Instead of paying a zillion dollars/month for a gym membership that I would probably use 3 times/month because I can find way too many excuses, I got myself a few supplies to have my own gym at home where I can do free youtube videos with a very limited amount of excuses. These are some of the the best additions I have in my home "gym" (aka basement):

***PS if you're like me and you hate going to the actual store because you end up buying 10 million extra things on accident, Target now has a $25 minimum for free shipping. I mean. When I go INTO Target I blackout and spend over $100 every single time. This is magical for myself and my bank account.

Adjustable Dumbbells:


Other options: Walmart's Gold's Gym 40 lb Adjustable Dumbbells $35, Amazon's Gold's Gym 40 lb Adjustable Weight Set



Light handweights:


Other options: Target's 5 lb Neon Weights $7.99 , Marhsall's/TJ Maxx/Ross always have good deals on dumbbells too.


Yoga Mat:
(Confession: I am bougie about this. I'm so sweaty that I slip and slide all over the place. This yoga mat was a gift and honestly I would pay the price to get the same one again for the sweat wicking and the padding- Lululemon is expensive a f*ck but they make some DAMN GOOD PRODCUTS). 


Here are some other more affordable options:





Other options: Target $16.99, Amazon's Top Seller $35.00, Shopping in-store check TJ Maxx/Marshall's/Ross and Nordstrom Rack




Kettlebell Set (note: these are my wish list products)


Other option: Target 3 Piece Kettlebell Set $43.00, Amazon's top selling kettlebells $33-$100.


These are my necessities - anyone else work out at home? What am I missing? 
Femme Fitale Fit Club

My Home Gym Essentials (on my budget)

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Oh hey! Remember me? I used to blog here until every aspect of life sped up to about 1,000 mph! I'm working on finding balance and I have a feeling that come March 7th I'll find a little more time (ICYMI: March 7 = my wedding). Let's do a little catch up with some currently, shall we?



Reading: The Paying Guests. This book topped every "must read" list that's come across my email/internets. When I first picked it up I was like so predictable I know exactly what's going to happen. Yeah no. Not predictable at all. And really, really great. And makes me really really glad I'm a woman in this decade, not 1922.

Doing: Relaxing after a paleo prep-a-thon by catching up on TV I missed this week. Here's what we've got for the week, most recipes thanks to my friend Amanda who just got started on paleo and is way better at finding recipes than me. Also, shredded cabbage..not sure where I was going with that one but I picked up cabbage and I'm hoping the idea I had for it comes back to me:




Working on: Short term - wedding seating charts (womp womp). Long term - nightly reflection, 90 Days of Yoga, accepting that I can't control everything (see: impending wedding week ice storm), boozing no more than twice/week (this is a major challenge due to aforementioned wedding).


Watching: The Slap. Why am I so into this show? And who the heck's side am I on (answer: I think I hate everyone?)? And why does everyone care so much about Uma Thurman's makeup at the premier of this? If I manage to stay awake for this entire episode I'll be catching up on the How to Get Away With Murder episode I missed this week too (DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED).

Wanting: Warm weather, no more winter. Oh! Conveniently 2 weeks from today I'm hopping on a plane to Cancun. The big question here: will I survive 2 more weeks of this winter mess? 

Wishing: I had Tivoed these shows instead of thinking I would just watch them on demand. No fast forwarding through commercials is so irritating. Whoa. Talk about some first world problems over here.

Feeling: Loved. Appreciative. Also sore thanks to this.


Happy Monday! Hope everyone has a great week- annnd someone please tell me who we hate in The Slap?!

Currently + Weekly Paleo Meal Plan

Monday, February 23, 2015


Back in the day when young Lindsay had zero clue or care about how processed foods work or how dairy was affecting her digestion, she pretty much ate cheese/bean/veggie quesadillas for dinner every night and loved every single bite of it. 

These days a much healthier, clearer minded Lindsay misses her darn quesadillas! Or really any Mexican food for that matter! Gimme some nachos, chips, burritos (and tortillas!). Thank the Lord (and Pinterest) for showing me that I can make plantain chips and still live a little bit of the old life! And you know what? I don't even miss the cheese (Disclaimer: I didn't miss the cheese in this recipe. Sometimes I miss cheese so much I swear I can smell it, or hear it calling my name from the cheese aisle in the grocery store). 

Servings: 4
Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients
  • 3 large plantains, sliced thin (I use the thinnest setting on my mandolin) ($2)
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 lb grassfed ground beef ($6)
  • 2 tomatoes, diced
  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt + 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • For toppings: guaccamole, lime juice, salsa

Toss the sliced plantains with olive oil and sea salt. 

The next day toss it on a bed of lettuce and call it a salad.



Plantain Nachos + Bomb Leftover Salad

Tuesday, February 10, 2015



The countdown is ON- 30 days until this whole wedding goes down! Now that we are this close I've been thinking of all the things that I was like "WHY didn't anyone tell me this??" and/or "thank goodness we did this!" so just wanted to share a few of those gems:


I wish we would have...

1.) Ordered a return address stamp ASAP: gifts start flowing in (not complaining) which means thank you cards start flowing out. Anything that moves this process along a little faster is worth every penny. This is our stamp and I ordered it from my friend Ali who designs stamps over at Tumbleweed Paperie (check them out! Tell her Lindsay sent you!)

and on that note (haha see what I did there...note...)..

2.) Hoarded thank you cards: Engagement parties, showers, random "congrats" gifts... I've sent about a million thank you cards and it would have softened the blow if I had just been collecting them over time as opposed to buying a million $ worth at once. Lucky for me, my mom works at Hallmark and gets a pretty sweet discount on these kinds of things.

3.) Had a real life budget talk: Womp womp, I know. Everyone told me to have a serious budget talk so here's how our's went down:
Me: Ok let's buy everything as cheap as possible for this wedding.Harrison: Sounds good.
This is in fact not the budget talk a couple should have before a major event because said major event has a tendency of spinning out of control at about 500000 MPH. Once things had already spun out of control we sat down and had a real budget talk and it would have saved us about 68 headaches if we would have sat down and honestly talked about what we want and how much we are willing to pay for it. I wish we would have prioritized what we have to have (i.e. killer DJ, killer videos, type of catering, etc).

4.) Planned for the honeymoon earlier: We put this one off to the last minute. It all worked out, but we could have saved money with earlybird deals by having booked 6+ months out.

I'm SO GLAD WE...

1.) Spread out the payments: A friend told me to do this from the beginning and I. Am. So. Glad. At first I was like if the money's there, it's there, but let me tell you how much less stressed we are just having to make 1/6 of all the payments in this month before the wedding. This is also great because about 100000 unexpected tiny costs have come up in the last few weeks and those haven't been as hard to swallow as they would have been if we had been having to write everyone one big fat check.

2.) Started stashing booze early on: As soon as we decided we were going to provide the booze for the wedding, my caterer friend (and wedding coordinator who, at this point in the process, I'm pretty sure I would be lying facedown in a ditch without her) told me to just pick up a handle or 2 with groceries every week to soften the blow. I'm really fortunate that my parents are gifting the bar to us, but they've been doing it this way too!

3.) Used credit cards with bomb points programs: I got an American Air credit card and Harrison used his BOA credit card and we have put everything for the wedding on these two cards. We paid for our honeymoon flights with my credit card points and all of our honeymoon excursions and VIP club experiences have been purchased with Harrison's credit card points. Head's up though: I pay 100% of my credit card bill at the end of the month. I will NOT go in debt over this wedding (please, I have enough other things keeping me in a hole). You don't get the points until you pay off the dollars, so in order for this to work you have to really pay attention.

4.) Had my friends' wedding planner template:  This  helped to think of little thing we would have forgotten. This also helped me think of things we would need to buy that we might not have thought of, and we were able to space those out too.

5.) Got a ring dish: I take my ring off a few times a day- when cooking, to exercise, when I shower... It took one scare in the kitchen to realize that when I take that thing off, it's going ONE place and one place only (my ring dish). This is why we don't have nice things...

6.) Went bananas on Black Friday: Bridesmaids gifts 50% off - check! Some bridal accessories 70% off: check! Favors 40% off - check check! I only wish I would have had a more extensive list so we could have gotten everything on crazy sale.

Any advice? Anything you or friends have done or wish you/they would have done??

Things I wish I would have had/done as soon as I got engaged

Friday, February 6, 2015


These week my weight stayed the same as last week (surprise surprise, Harrison dropped 3 lbs exercising 0 times! But I won't go there today), but still managed to lose .5" around my hips AND waist so I'm happy! After last week's post Petar  informed me that I will lose weight quicker if I add more weights into my equation because Weights = Building Muscle = Burn More. So I tried to find some fun ways to incorporate them this week.

Workouts for the week (since last Wednesday):

Thursday:

Millionaire Hoy 35 Minute Dumbbell HIIT (weights!) + 30 Minute Power Yoga Flow (minus the headstands because I'm still here trying to get into crow pose without slamming my head into the ground - true story and now I keep pillows nearby and remember #ItsAboutTheJourney in yoga...).



Friday:

Strong & Smart Yoga Flow with Tim



Saturday:

FitnessBlender 1000 Calorie Workout (weights!)



Sunday: Rest.

Monday: Woke up with the freakin flu. But I'm ok with it because if my body wants to get sickness out of the way now versus in 4 weeks (aka my wedding) I'm not complaining.

Tuesday: Still have the flu, am losing my mind.


Wednesday Workout: This week in BridalBootCampSweatingForTheWeddingETC with Weights

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

I come to you with an announcement: I made an amazing paleo dish one night, then the next night topped the leftovers with eggs and IT WAS EVEN BETTER and it was like 2 completely different meals. YEAH.

I made this one pan chorizo dish and we had lots of leftovers so the next night we put some eggs and tomatoes on top and it was amazing! Pictured below is Harrison's dish because he eats scrambled eggs which are always much prettier than my over-easy egg (or jizz egg as Harrison so flatteringly calls it) that explodes as soon as it touches my plate.


Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 30 mins
Servings: 4

Ingredients

  • 1 package chorizo, sliced and cooked according to the instructions on the package (I FINALLY found some at Wal-Mart! I've been on the lookout forever looking for these) ($5)
  • 2 sweet potatoes, diced ($3)
  • 1/2 onion, sliced ($.50)
  • 1 bunch of asparagus ($3.50)
  • 2 eggs (optional for topping)
  • 2 Tablespoons olive oil
  • seasonings of choice (I used salt, pepper, paprika, and cinnamon)
  • Tomatoes (for topping, optional)
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss the sweet potatoes, chorizo, onion, and asparagus with olive oil and seasonings. Dump into a baking dish and cook for 20-30 minutes. 

And that's it! Top with eggs and tomatoes or just eat it on its own. This is one of my favorite dishes from this paleo experiment!


What do you eat chorizo with?

Easy One Pan Paleo Meal

Tuesday, February 3, 2015