The Mom Venture-A Disorganized Mom Blog

A mom blog about the ventures, or mis-adventures, of the organizationally challenged

Melissa

Progress Report for End of Week 3 Fitness

by Leave a Comment

Share/Bookmark

So last week was my 3rd week of working out with Karen Voight’s Burn and Firm. I didn’t quite make the whole week last week since I was sick toward the end, but I did get 4 days in a row in. I pretty much just did the Cardio and upper body sections the first 2 days and then Wednesday I did Cardio and Lower Body/Abdominals, and Thursday I just did Cardio.  All last week I drank a Slim Right shake in the morning (Fred Meyer brand similar to Slim Fast.) and other than that, I didn’t change my diet much more.

So Friday was payday and the cupboards were getting bare anyway, so I went grocery shopping and decided to buy what I need for my green shake that I will use for lunch this week, and lots of fruit, and just the bare minimals for what I’ll need to make meals for all of us mostly from scratch so we won’t be eating much processed foods (which I really don’t think we did that much anyway) and less fat and sugar.

Progress???

You’re probably wondering what my progress has been. Well, as I said in my first post, I didn’t measure myself until Jan. 4th, so I’ve only had a week of working out since I’ve actually took measurements. Also, I know that I was at 170lbs before starting to work out 3 weeks ago, but I don’t have a scale yet, so I can’t weigh myself at the moment.

As for progress in my measurements? I checked on Saturday and everything was still the same. :(  But, like I said, I didn’t change my diet too much last week and I didn’t workout as many days as I had hoped. Plus it will probably take some time to see those inches come off. The other drawback is that it is about “that time of the month” and I always get bloated at this time, so it’s really hard to say lol.

Plan for This Week…..

But this week the plan is to do my Slim Right shake in the morning, make my Green Shake with Whey Protein Powder at lunch. Maybe have some fruit for snacks and then do a salad for dinner with a small portion of whatever I’m making for everyone else (spaghetti, burritos, etc…..).   Also, I am going to try and do the full circuit every day this week. That’s 45 min. of doing Cardio, Upper Body, Lower Body/Abdominals.

I’ve already started this today and got through the day pretty well, even though I’m still not quite over my sickness, but I am feeling quite a bit better.  I stuck to my menu today even though I really, really wanted to eat more of the biscuits and gravy that I made for dinner tonight! lol And I got my workout in today.

Also, I ordered some Now Foods Eve, Women’s Multi vitamins that sound really good from Amazon (I ordered the men’s for my hubby also), and I also have another of Karen’s workout dvd’s coming called Streamline Fitness (A.M./P.M. Workout). So I may start with adding the morning workout this week too to kind of get me going for the day and then maybe add the PM workout next week right before bed.

So I’m very optimistic about seeing some progress by the end of the week. I have to keep reminding myself not to think too far ahead, but to just focus on each day and doing what I need to do for that day. Trying to focus on the whole week just gets too overwhelming. It really goes for anything you’re trying to accomplish. Sure you need to have short and long term goals, but then you have to keep your focus on the daily things that need to be done in order to accomplish those goals eventually.

Well, that’s it for this progress report! I’ll be posting again next Monday with another update :)

What are your fitness goals this year?

 

Green Smoothie Recipe with Spinach and Whey Protein Powder

by Leave a Comment

Share/Bookmark

Green Protein Smoothie with Spinach, Banana and Peanut Butter

Here is a very yummy green smoothie recipe that my mom gave me. I think she found it in a magazine or something but I don’t know which one. Anyway, it is really really good. You would think that with as much spinach as it has in it, it would taste too much like spinach. The nice thing about spinach is that it is pretty mild to begin with, so just adding a small amount of some other ingredients, it takes on the flavor of those other ingredients pretty readily so that you really don’t taste the spinach! My kids love it, and I always end up having to share with them ;)

I have been using this shake recipe as my go to health smoothie because it tastes so good and it is easy and affordable! You can just buy a huge bag of spinach at Costco for pretty cheap and also a big tub of Adam’s natural peanut butter, and the bananas. I think it’s probably best to buy the Whey Protein Powder (make sure it’s made using Whey Protein Isolates) online since I’ve checked in my stores around here and they seem more expensive and many don’t use much of the isolates. Plus the cool thing about Amazon.com is that with some of their items, you can do the Subscribe and Save option which gives you a little bit of a discount and free shipping.

Green Smoothie Recipe with Spinach

Ingredients

  • 3 cups of fresh Spinach
  • 1tbls Peanut Butter
  • 1/2 banana
  • 1 scoop Whey Protein Powder
  • 3/4 cup Almond Milk

Now throw all of that into the blender and blend. You may need to do a pulse blend at first to get it going. I like to use this drink for a lunch replacement since I usually try to work out a little bit after lunch.

I hope you enjoy the recipe! Try it out and let me know what you think!

 

Fitness Goals for 2013 and My Favorite Workout Video!

by Leave a Comment

Share/Bookmark

Karen Voight Burn and Firm Workout Video

Hey there! So I don’t like to make yearly “resolutions” because I think that sometimes causes the mindset that I’ll wait till the first of the year to change.

Well, I am on a mission this year to get fit. Not only lose weight but just get in great shape overall like I used to be.  So I pulled out a workout dvd that I’ve had for a few years, but haven’t used in a long time! Anyway, I got it out just before Christmas and when we got home Christmas Day after stuffing ourselves at my parents house, I decided it was time to start working out. So last the week before last, starting Tuesday night, I worked out 5 days in a row! Pretty cool! The first 3 days I think I only did the cardio section, just trying to get the moves down and then I did lower body/abdominals and then upper body. So then I took 3 days off over New Years, and then started again on Wednesday last week doing the whole circuit the first day, then Thursday I did lower body and cardio, and the same on Friday, and then I ended up taking a break Saturday and Sunday.

So this week I have worked out yesterday and today so far. Yesterday I did just the cardio section and it kicked my rearend! Today I did cardio and upper body. So I’m feeling pretty good about the way this week is shaping up so far.

So, what workout dvd am I talking about? Well, it’s called Karen Voight: Burn & Firm . I really enjoy working out with her. She seems real and not obnoxious as I’ve heard some workout dvd instructors can be. I really have not worked out to any other dvd yet, so I don’t know what some of the other trainers out there are like. But Karen is wonderful and I plan on buying some of her other dvd’s to keep a good variation to my workout routine.

So I didn’t measure myself until Friday, but I don’t think I’ve lost much of  anything yet anyway. My plan is to document on this blog weekly about how things are going and give my measurements for the week. I ended up throwing away my scale last week, only because it is sooooo old and I need to get a new one. I do know my beginning weight though, but I’m not going to focus on weight at the moment. Only measurements.

Also, I have not changed my diet much, aside from naturally not eating as much now that the holidays are over. This week I decided to do Slim Rite drink in the mornings though (store brand similar to Slim Fast). And I may try doing green smoothies next week. We’ll see.

But I am loving working out. And this workout dvd is great for someone like me who is just starting getting back into it. I will say that some of the movements take some time to master, but they aren’t overly difficult, just a bit for someone who is a little uncoordinated lol. A few years ago when I first bought the dvd, I kind of gave up on it partly because of that. But this time around, since starting with doing just the cardio section and just taking my time and not worrying if I mess up, I have actually picked up pretty much all her movements and I can do most of them with confidence now!

So measurements…..

Here are my measurements as of Friday, January 4th

  • Waist: 38″ (Ouch!)
  • Hips 39.75″ (Yikes!)
  • Bust 39.75″
  • Underbust 33.5″
  • Thigh 24.5″
  • Calf 16.5″

And what’s my starting weight? I shudder to say on here, especially since I was nearly 10lbs lighter before Thanksgiving…..

170lbs(at 5′ 4″ in height) according to my old scale, which, of course is usually 5lbs less than any other scale I weigh myself on.

So, that’s that for now! I’ll be posting my progress on Friday and we’ll see if all this work is paying off ;)

My first Youtube Video in Person! Check it out!

by Leave a Comment

Share/Bookmark

 

Okay, so I’ve been thinking of doing a Youtube video on soy candle making for awhile now and I finally did it! Just so you know, I am not an outgoing person and I hate hearing my own voice usually, let alone seeing myself on tape, but I did the video and thanks to a wonderful camcorder that recorded it all very nicely, I got through it and actually really enjoyed it!

So it is now up on Youtube and I would LOVE it if as many people as possible would go view it. You don’t even have to watch the whole thing if you don’t want to, just a few seconds will do ;)   And if you’re feeling especially generous I would be eternally grateful to anyone who would click “like” on the youtube page for the video :D

This video was done for my other website www.soycandlemakingtime.com.

RockSmith Guitar Games makes an Awesome Christmas Present!

by Leave a Comment

Share/Bookmark

Learn to Play Guitar with RocksmithDisclaimer: Ok, so I don’t want you think I’m just trying to sell you something here. I really think this is a great tool! I do have affiliate links to Amazon.com if you decide you want to purchase Rocksmith, and I do make a little commission if you buy through my links here(and I truly appreciate it if you do decide to do that), but this is something I think would be very beneficial to anyone wanting to learn guitar.

I have a great Christmas present idea for you today.

My husband found this guitar game for the xbox 360 online. He plays guitar pretty well, but wants to learn more and branch out with different sounding chords and all that. So anyway, he found this game called Rocksmith that plays on the xbox 360 with a usb cord that has a 1/4 inch jack(comes with the game) at one end to plug into a real guitar (guitar is not included). Well, of course we have several electric guitars around here. So we decided to buy it, since we thought it would also be great for the boys to learn to play guitar with.

Well, we got it in the mail today. My husband was impressed and Nboy who is almost 9 loves it! It’s really cool because you can start out at beginner level and work your way up to picking faster. It has little stickers with numbers to stick on your guitar so you can see the fret number and be able to quickly move to the number that it shows on the screen. Onscreen, each string has a different color, so you can easily see which one you’re supposed to be picking.

Once you get to a certain accomplishment, then guitar arcade games start to open up. You can also play events, and it comes with over 50 songs that you can play with.

So I have to say, this guitar learning game is really worth the money! If you have kids that love music, or if you yourself want to learn guitar, this is a great game to use for learning at home. I should say though that some of the songs that are on it are probably not the best for kids, depending on what you are comfortable with. I don’t like my kids listening to heavy rock music, and mainly stuff that gives a bad message or that has language. This is rated T, so I’m pretty sure there aren’t any with language really, but there are some songs on there I wouldn’t be letting the kids play to.

You will need a real electric guitar or acoustic with a pickup on it.

Next we need to buy the boys their own size guitars! Right now all we have are full size ones.

 Please keep in mind that I was taking pictures with my camera of the tv screen and this tv is fairly old, so the pictures are not the greatest by a long shot!!

Rocksmith gutar game menu

Main menu of Rocksmith

Rocksmith Menu Options

Just a few of the Menu options. Songs: Go here to pick what song you want to play to. Rocksmith comes with over 50 songs!

Gutarcade: Actual games you play with the guitar, while helping you practice!

And Techniques. I haven’t messed with this area yet, but it has different “techniques” you can switch to.

Rocksmith Guitar Tuning screen

Rocksmith tuner. Rocksmith has you stop and make sure your guitar is tuned before you play each game or level or event. This is pretty cool and it seems to tune well! You just pluck each string that it tells you by lighting up the string and if one is out of tune, it will automatically take you to actually tune it.

Rocksmith Game play

Actual game play. The frets are numbered, so when a block comes at you down, say, fret 3, with the top string (red string) lit up, then you press down the top string at fret 3 on the guitar, and then when the block gets to the string on the screen, you pluck the top string with your other hand. It has different levels, so you can have it go slowly at first till you get the hang of it and then you can have it to where the blocks come at you faster and on different frets so you have to play faster.

Anyway, it’s pretty cool and I think, if you are a homeschool family that is into music, this is a great way to learn.

To be honest, we bought ours on Ebay for $39.99 and $4.00 shipping (though, I also bought something else with it, so we got shipping for free). But Amazon.com also has it at a very reasonable price.