Time for another check in! I've been doing really well with my meal prepping so far. Most days I have tilapia, broccoli, and either low sodium black beans or mashed sweet potatoes.  I did go out for lunch one day, but I tried to make smart decisions and ordered a stir fry with lots of good veggies, brown rice, and tofu. I haven't been very good about sticking to my meal times, and there have been a few days where I missed a snack or had an extra snack after dinner. However, I'm making smarter choices about what I eat, I try not to eat if I'm not hungry, and I pay attention to portion sizes. For example, I'll have a serving of pretzels with no added salt instead of mindlessly snacking on a bag of potato chips. 

Since my last post, I've lost 2.5 inches from my waist, and an inch from my hips! I am beyond thrilled that my hard work is paying off especially since I haven't been perfect with my goals.  If you have an "all or nothing" attitude when it comes to eating healthy, odds are you'll end up on the nothing end of that scale. Remember that it's ok to slip up once in a while! There are a lot of very restrictive diet plans circulating right now, and honestly, they scare me. Although one of these fad diets might help you lose weight, it probably isn't sustainable, and it probably isn't healthy. Losing weight in a safe and healthy way happens when you make lifelong changes not only to what you eat, but to your attitude about food. ​

I have mixed emotions about my progress lately. I felt like I really wasn't doing very well, but recently, I had my measurements taken again, and most of them decreased! It's so easy to be too hard on yourself, and when I feel like I'm going nowhere, I start slacking. This is why it's so important to track your progress!

Current Eating Habits:
I feel like my eating has been all over the place lately.​ I usually start strong with breakfast. I've been having either a half cup of oatmeal made with milk, cinnamon, and Truvia, or two pieces of dry toast. On occasion I add some fruit; usually raspberries or blueberries, but sometimes I mix it up.  Lunch, however, is a totally different story. I haven't been meal prepping, and for whatever reason, I hate packing a lunch ahead of time, so in the morning, I just kind of grab random things. For example, yesterday for lunch I ate a can of tuna and some salt-less pretzels.  There are some days I don't really eat lunch at all, which is completely unintentional. My boss also ordered a pizza for us not that long ago, so I had pizza that day, and then leftover pizza later that week. Dinner is normally one of two things; burgers or taco bowls. For the burgers, my fiance uses 95% lean ground beef, mixes in some dill relish and seasonings, and serves them with lettuce instead of a bun.  The taco bowls are made with 99% lean ground turkey, salsa, spices (not a premixed taco seasoning packet), and spinach. Sometimes there's avocado and/or black beans added.  I'm also supposed to have a snack in between my meals, but I haven't been very consistent with that. On the weekends, I've been eating out more than I'd like.  Eating out doesn't have to be scary if you're trying to eat healthier. For example, one of the best meals I ever had at Texas Roadhouse was baked chicken with butter-less steamed veggies and applesauce. Recently however, I'm not always making the best choices. I try to have a turkey or veggie burger instead of a regular burger, and I'll sub sweet potato for regular french fries, but when it comes down to it, I'm still eating a burger and fries. I'm also not paying attention to my portions as much when I eat out. 

​My Eating Goals:
I really want to buckle down and start eating better for a number of reasons. I want to lose weight, and there's only so much you can do in the gym. I also want to feel better, have more energy, and just be healthier overall. To get back on track with nutrition, I'm going to do some goal setting, and I'm going to make these SMART goals so I can actually keep track of how I'm doing. If you haven't heard about this type of goal setting, check out this article on how to set SMART nutrition and exercise goals!

 ​In the long run, I don't want to have to track my food everyday. Tracking is a great tool for the beginning of your lifestyle change. You might find out you tend to snack at certain times of the day, or you tend to overeat on the weekends, etc. However, once you're aware of your eating habits, it can be kind of a pain to track everything. In order to keep myself on track without having to track, I have a list of "approved" foods given to me by the gym I currently go to (Motifaith Fitness). I have a hard time sticking to meal plans for a number of reasons, so I find this approach much easier.  For example, for lunch I pick a protein and carb from the list of approved foods, and I'm good to go! I don't have to eat chicken and brown rice every single day, I can mix it up by having tilapia with black beans, or salmon with sweet potatoes. I also don't have to track anything because I know I'm getting the nutrition I'm supposed to. It really just takes the guess work out of everything. Now accountability is where my goal setting comes into play. Tracking my food used to keep me accountable because I didn't want to have to input that I ate an entire bag of potato chips. Since I don't want to track my food, I need to find another way to keep myself diligent. Since lunch and after dinner snacking have been the two biggest issues thus far, I'm going to make two goals to target these issues.

Nutrition Goal #1:
I want to prepare my lunches ahead of time so I can grab them and go in the morning. I plan to cook all my lunches for the week at once, and portion them out into containers to take each day.  This is something I hope to make a lifelong habit, but for now I'd like to meal prep once a week through the end of October. This is easy to measure, because either I do it, or I don't, there is no in between. I will take a picture of my meal prep each week to keep myself accountable and post it in my gym Facebook group. I believe this is a realistic goal for myself, because I have been able to meal prep in the past, I just fell out of the habit of it.

Nutrition Goal #2:
To help with my post dinner snacking, I want to stick to a schedule when it comes to food. I want to eat three meals a day with one snack in between each meal. Listed below are the windows of time I aim to eat each meal/snack:
Breakfast 8-9am
Morning Snack 10-11am
Lunch 12-1pm
Afternoon Snack 3-4pm
Dinner 5-7pm
Starting now, I want to do this every day until the end of September. At that point, I'll check in and see if this still makes sense for me. I think this goal is realistic for me, because I already eat my meals roughly at these times during the week. I haven't been consistent with my snacks, and I need to work on sticking to this schedule on the weekends, but I know I can do this. To keep track of how I'm doing, I will keep a small journal of the times I eat each day. If I successfully eat during these time frames, I will consider that day a success, and I aim to be successful 5/7 days per week. 

​When I went off to college, I didn't participate in any sports, but I didn't gain the stereotypical "freshman 15" either. Freshman and sophomore year I dated a "fitness buff" and had my first real introduction to weight-lifting. Psychologically it was very hard for me to feel like I had gotten in a really good workout unless I practically ran myself to death, so I wasn't a big fan of lifting right away.
​

​In May, I graduated from college and got a full time office job. THIS is where my lifestyle was majorly to blame for my physique. I was very sedentary all day, and I really wasn't exercising outside of work either. My food habits were basically the same, but I wasn't tracking and I was drinking a lot more beer. My clothes started getting tighter again, but I didn't pay attention to my weight. Eventually I realized I weighed 175 pounds, and I was miserable.

This is when I decided I needed to do something drastic. My fiance and I joined a gym that offers a six week challenge. We were given a very specific meal plan and needed to attend at least three workouts per week. We made it four weeks following everything we were told to a T. Due to some management issues that I won't go into, we left the gym and received a full refund for the four weeks we were there. Over the course of those four weeks, I lost 5 pounds, and my fiance lost 20. Most of the weight he lost was actually muscle which is part of the reason we left. This was not a healthy way to lose weight, and this gym was focused on getting people to lose weight quickly rather than doing it the right way. We found a new gym with a personal trainer, but everything was less strict, and I reverted to my old eating habits. This gym unfortunately is farther away, so we only go once a week.

Activated charcoal has become a very trendy ingredient in the beauty world.  From teeth whitening to pore cleansing, many companies are using activated charcoal in their products.  Some people are even taking it upon themselves to create DIY beauty treatments using activated charcoal.  So why all the fuss?  Charcoal which goes through a special heating process becomes "activated" meaning it's more porous and can therefore absorb up to twice its weight.  So why is this good for our skin?  Activated charcoal can absorb excess oil and sebum that can clog pores and cause blemishes.  This results in a clear and healthy complexion with smaller looking pores!

Now that you know why activated charcoal is all the rage right now, let's do a beauty breakdown of two masks currently on the market: Mary Kay's Clear Proof Deep-Cleansing Charcoal Mask, and Clinique's Pore Refining Solutions Charcoal Mask.

When it comes to skincare, most companies market their products in sets.  For example, a simple set may contain a cleanser, toner, and moisturizer, while more elaborate sets may also include specialized products designed to treat acne or signs of aging.  When it comes to skincare, many women struggle with choosing a regimen which is right for them.  In this post, I will address the 5 most common concerns regarding skincare systems. 

If you keep up with my Facebook page, you know I've recently become a Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultant.  I was hesitant to post about becoming a consultant, because I didn't want to lose the small online following I have.  To combat this, I decided to continue posting my regular content in addition to Mary Kay related posts.  As a way of meshing the two, I thought it would be interesting to do comparisons of similar products from three different brands: Mary Kay, a drugstore version, and a "high-end" brand.  As the title suggests, this post is about translucent setting powder, so if you're interested in my beauty breakdown, please keep reading!

I have had long hair for years, and by long, I mean extremely long.  My hair went down to my hips, and I trimmed it myself on a semi-regular basis.  Recently, I decided I needed a bit of a change, which is something I usually do every 2-3 years.  I settled on an inverted long bob and ended up cutting off around 11 inches of hair.  Luckily, my hair was long enough to donate to Locks of Love which is something I've always wanted to do but never thought I could bring myself to cut off enough hair to donate.  This is the shortest my hair has been in years, and it was a pretty nerve-wracking change for me.  For those of you on the fence about making a big change with your hairstyle, consult your hairstylist.  With photoshop, hair extensions, and other tricks available now, your inspiration pictures may or may not be attainable.  If you have an idea in mind, talk to your stylist about it, and see what they think.  Your hair texture may not work to achieve the look you have in mind, and by talking about it before making the change, you won't be disappointed when the style looks different than what you were expecting.  Don't forget to keep an open mind too!  Your stylist might suggest something they think will work better with your hair texture.  Hair grows back too, so if you end up with something you're not in love with, be patient.

For those of you interested in where I got my hair cut, check out this link to their Facebook page!