400th post!

hey, heyyy, hi!

YEP. post number 400 here on meals & moves! pretty crazy. i remember when i thought 100 posts was a lot.. and now i am quadruple that amount. pretty sweet!

so, some of  you guessed my big news but most of you just didn’t guess.. or you saw me post about it on facebook and that is totally cheating ;) BUT.. big news?

we bought a house!

yep. for the past month i have been keeping my mouth SHUT about this big lifetime event.. but now that we have closed (as of yesterday at 3 PM) i can shout it from the rooftops!

WE ARE HOMEOWNERS!

yay! so.. we found a house awhile back.  i wanted to talk about it when we placed the offer on the house, but momma b would not allow it.  she said it would have jinxed us! let me further explain.. momma b is not only the best mom on the planet, she is also the best real estate agent on the planet! (so if you live in utah and need an agent, she’s your lady!)

anyway, she wouldn’t let me blog about the house or the offer or the inspection or the appraisal or the walk throughs or the stress or the excitement or anything about the house until it was OFFICIALLY ours.

and now it is! so, so, so happy.

i will be taking some photos and/or filming a video to show you guys the place.. but we will not be moving in until july–after the wedding. in the meantime, we will be demolishing the kitchen and redoing it.. along with painting, carpeting and tiling the whole house. installing new windows. possibly redoing one of the bathrooms. yes, we have our work cut out for us these next few months!!

i am SO excited to have our own house and our own KITCHEN! i bet july is going to take forever to get here ;)

between wedding planning and house buying, i have been pretty busy. that is why i introduced guest post thursdays. and to be honest, posting may be a little hectic these next couple months.. but i will do my best to keep the blog up to date.

okay! how about a little food and fitness rambling?

friday.

yesterday after closing on the house i had a new-to-me protein bar:

luna protein chocolate cherry almond. this bar has better ratios than the regular luna bar. this bar has 180 calories, 12g protein and 21g carbs. the regular luna bars have only 8 or 9g protein and around 28g carbs.

this tasted like a candy bar. it was good, but i am not crazy about it. i like bars that aren’t so sweet. i typically pick bars that don’t have chocolate in them, like the nuts & cranberry luna bar. i don’t really like candy bars and that is what this reminded me of. with that said, i still ate the whole thing.. and i enjoyed it.. but i probably won’t buy it often, if ever again.

i didn’t get home until about 7 PM and we had plans to go out with some friends. i designated friday my rest day from exercise (i usually take one of the weekend days off) and instead committed to work out both saturday and sunday this weekend. that works.

for dinner, we had no groceries and didn’t want to go out to eat, so we made the only thing we had supplies for on-hand.

spaghetti.

ground turkey, shallots and basil & garlic marinara served over whole wheat noodles and topped with fat free feta.

the kids got the leftover noodles :)

 

ahahaha. we got some awesome photos, no?

saturday.

i woke up this morning and enjoyed a couple of cups of coffee from the french press and then i was off to the gym!

today was a HIIT day but, more importantly, it was my first day back at doing cardio on the treadmill! yay for running :) i LOVE my new asics.

i patterned this workout off lisa’s 3-2-1 workout she posted the other day. basically, you run 3 minutes at a moderate pace, 2 minutes a bit faster, and 1 minute even faster than the first two speeds.  i increased these speeds by 0.5 with each interval and i factored an increasing incline into the equation. i did a 23.5 minute workout (which was the standard BFL style 20 minutes plus a 3.5 minute cooldown). i named it the way i did because my max heart rate was really up there.. 180 BPM!!

3-2-1 heart rate blastoff HIIT.

minute #	speed (MPH)	incline
0-1	5.0	0
1-2	5.5	0
2-5	6.0	0
5-7	7.0	1
7-8	8.0	2
8-11	6.5	0
11-13	7.5	1
13-14	8.5	2
14-17	7.0	0
17-19	8.0	1
19-20	9.0	2
20-23.5	3.0	0

total time: 23.5 minutes, total distance: 2.5 miles

i was dying during minute #19-20! i definitely hit my 10 on the RPE scale. it felt awesome! it is crazy what a short 20 minutes can do.

i came home and showered while my sweet potato home fries baked in the oven.

to go with the home fries, i sauteed red onion, diced ham & red bell pepper~

and then i added 4 egg whites to the equation:

i also scrambled in some diced green chiles before plating up my meal.

i garnished the heaping egg white scramble with avocado & tomatoes.

and of course, i doused it all in hot sauce before eating!

delicious.

this afternoon was fun.. we colored easter eggs! here is a photo recap:

 

fabulous.

i definitely ate some stuff to power me through the easter egg excitement.

grapes, strawberries & a clementine:

times two. (is it freaky to anyone else that strawberries are bigger than clementines these days?)

i also used some of the quitters (AKA the cracked hard boiled eggs that we couldn’t color) to make a delicious open-faced egg salad sandwich.

one sandwich thin layered with avocado (it is hiding under there!) topped with an egg salad made with four hard boiled egg whites, a lot of yellow mustard, a scoop of cottage cheese, garlic salt and black pepper.

it was eggcellent! haha.. you had to see that coming.

tonight we went out to dinner with friends at one of my favorite places:

love the bayou!!

there were some appetizers ordered that i snagged a few bites of:

yep. the alligator cheesecake!

this was a savory, cheesy, fantastic slice of pie. i had one bite and was really impressed with the flavor of the alligator sausage. who knew a cheesecake could be savory? not me. but now i do.

there were also some sweet potato fries that i had my fair share of ;)

for my entree, i ordered the club salad:

holy GIANT SALAD! i ate about half of it. there was no way i could dominate that beast of a salad. it was tasty, though! especially that pesto balsamic vinaigrette there on the right.

we let our dinner digest and had some hang time at a couple different houses before ending the night with…

frozen yogurt!

this was my first time at one of the serve-yourself frozen yogurt places.  i usually frequent places that serve it up for you, like red mango. i loved the concept of getting exactly what i wanted and paying for just that, according to the weight.

i went with the original tart flavor and topped it with a little of several fruits.. blackberries, strawberries, mangos and blueberries along with a sprinkle of graham cracker  crumbs.

it was the perfect sweet treat to end the night!

well, it is nearly 1 AM so i better hit the hay. i have a big day tomorrow.. lower body workout planned, easter celebration (baskets, egg hunts, oh my!) and my mom and i are cooking up an easter feast!! on the menu:

• easter ham
• danica’s scalloped potatoes
• ginger ale glazed carrots
• asparagus amandine
• three seeded whole wheat rolls
• fruit
• green salad with strawberries
• carrot cake from scratch (first time!)

should be good :)

sorry i have been MIA this weekend, i will be checking in with you all tomorrow, i should have some down time. hope you are all enjoying your weekend and have a great sunday <3

Qs~

1. do you rent or own your house? who do you live with? i am so stoked to no longer be a renter and be a home owner! however, i will be still be a renter until july. i currently live with one guy, one girl, one dog and two part time dogs (the other part of the time they are at marshall’s). BUT, come july, i will be living with marshall and our two pups.. i can’t wait!

2. favorite frozen yogurt topping? i like any fruits.. but i am not a fan of toppings like sprinkles, chocolate chips, candy, etc~ i think if i had to pick just ONE topping it would be peaches. too bad they didn’t have any tonight.

HOPPY EASTER!

xo. janetha b.