Lifestyle changes

Sorry I haven't blogged in awhile. Blogging and no one commenting/reading/subscribing gets kind of disheartening sometimes. Anywho, I just went on a vacation to Florida for 4 days and I feel like just being there in the beautiful weather really pulled me out of a rut. During winter I pretty much went into hibernation. I didn't want to go to school, I didn't want to get out of bed, I didn't want to work out, I just wanted to eat warm comfort foods like soup and stew and the like. Anything with fat, I wanted it. It was cold here in Michigan, very cold and we got a ton of snow this winter. I hated having soaked clothes, too-hot classrooms, being cold. But after going to some nice weather and hanging out with a friend of mine who is very active, smart and gets a lot done. She gets up early in the morning, around 7am, and she has 2 dogs and rabbits and an apt, school, a bf, and all kinds of other things to take care of, and she did. So I'm taking a page from her book: I'm on spring break right now, only for 2 more days, and I have been getting up around 7-8 every morning and staying up all day, no naps or anything. I have been getting a ton done, I've been to 2 doctors appointments, just having checkups and tying up lose ends, and I've cleaned my apartment and taken my bunnies to the vet for their annual checkup. And all before 2 or 3 in the afternoon! I caught up in Youtube vids, episodes of Dr. Oz and also The Biggest Loser that I had TiVo'd from the semester, I figure I'll do it now and then I won't have anything to distract me when school starts back up. I also go to bed earlier in the evening, around 11pm instead or 3 or 4 (or even 7:30am!) like i was doing before spring break. I also am going to be starting the Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred on a recommendation from a friend, tonight. I have been eating a lot less too, for breakfast I had a whole wheat piece of toast with a tablespoon or 2 of all natural peanut butter and about a cup of orange juice. For lunch I had a bit of macaroni salad that I made (i cut the recipe in half and cut out all the sugar and replaced the may with low fat miracle whip) and a salad with olives. For dinner tonight I am making a spicy veggy stir fry with brown rice. I'll probably have a snack later on but no more eating past 8am except for water!

I hope I keep up with this! i want to lose a significant amount of weight before the next time I see my Floridian friends :)

Review: Glittersniffer Cosmetics

I would like to introduce my readers to some AWESOME makeup! I stumbled upon this company "Glittersniffer Cosmetics" while searching through blogs on this website, which led me to her etsy page. Lela, the owner and creator of everything Glittersniffer, is a wonderfully talented woman who has an eye for color, sparkle and quality. I placed an order with her at the beginning of February, and the colors that I purchased were as follows:

Pink Pistol: a hot pink pigment completely saturated with silver microglitter. It's gorgeous!
Playboy: a goldenrod yellow, almost the color of pollen on flowers, full of tons of silver glitter. It looks like powdered gold, only better!
Angry: A beautiful carbon black pigment, almost the color of coal, with pink/purple glitter throughout.

and with almost every order she adds a little something as a sample, which I received "Pink Stiletto's" A bright, almost metallic pink. Theres no glitter in this color, but when you swatch or wear the color you can see the as the light hits it, it glows.

I love all the colors that I received. They are all so different from anything I have ever owned. I showed my friends and even my family. I actually made my dad look at them haha.

As for the quality of the shadow, they all are amazing...
Here are some pictures of the swatches I made. I used Urban Decay Primer Potion under these, but they are awesome even without primer.

From left to right: Playboy, Pink Pistol, Angry, and Pink Stiletto's.

Sorry my camera isn't the greatest, I need to upgrade! The 3rd picture down actually is without primer. You can see that Angry (the black) is a bit less pigmented that way, but you can always pack on the color a bit more than I did! The one thing you have to worry about is fallout. But since these are pigments and not packed shadows, it is to be expected.

The pigments went on really easily and when I wiped them off (I use sensitive baby wipes to remove my makeup) they didn't scratch my lids like sometimes eye makeup with glitter can do.

How long does it last, you ask? Well it lasts just about all day!

I would definitely recommend buying from Lela at Glittersliffer.etsy.com. She has TONS of colors to choose from, even a new Avatar inspired pigment!

Play Boy, Pink Pistol, Angry, Pink Stiletto's. Then a combo of PP and PB.

Day 5/40 on Sugar Detox aka Lent

So far so good on giving up sugar. Since I gave up sugar (as well as aspartame and high fructose corn syrup) I don't drink any pop. Well on day 2 I started getting bad headaches on and off throughout the day. I'm assuming that it was a caffeine headache since I hadn't had any caffeine since I started. By day 3, however, it was fine again and I was completely fine and without cravings until about day 4. My boyfriend bought a slurpee and we were driving home from my parents house which is an hr and a half away. So I get myself an unsweetened iced tea which tasted horrible to my pallet. I like sweet! I was craving his slurpee so bad and was holding myself back from just reaching to the cup holder and saying "screw it" and taking a drink. But I didn't!

If I had to complain about something, it would be the lack of sugar-free options out there in the beverage world. If I am on the run or stop at a fast food place (filet o'fish on Friday!) there are literally no options besides water and unsweetened tea to drink. Even the waters that are "naturally flavored" like Propel have aspartame in them. I don't know about anyone else but I am still not too sure about aspartame. I don't trust food that is fake and made in laboratories.

But I have to admit, to all my readers, that I did NOT go all 5 days without sugar. Yesterday was Sunday and according to Google (I haven't been to church in awhile lol so I'm not sure if this is legit or not but I remember doing it as a child) you are allowed to have whatever it is you gave up on Sundays since it's considered a day of "feasting". Well heck, I wasn't going to argue with that, so I got a coke. One bottle of coke and it took me all day to drink it. It wasn't AMAZING like I thought it would be, after being off sugar for 5 days. But it did taste pretty good. I sipped on it throughout the day so I didn't go crazy eating all sugar in sight. HOWEVER, once I had that pop I noticed that it took me awhile to get to sleep last night. It made me think and realize that all the nights that I went without sugar I was sleeping almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, which is great.

So today, being Monday, I am back to being sugarless and this week I have to go 6 days without sugar before I even get to a Sunday, so we will see how it goes. I will keep you posted!

XOXO

Day 1/40 on Sugar Detox aka Lent

So some of you may be wondering how did day 1 go on the no-sugar "detox". It went pretty well. I found myself thinking about it all day long because I didn't want to make a mistake and also wondering what exactly I'm going to allow myself to have. I started off saying I wasn't going to drink any juice. But I decided that I'll allow myself a little juice as long as it is 100% juice. None of that fruit juice cocktail crap. I do this because let's face it, orange juice has vitamins, it probably my only source of Vitamin D in this horribly cold, cloudy state I live in. So day 1 down, no slip ups. I went to Tim Hortons to do some work and ordered a green tea, no sugar. Burned my tongue and part of my lip on it, but still felt good about my choice :) Stay Tuned!

Lent!

I am giving up sugar for lent. Yep, that's 40 DAYS without chocolate, candy, soda, sweetened tea, lattes, cookies, ice cream... the list goes on and on. Thankfully the bf gave me my box of Valentines Day chocolate on Friday instead of Sunday or else I'd have no time to eat it! It's going to be tough and I already warned my bf that I may not be very easy to live with for the first week of this, but I'm going to try my hardest. I am pretty scared of this task, it is a big one, and I am addicted to sugar. I have sugar at LEAST once a day, and not to mention all the things its in that we don't even think about. So for those of you would would like to follow my struggle, stay tuned. I have one day left to eat a bar of chocolate, drink some Arizona iced tea, drink some pop and then its cold turkey! WELL except for the fact that I'm not giving up fructose, so I can have fruit and things that are naturally sweet. I bough seedless red grapes that taste amazing and also some nice red raspberries. So wish me luck!

XOXO

Recipe of the Week #4!

Ok so I know that I'm doing awful keeping up with the "weekly" recipes, but bear with me :) hopefully this DELICIOUS soup recipe makes up for it! Healthy, yummy and great for those cold winter nights. Thats right, I'm talking about Broccoli-Cheese Chowder!!

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chipped
1 large carrot, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 large potato, peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon all-purpose flower
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 14-oz cans vegetable broth, or reduced-sodium chicken broth
8 oz broccoli crowns, cut into 1-inch pieces, stems and florets separated
1 cup shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1. Heat oil in a Dutch oven or large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrot and celery; cook, stirring often, until the onion and celery soften, 5 to 6 minutes. Add potato and garlic; cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Stir in flour, dry mustard and cayenne; cook, stirring often, for 2 minutes.

2. Add broth and broccoli stems; bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to medium. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Stir in florets; simmer, covered, until the broccoli is tender, about 10 minutes more. Transfer 2 cups of the chowder to a bowl and mash; return to the pan.

3.Stir in Cheddar and sour cream; cook over medium heat, stirring, until the cheese is melted and the chowder is heated through, about 2 minutes. Season with salt.

My changes:
I didn't use the broccoli stems, just the florets. I brought the broth/spices mixture to a boil and then added the florets, covered and boiled for 10 minutes. I also didn't add the salt at the end. It tasted great without it and I mean why bother eating more salt if you don't have to?

ENJOY! please comment and let me know if you tried it!
XOXO

How to trick water #2

Once again I am here spilling my secrets to making water more appealing. I was watching TV and I realized that I was craving something seriously bubbly. I think that is the reason that I love soda so much, the fizz. BUT I think we all forgot about the fizzyness that is carbonated water. You can buy carbonated water in many different flavors or just plain. For the latter I recommend cutting 100% juice with the water - a bit of fizz and a bit of flavor.

Happy hydrating!

XOXO