:: Amp Camp Final Stats ::

I finished Amp Camp about a month ago, our last workout was August 28th. It was a really great experience, and was very effective considering during the duration of the eight weeks I went to California, Vegas, on a float trip, and took the Kansas bar (btw, I passed! :)

Here are my final stats I copied off of Fusion's blog. (Please don't judge my "before" pic...BLECH!!!)

Molly lost a total of 10 pounds, 2.5 inches from her hips, 3.5 inches from her waist, and 3 inches from her chest. Her situps, pushups and speed all improved, and she took control of her eating and fitness in the midst of a wild schedule, all because she was committed and taking charge of her self! Way to go Molly!

Since then I've lost three more pounds, so I'm down 16 total. My new goal is to be down 20 total by the end of the month, and to my goal weight by Thanksgiving! I'm running a 5K that day!

As embarassing as weight-loss posting is, this blog has been so great in keeping me accountable, especially at the beginning. So please bear with me while I keep writing about all this. I'm sure it's getting old, so I promise to write about something else once in awhile too!!

new eats.

I love food, and I always will. Obviously, it's not as easy to naturally love oatmeal and protein shakes as much as I just love egg's benedict, but I do my best by mixing it up a LOT by trying new recipes and ingredients. I have to keep it fun, interesting, and tasting great or I'll lose motivation.

Here are a couple of my new favorites in my adventures in healthy eating:

Steel Cut Oats for breakfast. On Sunday or Monday night, I'll cook a batch that will last Taylor and I the whole week. I originally just followed the recipe on the bag (bob's red mill steel cut oats) which called for 3 cups water, oats, and a pinch of salt. Then I'd add in my mix-ins in the morning. This week, I tried a new recipe for the base oatmeal from Oh She Glows, which is as follows:

1 cup steel cut oats
2 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk
2 cups water
1 tbsp. ground flaxseed
1 tbsp. chia seeds
2 bananas, mashed
2-3 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon

1. In a medium-sized pot, bring the water and almond milk to a boil. Add in steel-cut oats and a pinch of salt and reduce heat to low.
2. Stir in the mashed banana (mashing it helps disperse the sweetness throughout), ground flax, and chia seeds. Simmer on low, uncovered, for 20-25 minutes, stirring every 5 mins or so.
3. When the oats are creamy and tender, remove from heat and stir in cinnamon to taste and pure vanilla extract. Serve immediately or allow to cool before transferring into air tight containers in the fridge. In the morning, add a splash of milk and reheat in the micro or on the stove-top.

To this base oatmeal my favorite add-ins are a splash of milk, and a tbsp of peanut butter, then either raisins or sliced bananas. I also have done pumpkin vanilla, where I'll add some canned pumpkin, a little vanilla or vanilla protein powder, pumpkin pie spice (love that stuff) and some raisins.

This is such a good breakfast and so filling!!

I also do a lot of smoothies/protein shakes, whatever you want to call them, for breakfast. My new favorite is this pumpkin pie smoothie I found on pinterest!

(gorgeous photography by Molly Hartley, please call 913-375-0807 to book an appointment. I will come to your house and take stunning pictures of messy looking ingredients after you've already used them)

1/2 banana, 1/3 cup pumpkin puree, 1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt , 3/4 cup vanilla almond milk, few shakes of pumpkin pie spice, 4-5 ice cubes, and a scoop of vanilla protein powder. Blend. Eat the other half of the banana while you wait.

It was awesome!

We also tried spaghetti squash for the first time last night and loved it! I decided to go with the microwave method and it worked great. Taylor made turkey spaghetti sauce to serve on the squash, because he is the king of doctoring up food with his incredibly heavy hand with the spice jars. (It's better if I don't observe him doing it, and just enjoy it after the fact.)

Here are the instructions I used:

1. Set the whole spaghetti squash in your microwave oven and cook it on HIGH power for 3 minutes to make it easier to cut it in half. Use a chef's knife to cut the spaghetti squash in half, lengthwise, as soon as you remove it from your microwave.

2. Spoon out and discard the seeds from the center of each spaghetti squash half.

3. Set the cut squash halves on a microwave safe baking dish with the cut side down and add 1/4 cup of water to the dish.

4. Cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and microwave on HIGH power for about 6 minutes per pound.

5. Scrape the cooked spaghetti squash with a fork to loosen and remove the meat from the shell and transfer to a serving dish.

I was shocked at how easy it was, and how good it really did taste! It heated up nicely today for lunch as well.

Hope you enjoy if you try any of these crazy concoctions!

giving clean eating a go...

I have been at a weight loss plateau for basically a month, and I knew I needed something major to start losing again. So I created my own "30 day challenge", if you will. (It conveniently began exactly thirty days prior to my upcoming trip to Mexico!) Yes, I know I sound like a health-nut freak show, but I'm a changed woman for God's sakes!! So each week I work out 6-7 days, adding running twice a week on top of my fusion-ing. I still count my calories, and generally maintain what I had going on before this month. However, each week I'm trying something a little more drastic to see how it goes.

Week one was a "no-sweets" week. Typically I'll have a couple chocolate chips after dinner, or a sugar free fudgesicle, or a little bite of a cookie at work if it's there...because no matter what, I always crave sweets after I eat. So that week I denied myself any kind of sweet, and had no added sugar at all. (sugar in fruit was allowed) And it went great! The first two or three days were rough, but after that I stopped craving it and also didn't want to cave in since I knew it was only a week. So far, so good.

Last week's challenge was "Eating Clean". After my sugar-free week one, it was a relatively easy transition, since white sugar isn't a part of the clean eating diet either. I bought "Just the Rules", by Tosca Reno to see what all the clean eating hype was. Basically, it's just eating whole foods, no processed stuff, no added sugar, yada yada. Common sense. The book cost 99 cents online so it's all good. Most everything I've already been eating for the last three months qualifies as "clean", I just have to be more restrictive with little side snacks here and there, and read my ingredients lists more intently.

Anyways, it went really well, and I kept it interesting by going to the farmer's market and buying things that looked good, then meal/recipe planning around them. This week I got butternut squash, kale, apples, and bell peppers. Out of this I'm doing stuffed peppers, kale salads, kale chips, roasted squash, and just downing those apples because they are delicious. 

This past weekend I also read Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels. Her theory is basically the same as the clean eating lifestyle, but she is very adamant about eating all organic, and spacing meals out by 4 hours rather than 2-3. She's also a crazy lady about toxins in plastic, our drinking water, make-up, cleaning supplies etc. Sorry Jilly girl, I've gotta draw the line somewhere. My tupperware is just fine. Overall, I preferred Tosca's clean eating diet over Jillian's "remove all toxins, refuel with superfoods,

rebalance" mantra.

I think the positives of these types of diets/lifestyles are that certain food groups aren't eliminated, (i.e. carbs) and they make sense. Fruits and veggies = healthy eating. The negatives are high costs associated with eating super healthy and the demonization of all processed food. I really feel silly turning my nose up at string cheese, regular deli meat, and triscuits...and I catch myself doing that. Those things aren't bad. They just have some ingredients that are not "clean" per some lady named Tosca. (AHH!! NITRATES and NITRITES in our turkey!! We're gonna die!!!) Obsessing is ridiculous. Anything in moderation is fine. The thing with me though is that I am not good at "moderation". I'm getting better, but at this point it's best when I just cut things out. Sometimes I suffer for it, and I binge, but if I allow myself chocolate every day, I'm gonna eat A LOT of chocolate every day. If I eat Chipotle one week, I have to have it the next week, and the next week. Oh, and might as well throw in some greek food too. It's better just to say no.

Once I'm at my goal weight, I think I will be able to enjoy practicing moderation, since I'll be able to eat more calories for weight maintenance. But for now, being strict is good for me. And clean eating is pretty darn strict.