Don't Knock it Til' You Try it.

Wowza! Yes, I said that. I told myself I would post every day at least once—and that’s proven to be difficult the past few days! To all of you who post multiple times a day, I envy you!

Let’s rewind back to my Sunday Funday. Well, Sunday kinda-funday would be more fitting. ;)

I woke up in the morning…feeling like P. Diddy—my son actually sang that song the other day, which is questionable at best, oops! That song is definitely catchy! Anyway, I woke up in the morning, threw on some comfy clothes and headed to Starbeezy with my Mama for a wake-up call. Hello, iced coffee with 2 pumps of pumpkin spice and non-fat milk.  You never fail me my love.

Before I left the house I had a bowl of yum-ness:

Multigrain Cheerios

Sliced Nectarine

Sliced Banana

Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze

Quick. Simple. Delicious.

Then I did some grocery shopping. I am in love with grocery shopping. Like I could literally go to multiple grocery stores and truly enjoy myself (Nerd Alert!). My Mom, however, does not like to grocery shop; so she cut our trip short after we went to two grocery stores. To her, that was two too many! Let’s just say:  I got it from my Papa. We share an affinity for groceries and food alike!

Sunday’s Workout: I came home and hopped on my bike because it was beautiful breezy day. I rode one mile to my parents’ house; then walked my pupperoni for another mile. Then I went on a hilly power walk with my Mom, and finally rode my bike back home. Call me weird or call me normal, but this did not feel like a work-out AT ALL. If I don’t break a sweat, it’s just considered fun and leisurely. Yesterday’s sweat-o-meter unfortunately stayed at a big 0. Luckily, today is a different story—but I will get to that shortly.

When I got home I enjoyed this fruit plate:

Nectarine & Plum all sliced up.

I forgot how good plums are! But since I got a Costco sized container of them, I will enjoy their juiciness for at least the next week. I have a trick (or maybe it’s just a normal thing), but I’ll call it a “trick”: When I buy fruit in bulk, I try to buy the unripened fruit.  Is unripened even a word? It sounds weird! Anway, I put a few pieces out to ripen and then I put the rest in the fridge. As my ripe fruit depletes I take out the un-ripened fruit and let it ripen. This ensures that I don’t waste any produce! And it works like a charm, especially since I live in a house of only 3 people.

For dinner, I enjoyed another love: Chipotle!! Vegetarian salad bowl with black beans, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa, corn salsa, and guacamole! I inhaled this before I could think of taking a picture. Don’t blame me, blame the bowl. ;)

 For a late night snack, I have some pretzels with laughing cow cheese + mustard. Remember how I proclaimed my love for mustard? Then some mint dark chocolate for some sweetness.

And now we have made it to today! I woke up late this morning after a night of tossing and turning (and dreaming of people I know being pregnant). 

Luckily, I had prepared myself a bowl of:

Overnight Green Tea Chia “Pudding”

Yes, that sounds gross, but I loved it. Don't knock it til' you try it.

In the bowl overnight:

• 1 oz. chia seeds
• 1 Packet of green tea powder
• 1 small scoop of Stevia
• Unsweetened Almond Breeze

Topped with:

• Oikos plain Greek yogurt
• Banana
• Cinnamon

I had a full day of back-to-back classes, which involved copious amounts of coffee, and a packed lunch.

My lunch was a nectarine, a plum, a spinach/hummus/cuke wrap, and a peanut butter larabar. Un-pictured--since it was eaten on the go. Literally, while walking to class!

My painting class is STRESSING ME OUT. I feel like I am spending way too much time on this class to the detriment of my other and more important (Read: Major required) classes. What to do, what to do? And this class is actually HARD. We are doing perspective right now and I want to pull my hair out by the end of class. This doesn’t fit well with my plan for a relaxing fun painting class. Oh well, we shall see.

Today’s workout: Turbo 55 EZ

So much fun, and this time the sweat-o-meter was off the charts! ;) Thanks for working my butt off Chalene!

I just ate a salad that looked exactly like this:

• Roasted Broccoli
• Tomatoes
• Carrots
• Cucumber
• morningstar farms black bean veggie burger
• sriracha
• tortilla chips
• mixed up with hummus, salsa, and nutritional yeast 

This is my absolute favorite meal and I try to eat it once a day! For either lunch or dinner—I’ve eaten it for weekend breakfast! Haha

Homework time!

<3 Stefanie

Have you ever had a class that you thought would be fun and relaxing and turned out to be super stressful?

Feel the Fireee!

Hey! Hope everyone is having a great night so far. Mine hasn’t been too shabby.

Looking at my to-do list, I can say that it’s been a productive one as well. Check, check, and check, which leaves one last thing reserved for after this post.

I had a little snack of a banana and almond butter (half-eaten before I took a pic):

I helped this little cutie with his speech while munching on my nanner:

Then I spent a little quality time with this lady and her crew:

Turbo 45EZ, how I love thee! This video is just pure fun. There aren’t any fire drills, only different breakdowns with fun moves and good music! For those of you who haven’t had the chance to do Turbofire, the fire drills are one minute HIIT exercises where you pretty much go balls to the wall (for lack of a better phrase!). Then you rest for one minute and continue the work-out. While it’s great to have these bursts of high-intensity exercise, it’s also a nice break to have just a nice long work-out.

I stayed hydrated with this ginormous mug—got to have that H20.

After my work-out, I set out to make something (anything) with black beans! I have been craving these babies (and Chipotle, but that's for another day). My fridge is pretty devoid of fresh produce, so I set out to make something mexi-style with whatever I could find.

I used these for a lil' flava flave:

I rinsed the black beans to get rid of extra sodium. Then I tossed them in a warm EVOOed saucepan with the spices and some Rotel to simmer up.

This caught my eye:

So I crumbled it up and sautéed it some olive oil, more rotel and the rest of the broccoli from yesterday.

Final step--I mixed all the goodness together:

Bowled it, topped it with a little sour cream and whole foods salsa, and called it dinner.

This was really tasty! I think it would be good served over some brown rice (if you have time) or even wrapped up in a tortilla taco-style.

That's all folks, good night!

Stefanie

Labor Day relaxation...

Hope everyone is having an amazing Labor Day so far!



I can’t say I’ve done anything interesting today, but a relaxing day is always a good thing. Not to mention that I would usually be in class all day, so I can’t complain!


I ended up doing Turbo 55 EZ last night about 9:00 PM. This led to a late night since I was pumped up on Endorphins! I ended up watching the rest of Unnatural History on Cartoon Network, so I can be caught up with my son! We watch this show together and I got behind when he watched a few episodes without me! It’s a pretty good show if I do say so myself.


I refueled (last night) with a big salad made with celery, carrots, tomatoes, sweet peas, and a cut up Morningstar farms spicy black bean burger. I stirred it all up with some hummus and Whole Foods black bean n’ corn salsa. I topped it off with a generous serving of Sriracha, mmm spicy! (Confession: I just had to google Sriracha to remember how to spell it! Haha) For some carbage, I had Garden of Eatin’ Multigrain tortilla chips in Everything flavor.

This morning, I woke up to a delicious cup of Starbucks Vanilla Infusion. This will be an everyday thing until this bag is gone!

Breakfast was simple: I warmed up the rest of my frittata, and put it between a toasted English muffin again! Only this time I used Laughing Cow light bleu cheese on one half, and sugar-free strawberry preserves on the other. I had the rest of cantaloupe (goodbye, perfect cantaloupe!) on the side + an iced coffee with So Delicious Coconut creamer.

The day looks a little like this:


• Lunch


• Magic Show (that my son is putting on for the family)


• Take Bahla (my dachshund) for a walk


• Run (I live exactly 1 mile from my parents, so I run there, take my pup for a walk on a 1 mile loop and then run back.)


• Library to get work done for the week!


Stefanie


For any other Turbofire lovers, what is your favorite DVD in the collection? I would have to say my favorite is Turbo 30, but I have liked every one! It’s nice to have options! Also, has anyone tried the actual Turbofire program? So far I have just been alternating the DVD’s with running and other workouts so I haven’t done it yet.

Yo, smart is cool!

It was a perfect day out today! 72 degrees and a small breeze. I, however, was in the house most of the day doing the cleaning thang. I usually reserve laundry and deep house cleaning for Sundays, and just do the essentials throughout the week. Kitchen, vacuuming, and anything else that needs to be done. My schedule is great this semester though! I have classes from 10-6 on Monday/Wednesday and work on Friday. I have both Tuesday and Thursday off! So that gives me a lot of time (when my son is in school) to get stuff done.

So, I do this thing where I put on my work out clothes in the hopes that it will make it easier to work out during the day. This little trick did not work yet today! I have crossed a lot of items off my to do list, but getting schweaty has not yet been one of those. I think I’m going to pop in a Turbofire DVD in a little bit and then eat dinner afterwards.

I tried one of my new Raw Revolution bars for a little snacklette today. I had the Tropical banana flavor and it was not quite as good as I hoped. So far the Spirulina & Cashew stills takes the proverbial cake!

I also had an Iced Green Tea packet that I picked up at Whole foods last week. I sweeten it with a little stevia and it’s really yummy. Not quite as good as Starbucks passionfruit iced tea, but it does the trick. I made it in my reusable cup, which I loovvee. I use it every day at least once.

It definitely looks like swamp water in the picture!

I ran a few errands with my Madre and then dusted off the food processor to make some banana soft serve.

Approximately 1 frozen banana, 1 scoop amazing grass chocolate superfood, enough almond milk to get it moving, and Spiru-Tein unsweetened banana protein powder. This flavor isn’t that great, but I had a packet so I figured I’d use it!

Onto the even better stuff: clothes & accessories.

This is one of my favorite finds from yesterday:

This usually would not be my style, but you can’t tell me this isn’t cute. Quirky, but still cute. I will be rocking this to class in the next few weeks, for sure.

I’m in love with this owl necklace I found at Forever 21. Simple, but again so cute. Does anyone else like the owl trend? Owls symbolism wisdom, which I like as well.

And the clothes/accessories pile that is going to Goodwill to make room for the new purchases.

I'll leave you with a pic of me in my stunna shades that I found for $2 the other day. haha! I lose my sunglasses so often that I can't pass up a pair for only $2!

                                                     Stefanie

As we speak I am snacking on Mary’s Gone Crackers and hummus. Dilemma: I have to portion these out because I cannot put them down!

Do you have any little *tricks* that you do to make it easier for you to work out or to make it more likely that you’ll do it? Like I said, I do the “wear your workout clothes all day until you do it” thing. And I also keep a workout bag with the essentials in my car *just in case* I have time to squeeze in a workout during an otherwise busy day.

Sleeping in is a little slice of heaven...

Sleeping in felt AH-mazing this morning! I woke up early thinking that I had something to do, then I realized that it was Sunday and cuddled back up to sleep for another two hours!

When I finally did roll out of bed, I decided it was a Frittata kind of morning. BUT first, COFFEE. Does anyone else need coffee to wake up your brain? Shamefully, I do. I don't see myself ever giving up my daily cup (or 3) of joe. Oh well. Anyway, I went with a super simple recipe (i.e., I’m low on veggies and just worked with what I had!)—it contained chopped red pepper and spinach, 2 eggs + 1 egg white, and feta cheese. Mistoed (new word?) a pan and baked it at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Crack, err, coffee with coconut milk.

The ingredients.

All chopped up.

The Seasonings. No salt for moi.

Put it together now.

Don't forgot to Misto the pan!

And (drumroll please...haha) the finished product.

I chose to serve it on top of a toasted English muffin—one half with Whole Foods veggie hummus, the other half with sugar free strawberry preserves.

After taking pictures, I smushed (for lack of a better word) the two halves into a sammie. You may be thinking eggs, jelly, and hummus? Yuck. But the combo of sweet plus savory is TO DIE. Try it, you won’t be disappointed! I had a side of organic raspberries and perfect cantaloupe. Balanced breakfast. I also had the necessary coffee to get me going before, during, and after brunch! I may be on a slight caffeine high, but hey I have a lot to do today! ;)

I'm currently listening to Magic (feat. Rivers Cuomo) by B.o.B. and making a to do list. I'm a list girl, so expect a lot of lists here. Organized or OCD? You decide. haha 

My plans for the day include:

• Laundryyyy (1 load down, 2 to go)

• Put away all my new clothes + make room by getting rid of a few old ones (I find this is a good way to keep my closet in check. If I bring something new in, I try to get rid of something old. Either by handing it down to a family member, goodwill, or selling it on eBay.)

• Clean the house (floors, bathrooms)

• Run and/or Turbo Fire

• Walk the pup

• Get started on some homework for the week!

• Put together a fashion post with some of my finds.

And with that listed out, it looks like I better get a move on!

Have a fabulous Sunday!

Stefanie