Thanksgiving this week???

Holy crap!!! Where did November go???? It is already here?!?!? Well, as the holidays come around it is a lot harder to stay on your A game...food wise. There are SOOOO many delicious foods and recipes that go around when the holidays come around. It can be rather difficult to eat clean or behave at times when you are surrounded by a plethera of warm, delicious, comforting foods and drink. Hey, you can indeed have some fun and splurge a little, but be smart about it. One of my biggest downfalls and my favorite of thanksgiving is stuffing...and oh boy can that rack up the calories in a serving. But it depends on how you make it. With any cooking, you can alwasy substitute butter with healthy cooking oils like EVOO (extra virgin olive oil for thos of you who don't know) or flaxseed, or canola oil works too. For me, I like my stuffing pretty gooey, and I buy it from a farmer's market. It is made with whole grain, wheat bread and already has a lot of great herbs and flavor to it. We just add some celery and some onion to it to give it a little extra punch to it. Put it all in a pot and let it soak in enough water for the right conistentcy and voila! It really doesn't need butter or oil so the fat contect is lower. Make sure you read the ingredients on your stuffing if you want to be a little healthier. Buy products with ingredients you recognize and can pronounce. Try to get it as natrual as you can, I promise you this stuffing that I buy does NOT lack in flavor. You can always add your own healthy extras or spices and herbs to give it the right flavor. I get about 2-3 bags of this (pretty cheap too) and I always have plenty left over ;)

Cutest Workout Station Ever

Can you disagree??? Lol, love my little fluffy Meeko and his support for my healthy lifestyle

Season of Giving Giveaway!!!

Hey guys. It is the season of giving and I wanted to give you a chance to win a nice Target gift card for your holiday shopping. 6 awesome bloggers joined together to bring all of you an awesome chance to have a little bit of relief from the stress of the Holidays. Hope you enjoy!! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Friday my fit friends! I hope that ll is going well for you! We made it another week!!!! Boy, I will tell you that it has been a long week for me. I think I may have walked under a ladder or broke a mirrior with the amount of bad luck I keep running into. But the important thing is that it is over and it is finally the weekend! I know that during your time trying to improve your health that it can be so difficult (especially this time of year). But if you are tying to plan for an event, and let's say you have a specified amount of weight to lose. This handy dandy chart can help you get there. It shows how many calories = to lbs being burnt off. This is of course

would be a number you would aim for per week, but if you have a little bit to lose or maybe more, you can use this little guy to help guid you in the direction or even help you understand how many calories you need to burn to lose weight a more quickly.

This is Why We Plank

I think this is so cool! I know that you have probably seen this photo floating around the web, but I think it is really insightful. I don't know about you, but I like to see what our bodies are doing behind the scenes. Now I know there is no such thing as spot reduction, however, you can still make areas of your body stronger and once the weight gradually comes off, the muscles begin to show. My abdomin  is a trouble area for me, but I also love how this exercise works the quads and your deltoids. Three for the price of one exercise!

Plank Challenge: How long can you hold it??? I want everyone to drop and give me 30 seconds of planking...go get it!

Delicious Recipe

I LOVE fall because of all the delicious recipes and foods that are in season! For those shakeology lovers, you HAVE to try this! If you would like more info on this tastey, wholesome, nutritous treat please follow the link below! I can't live with out my shakeology!!!

http://myshakeology.com/esuite/home/lyssajane

Operation Smile

So in addition to yesterday's post, the CampusBookRental.com organization also gives back. I find this to be a very important effort because my sister works in a dental office and she tells me all sorts of stories and how important it really is hygenically and healthfully to keep le pearly whites clean. Operation Smile is a children's international charity that performs reconstructive surgery on children born with or have developed a cleft and they don't have the funds to pay for surgery. I have found that with every textbook rented from CampusBookRental.com, they donate a portion to Operation Smile. I think this is really cool, you can get your college textbooks for a huge discount, or are able to rent out already purchased (and expensive) books to other college students and earn money everytime (as well as save other students' money by renting the book) AND donate to a well known international charity for children. WIN. WIN. WIN. WIN! I don't think you could really find any other way to be so productive with money since you are already working, going to school, taking care of your family and your health/fitness. It's so nice to see companies actually doing something for the greater good! If you want to know more about this charity, I have posted a link below. It really is a great organization and a good read on their website. There are also other ways to donate and help out if you aren't in college and want to get involved.

           http://www.operationsmile.org/about_us/who-we-are/ 

Being a Student Can Get $$$$

Me and my boyfriend were discussing college the other day and he was off on a tangent on how expensive school books are. Sadly, he had purchased all his books and one night someone broke into his car and stole his bag with his text book in it. I felt so bad for him...I remember when I went to college that I never wanted to spend the ridiculous amount of $$$ on books. I don't remember how I came across them, but I came across a bunch of really cool websites that allow me to rent the books I needed anywhere from half to less than a third of the price! They even paid for shipping both ways as long as I returned it on time. Then I wouldn't have to worry about selling the books I wouldn't use either. However, I wish I would known about...Campusbookrentals.com. They have extremely reasonable prices for a book you won't even be keeping once the semester is up. What is nice is the renting periods are a lot more flexible than a few of the sites I used. I also couldn't mark in the books from other places, and I always need to write notes or I just forget the things I learn in class. You can actually write or highlight in these books. My favorite thing about this is (because you get money out of this) is there is a section in the webite called rent back. So if you have already spent $$$ on buying a book you won't use again, you can rent it out to other people and get money everytime you rent it out to someone. Who knows, you could end up making more off the book than you spent (which is rare!). There is a cool video below on the rentback section. I just know how stressfull it can be being a student when you are trying to balance work, family, and education and you are transporting back and forth. I have been there! I am surprised more people haven't heard of renting books...its so much cheaper than buying... 

CampusBookRentals.com Rentback >

Anyone Else Run Into This

The gym is a great place that offers a lot of diverse equipment to offer a lot of different ways to work out different parts of your body. However, there is always that one machine that leaves you scratching your head on how to use it....

Good carbs...they do exist

Stop hiding from all carbs! There are good ones! You need carbs for fuel and energy! Use them in a nutrtious manner to fuel your body!