Kayla's Book Nook

Well, I hope everyone had a good New Year's! Mine was really fun besides trying to calculate all the different foods I ate to make sure I didn't go over my calorie maximum. We played games with my husband's family. The kids ran around until almost midnight 😲. It was a lot of fun! That's the hard part about eating healthier, isn't it? Parties, holidays, social events, they really challenge your will power. It's like you know you're doing good and that you shouldn't eat it, but damn it's yummy and everyone is eating lots of food, right? Well that may be true, but it's probably not the best mental talk to have with yourself. I decided that I'd go into the party with the mantra of small portions of things, that way I'd be able to have a little of everything and no sweets. I decided to drink a couple of hard ciders instead of eating sugary goods. This proved difficult after the cookies, cake, cookie cake, and brownies were brought out!! Bu...

Well today was a little tough. For some reason all day I craved something sweet. I was having a hard time not wanting sweets and desserts. I'm usually more of a chocolate person, but today all I could think about was brownies, cookies, etc. I really needed to stay strong, so I ate my brown rice, broccoli, and chicken sausage bowl, and then ate some fruit. Then, I had the kids help me make some really good healthy blueberry muffins. This was a new recipe that I found. It has no oil or sugar in it. It is sweetened with honey and greek yogurt. The recipe called for plain greek yogurt, but I only had vanilla yogurt so I used that instead. These muffins also use oats in them to give them texture and a hearty quality. They only have about 119 calories in them as well. Score!! I love blueberry muffins, but I know there's a lot of calories in them due to the sugar and oil that's normally in them. These were fantastic! I love anything with oats, and they're moist and flavorful!...

Well today has been super tough so far. Since Christmas our house has been a pretty big mess. There's new toys, boxes, old toys, books, etc. everywhere! Finally, today I had had enough and something had to give. I played scrabble jr. with the kids, which was awesome, had my shakeology shake, and then got to work. First, I tackled my son's room, because it's bigger and much easier to manage. I decided to take out some big things he doesn't really play with anymore and to put in the organizer bins that a friend of mine had given me recently. I have got to tell you that it was a ton of work, but so worth it! His rooms looks great, and he's got a ton of spots for adding toys in the future. Things are organized, cleaned, and put away. I even cleaned out his clothes to give to our friends that have a son a little bit younger than our son. Then, I decided to take on my daughter's room. This is the harder room, because she's still in the nursery until we finish...

Well, the kids wanted to go see the new Ferdinand movie, and I really wanted to take them to go see it. We wrangled my mom into going with us today. Now, my favorite part of going to a theatre is the popcorn, candy, and soda. Of course, if I am going to change things and stay on track then I can't eat any of those things. So, I just didn't! I got water instead of soda. I let my mom and the kids gobble down the popcorn and candy, and brought my own trail mix for myself. The only time I had difficulty was when we first got the popcorn. It just smells so good! I am so proud that I didn't partake in any of the goodies! My trailmix was delicious and filling. Of course it has its own sugars in it, but it's much better for me than all that other junk. Then, we decided to go get lunch at Friendly's, because even though it's a balmy 10 degrees out today, the kids wanted ice cream. This was potentially another problem. My favorite thing to get is the honey bbq sandwi...

Well, my first workout has been completed! I did the Move Your Body workout in the Youv2 program today. It was a little rough to start out. It's not that the workout is hard, its just wanting to stick with it. I hate that I am usually counting down the minutes until I'm done. Normally, about 2-3 weeks in I stop doing that and just enjoy the workouts. Even though I didn't love it, it was still a good workout! I burned 442 calories in 30 minutes! It added 2802 steps to my daily count as well. Another good part of today was trying a good low carb new recipe. I made tunacakes with fresh aioli sauce and salad for lunch. This recipe used tuna, jalapenos, cilantro, and lemon juice. It was a very yummy tunacake. I also made the suggested aioli sauce to go with it. That was deliciously spicy on top as well. I topped it all off with a chopped salad and cucumbers. It was delicious and different! My husband even enjoyed the tunacakes today. My kinds, um not so much. Oh well, I can...

Good morning everyone! Now, normally I write about books, movies, or tv shows, but I'm going to be adding some posts about a personal journey that I am going to embark upon today. For the past, oh I don't know, like 10 years I have been unhappy with my weight. Each year it seems I add about 10-15 pounds to my weight and even though I try to change things nothing much ever changes weight wise for me. I am finally done with all the yo-yoing and starting and stopping. I can't tell you how many times I've given up soda, sweets, etc. But today marks the day that I finally start my healthy lifestyle. I don't want to think of it as giving things up. I want to think of it as getting healthy and gaining more muscle, stamina, and a better body. First things first, I am going to get back into working out. I love the BeachBody system of online workouts and programs. I started this program last year in January and in the past year I have worked out more than any other yea...