Wedding and WIAW

This past weekend I went to a bridal show with some of my bridesmaids as well as my Mom. Finally, it being Wednesday I got around to posting pics. I was so happy I went, I booked my hair stylist for my engagement photos as well as for my wedding day and booked our florist. Above pictured are the awesome limos that I am considering renting. We will need two if we decide to go with a limo so we may have to go with a bus. Either way I am fine.Here are some photos of the flowers as well as the cakes that I just feel in love with. My colors are red, black and silver...I am thinking perfect for a February wedding.

With my cake, I am thinking on having cupcakes as well of all different flavors.

Okay, enough wedding talk. I can tell you one thing I am so SICK of wedding planning lol. Yes, it is fun but it seems every time I turn around I need an address, have to make a phone call, or have to go to another appointment. Keep in mind notifying my Mom to be and the bridesmaids on everything that is going on...no wonder my eye has started to twitch again lol.

Since school has started back once again, that means Wednesdays are my official rest day. I hate it :( Yes, I could push myself to add in another work out on these days, but I know how my body will feel, EXHAUSTED! Teaching and working out 6-7 days a week sometimes can be too much for my body to handle. I wish I could be one of those insane endurance athletes who manage to fit hours of cardio in and work. I have to accept that is not me, and instead settle for a long walk with Cooper after work.

Lunch today was pita chips dipped in yogurt alongside broccoli, turkey, almonds, and a strawberry mixture. Really I just threw in what was in the fridge leftover and topped it with some raspberry dressing.

It has been a record, I have not had salmon in over a month! I have been neglecting it. After grilling some up with paprika (my new fav spice) I realized how much I had missed my salmon. Probably be stopping by the store again tomorrow after work to buy some more to grill. Yes, that is ketchup on fish!

Pumped for tomorrow's workout, I am attempting to get in a 2 mile run. I have been soooo happy with my tendon, I am now able to take Cooper on his walks with no pain at all, and barely any pain at the gym when working out. That does not mean that I am going to jump on the mill and attempt a five mile run this weekend, baby steps.

What is your fav kind of wedding cake?

What is your fav thing you ate this Wednesday??

This post is dedicated to my one and only love cereal! Growing up I would eat endless amounts of cereal anytime of the day. Here are just a few of my childhood favorites:

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Captain Crunch Peanut Butter

Captain Crunch Berries

Frosted Mini Wheat's

Raisin Bran Crunch

Rice Crispy Treats Cereal

Fruity Pebbles

Cocoa Pebbles

Apple Jacks

Apple Cinnamon Cheerios

Lucky Charms

Oreo O's

Reese's Puffs

I could list even more, I am not kidding when I say I was a cereal addict when I was young.

Now today, well sadly I have to watch a little bit more with what I put into my mouth and how much I put into my mouth, but I still am a cereal addict...I just limit it to a portion size. Here are some of my favs now...

Kashi Go Lean and Puffins Peanut Butter

Ezekiel Cinnamon Raisin and Ezekiel Whole Grain

How do I eat my cereal...well I would prefer it mixed in with yogurt, cottage cheese, pb, with my oats, with my protein powder or once in a while I might settle for almond milk.

Now let me ask you...what is something you ate as a kid that you just could not learn how to say no to? Do you still find it hard to say no to you favorite childhood food?

100th Post!!

Happy 100th post to my blog!!

I don't know about you guys but I am sooo glad it is Friday! Just a shame the weekends always tend to go by way too fast. Craig left tonight to head up to the cabin to get some work done, I opted out of the hour and a half drive and told him Cooper and I would meet him tomorrow afternoon...which means apartment to myself tonight...every once in a while I enjoy a night of just me :)

Here are some pretty fantastic things about my Friday.....

If you did not know already, Craig and I recently got engaged so we have been on the go registering for our wedding, booking appointments for a photographer, arranging details for the wedding, meeting with our pastor and the list goes on and on. On top of that, we are really looking into buying a house. This I am super pumped about. Cooper, Craig and I live in a small 3 bedroom apartment crammed full of furniture. Blair is a small town, so we are limited to where we have to move. Eventually we want to build out in the country, but for now we are looking for a house in town and we came across the one below! I am loving every part of it :)

The backyard is so big, enough for Cooper to run off all of his energy. I am crossing my fingers that this house might work out, but we have a little ways to go...getting approved for a loan is a start.

After a LONG day with the kids at work today, I felt like some good old comfort food...tomato soup. Since we have an endless supply of tomato soup, I sliced up some tomatoes, added a bouillon cube, added some spinach and onions and grounded them together to form a broth. Slopped it all in a bowl and topped it with some fresh cut mushrooms. Best ever! When I was a child tomato soup was my all time fav. Of course now that I am older I prefer it with more veggies.

Now for the best part of my Friday....hit the gym this morning and knocked out 15 minutes of running on the TM, a mile and a half baby. Hey don't knock me now, no ankle pain whatsoever. I will tell you this though, returning to running after almost two months, hard work. I am not going to go over the top just because I felt no pain. I did experience some stiffness today afterwords. My plan is to try for two runs next week instead of just one with a couple of minutes added on. Heck I have got a wedding in February and I want to be able to dance my butt off, no Achilles tendon problems needed!

Returning to running this morning really made me feel sane again. I just enjoy it so much. Also, I have been getting a little down, I feel a little pudgier then usual. I still have kept up all my workouts, but I don't think the elliptical/bike/swim burns nearly as much as running, but who knows. I always felt more leaner when I was running, and I would love to go back to that!

I am off to blog stalk then to bed a little early this Friday so I can hit up the gym before heading off for a weekend at the cabin with my two favorite guys!

Comfort food made healthy, what is your choice?

If you ever put running aside, did you gain a few pounds??

Striving to Be Perfect

Throughout my college years I became extremely dedicated to fitness, and I mean to the extreme! Day by day I would read cover to cover magiznes such as Muscle and Fitness for hers and Oxygen eyeing the models and dying to look as good as they looked. I would spend hours in between classes googling meal plans, macros, carb amounts, protein powders, etc. If it was low carb high protein I was 100% dedicated to it.

My gym time consisted of Monday through Saturday with 45 minutes of high impact cardio followed by another 40 minutes of weight, and consuming around 1,500 cals a day of egg whites, tuna, squash, oats, protein powder and very little fat. If a product had sugar in it, it would be nixed. I ate very little fruit and counted every calorie to a tee, measured and weighed.

Was I thin, heck yes I was thin! I still remember one night looking in the mirror after a shower and I could count the bumps on my stomach. Was I healthy, no! I considered myself to be healthy, I was no longer eating huge amounts of food and throwing up several times a week and I was no longer starving myself to just protein bars and shakes all day long. I still, by no means was healthy. Social events were out the window because I would be forced to have a drink, or forced to eat something I did not want to eat and that would set me back so many days. I often asked myself, what was I trying so hard to accomplish...easy to look like the models in the magazines, I wanted to be perfect.

Looking back now, I can see that no matter how perfect you can be, you will always want to strive for more. You can get down to a size two, now you want to be a size 0, you can see your abs...now you want your biceps to pop out. It is a never ending cycle, and when you don't see perfection, you end up depressed and tweaking your life style to make things even more difficult for your body to handle.

It took me years to realize that it is okay not to be perfect, heck I still have to tell myself this several times a day. It is okay to have a little pinch of fat around my abs, it is okay not to see the veins protruding in my arms, it is okay to make it through the day and not need a two hour nap from all my exercise.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy looking at these magazines, but I have to remind myself to have a healthy mindset when looking at them. Many of these fitness models are paid to look this way, it is their job. Also, they do not look like this 100% of the time. It is not healthy for your body to stay at such a low body fat. Being obsessive about my food has taught me a lot about portion sizes, so much that when I go out to eat I can pretty much now how much I should take by eyeing it. I have learned that just because you order a salad does not mean it is healthier then ordering the grilled chicken sandwich. I have learned that most importantly it is calories in verses calories out, your body will gain weight if you eat an extra 3,000 calories of protein powder or if you eat an extra 3,000 calories of chips.

I actually do enjoy Oxygen and fitness mags because they show girls with more meat on them then most other fitness magazines, approaching a healthier lifestyle of eating right and exercising in moderation. It become unhealthy when you take this lifestyle to the extreme.

Do you ever strive for perfection?

What do you do to help you keep your eating habits and exercise routines in moderation?

So I thought I would do a fun post, a typical Monday through Friday work day for me!

4:30am-alarm goes off, shovel down oats and yogurt, take my puppy Cooper out to pee, head to the gym for an early morning workout....

40 minutes elliptical followed by a 6 minute cool down on the bike

Incline Chest Press with bar-3x12

Flat chess press 30 pounds-3x12

Tricep pull down machine-120 pounds-3x8

Low cable row 30 pounds 3x12

Upright rows 12 each side 15 pounds 3 sets

Bent over shoulder press 3x12 8 pounds

3x15 incline crunches

6:00am-home to eat postwork protein powder muffin with sugar free jello, munch on this while I shower and get ready for work

8:00am-breakfast at school while checking emails, 10 minutes till kids arrive

10:30am-snack break for me and the kiddos! Forgot to take a picture, nuts and egg whites were enjoyed.

12:30 Lunch time, more checking of emails and catching up on extra grading of papers

3:30 Leave school early to make it to the Blair Police Department by 4:00 to renew my license and have a police officer sign off on my warning ticket for going 5MPH OVER...still upset about this one! Enjoyed some protein cookies in the car on the way there.

4:30-Tanning salon

4:45-Arrive home, take this little bugger on a walk, cut it short due to my ankle starting to bother me

5:00-6:00pm Laundry, Vacuum, Blog Stalking

6:00pm Prepare lunch for tomorrow and make my own dinner

6:45 Enjoying stir fry chicken and veggies with pita bread and cottage cheese

7:15 Blog stalking, grading papers, and awaiting for Craig to come home from a late night meeting

Finally, will be enjoying my all time fav treat of the day, a protein shake topped with frozen peanut flour!

What are some of your daily non-exciting routines??

The Crazy Little Things

A good portion of my Saturday morning was spent here at the gym for a nice ellitpical workout followed by p90x Back and Biceps workout. I love the equipment at my gym, it is all fairly brand new, and all the cardio machines have tvs attached to them to make the time fly by.

Here are some of my random here and there eats from the weekend

Kashi Go Lean mixed with pb and protein powder and baked in the oven to form cookies. I then freeze them and I swear they taste like a rice crispy treat!

Turkey, almond, blueberry salad with raspberry dressing

A quick stop at Trader Joe's to pick up peppers that were on sale, chip dip, enchillada sauce along with a bottle of wine I enjoyed Saturday night with the girls

A stir fry mixture of chicken, peppers, broccoli, mushrooms and TJ's enchillda sauce

A bowl of chocolate oats with blueberries and pb somewhere in there to start my lazy Sunday off

A tasty egg omelete drenched with ketchup

Cereal covered by peanut flour dough balls and greek yogurt topped with sugar free chocoalte syrup

This weekend flew by, of course like it always does. Saturday was spent catching up on running errands and hanging out with the girls and today I managed to knock out a mile swim and now I am sitting on my bed eating jello and grading papers, ahhh the life I love lol!

Random thought...but do ever experience things in life that just make you go a little crazy...I mean you are in a rush to get from point a to point b and little things pop up that just get in your way and make you go grrrr! Well that was today...

After my gym workout I was off to go and pick up breakfast for my guy (yes because I don't cook and would rather order something for him) and I was driving down our little main street going with the flow of traffic and before I knew it sirens were on and I was being pulled over...really??

Yes I got a ticket for going 7mph over the speed limit...PATHETIC!

So after ranting to myself in the car about my darn ticket I pull up to pick up Craig's food and turns out they ran out of hashbrowns and it would be a 15 minute wait until they were ready. So my starving self sat in the car and waiting until they were done.

Finally ready to just get home I pull out of the parking lot and turn the corner only to be stopped by our town's longest train! Enter another 15 minutes of me sitting in the car twiddling my thumbs. I did arrive home with a frumpy look and a foul mood. I explained my morning to Criag and he gave me a hug. From that hug, I turned my frump upside down and enjoyed the rest of my day with a smile on my face. With that.....

do you let the little crazy things in your life put you in a foul mood?

What workouts did you do this weekend?

Friday...tomorrow, really??

Really tomorrow is already Friday and I have not blogged this entire week!! Don't get me wrong, I have been meaning too..but really this week has been so jammed packed and nothing special has really struck to blog about. Monday I was in meetings all day long, followed by parent night in the evening. I managed to make it home by 9, wake up on Tuesday at 4:30am to get my workout in and then another full day of meetings. Wednesday the kids were officially back in school, they were out by 11:45 and we were stuck in a 4 hour meeting regarding how to teach Spelling...really...4 hours?? So today was my first full day with the kids and all I can say is that I am mentally and physically E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D!! Coming back after summer break is always a wake up call. For one it takes me a while to get back into the routine of waking up at 4:30am to workout, living off only 7 hours of sleep as opposed to my nice 10 that I had this summer, getting used to being on my feet ALL DAY LONG, and finally learning to love to hear my name Miss Long every 5 seconds. I will admit though, as tired and worn out as I am, it is a good feeling to be back at work. I really do love what I do, and keeping busy is my ideal thing to do, so teaching fits me well.

As for my Achilles update, it has been on and off. Monday I ran my first mile in 2 weeks! I actually ran it in less than 10 minutes, which has been a long time since I have ran it that fast. It felt pretty good most of Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday (my rest day) it started acting up again. Last night I did some massive stretching and iced it all night. Today it felt great! Knocked out 40 min. on the elliptical followed by a nice cool down on the stationary bike. I thought for sure I would feel some pain but nope! I have a feeling this is going to be ongoing for quite some time. I am okay with not jumping right into running again, I really think I needed a break from it. I am enjoying weight lifting and also swimming. Check out my new goggles up above! Saturday after swimming I was left with huge marks under my eyes that continued to stay on my face for hours. I then read some horror stories of true marks left underneath people's eyes because of the goggles they wear. AHHHHH! Yes scared the crap out of me, so I got some new ones that basically mask my eyes and won't leave marks. 25 bucks...I will let you know if it was worth it or not.
On my way home, I ran into this. Huge storm that put me on the side of the road for about an hour waiting for it to pass. Craig had called me to tell me not to head home from work yet, but it was too late. As I was on the side of the road, I noticed several fire trucks and ambulances swarming by because of the huge accidents. I managed to get home in time tonight to miss the golf ball and baseball sized hail. Ouch!
So yes, tomorrow is Friday already and I can't believe it. This week just rushed by. I am a glad thing it is Friday because know I have time to catch up on wedding plans and relaxing. I have yet to decide if I want to swim or knock out some more elliptical tomorrow.
Enlighten me, tell me some crazy or exciting adventures in your life right now!!

How to Add Strength to Your Diet

As runners, regular exercise freaks, it is so important that we keep our bones strong and healthy. I am going to list just a few important aspects you can add to your diet to keep your bones strong!1. Calcium -it is recommened that we get 1,000 to 1,200 milligrams per day. This can be covered in just three servings of low fat dairy products. Think string cheese, low fat yogurt, skim milk, low fat chocolate milk, cottage cheese, low fat cheese.

2. Omega 3s have been shown to reduce osteoarthritis. Omega 3s can be found in eggs and fatty fish such as Salmon.

3. Vitamin D: Women age 19-50 should get 200IU a day. You can find Vitamin D in OJ, fortified milk, and salmon.

4. Finally, number four being Protein. My all time fave! Pick up some egg whites, eggs, tuna, chicken, fish, protein powder, cottage cheese, etc. All these products have great sources of protein to keep your bones strong!

What do you do to keep your bones strong? Take supplements, eat certain foods?