A look back...and ahead

Good morning, let start off with Breakfast today, here was my healthy breakfast....Vegan Over Night Oats and banana soft serve, from Oh She Glows! Here is a quick look at what's in it but you really need to go to her blog for the exact directions and lots more great pictures.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup oats
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 1 banana, mashed
• 1/2 scoop Amazing Grass Amazing Meal chocolate powder (optional)

Thanks to Carla, I used my Amazing Grass packet win from her blog for this recipe! It was a hit with my son and husband. It got my 6 year old excited to get out of bed when I told him we were having "ice cream" for breakfast, and I feed him a scoop in his bed, to entice him downstairs. It worked!

So OJB....Let see where we started:

Here was the challenge:

1. Check in every Monday ....check!
   
2. 8 glasses of water a day! ...started off good, hoped to get better, actually got worse! It's such a simple thing, I will make a point of doing it more. I'm great at choosing water for a drink, just not enough volume.
   
3. 5 servings of fruits/veggies a day...needs improvement, some days were better than others, overall pretty good.
   
4. Intense calorie burning high intensity exercise 3-4x week....big check! No problem getting this one, in fact usually above and beyond.
   
5. Ab/toning exercises 3-4x week...check! This is something new I've added to my workouts and I did find it made a difference!
6. Avoid processed, fried, sugar laden, junk, refined foods as much as possible.....check and X! I'm so good at making meals healthy, organic foods, no processed foods, local farm fresh eggs and meat, healthy grains like quinoa, chia, steal cut oats and flax...but a resounding X on snacking, my snacks are always processed foods, chips, cookies, licorice, whatever...if I could just cut out the snacking I would be so healthy...it's the last little thing that is preventing me from being the best me I could be. Mentally I know it, emotionally it's a big hurdle.

And here are my numbers...
Hips 40.5"....new number 38"
Waist 34.....new number 30"
Upper Hips 36...new number 33"
Weight 143 lbs...new number 139lbs

So it's been good, sometimes were tough, some fails, some successes, but overall this has just been what feels like a normal life for me. Thanks so much to Carla for organizing this, it has been great to have to be accountable for my actions, to have to document eating and exercise, and to be able to share in others same struggles and triumphs.

Here is where we are going:


We just bought the farm! LOL :) Or more so we became a member of CSA, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). By buying into a farm and becoming a member, we are asking farmers to provide our family with 14 weeks of a large variety of Fresh Organic Produce. Through CSA we get a firsthand understanding of how food is grown, and what affects its growth. By using blog, emails, newsletters, and "farm days" we can follow the growth and development of our food. When our food is matured, each week we receive our share of the produce which is ripe and ready to be harvested on the farm. Fresh, Organic, Locally grown just for US.

The farm provides over 50 types of fresh organic vegetables from late June until mid September so I'm excited to take on the challenge of creating meals around what we get rather than buying ingredients based on what we want to make. We can take the kids out to the farm too, so they can see where and how the food we eat is growing!

So thanks again to Carla for the great inspiration, I love reading her blog and seeing her amazing pictures, she is so talented in so many ways! If you haven't been by her blogs you really should have a peek, she's a fascinating person to follow!