30 Day Green Smoothie Challenge!

I recently got into juicing with my moms Jack Lalanne Juicer, from inspiration from my friend Kim! While I love using the machine and the juice is so fresh I also recently discovered a neat website dedicated to educating others about the benefits to drinking green smoothies. I was actually on Pinterest looking for recipes for juicing when I found an article from the Simple Green Smoothies website explaining why you need to rotate your greens. I posted the article on facbook to share with my friends who might be interested in reading it. The next day I received a text message from a distant friend whom I miss dearly (Paige) asking if I was going to join their 30 challenge, after I got home I looked more into it and its free and fun so why not! 

Background: 

A little background on why there is suddenly a fire under my (ars)  to get in shape and lose some weight. Bubba is almost 2 and I currently weigh the same amount I did when I was pregnant with him! Awesome! NOT! Do we need more reasons? Here's another, I am leaving on a trip in 8 months to a small paradise with just my hubby and amazing amount of wine and beaches.. I want to be able to enjoy myself and feel good about it.. nuff said!

After Bubba was born I just have not found motivation to work out like I used to. Nor have I found a good system for childcare to work out. Hubby has had a crazy hectic schedule up until a couple weeks ago and hasn't been home or able to be home in time for me to go to a class. :/

We both have been letting our weigh slide and so we agreed to motivate each other to work out and eat better. I got him the fitbit flex for christmas to help him track his progress. I am choosing to do this 30 day challenge and adding some other healthy boosters and plan to track my progress in MyFitnessPal.

Exercise:

Hubby and I are now on Week 2 day 4 of C25K program on our phones. It has actually been pretty fun! After we put the boys to bed, we suit up in our workout clothes and head to the basement. We turn on something entertaining we both like to watch and start walking for our warmup. One of us on the treadmill, the other doing laps around the basement (while also picking up toys, lol) Then we rotate whoever is running is on the treadmill and whoever is walking is off. (C25K is a free program that works by slowing getting you moving by off alternating between walking and running small distances, and slowly building up until after 8 weeks, you're ready to run 5 kilometers or 30 minutes non stop.)

After the 30 mins is over I do some circut work and and he does some more walking and or running then we stretch. 

I am over the moon excited to find out there is a Zumba class that has childcare available in my town. I just found this out and so I am going to enroll in the class and if hubby is home I will leave the kids, if he is not I will be able to bring them with and they can play while I work out for an hour. SWEET! I also like how they have 3 classes a week and one being Saturday morning! 

Diet:

We are going to continue to our clean eating diet of mainly meats, vegetables very little dairy and legumes, breads and starches. (paleo) and try harder to eat smaller portions. 

Like I said before I am adding some other drink supplements for me to my daily intake these include: 

• Jillian Michaels Detox Water: (60oz water, 2 tbs lemon juice, 1 tbs fresh cranberry juice, 1 dandalion root tea bag.) I drink this in place of my 8 glasses of plain water a day.
• Apple Carrot Ginger Juice: (3 apples, 1 carrot, 1 inch ginger root) This is my snack drink when I am feeling hungry between meals
• Green Juice Smoothie: (2 cups green leafs, 1 cup water/ coconut water/ green tea, 1 cup frozen fruit, 1 cup fresh fruit, 1 Tbs coconut oil/ avocado, 1 Tbs chia seeds/ 1 Tbs Flax oil, 3 tabs spirulina) either my breakfast or lunch meal for 30 days
• I also plan to eat more nuts for snacks. 

Goals:

After 5 lbs lost: Get my nails done. 

After 10 lbs lost: Treat myself to a day at The Float Tank!

After 15 lbs lost: Buy a new workout outfit

After 20 lbs lost: Treat myself to a massage!

After 30 lbs lost: New Haircolor & Cut!

After 40 lbs lost: $200 spree for new clothes

Taken 12/27/13

Pre-made detox water, apple carrot ginger juice and yesterdays leftover green smoothie

Smoothie boosters (Chia seeds, Flax Oil, Organic Spirulina, Coconut Oil, & Raw Local Honey)

Fresh fruit for snacks and smoothies

The recipe guide I follow

Simple Green Smoothies formula. (makes 2 -16oz smoothies)

Seriously you guys, wish me luck!! :) 

Wanna join me on this journey? Sign up here (no need to have a link, just your name and photo): 

Freezer Crockpot Meals

Me and a group of my friends got together one weekend day to put together some freezer meals for all of us. We have all seen it done on Pinterest and they make it look so easy!

We decided each of us would pick two recipes, then we would buy enough so each person coming could bring home 20 freezer meals. There was 5 of us coming so each of us had to multiply our recipes by 10!

(The math still gets me all confused.. haha)

Here are the recipes:

Cashew Chicken:
http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2011/10/slow-cooker-cashew-chicken.html?m=1
Honey Sesame Chicken:
http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/01/slow-cooker-honey-sesame-chicken-recipe.html?m=1
Penne Pasta:
http://www.fiskerellibellies.com/2012/01/pasta-lasagna.html
Creamy Chicken Enchiladas:
http://www.hotcouponworld.com/2012/02/freezer-meal-creamy-chicken-enchiladas/
Teriyaki chicken: http://melissafallistestkitchen.blogspot.com/2011/09/freezer-cooking-slow-cooker-meals.html
Black Bean and Corn Salsa Chicken:
http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2011/09/slow-cooker-black-bean-and-corn-salsa.html
Orange-Apricot Pork Chops:
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2009/01/orange-apricot-pork-chops-in-crockpot.html
Lasagna:
http://www.momswhothink.com/easy-recipes/lasagna-recipe.html

Tortilla Chicken Soup:
1 pkg of red beans and rice (Zatarain's)
1 1/2 lbs diced chicken
2 cans (15oz) diced tomatoes
2 cans chicken broth or 1- 32oz
1/2 onion, diced
Dash of chili powder
shredded cheese
Tortilla chips or Fritos
Sour cream to top
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in gallon ziplock bag, double bag it for security.
Defrost overnight in fridge, place in crockpot, cook on low for 4-6 hours
Serve with cheese, sour cream, and chips

Potato Soup: (doubled)

1/2-1 lb of bacon, crumbled

1 large can of chicken broth

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 8oz package of cream cheese

8-12 potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 clove of garlic, minced ( optional)

Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat over med. heat until potatoes are cooked through.

Here is my grocery list: Just for the 2 recipes I brought.
*30 lbs chicken breast or tenders
*5 cups honey
*3.5 cups soy sauce
*2.5 cups diced onion
*2 cups ketchup
*Minced garlic
*5 cups cashews
*Jasmine rice
Flour
Cornstarch
1.25 cups rice wine vinegar
10 tbsp brown sugar
Fresh ginger
(* indicates Costco purchase)

How It Works:

Get your friends: Get a group of friends that want to spend an afternoon chatting, drinking coffee or WINE, and who also want to save some time not having to prepare meals throughout the month, and save money buy buying in bulk.
Plan a day: Once you have figured out who is going to come, pick a day when everyone can be child free for 4-6 hours. (2 for the shopping, 4 for the prep)
Decide how much to make: We picked 2 recipes each for 5 people, which ends up making 20 meals for each person, or 100 meals total. Keep in mind how much room you have in your freezer. 18-20 is the max my freezer can hold. If you have a deep freezer your could do more.
Get the Food: Since chicken is so popular in so many recipes it would be smart for you all to go in on a big bulk chicken buy from a food coop or farmer. We however didn't do that but instead just bought all our groceries individually at local grocery stores or Costco. When picking recipes think about how many onions you might have to cut up or potatoes you might have to peel. lol
Bring Supplies: You will need enough measuring spoons and cups for each person coming, will need enough gallon ziplock bags for each crockpot recipe we just got a big bulk box of them at costco. Will need enough baking containers recipes that require baking instead of crockpot. Gallon pitchers to hold the gallon ziplock bags. Also enough bags to bring all your meals home in.
Prepping the Food: To save time we all precooked our meat before meeting up at our host's house(if the recipe called for that). Then when we got there all we had to do was assemble the recipes.
Assembly: What we found was fastest was to set up an assembly line, 1 gallon pitchers work fantastically for holding gallon ziplock bags for the crockpot meals.

1. So we set up 10 pitchers or pots to hold the ziplock bags for the first recipe.
2. Set up an assembly line each of us responsible for putting one ingredient in each bag till all the ingredients are in the bag.
3. Then we zipped them all up and set them outside (it was 25 degrees out) to chill until we were all done.
4. Reset the ziplock bags in the pitchers and pots and fill with next recipe.

If your doing pasta or lasagna or something that needs to be baked, it works the same just filling some aluminum tins instead of ziplock bags.

If everyone helps prep and assemble each recipe at a time it will go faster than everyone trying to do their own at once.

We each spent an average of $175 on our groceries for our 2 recipes we brought ingredients for.

Which ends up being $8.75 each meal

End of the Night

 

100 Freezer Meals Prepared!

The Dishes.. lol

Tortilla Chicken Soup

Gallon Pitcher holding a Gallon Ziplock bag

PB & J Roll Ups

Saw this on Pinterest here: http://www.cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.com/french-toast-roll-ups/

I made a slightly different version, the boys loved it!! It is a nice change up from a regular sandwich but takes just as much time to prepare.

Ingredients :
4 slices of bread (white or wheat)
4 Tbsp Peanut Butter
2 Tbsp Jelly

Rolling pin

Directions: Roll out all the bread slices so they are flat as you can. Apply PB to each slice, apply jelly to each slice. From one end roll them each up. Serve.

You could also slice the rollup and then they are swirl bites.