Clean Eating: 1st week is in the books!

And the verdict is: I'm really liking it!

I kept a food journal for the entire week to record everything thing that I shoved in my mouth, and that keeps some level of accountability because I hate the thought of having to write down something unhealthy when the majority of what I have eaten is healthy. It's almost like a math equation. Healthy + Healthy=AMAZING. Healthy+Crap=CRAP.
Here's a little highlight of what I ate this week:

Salmon with a honey dijon glaze and lentils. Honey Dijon and salmon is one of the yummiest things EVER.

Homemade pico & kale chips!

"Summer" wraps: Chicken, apples, grapes, honey, and almond butter

I think I did pretty good! There was a few things I ate this week that aren't pictured here, but these are some of the highlights. I went shopping last Sunday and purchased all the items necessary for the entire week. It cost me around $50 for an entire week's worth of breakfast, lunch, and dinners. However, today when I went to the store it cost me $89 for this weeks food. I think that it's probabley because this time I paid a little bit more attention to the products I was buying.

The whole point of clean eating is to actually eat clean. This means eating things that have no preservatives, hormones, additives, ect. For things that are packaged, the rule is 5 or less ingredients on the box. I've been reading up on clean eating here and there, and that knowledge has made my shopping choices change just in the past week of reading. I purchased free range, organic chicken today as opposed to the regular chicken I usually purchase. The meat alone threw my bill way off today. In the two weeks that I've started shopping clean I've realized some things I want to work on.

• Write a meal plan for each week prior to starting the week (I'll do up my plan on Sundays)
• Write my shopping list down in an organized way by breaking it up by area: Dairy, Produce, ect
• CHECK INGREDIENTS!! Don't just believe that something is clean because it states it has no preservatives
• Read ads from different grocery stores to get the best deals 

I don't want to spend a lot of time planning, buying, and cooking my meals. I have a short attention span and I'm a busy girl with my job so I am determined to keep it that way. I'll tell you one thing: having done all the work on Sunday and reaping the benefits all week is SO awesome. 

I also did cardio five times this week and lifted three days. Next week I'm shooting for four to five cardio days, and four lift days.

I'm also constantly on the hunt for easy and delicious clean eating recipes. Shout it out if you got some or know of some good blogs that have 'em!

Weekend Memories

I had a wonderful last few days. On Thursday night I drove myself down to the waterfront to pick up my friend L who had hopped the ferry over to Seattle. She had originally flown in earlier in the week from out of state, but was spending a few days catching up with old friends before spending the weekend with me. Unfortunately she either caught a 24 hour bug or a case of food poisoning the day before so we decided we would lay low on Thursday night because we had a jammed packed weekend ahead of us.

Friday was spent up in Washington wine country: Woodinville!

 We made sure to hit the big players in wine making, which included Chateau St. Michelle. We were the only ones on the noon tour and because of that we had our own tour guide that truly personalized it for us. Rudy was awesome. He was very knowledgeable. L doesn't have much experience in wine, and she couldn't believe how much she learned. The more I am around good wine, the more I learn too. It's become more of a hobby these days, which seems totally crazy, but I like it. Makes me feel classier too :-) L & I each went home with a few bottles of wine, and had to take a nap when we got back into Seattle.

 After an afternoon of watching my life is a lifetime movie, and napping we peeled ourselves off the couch because we had more activities awaiting us!









Next on our agenda was a trek up to Cap Hill for a friend's birthday celebration. We swung in to the restaurant Smith for some delicious brews and food first. I always love the dark and rustic vibe of Smith. It took way too long for a table, but a seat on the bench while people watching made it a little better. After we finished up we went down the hill a few blocks and popped in to say happy birthday to a friend of mine. The weather was horrible that night. It was pouring all night. Alternating between raining hard and harder. Needless to say, we were ready to go home early, throw sweat pants on, and watch tv. Plus, we were continuing the fun on Saturday morning. It would be a touristy day on Saturday.

Have you ever heard of the gum wall in Seattle? It is quite the site! Let me tell you about it. The gum wall is located in Post Alley, which is a small cobble stone lined alley that runs on both sides of Pike Place Market. Only a small section of the alley is covered in gum (thank God!), and for some reason it attracts a good amount of attention. L had heard about it and put it on her list of places to visit. As you can see, there is a massive amount of gum that lines the wall, and of course we had to add our own to it. We then walked around Pike Place Market, and looked at a bunch of the booths and little stores that pack that market full.

 We hopped the monorail when we had enough of all the tourists at the market and since the monorail only takes you one place: we got off at the Seattle Center and made our way over to the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit next to the Space Needle. Dale Chihuly is a native of the Pacific Northwest; Tacoma specifically. His work is made up a variety of pieces, but he is known for his awe inspiring glass work. He blows glass into these bright, twisted, unbelievable creations. Many of them are over ten feet tall! As you can tell from my pictures, these pieces are incredibly unique and beautiful. His work can be found all across the country in not only museums, but in public places as well. My university is lucky to have scored a huge piece that looks similiar to the one in the 2nd row of pictures of the right.

Sunday was more relaxed. I dropped L off at the airport, and then went for a run. In the afternoon the roommate and I drove out to the middle of nowhere, in the rain, to cut down our tree. You would think that if you are driving out to some tree farm in the middle of nowhere and cutting down your own tree, you would save a lot of money. We were wrong in our thinking. The trees ranged from $65-80 bones! I'm thinking I should start a tree farm as a retirement business! YEESH. We sucked it up though and cut down a beautiful tree, and got out moneys worth by drinking lots of free cider and eating a bunch of their cookies ;-)

Only in the PacNW do you need an umbrella when heading out to cut down your tree!

Sawing away!

Like the vest coordination?! Christmas colors, and we didn't even plan that!

Anyone else get their Christmas tree this weekend?

Crazy crock pottin!

Fall arrived in Seattle today. I slept with two blankets, and my window closed last night. I also burrowed deep into my bed so that I was so comfortable and warm that when 6:30am rolled around I was less than thrilled to get out of bed and start getting ready for work. It was a foggy, chilly morning in Seattle. I, for the first time this season, brought out one of my winter coats to wear. That's a sad day folks. I was really hoping that it would burn off and we'd end up with blue skies by the afternoon, but no such luck today. It kind of worked out perfectly though because on Monday I took advantage of my day off and whipped up a bunch of Crockpot freezer meals! I got my inspiration from www.SixSistersStuff.com blog. What a fun blog! I can't even believe it's about six sisters, no boys! Anyway, one of the sisters did a post about eight freezer meals in an hour. I decided to take on the challenge, because the results sounded worth the small amount of time.

This is everything I needed from the store to make 7 meals!

I decided to make seven of the eight meals mainly for the fact that I didn't like one of the meals, and seven is a good enough amount of food for me! I went to the grocery store and bought everything needed for those seven meals for right around $75.00! These meals will easily feed four people. I am going to be eating each of these meals for a couple days so it's definitely a good deal because that equals around $10 per meal made. You seriously can't beat that. I made note of what time I started, and began preparing all my meals. I felt so accomplished the further I got into putting meals together, and the six sisters were right, it was actually fun to put them together! Some took mere minutes to complete while others took longer.

Cilantro lime chicken

It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to prepare six of the seven meals. I took a break after the sixth because I needed to go for run before it got dark out. When I returned I started on the final one, but then lost track of time completely because KC finally called!!! It was so amazing to hear his voice. I talked to him while preparing the last one but clearly my focus was on him, and not finishing the final meal as fast as possible.

As you can see in the picture on the right, that's how much room all seven meals take up (the meals are all stacked up on the left side of the freezer. It isn't too bad space wise. I would say that so far the little time spent on the meals has been worth it. I have yet to throw any into the crock pot yet, but I'm planning on cooking up my first one tomorrow! The weather today makes me look forward to the season of crock pot use. Do you have any good crock pot recipes that you make for those cold fall and winter nights? I love trying new recipes.