Ingredients

After catching up on all the blogs that I read on a daily basis (probably like 50 or something, I know, way to many but I hate missing out on anything, lol. Joshua reads FOX news and I read blogs...) I decided that at 3:30pm I was going make myself do cardio. Like karatenurse, we are going to Puerto Rico and a Caribbean cruise in 30 days!!! I am so stinking excited about it! I mentioned before that I want to look smoking hot because I know that there will be bikini photos and what not (thanks for reminding me this morning Stacy, lol). So when I got to the gym I was amazingly PUMPED! I jumped on the treadmill and knocked out 20 mins of HITT then finished out on the elliptical. I was pouring sweat and it felt good! After the sweat session I headed home for dinner. Oh btw, Joshua helped me figure out what I did wrong on the turkey loafs. Hello Britney! Use metal pans not silicon and I took out a few ingredients that really weren't needed. So tomorrow you guys are going to have a new and improved Turkey Mini Loafs recipe! 

After dinner, which was so yum, (Turkey Mini Loaf, Veggie Melody) Joshua turned on the Netflix to see what was new. We watched this hilarious stand up comedy routine by Nicholas. I'm not sure if you guys know who he is. He was in Grandmas Boy and he played Terry the Roller Skate Boy on Reno 911. Pretty funny stuff. 

After a few good laughs we came across a documentary called Ingredients. It was "kind of" like the movie Food Inc. Which I highly recommend, both are huge eye openers. It is about local restaurant's and communities supporting their local agriculture. Since we have become fairly clean eaters I've become very interested and conscious in where my food is coming from, how it was grown and who grew it. I truly believe in sustainability. I believe that as a country we have let "big business" and the commercial food industry tell us what is good for us and have made  food far to convenient. The days of learning to farm or even growing your own veggies is seemingly lost amongst all the fast food chains.

 I will be the first to admit I know nothing about even growing a tomato, however I want to learn. I would love to be able to grow some of my own veggies or at the very least buy all of our meats and veggies from local farms. As bodybuilders or just clean eater, we know that our bodies are our temples, so why are aren't we eating the very best ingredients possible? Something to ponder on today...

How do you guys supports your local agriculture?Which reminds me that our Farmers Market is open today so I'm going to head that way! Here's to finding your NorthStar....

Want to know where you can buy locally? Check out this link. www.eatwellguide.org

Sucker Punch!

Yesterday around, I don't know 3 o'clock, I got into really bad mood. More depressed than anything. Sometimes life gets in my way and when that happens I get pissed. I will go ahead and admit that usually when something doesn't go the way that I want it to it's because I didn't follow my/our plan accordingly. Hence plan failing and turning me in to a self loathing brat. Joshua absolutely hates it when I get like this because no matter what he says or does it just doesn't help. Only ice cream can fix the situation. So on our way home we stopped by the grocery store and bought some No Sugar Added Klondike Bars. These Klondike bars are somewhat smaller than the originals and have a much thinner layer of chocolate around them. There also only 160 cals per bar and 22 grams of carbs. I likey that ;-) 

We also picked up a movie from the Blockbuster Movie Express box, Sucker Punch! We get tons of discounted movies with our Groupon codes. I think we spend like $2 and get 5 movies. It's a great deal for us because we don't mind waiting for a movie to come out on DVD and save the rest of our $8 per ticket. Movie theaters have become such a rip off these days! However they will be getting my money when The Help hits the big screen this month.. Oh yes, the book was so good! I couldn't put it down and ended up finishing it in a matter of days. Normally, if it's just an ok book it takes me a few weeks or months.... Just depends on if I'm feeling it or not. 

NE who, Joshua has been eyeing Sucker Punch for quite sometime now. Well, since it came out in theaters but like I said, we wait till it's cheap lol. Since it came to Blockbuster Express, about everytime we rent a movie he makes mention about renting it but I always snub my nose because to me it looked stupid. I'm not into comic book stuff and or video game fantasies and that's what this movie is based on. But last night I didn't care about much anything other than sitting in the recliner with him, feeling sorry for myself over a Klondike bar.. so we rented it. To my surprise it turned out to be really good! LOL Its a very "girl power" flick and I'm definitely into anything that makes women more powerful. I mean in all seriousness we do rule the world, we just let men think they do...BAHAHAHA

The movie starts out very strange and at first we just weren't sure where they were going with it. Dad kills Mom for inheritance money which she leaves to kids, Dad tries to kill kids but older daughter stops him, then she is sent to Mental Heath facility and then..... that's where it get's sketchy. It's one of those movies where you really have to follow along closely, like Inception. WOWZA, was that movie h-a-r-d, hard to follow...

So the girl in Sucker Punch is basically beaten down and treated really terrible throughout the movie however there are people that are teaching how to take control of her own future. To not be taken for granted. Sometimes good things come in small packages ;-) You guys will just to have to watch the movie to see what I mean. 

The film ends with the screen going black and Sweet Pea (The Madame trying to help her) saying that "you have all the weapons you need, now fight!" Which got me thinking. Here I am, sitting here feeling all sorry and down low, when really it's not that bad. I know what I need to do to fix the situation. Sometimes our plans don't go the way we want them to, or we don't follow them like we should, but we have two choices: be pissed or do something about it. I choose the latter. I get so mad at myself sometimes when I don't do the things I know I need to do. Weather it's putting up the laundry, doing cardio, not eating Klondike bars for comfort.. whatever it is. By choosing to do the opposite of what is going to make us successful we set ourselves up for failure. Now, I have a family to help take care of, 9 months till Jr. USA's, a business to get off the ground and  a blog to write, if I let myself fall off of the plan's that are set before me then I will have failed myself and that is just not an option. 

Im taking control of my plans and getting shit done. No more pity party's for me anytime soon! What are you taking control of?

Here's to finding your NorthStar......  

Hmmm... Where did I go wrong?

Happy Tuesday Everyone! I have been quite the productive little Figure Girl (lol I like calling myself a figure athlete sometimes, I mean for heavens sake that's what we train for day in and day out right?). I cooked several new recipes for you all, however none of them really turned out like I wanted. I just don't know where I went wrong. This is where I need Mister Britton to show me what I need to add or take away.

For instance I made Mini Turkey Meatloaf's.

I didn't have an actual turkey meatloaf recipe to follow so what I thought was why don't I take my favorite traditional meatloaf recipe and adjust it to my liking... That sounded like a good idea. 

First of all, they took FOREVER to bake... I put them in the oven originally for 30 mins @ 375 degrees. Since I measured them out in 2oz servings I assumed that 30 mins would cook them very well. Wrong, after 30 mins they looked like they were still raw and just beginning to cook. So I hit the timer for 15 more mins. Nope still not done, so another 15 mins. I then tasted one and it looked and tasted done but my gosh were they bland.... 

I guess I needed to add more spices and tweak the recipe a little more. I'm going to show it to Joshua, have him taste them and see what he thinks... dern it I thought these would be amazing.... my meatloaf is always so good... 

While they cooled I made some homemade ketchup. Once again, FAIL. Geezz I'm two for two here! 

This time I had a recipe and followed it just like it said but when I taste tested it as it cooked, BLAH.. I didn't even try to mess with it because I had no clue what it needed. 

At least it looks pretty in the jar ;-)

I'm going to try the recipe from here next time. When I try new recipes cooking clean or healthy sometimes it doesn't always work the first time but I'm not going to give up! I just need to experiment a little more. I just know that come contest prep, my food selection is going to be very limited and I really want to find some recipes that I know I will be able to have or incorporate in my diet. Joshua doesn't care so much about this like most bodybuilders, but I'm a "need variety" kinda girl. 

Hence my trip to local fruit stand on my way to the gym this morning. I bought some fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and was given a bag of free lettuce but it didn't look to good (that's why it was free, lol).

I ended up just throwing it out in the compost. Do you guys use a compost? Our neighbors started it and when we moved here they asked us to add to it anytime we wanted. We're just "green" like that , lol....

With my fruit stand veggies I made a little salad and added some onions and Italian dressing. All prepared in my new Rachel Ray garbage bowl. I use it for mixing stuff though. 

Of course this turned out awesome because how do you mess up fresh veggies? At the rate I'm going, I'm sure I could think of a way... 

So colorful, and YUM O!

Even though none of my new recipes turned out quite like I wanted them to, I still ate them. I mean they weren't that bad, still edible. I don't think Joshua will be trying to eat the last one or anything, but I'll manage to get them down the 'ol hatch, seeing as how I tried my bestest ;-)

Have you guys made anything lately that didn't go as planned? Tell me about it! I love hearing from you all. Here's to finding your NorthStar.....

One to many....

So this weekend was loads of fun! We had a great time with Jeff and Ashley. Dinner on Saturday night with our other friends was awesome to. Did I mention to you guys that I'm a terrible picture taker? If I didn't, please let me confess that I'm the worst at remembering to take photos. I manged to take this one of us girls right before we left for dinner and well that was about it. I'M SORRY! I promise I'm going to work on this ;-)

Ashley, Me, and Julie

If you read my post from Saturday morning you know that we had a full day planned. Once we all ate and headed out the door we went to do a little shopping. Man was it hott. I think we left a little to late in the day for outdoor shopping because 3 yard sales later we were DONE! We all agreed it was time to hit the Lake with some cold beer. We loaded up the cooler, had some lunch and hopped on the boat. We ended up parking it on a beach and floating on noodles for 3 hours. During that 3 hours I had about 4 budlights and was really "feeling it" by the time we headed back. Well, lets just say my head was still swimming on the boat ride home. Once we got in the house I crashed on the sofa for about an hour till Joshua was like "Honey, you have to go get in the shower NOW, do not fall asleep again". I had to rally and compose myself. Can you believe just 4 beers had me feeling like that? We never drink alot anymore and when I do I keep it to one maybe two drinks. I guess I just got carried away and having fun in the moment. I learned a lesson for sure. By the time we left for dinner I was feeling better.

At dinner Joshua bought me another beer and I mangaed to drink it with ease. Once dinner arrived I ordered another one not really thinking, but I took two sips and wasted the rest. I was DONE.... We went to a few more places around town then called it a night a midnight. I crashed as soon as we got home but Joshua and Jeff stayed up till 2:30am talking and catching up. I never even heard him come to bed.

So needless to say Sunday we stayed in bed all day...... That is exactly why we don't drink or go out to often. Our lifestyle really doesn't allow for it.

This morning I was determined to have an amazing workout and follow my diet all day! 

4am Woke up, had a shake, and out the door by 4:30
5-7am Serious "Arnold Workout", My arms feel like Jelly....
7:30am Protein Shake
8:30am 30 mins of Cardio
10:30am Meal 3

So far I'm doing really good and super motivated to make today and the rest of the week extremely productive!  Mamma's got her mojo back! Now I'm off to give Mister AJ a much needed bath. He stinks ;-(

Here's to finding your NorthStar.......