Top 10 ways to live a healthy life.

 

How can I live a healthy life? I don’t have time. I don’t have money. Here are 10 things that you can do today.

Set realistic goals. Remember to use the acrostic SMART to help you get started. Why not sign up for a 5k?  I also believe it is important to reward yourself for meeting your goals. Even small goals deserve a reward.

Eat clean unprocessed foods. This means eat as close to how your grandparents ate. 

Plan when you are going to workout and what you are going to do….THEN WORKOUT! Don’t do the same thing every day. Change it up. Increase your workout intensity, length of time working out or order you do your workout, or change the weight or speed. It is important to add variation so you do not plateau.

Control your portion size. It is important to watch what you are eating.  Take a look at the nutrition facts on the back of the package. Be aware of what you are putting in your body. 

Drink a lot of water. Take the pee test. The test is conducted by looking at the color and quantity of urine. When the urine is clear and of reasonable volume, you are at a normal water balance. If your urine is dark and not much volume, are are probably not drinking enough water.

Get 7 to 8 hours or sleep a night.

Do one spontaneous fitness activity a day. For example, park in the furthest parking spot at the store. Chase your kids around the park. Take the stairs. Dance to your favorite song.

Divide snacks into plastic bags or containers so you don’t eat the entire bag. Small healthy snacks throughout the day can help reduce hunger and maintain a higher metabolism.

Talk to your Doctor about the changes he/she recommend.

Relax, have fun and don’t stress. Enjoy life!

***Start your journey today. I recommend Plexus for extra help. Plexus will help you lose weight and inches, and also keep your blood sugar, cholesterol, and lipids at healthy levels. I recommend Plexus because it is ALL NATURAL. Of course as a personal trainer I recommend doing Plexus as one part of living a healthy lifestyle.  Read below for more information!

Have you thought about your goals for the New Year?

New Year’s is coming quickly. Have you thought about your goals for the year? Here is a guideline to help you get started.

• · Be SMART! Write your goals down. Then post them somewhere that you will see them regularly like the refrigerator or mirror.
• · Specific– What do you want to achieve? Be detailed. Ask WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY?
• · Measurable- How am I going to track my progress and measure my success?
• · Attainable– What do I need to do to achieve this goal?  What is my plan?
• · Realistic– Is my goal challenging but not overwhelming?
• · Timely-What is my time limit? When do I want to achieve this goal?
•  Break your ultimate goal into smaller goals. By breaking down your goal into smaller goals you can see your success. Make sure you cross them off your list once to achieve your goal. This is the key to reaching your goals.

If you really want to challenge yourself– make your goals known. Telling your friends and family increases your chances of reaching your goal. 

Need help reaching your goals? Click on this picture!

Christmas Tradition

LeFleur Family Tradition:  Soup on Christmas Eve

 

My Mom, Grandma, Grandpa Smith, and Uncle Larry

My Mom remembers her Grandma Pitsenbarger hosting the Christmas meal after the Kids Program on Christmas Eve. My grandma would start the soup before everyone opened presents after the program.

I remember we would have two kinds of soups growing up. My sister and I always choose Potato Soup. My parents (probably my Dad) would choose oyster or clam chowder. My sister and I always were grossed out by the chowder...I still think its gross!

Struska Family Tradition: Cookies on the Christmas Tree

 

Struska family making Christmas cookies in Mexico last year.

Phil’s Mom told me that the tradition of putting cookies on the Christmas tree started the year they were married. They couldn’t afford anything to put on their tree so she made cookies to decorate.  She said they like it so they stuck with it throughout the years. 

The Christmas cookies are made with a hole in the top to put string through. Then everyone helps decorate the cookies. Now, as a professional cookie decorator, they look terrible. But that just adds to the tradition. The uglier they are, the better they are!  These cookies are completely COVERED in frosting, chocolate chips, silver balls, etc. The silver balls are always split. 

The cookies hang on the tree overnight and then on Christmas morning you eat the cookies off the tree for breakfast. Hot cocoa is served out of  Santa mugs. Grandpa reads the Christmas story and then the opening of presents begins. (oh ya, watch out for the wrapping paper war)

What are your Christmas traditions? In the comment section below I would love to hear what you do every year to celebrate the Saviors birth!

Cupcake Winter Wonderland

 

I just had to share what my friend made for church this morning. SOOOOOOO cute!

 

She made tiny little penguins, trees, kids, snowmen, and a few other really cute animals.

 

Here she is putting the finishing touches on.

 

It took awhile, but the kids dug in as soon as they got the go ahead.

 

They even ate the trees.

Sooooo cute!

I can't wait to see what she makes next. I am so glad that people in our church use their gifts to bless those around them....I'm glad I am one of those that get to enjoy those gifts!

Happy Birthday Prank

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. We had a youth group party at our house so we couldn’t celebrate like we wanted. So I made up these cards to hand out to each of the teens. Each person was given a job to do today. Above is a list of the jobs we handed out.

Phil receiving a birthday text.

Phil just caught on to what is going on. He asked me, "Did you have people text and call me about weird things? I almost didn't realize it because I am crazy so I just figured everyone else was just being silly like me!"

If you haven't given him a call yet, go for it. Try out one of the things listed above if you can't think of anything.

DIY Snowman hot cocoa gift

 

Need a gift for a teacher? Mailman? Youth Pastor?  

Here is an easy Do-It-Yourself Snowman Hot Cocoa gift. 

 

All you need is 3 baby food containers. I used three different sizes.

Wash the baby food containers and take off all labeling.

 

In the bigger jar I put mini marshmallows. In the medium one I put hot cocoa. In the little tiny one I put Peppermint Patties.

Next I punched out a bunch of black circles with the hole punch. You will also need an orange nose and some ribbon.

 

Use packing tape and stick the jars together biggest to smallest.

Start gluing your eyes, nose and buttons on.

Tie a ribbon around the snowman's neck.

Cut a black hat out of black paper. I traced the top of the lid and cut that out. Then I used black permanent marker to color in the lid. I used the cut out circle and made a bigger circle around that for the brim of the hat. Glue the circle on top of the top jar. Make the brim by fitting it under the black circle.

Enjoy your snowman hot cocoa gift!

Snowflake Sugar Cookies

I love the snow so snowflake cookies are one of my favorite Christmas cookies to make.

Here is what you will need to make these cookies: Sugar cookies in snowflake shapes (recipe at the bottom of this post), Royal Frosting (recipe at the bottom of this post), and sprinkles.

 

Make your royal frosting thin to make the first layer of frosting on the cookies. It doesn't need to look perfect because we will be adding sprinkles on top.

 

I add a lot of sprinkles. My husband surprised me with some fun sprinkles to make these cookies. He bought me DUFF sprinkles. I was so excited to try them out. They worked great for these cookies.

 

After the frosting dried a little bit I added on my frosting decorations. I outlined some and I drew snowflake lines on other. The sprinkles my husband bought had pearls in them and they were beautiful on these cookies.

Sugar Cookie Recipe

 

Royal Frosting Recipe

  

Ready to lose weight before Christmas?

Christmas Mitten Cookies

I love making Christmas cookies. Today I made mitten cookies. The recipe for my Sugar Cookies can be found at the bottom of this post. I like making my cookies thick and soft.

 

The next step is frosting the cookies. I use Royal Frosting. That recipe can be found at the end of this post.  Some people like to pipe a line around the cookie and then fill it in with thinner frosting. For my purpose today, I just covered the cookie with frosting.

 

While the frosting is still wet I added red sprinkles. 

 

Then I added the white frosting for the cuffs. I used a 32 tip.

 

Next I lined the mitten in red with a 3 or 4 tip.

 

Of course we end with decorating the mittens.

 

Sugar Cookie Recipe

Frosting Recipe