I've mentioned before how I'm trying real hard to just do me for this wedding. Just me. No one else. On the other hand, this is the Lindsay and Harrison show and I better look damn good at my own party! Harrison's on it too (about half as hard and dropping libbies twice as fast). So far I'm down 8 lbs since New Year's (disclaimer: I went a little crazy over the holidays and had a lot more to lose).

The other thing though is that I. feel. amazing. My body feels good, my head feels clear, I'm sleeping like a baby through the night (wait why do people say that? My friends who have babies right now would say sleeps like a baby to mean wakes up every freaking hour of the night), I have tons of energy, and just feel all around great.

The original plan was to start something zooo crazy like Crossfit a few months before the wedding. However in the midst of signing away my life savings to buy a house and have a wedding, I can't justify the cost. And who needs to spend that kind of money when you've got these guys:



Food: Paleo every day with one cheat meal  day

Exercise: Here's what a typical week looks like

Sunday: Millionaire Hoy 1,000 Calorie Full Body Burnout



Monday: Rest day

Tuesday: BenderFitness 15 Minute HIIT  x 2 + Sickfit  15 minute Tabata + Yoga



Wednesday: Yoga



Thursday: HIIT x 2 (minus the warm up and cooldown) + tabata + yoga



Friday: Run or Yoga (or both)

Notice anything? Yoga every damn day. I'm loving it. Since I'm on a mission it's been easier for me to find time to dedicate to exercise, but I'm hoping this becomes a routine. I definitely want to keep up yoga every day, and incorporate more running. And when I need a lil motivation I cut on this video Taylor shared last week:


I MEAN HOW HYPE ARE YOU AFTER THIS VIDEO?
I'm writing this post snuggled on the couch between the 2 dogs as the snow dumps down outside, wearing my PJs inside out (everyone knows inside out jammies bring snow days right?).

This weekend got a little wacky (see: spent 8 hours brunching & mimosaing Saturday, managed time poorly Sunday due to mimosa exhaustion) so I didn't do as much food prep as I wanted to, but this was the plan:



SO. On last week's leftover night we combined a few leftovers to make these delicious stuffed peppers:



Servings: 3 
Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:
  • 3 organic bell peppers ($4.00)
  • 1/2 pound lean ground turkey ($2.00)
  • 1/2 onion, diced ($.50)
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 pack sliced mushrooms ($1.00)
  • 2 Cups spinach ($2.00)
  • Leftover pizza sauce 
  • 1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning
  • 1 Tablespoon dried Basil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Brown the turkey on the stovetop in a medium sized frying pan with the Italian seasoning. Once the turkey is brown add the onion and garlic and mix in. Allow it to all cook together for about 5 minutes then add the spinach, mushrooms and pizza sauce. Mix together and cook for about 10 minutes.

Cut the tops off the bell peppers and cut out the ribs (I diced up the tops and mixed them in with the turkey stuffing). Spoon the turkey mixture into the hollowed out peppers, place on a baking sheet and heat in the oven for 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Paleo Meal Plan for the Week + Paleo Italian Stuffed Peppers

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

via

Let me preface this by saying 2 things: 1) There is some cussing in this post and I apologize in advance but I believe it is necessary to understand the extent of this situation; 2) I understand there is science behind males losing weight quicker than females, and I also understand that when someone has more weight to lose they usually lose weight faster, and I ALSO understand that when one person has led a healthy lifestyle full of clean eating and regular exercise for years and the other person has lived off of bacon and McDonald's and no exercise and then suddenly switches to paleo and starts exercising (*cough twice*) they will lose weight faster than the person who has been healthy all along; 3) I don't care. I'm competitive. If I work harder I want to win.

If you couldn't tell from that intro, Harrison's weight has been practically melting off of him while I've stayed about 3 stomach flus from my goal weight. These are some of my favorite Harrison quotes re: health and exercise, to illustrate what I'm living with here:

On why he doesn't exercise regularly:
"I have big ankles that make it impossible to tie shoes which makes it a lot harder for me to exercise" -Wow I can't believe they let you play Division I football with those ankles! What hero! sidenote:  I tried and failed to secretly snap a picture of said "big ankles" to prove to the world that this statement is 100% ludacris. 

More on why regular exercise is not ideal:
"Exercise gives me gas" -Let's take a little journey back to Cause & Effect 101...

After his first time lifting since college:
"Aw man my t*tties hurt so bad, I get why people want to come home after a hard day and take their bra off" -Oh do you? 

As I'm putting ground flax seed into my breakfast smoothie:
"Sick you're literally sprinkling dirt into your breakfast. Where'd you get that, the backyard?" -Yeah it's from the back yard. I dug it up when you weren't looking. Right where the dogs poop.

"Is this a f*cking joke? He calls that a warm up? Everyone else calls that a FULL WORKOUT" -Harrison to Millionaire Hoy when Mil said "alright now that we're warmed up let's get on to..."

As I'm pouring coffee and Harrison walks in from the his first ever morning gym visit (sidenotenothing doesn't piss me off before coffee):
"I'm so swole right now from lifting. Touch me. No for real just touch my biceps they're crazy right now." -smiles, nods, sips coffee, smiles, nods again, walks the f away.

One of the two times we attempted exercising together (we don't because of things like below):
Me: "We're almost done there are only 2 exercises left in this HIIT! We got it!"
Harrison (yelling): "Seriously shut up this is the dumbest sh*t you've ever talked me into doing and I don't even know why we're here because this is so so dumb and even football players don't workout this hard I really hate this . . ." -He apologized during our stretch. Besides giving him gas, exercise also seems to give him sudden unfounded rage attacks.


So just FYI, in the first 3 weeks of hard core paleo, the man whose shoes can't tie and who only exercised twice because it gives him gas lost 12 lbs and I lost 6. Is THAT a joke??

PS I understand the science behind this but it still makes me mad.

PSS I love Harrison and had his permission to publish these.

Wednesday Workout: It Pisses Me Off that boys lose weight faster than girls

Wednesday, January 21, 2015


It's faaake Monday! Hope everyone had a great weekend and really used that extra day for food prep (lollll). This is a super easy recipe I made last week, took 5 mins to prep the weekend before and 30 mins to cook. You are welcome.

Servings: 2
Prep Time: 5 mins
Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

  • 1 zucchini squash, sliced ($1.50)
  • 1 yellow squash, sliced ($1.50)
  • 1/4 medium onion, sliced ($.25)
  • 3 paleo approved chicken sausages (I use Al Fresco brand from Wal-Mart, $7 for a pack of 5)
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil (or oil of your choice)
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 teaspoon red pepper
  • 1 tablespoon garlic powder
  • + seasonings of choice (I added some parsley and basil)
Combine the veggies, seasonings and oil in a bag and shake shake shake it up (whenever I shake anything I just hear T Swift singing "Shake It Off" MAKE IT STOP, jk I love that song) until the veggies are evenly coated with seasonings and oil

Pour the contents of the bag into a baking dish (I used glass 9x9), add the sausages and cook for 30 mins. Actually, I cooked for 30 mins but check the directions for your sausages to make sure you're not eating any undercooked sausage.

It's just so purty!

























What's your favorite easy meal? 

Easy Fake Monday Recipe!

Tuesday, January 20, 2015


We had people over the other night to watch a UFC fight (someone please explain how I get sucked into things like fights? Why was I cheering?) and these little BBQ meatballs were a perfect party food. Filing these into my mental index for superbowl party foods.

Sidenote: I had a massive home-made bbq sauce fail so served these with the bbq sauce we had on hand (Sweet Baby Ray's - OMG DELICIOUS but def not paleo friendly). Next time I'm going to try Skinny Ms' barbecue sauce recipe.

Servings: 20 medium sized meatballs
Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 40 mins + 15 mins

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb lean ground turkey ($4.00)
  • 1/2 onion, minced ($.50)
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup almond flour (or any flour you have on hand, this is just to make sure they stick together)
  • 1 Tablespoon Paprika
  • 1 Tablespoon Ground Cumin
  • 1 Tablespoon Chili Powder
  • 2 Cups Paleo BBQ Sauce + 1 Tablespoon
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray down with coconut oil spray or any nonstick spray you prefer.

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except the 2 Cups bbq sauce (DO add the 1 Tablespoon of BBQ sauce). I do the mixing with my hands.

Form 2 inch balls and put onto the baking sheet and heat in the oven for 40 minutes.

Once the meatballs are cooked, combine the meatballs and 2 Cups bbq sauce in a medium sized saucepan. Simmer on low heat for 15 minutes, mixing constantly. 

Enjoy!

What is your favorite healthy party food? Anyone have good/easy recipes for barbecue sauce?

Paleo Barbecue Meatballs

Tuesday, January 6, 2015


Well this is certainly the mother of all Mondays. It was a gloriously relaxing 2 weeks off and now back to the real world (womp womp).

SO! A lot of people tell me they don't have time to cook like I do. No one likes to hear how busy anyone is, but I just want to explain that all it takes is a lil planning and setting aside time when you have it; during the past few months 4 days/week I leave the house at 7:15 am and get home between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm - just enough time to exercise (thank you 20 minute HIIT), walk the dogs, EAT dinner and be in bed by 10:30 pm so I'm not Cruella Deville the following day. Last week I shared how I meal prep and here is how I spent 2.5 hours this past Saturday:

Step 1: Fill out meal planner. This is what mine looks like this week:




Step 2: Go to Wal-Mart for groceries because it's raining and in DC no one leaves their houses in the rain so Wal-Mart will be somewhat bearable. 

Step 3: Kick Harrison out of the kitchen (this is a note for future meal prep after the following comment this week: "It seems a lot cleaner and more organized when they are cooking on TV". Oh! It also seems like they have an entire production staff and a team that gets paid to make it look that way! I. Will. KNIFE YOU).


Step 4: Eat a snack (see: too many things can go wrong while prepping 12 meals, being hangry only makes it worse).

Step 5: Put on The Americans (was NO ONE going to tell me about this best show ever??)

Step 6: Prep/chop/slice veggies for breakfast casserole, chili, meatballs, middle eastern flatbreads, pizza & sausage/zucchini dinner




Step 7: Put potato in the microwave for breakfast casserole

Step 8: While potato is microwaving, brown the turkey for the chili in one pan, the sausage for breakfast casserole and sausage for sausage/squash/onion mix (all in separate pans). Confession: this is ideally what I would be doing. I got distracted by The Americans and forgot about the dinner sausage and cooked this at the end. Add the veggies to the breakfast casserole and chili pans once the meat is browned.


Step 9: Put all the ingredients in the crockpot for chili and crank it.

Step 10: Put together the breakfast casserole and throw it in the oven.

Step 11: Pull out the ground turkey, mix the bbq meatballs (recipe coming soon, this was an experiment). In a separate bowl mix the middle eastern "meatball" ingredients. Since we ate the bbq meatballs on this night, I went ahead and balled them up.

Cover this bowl and put it in the fridge-


Put these in the oven with the breakfast casserole so we can eat them TONIGHT:


Step 12: Make the doughs (pizza and flatbread) and put them in the fridge.


Step 13: Separate everything out, bag it/tupperware it/cover it and refrigerate it.

Step 14: Put meatballs in the oven to enjoy TONIGHT!

Step 15: Pat self on back, make Harrison clean up invite Harrison back into the kitchen.

Recipes for all of our experiments coming soon!





Paleo Meal Plan Monday

Monday, January 5, 2015