I’m having more than a little trouble keeping up with three blogs, so I’m moving everything to Yummy Sushi Pjs.

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It’s not often that I get an offer to write a review for a product I actually want, so when an email showed up in my inbox offering me the chance to get a free 8×10 canvas from EasyCanvasPrints.com, I was pretty excited.

The timing was good too, since we’d just had our daughter’s second birthday party and had a bunch of great pictures of her.

The website prints your picture of choice onto a nice, gallery backed canvas, and even without the free one I got, their prices are really good. Getting a canvas print is something I’ve been looking at doing for a while now because I love the way they look, but I’ve been putting it off since I didn’t know what sort of quality I’d get for my money.

The website couldn’t have been easier to use. Everything worked pretty intuitively, and I got a great preview of my finished product. Editing it was really easy, and I was excited to see the final piece. It shipped and showed up at my door in less than a week.

And? I love it. It’s so beautiful! It showed up well wrapped, was already equipped with a picture hanger on the back, and went right up on the wall in my daughter’s room.

She couldn’t be happier with it, since she (naturally) finds herself pretty adorable too. I was really impressed with the picture quality, and the canvas just looks so well done. The color I chose along the edges is perfect, the backing is well secured along the wood, and the canvas itself feels thick and sturdy. The color on the canvas is great and manages to give a painting-style feel even though it’s just a printed photograph. The price was so reasonable too! This would be a great gift for a wedding or baby shower, or for Mothers Day or Fathers Day! I’d love to get one for my Dad of the kidlet with my parents’ awesome black lab, who my Dad likes almost as much as he likes my daughter!

Yes, mine was free from the company, but I would definitely be coming back to shop for gifts and more prints. I love the idea of doing one for every kidlet birthday.

Tags: art, canvas, EasyCanvasPrints.com, free, gifts, photographs, product review
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source: adoptanegotiator.org

I’m alive, I promise!

Thanks to a CRAZY schedule through the summer, I won’t be blogging more than once a week most of the time.

So far, I’ve been hanging in there and managing some healthy-ish choices. I’m not counting Weight Watchers points right now. I’m walking1-3 miles every day. 2-3 times a week I do Pilates for five minutes  the morning. I’m trying to choose fruits and vegetables when they’re available.

I’m not getting enough sleep. I’m taking in too much caffeine. My stress levels are pretty high.

My goal for the summer semester, which lasts into mid-August, is simply to maintain. If I can get through this semester without gaining weight or hitting a major health crisis, I will call it a significant victory.

With everything I’ve got on my plate right now, I’m learning an important lesson about the importance of knowing my limits. Of course I want to lose weight, but right now focusing on that would mean not giving my all to things that are more important. I need to focus all of my efforts on academic performance, family integrity, and basic functioning this semester.

So that’s where I’m at right now, and coming to terms with maintenance feels good.

Tags: busy, exercise, maintenance, steady, summer, workout
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source: psychcentral.com

I’m breaking up with Weight Watchers.

I love the program, and it really does work for me, so this is probably a stupid idea… but I just need a break. I’m having an enormous amount of anxiety with the beginning of the summer semester, and I just need a break.

The thing is, I’m back up. As of yesterday morning, I’m 200.8, which is about a half pound lighter than the week before. It’s not something I’m proud of… it’s just… something that is.

I’m probably headed back to DailyPlate, since I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go without some kind of tracking and accountability. My plan is to track on DailyPlate for a few weeks and see how things go. The summer semester is going to be completely insane in terms of schedule, so DailyPlate might be easier than tracking points. I’ve had success with it before.

Honestly, I’m more focused right now on success in the semester than anything else, so I think I’m (somewhat intentionally) letting my health efforts take a bit of a backseat. I know I feel better, do better, focus better when I’m making healthy choices though, so I’m hoping that’s the motivation I need to keep things from getting out of control.

I’m also looking for some ideas on exercise, since my schedule is going to be so tight. I’ll be getting up at 4:30, leaving the house at 5:15, spending 45-60 minutes in the car, getting on a bus at 6:15, riding the bus until just before 8:00, walking a half mile, then sitting in class from 8:15 to 2:45 before walking another half mile. I’ll get back on the bus at 3:15 or so, getting home at 5:00, then spending another 45-60 minutes in the car to get home by 6:00. Then it’s a rush to get lunches packed and dinner made before the kidlet goes to bed between 8:00 and 8:30. Then it’s back to bed for another 4:3o wakeup call. I’m just not seeing anywhere to shove exercise in. Yes, I’ll be walking a mile every day, but I’m at a point where that just isn’t making a dent in my weight loss efforts.

I do have Fridays off from class, so I’ll be trying to get in at least an hour of exercise every Friday, and hopefully at least another hour on the weekends. I’m just feeling like my schedule makes exercise sort of a lost cause…

Tags: advice, dailyplate, exercise, food, motivation, nutrition, schedule, tracking, Weight Watchers, workout
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Piero Pollaiuolo via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

This week has been significantly better than last week. I’m tracking again and although my choices haven’t been ideal, I’m getting back to good.

I’ve also done a lot of thinking about the metabolic diet I was considering, and after exhaustive thought and discussion, I’ve decided against it.

Why? Two reasons. It would require a significant departure from the way we currently eat and shop, which would likely mean a hike in grocery costs (which we CANNOT afford) and a lot of inconvenience for the family. Secondly, it’s just another way of cutting back my calories. Weight Watchers works when I follow it properly, and if I can’t stick to it for the long term, then it’s highly unlikely that I could stick to an even more restrictive diet for more than a week or so. Sure, the accelerated weight loss might have been enough to keep me going for a little while, but I doubt it.

So I’m back to what I know works for me. I’m counting points again on Weight Watchers. My goal for this week is to just get through it with tracking and without going over my daily + weekly points. Next week starts my new summer semester, so for now I’m just trying to re-establish control so that the semester doesn’t tailspin me again. My hope is that the super busy schedule will help instead of hurt, since it will require me to bring my food or not eat at all.

Tags: diet, food, goals, motivation, nutrition, weight loss, Weight Watchers
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source: bigperfectdiet.com

That’s not my stomach… but I wish it was.

I’m in a bad place, y’all.

I’m making bad food choices on purpose again. I’m barely hanging on to healthy habits. Honestly, being too broke to eat out is the only thing that is saving me right now.

This happens every so often, where I fall into the nasty trap of feeling like I’ll never get there, never get to the place I want to be, that I’ll be ashamed of my belly fat or hip padding or thigh rub forever. Oddly, it almost always happens right after a super confident phase like the one that possessed me to show up on the internet in a bikini. I’ve almost taken that post down a thousand times, nitpicking every real or imagined imperfection in the picture and wondering how many people think I’m gross.

So… I’m considering a change. I’ve been stuck in this lose-gain pattern for a while now, constantly bouncing around in a five pound range. What I’m doing isn’t working right now. I have gone so far as to consider a medically supervised strict diet, but it’s insanely expensive to do that. Instead, I’m leaning on a friend who did one of those diets and getting some information from her on how to pretty seriously cut back on my intake. I promise nothing crazy will happen, as I love my husband and daughter FAR too much to make dangerous decisions based on largely superficial motivations, but something’s got to change.

Once I iron out some details, I will talk a little more about my game plan going into the super super stressful summer semester, which will consist of classes from 8-3, four days a week,with no break and still involving a 5 hour daily commute. Fun, right?

Has anyone tried those cooking once a month plans? Since I’m about to transition from a little free time to EPIC BUSY, I’m looking at something like this. Thoughts?

Tags: diet, exercise, goals, nutrition, weight loss
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source: carolinamama1.blogspot.com

I know things have been quiet around here. I’ve been struggling through the end of the semester, planning and executing a munchkin birthday party, and trying to generally decompress.

I’m not sure how regularly I’ll be back in the next two weeks, since I still have time off from school and I am really trying to spend the two weeks enjoying the time with friends and family, but I wanted to be sure and come back for a super important post.

Thanks to Curvy Girl Guide, I’m getting involved in Lands End’s swimsuit confidence movement. No matter who you are, no matter what you size, you can feel good about your body. You can show it off and have a great time at the beach or the pool, and Lands End can help.

I didn’t have a lot of confidence in this when I first read it. Bathing suits are for fit people, right? I don’t care how great the suits are, there is no way I’m going to feel good in one with all of the body hangups I have. But all the same, I sucked it up and went to try on some suits. I’ll be honest, I was expecting to hate them all and be disgusted with myself and my body.

Here’s what I found instead:

There I am in the Living Dots Sweetheart Bikini Top and Shirred Swim Mini. I felt good. I felt comfortable. I felt liked I’d have gladly marched myself right out of the dressing room and onto the beach. It was a great way to feel and it made me realize that it’s true. No matter what your body type, a well made and good fitting swimsuit can make all the difference.

Now Lands End totally doesn’t know I exist, but by posting this I might get the chance to win a Lands End gift card. No perks beyond that, except discovering that there are bathing suits out there (even two piece bathing suits!) that make me feel beautiful.

Tags: bathing suit, bikini, body image, Curvy Girl Guide, dressing room, Lands End, swimsuit confidence
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Finding myself with a single refrigerated pie crust and some soon-to-be useless baby bella mushrooms, I came up with tonight’s easy, SUPER YUMMY, reasonably healthy dinner. Not only was it really amazing, but it’s easy to adapt to whatever filling you’ve got on hand.

These turned out AWESOME and really filling. I will definitely be making them again. I’m excited, because they were really easy and you could do endless options… pizza, cheeseburger, taco, tuna melt, pork bbq, spicy shrimp… These mini-pies will be my new dinner staple. I think if I can cut back on the filling a tiny bit so the pastry doesn’t break, they’d freeze really well and make perfect lunch/dinner grab-and-gos.

If you make them exactly as I did, with six mini-pies, they are 6 PointsPlus each and well worth it. Obviously, the points would change a lot with altered fillings.

Mushroom, Sweet Pepper, and Pineapple Chicken Sausage Mini-pies

–> 1 refrigerated pie crust
–> 8-10 baby bella mushrooms, diced
–> 6-8 mini sweet peppers, diced
–> 2 cloves garlic, minced
–> black pepper
–> 3 links of sausage (I used Casual Gourmet Pineapple Chicken Sausage, 5 links is a pound)

Take the pie crust out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. Preheat oven to 475. Saute the mushrooms and peppers in garlic until most of the moisture is gone. Chop the sausage (mine was precooked, so it just needed warming – if yours is raw, cook it first!) and add it to the mushroom/pepper mix. Roll out the pie crust onto a greased cookie sheet and separate into six even sections. Fill each with one sixth of the filling. (Originally I made four, and mine were SUPER full, overfull even, and burst a lot when they cooked.) Bake for 9-12 minutes or until pie crust is just starting to brown.

Tags: cooking, dinner, easy, fast, food, lunch, main dish, pie, points plus, recipe, Weight Watchers
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source: shupg.blogspot.com

Oh hey there! You guys still reading?

Yeah… I’ve been sort of AWOL. What with finals and stress and studying, I’ve been having a terrible time keeping up with anything at all, so blogging has gone right down the drain.

So I’m now looking at two weeks of break and hoping it means a successful return to healthy living. For now I’m just concentrating on decompressing…

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source: fitnessblog.projo.com

My week hasn’t gone anything like I was expecting it to, so I haven’t gone to spin class at all or even been on campus. We’ve been having a tough time getting out of the house on time, so I’ve been dropping the husband at work and heading to the mall to study since I can get free wifi in Borders. So I’ve been trying to simultaneously avoid mall food and get some exercise in despite my odd circumstances. I did eat a lemon bar yesterday, but I also spent an hour carrying a heavy backpack on a fast walk around the mall. It was a great study break too, so it got me nice and sweaty while helping clear my head at the same time.  Today I’m back at the mall, latte in hand, hoping for a more focused study session and another great walk around the stores.

I am definitely missing spin class a lot though. I will be back on campus tomorrow for sure, so I’m hoping to make it to a spin class tomorrow and also one on Friday. Without them, I’ll totally go crazy with stress from studying for finals. Besides, the gym has free classes this week to help with finals stress relief, so it would be silly not to take advantage!

What do you do when you’re faced with unplanned schedule shifts? How do you work healthy choices in?

Tags: exercise, unplanned, workout
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