Meal Plan Shot out of water. Hope next week is better

I have been fighting for 9 months now to get my diet and family on a schedule. When I finally got them on one, it pained me that life struck and I had to alter my meal plan. We hit a financial wall and the funds I had planned on spending on my meal plan had been cut into an 8^th of what I had planned on it to be. So my in-laws decided to help and give us food from their freezer.  They didn’t give us anything processed o anything just lots of red meat.  I only had the funds to get 3 bags of boneless skinless chicken, and 4 bags of frozen veggies to last us all month.  So I figured I needed to redo my meal plan to account for all the red meat.

Before I get into my meal plan, I figured I could take this time to discuss the true importance of a meal plan. Most people who are trying to lose weight, a meal plan will be one of the most important tools they can have. Not only does a meal plan keep your diet and weight-loss in check, but it helps you structure your goals and not sway away. This is why when you purchase a workout video, most of the time; you will also receive a meal plan as well.  Structure is needed when you are trying to lose weight. It keeps you accountable for what you are doing.  Consider your meal plan like your calendar you put your appointments in. Without it, you would be lost and forget what important events are to come. This is the same with a meal plan. Once you create your meal plan and even your activity plan, it starts to keep yourself accountable for the path of success you are aiming for.  It will keep you from snacking on foods that you know aren’t healthy for your goal to a healthier you.

Now, here comes what you all have been waiting for. My original meal plan, followed by my thrown into chaos plan. Please be warned however, you will see a huge difference in the plan but I am proud of myself for some of the choices I had made to keep me from going off the deep end. Without further delay, my original meal plan for 9/5-9/13.

9/5 Breakfast- 2 eggs, 3 slices of bacon with a glass of juice

      Lunch- Salad made with Romaine Lettuce, grilled chicken, avocado and 2TBS of olive oil and Vinegar mixed.

      Dinner- Rotisserie chicken with sliced apples and rosemary

      Snack 1 - ¼ cup of almonds

      Snack 2- 6 Oz Greek Yogurt

9/6 Breakfast- Healthy smoothie

      Lunch- Grilled Chicken and Asparagus

      Dinner- Grilled Tuna w/ Celery Sticks

      Snack 1- 1 cup Carrots

      Snack 2- 1 medium Apple

9/7 Breakfast- Egg omelet e made with 1 egg and 2 egg whites, 1 slice of bacon, ¼ sliced bell pepper

      Lunch- Grilled Chicken breast with a side of Mixed Berries

      Dinner- Steak with mixed steam vegetables

      Snack 1- Greek Yogurt

      Snack 2- 1 small orange

9/8 Breakfast- oatmeal with ¼ cup of mixed fruit

      Lunch- Tuna over Raw spinach and hard boiled eggs

      Dinner- Grilled chicken with mashed Cauliflower

      Snack1- 1 hard-boiled egg

      Snack 2- 3 celery sticks with a tsp. of almond butter

9/10 Breakfast- 2 eggs on top flax Ezekiel Bread

        Lunch- Grilled Chicken with steamed Mixed Veggies

         Dinner- Grilled Shrimp On top Romaine and spinach mixed with 1 hard-boiled egg, 3 cherry tomatoes, ¼ cup of broccoli florets and 2 tbsp. of vinegar/olive oil mix

          Snack 1- Greek Yogurt

          Snack 2- 1 cup of grapes

9/11 Breakfast- Paleo Pancakes with Strawberries or Blueberries

        Lunch- Pork Chops with 1 small Sweet potato

        Dinner- Hamburger patty with steamed Vegetables

        Snack 1- 3 stalks of celery with 1tsp. of Almond Butter

        Snack 2- 1 hard-boiled egg

9/12 Breakfast- 2 eggs and Bacon

        Lunch- grilled chicken on top of Spinach Leaves

        Dinner - steak with green beans

        Snack 1- 1 cup of grapes

        Snack 2- 1 small apple

See how awesome that looked? I had it all planned out and excited about it. Then Life struck and it through me for a loop. So I had to make do with what I had. So here goes! 

9/5 Breakfast- 1 cup oatmeal

      Lunch – 2 oz of steak over spinach leaves

      Dinner- Spaghetti Squash (1 cup) with 4 oz. grilled chicken and tomato sauce (family had pizza)

      Snack 1- Greek Yogurt

      Snack 2- 1 cup frozen blueberries

9/6 Breakfast- 2 scrambled eggs

      Lunch- 1 2 oz chicken breast on 2 cups mixed spring greens

     Dinner- Chicken Stir-Fry

     Snack 1- Protein Shake

     Snack 2- 5 energy bits

9/7 Breakfast- Protein shake

      Lunch- Left over stir-fry (1 cup)

     Dinner- 4 oz. Steak and 1 cup mixed vegetables

     Snack 1- 1 banana

     Snack 2- 1 apple

9/8 Breakfast -1 cup of oatmeal

      Lunch- 4 oz. left over steak

      Dinner- 6 oz. round steak and steamed Broccoli

      Snack 1- 1 cup frozen peaches

      Snack 2- ½ cup frozen fruit added to 8 oz. of water

9/9 Breakfast-  2 scrambled eggs

      Lunch- 2 oz of round steak left over

      Dinner- 6 oz. pork chop with mixed veggies

      Snack 1- Protein Shake

      Snack 2- 1 apple

9/10 Breakfast- 1 banana with 1 slice Ezekiel Bread

        Lunch- 2 cups spinach leaves with 2 oz. of chicken breast

        Dinner- Baked sweet Potato 6 oz. rib eye steak

        Snack 1- Chocolate protein Bar

        Snack 2- 2 cups of Baby Carrots

9/11 Breakfast- 1 cup Oatmeal

        Lunch- Special K Breakfast Protein Shake

        Dinner- 12 oz. Sirloin with Grilled Onions and steamed Carrots

        Snack 1- Ezekiel Bread with almond butter

        Snack 2- 1 cup of frozen green beans

9/12 Breakfast- 2 eggs

        Lunch- 4 oz. left over Sirloin Steak

        Dinner- 4 oz. Pork chops with 2 oz. steamed broccoli

        Snack 1- 1 cup of frozen peas

        Snack 2- 1 slice Ezekiel Bread with 1 tsp. Almond butter

I tried to stay as healthy as I could with what I had. I wasn’t able to get pictures of my meals Like I wanted too but I did my best. Really hope you guys like it! From My Kitchen to yours. Sleep well, Eat right and sweat hard.

September Goals To a Better me.

Now that September is here, I would like to start setting myself goals. After sitting down and re-evaluating my life and my blog, I came to the conclusion that is what I was lacking was structure. I needed something to help keep me going and accountable for my posts. Before I was focusing on what I felt others wanted to read and not what I felt I needed to write.  My product reviews weren’t as informative as I wanted them to be and my posts, well, they were just posts. There wasn’t much to go on. Like my weight loss journey, I found myself stalling in my posts.  So I am posting today to start the new me by posting my 10 main September Goals.

     Run the Color Run 5k on 9.14.13. I will start by running a 5k. I know what better way to structuring my blog, fitness and life than by running a color run? I can’t think of anything better to do.

               Work out 90 minutes a day for 5 days a week. This goal I am setting for me as a month long challenge. I will push myself from today forward to work out 90 minutes a day for at least 5 days a week. I may even find myself doing a little more. I really want to get out of the rut I am in and into a better, healthier lifestyle. 

            Drink 3.5 quarts of water a day. This goal is going to be the hardest for me. I hate drinking water. The water here taste really bad and well, isn’t really appealing to me. So I will be adding fruit slices and even a little trick I picked up last night. (Add a cinnamon stick and a sliced apple to a 1 gallon pitcher. Fill it ¼ of the way with ice and the rest with water. This jug can be refilled 4x without having to throw away the apple or cinnamon stick) 

            Blogging 2 posts a week. Sounds easy yet hard at the same time. As all my readers have read in the past, I am a mother of 3 children. Their ages ranging from 4 years to 7 years old. This is part of the reason I wasn’t able to post much during the summer. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with them. 

             Eat 5 small meals a day. This one surprisingly will be a little easier for me than most of the others. Due to the fact that I try my hardest anyways to eat 5-6 meals a day anyways. This is why I have started making me a little cookbook of my own that I can pass to my children to pass on for generations to come.  This is why it is important for me to start teaching them now about making healthy choices in life and in the foods they eat.

          Try not to stress as much. Wow this is really going to be hard for me. I am a soft hearted person and get walked on quite frequently. I am going to try to change this in me. I am going to try to teach myself to let things roll off my back more.  You will also start to notice more music being posted on my blog more. The reason for this is because music is what seems to help me calm down and relax.  I also depend on music to help me while I am working out in the gym and on runs. So what better way to help out you, my readers, and then post something that you guys have been asking for. A lot of stress held in for long periods of time can not only cause headaches but it can also cause serious health problems. It also causes stress eating. I don't think anyone really wants that.

          Run at least 15 miles. This is my personal goal that I plan to increase each month. I am going to make it my goal to run/ jog this each week. Even if I have to split this up, I will blow this out of the water. No more sitting around after workouts and getting bored. With me, like most others, the longer you are bored, the more you are tempted to eat. What better way to free myself from boredom than to get up and run.

         Spend More Time With My Children.  This is my 1^st and foremost the most important goal I am setting for myself. My children are my life and I try to keep them close to me as much as I can. I want them to be children for as long as they can. I want them to know I I’ll do whatever I can in my power to protect them and be there for them when they need me.  Recently I have been presented with a scare that has made me want to be there for them even more than I have been.  There is nothing more heart dropping then to hear a doctor say they may have found something medically wrong with your child. Took all I could not to start crying. 

           Try to keep my head and house clutter free. Okay please don’t take this as my house is a mess and stuff. The meaning behind this goal is that I tend to take on way to many projects at once. Then I get frustrated and half of them don’t ever seem to get finished.  Which in turns gets me frustrated and then my workspace gets cluttered. For someone with OCD like me, this is not good at all. I find myself frustrated and just wanting to pull my hair out when my house and “mommy area” is not up to the way I need it to be. So to help with this goal, I am going to try extra hard to work on this to help keep me structured and to keep me from getting my energy drained from me like it has been.

                Discover what makes me happy and follow it! This goal is number 10 for a reason. I have been focusing on making everyone else happy and pushing myself to the way side. I can’t do this to myself anymore. I need to start doing what makes me happy. Yes helping others makes me happy but I do have to learn to say no as well. By saying no, I give myself the power to step back and take a breath to get my head straight. I love playing with my kids, working out, trying new products that I have never tried before, and most importantly, the health of me and my family. I am going to start branching out to not only look for more health and fitness products for me but for my family as well. I know a lot of you guys have children and families and would love to hear about things that will help get your family into a healthy lifestyle. As my previous post states, I plan on changing all I can to get healthy for me and my family. Meaning no fad diets, no miracle pills or powders. Hard work and diligence pays off. That’s what I plan on teaching my children. Nothing good comes from quick fixes.  I also want to start taking camping trips with my family and more trips to the park and such. Family makes me happy. Health and fitness makes me happy. So this is what I am going to start following.

Now that you have read my September goals, here is a September Challenge for all of my readers.  Sit down and think about what you have wanted to do for you and goals you want to accomplish and write a post or comment about it. Then do all you can to complete them. You will feel much happier in the long run for it. This I promise you. Here are a few tunes for you to listen to while you think about it. Remember to eat healthy, get plenty of sleep. The most important of all is to get off your behinds and get to sweating. Your fitness is only as good as the effort you put into it. 

Taking back what matters most

After discussing my feelings and thoughts to a friend of mine about how my blog was going, I discovered that I have kind of lost track of what my blog is all about. I mean, when I started, I was focusing on healthy eating and helping others eat healthy as well. I did this by posting my foods so others could see and critique it so I could learn better and healthier eating.  Life hit, like it does to us all, and I noticed, I was steering clear of that and taking on a path of what I felt you guys wanted to see. I kind of lost track of what was helping me and focused on what I felt would really help everyone else. I love doing reviews and giveaways as much as the next blogger does. Please don’t interpret this as me saying I don’t. I just feel I need to start incorporating more of what I did in the start. Meaning that me posting my meal plans and my workouts will in turn not only help me by making me more accountable for what I ingest, but will also in turn help you all out by showing you my path and what works for me and what doesn’t work for me and my family.  You may be having the same issue as I am or you may know a better way to do things than I do. That’s why I am going to ask for all of my readers help. When I post my weekly meal plan at the beginning of the week then again with pictures at the end of the week, please feel free to critique it a bit and tell me how I could make it better.

Not only will I post them for me but for you as well so you and your families can try them.  I am also going to start looking into more products that will help me along my journey to write to you guys about.  For example, I am now looking to review and possibly participate in a giveaway, products like clothing, performance powders like BCAA, glutamine and other products to help me lose the weight and gain the muscle without the harmful side effects most seem to have. I am also looking to better my blog so I can start making a little bit of extra income for my family. As long as what I am writing about falls in the lines of my goals. I am going to try to steer clear away from “Fad Diets and pills” because in the long run, they cause more harm than they help.  I want to try out accessories that I can use to help me keep track of my progress and important items. (Like hydration packs, things to carry my stuff in, Head bands, etc.)  I know there are so many fads out there in this day and age that have little to no actual clinical research to back up the claims they make. Do I really need to remind everyone of the Fen-Phen Diet and all the harm that caused?

My family is the most important thing to me. I want to be here for them as long as the good lord lets me. So I am making it my vow to start steering clear of all the harmful things that I have before put inside my body to help me get to my fitness goals.  I am going to start setting more goals and do all I can to blast through them.  I have made it my goal to be healthy now for 9 months and I honestly thought I was doing great at it. It hasn’t been enough. The goals I have set are still sitting there collecting dust and that is going to end NOW! I am going to do more races, work out harder, eat healthier and beat the long family line of thyroid issues and other obesity problems. I make it my vow that my children will not have to worry about being overweight because I am going to teach them the importance of eating healthy and exercising.  Fad Diets Don’t Work! When it comes to losing weight, there is no easy way out. There is always a catch somewhere.  Or you don’t find out till it is too late that it is harmful to your body. (To late as in go to the doctor and find out your thyroid is now shot and you have to take medicine for the rest of your life. Or WORSE!)

My journey has not been an easy one. I have gotten discouraged and honestly, I have wanted to quit more than I can count on one hand. That is when I turn to my mentors for help. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have mentors to look up to you and help you when you feel like you are sliding down that cliff. I have been there. Trust me I know how it feels.  I have 2 mentors I go to when I need that “Tough Love” or that “You got this. Don’t give up now” and the “Look at all you have done. You should be proud of yourself”  I know from one mentor, I bet you there is at least a dozen times she wanted to reach through the computer and smack some sense into me because either I was discouraged or was doing something stupid. Yet I know deep down she did it because she knows I can succeed and she sees how strong I am. Though sometimes, I can’t see it in myself. Both are there to answer any question I have. No matter if it is stupid or not. They even listen when I need to rant and get something off my chest.  These two wonderful people always seem to know what I need before I do. Yes at times I am in shock because of I get something in my head that is driving me nuts then she posts on her blog about what I was thinking about and it clarifies everything.   The other, well I could really say so much about her but I think it will take me days to write about all the good she has helped me with. I think all in all, I owe her the most. She is the one who helped me get on my weight loss journey and introduced me to my other mentor.  I even have had the wonderful opportunity to go to lunch with her for my birthday and meet her in person.

The point I am making is, everyone needs that someone who they can go to when they feel they are about to fail. Every successful person who has set a goal and then blew it out of the water has had a mentor of some kind to help them. Either by getting inspiration from this person about how they succeeded or had that special person there for them when they needed them the most.  That is another goal for me. To get on the path I need to be on and then later in the future, help and mentor others on their journey. I highly recommend you follow the following two people. You can follow their sites or social media. You can even try to contact them directly through their sites as well. I can guarantee you, if it is fitness related, they can answer you.  I honestly believe these 2 people deserve recognition for all they have done and will continue to do. Not just for me, but for others as well. The 2 ladies are Joanna Broadbent , blogger for http://sportsbrasandsippycups.com/, fellow SPA and GGSA, and Laura Williams, Founder of http://www.girlsgonesporty.com/.   Please take a look at their sites and you will see what I am talking about.

In closing, I really do thank all of you, my followers, for all of your support and ideas. You have helped me make Aphalicious Bliss what it is today. Without all of you, my blog would not be half of what It is. Thank you!