Get Fit Friday {No. 2}

Working out is something I strongly connect with music. When I run I try to find songs where the beat per minute matches my pace (I'm not very fast...so the Bruno Mars Pandora station tends to be my running sound track), when lifting I like to find songs about being tough, running things and living out a dream (Jay Z and Kanye for example), and Les Mills classes always have a great mix of inspiring, fun, and gritty songs.

It's not easy for me to narrow this down, but today I give you my

Top 5 Workout Tracks.

If you haven't heard them before go on over and check them out on YouTube. Warning: I posted the official videos for these songs, but if you want to purchase them on iTunes you can download the clean version like I do (I don't like hearing swear words in my music).

Source: google.com via Megan on Pinterest

In no particular order:

Raise Your Glass by Pink (cardio)


Run This Town by Jay Z (lifting)


Yes (Everyday I See My Dream) by LMFAO (lifting)


Grenade by Bruno Mars (lifting)


Yeah 3x by Chris Brown (cardio)

So...if you are a BODYPUMPer you have probably heard 3 of these 5 before. I can't help it, these songs are linked to my fitness experience!

Happy Healthy Friday! I'm signing off until Monday...let the bachelorette shenanigans begin!

Bachelorette Party Ideas

This weekend I am headed to Nashville to celebrate my baby sister's (she's growing way to fast) bachelorette party. My big sis, Reba, and I have been scheming for quite a while to get this weekend trip ready and we cannot wait to see how it all comes together.

I can't wait to show you all either. I worked for about 7 hours last night formatting games in word, making bachelorette survival kits, and a few other decorations. But I don't want to give anything away before we get there, so here is my Pinspiration Board. Click on the links below to see the pins and follow them back to the original source!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

I have been taking pictures as I work each night, and cannot wait to share with you what I came up with after I found all of these great ideas. To see my whole Bachelorette Party Board, click here.

T-minus 2 days until the weekend! Oh and I get to wear jeans to work today for spirit week. Nice.

What I'm Loving Wednesday {No. 2}

I think this whole What I'm Loving Wednesday is going to be good for me. I kind of forgot during track out from school just how much Wednesday is my least favorite day of the week...then I woke up this morning. Dread. But then I remembered that today is all about what I love....so now I have a better attitude about the day (also I am going to stop off and pick up a caramel covered cream filled doughnut).

So here is what I'm loving today!

1) I'm loving all of these cute coffee quotes.

Source: etsy.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: favim.com via Megan on Pinterest

2) I'm loving these quotes about love & life.

Source: spiritualinspiration.tumblr.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: nestegg.typepad.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Megan on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: laurabrettphotography.com via Megan on Pinterest

3) I'm loving these delicious looking recipes.

Source: eatthis.womenshealthmag.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: bhg.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: oxygenmag.com via Megan on Pinterest

4) I'm loving a gray & yellow bedroom

Source: blogs.babble.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: makishaki.tumblr.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: design-milk.com via Megan on Pinterest

5) I'm loving my sweet sweet husband (& the fact that he decided to cut his hair) (& I am hopeful our lil chirens will get his thick wavy hair and not my thin fine baby hair!)

6

Okay...off to pick up that doughnut and get to work!

Happy Wednesday!
I'm linking up over at Lollipops! And at This Kind of Love.

Tasty Tuesday: Turkey Burgers

On Sunday I posted my menu for the week along with the recipes from OxygenMag.com. Here is a link to that post and to that recipe.

Turkey Burgers w/ Sweet Potato Chips

What you'll need:
1 lb lean turkey burger
1/4  cup and 4 tbsp salsa
4 whole wheat thin burger buns
4 leaves of romaine lettuce
2 Roma tomatoes
2 small/medium sweet potatoes
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Wash and skin sweet potatoes, and cut into thin slices.
Either spray the olive oil or brush it over a pan with a basting brush. Spread the sweet potato slices out over the pan in a single layer and sprinkle with the salt.

Heat a tbsp of olive oil in a skillet or grill pan to medium or medium low heat.
Mix the ground turkey & salsa, and create four burgers of the same size.
Cook them in the grill pan on one side for about 5 minutes (or until you can see that almost half of the burger has cooked).

Check on the sweet potatoes and stir them or flip them around a bit. 

Flip the burgers and cook on the other side for another 5 minutes or until the burgers are completely cooked through.

Take out the chips and serve up the turkey burgers with the romaine lettuce and slices of the Roma tomatoes. Top with a tbsp of salsa. 

And here is the best part--I went back to look at the recipe from Oxygen Magazine to find out the nutritional information:


Calories...um just 353....say what?
Total Fats...11 g
Saturated Fat..3 g
Trans Fat...0 g
Cholesterol...0 mg
Sodium...150 mg (wanna bet how much is in a fast food burger?)
Total Carbohydrates...41 g
Dietary Fiber..8 g
Sugars...9 g
Protein...27 g (you will be full...no doubt)
Iron...2 mg


Wowza. Enjoy this and don't feel guilty for one little minute because you can't do much better than those stats!

Happy Tuesday folks!

As always, I'm linking up over here for the Tasty Tuesday Linky Party.

Goals for 2012

In hopes of achieving greater success with these this year I am going to refer to these as Goals instead of New Year's resolutions.

Source: Uploaded by user via Megan on Pinterest

Here we go:

Spiritual
Finish reading the Bible cover to cover
Serve my church consistently
Invest in one person to show them the love of God (and do this selflessly)

Professional
Graduate with my Master's Degree
Apply to present at a conference in 2012/2013 (something about using iPads in the classroom)
Set aside time on Sundays for lesson planning and for grading on Tuesday nights

Fitness
5 unassisted pull-ups
Obtain a national group fitness/exercise certification

Food
Make homemade ice cream
Cook a prime-rib roast
Create weekly menus with healthy meals and stick to them (throw out less)

Blog
Get a blog makeover (either figure out how to do it myself or pay for a blog design)
Reach 100 followers
Read more blogs & be brave enough to comment more on the blogs I read

Personal
Be patient, humble, generous and compassionate
Love others more and love me less
Find 5 ways to better love and serve my husband
Listen more. Talk less.
(the first two will be hard to measure...but I'll be working on it!)

Okay tomorrow I am going to put this up in my tabs so that you can check in throughout the year and see how I'm doing. I hope this year will be one of great spiritual, personal and professional growth!

Happy Monday! I'm back to work for the first time...eeek!

Weekly Menu {Jan. 9}

Back in September I wrote out a 9 week menu and cooked the majority of the food in advance and froze it to make my life easier. And it totally did. For that season of my life the 9 week menu saved me so much time and energy that I just did not have to invest in menu planning.

With the dawn of 2012 (a shorter commute and an easier semester in grad school), I have decided to change things around a bit and re-prioritize my time. I love to cook healthy fresh meals, and even though that menu was mostly healthy, I actually want to focus this year on cooking with fewer carbohydrates and eating more lean proteins. To cut back on carbs I knew it was time to say good-bye to Mexican Mondays and Italian Tuesdays.

I have decided to set aside about 20 minutes to plan my meals on Sundays and do my big grocery shopping trip then. My menu will plan for meals from Sunday to Sunday so that I won't have to brave the stores on Friday or Saturday to get food for the weekend. The 9 week plan was great, and I thought not planning the weekends ahead would give me more flexibility, and it did, but the Friday night / Saturday morning grocery trips to get food for Sat/Sun were less than enjoyable. I'm not sure that there is one perfect way to plan for eating healthy, but I think this change will be a good one for 2012.

So here it is:

Weekly Menu {Jan. 9 - 15}
This week will be a little tricky for us because I will be out of town celebrating my baby sister's July nuptials, so I have planned a pretty easy meal for Forrest to get him through Fri, Sat & Sun nights.

Breakfast Menu:
Mini breakfast quiches w/ Spinach, tomato and mushrooms (no cheese)
1/2 grapefruit

Lunch Menu:
Spinach salad w/ Baked Chicken, Cucumbers, carrots & tomatoes
1 Clementine

Snacks:
(am) Greek yogurt
(pm) Craisin & Nut trail mix (mix of raw almonds and cashews)

Sunday & Monday: Turkey Burgers w/ Sweet Potato Chips

Source: oxygenmag.com via Megan on Pinterest

Tuesday & Wednesday: Chicken Florentine w/ Brown Rice

Source: oxygenmag.com via Megan on Pinterest

Thursday & Friday: Sweet & Smokey Turkey Chili w/ Steamed Veggies

Source: oxygenmag.com via Megan on Pinterest

Saturday & Sunday: Spaghetti w/ Meat Sauce & Steamed Veggies
(no recipe included here...just cook whole wheat spaghetti according to box directions, cook meat in medium skillet until browned then stir in spaghetti sauce...serve with microwave steamed veggies)

Grocery List
8 - 10 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 14 oz cans crushed tomatoes (if you can find fire roasted crushed get 1 can of those)
Fresh spinach (10 oz for florentine, about 8 oz for quiches and the rest for salads during the week)
Grape or cherry tomatoes
1 bunch fresh parsely
1 bunch celery
Garlic
2 lbs lean ground turkey
1 can black beans
1 can fire roasted diced tomatoes
Thin Whole Wheat Burger Buns
Yoplait Greek Yogurt (I found coconut--yum)
Clementines
1 package whole wheat spaghetti
1 can spaghetti sauce
Romaine lettuce
Tomatoes
1 bag baby carrots

You can check the recipes and decide what else you might need to get. I had some things around the kitchen like the brown rice to serve with the Chicken Florentine and the sweet potatoes.

My goal for this week is to stick to the menu and eat only the snacks I allow myself each day.

Get Fit Friday {No. 1}

Happy Friday Everybody!

I have decided, as part of my "ways to improve my life in 2012", to add a new weekly segment to the blog--Get Fit Friday.

I wanted to start this back in September, but I was in a tough place emotionally about working out (I moved and was no longer teaching group fitness and I think I was really wrecked by this for a while)...so I decided to wait. I am finally at a place where I get really excited to work out again and am having a lot of fun each time I got to the gym. Forrest and I have been lifting together a lot and that has been a great way for us to spend quality time together after work. I also just found out I will be teaching a wee-hours-of-the-morning BODYPUMP class starting in 2 weeks...and I cannot wait!!!

Anyhow for today's first installment:


Five of My Favorite Exercises

I am very fortunate to have a former professional athlete as a husband who knows a thing or two about working out. Anytime we run out of ideas, we call up our buddy Gary (a personal trainer who at the age of 26 is the co-owner of 2 gyms!) to get some more ideas.

What I love about the following exercises is that they are all full-body exercises, and you don't see many people doing them at the gym. While doing the following exercises the past few months I have been asked 3 times if I am training for something! I like to respond with "Yeah...for Being Awesome!" haha. Okay here they are!

1) Single Leg RDLs on the Bosu Ball

I actually do these with weights instead of a cable machine and I do a single leg squat at the top.

Source: askdoctorashley.wordpress.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: askdoctorashley.wordpress.com via Megan on Pinterest

2) Supine Rows

I do these with hands over the bar, not under...but this is what they look like. You can also do these with TRX cables, or with your feet on a Swiss ball.

Source: kylewoodfitness.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: kylewoodfitness.com via Megan on Pinterest

3) Band Assisted Pull-Ups
(You can change your hand position--I do over the bar--to change the exercise)
I can't do them on my own yet (maybe 1) but my goal by the end of 2012 is 5 unassisted pull-ups.

Source: womenshealthmag.com via Megan on Pinterest

4) Bosu Ball Pushups

Source: martamontenegro.com via Megan on Pinterest

5) Rotating Suicide Planks

Take this exercise and do it while moving your feet so that your entire body makes a 360 degree turn!



These are all challenging exercises that I hated the first few times I tried them, but luckily Forrest kept pushing me, and now I absolutely love adding these exercises to a workout. 

I hope you have a fabulous weekend!