Ayurvedic Secrets (Jennie)

I am a huge Dr. Oz fan, he's my guilty pleasure whenever I have a day off from work and the kiddos are in school. I recently caught his show about Ayurvedic secrets of weight loss, featuring Sunita Mohan, a Homeopathic doctor. I have mixed feelings on homeopathic treatments at times, but overall believe that there is a lot it can potentially offer as well as serve to complement conventional western medicine. The doctor mentioned a recipe for hot lemonade which is supposed to assist with detox and digestion that I wanted to try. I love all the ingredients independently, so why not combine the three?

Daily Ayurvedic Detox
8 oz hot water
1/2 fresh squeezed lemon
1" fresh ginger root, sliced
1 T raw honey

The smell of it is rather interesting... but it's good! I started this about a week ago, I don't know yet if it's made any kind of significant difference in my life, but it's easy enough to do that I'll stick with it for now.

Cheers! 

The Beginning (Jennie)

At the urging of a certain sister of mine (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent), I am overdue and posting my intro finally!

Like most moms, I struggled to lose baby weight after having my daughters. My girls are close in age, and I didn’t have much time to get the weight off with my oldest before I was pregnant with my youngest. While on maternity leave with my youngest, I decided that it would also be a great idea to go back to school and pursue my Masters degree.  So began a 2 year journey with a 3 month old, a 21 month old, a full-time job and school. Needless to say, exercise was really on the back-burner during those two years. Once I finished school and life calmed down a bit, I decided it was time to take control of the weight and get it off. I had some success, but then would inevitably gain a little back by the holidays. Last year I officially kicked things into high-gear, tracked everything that I ate and made it a point of incorporating exercise as well. I finally dropped those last pesky 20 lbs.

My goal is to be less concerned with the number on the scale and more concerned with my overall health and fitness level. Once upon a time, I actually went to school to become a dietitian (how I ended up in Finance I still wonder…). I love nutrition and finding healthy things to make at home, especially things the kiddos will eat. At the end of the day, I know what’s good for me and what isn’t, yet it’s still tough to stay on track. But I work best when I have an end-goal to strive for and that’s where Tough Mudder comes in.  And I’m dragging Mindy along for the fun of it too!

That’s a little of me in a nutshell. Cheers to good health!

Runners.. uh.. Arch? (Mindy)

So about 3 years ago I got into running and started training convinced that I was eventually going to do a marathon, or at least 1/2 marathon.  I absolutely fell in love with running and was about to graduate from the Couch to 5K running program.  Well that did not happen because by about mile 3 I started getting this awful pain in my left arch, like a ripping stepping on needles pain.  I did stretching, icing etc., but it did not help and I was too lazy/scared/cheap/[insert excuse adjective here] to go to the doctors to figure out what was going on.  Fast forward 2 years ago then 1 year ago, I tried to pick up running again but always had to stop after a few weeks of training due to this arch pain.

So the story now should go well I went to the doctor's finally and [insert happy recovery story] but alas I still have not.  I decided yesterday to start my running again and started feeling the pain by about 1/2 mile and after 2 miles I was done... my foot was hurting soo bad.... so pissed at my damn foot... so pissed at all these people running past me without a care in the world and no foot pain... I was 2 inches away from tripping this gazelle looking girl that ran past me... he he but I am not that mean or bitter.... but I was pretty depressed yesterday about it... actually really depressed, but I'm better now.

So enough bitching I am going to go see a doctor...

So on to happy times, I had an amazing workout tonight.

About a week ago I discovered Daily Burn and after doing a handful of their workouts I definitely love it and think it is worth the small investment!  It is basically a website that has a bunch of different workout videos by their designated trainers, nutrition advice, motivation, community boards, lots of different stuff.  I do not really see myself getting into the community boards or the other fluffy stuff but the workouts are great.  I love how they are organized too... say you only have a little bit of time to do a workout you can search for a 10-20 minute, then choose the difficulty level you want and a bunch of options will pop up.... If you love one particular trainer, you can search on only their videos.

To tonight I did a 35 minute cardio workout and then a 30 minute weight training workout and according to my heart rate monitor burned 650 calories and I feel great!

Hopefully they will start posting some new workout videos soon though because I may just whip through them quick!

Eats (Mindy)

So my diet habits are in one word confusing... my poor boyfriend never knows what I'll be eating from one week to the next.  I have been pretty solidly a vegetarian, then vegan, then pescetarian for the last 8 years and within the last few weeks I have started introducing chicken and turkey back into my diet.  I will only eat animal products if they are free range and organic and I will still not eat any red meat or pork... come on a pig is smarter then my dog and if I won't eat her then how am I going to eat Porky.  I could of course wake up with the hampering to go Vegan again tomorrow who knows... for me it's mostly about the treatment of the animals because they are all unique loving creatures who deserve a happy life.  It is also about the quality of what you are putting in your body.  If an animal is not eating the food that it's own body is by nature supposed to eat and spends its entire short life in a constant state of stress what do you think that is doing to the animal's body?  You are consuming all of that negative energy when you eat those poor Foster farms or KFC chickens!!

Another very important thing to me besides the happy energy of your food is eating food as close to nature intended.  Meaning when I buy things like salad dressings I never do low fat and choose options that have olive oil, vinegar, seasoning, cheese etc., and no weird off the wall ingredients.  I do not buy any "diet" products because they are typically full of weird preservatives and chemicals that I do not want in my body.  Basically if it is not an actual food item and requires a lab to produce then I pass it on by.

Ok stepping off my bandwagon... because I could go on for hours... or I guess pages... here are my eats from yesterday.

My very favorite Blueberry Spinach smoothie (shout out to my sis Jennie for this recipe)

1 cup blueberries

1 cup spinach

1T of vanilla protein powder

1 cup of vanilla almond milk

Usually add 1-2T of flaxseed, or some chia seed or another seed for a little extra healthy fat

Delicious!!  Mine usually looks a little green/browner but I was running low on spinach yesterday.

Lunch involved a very delicious large salad beast with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell pepper, edamame and blue cheese vinaigrette.

And more deliciousness at lunch... 

Sweet Potato Fries/Chips

These were amazing!!

Take 1 sweet potato and cut in slices or however you want, I did mine too thing, I would recommend probably 1/4 of an inch.  Toss them in a bowl with a little bit of olive oil and whatever seasoning you want to use, I used lots of chili powder and a little bit of honey.

Heat up the oven to 450 degrees and layer them out on a greased baking sheet lined with foil.

Depending on the thickness that you cut them they may take anywhere from 8-15 minutes to cook all the way through, and I would recommend checking on them every 3-5 minutes and flipping them over at around the 5-8 minute mark depending on how they are looking.  Mine were cut pretty thing using my mandolin and they probably took about 8 minutes to cook and some of the edges were burned but even the burned edges were delicious!

Make sure to slop on the Ketchup... Annie's organic or Trader Joe's variety preferred... and enjoy!

Dinner time involved BBQ'ing some free range ground turkey burgers and I made a greek style Quinoa salad.

I'm sure I could learn how to use the grill if I wanted too but there is something so manly and cute about watching the BF man the grill that I like so I will probably never learn!

While he cooked the turkey burgers I made the salad.

Quinoa Greek Salad

1 cup of dry Quinoa

Cucumber

Cherry Tomatos

Feta Cheese - lots of it

Bell Pepper

Kalamato Olives - lots of them

Follow the package ingredients and cook the quinoa and allow time for it to cool down after cooking.  Afterwards mix all of the ingredients together and then add a bit of olive oil and a bit more of balsamic vinegar and taste it... it probably needs more feta so throw some in there and a few more olives.  

Delicious and make sure there are leftovers because it's even better the next day!

BF's Plate (no room for salad booo)

My Plate (I'm not a low carb person I just have been trying to limit my starchy carbs at night)

So Mindy you say, this looks like a pretty healthy day why are you needing to lose weight, well thanks for asking and although the simple answer is wine... the truth is I eat very healthy I just probably eat too much, do not work out nearly enough and yes drink too much of the vino... so on that note dessert for the evening was this amazing drink made by the BF... it was rum, vanilla, orange bitters, and muddled lemon and mint... I think I'm missing an ingredient or two... I swear he was meant to be a bartender.. it was amazing!!

I'll be back tomorrow with a workout... tonight I went running and it just pissed me off... more on that tomorrow... for now I just want to enjoy the pretty food pictures!

The Beginning (for Mindy)

It all started with a pair of green pants that I ordered online without trying on in my normal size and could not fit over my fat ass... but let's go back in time to early 2011...

(cue Wayne's World wavy back in time hands)

In early 2011 I found myself working at a job I did not like because that was the path I was supposed to take and living in a city that was ok but I really missed Northern California and wanted so badly to move back.  I realized at that time that I need to focus on myself and create a new goal of living my best life possible.  Even though my company provided me with an amazing opportunity, I chose my own happiness and resigned, packed up my stuff and moved back up north.  Luckily I have a wonderful understanding man in my life who did both moves with me.

Six months later I took a paycut and changed companies and am so happy in my career.

My next goal to live my best life is to focus on my nutrition and fitness, and to find an outlet for self expression so this is where this blog comes in.  This may be my only post... I tend to quit things easily... or one of hundreds... I also tend to become overly obsessed with ideas in my head too and go overboard.

I have always had a love of nutrition, learning about it, eating as healthy as possible, and probably annoying other people by preaching about it.  My problem is I eat to much of the healthy food and enjoy the vino a bit too much as well and lately my waist line and fat ass have been yelling at me, although usually after a few glasses of wine they just kindly hush and accept the chocolate.

So at my wonderful sister Jennie's urging I stupidly signed up to do a Tough Mudder Race in September 2012... I signed up in January 2012 to motivate myself to finally be consistent and get in the great shape I have always wanted to.... 

Well it is now May and I still have a lot of work to do and with the motivation of my green jeans I really want to wear and the upcoming race, I am hoping that by writing about it I actually follow through and continue to strive to live my best life.

So Jennie and I both started fitness blogs in order to capture our journey and hold ourselves accountable and then it dawned on us... why not work on this project together... and Two Sisters Getting Fit Was Born!

The pants that started a blog....

And the wine that grew the waist line...

Cheers!