NatureBox and Banana Soft Serve

Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a great weekend so far :). In case you missed it, make sure you take a look at the ab circuit workout I posted on Friday…it’s a good one! My abs were on fire when I did it!

Earlier this week I came home and found an awesome package on my porch:

I got some goodies from NatureBox!! NatureBox is a healthy snack subscription service that ships goodies to subscribers on a monthly basis. All of the products are made from wholesome ingredients and these things are never on the ingredient list: high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, trans fats, artificial sweeteners, artificial flavors, and artificial colors. Talk about healthy snacking!

Naturally I opened the pacakge right away to see what types of snacks I got ;).

The box included 5 different snacks:

• Zingy currants
• Peppery pistachios
• Smokey pumpkin seeds
• Cranberry jubilee
• Dried pears

And of course I opened each bag and dug my hands in to try them all out!

Oh wow, all of them were super tasty! I even didn’t mind the currants (which are like raisins…and well I don’t like raisins haha). My favorite are the peppery pistachios and smokey pumpkin seeds. Absolutely delish! I’ll definitely be incorporating all of these into my snacks :).

Another awesome thing about NatureBox is that for every one sent out, NatureBox donates one meal to feed the over 14 million children in America who go hungry every year. That’s amazing!

If any of you guys are interested in signing up for a NaturBox subscription, you can get 25% off your first month (this discount is only applicable to the month-to-month subscription. 6 month subscriptions receive 1 month free and 12 month subscriptions receive 3 months free). Enter the promo code HEALTHY for the discount!

Thank you NatureBox! You guys sent me some incredibly tasty snacks :).

And speaking of snacks I finally made some banana soft serve last night. And holy yum! It was amazing! Why have I waited this long to do it??

For the soft serve I used the food processor to blend these items until it was of a creamy (soft-serve like) consistency:

• 2 frozen bananas (they were really ripe!)
• 1 scoop of peanut butter
• 1/2 scoop of chocolate whey protein powder

It was absolutely divine :)….and it’s my new favorite snack. I love that it’s healthy too! If you haven’t tried banana soft serve yet, you need to asap!

I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

xxoo

Lighter Workouts Are Needed Right Now

In case you need some giggles or someone to laugh at…please look at my autocorrect mistake from Friday night when I tweeted:

Wow…I’m a dumb dumb 😉 haha. In all seriousness though, these chips are addicting! Try them asap!

Yesterday was fantastic. The weather here was absolutely gorgeous. It was in the low 70s, the skies were blue, the sun was shining, and it was just all around awesome. I went for a really long walk- probably about 5 miles and it was just so nice to be outside and not do a workout that was intense.

I think I’ve been overdoing it lately with the workouts. My body is aching a lot. My hips were feeling better and now they are hurting again. Every workout feels kind of blahh. I absolutely dread going to the gym right now. These are not good things. I chatted with Ashley a bit about this because she was experiencing the same thing, and she’s definitely helped remind me that as hard as it is to step back and take it easy, it’s necessary and good for me.

When she asked me what my workout schedule has looked like, writing it down really showed me that wow, I’ve been doing things a little too intensely. Lately I’ve been  working out 6 days a week and taking 1 rest days. Those 6 days include 3-4 weight lifting sessions- combo of heavier lifting and circuit workouts, 3 interval workouts (some more high intensity than others), a day of just steady state cardio, and also some cardio after lifting. So only one day of something that’s a little less intense. No wonder my body is tired!

Chris has been great too and has been really supportive with my incessant talking about it. I honestly don’t even know why I’m so worried about backing off and resting more. I think that deep down I’m afraid that if I change what I’ve been doing it will change the way my body looks. The biggest and best things that Chris reminded me of though are that my body will likely not change (duh) and actually may do better because it’s being treated the way it should be, and that in the big scheme of things, how my body looks is not at all what matters- what does is being healthy and happy! I know these things, but it’s nice to be reminded of them.

Anyway…super long tangent haha. I had a really easy and super tasty dinner last night!

In that tasty mix is brown rice pasta, chicken, spinach, and a laughing cow cheese wedge (sundried tomato and basil flavor). Omg it was so good! Putting the cheese wedge into the mix, melting it, and stirring it all together is delicious. You have to try it!

I’m off to enjoy another day of beautiful weather and do some homework. Tomorrow is the Boston marathon and we’re going to watch! I feel so bad for the runners because it’s supposed to be over 85*!

I hope you all enjoy your Sunday <3.

**Today is your last day to enter my Danskin Triathlon Series giveaway!**

Fitness Loves of the Week #10

Happy Friday! I’m so glad that we’re pretty much at another weekend!

I appreciate all of your input on my last post! Before we get to Fitness Loves of the Week, I wanted to update you on my hips and the pain I’ve been experiencing. I originally mentioned this a few weeks ago when I was home and told you all how I’d had shooting pain on the side of my hips whenever I walked. Well, this pain has continued since then and it’s actually gotten worse. Sometimes it hurts so bad that I don’t even want to go to class because getting there is painful. And I also now have aching sometimes when I’m sitting and sleeping.

Last week I decided that I couldn’t handle this anymore, so I made an appointment with an orthopedic. I met with him on Wednesday and he diagnosed me with bursitis in both of my hips :(.

What is hip bursitis? It’s inflammation of the bursa between the greater trochanter (the bony prominence on the outside of the hip) and the IT band. My inflammation is apparently being caused by really tight IT bands. In fact, in my left leg, if you place your hand over that great trochanter area you can actually feel my IT band snapping across the surface when I walk. Um yea…not fun.

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Thankfully, hip bursitis is easily treatable. For right now I have to ice my hips 2-3 times a day for 20-30 minutes each time. This should help with the inflammation. I’m also going to be seeing a physical therapist a couple of times to learn the best way for me to stretch out my IT band so that this can be prevented in the future. I’ve always thought that I did a decent job of stretching out my IT band, but I guess not!

However, if none of this is working after about 4 weeks, then I’ll go back to the ortho to have an x-ray to see if anything anatomical is going on. Let’s hope that isn’t the case!

As soon as I got home from the doctor on Wednesday I started icing my hips. After two days of doing this, I’ve actually noticed that my joints are more achy and I’m in more pain? I’m hoping this is a fluke and it will stop asap!

I also want to thank Allison who is a physical therapist and after reading my original post about this has been emailing me back and forth with suggestions and information!

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And on another quick note…my new favorite thing to eat is a sweet potato topped with chocolate PB2 :D. It’s amazing!

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Okay, and onto Fitness Loves of the Week! I don’t have a new workout for you today because I’ve been doing Tina’s bootcamp workouts this week and haven’t made up any of my own. So, I thought I would share with you my favorite moves that I have learned from this week’s workouts :).

First up, we have butt kicks:

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These butt kicks are done standing in place. Basically, your are kicking your butt with your heel on each stride. I felt this more than I thought I would! And it really got my heart rate going :).

Second up we have decline push-ups on the stability ball:

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I have come to really like doing push-ups and always enjoy finding new ways to challenge myself with them! You can make this exercise harder by putting your feet on the ball instead of your shins! Talk about working on stability!

If you want to participate in FLOW:

“Fitness Loves of the Week” (FLOW) is a link-up party similar to What I Ate Wednesday except it’s all about fitness! On Fridays I will post either a routine that I have created that week, a picture or video of a move that I have done, or even a post about a workout. You guys simply do something similar! If you’ve had a great workout/fitness post earlier in the week and you don’t want to make up a new one, you don’t have to! Simply grab the picture from my site, paste it in your Friday post, then when you link up you can use the link from whatever post of yours you want!

FLOW Link Up