We've worked with hundreds of people in an effort to improve their health and lose weight. I think most people strive to be healthy and live life at a reasonable weight. I will say though a lot of people put an emphasis on weight. They think that is the driving force to better health.
When I lost most of my weight I was doing a program called The Ultimate Reset. This program is a 21 day whole food cleanse/reset. The great thing about this and getting started was it laid everything out for me. I didn't have to think. The process was laid out in black and white. Eat this, take these supplements and you'll see results. I wasn't thinking about whether or not I was losing weight, I just knew what my next meal or snack was supposed to be. For more on my journey check out this post, Change Your Mind, Change Your Body. We have made the comments before that it is more about progress and not perfection. I would take that one step further back and say that it is more about committing to the process first. You control the process! You don't necessarily control the progress. I think that is why I saw results with the program I did. I committed to actions and those actions led to weight loss and health. If you you are looking to lose weight and get healthy, what process are you going to commit too? Some things that I believe are vital both losing weight and getting healthy would be:
We've put together a simple tracker that you can use to track your progress with these simple steps. Just click the button below and follow the directions.
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I don't know why I don't always have a batch of this soup in our fridge. So good!!! Five years ago I would have laughed at you if you would tell me that soup can be an entire meal. I guess I was used to terrible canned soups or the tiny cup of soup that you get at restaurants. Oh how the times of changed.
Now my view of soup is basically it is liquid salad! Seriously though if you make a good soup it should resemble a salad. So if you don't like to eat salad, I suggest you try soup instead. This version of chicken tortilla soup is loaded up with veggies, quality protein, and of course some amazing chicken stock. When I make soup I love to make a huge batch because it tastes better the next day! Feel free to scale this recipe up or down but it makes about 6 large bowls of soup. Also as a little bonus here is a how I like to make my chicken stock at home which is super simple. Homemade Chicken Stock
Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe
We left Minneapolis on July 21st with 3 of us and after 36 hour pit stop in Des Moines we had four in our RV. Laura's mom, aka Nana, joined us on our trip to Nashville. She was coming along with us to babysit Eli during our annual Beachbody Summit event that was taking place the following weekend. We had a couple pit stops between Des Moines and our final destination. The first one was Hannibal, MO. This was such a fun little town right on the Mississippi River. We were originally only planning on staying one night, however due to some plumbing repairs that we had to do we stayed a second night. This gave us a little time to explore the city. It also gave me a chance to work on some plumbing skills in 100+ degree weather. It was hot! From Hannibal we moved onto the Gun Creek Recreation area by Benton, IL. Other than our first campsite being on too big of slope to level out our RV safely, this campground was fantastic. Big, roomy campsites that were right on a lake. Oh and it was cheap! Definitely a great spot and if pass through southern Illinois again we will for sure make a stop here. After one night in Illinois we made our final drive to Nashville. It was only a 4 hour drive roughly. We happened to time out our arrival exactly as a thunderstorm was rolling in and knocked out all the power in the park we were staying. Not a huge issue other than needing to run the generator on our RV for an hour or so. It was hot and humid and our AC's needed to be cranked up!
We made it to Nashville! Now to prepare for our coaches to arrive and learn, sweat, and have some fun with them. If you are following our adventures we left off last with our 4th of July adventures around Lake Minnetonka with Laura's family. We ended up spending another 2 weeks in Minnesota. This time included me playing in a golf tournament with some of my family. Doing some minor RV repairs and one major one, a new fridge. We got to meet our newest nephew, Joseph, right before we left town and spend some time with some amazing friends that we've missed while being on the road. Going home is always pretty special to me, especially when it involves playing golf. I grew up on that golf course. If it wasn't for Minnesota winters it would probably be fair to say I spent more time out there than at our house. So to be able to bring Eli out here is pretty special. He really like riding on the golf cart with Grandma and Grandpa. He also like chasing around our golf balls and even hit a few! While I was playing golf Laura was able to sneak away to hang out with her sister and her family at an RV park just 20 minutes from my hometown. Pretty random coincidence that they happened to be in the same area on the same weekend as us. Oh and of course being home in Redwood Falls meant we had to stop by Dari King. Eli really liked his first ice cream cone! Being home in Redwood also meant we had access to my dad and his handyman skills,tools, and generosity. The project that we needed to tackle was installing a residential refrigerator into our RV. Our old Norcold 1200 RV fridge just couldn't stay cold. The freezer worked but the fridge temp was hanging out around 50 degrees. This meant doing some modifications to the cabinet area where the old fridge was in order to make room for the new one. We were fortunate to find pretty much exactly what we were looking for after a handful of stops. Given the smaller space we needed a counter depth fridge otherwise our hallway would disappear. The height wasn't as important since even the shortest fridges out there would have still required us to do some modifications. The other thing that played into our decision was finding a fridge that we could fit into RV. The fridge we found had about an inch to spare, and that was bringing it in through a window. The actual install process was pretty easy. Thankfully we had a plugin that runs through our inverter, which means that our batteries could power our fridge as we were driving down the road instead of running on propane like our old model. If you want more details about what we did, I'm happy to share, just send me a note. We saw Laura's family. We saw my family. We completed some necessary RV remodels. We saw some good friends. It was now time to say goodbye and make our way to Nashville for our Beachbody Summit. On the road again!
✔️ What does success look like to you right now?
✔ What numbers are you trying increase? ✔️ Why are you trying to increase them? ✔️ How is all of this making you FEEL? God designed good work coupled with good rest. But we take it to extremes....being busy stems from the fear of never being enough. Busy covers our emptiness and says I am in control. If we stay busy, how can our lives feel meaningless, RIGHT? Don't edge out INTENTIONAL LIVING with your striving and "busy". Life is too short to spend an entire season working hard, thinking you'll live later!! God wants us to live NOW. (Honesty moment: I'm a work in progress and struggle with this as much as the next person!!)
Ladies if you need a way to get your husbands to eat a salad, start with this one. I mean what guy doesn't like steak, then you combine that with mushrooms and gorgonzola cheese, it's a win! The asparagus and tomatoes are there as a way to sneak in some more veggies! The dressing is super simple and adds a fun punch of flavor. It's crisp, it's herbacious, it's delicious.
We would love to know if you try this one out! Leave us a comment below. If you love it don't forget to Pin It so you can save it for later!
Do you ever try to plan your life out? Yeah we do too. Back in May we felt pretty awesome that we had booked parks all way up to the first week in July....and we wouldn't have to stress about where we would be staying. Our plan was to stay on the east coast, then make our way to Asheville for a few weeks before we would end up in Nashville for our Beachbody Summit the end of July.
Well...in comes a curveball. We found out Laura's entire family was coming to Minnesota for the 4th of July. Hearing this, we laid out the pros and cons of making the trip back or sticking to our original plan. If the title of the blog didn't give it away, we chose to head back to MN. All those plans we had, were now up in smoke :) Instead of heading to Asheville, we went to New Jersey for a couple weeks to explore NYC and that area!! Our first stop on our way back to Minnesota was Hershey, PA. Since we love chocolate as much as we do, this was a no brainer. Although Hershey doesn't exactly make healthy chocolate, we still wanted to check it out. Eli's favorite part was the singing cows on the ride that we went on. So that made it all worth it. We also indulged in a few chocolate treats.
We left Hershey on a Saturday and since most parks are either full or make you pay a premium for a weekend rate, we opted to stay at a Walmart outside of Cleveland. We don't mind doing this as long as it's a quick stay. On our way through Pennsylvania I made Laura a little nervous since we ended up on a bit of a detour due to construction and weight restrictions on the road we were supposed to go on. The roads were a little narrow, a little curvy, and a little hilly. We took it slow and made it through unscathed, other than upsetting a few locals that got stuck behind me.
After our Walmart stay we got on the road fairly early, which was a blessing and a curse. Our plan was to stay on the east side of Chicago since that would have only been about a 4-5 hour drive from where we were but we didn't factor in the time change and also the difference of driving through Chicago on a Sunday vs Monday. The blessing was we opted to push through the to the North side of Chicago but the curse was that meant spending almost 9 hours traveling that day. Which gets to be A LOT with a toddler.
This made our drive the next day super easy though, only about 2 hours to Wisconsin Dells where we stayed for a couple nights. Of course we chose the two coldest days of the summer to be in the Dells, so that meant no waterparks. We did have a nice pool and splash pad at our campground so Eli was able to spend some time in the water. I was even able to sneak in a round of golf one morning since it was only 55 degrees when we woke up. Great golf weather, poor pool weather. Before heading out, we made our way to a train museum to indulge Eli's new fascination with choo-choo's. They had a legit coal powered mini-train that we could ride on. Eli loved it, even thought at times it got kind of loud. We also got him his first choo-choo set which he still loves! After that we made our final push to get back to Minnesota.
Our first couple of nights back in Minnesota we spent at Baker Park, just west of Minneapolis. When we make it back to MN from now on, this will definitely be a home base for us. It's a great park, tons of room and nice playgrounds. We even had some visitors one night for dinner. We miss our friends and family and seeing them made our 1,200 mile journey home SO worth it!
After a couple nights at Baker Park we moved to Laura's brother's empty lot which was conveniently located right on Lake Minnetonka. We were pretty spoiled! We parked on his lot for 5 days over the 4th. Definitely one of the best views we've had in our RV adventures so far.
It was also super fun to get to be "RVing" with Laura's sister, Sara and family again. They parked right behind us on the lot. Over the weekend we spent time on the boat, swimming in the lake, eating delicious food, but most importantly spending time with family. It was fabulous!!!
Look for a blog post in the next couple weeks where we can catch you up on the rest of our adventures in Minnesota, along with our travels down to Nashville for our Beachbody Coach Summit.
One thing we really encourage a lot of our clients to work on is to be more veggies, especially greens. One of the easiest ways to get more greens in is to eat more salads. We love our salads, and try to it one 5 days a week. We aren't just talking about a little side salad with dinner. We are talking full on, stuff my face and stomach salad that is loaded with greens and veggies. We see a lot of people that grasp that concept which is awesome, but then they douse all those quality veggies with some low quality salad dressing.
A couple of tips if you do buy store bought dressings;
If the idea of eating more veggies and cleaning up your eating sounds like something you would be interested in, we will be hosting a special group on Facebook in a little over a week. The group will revolve around having a salad a day for week. We will provide recipes like the one above and some more tips on how to put together an amazingly healthy salad. If you are interested click on the image below and RSVP.
It's been awhile since we've shared some of our travels. I wanted to catch up on our posts over the next couple weeks. For now, here is our New York and New Jersey adventures.
We stayed at an RV Park about 2 hours south of NYC but there wasn't really wasn't anything much closer unless you wanted to pay a premium. So we took 2 hours away and camped for free! This was our first 2 week stay with our Thousand Trail membership and it was so nice to slow down a bit and setup shop for longer than 4-5 days.
Both times we came into the city we opted to park on the Jersey side of the river and take the ferry across. If we wouldn't have run into road construction on our second day coming into the city this would have been super slick both days. One day we parked close to the Hoboken ferry terminal and the second day (on the weekend) we parked by the Jersey City ferry terminal. We figured this was the cheaper and more convenient route to explore the city versus driving downtown and paying tolls and parking over there. We did pretty much everything you would want to do in NYC. We spent some time down around the water watching some of our friends play in the professional volleyball event that was in town and found a couple parks that Eli could play at with some other kiddos. After some volleyball watching and park playing we headed towards the 9/11 memorial and were blown away. We didn't do the museum but just being on the grounds where it all happened was pretty powerful. From there we walked towards the Brooklyn Bridge and made it half way across before we turned back, LOL!!! We then hit up a NYC pizza place in Little Italy that made gluten free crusts. Pretty tasty but given the price tag, I may have to pass next time. Then we were back to watch more volleyball! Yeah that was all in Day 1, it was a lot of walking! Day 2 we did a little more volleyball watching then made our way to Bluestone Lane for brunch and lattes! This might have been the highlight of our NYC trip, especially the avocado toast that I got on GF toast!
After brunch, we hopped on the Subway or as Eli calls it, choo-choo, and headed to Central Park. It was a hot day and we were starting to get tired from all of our walking so we didn't get into the park too far but explored the south side and just sat for awhile and let Eli run around.
After sitting a bit we started walking towards Time Square. We hit up a little detour on the way and stopped at Momofuku Milk Bar where Laura got a little treat. Unfortunately they didn't have anything that was gluten free so I was forced to watch Laura and Eli enjoy their ice cream. Which apparently when you get to the bottom it tastes just like the milk in the bottom of a bowl of cereal. We continued on and swung past Rockafeller Center and Radio City Music Hall.
We cruised through/past Time Square...but because it was absolutely nuts and we were starting to get tired frustrated with the crowds...it was literally a "oh hey, there it is" and kept walking. We continued on to the Subway Station which we found out after buying our ticket that we went in on the wrong side of the street and were heading uptown and not downtown. So, we bought ANOTHER ticket, crossed the street and started heading home! We hit up the salad/hot food bar at Whole Foods and made our way back to our ferry. After watching the sunset from the NYC side of the Hudson River we hopped on the ferry and started heading home after a couple long days in NYC. So fun!
We had a couple whirlwind days in New York but part of our adventures were just hanging out at our RV Park too. It was a great park with a huge playground for Eli and a nice new pool. On top of that Eli (and us) made some new friends. Eli loved playing with Chloe and Carson. They were so nice with him and were really like nice older siblings, not the mean kind that pick on you. Oh and like I said we made new friends too with their parents. We had so much in common and loved chatting while the kids played. Can't wait to meet up with them again in California!
We also explored the Jersey area closer to where we were staying. That included Atlantic City which was about 20 minutes away. We were very underwhelmed with the city. We walked up and down the board walk and explored the beach a little. You could tell that it was hit hard by the economic downturn. So unless you like casinos...it really isn't that great. We did find this statue that recognized that AC was/is the home of Miss America Pageant.
We also took a trip down to Cape May which was a a lot more our style, laid back beach town. We met up with some friends, Laurie and Trey, that actually took a ferry over from Maryland. Trey was racing in a triathlon in the area the next day which sounded like a lot of fun. The beach area was fantastic down there. We also heard, but never went, about a zoo that was down in Cape May that was supposed to be fantastic. By the time we knew about it, we were already too busy to make it down there.
All in all, we really enjoyed our time in this area! Jersey was a good change of pace and was nice to slow down. NYC was fantastic and fun to see all the sights!!
Laura loves curry!!! So what do you do when your wife loves curry, you make curry for her. Sometimes I'm all about doing things from absolute scratch. In the case of curry, it would be fantastic to toast my own spices then grind them fresh and use my mortal and pestle to make a paste. But let's be honest that takes time and energy.
Instead we found a pre-made curry paste, added in some fresh veggies and fish and a couple other ingredients and we had a delicious dish in under 30 minutes. This was my first time ever using fish in a curry and it turned out pretty great. If you are completely scared of fish or don't like the flavor, too bad, try it anyways. I think you will be surprised that the curry is the dominate flavor and not the fish, so it is a good way to give fish a try. Feel free to add your favorite veggies to this dish. You don't have to use what we used, we just had these on hand and that is why we love curry dishes so much, because they are so versatile. You could also sub out the quinoa for rice or even zoodles or sweet potato noodles if you want to go grain free. The possibilities are endless. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we did.
We each have a story. Things that have shaped us and changed us and formed us into the people we are today. We each have a CHOICE as to what we're going to do with those things. You can choose to continue coasting and taking the easy route...simply accepting what's in front of you, swallowing your dreams and never allowing them to surface OR you can go out and find whatever the hell you're looking for!!! Four years ago I was ready for a change. A change in my fitness routine which then turned into a COMPLETE change in my life...for the better. I never used to dream or have goals. I would simply coast through my days, my weeks, my months with no vision for what I wanted or the type of impact I wanted to have. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to change lives somehow but I had lost my way and gotten complacent. It happens. But all of a sudden I was thrust into this crazy Beachbody world filled with these people who were talking about goal setting, dreaming bigger, helping and inspiring others, living with purpose....and all of a sudden...God opened my eyes. I felt in my gut that my purpose was here somewhere....so I jumped in with both feet and my eyes wide open. I started running online accountability groups and fell in love with encouraging people, supporting them, giving them a kick in the butt when they needed it...and then watching them SUCCEED. Watching them slowly lose weight and believe in themselves again and see that they could do the things they never thought possible. My vision is to help people LIVE FULLY. To empower others and help them see that they are incredible...and can do ANYTHING. To give them HOPE! To inspire people towards health, sweat and proper nutrition and to most importantly, point people to Jesus with love and encouragement.
Who would have thought that this little side job would ever amount to much?? It's changed both of our lives and our health so much that we want as many people as possible to experience what we have. If you've been following us for awhile and are feeling that nudge or even a bit of curiosity about whether you could do this too, we would love to hear from you. We know it isn't for everyone but we know if you are a follower of ours you likely have a similar heart to help people and this business has been a perfect outlet for us it could be for you too. One of the coolest things on the horizon for us is a new incentive that was announced last week at our Coach Summit in Nashville. It is called the Beachbody Health Bet. The concept is Beachbody the company and partially us as coaches are challenging you to commit to 2 simple behaviors for 4 weeks starting September 5th, 2016 with a prep week starting on August 29th!
What are those 2 behaviors?
You've maybe heard for the website, www.dietbet.com, where you can wager a certain amount of money and if you lose "x" percentage of weight by the end of the challenge you get a portion of the pot. Part of this is great in that people put a little skin in the game to give you that extra push to get results. The downside is that people can lose weight in some very unhealthy ways. That is why I absolutely love the approach that Beachbody has laid out for this challenge. It's all about creating healthy behaviors, and yeah weight loss might be a side effect of that but you don't have to feel pressure to starve yourself in order to get a piece of this pie. So what's in the "pie"?
So unless you are living under a rock you've most likely heard of the program 21 Day Fix. The concept behind the program is that you combine exercise with a portion control system using color coded containers. The difficulty that some of our customers have had is how to you go from ingredients to meals using the containers. Fixate is the answer to that. Fixate is a cooking show that will air on Beachbody On Demand. The show will be a cooking show where Autumn's brother who is a professional chef will teach you how to put together meals in a healthy way using the container system. I'm a sucker for cooking shows so I'm pretty excited about this plus I know it will help so many people have more confidence with the container system that is proven to work if it gets used. Each episode/recipe will be 4-7 minutes long and include downloadable instructions and grocery lists. This is scheduled to go live on August 19th, 2016. “It’s so easy to get stuck in a cooking rut,” Autumn explains. “We designed Fixate to help people get more creative with their healthy, portion-controlled eating plans, so they can try new recipes as well as learn to make and containerize the foods they already love.” We want to help people get healthy and lose weight and we know sometimes a little incentive is a great way to get people started. Let me explain in a little more detail what we are offering. If you purchase any Challenge Pack (workout + month's supply of Shakeology) you will also receive a free copy of Autumn's cookbook, Fixate. With this Challenge Pack purchase you will also receive a free 30 Day membership to Beachbody On Demand which will give you access to Autumn's new cooking show! Oh and over 400 different workouts if you feel like dabbling with something else. The other option if you aren't sure if any of this is right for you is to sign up for a FREE 30 Day Club Membership. For 30 days you will have access to 400+ workouts, Autumn's new cooking show, and some other great resources. If on day 30 you haven't used it or didn't like it you can cancel no questions asked. Well we might actually ask you why you didn't like it but just for feedback purposes... :) If you choose this option you will be entered into a drawing to win a copy of Autumn's cookbook Fixate! We believe in these products and know that they can change lives but they can only do that if you have them and use so hopefully this will be that little push to get you started. I want to share some stats and awesome info that I recently read in the book Eat Move Sleep. First off let me give a plug for the book...it's been a great read that goes super fast and has tons of practical tips to help you start making changes in your life. It's not loaded down with science but provides enough to let you know that the stuff he is saying isn't some nonsense he pulled out of thin air. There is a chapter in the book where he refers to a study of more than 6,000 people that all tried to lose weight and what the common characteristics were of the most successful. A common theme among the successful was being healthy at home. Seems like common sense right??? You spend most of your time there but so many people live in a toxic home that doesn't promote health! Here were just a few of the interesting stats that the study showed:
Eating breakfast... If you've followed us for a bit you know I've dabbled with Intermittent Fasting. There is a great science behind it and can lead some amazing results. It's a hard thing though for a novice to jump right in to and be successful. I think that is why the breakfast stat is an important one. Eating breakfast is a great way to set the stage for the rest of the day. If you start your day with a quality breakfast you will be a lot less likely to jump at the office donuts or the french fries at lunch. Your cravings will stay in check! Weighing yourself once a week, this one was a little interesting to me. I get that tracking your progress is a good way to determine if you need to make changes but for the average person they really don't know what changes to make. Other than maybe eat less and exercise more, which we know isn't always a great solution. Plus weight isn't the sole determiner of progress. So we will just let this one go...and agree to disagree. I love this last stat about TV watching. Frankly because I used to be a 10+ hour a week TV watcher. Let's be honest even the most riveting show gets boring at times so I turned to ice cream to help with that boredom. Mindless TV watching often times leads to mindless eating. On top of that TV watching also means sitting which is terrible for your health. The amount of activity went up substantially when we ditched the cable and we would encourage you to do the same. Other Ways to "Healthify" Your Home
For the longest time humans used the sun as their only source of light. Then came fire. Then came the lightbulb. Then came TV. Then came the iPhone! Nowadays it is hard to avoid electronics that emit light. If you are living among humans it is the norm.
The point of this post isn't to give you a history lesson on how light came to be, but to actually share with you more detail into how light affects our health. I've heard a lot of health minded folks talk about the effects of light and how it correlates with your hormone cycles. When I got a little pop up on my phone this past week I figured it would be a good opportunity to share something I learned and also share a bit about how light can influence your health.
Circadian Rhythm
This term refers to how your hormones cycle up and down and how you go from being wide awake to sleeping liking a baby. The main hormones at play here are cortisol and melatonin. These two hormones work inversely with each other. When one is high the other is low and vice versa.
Cortisol is often referred to as a stress hormone or fight or flight hormone. This can give people the thought that it is a bad thing but this hormone is needed to function. It is a rise in cortisol in the morning that tells you to wake up. As the day goes on your cortisol levels should decrease and with that brings on a rise in melatonin. Melatonin is the key player in making you sleepy and getting a good nights rest. It often is used in supplement form to help people with insomnia and other sleep disorders. Health Impact
It is this daily shift and balance of hormones that make up your circadian rhythm. This can affect all areas of your health. A lack of sleep can affect a person's weight in a negative way...and obesity thus increases a person's chance of getting pretty much every other disease out there. Melatonin disregulation can also increase chances of certain cancers. The World Health Organization has even classified shift work as a probable carcinogen because of the disruption of to a person's circadian rhythm.
Artificial Light's Impact
Being exposed to light, especially blue light, later in day is also associated with disrupting a person's circadian rhythm. Thus increasing risk factors of everything explained above. When you are staring at a TV screen, iPad, or smart phone late at night you are basically sending daylight type light into your eyes and brain which suppresses melatonin and increases cortisol. Another thing that can play into this imbalance is staying indoors all day long. By limiting your exposure to natural sunlight your body doesn't get that dosage of light that tells your body that it is time to be awake and alert. Yeah your computer screen at work gives you a fake light but nothing beats the real thing.
Solution Time
If you struggle with sleepless nights, waking up tired or low energy levels during the day you could likely have a circadian rhythm that is out of balance.
Here are 5 things you can do to help your cause and get your circadian rhythm back in balance.
From May 27th until June 9th we were in 3 different locations....Laurel, DE at Trap Pond State Park; Hillsboro, MD at Tuckahoe State Park and then just outside of Washington, D.C. at Cherry Hill RV Park! The first two parks were in the middle of nowhere but we were able to see some good friends that lived close by...so that was fun! On the drive from Williamsburg to Laurel, DE we got to experience our first HUGE bridge and tunnel. We had to pull over to turn off our propane before we could go into it but other than that, it was pretty easy. When we were at Trap pond we explored Rehoboth Beach and the park actually had bikes that we could take and use...so Eli was able to experience his first bike ride! He loved it! We didn't explore a ton around this area...just because there wasn't a ton to do...and it rained a few days so we watched movies, went for walks, played at the park, worked and relaxed. Dan also had to perfect his parking skills as the spot they had advertised on their website was NOT big enough for a 40 foot RV....but he did it! It was really our only option because it was Memorial Day weekend. Our fault for waiting til the last minute...duh. At Tuckahoe State Park we were about 30-40 minutes from any civilization...aka Walmart or any town :) and the only hookups we had were electricity. There were a lot of spiders...and bugs...but the park was gorgeous and so secluded you could barely see your neighbor!! We were able to meet up with another one of our coaches, Laurie & Trey and their kiddos. They treated us to an incredible day in Easton...breakfast at their favorite coffee shop, shopping at the fish market and amish market, boat ride, ferry ride and then dinner at an all you can eat crab place so Dan could learn the ropes from Trey about how to eat those suckers. It's complicated...and I don't like to work so hard to get such a small piece of meat. I'm lazy...so I chose to get scallops instead. Haha! In DC, we picked Cherry Hill specifically because we wanted to spend a couple days exploring and visiting the memorials, parks etc...and it was located just outside of the city. There were some long days (3 days), lots of walking and lots of money spent :) but it was so worth it. Our friend Angela and her son, Caleb came to visit for a day and she took some pretty fabulous pictures of our adventure and also of us as a family! We visited almost all of the major monuments...a couple museums and Arlington Cemetery. My favorite part was on our last day there we had planned to go to the Holocaust Museum. However, we didn't realize you needed to get tickets ahead of time for the main exhibit...and all the day passes were gone by the time we got there. SUPER sad face. We figured we would just go in and take a look around. As we walked in I said a little prayer that we'd be able to get into the permanent exhibit and suddenly this woman walks up to us and asks if we have tickets. She had 2 extra that would let us into the exhibit right then...with no waiting (which was a huge blessing because Eli was sleeping)!! SO cool. He did end up waking up halfway through, but that's OK. It was SO worth it. All in all we have really liked this area of the U.S!! The toll roads are kinda annoying...but we've had a blast meeting up with amazing people, seeing historical places and meet new friends!!
Stay tuned for our NYC adventures!! Laura almost didn't let me make these for her. Apparently she has a thing about eating chia seeds because they get stuck in her teeth. I get it... kind of. I was able to twist her arm and get her to try them and I'm pretty sure she was glad she did. We all loved these pancakes, even Eli. Another bonus: zero chia seeds stuck in her teeth too. Talk about having your (pan)cake and eating it too! Seriously if chia seeds aren't part of your diet you need to consider adding them. Even if a few stray seeds end up in your teeth the benefits far outweigh any social anxiety from being caught with something in your teeth. Even if you do get caught it also gives you an excuse to share this amazing seed story with someone new!
This week we held our first ever webinar! It was super fun to get online with some people and talk about what we do as coaches. We put together a fun power point slideshow to go along with it which totally brought me back to high school speech class. We put this webinar together to share a couple different key points that a lot of people have questions about.
We spent 7 days just outside of Williamsburg, VA...and even though it rained for probably 4 out of those 7, we still had a great time!! We checked out Silverhand Meadery, walked around Colonial Williamsburg, met up with a good friend and coach on our team, made some new friends through a random God thing, explored Richmond and Yorktown AND got our car fixed again. HA! Seems like we did a lot, doesn't it? Guess we crammed a lot in when the rain wasn't coming down. One morning we drove to Yorktown because we had heard the beach was pretty nice...and it was fabulous! There was a trolley you could get on to explore the area a bit, but we decided to just hang out at the beach because we only had a couple hours before Eli's nap and it was HOT. Sometimes we make decisions based on what Eli is going to like the best...and have the most fun doing...and I'm completely OK with that. The beach was full of little kids and relatively quiet for a little while! We were even able to see the drawbridge open and shut to let a big ship through...Eli thought it was cool for about 5 minutes, but Dan and I loved it. Haha! We drove to Richmond (40 min) one afternoon to see my friend Jessica. The area where we met to have dinner was ADORABLE. We met up with her at Garnett's Cafe because they had gluten free bread and Dan never gets to have sandwiches any more. We hung out for a couple of hours, ate delicious food and drank some wine. It was a blast! After meeting up with Jessica, she suggested we head over to Maymont Park because wanted to explore a little bit. This park was SO cool and very unexpected. It's a huge park with walking trails, a giant mansion that's been there for hundreds of years, amazing gardens and waterfalls, fish, bison, farm animals and more!! In a random turn of events (aka God thing)...we were able to meet up with an Instagram friend that we had started chatting with only a few months prior. We ended up finding out that they started following us from a persicope that my sister did...giving a tour of our RV, right when we went on the road. They didn't know she was my sister, but they had met her at DoTerra's Leadership Conference and had started following her. THEN, we randomly went to their friend's meadery (Silver Hand Meadery) and posted about it on our Instagram...we started chatting and the rest is history :) They are such an incredible family and we were blessed to have them over for dinner!! We're still mastering the art of entertaining in such a small space...so it was tricky...but we'll get the hang of it soon. It was so much fun!! That concludes the 7 days we spent in Williamsburg, VA. We loved it ad were blessed so much by the people we met and the places we saw!!
I think I first heard of Danielle Walker on one the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis. She has a pretty incredible story of beating an auto immune disease, ulcerative colitis, through dietary changes she made. It's a great story that really shows the power of food. I would encourage to check out her blog or book Against All Grain.
Danielle has a recipe for this same dish that was my inspiration for making this. It was super simple and even Eli ate it. You can pretty easily scale the spice up or down depending on if you are feeding kids or you just don't like spicy food. Eating healthy food doesn't have to be flavorless which I think a lot of people fear. You just need a well equipped spice cabinet. You could easily sub out the ground beef in this recipe for ground turkey, shredded chicken or beef if you happen to have those on hand instead.
If you started reading this post you either figured out that I was talking about metaphorical cigarettes or you are an actual cigarette smoker. If you are a smoker, my advice would be to stop. But this post isn't for you, so let's talk about that metaphor I'm referring to in the title.
Shorter cigarettes in the health world basically means eating less bad things. I wish I could take credit for thinking of this comparison but I heard this idea from Jonathon Bailor. He's Mr. Analogy/Metaphor when it comes to taking complicated health stuff and comparing it so the average Joe can relate. Instead of eating a cheap hot dog on a white bun you opt for the nitrate free hot dog on the whole wheat bun. Instead of the Hidden Valley ranch dressing you choose Newman's low fat something. Instead of white rice with your stir fry, you use brown. Instead of old school mayo, you use a paleo mayo you find on Pinterest. Personally we see so many take this approach to upgrading their food in our online groups. Here's the thing, making swaps for less "bad" things will only make you sick and fat...slower. In order to truly get healthy, the food you eat needs to heal your body. I often talk about 3 categories of food:
The million dollar question is: What foods fall into the 3 category and how much of them do I need to eat? This category is mainly non-starchy veggies. A few other things that I would throw in there would be anti-inflammatory fats like olive oil and coconut oil. Also foods that are rich in Omega 3 fats like chia seeds, flax seeds, fatty fish like salmon, sardines, and mackerel that come from quality sources. I've held off mentioning fruit because a lot of times people can overdo the fruit thing. It's not unhealthy and if you eat a variety in the right amounts, it can be really good for you. Eating 5 bananas a day isn't going to help your health. Eating a banana, some blueberries and an apple will help most people. For more on my thoughts on Fruits and Veggies check out this post, "Eat Your Fruits and Veggies," Why That's Bad Advice. Quantity... If you've followed us for any length of time you know that we aren't calorie counters. Our general rule of thumb is to eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. This philosophy works incredibly well if you are eating a majority of your foods from Category 3 and some foods from Category 2 and minimal from Category 1. Basically what that would look like would be a plate that is comprised of 1/2-2/3 of things from Category 3, then the rest of your plate could be a protein source, chicken, steak or a vegetarian carb/protein source like beans or quinoa. Your veggies could be cooked in or topped with a healthy fat. It could be a salad with TONS of greens, topped with more veggies, then some nuts or seeds and some sort of protein source and a dressing made from healthy fats and vinegars or citrus. It's really that simple, do that over and over and you will get healthier and lose weight. There isn't some magic pill or powder you need. It's whole food nutrition! It's not about eating less bad stuff, it's about eating more good stuff. p.s. I realize that last line could be contradictory with our belief in Shakeology....please note that Shakeology IS whole food nutrition!! Shoot us an email if you want to know more about it! I think it's safe to say that Charleston has been our FAVORITE place to visit thus far. We only had 4 days to explore....and that just wasn't enough time! All within a 30 minute radius you have: - Plantations - Beaches - SO much history - Cobblestone streets - Parks galore - Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, Fort Johnson - The OCEAN - Farmers market - Amazing restaurants We were able to meet up with my cousin for dinner the first night in Mount Pleasant and then walk along Sullivan's Beach. It was SO peaceful and this was the first time Eli actually WANTED to go in the ocean! He fell in love with it! The next day we met up with an "online friend", her husband and their little boy for brunch at Eli's Table. Angela and I met through my sister and through either Facebook or Instagram a few years ago but had never met in person...so this was a lot of fun!! I had a feeling we'd get along great in real life, and we all did. After brunch we walked around Charleston, the Battery, the Pier and then we found an adorable gourmet market and had some delicious beverages to cool off. It was HOT and very humid! We explored Magnolia Plantation & Gardens one afternoon and had such a great time. Most of these plantations cost a bit of money because you have to pay for general admission and then pay for extra tours of the house, tours of the grounds etc...We paid for a tram tour and a house tour but kind of wish we would have done a tour of the slaves quarters instead. The tram tour was great because we were able to see some alligators, blue herons, see the entire plantation and hear a little history! My cousin met up with us again and took us to the Charleston Farmers Market. I LOVE farmers markets and this one did not disappoint. SO much goodness! After the market Dan, Eli and I headed to Kiawah Island to check out the beach. We were going to go to Folly Beach...but it was a Saturday, the forecast was clear skies, 85 and the 9 mile drive was going to take an hour. We opted to drive a little further to Kiawah...we loved it! This was the first time Eli actually went into the ocean with Dan. They jumped into the waves, dug in the sand and we went looking for shells. After the beach, we were driving right by The Angel Oak Tree and knew we had to stop based on my cousin's recommendation. I'm so glad we did. It's 500+ years old, 66.5 ft tall and spans 178 ft wide. It's thought to be one of the oldest living things in the country!! Pretty magnificent huh?? Capped the trip off with an amazing steak dinner at my cousin's house. We will definitely be going back to Charleston when we have more time and money to go try ALL THE FOOD! Their restaurant/food scene just seemed pretty incredible..just like Savannah!
This dish was totally inspired by leftovers. To be honest a lot of the meals we make are throw together at the last minute. We try our best to just keep healthy ingredients in our fridge, freezer and pantry. Then I (Dan) find inspiration either from Pinterest, Google, a random cooking show or something I've made before to dictate what we eat. I'm not the most creative person when it comes to other things, but food, that's my jam - pun intended!
Seriously this soup was so easy to make and you could easily scale it up if you wanted to make it for a larger group. Like most soups the key to flavor is using a flavorful broth/stock and letting it simmer for a long time. I recently made up a batch of chicken stock in our pressure cooker. Homemade stock makes a huge difference in my opinion both in flavor and quality of ingredients. I probably need to write up a post about our stock recipe. Very simply we just add water, old chicken bones, carrot, celery, onion, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, apple cider vinegar, peppercorns and a little salt into our pressure cooker. We pressure cook it for about 3 hours and it turns out great! We hope you enjoy this soup! We always love to hear if you try out our recipes, so if you give it a try, drop us a comment on the post or shoot us a message.
Our pressure/multi cooker has been a lifesaver while we've been on the road. For convenience I wish I could just say we have an Instant Pot because 90% of the people that own a pressure cooker own an Instant Pot. We just happened to find an incredible deal on a different model, a Fagor. Doesn't exactly have the same ring as Instant Pot, does it. Either way, like I said this piece of equipment has been fantastic for us to make quick one pot meals. If you are an Instant Pot user hopefully it has similar settings and you can translate my Fagor talk to your machine.
If you are all about fast, tasty meals that are easy to clean up I highly recommend you look into getting one of these. With RV living this is perfect, because it means less dishes and dinners that can be made last minute after a day of exploring or swimming in the pool. Win for everyone! Seriously this recipe maybe takes 20 minutes of active cooking time and 27 minutes of downtime letting the pressure cooker do its job. If you really want to kick up the flavor of this dish, add some chopped bacon, 3-4 pieces worth right away with your chicken. We had bacon for breakfast the day we made this so opted to not have anymore that day. So easy and so good! Go make it and lets us know what you think.
Citrus and summer go hand in hand in my book. I know it isn't technically summer yet but the weather in South Alabama has felt like it is the middle of August. I'm sure if you were to talk to locals they would tell you how great the weather has been. For this Minnesota boy it's a different story. Temps were in the 80's everyday and the humidity was above 90% everyday. That's hot! Being in South Alabama we had the benefit of getting some really good shrimp and it was cheap. This has definitely been one of the things that I've enjoyed about traveling so far, local food! Getting to eat food that was picked, farmed or fished recently is so fun and adds so much more flavor. We've tried to take in local markets wherever we are and get some fresh veggies and proteins, then fill in the gaps with some food from the big box stores. I made this while in Gulf Shores, Alabama and it was super light and perfect for a warm day. We hope you enjoy it!! If you have a shellfish allergy you could easily leave out the shrimp and do a piece of baked whitefish.
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