30-day Fitness Challenge

I just started a new fitness challenge involving a combination of running & hot yoga. It was totally unplanned, and it's not an actual structured challenge...but somehow I found myself jumping into a hardcore (at least for me) fitness commitment. Does that ever happen to you? You're busy with life, not doing a good job of working out or eating healthy or whatever, then - boom! - without even thinking much about it, your life suddenly seems to be revolving around a whole new routine?

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{Recipe} Baked Plantain Chips

When we were at the Outer Banks last summer, one of our friends fried some delicious plantain chips. I loved them and made them several times at home after that. When I noticed plantains were on sale at the grocery store recently, I decided to try a baked version and was pleasantly surprised with this healthy, simple snack.

I'm Bringing Healthy Back! {and a Green Smoothie Recipe}

At the beginning of the year, I was super motivated to lose some weight before we went on Bryan's company trip to Jamaica. I did great - I met my goal and got back to my 'normal-heavy' weight and out of the 'oh crap, it is not normal for me to be this heavy!' range. But on the trip, I ate and drank all I wanted. Then the week after the trip is dubbed 'feast week' - as in, the annual beach trip is over, now we can eat lots of junk. And since then (for the last month now!), I keep saying to myself that next week I'll start being healthy again. Well I finally stepped on the scale again, and that was plenty of motivation to make me quit procrastinating (eek!!). So this week, finally, I'm bringing healthy back - for good this time!

For one thing, we've jumped on the green smoothie bandwagon. Gotta admit - I am totally shocked Bryan likes these too! I'd expect the color alone to frighten him away from trying a sip, but he reluctantly gave it a try, and he's hooked. If you're still skeptical that they actually taste good, let my vegetable-hating husband be a testament to how delicious they are!

Ahhh... gotta lose weight quick!

I'm in mega weight loss mode right now - gotta shed those extra holiday pounds asap! I'm going to Jamaica with Bryan's company in a week. I'm so excited that after Bryan's 6 years at the company, they're finally allowing some spouses on the annual Caribbean trip, but I wish it could've been at least a little further away from the holidays!

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My weight has generally been in the same 10 lb(ish) range since I reached my adult height in middle school. I've only been out of my comfortable range a few brief times since then, and to do that, I need to be doing something seriously wrong (as in either practically not eating, or eating bucketloads of crap for an extended period of time). Well guess what - I've been eating bucketloads of crap for an extended period (like way too many of these and too much of this, for example). I am really not happy about my weight right now, and really not ready for a bathing suit next week!

We all know that crash diets and quick weight loss tricks are not good for you. We should take it slow and do it the healthy way. Knowing that, do you still try to lose weight quickly sometimes?? In the past I've done the Lemonade Diet/Master Cleanse, the 3-day Military Diet (this one is actually a reasonable amount of food), and the the eat as little as I possibly can diet. After having some weird vision issues due to low blood sugar when not eating enough, I've decided that eating next to nothing is no longer an option.

My go-to method now is to simply track what I eat. I love the MyNetDiary app - it's free and it makes tracking your food intake super simple. While I admit that I'm currently eating fewer calories than I should (tsk tsk), I'm definitely not starving myself and I know how much I'm eating. When we get back from the trip, I plan to bump up my calorie goal a bit but continue using it as a healthy weight loss method to lose the rest of those extra pounds.

Do you have any methods for quick weight loss? Or do you just stick to eating healthy and working out? What are your favorite health/fitness apps?