Meal Planning {6.5.23} and weekend recap

Happy Monday morning! I hope you had a great weekend! We had some fun in the sun...and rain. 

We decided to play tennis Saturday morning, and of course as soon as we got to the courts, it started POURING. So we were just going to wait out the rain. As the saying goes, if you don't like the weather in Florida, just wait 5 minutes. 

Well, apparently, my girls can't wait 5 minutes, lol, so they decided to play in the rain. It did eventually stop, and I joined them for an hour or so. 

Then, later, they walked back to the park (this is the summer of independence for them - they are loving it!) to play some basketball. Notice now how it's sunny??

The rain kept at bay, so I could go for my nightly walk. I love this time. I take 30 minutest to go for a walk and listen to my audiobook. 

I found a new pair of shorts that I LOVE. I will buying these in all the colors, but I'm currently obsessed with these neon yellow ones!

Morning sunrises, still going strong - there's something about starting your mornings like this. 

and trying out new hairstyles on the girls. My girls have the THICKEST and longest hair ever, and they HATE putting their hair up in ponytails. I just don't get it! So, my thought is if I do fun hairstyles, they'll want to put their hair up. 

Sunday, Autumn had a birthday party for a friend at the North County pool, so naturally the other girls and I hung out too - I swam laps in the lanes, and the girls played around in the lanes. 

We're all a little sunkissed and a little blonder :) 

Ok - so since it's Monday, I'll be doing a weekend recap AND a meal planning post. 

I was doing really good with meal planning, until the school year started, even though I STILL meal planned each month (yes, I do a monthly meal plan, so that I only need to do it every few weeks. It's a game changer!)

I have them planned for "days," but I don't always do them on those days. Sometimes I don't even make them in that week - I just circle them on my monthly menu so I know I can add them to the next month's menu. You'll find the links for the recipes below

 1. Grilled Mahi - We've been using our grill A LOT. The girls used to hate grilled food because it looked "burnt" but they're realizing it's not burnt, it's flavor!

2. Loaded Nachos - A SkinnyTaste recipe. I just love some loaded nachos!

3. Tortilla Encrusted Chicken - Another new SkinnyTaste recipe. I usually really like their recipes. If you try this one, let me know what you think. 

4. Sweet & Sour Shrimp Rice Bowls - This is a new one, but it uses already make salad mix, so I'm always game for a quick and easy recipe

5. Crabcakes - this is such an easy recipe using StoveTop Stuffing. Not the healthiest, in terms of whole foods, but it's always good!

And here's what I prepped for my breakfast this morning

Sweet potato

onion

sausage

paprika

tumeric

S & P

Then each day, I'll sauté spinach and cook an egg to put on top. It's SO GOOD

One of my go-to snacks this week - it's like a pina colada yogurt!

vanilla yogurt (your favorite - this one is my new favorite right now!)

dried pineapple

coconut

cinnamon

walnuts

Shower Ring Tank Top Hanger

One of my friends posted a picture on her FB the other day of an idea she saw. She took shower rings and put her tank tops on them to hang them up!! 

Shower Rings.

What the what?!  I have so many workout tanks and they're always getting smooshed in the drawer. And what else gets lost in the drawer?? My sports bras.  So I hung those up too!

She put her rings on the hanger, but I have an entire bottom rack of my closet that isn't getting used, so I hung them up there.

Isn't it brilliant?!? Now I never have to go fishing in the drawer! Especially while I'm doing bootcamp before it's light out and I have to get dressed in the dark. 

Here is it is on a hanger, in case you don't have a wire rack or rod to hang them on.  I feel like the hanger would snap in half - but maybe using the wooden ones??

Whole Foods vs. Trader Joe's

The other day, my mom and I drove to Winter Park. We wanted to try out Trader Joe's and Whole Foods.  We don't have any stores like that in our town...well, we do, but it's pretty small. There's always so much hype over these stores, so we decided to give it a try! 

First we went to Trader Joe's.  The girls were just so excited to get their own cart!

I already had a lot of what I would normally get there in stock in my pantry, so I was just kind of comparing prices.  I did however, find some YUMMY frozen meals (like eggplant and veggie mix!). And I found this peanut butter goodness.

I already use PB2, but I thought I'd give this a try too.

Then we headed to Whole Foods.  

This place was a bigger and had a lot more pantry goods.

I found some Goji berries, which I haven't been able to find at my local Publix.

And some Coco-Roons, which the TIU girls talk about a lot. Look at all those flavors!

So, here's my vote on the two stores.

While Whole Foods has a lot more pantry goods, and a fancy cheese and wine section, they are more expensive.

I really liked the "meals" that Trader Joe's had to offer, and how Trader Joe's even has their own line of food and meals, which are actually really good! They were cheaper too.

Which do you prefer? Do you have a different store in your town?

8 Week TIU Bikini Series Results Are In!

Well, the results are in from the 8 week bikini series that I joined from Tone It Up. 

I've blogged about the journey in this series {HERE} and {HERE}.

Before I get to the visual results (pictures of my progress!), I want to share with you some NON-scale victories. Well, actually, I don't have scale numbers for you anyway. I just go by how my clothes are fitting and my measurements. And not only can I fit into my clothes again, but they are lose! Like, when you pull your jeans out of the dryer and you spend 30 minutes stretching them out to get them comfortable?? Yeah... when I pull my jeans out of the dryer, they already fit! And then later, they are too big. I love that! Except that means I need new jeans. oh darn - must go shopping!

For one thing... my eating habits.

They have changed SO much! I am a carb-o-holic! I am one of those people that would have pasta for dinner and bread, cereal for breakfast, maybe some rice or a sandwich for lunch... chips (Tortilla chips) for snacks... I LOVE me some carbs! Well, since this Nutrition plan told me what to eat, I ate what it told me to. And guess what rarely appeared in the plan??

Carbs.

Yep. And guess what?  I didn't even realize it until like week 7!  Seriously.

The other day, I was making one of my favorite TIU meals, and I noticed something... most of my meals look like this now....

LOTS of green!

This is one of the few times that carbs make an appearance... the Chili Lime Shrimp Tacos. I love this recipe - I could eat it every week.

If you know me, then you know that I've always worked out. But during this 8 week series, I really made every effort to workout every day. 

Pbviously there are just some days that don't work out that way, but I have just made it part of my schedule and it's just an automatic thing!  During the school year I workout after the kids go to bed, somewhere around 7:30 or 8:00 at night.  During the summer, I get to go back to bootcamp, which means 5:30 in the morning booty calls!

And I have also started getting back into running! I ran my first 10K on Mother's Day.... then I realized that was my new goal, so one day when I went for my run, I decided to do my route again and I ran a whole 10K without stopping!! Must be all those Chia seeds helping with my endurance - ha!

Since I've gone done some inches, it was time for updated workout clothes!

So I went shopping for a few things. Plus, I realized I needed some compression pants for long distance running... figured that out the hard way. Holy chaffing!

So it's the end of the 8 week series... and here are the PICTURE results!

This was me in February... No, it wasn't the start of the 8 week series, but it was close enough. And not much had changed since these pictures anyway.

And HERE are my after pictures!

I still have a lot of work to do, but I am way happier with this body than the other one!  I can fit into my clothes again... I can run 6 miles without stopping! My eating habits are healthier and when I crave the sweets, I know how to do it without going overboard. I can go to the beach and walk around in my bikini and feel good about it! 

I can't wait to start the next series - I'm ready to get Fit, Fierce, and Fabulous!

First Day of Summer Vacay!

I'm officially on summer vacation!! I'm pretty excited. We get two full months of "relaxation," Yeah. Right. Teachers still do stuff in the summer.  But that's another post.

Anywhos.

I started my first day of vacation waking up BEFORE the sun came up! I know. Call me crazy. But the summer time is when I get to go back to bootcamp! I wake up between 4:30 and 4:45 to get to bootcamp by 5:30. Some mornings I have to leave early because Ron has to leave by 6:30ish, but that's ok. I get most of the workout and then I can do something later to "finish" it up.

I love starting my day off with a workout. It really gets your day started off the right way..and makes you really think about what you're putting into your body for the rest of the day.

Seriously.

So then I came home and hung out with the girls for a bit...

That smile.  

After Caroline got up from her morning nap, we headed out to finalize Brooklynn's registration for school next year! She's not old enough for VPK, but she's going to a 3 year old class. She's super excited. She might be excited because she walked Autumn to school every day last year. Or maybe it's because she checks the mailbox every day for her lunchbox that I ordered. Who knows. Both are equally exciting I think.

 Then it was home again for lunch and more quality time.

Something was so funny - she is just too much!!

If you're wondering why, of all people, did I not spend my first day at the beach?? Well, that's because it was raining all day.

I also did some yoga. See?? During the summer, I get to workout twice in one day! Amazing.

Most of you know that I love doing BeachBody workouts. In fact, I'm thinking of getting another one! ha!

But I also do a lot of workouts from Tone It Up. They have a lot of YouTube videos. I've saved some to my Tone It Up Channel on my YouTube, if you want to take a look, it's {HERE}.

So what does one get to eat while she's home all day??

Well, after I came home from my morning workout, I made a shake (Shakeology) and a few hours later, I had one of my favorite breakfasts from the Bikini Series (from Tone It Up).

Breakfast Banana Bowl

And for lunch, I made one of my favorite go-tos....

Tuna salad - it's basically whatever you want, but I use the 100 calorie tuna pouches (the lemon pepper and the hickory smoke are my favorite flavors!), tomatoes, scallions, celery, cucumbers, sea salt and pepper, and a tiny bit of mayo...just to moisten it up.  So yum.  I could eat it every day!

I also made this yummy snack..

It's peanut butter, honey, chia seeds, and cinnamon. Yum!

Who knows what tomorrow will bring!!

But it's the last week of the Bikini Series from Tone It Up!  I'm kind of excited to see the results from the 8 week series! I'll be sure to post pictures.

And then it's on to the next TIU venture!

It's time to get Fit, Fierce and Fab!

A photo posted by @jrossgetsfit on May 31, 2015 at 10:38am PDT

By the way, if you didn't know, I started a separate instagram for my fitness journey. So now I have 3 different accounts - haha.... @teacherbythebeach for my teacher blog, @jrossgetsfit for my fitness journey, and @jenross1018 for my "everything" else!

TIU Helping to lose the Baby Weight!

Oh. My. Gosh.

You guys.  I have finally reached a point where I am happy with how I look!!

Let me show you a before shot... this was in January - 2 months after I had Caroline.

But first let me tell you... I know that it takes 9 months to gain the weight, so you should expect it to take 9 months to loose the weight. But with Autumn, I was in my pre-pregnancy clothes when I went back to work 2 months later. And I worked HARD to get where I was before I got pregnant with Autumn. I worked out and ate healthy and lost about 40 pounds. I was happy with how I was. After 3 babies, my body is taking a little longer to lose. But here it is... in all my "glory" - 2 months after having baby Caroline.

(BAH!! I am closing my eyes in disbelief that I'm showing you this... it's pretty scary.) I was NOT happy about this...and it wasn't coming off either!! FINALLY about 2 months ago, in March, I think? My friend and I bought and signed up for the Tone it Up Bikini Series Nutrition Plan.

We are starting week 6 next week...and LOOK at this huge difference!  (Yes, I realize I have a shirt on in this picture,but you can still see a huge difference!)

I am still doing the same workouts...just changed my eating to an even healthier eating. I am down to where I was before I got pregnant with Brooklynn.... And only about 8 more pounds until I'm at where I was before I got pregnant with Autumn! 

Eating healthy and working out. The tried and true and LASTING way.  Be good to your body!

Eating Healthy...With TIU

Every time I go grocery shopping, I have the same thought. So I thought I'd finally blog about it.

Do you ever stop and look at your cart as you're shopping??  I have a system of shopping. I do all the aisles first, then I do the perimeter and produce and deli sections.

And when I'm finished going through ALL the aisles, this is usually what my cart looks like:

Yes, shopping with 3 kids is always fun. lol

Really, the only thing I ever get in the aisles are canned veggies (like corn and diced tomatoes), beans, quinoa, spices, and such...

But after I go through the perimeter??

Yep... my cart overfloweth!  And that's really how it should be. Load up on meats, seafood, veggies, fruits, yogurt (I get big tubs of greek 0% fat) and milks...yes milks... we have regular milk, and 3 different kinds of almond milks. 

So this is my fridge when I get home...

Jammed pack! We actually don't even have enough room for all the fruits and veggies...and we have a fridge in the garage for our overflow of milks and veggies and meats.

If you follow me on FB or IG, then you know that I started the Bikini Series from the Tone It Up girls.   

(that's their mermaid workout.. how perfect for me!?)

They give you 8 weeks of meal plans and recipes... I am loving it!!

Here are some of my favorites so far...

The Root Down Salad (minus the beets)

The Spicy Shrimp Tacos - so YUM!!

Quick Bean Salad

And I start my morning with the Bombshell spell... EVERY morning.

 This is the Baja Burrito Bowl... oh my lanta. So good!

And this is the Breakfast Banana Bowl... or was. Haha

I'm going to be honest here. I do NOT like spinach. I have tried it every way possible. I WANT to like it because I know what a superfood it is. The Breakfast Banana Bowl calls for spinach to be blended in the yogurt. I was going to bypass this recipe. So glad I didn't! ! It was so good! 

After 2 weeks of doing the TIU Nutrition Plan I can feel such a difference in my body from eating the RIGHT way...things I never would've tried on my own. AND I can see a difference in my body. My tire is slowly shrinking...but the amount of "grab" I have on my sides is significantly smaller and my stomach is tighter! I love it!

Of course I'm still getting in my workouts when I can. I try to go running at least twice a week and run at least a 5K.  I try to do yoga at least once, if not twice and the other workouts I like to do weights. LOVE Pump from Beachbody!

Just remember...  if you don't try, you're going to get the same results you've always gotten. And my friend posted this on her FB the other day, and I think it's so perfect!

So now, I must go and meal prep what I can for the week!! Kia Kaha!