Days 67-71: Vacation from Clean Eating

Every year my aunt and uncle rent a beach house in Galveston and we join them for a few days of family, fun, and relaxation.  One of my favorite things about this trip is the amazing food we eat.  When we began the LiveFit program I knew this would be a designated free weekend - a vacation from clean eating.  I have been looking forward to this weekend for so long and the last thing I expected was to feel guilty for straying from my newly found clean lifestyle.

When we arrived Friday night I made my first plate of food and I tried to keep my portions pretty small.  I had a Diet Coke, 1/2 croissant with ham, queso, a few tortilla chips, spinach dip, and a jalapeno popper.  Oh how I missed these things!  Even though they tasted so wonderful, I couldn't get rid of that little voice in the back of my head that told me it was so wrong to eat them!

On Saturday my aunt made homemade ice cream (a tradition) and I felt a little less guilty about eating it. :)
 

I did make some time to get in a workout on Saturday morning.  It felt good to not be 100% lazy and I had such an amazing view of the ocean.  I could work out like that every day!  After my workout I fit in my personal tradition of napping on the porch.

I took a few snacks with me so that I had a few alternative choices available should I decide to do some clean eating while I was there.  I took some Questbars, rice cakes, natural peanut butter, almond milk, almonds, and low carb tortillas.  They all came in handy and kept us from snacking all day on a bunch of junk. 

As you can tell from our hair, we had a great time!

While we enjoyed our vacation it was cut short due to the unexpected passing of my beautiful Granny on Sunday.  This week will probably be difficult in terms of working out and maintaining a proper eating schedule.  I will do my best to do what I can, but my priority this week is my family and laying my sweet Granny to rest.  I feel confident that we won't have any trouble getting back to our daily routine when that time comes.

Days 60-66: Phase 3 - A Whole New Ballgame!

Phase 3 has not failed to make me feel like I've never worked out a day in my life!!  The workouts are crazy intense and I feel like I've had my butt handed to me at the end of each session.  We've added in a lot of active rest sets (meaning instead of resting we have to do things like mountain climbers, jump roping, crunches, etc) so my heart is constantly going at full speed.  A lot of the workouts are new to me so I've felt a little self conscious doing them.

This week we were also supposed to start carb cycling but I've been struggling with trying to make this work for us.  After a lot of thought (and 7 hours of sitting in front of a PC trying to come up with a meal plan) I decided that this was not going to be for us.  I realize it is the last step in that extra push to lose body fat, but I don't feel like the results will be long lasting because you can't carb cycle all of the time.  Part of me feels like I've failed the program and the other part of me feels like we have really gotten so much out of it so I don't need to feel disappointed in myself.  We have just decided to finish the program by continuing to eat clean and watch our carb intake.

I can't believe we only have a few weeks left of the program!  This weekend we will be making our annual trip with my aunt, uncle and cousins to the beach house in Galveston.  I knew when we started the program at the beginning of May that this would be my weekend to cheat.  I'm going to try to take a few clean items from home so that we don't overindulge in the bad, but I really feel like after all of my hard work to eat clean I've earned a weekend to let loose a bit.  I've stocked up on some Questbars as well :)

I just thank God for giving me the ability to have discipline.  From time-to-time I slip up, but he has really kept me strong through it all.  Discipline is the key to being successful in anything and we use it in so many aspects of our lives - finances, eating, working out, raising Aria, etc.  If all you lack is the discipline to do the things you know you should do, then pray for it and you will be shown all of the amazing things you can do!  I found this verse and thought it couldn't be more perfect!

 

Days 57-59: Recipe Eddition

Throughout the program we've done a lot of experimenting in the kitchen and had some really great success so I thought I'd post some of the recipes we've made.  Jason has this amazing gift where he can imagine what something will taste like and then throw a bunch of stuff together to cook the most spectacular food!  Just beware that honey does contain a lot of natural sugar, so I wouldn't make the recipes with honey every night of the week, no matter how awesome they taste.

Orange Chicken

Ingredients:
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup of fresh squeezed orange juice
1 teaspoon ginger
1 clove of garlic (pressed)

Cracked red pepper
Sea salt
Orange zest
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Take an orange, cut it in half, and squeeze the juice until you have 1/2 a cup.  Save the peel.  Whisk together the honey, orange juice, ginger and garlic.

You will cut the chicken breasts into strips.  Next, spray a pan with Pam and lay the chicken strips inside.  Pour the sauce over the chicken and sprinkle with some cracked red pepper and a little bit of sea salt.  Take the leftover orange peel and use a grater to make orange zest.  Sprinkle the zest over the chicken.  Bake on 365 for 45 mins to 1 hour.

Baked Chicken Nuggets

Ingredients:
1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 tablespoon Xylitol brown sugar
1 teaspoon cayenne
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 tablespoon chili powder
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
plain, unsweetened almond milk

Mix together all of the dry ingredients above.  Cut the chicken into 1 inch(ish) cubes and dip the chicken into the almond milk then dip in the dry ingredient mixture.  Bake in the oven on 450 for 30-45 mins.

I like to dip the nuggets in an amazing sauce I found on Sarah Evan's facebook page. 

Ingredients:
plain non-fat Greek yogurt
Sriracha sauce
lemon juice

Mix those ingredients to taste.  Just add a little Sriracha sauce and lemon juice at a time until you get the taste you want!

 

 

Teriyaki Chicken

 

1/2 cup soy sauce (low sodium)
1/2 cup honey
3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon ginger
1 teaspoon black pepper
parsley (optional)
1 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

 

Whisk together the ingredients above (except parsley).  Slice the chicken into strips, spray a baking pan with Pam and place the chicken into baking pan.  Pour sauce over the chicken and then sprinkle with parsley.  Bake on 365 for 45 mins to 1 hour.

 

Brussel Sprouts



1/4 cup soy sauce (low sodium)
1 tablespoon Xylitol brown sugar
1 teaspoon of yellow mustard
1 clove of garlic (pressed)
sea salt
brussel sprouts

Whisk together the ingredients above in a bowl (not including sea salt).  Take the brussel sprouts and cut them in half and remove the outer shell.  Spray a skillet with Pam and begin to cook the brussel sprouts adding sea salt to taste.  Once the brussel sprouts start to brown add the sauce and toss around.  Cook for approximately 5 mins until the mixture has reduced and take the brussel sprouts out of the pan dust with a tad more sea salt if desired.

 


Bon Appetit!!