Wordless Wednesday No. 52

October Goals

Don’t worry we’ll let you know how we did on those September goals soon, but in an effort to not delay putting out there what we want to accomplish in October we are getting these goals out there to the world.  Time to get busy!

Teal – 

1.  Log food in myfitnesspal EVERYDAY. You should follow me! I will follow you, we can keep each other accountable! I am teal0906 on there. 🙂

2.  Wake up 4 mornings per weekday and workout, even if it is just 30 minutes. Choose 1 day to take off.

3.  Prep meals. I use to do this religiously and haven’t… hence the Mexican food twice in one day!

4.  Minimum of 64oz of water daily. I need more because I am so active but I am not even getting 64… must fix.

5.  If I am going to eat a cookie it can only be 1 and when I say cookie I also mean any other sugary treat that I feel like I can’t live without.  Just 1, not 4, not 7, not the entire box, just 1. I say this because if I say absolutely no to these treats I really will eat them all.

Beth – 

1.  Pretty much since I’m in that book club now and I have a reading goal for this year on goodreads.com I’m just going to make y’all read every month about my goals.  I’m super pumped because the third book in the Divergent series comes out this month and I canNOT wait to read it! 🙂  So this will at least be one of my two books to read this month.

2.  I’m still working towards an organized home… 🙂  Will I ever accomplish this? I have a collection of boxes in three different places right now and my goal is to go through them, throw things away and either put the leftovers in the attic or some other place they can live.

3.  This goal basically let’s you know I did not meet a goal last month, so again this month I shall make a window treatment for at least one of the three windows in my house I have fabric to do said project! I’m going to do it!

4. Yoga! Is it annoying that I keep just repeating goals?! I really want to make sure I’m getting in yoga during my marathon training because I know it’ll be soooo beneficial come December 8th when I’m taking on those 26.2 miles at Dallas Marathon!

What are you trying to accomplish this month??

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Lunch

If you look back at the breakfast post then you will know how to make it to the 3^rd meal of the day. We will combine the 3^rd and 4^th meal of the day together because that just makes it a little easier to understand.

What you would need to take from Advocare:

Advocare Products used during this time are both optional. Let me repeat: Advocare Products used during this time are both OPTIONAL. If you want to take something  you would take up to 3 catalyst 30 minutes before lunch.  You could also take a spark drink with lunch or with your after lunch snack. Both optional, but we wanted you to know you have that choice. Some people also take up to 2 Omegaplex, take either here or at dinner. That is up to you and will not mess you up if you alternate or switch.

Lunch Food options:

Choose 1 protein from this list: Grilled chicken, salmon, tuna, turkey (not processed), 3 eggs or lean ground beef

Choose 1 complex carb from this list: ½ cup of brown rice, sweet potato, or brown or whole wheat pasta

Choose as many veggies as you would like: Anything green is your first option and yes avocado is ok. Lettuce, broccoli, zucchini, green beans, asparagus, spinach, cucumber or celery. Also tomatoes and onions are OK.

*If making a salad use salsa or fresh lemon and lime.

Afternoon Snack:  Choose 1 thing from below

1 cup of fruit (same list from breakfast)

Serving of nuts (same list from breakfast)

1 Rice cake and peanut butter

Raw veggies (as much as you want)

Things to avoid:

• Alcohol (You’re on the Cleanse – hold off for 10 days!)

• Coffee, Sodas, Energy Drinks (only drink Spark or Slam)

• White foods/Starches (e.g. white pasta, bagels, white bread, white rice, processed foods, crackers and chips)

• Sauces

• Cooking with Oils (it is best to cook with Water or Broth)

• Sugar, Honey, Desserts- (except for fresh fruits – these are good sugars on the 10-day Cleanse)

• Cheese & Mushrooms (both are “molds” and will help keep toxins alive)

• If at all possible, avoid Dairy Products (cow’s milk, yogurt, butter, etc…dairy products contain lots of sugars and will feed the toxins)

• Fatty Foods, Fried Foods, Fast Foods, Meat with skin or breading

• Salad dressings (due to the fat and oil content – use Salsa or fresh squeezed lemon juice and spices instead)

• Canned fruit or vegetables

• Dried fruit coated with sugar

• Instant rice or oatmeal (cook the real deal)

Things we have eaten:

• Amazeballs a.k.a. Clean Eating Meatballs

• Southwest Quinoa Salad

• Vegetable Tuna Salad

• Chicken Taco Meat Salad

• Green Chili & Vegetable Soup

• Stuff Bell Peppers

• Tosca Reno’s Slow Cooker Mexican Chicken

Tour des Fleurs 10K

By now you’ve probably learned that with some of our weekends we really like to go big or go home and by that we mean fit ALL of the things into one weekend. 🙂  Our Wordless Wednesday post was a glimpse into everything we had going on this past weekend.

We kicked it off Saturday morning by running the Tour des Fleurs 10K at the Arboretum just like we’ve done every September for the last 5 and 6 years.  And per usual our friend Bitner also participated in the race with us, but this year we also made Catherine join in the fun as well!

You can probably tell from the picture that Bitner was a little cold that morning – ha!  A “cold” front had come through and we woke up in Dallas to temperatures in the 60’s.  It was woooonderful and a big change from the heat!  By the time we catch a shuttle bus from the parking lot to the Arboretum and walk through the Arboretum to the race area we aren’t really there that early and it’s time to start the race.  Off we all go on our merry way.

Running along White Rock Lake as we have done every year at this race.  We make it to the one “major” hill on the course that’s almost at the halfway mark.  Beth encounters a runner that’s running a zig zag pattern up the hill with her fingers out dancing along to her music.  We turn the corner and the hill is over! There’s a 3 mile marker sign. Huh? Where was the 2 mile marker sign?  Oh, well surely someone just messed up. Running, running.  Hey 5 mile marker sign.  Ok, this is just messed up!  We are a little over a mile off from these mile markers.  Beth opted to go music-less for this race and no one else around her was commenting about the markers so she kind of assumed maybe she just took a wrong turn because it wouldn’t have been the first time (hello, Too Hot to Handle 2011!).  Teal right away knew something was wrong with the course and reaffirmed that with other runners around here.

It turned out that the lead officer took that right turn onto the “big” hill instead of going straight a little bit further and us coming back to the hill.   And then there really wasn’t a person out there to direct racers either, so we all ended up running a 5.15 mile race. PR’s for everyone! 🙂

When the race was over we each grabbed our finisher’s hats (THANKS for bringing those back, TDF!!) and made our way to the after party.  They do throw a darn good after party with beer, lots of different food options and some free schtuff.

see the free schutff in our hands?

One of the best parts about this race is getting to walk around the Arboretum afterwards and see all the pumpkins and gourds out all over the place.  The majority of the time it doesn’t feel like Fall is even that close when we do this race, but we absolutely love getting to see the Arboretum all done up for Fall.

There were a lot of racers whose family came with them and were taking their children out of strollers to have their pictures taken amongst the pumpkins.  As you know we don’t have kids so we opted to put Bitner in the pumpkins and take his picture. 🙂  He loves of us, clearly, because he puts up with us doing these things!

It is sad that the race wasn’t a true 10K, but we love this race!  We can still remember the feelings of nervousness when we were running our first 10Ks. So far!  It’s a bit pricey, but considering the great after party, the finisher’s hat (though they were gone for two years) and the free entry into the Arboretum it’s a good deal! We’ll be back!

Wordless Wednesday 39

Advocare Ten Day Cleanse: Breakfast

We get tons of questions about how exactly to do the Advocare 10 day Cleanse and typically it is just about the food choices one should or should not be making.

It seems to range from What the heck can I eat? to Can I actually eat anything? as well as timing and really anything else you can think of we’ve probably been asked it! 🙂  Trust us we’ve been asked some crazy questions which we actually love!  It has helped us learn a lot more and get that much more knowledgeable!  In an effort to help YOU we wanted to share this information and perhaps make the cleanse easier.

Over the next week or so we will be breaking down each meal for you so that we can clear some things up for everyone and again, make it SO much easier!

Naturally, we thought we’d kick things off with breakfast – that makes sense right??

When you wake up:

• Take the Fiber Drink (days 1 – 3 and 8 – 10) and Probiotic Restore (days 4 – 10) – drink a large glass of water
• Optional: Drink a Spark for energy and take catalyst before eating
• Thirty minutes later (don’t freak out – you will not ruin it if you do eat in that range of time) eat breakfast.

Timing:

Wake up, immediately take the fiber drink, wait 30 minutes (or just get ready for work), eat your first meal after the 30 minutes, wait approximately 2 hours and then eat your second meal of the day.

What to eat:

This can get a little confusing because the Cleanse says to eat 5 to 6 small meals a day.  The first two small meals I like to just refer to as “breakfast” and will often times swap the order out depending on how I feel so the options below would work for your first two meals of the day (Advocare refers to this as “breakfast” and “mid-morning snack”).  These are in order of preference on the Cleanse for weight loss:

1. Bowl of fruit of your choice (about a cup to a cup and a half)

• the lower on the glycemic index the better! Think berries, cherries, apples, pears, grapefruit, apricots – these are all lower in sugar.  If you go with melons, mangoes, papayas, pineapples – these are all higher in sugar.  They won’t ruin your cleanse at all and they are obviously healthy, but if you think about it go less sugar for the 10 days.

2. Meal replacement shake.

• Advocare has a replacement shake, but if you have a favorite you already use then you can use that.

source

• Be creative! We do protein with a mixture of fruits and veggies with water.  Sometimes we use a little bit of unsweetened almond milk, but this is not the *best* as some people stall with weight loss using milks so it’s not ideal.
• Spinach, celery and kale all lose their flavors when mixed with fruit! 🙂

3. Three eggs (cooked however you want, but try not to add to them with any oil or butter and do not be afraid of the yolk!)

• Omelet with veggies (spinach, peppers, mushrooms, onion, tomatoes – it’s all OK!)
• Pouched
• Scrambled
• Hard-boiled
• Make egg cups with veggies

4. Plain oatmeal (limit carbs like this to 1 time per day)

• Do NOT go to Starbucks or the drive through at McDonald’s because they have convinced you this is a healthy choice – it’s fully of sugar!  We are talking PLAIN oatmeal with an emphasis on the PPPLLLAIN.  This means made at home, you control the intake, plain oatmeal.  If you must add things stick to fruit, stevia or cinnamon.

5. Nuts (2 ounces, we would also say stick with tree nuts, i.e., macadamia nuts, brazil nuts, cashews, almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, chestnuts, beechnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, gingko nuts and hickory nuts)

Tips:

Do NOT over think this!

Eliminate all processed foods

Think protein before carbs

If it is not real food do not eat it

Drink TONS of fluids

Get a friend to join you!

It is only 10 days.  You will NOT die and you can add things back later that you might have missed so do not think we took all dairy from you for life or bread for that matter! Neither are the best for you, but you can have some back later.

Happy Cleansing!

September Goals

Oh, good! We are getting our goals for the month up before it’s officially the half way mark. 🙂

Teal –

1. Clean out the back bedroom. Just look at this mess. Enough said and now I am sufficiently embarrassed!

2.  Join Soul Motivation yoga and go 2 times per week. I used to do yoga at 24 Hour Fitness with the guy (Joseph) who now owns Soul Motivation. He left 24 Hour obviously but I have so missed him. It’s pretty far from my house but it’s worth it. Just need to get my butt up there.

3. Make healthy popsicles! I am in a search for healthy popsicle recipes! I know summer is basically over but its Texas so I still have awhile! I bought super cool Popsicle molds like a month ago and have not even attempted to use them. This must change!

Beth – 

Don’t kill me if my goals are pretty much the same as last month! Still working perfecting them.

1. Our house is still a work in progress obviously and I’m pretty positive every month for awhile I could work on a new house project.  This month my house project is to actually make window treatments for at least one window.  I have fabric for two and then remember I wanted to make some for a third window as well.  So I’m starting small with one window and hope I actually accomplish more.

2. Read two books.  On goodreads I set a challenge of reading 26 books this year and have been on track or ahead by just a liiiittle bit all year long.  Need to keep that up. I also joined a book club a couple of months ago, so I’ll be reading Serena by Ron Rash as one of my books to be ready for our next meeting!

3. YOGA!!  Still with the goals and needing to get them done!

Here’s to hoping we’ve been working on these for the past 12 days already if not we’ve got a lot of work to do! 😉  Hope your September is going great!

August Report Card

Here’s how we measured up for the month of August!

Teal –

1.  I HATE doing weight lose goals because I always disappoint myself because my body clearly loves all of its fat (and you probably roll your eyes that this is another stupid weight goal), BUT this month is the month before my birthday and  IF I lost 5 pounds I would weigh what my goal was for 30. So it would have taken me until 31 and a rather roller coaster year for my weight but it would be off! SOOOOO there you go, lose 5 pounds and make my 30 year old goal weight (not really what I want in life just what I wanted at 30) but really do it at 31!

C- : I ultimately lost like 2.5 pounds if I get to count the morning weight! Hahaha.  We shall keep working on the forever struggle of being consistent, healthy, and fighting the fat gene!

2.  I changed my half marathon training plan slightly from Beth’s because I don’t want to burn myself out like I did last time so my goal is to make my runs! This is totally doable because I have basically started an “I am a newbie and haven’t run” training plan to not destroy my love of running again!

B: I have missed a few “short” runs but have been getting the longer ones in and loving my plan. I do not feel discouraged, slow, or overwhelmed by the plan. I know my next half marathons will not be my “fastest” but I am 100% ok with just enjoying the run!

Beth – 

1.  To get up once a week and do a workout before work.  If you follow me on twitter you pretty much know that usually on Tuesday & Thursday mornings I am up at Private Training Zone by 6:00 a.m. to get in an hour of weights with Johnny and the other ladies in my workout group.  This goal would mean I have to get up an additional morning to do a workout on my own.  There was a time when I would do this with yoga, but that has been awhile and I know I just need to transition into this type of routine.  Let’s hope this makes a habit of it!

F: Haha, this one is gonna take a lot of work on my part.  I’ve reverted back lately to even having a hard time wanting to get out of bed for my Tuesday & Thursday mornings, but I do!  I did get up early in the first week of August, but it was to try and get a bunch of reading done for my book club. lol

2. Finish yet another project at our house.

A+: There are now two walls in my house that are no longer blank! Hooray!  I even bought some fabric for a window decoration project, but still have a few more supplies to get for that one!

now to finish accessorizing the shelves 🙂

3. YOGA! Haha, my goals are back and the idea for this month is to get in at least 3 yoga classes a week. 

C-: Ok, so there were two weeks where I didn’t go, BUT I still went to yoga 10 times throughout the month of August so that’s why I’m still giving myself a C range grade.  All things considered with Birthday celebrations and work picking up steam with busyness I’m proud of those 10.  I love me some yoga and glad I’m making it a priority during this marathon training cycle!

this was before I missed a week…then another….

 

See you tomorrow when we lay out all of our hopes and dreams for the month of September! 😉

Happy National Teal Day!!

(Top left: Girls Beach Trip to Cancun 2006, top right: Marge & Homer a.k.a. Teal & Michael – Halloween 2007, bottom left: Rebekah & Zac’s wedding September 2007, and bottom right: Rebekah’s Birthday March 2007 [Beth, Teal & Rebekah])

(Left: Teal & Beth dancing at Teal & Michael’s wedding November 2008 – obvs, top right: the night before Teal’s wedding! and bottom right: Teal and her sweet MIL)

(Top left: Girls Beach Trip to the Dominican Republic and Teal being awesome :), top right: riding the catamaran on our excursion on DR beach trip [Mandy, Beth & Teal], bottom left: Girls Beach Trip 2009 – Kaua’i, Hawaii, and bottom right: shave ice at Matsumoto on the North Shore of Honolulu)

(Top left: Teal’s 28th Birthday, top right: Michael & Teal as Bacon & Eggs for Halloween, bottom left: Teal & Brent, and bottom right: Beth, Teal and Mary Alice before White Rock Marathon [our first half])

B is for Back to School, Birthdays, Barbies & More!

It seems like for the first time in a looong time we had a completely race-less month! We have had a couple times where one of us made a race without the other, but August 2013 was completely race-less for both of us!

But it worked out for us and was in hindsight just what we needed. Also, yes, we know y’all are tired of hearing us say we are busy.  We are too and really who isn’t?! And let’s just go ahead and stop with the glorifying of that word. Many of y’all might not know that Teal took a new job and is back to the world of middle school and this time as a counselor! So if you were tracking her professional timeline it would be 5 years as a middle school teacher, 1 year as a high school counselor and now the new gig back in middle school.

In Beth’s family everyone was born in August. OK, not really but it sure feels like it. 🙂 It starts with celebrating her Mom’s birthday (hi, Fancy Nancy!), moves into an August birthday celebration that includes her uncle, aunt, sister and husband and ends with at least some sort of friend celebration for sister (Kate) and husband (Brent). Since those last two are just two days apart in birth days it makes it that much more fun (challenging)!

Kate’s surprise Birthday party was a success!

Teal & Michael got Brent this awesome Aggie Yell Leader Barbie as a Birthday present. Best Birthday present ever!

 

Thankfully, we’ve still had time to de-stress with running! We’ve put in a lot of hill work in the month of August with our fellow NTX Runners.  Actually that statement is true for pretty much the entire summer!

We’ve also added to our fall racing calendar with a not so surprising registration for Dallas Marathon!  It is our halfiversary race!  This year will be the 4th year we’ve participated in some form of this race (half or marathon).

So, anyway, we survived race-less August, we’ve been doing our training for Dallas, but now that it’s September bring on the next race!

What have YOU been up to? 🙂