JUNE playlist!

Can you believe it's JUNE already?!  No!  No, I cannot!  But I love summertime and this month.  These songs will make you want to move, so get outside for a long run, some HIIT, or just sweating with friends!


Also, it's my brother's birthday month, so the first song is one of his :)


You probably already know that I am obsessed with surfing. It's an unparalleled joy that I got to first experience with my super cool surfer cousins in Florida as a kid and then have been able to do on vacations and sometimes even in Texas! (I know, crazy).  Anyway, surfing is an amazing workout and the conditioning needed in order to surf is intense, too.  This mix reminds me of surfing and in order to give you a surf-style workout, I organized this playlist into HIIT, long run, strength training, and cool down so you can get a varied, complete workout from this playlist.
For example, you might do sprint intervals for a HIIT workout and then do a mile of running to If I Could Fall In Love  and  Everybody Got Their Something followed by some pushups and mountain climbers to Party Hard and then cool down and stretch to Red, Red Wine.  Enjoy!

Get Underway - Hank Whitaker  (www.reverbnation.com/hankwhitaker)  (HIIT)

Starships - Nicki Minaj      (HIIT)

Eenie Meenie - Sean Kingston + Justin Bieber   (HIIT)

Break it Off - Rihanna and Sean Paul   (HIIT)

Cruel Summer (Blestenation Mix) - Blestenation    (Blue Crush anyone??)  (HIIT)

            OR

Cruel Summer - Bananarama

       (I put both versions in here in case anyone doesn't like remixes!  I get that!)

I Wanna Dance With Somebody - Whitney Houston   (HIIT)

And Be Loved -  Damian Marley    (HIIT)

One Thing - One Direction   (HIIT)

If I Could Fall In Love - Lenny Kravitz  (Great for a long run!)

Everybody Got Their Something - Nikka Costa

Party Hard - Beenie Man (good for strength training)

Cool down to Red, Red Wine by UB40!

One thing I will say about the order of this list:  If you want to use the original version of  "Cruel Summer", then don't use it for HIIT.  Use it for running or cooling down :).

Love Y'all!

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Wellness Week

Hey everyone!  It’s Wellness Week!  You know I love sharing heath and wellness with you…I love all things happy and healthy.  And all those mushy, maybe even cheesy or cliché, inspirational quotes?  I’m right there with you.  I love them all.

So I want to start this post with one of those quotes right now.  The point of this is, you can do anything if you believe in yourself J  (I’m telling you, cliché is not that bad!)

“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” Mahatma Gandhi

That’s the first thing I want to tell you for Wellness Week because your wellness is in your hands.  For example, nobody makes you eat what you eat or stands in the doorway when you try to leave and workout.  We have a lot of choice in what we do even despite responsibilities like work, school, children, or whatever yours might be.  Of course we all are busy and nobody is perfect – that’s reality!  But if you take that quote above to heart, you can improve areas of your life.  This doesn’t even need to be a dietary change or a change in exercise.  Improvements could come in the form of diet, exercise, de-cluttering your home, spending more time with friends and family, or just having alone time.

Whatever areas you feel could use improvements to become “well”, then think that they can!  Look at it this way:  if you don’t think you can do something, you can’t.  Right?  That’s what the quote is saying!  Before every choice we make and action we take, we decide to do it (which involves thinking) and we envision ourselves doing it (…which involves more thinking)!  If you think negatively and think (aka “choose”) you can’t do something, then that’s it.  You can’t.  Why would you want that?  I certainly don’t want that for you.

 I hope that all of you take this week to focus on the positive “I can” attitude.  With it, all other areas of your life will fall into that “wellness” category.  

If you have any questions about how to maintain wellness, nutrition, fitness, or style with a busy lifestyle, feel free to comment below, email me at FitStyle09@gmail.com, check out old posts on this blog or on my YouTube channel, and stay tuned for upcoming posts!

Happy Wellness Week!

Celebration Ideas:

-Spring Cleaning

-Making a favorite meal

-Taking a walk

-Getting some GOOD sleep

-Completing a hard workout you might not have thought you could originally!

-Sitting alone in silence! (Meditation, anyone?)

-Finally doing something you’ve been meaning to do, or were afraid to do

-Laughing!  What could be more “well” than that?  It's the best medicine!

National Peanut Butter Lover's Day

Hello friends!  I hope you’re as excited as I am about today.  It’s National Peanut Butter Lovers’ Day!  It’s like the creators of this day had me in mind.  It’s so difficult to name your favorite food because I’m not sure we all have just one, but if you were to ask me, I’d still probably say peanut butter/almond butter.  I eat it on everything.  I eat it any time of the day and I eat it on toast, muffins, protein pancakes, in shakes (like this one), in desserts (see below), oatmeal...everything!  And by itself :)

Spectacular, Scrumptious Super Bowl Recipes

Hey everybody!


What, to you, is most important about the Super Bowl?  For me, it's the the 5 Fs:  Football, Family, Friends, Fun, and Food.  The 5 Fs are often implemented in many of my favorite activities (and probably yours, too!)  With a recipe like that, how could you go wrong?  Today I'll share some of the recipes I used for this year's game. (See below for recipes).

This year's Super Bowl involved every one of those aspects, but let's talk about the food!  This was by far the healthiest Super Bowl I've had yet.  While in preparation for planning this year's feast, I ran into some friends at the grocery store.  They asked what I was getting and I said just some things for the game.  They looked at my cart and then back up at me with confused expressions. "Tofu?" they asked. Yes.  My cart was filled with vegetables and other healthy items.  Everyone loves soy at a Super Bowl party, RIGHT?


In all seriousness, my party didn't involve tofu.  That was for another day.  But I did use Gardein brand meatless chicken tenders (per Tone It Up's suggestion) and boy were they good!  I also made mango salsa, hummus, sauteed mushrooms, low-fat guacamole, and carob balls that I'll provide the recipes to.  On top of that, I set out low-carb tortillas from La Tortilla Factory, cut up some red, yellow, and green bell peppers and some celery, and made some kale chips (because what's a party without chips?)  ;)

I thought I'd also include last year's Super Sandwich for the Super Bowl.  It weighed 10.0 lbs on the dot and stood about one foot tall.  Thank you to my boyfriend for baking bread in my football-shaped cake pan and getting 3 kinds of meats, 3 kinds of cheeses, and different greens and bell peppers to make this edible monstrosity.  It took an army to eat it, but it was a well-fed, happy army :)

I hope your Super Bowl was as great as mine was and for those of you reading in future Februaries, I hope these recipes and ideas help you create a fabulous football feast!  Enjoy!  xxo

Mango Salsa
1 mango, peeled, pitted, and diced (about 1.5 cup)
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
1 jalapeno chile, minced 
1 small cucumber, peeled and diced (about 1 cup)
3 tbsp fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
3 tbsp fresh lime juice 
Salt and pepper to taste
(mix together in bowl and enjoy!)


Low-Fat Guacamole (From Womens Health)
1.5 cups frozen green beans, thawed
1 small avocado, cubed
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
3 tbs lemon juice
1 tbsp jalapeno, chopped
2 tbsp cilantro, chopped
(Put all but the last two ingredients in a food processer until smooth, then stir in peppers and cilantro)


Hummus
 Lots of flexibility with this one---I threw it together how I saw fit at that moment ;)
Garbanzo beans (amount is dependent on how much you want! Shoot for 1 cup)
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 shakes paprika
1 shake garlic powder
QUICK shake onion powder
(Put everything in a food processor)


Carob Balls on a Time Crunch
Another flexible recipe, and one of my favorites!
1/2 cup carob chips (or however. many. you. want...within reason).
1/4 cup walnuts
1/8 cup almonds
(Put everything in food processor until you make a dough that you can roll balls out of, then stick in refrigerator until ready to eat!)
(There are many variations of this recipe but since I was out of some other normal ingredients for this kind of dessert, like dates, this was the best I could do.  And it's still delicious!)


Kale Chips
1 bunch kale
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp sea salt
(Preheat oven to 350.  Rip kale into chip-sized pieces in a bowl.  Add salt and olive oil and mix with kale.  Put kale on baking sheet and cook for 8-12 minutes).