Welcome

Welcome to The Purple Carrot!

Welcome to The Purple Carrot, “where the art of real food grows”!

To quickly sum it up, we’re a food blog with a healthy twist.

What will you find at The Purple Carrot?

• Food.  The Purple Carrot is dedicated to quality, sustainable food both local and organic. That being said, we love food, and we love to eat it. This involves a lot of time and fun in the kitchen at home, as well as dining out.
• Health.  My basic health motto is “eat close to the ground and move”.
• Kansas City.  As a Kansas City based  blog, we like to brag about all the good things happening here in KC, both inside the food scene and out.
• Originally Organic Vending. In January of 2010, my husband Erik and I started Originally Organic Vending, a health food vending company serving in and around Kansas City.

Thanks for reading!

      

Welcome to our life, and thanks again for stopping by!!

Welcome

Welcome to Lesley Lifting Life!

First off, thanks so much for stopping by! : ) Lesley Lifting Life was created to journal my health & wellness journey as I blog about food, fitness, and the challenges of every day life. 

Why Lifting Life?

“Lifting Life” symbolizes many things to me:

• Facing every day life obstacles that come my way and finding a way to overcome them in a positive, uplifting and healthy way.
• Finding out how to just by myself.  We’re constantly bombarded with messages, hints, magazine ads and commercials telling us how we should live, what we should look like, how we should act. My goal is to lift myself above what everyone else says I should be and just be who God created me to be!
• In the literal aspect, I love to workout and I find great satisfaction in bettering myself physically and emotionally by lifting weights and staying active.   

A Few Words From Lesley ...

Upon starting college and getting married, I slowly but surely gained about 15 pounds and found myself very disappointed that I was having to buy new jeans and feel bloated all the time. Erik (my husband) finally convinced me to start going to the gym with him. Before this, eating healthy, my weight, etc, never concerned me because I had always just considered myself thin and was happy and content.

At the age of around 19 and 20 came around and the weight started adding up a realization occurred: I cannot keep eating anything I want with no exercise and not gain weight. However, I was always intimidated by going to the gym, and all things working out because I felt "bad" at it and felt like I didn't know what I was doing.

So, my husband became my personal trainer, showing me what I should be doing at the gym, teaching me about what foods are healthy and which ones actually aren't. Surprisingly to me, I began to really enjoy going to the gym, and I was astonished at how much better I felt eating healthy foods. I began reading tons of articles on health and nutrition, reading from my husband's nutrition textbooks, and really enjoyed it. I wasn't sluggish anymore, had way more energy, and a lot more confidence in myself. Around a year went by and I found myself almost 20 pounds lighter than before.

Now, I've actually gained that weight back (and more) but this time it's muscle, as my husband and I really enjoy lifting together ; ) We continue to love living a healthy lifestyle, working out, cooking and eating healthy.

We are very active in our church, and stay busy with work, our dogs, and lifting life!

Feel free to comment or contact Lesley at lesleyborger@gmail.com

I've Been Tagged.

Happy Tuesday!!

First off, thanks for all the nice comments about my cousin, you guys all are so sweet! : )

My lovely blogger friend Erica at Itzy's Kitchen tagged me yesterday to write 10 random things about myself. I realize I recently something very similar to this, but 1) I, of course, couldn't just not do it, being tagged and all because what fun would that be?? And 2) I realize that my "random" things change a lot depending on what day it is and how I'm feeling. Haha ... so here I go : )
(disclaimer: i do have other clothes besides this one white coat, lol ... for some reason, my husband likes to randomly snap pictures of me right when we're about to leave the house!)
1) I've recently decided to try and do at least one thing a day, big or small, that I consider to be "spontaneous" for me.

2) Most of the time, I don't separate my laundry when washing clothes, though I know I probably should.

3) I am shy.

4) I hate ever disappointing anyone by anything I do and often end up considering myself inferior to others.

5) I am really afraid of millers. (aka moths ... whatever you call them).

6) My birthday is in March and I will only be 21, though people usually guess me older than that. Aaand my husband is 27.

7) I am what you might define as a homebody ... I like to stay home.

8) Since getting married and buying our house we have't done much entertaining or had many people over and while I like to cook, I don't feel very good at it and I'm afraid of playing the "hostess" role.

9) One of my goals is to be more myself, honestly and authentically, no matter who sees and then to not care what anyone thinks (this blog helps ;)

10) I love hot tea and I have 2-3 cups everyday.

Erica's sassiness must have come along with the tag because like her, I typically don't tag people but I'm going to today. If you want to, I tag ... Emily of The Life and Times of Em, Lindsey at Life According to Mrs. LC, Michelle at Strong and Healthy, Caroline at Banana Cabana, aaaand Kelly at Every Gym's Nightmare.

Last but not least, in case you haven't yet heard, Hangry Pants is having a giveaway of a jar of almond butter ... yum!!!

Have a good one : )

Cereal, Scarves, and 25 Things

Hey all ... the weekend has arrived!

First off, for all those that might care or not care an update on how much I love my still-fairly-new Golden Flax Ezekiel cereal ... I have it with frozen berries, almond milk and sprinkle some cinnamon on top. (I have also recently put a dab of agave nectar in with it, making it taste even better! However, I don't all this all the time). I find myself perfectly content in eating the exact same breakfast every day and look forward to each morning. Yum! In other news, my lovely, crafy, good-at-just-about-everything mom FexEx'ed me three scarves that she made and they had arrived when I got home from work ... I think my favorite is the green one. And though my mom will probably never read this ... Thanks, Mom! (btw, Danelle, if you're reading this, she has instructed me that one is yours, so now you know you're getting one;)
Normally, I don't do things like this, but since all the cool kids are doing it (?), and since I've gotten tagged a few times on Facebook already, and after having read healthy ashley's post, and since I don't have anymore neat recent food pictures, I've decided to follow suit with "25 Random Things About Me" ...

1. My wonderful husband and I will have been married 2 years already on June 23rd.
2. All I do at my job is type all day, and I really like it.
3. I love to read but am finding with my more "real job", "grown up" life it's hard to find any time to do it.
4. I love food.
5. I'm extremely grateful I had my sister growing up. We've always been really close and now live six hours away from each other and I often really miss her.
6. I feel like I have really started to become "me" this past year or so and am loving it.
7. I want to become more spontaneous as my life seems to get busier and busier and I start to feel older and older.
8. I recently have been thinking I may want to pursue something like a Nutritionist degree.
9. I want to love people and be known for my love for them.
10. The thing I want the very most in my life is to be apart of what God is doing.
11. My prayer is, "Lord, Thy government come, Thy policy be done on earth as it is in heaven".
12. Only within the past couple years have I become interested in health, nutrition and cooking.
13. I love my husband more and more each day and am SO thankful for him and our live together.
14. In high school, I often preferred hanging out with my grandma on a Saturday night rather than doing anything else. (that's just how cool she is;)
15. I think brussell sprouts are really good.
16. I never dated nor kissed anyone until I met my now-husband.
17. Sometimes I depend on my daily routine too much and forget to have fun and just live life.
18. I love the feeling after a good workout after I didn't feel like working out but did it anyways. (ha, a couple years ago I never worked out and never thought I'd love it).
19. My husband and I love to workout and lift together.
    
20. I'm grateful and amazed at the (un)answered prayers that have happened in my life.
21. Just like my sister, I often miss times with my best friend growing up, Danelle, and don't know what I would ever have done without her.
22. I never realized how much work puppies really can be until we had two at the same time.
23. I like to watch good movies.
24. I think it would be neat if there were still balls like in Pride & Prejudice, and I think it would be neat if I could talk like that.
25. I love this journey of life. I'm grateful for the past, doing my best to live in the now, and am excited for the future!

And that's all for now! I'm sure I'll think of things I would have rather put up there later but oh well!

Have a great weekend!!! Anyone have exciting plans?