Lets talk about Spinning......

So a couple of weeks ago I went to spin class at my gym. I had taken spin before, a long time and about 30 pounds lighter ago. I hated it back then, I am not even sure why, but for a long time I always would laugh when someone would say they were taking a spin class. But a friend of mine suggested that I take it since I have been looking for some extra cardio to go with my running. So I sucked it up and gave it a try. It was horrible. The seats are small and I felt like my fat was spilling all over, I also wasn't good at it, it takes some skill to be able to stand up with out putting pressure on your hands, so I felt like my insecurities were on display for the whole room. That's an irrational feeling I know since everyone could care less about what I am doing, their simply trying to survive the ride themselves. But nonetheless I felt really insecure and very emotional after the class was over. But it was an excellent burn, and the instructor was so good. Flash forward to this morning and I was right there, spinning those pedals with the best of them, upping my resistance at every cue, and sweating up a storm. Moral of this story, First impressions aren't always the best impressions, everything deserves a second chance.

 

Some fun facts about Spinning:

• Spinning scorches about 7.2 to 13.6 calories per minute, or about 500 calories per class.
• All that pedaling is also great for leg toning as it strengthens your glutes, thighs, and calves.
• Spinning is an anaerobic exercise and it builds up muscular endurance over time
• Abdominal muscles get a workout through proper posture and technique.
• Spinning brings self-discipline in pushing forward and completing the workout.
  
  So go on try something new, maybe it wont be spinning, maybe its rock climbing or kickboxing, whatever it is step out of your comfort zone and try something new!

Laters!!


Workout of the Week!!

Lets do some Jump roping this week! This is such a great workout, and you can do it anywhere (well mostly), its low impact and gives you a slow burn. Now I admit that this is not a slip I pulled out of the jar this week, but its been an exercise that I have been wanting to make the workout of the week for a while, and what better time than right now. I am always seeming the contestants on the Biggest loser jumping rope, so I did some research and turns out, that if you keep a moderate pace, meaning between 70 to 120 jumps per minute, you can burn around 12 calories/minute. That's amazing!!

 

I always feel really clumsy when I am jumping rope, so while I hope I look like the girl above I feel more like;

 

 

You can find Jump Ropes at any store, I got mine from Target for $3. You can't beat that! Go on Jump for it!

 

Laters!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Food Depraved

Do you ever get cravings? I do a lot, and they seem to happen even more now that I am trying to be healthy. I am like my stepfather in that once I start thinking about a food I cant stop, and no other thoughts seem to be able to permeate my brain until I eat the food. And the food ranges from fruit to sweets to salty things, it really doesn't matter. This is my true weakness, and something that I struggle with on a daily basis, and I know that this is the reason that I can't lose the weight. No matter how much I run or work out, it doesn't matter since I cant seem to control my eating habits. What can I say I LOVE food. I get that I have a problem, and its something I am working on. However, this is a really hard thing to overcome, especially since we are surrounded by food all day everyday. Did you know you make over 200 food related decisions on a daily basis? That's a lot, more than I was even aware of. Which makes overcoming a dependency on food a difficult challenge. I am reading a great book, that is helping me work through my issues with food and helping me realized that I am worth more than that corn dog or ice sandwich. Is this something you deal with? Leave me a comment on how you deal.

Workout of the Week!

How'd you do with the front to back kicks last week? I ended up with 1500 kicks, and I am pretty proud of that! So this week are going to switch it up a little bit. This weeks workout is side planks but instead of trying to accomplish 1,000 reps we are going to try and do 1,000 seconds worth. Meaning that each time you do a side plank you time how long you hold it for and over the course of the week try to aim for 1,000.

Here is proper form, try to alternate between right and left side each time,

 

You can do this! You can do anything, because your awesome!! 

February Organization(3)

Welcome back to February organization. Today we are going to talk about bathrooms! I have a small bathroom, but I actually love it so that makes up for its size.

 

As you can see the room is very white (not my choice) with pink accents (also not my choice). I will give you guys an in depth look as everything just like always.

 

So this is inside my shower. I prefer to keep everything looking polished and organized so I have two corner organizers.

The organizers are held on my suction cups and have a small "cup" inside the main compartment that holds smaller things, like razors or my face scrub. It also has a hook for hanging things. I keep all of my body wash in one and all of my shampoo, conditioner, and face wash in the other.

On one side of my sink I keep all of my jewelry, in a small three drawer organizer. On top I keep all of my earrings in a leopard print hard case, and all of my rings are held on the hand that I got from Claires. Inside I keep all of my hair jewelry in the top drawer, all of my bracelets in the middle and all of my longer/more expensive necklaces in the bottom.

I have two drawers in my sink. The top one holds baskets for all of my teeth cleaning supplies and the bottom holds all the samples/products that I have gotten from different places that I am not going to use. Whenever people come over to my house they can go through it and take whatever they want!

Under my sink I have three organizers. One is a large single drawer that holds all of my over sized products. These are all things that are "Extras" of things I already am using. The small three drawered organizer holds all of my "Lady" Things. And the basket holds all of my travel sized things. Whenever I am going on a trip I just pull it out and dump whatever I am going to need into a travel bag.

Under my sink I have a large drawer that is divided into two long compartments. I keep all of my travel bags as well as more "Extras". As well as anything that I don't use often.

I keep a basket over my toilet that holds extra toilet paper and my speakers for when I rock out in the shower :). I also have a wall mounted cabinet that has three compartments on the bottom and doors with two shelves inside. On top there you can see some of my Halloween stuff, a Jack Skelington coffee mug and two witches shoe candle holders that I got from Pier one. In the far left lower compartment I have containers holding hair ties, and bobby pins. The middle section holds all of my moisturizers and lotions. And the far right holds a basket with all my face washes.

Next to my wall organizer I have two command hooks (you know those things I use for basically everything, and talk about all the time!) They hold my longer necklaces as well as a headband that wont fit in my jewelry organizer.

On my sink I have a long plastic tray, it came as part of the set that I use to organize my makeup and desk. It holds all of my perfume. I have three from Victoria's Secret, Vera Wang Preppy Princess, Rock Princess, Princess, and Night Princess, as well as Britney Spears Fantasy. I also use a small square container to hold all of my perfume samples that I get as part of the Glambags and Birchboxes.

Inside of the wall organizer I have two shelves that hold all of my hair things, as any other over sized bathroom products.




So here's the deal with all the "Extras" I am in school full time plus I have a full time job so I don't always have the time to be running to the store when I run out of something, plus I find it really annoying to jump in the shower only to realize that I only have enough conditioner for haft my head. So to combat this I always ask for things I use alot of for Christmas or my birthday. That way I always have spares.

 

So I hope you guys found this helpful and will get some Ideas for your own bathroom space!

 

Laters!

Workout of the Week!

I bet ya'll are so excited to see what the workout of the week is!! I wont draw out the anticipation, this weeks workout is Front to Back kicks. That means throw a front kick and then still facing forward kick your leg out backwards. Try to these as fast as you can yet still keep proper form.



So as you can see we're going to kick some butt this week!

I hope you guys got to 1,000 leg lifts last week, I admit that I only got to 800 but I gave it my all and those 800 were awesome.

Hope you guys are enjoying the shortened work week!!

Laters!

Hail to the Chief.....

Happy Presidents Day!!!!

 

 

 

Hope Ya'll have a wonderful day off!! Not me, no day off for me, but I am totally okay with that since the munchkins are home and we get to goof off all day!!!

 

Laters!

 

A Little Saturday Follie

Today is Saturday, as if you didn't already know. I, dear reader, am laying in bed as I write this. Why you might ask? Because I can I say. I have been up, gotten dressed and even been to the store, but I simply have little to no energy to do anything other than lay in bed, read, watch movies, work on some school stuff, and of course blog. What movies am I watchin you ask, well right now I am watchin Pride & Prejudice ( a little romantic for my taste but I love to look at Mr. Darcy, what a dish!!). Before that I was watching Talladaga nights and next I plan to pop in Sucker Punch. A very eclectic afternoon, and I plan to become one with my bed sheets as the afternoon progresses. I hope your Saturday is as relaxing as mine is!!

Febuary Organization (2)

Lets talk about organization again today. Shelving is a wonderful way to "kill two birds with one stone" as they say. Not only do they add some extra space to the area but they can also be decorative. For my room I have four shelves, I got them from Ikea (Ikea is my go-to place for large ticket items, their products are made for small spaces and can save you a lot of money)

 

So I have four shelves all white, held up by four white brackets (that came with the shelves). They offer me space and also add a bit of dimension to the room. Before I had just simply books on these shelves, but I needed more space so I packed up almost of those and moved things around a bit. One Two of the shelves I now have movies:

 

On this shelf I also have a picture of SafeCo field; home of the Seattle Mariners which I visited back in August. I also have my Thor hat and a postcard from Paris.

Here I have more movies. I also have a glass candy jar that holds my collection of Pooh's (there are tiny poohs dressed up in different costumes) as well as an elf from Prep and Landing, a postcard of Istanbul, a candle, and a container holding my dry erase markers. Above this shelf I have some pictures mounted on command strips. The brackets offer a great frame of reference around the pictures.

 

One of the top shelves hold all of my favorite books, mostly series.

 

This also has some of my Giraffes, my Venetian mask. As well as a box that hold all kinds of travel articles about places I want to visit someday.

The final shelf hold all of my Makeup books and my pallets, I don't use these very often so having them out of the way of my everyday things has really cut down on my clutter.

 

I also have a basket that holds all of my nail polish. That large picture in the back is of old Yankee Stadium, a gift from my sister one year for Christmas.

As you can tell, I am making use of my limited amount of space and my shelves are helping me do so. I have changed these babies up quiet a bit in the past couple of weeks, but I think this is the way I like them the best. Hope you guys found this helpful!



Recipe of the Week

So this weeks recipe is Sweet Deviled Eggs! Eggs are vital to a healthy diet and provide so many different benefits:

• One egg contains 6 grams of high-quality proteins and 9 amino acids
• One egg contains just 5 grams of fat and only 1.5 grams of that is saturated fat
• Eggs are one of the only foods that contain naturally occurring vitamin D
• They are a good source of choline. One egg yolk has about 300 micrograms of choline. Choline is an important nutrient that helps regulate the brain, nervous system, and cardiovascular system
• May help prevent cancer

Plus many more. So for a healthy alternative to mayo deviled eggs I found this awesome recipe on pinterest, that I changed up just a bit.

Ingredients:

• Hard-boiled eggs
• 6 teaspoons Greek Yogurt
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• Chili powder

You'll notice that there is no Mayo in this recipe, which cuts down on the fat content and calories.

Hard-boil your eggs

Cut the eggs in half length wise 

Scoop out the yokes and combine all the ingredients. Mix together with a fork

Spoon back into the whites. sprinkle with chili powder
 

Now the original recipe calls for onions, but I don't like onions so I omitted them, I also added less honey since I didn't want it to be so sweet. Overall I really like this recipe, although it was still a bit sweet for me, but I offset this by sprinkling a bit more paprika on top. If your craving deviled eggs this a healthy and yummy alternative.

Steph's Tidbits:

• I really loved this weeks episode of Face-off!! The giants were so cool and I am super excited for Jack the Giant slayer movie now!
• Still enjoying my green smoothies!!
• My cats have been going crazy lately, I think they might have Spring Fever :)