Manic Monday

Today is just crazy. Even after practice and my class has been canceled my day is jam packed with things to do but things are falling into place. This week will be my hell week and my roommates are all having people come and stay with us for my school's Spring Fling Festival this weekend, which will actually be a full 5 days of everyone on my campus binge drinking..yay! (sarcastic) Oh and did i mention i play UCONN & Yale on saturday? Well i'm going to have a grand time juggling everything.

Things to do:

Clean my room and my apartment.

Make & plan meals for the week.
Begin study guides for 3 classes.
Email my professors & write my two missionaries. (Kellen & Madison)

Things to be excited for:

Gym Bag Beauty awarding me the Blender Bottle Giveaway Winner!
I love your blog and always look forward to your posts! Thank you!

Practice & Insurance Class being canceled so i can get some work done.

Also catch up on some missed episodes of my fav shows!

All Melissa's: Meal & Workout of the Week

Whether we had them when we were growing up, feed them to our kids, or pick them up for ourselves, chicken mcnuggets or tenders are a common comfort food. Now McDonalds isn't really the go-to place for healthy food for our fit bodies so here is my lil homage to golden arch's finger food...

My Fit Nuggets

Ingredients
~1 slice of Ezekiel Bread (i use low-sodium)
~5oz boneless skinless chicken breast
~1 whole egg (whisked)
~baking sheet
~for dipping sauce: 2tb of fav salsa

Step 1: blend or food process the bread to make bread crumbs.
(i put about a tbl of chili powder in my bread crumbs for extra heat)

Step 2: Slice chicken breast into tender shape.


Step 3: dip tender in whisked egg then cover in bread crumbs.

Step 4: Preheat oven to 400 degrees and bake for about 15 min.

Step aside McNuggets, Fit Nuggets will kick your trash.

Workout of the Week:
The Plank

Haha. Only joking.


You want abs? In my opinion this is one of the few workouts that will actually help you. Crunches & crunches will get you no where people. Abs are derived mostly from good nutrition. The plank is such a good stability workout and not gonna lie its mentally tough. Keep a neutral spine, try not to stick your butt in the air or lower your butt enough that you put stress on your back, and hold. I would suggest setting a 15sec holding goal and work your way up to a minute.

What? It looks too easy you say? Alright if you want more lets kick it up a notch..After holding the position shown above for about 30sec begin to flex your butt up and down; lowering your hips almost touching the ground then raise them back to the standard position. Constanly more them! Still to easy? Fine then, march it out; raise one foot and lower it gently then doing the same thing with the opposite foot. Try not to drop your feet hard to the floor and don't forget to keep your butt down during all of this. ENJOY!

For Bridgette: Breakfast & My Excercise for the Week

There are so many people out there in the world who don't eat breakfast, and the sad thing is, most of these people want to lose weight and think that skipping that meal will help. Breakfast is so important! Let's dissect the word shall we.. break-fast. Breaking the fast, i know a lot of us love doing that on those Sundays! It is referred to as "breaking the fast" because throughout our slumber our body goes through a fasting period, without food for 6-8hours. Now this isn't bad because sleeping doesn't take much energy therefore not needing fuel to do sleep successfully. But when we wake up and start moving around, getting ready for the day, doing what we do, we NEED to eat to replenish our bodies. If we don't then we are more prone to over eat later on in the day. Make sense?

Here is my favorite ultimate breakfast shake:

PB Dream
(b/c i have dreams about it, it's that good!)

Here's what ya need:

Ingredients

~1 scoop of chocolate whey protein powder
~1 tbl of wheat germ
~1 tbl of flax meal (not shown; i'm all out)
~1/3 c. old fashioned oats
~1 tbl all natural peanut butter
~frozen 1/2 banana
~1/3 c. water (you can adjust to how thick you like it)
~optional handful of ice

*Blend together and enjoy!

Here it is pre-blend. Also when in a time crunch i pre-make little tupperware cases with all the dry goods plus the pb and store them in the fridge and just pop them into a blender, add my banana from the freezer and add the water and i'm good to go!

YUM.

Exercise of the Week: The Sumo Squat

This is an AWESOME exercise for the inner thighs and inside butt.

I would do about 20 of these before you go to bed at night. It's important to get a deep movement, so try to drop down and make 90-degree angles with both legs. Once you get good or comfortable hold a weight or heavy object (could be a child haha) and do the movement.

A.

B.

Enjoy and stay tuned for more!

Zen Month

April is here and Along with April showers, this month brings us Earth Day. This month is the cleanse month, washing away the grime in our lives, uh huh you know exactly what i mean, and become re-energized/charged/vamped. If April showers bring May flowers then a full garden is coming my way. You choose which "flowers" you want to bloom. My must haves for Fit-Cleanse April:

1. Get to moving and work it out!
Also love you some lu lu lemon. look-good & feel-good workout clothes from Canadian company lululemon athletica.
Hands down the best workout clothes you'll EVER own. I swear by it.

2. Clean & De-Clutter that closet of yours.
Dont only just sing Eminem's "Cleanin Out My Closet" but do it! Nothing is more Zen than looking into a clean organized closet. Also donate some clothes that you haven't worn in awhile, shoot, hit up NameBrandExchange and get some cash! (hope you have luck they dont like me or somthing: they always only buy like one thing from me...)

3. While your cleaning, attack the ice-box
Of course i wanna say clean out all the unhealthy processed chemically enhanced foods in there but i'm not your fitness coach (to most of you!) but get rid of those things that you haven't even touched and are getting nasty. Organize & stock the fridge with things YOU like. Or you're family likes. This is key for budget keeping in these times. It's back to basics ya'll.

4. Enjoy Nature
Since its Earth Appreciation Month get out; experience & enjoy it. Whether it be spending time outside playing or doing the yard work. What the heck layout ladies! (spf though) Enjoy the world we live in.
5. Help Someone
Service is the greatest contributor to one's "Zen". Everyone could use a lil help and it truly makes you feel better.


Well i'm off to work on my #'s 1-5. Have a happy weekend!