2 - CLX/TF hybrid

Week 1 and 2 are in the books. I am SO glad I switched out my programs. I love Chalene. I missed her. I need to workout with her every day.

There is a "real" hybrid schedule for ChaLEAN Extreme and TurboFire, but I'm not following it. I like to have my weight lifting and rest days to be the same days each week. So, I do my weights on Mon, Wed, and Fri followed by my rest day on Sundays. I thrown in cardio/abs on Tues, Thurs, and Sat, sometimes taking one of those days off to rest.

This is what my schedule looked like this past 2 weeks:

Monday - Burn Circuit 1
Tuesday - Fit Club (Total Body Core Class)
Wednesday - Burn Circuit 2
Thursday - Rest
Friday - Burn Circuit 3
Saturday - TurboFire HIIT 15 and Ab Ripper X (P90X)
Sunday - Rest
Monday - Rest (I was sick)
Tuesday - Burn 1
Wednesday - HIIT 20 and Ab Burner
Thursday - Burn Circuit 2
Friday - Fire 45
Saturday - Burn Circuit 3 and Ab Igniter
Sunday - Stretch 40

I liked this schedule. I don't like missing workouts on Mondays but it just kinda happened. I guess you can't choose when you get sick. Luckily I can switch out my rest days pretty easily. I really need to add in more ab work. Like, 3 times a week. If there's one area that I need the most help with, it's my midsection. Two babies and an extra 80+ pounds have not been nice to my middle!

So, here's what I'm planning on doing this upcoming week:

Monday - Burn Circuit 1
Tuesday - Fire 30/Ab Igniter
Wednesday - Burn Circuit 2
Thursday - Fire 45 EZ and Extreme Abs
Friday - Burn Circuit 3
Saturday - HIIT 20 and Ab Burner
Sunday - Rest

Week 3 - HERE I COME!

I've been bad

I'm gonna admit it. I've been bad. I haven't written a blog post in 3 days! That's really unusual for me. I like to write one every day if I can and if not, every other day. I apologize for being a bum!

I haven't blogged too much about my workouts lately. Or my clean eating. Truthfully, January has been hard. My husband's grandmother passed away on New Years Eve. We dealt with that for a week. We buried her on Saturday, Jan. 5.

On the 9th of Jan, we got the horrific call that our two little cousins had been killed in a car accident. It was no one's fault. It just happened. We buried them both on Saturday, Jan 12. Exactly one week after we buried their great grandmother.

All the while I was trying to give P90X a go. I decided that it just wasn't working out. I was beginning to associate the workouts with this horrible time in my life and I didn't want that to happen. Plus, I really missed Chalene.

So, I went back to what I love. I am doing a modified ChaLEAN Extreme/TurboFire schedule and I am BACK! I look forward to working out each day. I continue to push myself to "lift heavy or go home" and I'm now doing rows with 25 pounds in each hand. In fact, I have to use wrist straps to help me hold the weights because my forearms give out before my legs and back! It's kinda cool!

I have also gotten back to my clean eating routine. I am doing my best to eat every 3 hours, without fail. I am making solid food choices. In fact, we went out to dinner last night. Of course, it was to my favorite restaurant, The Texas Roadhouse. The rolls were STARING at me. The were BEGGING me to eat them. But, I didn't. I haven't come this far and worked this hard to give in to a stupid little craving.

I also made the conscious choice last night to order the healthiest thing on the menu that I could find. Grilled chicken breast with some BBQ sauce, a naked baked sweet potato, and green beans. The chicken was DELISH and the baked sweet potato was out of this world. I didn't need anything to sweeten it. It was perfect as is! I ended up not eating the green beans because they put this funky sauce on them and I didn't like it. That in itself is funny to me because before I started this journey, I had to drown my veggies in butter and "good stuff" just to get them down. Now I appreciate them for the goodness that they are all on their own!

Officially I am down 48 pounds since starting this journey on Oct. 1. If you go back to the day I delivered my daughter, I am down 83 pounds. Yes, 83 pounds since June. However, I don't like to go by that number because that was me at my heaviest pregnant weight. I want people to know that I lost this 48 pounds AFTER I had lost all my baby weight. So, yeah. I'm gonna say 48 pounds officially. (the pic below was taken at 45 pounds down.)

There it is. An update on me. I will post pictures for you soon. I just bought a pair of size 10 pants. Yes, I am proud of a size 10. Remember those "new jeans" I blogged about a few months ago? If not, HERE is the post. Well, those were a size 14. I can no longer wear them by themselves. I HAVE to wear my belt and my belt is on the TIGHTEST hole. If I don't wear my belt, then they just fall off even if they are completely buttoned and zipped! If that's not progress, I don't know what is.

So, I am making a promise to you that I will take some pics of me in my new "new jeans" and post them for you. Maybe I'll get to it tonight. I try to get my beachbody stuff done but sometimes playing with my kids is just more important. Our family learned that the hard way this month. I refuse to live with any regrets. I will hold my kids and love on my kids every single chance I get because there is one thing that I know. Tomorrow is NOT guaranteed!

<3,
Kell