It’s my rest day but I wanted to chit chat via blog rambling to myself and to you the readers if I can hold your interest at all.

Simple Dinners!
I’m just guessing but I would think most people have the excuse of I don’t have time to do everything. Therefore the drive thru it is or even some microwavable turd of a dinner. I’m guilty of it too. I have 3 BOYS! I’m guilty less now more than ever but YES I am a guilty party. I’m tired, I’m over it, blah blah blah, Chif-fil-A here I come. Taco Bell it is. (NOTE: I still eat clean unless I testify otherwise but I force my kids to eat like crap sometimes cause I’m being lazy) And just last night I proved to myself that although the fast food can be fast and easy we all know it’s not healthy and it’s just not worth it!

Kids have practice at 6pm so they only have time to get a snack in them like Almond Butter and Apple Slices and then we don’t get home till 8:45ish. It is a circus in our house. But the past couple of nights I have been Johnny on the spot in getting nutritious, clean meals to my kids bellies. And it only takes a little advanced preparation and some random throwing crap good stuff together. On Sunday I made meatloaf for dinner. Instead of one loaf, I made 2. Voila instant protein for Monday night dinner. I didn’t have enough Mashed Cauliflower to go with it but I had zucchini and made Zucchini Latkes. This is quick and easy and gave my kids enough to fill them up. They each had a KIWI for dessert!

Last week I made meat sauce for zucchini pasta and had an overflow so I froze it up and used it for the kids dinner last night. I shredded up more fresh zucchini and sauteed it a bit in some coconut oil along with some salt, pepper and thyme. Added my heated meat sauce and BAM easy dinner. I didn’t have enough zucchini for Ernie and I but I had Kale! I heated up some pork fat in a pan, did a quick sautee of the kale. All the while I had leftover roasted chicken which I heated up in coconut oil along with mushrooms. Added my kale and BOOM a really yummy dinner for Ernie and I.

Yes it was all leftovers but it didn’t taste like leftovers. With some fresh foods added and the leftover food re-created it was all yummy. And took me 20 minutes to knock out each night. It also helps to be creative with spices!

Also know that if you have chicken to cook but don’t want to bake it FOREVER then just cut it up and sautee it. It cooks in a fraction of the time as baking it or grilling it does. Just don’t over cook it! Add some veggies on the side and you’ll be rockin and a rollin.

Just Do It ALREADY!
In addition to finding simple meals YOU need to start moving. I may scare some of y’all with all the CrossFit terms and the extra workouts but it’s not a scary world out there. I watch Chris Powell’s Extreme Makeover: Weightloss Edition, and if you’ve seen it you know how it goes. He picks a desperate truly OBESE person to help out over the course of a year. He has the same opening routine for them all. He puts them through a FIGHT or FLIGHT workout.

If you’ve never worked out then the stuff he puts them through will hurt. Hell it will hurt those that moderately work out. Picking up weights heavier than 10lbs is gonna hurt. But your body will do so much more than your brain will tell you that you can do. And he shows that person that they will live through it even if they think that they can not. He works with these people on their levels and helps them push through mental and physical barriers for 3 months. He is not always nice but deep down these people know they need the tough love. Then he leaves them to their own where they have to do it on their own for the rest of the year. He checks in on them but he doesn’t have that daily interaction. Some struggle more than others but they all learn and grow.

We all aren’t so morbidly obese as the folks on the show are and we don’t all have that person in our face, in our home and in our lives so we have to take it upon ourselves to do it. And for most of us even if we did have someone telling us what to do we probably wouldn’t listen. Hell so many people ask me HOW I DO IT, or WHY I DO IT and it appears I amp someone up but then I see them in the same ol’ routines or even worse. I can’t make anyone take it on. It takes YOU and only YOU to make the change. I didn’t start out without a support system. I was doing my best to eat right, get up and workout daily and there Ernie was stuffing his face with Sonic, Chic-Fil-A, Braums, etc. It sucked. I smelled all this yummy badness but had to persevere on my own for my own good. I was thinking about my future and my health. A few months later Ernie did come on board and blew my “GOOD HEALTH” out of the water with this Paleo nonsense! I then followed suit and we make a good PALEO team (for the most part).

It’s awesome if you have a support system but not everyone does so you have to make a support system for yourself. Plan rewards for yourself; make new friends with the same goals; write your own blog (wink wink), find a fitness forum; find an online buddy if you need to do so. JUST START DOING IT ALREADY. Don’t let that wedding or upcoming birthday party delay your start. Start now and deal with whatever upcoming social event when you get to it. It’s not going hurt you to start a path to good health.

But Stephanie I’m happy with myself just the way I am! I’m no expert but I find it rare that someone who says they “could/should” lose weight but don’t “care” because they are “happy” just the way they are lying to themselves and everyone else. Also those who aren’t in need of weight loss but are in need of good health saying they are slender already, I’ll be fine, but will you? You may be a kind caring soul with a happy heart but physically are you happy. So I’m talking to all walks of life from the anorexic to the overweight, to the addicts or to the uneducated. Being overweight (unless a real health concern like thyroid issues) is just as much a sickness as anorexia or even addiction to drugs and alcohol. If you saw a frail disappearing girl that’s starving herself to death you might judge her quicker than you would judge someone who is 50lbs overweight. WHY? I have no idea but our society tends to accept that someone who is overweight doesn’t have similar types of body issues as those are wasting away. People with addiction to food, or alcohol or whatever all are similar in some regard. Again I’m no Dr., nor do I claim to be. I just take in what I see, what I grew up with, what I learn and where I see our society going and take it all in. Yes I am making my own assessments but it doesn’t take a super genius to figure it out. We can see that kids are bigger than EVER and more and more people are diagnosed with disease and more and more pills are being shelled out to FIX all these “bad” things that are suddenly plaguing us. It’s the quick fix. It’s the drive through, the magic microwave, the boxed food with all those chemicals and then we top it off with a cocktail of prescription medications to lower all the bad things that are elevated! Are you kidding me people?

Do you break a sweat walking 100 yards? Does it hurt to get out of bed in the morning? Do you have constant health issues? Migraines, High Blood Pressure, Joint Pain, etc? I’m telling you it’s about food intake, exercise and proper sleep. You can still enjoy life. Eating clean isn’t a death sentence. Feeling GOOD is a future. Getting endorphins flowing from exercise is a new way to happiness – A way better happiness than from getting high off of eating really tasty “bad” food that in the end always leaves you down in the dumps.

Last Night’s Outdoor WOD
Whew, my ramble took it’s own path. So let me close with my evening fun from last night. DEATH by 10 METERS! The DEATH part sounds scary but the 10m well, it doesn’t sound harsh but it gets ya. I had my youngest help me out with the clock since he didn’t have practice last night. He’s a very encouraging kiddo and even though I’m sucking wind and wanting to pass out, he’s totally telling me I’m doing good and getting faster and just being the best. If you don’t know what Death BY anything means then I’m here to tell you. My apologies to those of you who know and have read it 89787687 times. You start your clock and run 10m for the first minute. On the next minute you run 10m x 2. The next minute 10m x 3 and so forth. You keep adding 10m each minute until you can not fit the amount in the 1 minute. So if you are on your 13th round but it takes you longer than 1 minute to complete your score would be 12. Because the last minute you completed was 12. And the 13th round was just bonus work. (You can do this with any movement like squats, burpees, push ups, pull ups, etc.)

It’s such a short distance and it does get old and little bit of dizzy inducing. But it’s not easy! I completed 14 rounds and was so close to 15 but just didn’t have anything in me. Including my not completed 15th round, I sprinted 1190m! It adds up fast.

After some rest and water, I ended up throwing the football around. It’s not intense work but I was still on my feet moving. It was a good evening!

Have you had enough of me already? Or did I spark a fire from within? Either way, I got some of what I feel/think out. I get lost in my own thoughts as you can probably tell just from reading. It’s hard to communicate it all at once but rather than go crazy every post I save it for ever couple of weeks/months. I’ll be back to the regular scheduled programming tomorrow. Have an AWESOME day!