Treat Yo Self!

If you don't watch Parks and Recreation you probably don't understand the amazingness of "Treat Yo Self" but you should! Treat yo self is a way of life and it's what I am about to hit you with...

Since it is the start of a new year I know you are all kicking off your resolutions. And this is an addendum to my previous post about resolutions that delves into the "health" aspect of my goals. Here we go...

I claim to be an expert on nothing except one thing: being chubby. :)

I have lofty health goals and at times the mountain seems pretty daunting despite how many times I sing Miley Cyrus' "The Climb." 

To combat the inevitable bad days, weeks, months... I try to set myself up for success by acting as though every little thing matters. It does matter. You can't lose 50 lbs until you lose the 1st lb. This means I am a firm believer in rewarding yourself every step of the way.

HOW CAN YOU DO THIS?

1) SET YOUR GOAL.
My personal goals are to lose 17.5% of my body weight by our anniversary (Which we will be celebrating in Vegas! Holla!) and to exercise for a minimum of 30 minutes a day. Those are two very manageable goals. They are also challenging. Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean it will be EASY. 

2) IDENTIFY WHAT MOTIVATES YOU
I am motivated by treats...clothes, shoes, certain activities... I'll delve more into that later. What motivates me about these things is that I don't always spend money on these things. I would suggest picking things that are actual rewards and not things you'd just go out and buy anyway.

3) GET IN IT TO WIN IT!
No seriously...

I keep my "rewards" list on my phone in a note. I delete things from it as I go along. I have two sets of rewards- a treat for every pound lost and a treat for every 10 days that I don't miss a workout. It looks something like this:

REWARDS FOR LOSING ONE LB EVERY TEN DAYS (Very very doable)
January 10- Pair of Shoes
January 20- New Book
February 1- Nail Polish/Lipstick
February 10- Movie Date
February 20- Dress
March 1- Manicure
March 10- Bowling
March 20- Spa Day

REWARDS FOR NOT MISSING A WORKOUT FOR PREVIOUS 10 DAYS

January 10- Donut

January 20- Cake

February 1- Frozen Yogurt

etc.

***Yes I know people say don't reward yourself with food BUT I don't believe in depriving myself. Believe me, if I knew the only way I could have a slice of cake from Cheesecake Factory was to workout every day...I'll be sweating forever! I would never reward myself for losing weight with food, but I will reward myself for working hard. Even if it is counterproductive. 

So yeah, some people might think it's a bit overkill to reward yourself for every measly pound. Maybe that's true. But consider this my blessing and encouragement that you would do the same thing with whatever your goal is. I know that if I only reward myself every 5 or 10 lbs I would certainly become discouraged. So set your goal, hang in there, and TREAT YO SELF!

An Ode to My Dear Friends: Chips & Salsa

It's about 10:30 PM here on the west coast and I am desperately searching for one last recipe before I hit the stores tomorrow. Just one recipe between me and my beautiful inexpensive IKEA bed. 

I'm going to tell you a little story about how this is all my fault. 

I remember with longing a time in the not so distant past where I ate dinner for one. Hummus and pita. Chips and salsa. Both pretty common dinners for a single gal throwing her paycheck to rent and the outfits and alcohol that make for top nights out with the girls. It was a beautiful time and I realize now the beauty in the simplicity of a life where grilled chicken breasts in a George Foreman was an elaborate dinner. 


I didn't learn how to cook when I got married because I am a sometimes genius who selected a marriage partner who is an outstanding cook. Not only is he good at cooking, but he likes cooking AND likes experimenting with new recipes. It was a wonderful arrangement. He did almost all of the cooking and when he didn't feel like cooking I urbanspoon-ed us a nice restaurant. Also, a beautiful time. 

So simple. For me at least. Fast forward to California. 

We arrived and husband had a job that started right away. I on the other hand spent most of my time applying for jobs and starting this blog about working out and eating healthy.

Naturally I had more time on my hands than husband. In between looking at gifs on tumblr and rolling out the yoga mat I had a thought, like sometimes morons do, that I would learn how to cook. 

What. An. Idiot.

Now I do almost all of the cooking. Yep, a kitchen novice is feeding two people on a nightly basis. 

I may or may not have mentioned that my mother, while a great cook, really served a majority of pasta dishes. To the point where I thought we WERE Italian. We aren't. So that was pretty much the only thing I knew how to make. 

I learned to boil water. (Who knew salt was so important?)
How to brown meat. (That sounds disgusting.)
And other various simple kitchen tasks. (Let's not discuss the litany of questions involving my first go at the rice cooker)

Then I realized that by cooking I had control over our grocery budget.
I was so excited that I started making 2 week-at-a-time meal plans. I used that as my template for trying out new things. The learning curve though has been rough. Like eating the same rotation every two weeks. Husband went from cooking every night to never cooking because he wasn't going shopping. 

Knowledge is a funny thing.
You think I'd be happy now that I know how to properly scramble eggs and substitute Greek yogurt for sour cream, and I am.
But right now, as I distract myself from searching for one last easy recipe to finish off a two week plan, I can only think how happy I was to eat chips and salsa for dinner. 

I wonder what husband would say if I put that on the table tomorrow?

Resolutions and Solutions

Happy New Year!

Admittedly 2012 wasn't the greatest year. It took from me both of my grandmothers and I'd be lying if I said that moving to sunny California has been anything other than a challenge. Somedays Husband looks at me and says, "let's just go home." 

But there are silver linings to every dark cloud.

Like most new years eves, Husband had to work. We decided to have dinner at a little Greek restaurant to celebrate since a year would come and go and that's something to celebrate.

At dinner we talked about our resolutions for next year.

It took Husband all night to decide that his resolution was to feel less emotional about his sports teams. I'm sure it won't be easy but I think his poor heart deserves a break.

My resolution is to finish 2013 feeling healthier than I feel today. I do believe in and have measurable goals (get moving 30 minutes a day, lose x amount of lbs, etc.). I just felt like this was the most important. 

I DO feel healthier than I did a year ago and that's not something to scoff at even if the scale doesn't make me smile as much as I'd like.

Together we agreed that we would start focusing on the positives of being out here in Los Angeles. More emphasis on the reasons we came here in the first place.

We came for a two year adventure. To see places we'd never go otherwise. We didn't come here to settle roots and we both agreed that when we try to make California our "home" it just fails to meet our expectations. I'd hate to think that we'd move home in a year and a half and not have seized this great opportunity. I saw somewhere the saying that, "Comparison is the Thief of Joy," and in my experience that's been 100% true. 

Today at lunch we are finally going to make an actual "California Bucket List" and I suspect it will be amazing. 

So I hope you all have real resolutions that will make you happier, healthier and maybe a little bit more grateful. Good luck with your resolutions and share them here if you'd like. :) Happy New Year!

Everything has its time...

To be honest I thought that my first post back after my vacation home to Louisiana would be exhaustingly chipper and optimistic. Turns out that wasn't quite going to happen but I hate to go into too much detail, especially when the wound is so fresh. I want to get back to blogging about things that now seem so unimportant like eating healthy and working out, but I don't think I can do that until I acknowledge one thing.

Last week my grandmother passed away. 

She was really more than a grandmother. She was my Maw-Maw and an important fixture in my childhood, adolescence, and certainly my adulthood. At different points in my life she was also my roommate, my confidant, and a willing participant in my comedic ventures.

I've come to terms that I was wrong about a lot of things.

I thought I had said goodbye. It wasn't enough.

I thought that the comfort of having almost 28 years of memories and the knowledge that she was ready would carry me through this. It hasn't. 

It's only been a week but looking into the near future I can only see how difficult this holiday season will be and how every step of the rest of the life I hope to lead will be missing an important piece. 

Hopefully I will find some way to carry on. At the moment I really don't know how that will happen but I'm trusting that it will because loss is a part of life and my family is certainly not unique. I do know for certain that you cannot continue about your life while sobbing every time you're left alone with your thoughts.

I'm sure this blog will return to it's intended purpose someday, but for now I guess the radio silence is necessary as I try to navigate the change that has taken place. I'm in good company as my Maw-Maw left many wonderful people to mourn her passing and they are a great comfort to me now.

If there is a lesson to be learned here I guess it's this: there is no corner of the world that holds anything more valuable to me than my family. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Where yat?

No post since November 13th? What the heck is going on!?

Well, a lot actually.
I started a job. 
Applied to go back to school. 
Planned a trip back home. 
Discovered a local donut shop and yet lost 1lb the week of Thanksgiving.

Wait. Pretend you read only half of that last one.

Needless to say, I've been really busy. Surprisingly being busy isn't even my excuse for not posting. What is my reason? 

We broke the internets!

The Twitter Fail Whale seems appropriate for this story.

It's strange but true. You may have read in my post about pretending not to be poor that we used a Target gift card to buy a signal extender for our wifi. It's actually not our wifi so much as it is the free wifi in our building. Long story short, our wifi extender lasted about a week before it started to fizzle out. When we reset it, it renamed the wifi for our entire complex. In a panic I unplugged it hoping it would fix the problem. It didn't. The whole wifi signal was gone pecan.

Updating from the blogger app is like hitting yourself repeatedly with a fly swatter. It's not the most painful thing but it is annoying and useless.

So we went without internet for a few days while we tried to get our own personal wifi. As with so many things in life, internet/cable companies are in a competition to see who can suck the most. We finally got the problem solved and here I am back in action (at least for the next few days before we go off on a little trip back home to the south)

I have a lot of things I'd like to talk about if they peak your interests:

1) Jessica Simpson's weight loss. 

2) Comfortable tennis shoes

3) Tricks and tips to breaking bad habits (I've stopped biting my nails...I'm hoping it lasts!)

So yeah...let's get this show back on the road!

Eat this not that OR Why You Can't Trust Pinterest

I am titling this post "eat this not that" because this is exactly what I'm going to suggest.

The two ingredient angel food cakes on pinterest are too good to resist. I'm sure I've made just about every combination possible. They are usually crazy low cal and you don't have to put eggs or butter or any of that other fattening stuff in it. Heavenly!

I've made one with great success and I'll tell you more about that later, BUT FIRST let's talk about the cake you should not make... The Blueberry & Angel Food Cake

I guess that graphic comes off a little harsh. Anyway, I followed the directions exactly and I'm too embarrassed to show you the pictures (which did not look like that) because I am certain that you'd be able to taste the tragedy through your computer. 

If you see this pin RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.

Instead, may I suggest making the same cake and using pineapple chunks instead. It's delicious and moist and everything the blueberry cake isn't. It makes me sad to even write that because I love blueberries!

How to Pretend You Aren't Poor

This post may seem silly, but in these hard economic times this is a very real thing happening in our little casa! After all, I always say Los Angeles is Spanish for "expensive." That and one of the goals of this blog from the very beginning was getting healthy without breaking the bank.

We aren't really poor and we certainly aren't wealthy, but we are really good at budgeting and are trying to be better at saving. All this adds up to times where we are trying to build our savings and not spend frivolously. Right now we are saving every penny in hopes of going on a big trip to the Philippines in the Spring.

The real tragedy of saving is not being able to just buy something unnecessary without thinking about it first. To me, that feeling of indiscriminate shopping is what makes me feel very, very rich. (Imagine I said that in Nene Leakes voice)

Gift Cards = Magic Currency

Anytime Husband or I get a gift card for anything birthday, Christmas, whatever, we always ALWAYS put it aside for a rainy day. If we need to buy something and it's in our budget we just buy it, even if we have a gift card. 

When those budget crunching times come along, as they often do, and we are in a funk we just pull out those gift cards and go wild. Almost literally.

I know it seems silly but it actually helps a lot. Using gift cards during budget crunches is a lot more satisfying than using them in times when we have the extra cash to burn. If you can hold on to them long enough the reward is awesome.

Example: last week we were in a mega crunch. We had just received our first electricity bill after living here for 3 months because of a glitch and it was a lot higher than we planned for. How can you guesstimate a 3 month bill you've never seen? We could have broken it into installments but we decided to tough it out and pay it off all at once. Once that happened all of our "fun money" was gone. After about a week we were getting cabin fever. We took our gift cards out and bought a much needed wifi signal extender at Target and both got shoes on sale at Macy's. 

It was a little trip that felt fantastic. Shopping really is a therapeutic experience.

So that's my money tip. Do you do anything kind of strange like this?