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