My 1960's version of my tree. :D

 
A friend suggested doing this to my photo.

 
Our beautiful Christmas tree 2011. I touched the photo up a bit. i love the "old" effect. Classic and nastalgic. Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Chia for Health - Dr. Weil

Chia for Health - Dr. Weil

E-Mealz!

I recently decided to do what is suggested by Dave Ramsey (of daveramsey.com) and try out E-Mealz. E-Mealz is a site that For $5 a month, E-Mealz will provide a weekly meal plan tailored specifically to your store & based on your store’s sale ad, helping you plan delicious meals using ingredients that are on sale. You can get a low fat meal plan or a meal plan for 2 or a family or vegetarian, gluten free, Portion control, low carb.. the list goes on!! It is super cool!! Most of the recipes are super easy & pretty fast too. (The biggest downside is that E-Mealz currently only does store-ad specific lists for Publix, Kroger, Wal-Mart, Aldi, & Ralphs, but they do provide an “any store” option too)

I love the meal plans! I am so busy these days with a child in middle school and a child in 5th grade and a 2 yr old.... sports and doctor appointments 3 days a week from a car accident (still!) that I get so frazzled and 5 O'clock comes around and I am scrambling through my stockpile to figure out what to make that is easy and we won't have to eat dinner at 9pm. I love that this site organizes a whole weeks worth of meals for you and uses all the items that are on sale at your fave store that week! So cool! Click the linky thing I have on my blog here to go to the site and sign up! The first three months you can get for only $12.50 that is $4.17 a month by using the code DAVE. So use my link and sign up for three months and try it out!! You will love it!!

Stinky!

I am bummed! I went to the docs today for one of my three weekly visits (due to the car accident) and I told him about how I ran about a week ago and I hurt bad from it. Well, I still hurt and today he said that I have to wait at least another 4 weeks before I can start up again. He said my back is not ready for it yet. I had a terrbilbe weekend pain wise.

I need to do something. I have gained a good 15 pounds since the accident and I can't be gaining. I need to watch what I eat super close now and I have to find something I CAN do for exercise. I know I can walk (booooorrrring!) so I will do that with the kids and I will see what I can do for leg stuff like squats and lunges. Those are always good for getting my heartrate up.

Have a great week everyone!! Run if you can!!

Running!!

Since the car accident (April 9) I have not been able to do anything at all in the form of exercise. I try to do housework and the pain just gets so bad i have to stop. I hate it and I am just itching to get going and move.

Yesterday I decided to try and do an easy day one week one of the c25k program. It is a 5 minute warm up walk and then one minute of running (I did a 5.0 mph) and then 90 seconds of walking. You repeat this for 20 minutes. Then do a 5 minute cool down walk. It was easy but I was feeling the pain in my neck and upper back for the rest of the day. the migraine started to set in later that night. I slept on an ice pack all night. I am going to start walking again in the neighborhood but I will take it easy. I need to get moving. My legs felt like lead yesterday. I was surprised. i have only been sedentary since April 9. Amazing how out of shape you can get form only 3 months of nothing.

I went shopping on Monday. I got $135 worth of grocery for $51.33. Not bad. I am sorry that I do not have a picture  but I was in a hurry to get all the groceries put away and run out the door for more errands.

The kids and I may take a trip to the Imaginarium Museum in Ft. Meyer's soon. I have a super cool new camera and I will take some pics and post them. They have a neat chemistry thing going on for the kids this month.

Just saw some great Target deals that I need to run out and get with coupons. :D I can get $15 worth of stuff (some of it school supplies and some of it Gerber graduates meals!!) for only $2 after tax! So, I am off to Target!!

Our first corn ever! What a pretty corn it is too. They are not growing very large but maybe our garden is too small. Oh well, It was fun to grow them. :D

Here is my shopping trip on 5/16/2011!! I paid oop $28!!! This was $130 worth of grocery! Some of the items I have here are 8 bottles of Fuze drinks, 4 raman type noodle thingys, 14 bags of the Kraft Homestyle mac n cheese, 2 Ben 7 Jerry's ice cream, some Breve Creme for coffee, 2 7th Generation dish soaps, veggies, fresh basil, Zatarans, 2 bags of Doritos...and more! This was a great trip!!

Basil - Dr. Weil

Great article!! Good read. I and my family are going to start using Astragalus and Echinacea again. Last year when the swine flu scare was evident, we used this a lot trying to boost our immune systems. We got sick maybe one time that whole season. This season, however, we are sick on a daily basis. It seems that for months now we have been super sick with a mega virus that will not quit. Just 2 weeks ago I had a temperature of 103 and I am still sick from it. The laryngitis is gone but I feel lowsy and the headaches will not go away. Kids are coming home from school early. I dread the calls form the nurses office. I started my Wii EA Active program and my running program and thought I was on a roll. I had been well for about a week and then got this thing I have now. It is crazy and I am worn out form it all. So Dr. Weil, I am gonna read more of your stuff!! This guy is really on top of things and knows his stuff!

Basil - Dr. Weil

My EA active 2 exercising so far...

Wow... wow.... I LOVE this program!!! It's great! I set up my profile and picked the cardio program. I am on the 9-week cardio plan. I have done 3 weeks of it so far. I love that it only takes me about 20 minutes to do and It is different every day!! The soccer stuff is the most fun. I love the fitness trails it takes me through.

The jump squats are fun because you are doing soccer headbutts while doing jump squats. When on the fitness trails you have to squat to go faster on the bike or skateboard and then jump when it tells you. The runnning is fun because you can see yourself getting ahead of the trainer the fatser you go.

I am sweating up a storm when doing this workout. It tells me what days to do. If I choose to take a rest day when it has me scheduled I just workout the next rest day and tell it I want to do the last missed workout. That way I am all caught up. I am down a few pounds and I can see major definition in my legs.

I am also doing the 4-weeks-to-a-mile program on the treadmill. This is why the 20 minute workout on ea active 2 is great. I take about 20- 30 minutes on the treadmill training to run a mile again. I will do the 5k next. Monday I start week 2 on the running program.

I have done 2 5k's in the past couple months but since I am not conditioned I have a hard time breathing and this is why I am training now. I am tired of walking the 5k's. I saw a picture of myself at one of the races. I was going pretty fast. I walked 3.1 miles in 40 minutes. But... the picture makes it look as if I am taking a little stroll. I hate that. I need ot run again!!

EA Active Sports 2.

I got some money for my birthday and Christmas last year and decided to get a Wii system. I think we may have been the only family we know that did not own a Wii! I have always wanted one and when my husband and I realized how expensive it would be to get a Kinect and an xbox 360 we thought the Wii would be a good option. We got it with the help of my hubby chipping in some cash because I wanted the EA Active 2 program. I did one workout so far and I LOVE it!! i am going to do the 30-day program and blog about my experience and results as well.

I am going to start eating more "clean" too. I really want to be healthy and be more fit and I know the key is diet combined with exercise. I have done the whole, gym 5-days a week for 2-hrs a day with no results and I realized it was because I never changed my diet.

When I come up with a really yummy "clean" food or recipe I will be sure to post it. At the insistence of my husband I am still going to use coupons when I shop which will make it more difficult to eat right but I will prove it can be done!! :D

The first trainer on the EA Active 2 program I chose was the girl trainer because she focuses on cardio. I do get a Chance to build muscle in the routine and I like this!! I want to focus on that right now because I have a lot of weight to lose and if I gain muscle tone without losing the fat on top of it then I will just look bigger without seeing the results of the muscle tone.

Today I was tired because the baby was up until about 4 am. He seems to be crying in pain and I was concerned and rocked him most of the night. making breakfast this morning was not the priority on my brain. :D I decided to get a decaf coffee at McDonald's and I also got the new Fruit and Maple oatmeal there too. It was not bad at all. I did not add anything like sugar or anything else to it. I ate it as-is. I also had a banana earlier before dropping the older kids off at school.

Now to get the baby down for a nap and for me to take a much needed nap as well. Sleep is really important when trying to be healthy and lose weight.