Food. Food. And more FOOD

I learned a lot about myself on Thursday while the snow was so beautifully falling; when I'm stuck in the house....ALL I think about is food. In the morning while I was eating breakfast I was wondering what I was going to eat when I was done. While I was eating my after breakfast snack, I was thinking about what I was going to eat for lunch. I used the tactic of shoveling snow to distract my thoughts of food, and it worked, at least until I came in to eat lunch.

Because I can't get food off of the brain, I'll use this time to talk about what I've been making/eating.

I've worked out a food and dinner schedule that hopefully makes my life a little easier. I'm not much of a cook and I don't really know what works well together, so I'm working on trying some new and easy recipes. I'll be posting a few links to the recipes I recently tried.

I'm officially making Monday, "Crockpot Monday". I'll do a little food prepping Sunday night to just be able to throw some things into the crockpot Monday morning and go. I hardly have any time between work and bootcamp to get anything together SO a crockpot meal is PERFECT. Plus, it's ready when I get home from work and can have a quick bite or two before heading off to kick some butt.

Last Monday was Sweet Potato, Quinoa and Turkey Chili  It was QUITE delicious. I cut the sweet potatoes and cooked the turkey Sunday night and threw everything in Monday morning before heading off into work. Quick, simple and delicious. It was also quite enjoyable as leftovers...especially nice and warm today after shoveling!

Part of the reason why I don't like cooking is because I dislike the cleanup process. So...I food prepped on Sunday and cleaned up on Monday.

I also made a large salad that could be eaten with dinner meals or taken with lunch. It actually ended up lasting us a week and saved us a bunch of time in the evenings and helped us eat our veggies :)

I also have been doing some serious meal packing as to keep me on track when I'm in the office. (don't worry....that's not actually a container filled with butter....it's homemade salad dressing!)

Um. BRUSSEL SPROUTS. Quite possible my absolute favorite. I could eat them cold, steamed or with seasoning. It doesn't matter....just get in my belly!! Anyway, I found this little seasoning package and it was amazingly delicious. The only problem is that I ate them all and wanted more. <3

I also made some protein muffins that I was going to give to all of my bootcampers for a little Valentine's treat. They never got to enjoy them because of that silly snow. SOOO I ate them all while stuck in the house. ;) They were really good warm out of the oven, they were good nuked in the microwave, and not so good a few days post muffin making day. Camden helped make these....his favorite was putting on the chocolate chips

Did some food planning and shopping this weekend....more ideas and recipes to come! Enjoy <3

Body Pump....You Up

I'm not a big fan of making New Years Resolutions. I understand that realistically, most people do not go through with their Resolutions....or, they make it through a few weeks, then they start to fall back and eventually they "fail"

No one likes to fail. Most people don't go into something with the thought of failure. The intention is genuine and sincere, but things get in the way.....LIFE get's in the way. I've got news for you guys, THAT'S OKAY! That's life. Things aren't always going to go the way we had planned, that would be too easy, and honestly, easy isn't always fun.

On vacation I worked out. I pushed myself through some workouts I would never have done back at home. I ran. BUT I also ate like crap. Why?? Because it was there and it was easy. BUT GUESS WHAT? That's not stopping me from what's happening now. It's never too late to get back into the game. You didn't make it to the gym on the 1st of January? Who cares?? GO NOW. Resolution schmesolution. Every day is an opportunity to do something great.

For 2014 I want to have some new experiences. What exactly does that mean? I don't really know. I know that I want to do things I've never done before; things I never really thought about doing on my own. I want to do them with people who are passionate about what they do.

I love exercising and I'm extremely passionate about my boot camp class and those who put faith in me. Bootcamp, group classes, gym sessions, etc. aren't the only form of exercise. Some people play sports, some people dance, some people hike and some people do yoga. There isn't a correct or right "thing" to do. Anything that's exercise that you're doing is amazing. There's no ONE WAY. Do it all, but ENJOY it....because honestly, that makes all of the difference.

If you hate going to the gym, your resolution of hitting the gym every morning at 5 am is going to be awful....and you won't stick to it. FIND SOMETHING YOU LIKE.

On Saturday I shared a fun moment with Missy Schaum. She has been talking for weeks about the Body Pump class she attends at Golds Gym on Tuesdays and Saturdays. She always put the bug in my ear about coming with her. FINALLY I had a weekend that worked and we hit the gym yesterday for the group class.

I didn't exactly know what to expect but I thought it was pretty cool. For those of you unfamiliar with Body Pump, you do about 800 total reps of different exercises. It's a total body workout. It's safe to say I was pushed past my comfort zone. It was a completely different style than what I was used to with working out. BUT it was awesome. There were about 30 other people in the room with me, all different fitness levels, who were there because they wanted to do something different. They wanted to be pushed.

Today my arms are the most sore. I love this feeling. I know I've done my body good.

Now it's your turn to decide for me. What's next? What is my next venture that will be taking me out of my comfort zone??

<3

New Year....New Blog

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A lot has happened since my last blog post months back. As most of you know, I was doing personal training at a private studio up until May of 2013. Schedule, money and a few personal reasons aided in my decision to leave EIF. At this time I was questioning if training was really for me. Was I just in over my head? I absolutely LOVED what I was doing....but something wasn't right. I wasn't doing it on MY terms and I didn't like that. 

I took a break from training for a few months. I'd have some people over to the house and go through some sessions here and there....nothing consistent. Something was missing. By the time I left EIF I was miserable. I had just gotten to a point where enough was enough. BUT after a few months of not training, I was having the same feeling. I was miserable training for someone else and I was miserable not training. What's a girl to do????

A friend of mine, Anna, suggested starting a local boot camp. It was June/July and the weather was just right. I really couldn't say no. Without much thinking and without much preparation of WHAT I was going to do and HOW....we had our first group session on the 4th of July. With a simple post from Anna on Facebook and a little word of mouth, I had about 13 people show up to that first session. Half of whom I knew, and the other half came from that one Facebook post.

THANK YOU, ANNA!! :-*

Let's fast forward to right now. January 4th, 2014. Today marks exactly 6 months since the first session was held. We started as an outside group, bouncing around the Broadneck Peninsula, in search of parks, schools, and tracks that we could train at without being in the way of anyone else.

 We held classes under pavilions, on cement, on asphalt, and my favorite....under the stars with glow sticks.

We ran together

. We worked around mosquitoes, bats and the devilish screams of the early morning foxes. We've had some amazing times together and what's even more amazing is that you've all stuck with me through the uncertainty of what's going to happen next....and what happened next was so incredibly exciting!

In November 2013 we moved our outdoor boot camp indoors. I started renting space from a brand new studio that opened up in Severna Park. The wonderful owners opened their doors to me and these crazy boot campers of mine and we've been able to stay nice and warm indoors during this winter while having access to amazing equipment. We've been able to take our workouts to a completely different level. I've seen body types change, weight loss, and more importantly, I've seen some amazing people coming together with the same goal: bettering themselves.

All of these wonderful opportunities led me to start my own business. Bmore Vigorous Fitness Training. I have a serious passion for helping people. I understand how hard it can be to have the motivation to get yourself out of your comfort zone and push yourself. That's what my goal is. Whether you're just starting out on your fitness journey, you've been in the game for a while, or you're getting back in the game...I want to help.

I originally started this blog a couple of years back while I was pregnant. If you scroll through some posts you can see just HOW pregnant I was :) I was just your average, soon-to-be-mom, with your average, soon-to-be-mom, life. For whatever reason, I felt the need to blog about my experiences. After a solid year and a half of blogging, I stopped. Life got in the way. Life with an almost two year old got in the way. (In a good way, of course) Today it hit me again, so here I am, writing. While I'm not going to stop writing about my son, I will be blogging more about things that are fitness/health related. I'm ready to take my blog and 2014 in a new direction. Join me on my journey, why don't ya!

See, I told you I wasn't done posting about my son. New year....new bed! But still as handsome as ever!

<3

Routines

Well, hello! It's been waaaay too long and I've gotten out of my routine of blog writing. Looks like I need to get back into it. So many exciting things are happening and Camden is literally growing right before our eyes.

Let's start by chatting a little bit about Camden's bedtime routine....
If you want to ensure you see a Happy Camden in the morning, here's what you do.

(1) Most often you are playing cars or trains or hockey. Give him a solid 5 minute countdown and he's pretty good at putting toys away when asked. Of course we are getting into the "terrible two's"....so some days are better than others.

(2) Once upstairs: pajamas, milk and brushing teeth. In. That. Order. You try to get him to brush his teeth and he doesn't have his hands on his milk...forget it. He reacts like he just got bitten by a shark.

(3) Time for books. I always read him three. Sometimes daddy only reads him two. Sometimes he asks me to read the first book twice (I'll do anything for an extra few minutes of cuddle time)

(4) Books are done. Noise maker on. Lights off. "Rock me like a baby" is what Camden requests. This is my absolute favorite time.

(5) Song time. While we rock in the rocking chair it's time to sing. Camden likes to sing along. One day, about a month ago Camden threw me for a loop and asked me to sing the "baby song". A normal person would have probably started singing, Rock a bye Baby. I, on the other hand, start singing...."Baby Beluga..." from Full House. Except I don't know ANY of the words. So I sing the words, baby beluga over and OVER and OVER again. Guess who loves it??? Camden. Guess who makes me sing it EVERY night? Camden. In case you are not familiar with the song....please enjoy the video below.

....(5) Baby Beluga, Jesus Loves Me (which I also don't know all of the words to so Camden hums along in the middle with me), Twinkle Twinkle and then Happy Birthday. Yes we also sing Happy Birthday every night. In fact, we sing it three times. He normally sings Happy Birthday to mommy, daddy and then Chloe. We have Aunt Angie to thank for the happy birthday bedtime routine <3

(6) Kiss and  bed. "Good night. See you soon. Love you. Good bye."

If you master those solid 6 steps you will have a happy Camden in the morning. <3

I'm still trying to get Jeremy to "Rock me like a baby" before I go to bed. I haven't mastered that yet....

Back to School Jitters

Last night before I went to bed I started having back to school jitters. Why, you might ask? I'm not really sure. I'm not going back to school and Camden still has a few years to go, but the feeling was just the same as when I was in school.

Maybe it's from seeing all of the Facebook posts from my friends, or maybe it's from all of the school ideas people are pinning. Whatever the cause of it was, I went to bed last night thinking I was going to forget my locker combination or forget to put pants on before I headed to school with my schweet janschport backpack.

Even though I've had thoughts about being a teacher in the past, I've recently come to the realization that I don't think I would be good at it. My first thought always went to: summers and holidays off!! WHOOHOO! Not even thinking about all of the homework I'd have to take home, the extra hours spent at school, the parent meetings, teacher conferences.....and so on.

After teaching gymnastics to pre-k and kinder-gardeners, I realized teaching wasn't for me. I only saw the kids for an hour a day once a week....and I couldn't handle it. I need adults, or at least people I can have adult-like conversations with. I don't know if I could handle the back to school jitters each year. I don't know if I could handle having months off and then having to go back, fresh, with a new cast of characters. I don't know if I could handle the parents.

With that being said - hats off to you teachers! I really do admire you. I'll be the first to say you don't get paid enough for all of the work that you do. Having to experience those back to school jitters are enough for a raise. Keep up the good work and have a fantastic school year!!

Take your Camden to Work, day

Tuesday was Take your Camden to Work day. We went to API first to say hi to all of our friends. Had some snacks with Aunt Stephie. YUM.

Then we had lunch with daddy and got to play at his office.

Finally we went to mommy's work where we like to run around and play!

Camden has been really funny lately. He is becoming chattier, even though it is hard to understand him. It is also fun to give him little tasks to do. "Camden, go get mommy's shoes from the other room", "Help daddy put the toys away", "Help mommy shut the door", "Throw away the trash, please". I will say he probably does things that we ask with 90% accuracy. He is too freakin' smart!

He has started really feeding himself and he LOVES to eat. Give the boy a spoon and be prepared to clean up a mess! Good thing he is totally adorable.

NAKED BABY ALERT.

It's all fun and games...

This past week we have been having a lot of fun - mainly involving water. On Wednesday we had a swim date with some friends! The water wasn't toooo cold, which was nice.

And it was all fun and games until we had a little head injury incident. Brady and I had a little collision which resulted in him hitting his head on the corner by our kitchen....ouch. A little knot above his left eye with a pretty little cut...all while mom was in the bathroom for maybe 2 minutes. Looks like I am off the list for babysitting!!!! But it turns out that what they say about karma is true because not 5 hours later, Camden was doing laps around the house when he fell into a chair. 

Same spot - same huge lump - but no blood. And while the lump is gone, the bruise is still there....he ran into a chair...I swear.

Camden not only gets to swim at our house, he also gets to swim and Grandmom and Grandpop's house. They bought him a little pool that he can play and splash around in which has been perfect because it has been so incredibly hot outside!

 Camden has so much fun splashing and playing in the pool that now he thinks the tub is his own personal pool. 

What happened to the "no standing in the tub" rule, dad!??!

"What are you looking at?? I do what I want"