After awhile though, you do have to move on. I can't keep saying, "Oh this is my dog that passed away".
I have this card coming this week. (The number isn't real, this was my proof.)
Baby steps!
Happy Wednesday!
XO,
Rachel
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
One of My Goals...
...one of my goals for this month was to update my credit cards. All of them had images of Audry who I still think about everyday. I couldn't make myself change my credit card last year, even though she died in July.
After awhile though, you do have to move on. I can't keep saying, "Oh this is my dog that passed away".
I have this card coming this week. (The number isn't real, this was my proof.)
Baby steps!
Happy Wednesday!
XO,
Rachel
After awhile though, you do have to move on. I can't keep saying, "Oh this is my dog that passed away".
I have this card coming this week. (The number isn't real, this was my proof.)
Baby steps!
Happy Wednesday!
XO,
Rachel
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
High Five for Friday
1) Friday night I made some super yummy Mexican Tortilla Soup - just minus the tortillas! Didn't miss them a bit! Serve with onion, cilantro, avocado, lime, and other yummies on the side!
3) Sunday I worked games with my friend and co worker Britney! We had a blast. Love being a part of all and action and getting paid!! <3's this job!!
4) I blogged earlier about my muffins but it was definitely a theme of my week and I have been enjoying them everyday!
Love,
Rachel
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Whey Protein Muffins!
Hey Guys!! So this week I have been baking up a STORM and it's been a blast! When you are trying to cut out carbs, sometimes you crave something like a MUFFIN! I made the Jamie Eason protein bars this week in three flavors: Carrot Cake, Pumpkin Spice, and Chocolate!
First off, I think Jamie Eason and most body builders that go to extreme and unhealthy lengths for weight and image is a little creepy but her recipes are easy and clean so I have been enjoying them.
You use oat flour which is basically ground oats (if you have a Vita Mix or Ninja, make your own!) and whey protein powder and baby food and spices!
So here are my tips for you before you make some! USE FLAVORED WHEY POWDER!! I wanted to use up my gag worthy unflavored powder that I had thinking the rest of the ingredients would make up for the unflavored powder and those batches were tasteless - SO definitely use flavored powder. I used Body Fortress Vanilla Creme and it's super affordable and a good quality whey isolate for the price point. 2lbs is on ale at Kings now for $14 bucks!
If you don't like Stevia or artificial sweeteners, use some real sugar, just use like a 1/4th cup and more applesauce. I also used more spices than the recipe called for.
Watch the cooking times! Mine were done in 22 minutes but I also portion them out in muffin tins instead of a large batch that I have to cut later so that probably has something to do with it. Whey cooks VERY FAST!
The pumpkin ones were a hit with my boyfriend and everyone more than any other flavor. He had them with honey. YUM.
I have them for breakfast or an afternoon snack! It's been fun having a guilt free MUFFIN! You can make them so many ways, too! Add nuts, sugar free chocolate chips, cranberries, anything you want!
XO,
Rachel
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Clean Eating - Typical Weekday!
Happy Thursday All!
So some friends asked me to post what a typical day looks like for me so I am going to post some! When trying to lose weight, you basically have to try and avoid sugar at all costs and a lot of natural foods have sugar. Try and stick with lean proteins and vegetables and complex carbs and eat every 3 hours. What you look like is 80% nutrition, 20% exercise. Once I realized this and started practicing clean eating, I started seeing REAL results - better than I ever have before.
To find out how many calories you should be eating, find out your BMR which is how much you burn just being ALIVE - not including exercising and start there. NEVER, EVER eat below your BMR. If you slow down your metabolism, you can even GAIN weight eating 1,000 calories a day because your body holds onto everything! You do yourself no favors starving yourself. Never, even if you are 4 feet tall, eat under 1,000 calories.
I usually eat my last meal right before bedtime around 10:00pm. If you are eating clean all day, you should not gain weight by eating at night. If I don't have a meal before bed, I wake up ravishing in the middle of the night and I can't sleep.
Try to get a lot of protein and ditch crappy carbs like chips, french fries, and white bread. Avoid fast food as much as possible, and skip sugary soda. I eat lunch everyday in the office.
My nutritionist uses and recommended Full Strength Brand shakes.They are awesome and keep me FULL. They have 40 grams of protein and are a complete meal. I have half in the blender in the morning with unsweetened almond milk and ice and save the other half for a mid morning snack or afternoon. On the weekends, I will do Greek Yogurt and Berries and Fiber One cereal or I love to make a large egg white omelet with chopped veggies and salsa.
Throughout the day, I have 4-6 ounce portions of lean protein and veggies. I keep it pretty simple but I enjoy it. Here are some snapshots of my desk at work and what I had. Lean cooked meat travels well, too!
Sometimes I have egg salad made with celery and plain Greek yogurt on rice cakes.
I LOVE spaghetti squash. Low in carbs and delish!
Quest bars I buy by the CASE. They are amazing, loaded with protein and fiber and SO GOOD!
You have to get fat, and eaten correctly, fat doesn't make you fat and I love avocado as my fat so I have a half to a whole one a day depending on how much I worked out. Here is a chicken and spinach burger over salad with avocado. YUM! You can also get fats with nut butters but I overeat them.
Sometimes we do lean steak!
When cooking for the rest of your family, just feed them what you make but make rice or bread or something on the side for them if you are trying to lean out. Tacos with lettuce cups instead of tortillas are so yummy - or fajitas. I made that a lot, especially for company.
Eating out, if there is NOTHING healthy, just ask for what you want. The other day, I was at a bar with friends for a birthday party. I didn't even look at the menu. I just asked for two grilled chicken breasts and steamed broccoli and they brought it and it was delicious! I use mustard or salsa to dip if I feel like it.
Other staples are Greek Yogurt with Stevia and blueberries, meatloaf muffins, hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese, and cucumbers make great dippers for egg and chicken salad!
Hopefully this gives you some ideas to get you started! I will post more favorite recipes and food finds!
Have a great Thursday :)
Rachel
So some friends asked me to post what a typical day looks like for me so I am going to post some! When trying to lose weight, you basically have to try and avoid sugar at all costs and a lot of natural foods have sugar. Try and stick with lean proteins and vegetables and complex carbs and eat every 3 hours. What you look like is 80% nutrition, 20% exercise. Once I realized this and started practicing clean eating, I started seeing REAL results - better than I ever have before.
To find out how many calories you should be eating, find out your BMR which is how much you burn just being ALIVE - not including exercising and start there. NEVER, EVER eat below your BMR. If you slow down your metabolism, you can even GAIN weight eating 1,000 calories a day because your body holds onto everything! You do yourself no favors starving yourself. Never, even if you are 4 feet tall, eat under 1,000 calories.
I usually eat my last meal right before bedtime around 10:00pm. If you are eating clean all day, you should not gain weight by eating at night. If I don't have a meal before bed, I wake up ravishing in the middle of the night and I can't sleep.
Try to get a lot of protein and ditch crappy carbs like chips, french fries, and white bread. Avoid fast food as much as possible, and skip sugary soda. I eat lunch everyday in the office.
My nutritionist uses and recommended Full Strength Brand shakes.They are awesome and keep me FULL. They have 40 grams of protein and are a complete meal. I have half in the blender in the morning with unsweetened almond milk and ice and save the other half for a mid morning snack or afternoon. On the weekends, I will do Greek Yogurt and Berries and Fiber One cereal or I love to make a large egg white omelet with chopped veggies and salsa.
Eating out, if there is NOTHING healthy, just ask for what you want. The other day, I was at a bar with friends for a birthday party. I didn't even look at the menu. I just asked for two grilled chicken breasts and steamed broccoli and they brought it and it was delicious! I use mustard or salsa to dip if I feel like it.
Other staples are Greek Yogurt with Stevia and blueberries, meatloaf muffins, hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese, and cucumbers make great dippers for egg and chicken salad!
Hopefully this gives you some ideas to get you started! I will post more favorite recipes and food finds!
Have a great Thursday :)
Rachel
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Clean Eating
WTF! It's already JANUARY 8th! This is insane to me. I hope everyone had a great Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever you celebrate. With celebrations...generally comes yummy high calorie/carb foods! It did for me anyway. December 23rd is my birthday and the 24th my family has a party and of course Christmas Day...lots of food and fun.
Watching your weight takes a lot of thought and energy. Planning healthy meals and eating them takes thought. Most the time, it's totally worth it and I enjoy it but there are certain times in life where you can't think about it and if you do obsess about food and what you are or are not going to eat...you miss out on what the celebration is actually about which is spending time with loved ones. If I was worrying about what yummy things I wasn't going to eat the week of my birthday and Christmas and New Years Eve, I would be putting a lot of energy into those thoughts and it's just not worth it. It's liberating to just not worry sometimes.
Some of my friends made it out staying the same or gaining a half pound and that is so awesome! Good job! I gained 5 lbs. I am not freaking out though because I know EXACTLY what I did to gain it. I am not sitting here wondering and even better, I know what I need to do to get it off.
In September of last year, I started clean eating after hiring a nutritionist and I am so glad I did. Have you heard of "clean" foods? Basically, it is anything that comes from nature and not processed. The first three weeks, I didn't stray and ate clean 100% and lost about 15 pounds...eating WAY more than I was before when I was trying to lose weight and failing again and again. It was the type of food I was eating. I have been told about this from different people over the years but didn't believe it until I saw a fancy eating doctor but it was worth it anyway. I also started taking good vitamins and amino acids. Now I totally believe in it. I wish I could have just done this and used the money for a Louis Vuitton but that's OK. #firstworldproblems
One part that sucks is that Taco Bell isn't clean. Neither is Velveeta. Neither are cookies. Or most things not on the outer rim of the grocery store. There are a lot of clean things though. Pretty much anything existing in nature which is a freakton of foods when you think about it. I make clean recipes and eat them throughout the week and they are yummy! You probably saw my post Sunday about clean turkey muffins.
He and She Eat Clean has a lot of recipes to give you ideas and their story is awesome. Their grovery shopping list is all you need for clean eating!
Some things I snack on during the week:
raw veggies
rotisserie chicken breast
hard boiled eggs
100 calorie packs of almonds (I can't be trusted with whole bags)
Greek Yogurt (I use stevia or truvia to sweeten- I tried the whole plain yogurt by itself and it makes me gag)
QUEST PROTEIN BARS!!! (The only decent bar on the market and they taste amazing.)
Berries (I limit fruit when trying to peel off pounds)
I keep it pretty simple. If you have questions about it, please email me! Doing this has been the most effective weight loss I have ever done and the only thing that really has made sense for me.
I am going to be updating some of my favorite recipes soon!
XO,
Rachel
Watching your weight takes a lot of thought and energy. Planning healthy meals and eating them takes thought. Most the time, it's totally worth it and I enjoy it but there are certain times in life where you can't think about it and if you do obsess about food and what you are or are not going to eat...you miss out on what the celebration is actually about which is spending time with loved ones. If I was worrying about what yummy things I wasn't going to eat the week of my birthday and Christmas and New Years Eve, I would be putting a lot of energy into those thoughts and it's just not worth it. It's liberating to just not worry sometimes.
Some of my friends made it out staying the same or gaining a half pound and that is so awesome! Good job! I gained 5 lbs. I am not freaking out though because I know EXACTLY what I did to gain it. I am not sitting here wondering and even better, I know what I need to do to get it off.
In September of last year, I started clean eating after hiring a nutritionist and I am so glad I did. Have you heard of "clean" foods? Basically, it is anything that comes from nature and not processed. The first three weeks, I didn't stray and ate clean 100% and lost about 15 pounds...eating WAY more than I was before when I was trying to lose weight and failing again and again. It was the type of food I was eating. I have been told about this from different people over the years but didn't believe it until I saw a fancy eating doctor but it was worth it anyway. I also started taking good vitamins and amino acids. Now I totally believe in it. I wish I could have just done this and used the money for a Louis Vuitton but that's OK. #firstworldproblems
One part that sucks is that Taco Bell isn't clean. Neither is Velveeta. Neither are cookies. Or most things not on the outer rim of the grocery store. There are a lot of clean things though. Pretty much anything existing in nature which is a freakton of foods when you think about it. I make clean recipes and eat them throughout the week and they are yummy! You probably saw my post Sunday about clean turkey muffins.
He and She Eat Clean has a lot of recipes to give you ideas and their story is awesome. Their grovery shopping list is all you need for clean eating!
Some things I snack on during the week:
raw veggies
rotisserie chicken breast
hard boiled eggs
100 calorie packs of almonds (I can't be trusted with whole bags)
Greek Yogurt (I use stevia or truvia to sweeten- I tried the whole plain yogurt by itself and it makes me gag)
QUEST PROTEIN BARS!!! (The only decent bar on the market and they taste amazing.)
Berries (I limit fruit when trying to peel off pounds)
I keep it pretty simple. If you have questions about it, please email me! Doing this has been the most effective weight loss I have ever done and the only thing that really has made sense for me.
I am going to be updating some of my favorite recipes soon!
XO,
Rachel