Wellness Wednesday - Working Out With Your TV

I do not feel like leaving the house today...I'm just feeling a little blah lately.  My workout buddy won't be making it to the gym tonight, so I decided to work out a different way this afternoon.  With my T.V. (and Jillian Michaels).

I honestly forgot how many workouts there were On Demand.  We have comcast cable, and through exercise TV, there are a ton of options for working out at home.  Today, I have chosen Jillian's "6 week 6 pack".  I just watched it (since I like to watch it first so that I can see what I'm getting myself into), and it looks like it could be pretty intense.  She has two different levels for this workout, and both are represented in the video (which I like).  All you need is a hand weight and a mat if you have hard floors.  I will be doing level 1, which doesn't require a weight.

Do you have a favorite On Demand workout?  Are there other ways that you use your TV to get exercise? 

I'm in a food rut!

I'm having a hard time coming up with anything exciting to make for dinner that will still be good for me.  We've been eating a lot of chicken breasts and ground turkey, and I just feel like I am at a stand still.  It also doesn't help that we aren't that "well stocked pantry" type of house, so I can't just whip something up.

Yesterday's dinner was tasty, but simple.  Cut up some chicken breast, cook in delicious teriyaki sauce, and serve with rice pilaf and broccoli.  While it tasted really good, I feel like I am craving something different.  Tomorrow I think I will make lasagna (still searching for a "healthier" recipe).  I wish that Nick liked spinach, because that's my favorite, but we will be having meat I guess!

What are some delicious foods that you make that are still healthy?  Care to share recipes with me?

Wellness Wednesday - Snow Edition

I am honestly too tired to type much of a post after shoveling the snow away from my car.  We didn't get that much (maybe 6 inches), but it rained and then snowed again...and it was heavy, heavy, heavy.  Places less than 50 miles from us have double and triple that amount of snow, so I am feeling OK about our 6 inches.

So my thought today is to get out and exercise in unusual ways, like shoveling snow!! Is there anything unusual that you would consider "exercise"?

My Ideal

I am currently taking a Women's Health Issues class in school, and hearing women talk about their ideal body and ideal weight made me want to write this post.


When I hear women talking about their ideals, I often wonder where they come from.  I know that many women feel that society places an ideal on all of us.  There are models and actresses who have these bodies that most of us will never have.  They have personal trainers, chefs, nannies to watch their children so that they can spend hours working out.  I always wondered why as women, we feel that we have to live up to this, even if we have never looked like them in the past.


For me, of course there have been times that I have said "I wish I had her [insert body part here]".  I think that's only natural.  But, as far as weight loss and fitness goals, I've tried to never compare myself to someone else.  I am very tall, athletically built, with hips that will be great when it's time to have babies.  Even within my family, my sisters have different body types than me.


Since I am working on watching what I eat and exercising, I have an ideal in my head.  The thing that is most important to me, is that I have an ideal of myself.  My ideal is from the end of 2004.  This was back before I gained the love, commuting, fast food, desk job weight.  I was healthy and active.  I felt damn good about myself, and was super confident.  I met Nick just a couple of months later, and really believe that because I loved myself, I was open to loving him, too.  I am ready to have that confidence back.


I figure I would share a picture of myself that has always been a favorite.  This was from Christmastime 2004, and it's been a picture of myself that I've always loved.  Nick used to carry a copy in his wallet.  I looked happy and healthy.  This is what I am hoping to get back to (and this is also what makes me contemplate dying my hair brown again about once a month...but that's another story).

Do you feel like there is pressure for women to look a certain way?  Do you have any tips for loving yourself despite the pressure?

I Have a Sweet Tooth

I love sweets.  I thank my Dad for this, because he is a fan of some ice cream or cookies after dinner.  While I am trying to eat better and work out often, the sweets have to go.  Last night, Nick decided he had to have some Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch.  Now, I asked him "You want me to go pick you up some ice cream, and expect me to be able to not get any for myself?".  He didn't think this should be a problem; but I had to have something.

Here is where Skinny Cow comes in and saves the day!

(source)

I got my little cup of ice cream, and it had 150 calories, 2g of fat, and 4g of fiber...and it tasted great.  Now, it wasn't Ben & Jerry's, obviously, but it at least calmed my craving for sweets!

Do you have a favorite "healthy" desert?  If you could eat one sweet for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Wellness Wednesday - Volleyball

When I was in 7th and 8th grade, we had what was called "wellness Wednesday" in gym class.  I think that it was once a month, if gym class fell on Wednesday, there would be a special set-up of things to do.  We would have to run a mile (timed), see how many pull ups and push ups we could do, and also do some flexibility tests.  I hated it.  I wasn't strong, I couldn't run, and I was not flexible in the least bit.  Even though I hated it, I thought it could be a good thing for my blog!  Keep a look out every week for an entry related to overall wellness (healthy recipes, workouts, ways to destress).


Today, I want to talk about volleyball!  I played volleyball in high school, and we were generally 3rd in our division and played against the two best teams in the state.  I also played my freshman year at a tiny women's college, but our team was not as good.  I think we won one game!  But, no matter how good the team I'm on is, I love to play.


Yesterday, I went to play at my hometown recreation center.  They have adult volleyball on Tuesday nights, and I have been trying to go every week.  I am not as good a I used to be (since I am out of practice and a bit out of shape), but I love to play.  I have been using "my fitness pal" to track my food and exercise, and according to them playing volleyball for 2 hours competitively in a gymnasium burns about 1350 calories!  Now I know why I was so skinny when I was playing ever day!

This is me, 40 lbs lighter, my freshman year of college when I was playing volleyball every day.  I am not trying to be this skinny again, I am hoping to lose about 20 lbs.

For me, playing volleyball is a fun way to mix up my work out routine.  It burns more calories than anything that I do at the gym, and works muscles that I just can't seem to target there, too.  I know that I will have a flat stomach in no time if I keep playing weekly.  Here's hoping!


Did you play any sports in high school or college?  Do you still play sports?  Do you do any nontraditional workouts?

The Sparkling Thing On My Left Hand

After trying to decide what to write about today since yesterday was spent lounging on the couch, watching many episodes of Law and Order: SVU and the Patriot's game, while eating pizza and drinking wine with Nick, and not spent doing any of the things I said I was going to work on, I realized that I haven't introduced you to my ring!

Since Nick and I had been dating for many years, and living together for quite a while, the topic of marriage came up with us a lot.  We went through some hardships together, and especially after deciding that we knew for sure we wanted to spend our lives with each other, I had engagement brain.  I was one of those girls.  You know the ones, not yet engaged, but talking about weddings with every other breath.  I am not proud of this, but I knew that Nick was the one for me, and I was excited to start the next phase of our life together.

Back to the ring!  Nick and I had looked at rings once.  A whole year before he proposed.  Granted, most of our friends were engaged or married, so their had been some thoughts about rings that friends had gotten ("I like her ring" or "That ring is not for me").  When the time came to decide what ring to buy me, he did two things.  He brought my sister with him to pick it out, and he called my best friend for suggestions.  Turns out, he didn't need either of them.  When he and my sister got to the first store, he saw my ring and said "That's the one.  I know she will love it, and I don't need to look anywhere else".

He was right, it is perfect.  It is simple, timeless, and not too flashy; all words that I would use to describe myself in some ways.  I love my ring.  Five months later, and I still find myself starting at it sometimes!  It makes me so happy that he knew me so well, and that he picked something that we will both love for years and years to come.

My friend Heather and her husband Josh came to visit in September, and he was nice enough to take these beautiful pictures of my ring!

If your're married or engaged, was your ring exactly what you imagined? Or were you totally surprised by your ring?

Starting 2011 Off Right!

I am super proud of myself.

On New Year's Day, I finally tackled the spare room closet!! This is something that I have been dreading, and putting off, for as long as I can remember. There were totes and boxes full of clothes and stuff; to be honest, I didn't even know what was in there. My thought was it's contained to the closet, in a room that we hardly ever go into, so there was no harm in putting it off.

I will say, that it's not totally done. But, I got through quite a bit. I found lots of clothes that I thought were lost and gone, and I have a huuuuuuuuuuuuge contractors bag full of clothes to donate (more on these, and the fact that the damn goose skirt is still in that bag, later).

There was one part of this organization that overwhelmed me. When cleaning out the closet, the room looked like the closet exploded. It felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything, even though I knew I was.

Are there parts about cleaning and organizing that make you overwhelmed? What is your least favorite thing to clean?