Healthy French Toast, New PR & Lesley Lifting Life citing

Happy Almost May!! (so weird, isn’t it?)

We had a pretty uneventful past weekend. Rain + clouds + chilly weather = a lazy Lesley! 

For breakfast on Saturday, I whipped up some healthy French toast.And it hit the spot!! Here’s my one serving, very easy to whip up recipe:

Healthy & Hearty Delicious French Toast

Ingredients:

• 2 slices whole wheat bread (I used Rudy’s Organic Spelt bread, my current favorite bread!)
• 3 eggs (I used 2 eggs and 1 egg white)
• Generous sprinkle(s) of cinnamon
• 4-6 drops of NuNaturals vanilla stevia (or 1 packet of stevia)
• 1 serving peanut butter
• Berries or other fruit toppings
• Agave nectar
• Coconut oil or olive oil spray (to grease pan)

Directions:

1. Mix together eggs, stevia and cinnamon in bowl large enough for at least a slice of bread to fit in
2. Dip in one side of bread, letting it soak few a few seconds, flip and repeat
3. Place dipped bread onto greased pan on low to medium heat, and keep flipping every few minutes until desired (should only take about 5-10 minutes once pan is heated up)
4. Repeat with other slice of bread.
5. Place on plate, add berries, peanut butter, a good squirt of agave, and extra cooked egg mixture (if you have any, and if desired ; )
6. Enjoy! :)

Moving right along to the vending machines … as I mentioned last week, I got to go with Erik to stock our vending machines last Monday and here’s some pictures along the way … The van may look a little messy but I promise you, there is an organized method to this madness!! ; )  Couple of products spotted: Boulder chips, Hansen’s soda, Blue Sky soda, Nature’s Path pop tarts among MANY other things!
 
It’s hard to take pictures of most of the actual vending machines just because they’re in schools and school was in session. Buuut in case you missed it:

- Here’s what our healthy vending machines look like and

- Here’s a list of some of the products that are inside of them

We’ve switched up a lot of the products as we see what sells, what the kids want, and what is available to us at a reasonable price. We try to sell the cheapest items possible, especially for machines in middle schools. Erik’s goal is to sell everything for $1 and under in schools and he just about does! On the drive to different vending machines on on the way to KC (we’re about 45 minutes to an hour away) I kept myself entertained with magazines and my camera.   

In other news …

- Check out Lesley Lifting Life’s recent citing on fitnessmagazine.com!

- In fitness news, today I set a personal record by benching 135 today for one rep! (That’s a 45 lb plate on each side .. ahh!)  I was so proud of myself because that was my original benching goal when I first started outl!  (My next benching goal is now 150 but Erik tells me it should be 225. Right now, I’m just laughing in his face … but we shall see ; )

Has anyone else set a new PR recently (in anything)? I’d love to hear all about it! And I hope you all have a great week filled with sunshiny weather! What’s the weather like for everyone else? I’m ready for the rain to go away for a while!

The Westside Local

Hello: )

How was your weekend?? Ours has been good and what’s even better is that I have a three day weekend ; )

I got a package last week from NuNaturals and am looking forward to using it! I first tried NuNaturals products back in October when they send me some samples. I especially liked their liquid vanilla stevia … it goes great in oatmeal!

After church, Erik and I spent our Sunday in Kansas City.

Before we headed home, we stopped and ate at The Westside Local for dinner.

It’s located almost right across the street from another local KC restaurant that I’ve blogged about, Blue Bird.

While waiting for our food, we took a lot of pictures.

The Westside Local was cute, inviting and quaint. We sat right by the window and could feel a nice breeze from outside while soaking up the sun. Perfect!

Erik decided on the Summit Burger (made with local grass fed beef) with a side salad. It sounded so good that I got the exact same thing.

Turns out, I made the right decision ; ) We both thought it was really good and would definitely order it again.

I’m now excited for Monday because I’m off work and get to go stock the vending machines with Erik.

I’ll leave you with Adrian, Bubba and Rocky (unpictured) saying “hi!” : )

Bridal Boot Camp, Day in KC

Happy Weekend! :)

Hope everyone has had a great weekend! We’ve been enjoying the beautiful Spring weather!

Here’s a little picture recap of our Saturday. We spent most of the day in Kansas City just driving around, walking around, taking pictures, eating good food, and loving the weather.

For lunch, we stopped at The Mixx.

“The Mixx is a locally-owned, fast-casual restaurant that cares about the quality of the food you eat. Using only the freshest ingredients, The Mixx’s grilled meats are hormone-free, fish is flown in fresh daily, and everything is made from scratch. The Mixx’s dishes are prepared with foods that are not processed and are preservative-free.”

 

We both got the “Classic Blue” which is a sandwich with marinated grilled steak, grilled sweet onions and balsamic mushrooms with a blue cheese aioli on a French baguette. Yum!

Erik stops at The Mixx a lot when he’s stocking our vending machines, but this was my first taste of it.

 

At the park.

Picture taking:

Erik likes to pose for the camera, haha.

 

As you can see, it was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed it thoroughly! : )

 

Bridal Boot Camp

When someone with Fitness Magazine contacted me about their six week program, dubbed Bridal Boot Camp, I was excited to share it with all my readers. It’s something I can definitely get behind because of my own enjoyment in working out. I also know what it’s like to not have a clue where to start or how to get results without some help!

As told by Fitness Magazine, the program features:

“Bridal boot camp workout videos - everything from specific toning exercises, such as the balance arm curl, to nutrition tips. Most of them about one minute in length

Extra moves for specific dress types -  targeted workouts for brides with strapless, backless, form-fitting, or short styles.

Finally, because brides tend to be extremely busy, Fitnessmagazine.com has created a 20-minute circuit workout for buff brides. Between dealing with caterers, booking the florist and attending dress fittings, now any bride will be able to fit in cardio, strength training, and interval training in just over two hours a week.”

 

For more information, sign up for the bridal boot camp newsletter  that includes workout routines, nutrition tips, weight-loss plans and more.

I hope you all check it out, they have some great workouts and great tips to help you succeed and get the results you want! Happy Bridal Boot Camp’ing!! : )

 

Happy Easter! (+chest workout and Genghis Grill)

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone has gotten to enjoy some good food and good times with family! I didn’t feel great this afternoon for awhile, but I’m feeling much better now so all is good ; )

I haven’t mentioned much of my working out lately, so I thought I’d share my chest workout from this past week. I haven’t taken any pictures in the gym because I just feel weird bringing my huge, nice camera in with me while I’m trying to workout, ha. Maaaaybe someday. For now, here’s some pictures from home … (to see progress in my muscle building, here’s some pictures from January and February for comparison) Monday’s chest workout:

• Bench press: 65lbs for 12 reps, 85 lbs for 8, 105 lbs for 4, 115 for 2, failed attempt at 125lbs, 65 for 17 reps (aka, to fail)
• Incline dumbbell chest press: 30lb dumbbells for 12 reps, 35lb dumbbells for 6, 30lb dumbbells for 6, 20lb dumbbells for 20 reps (aka, to fail)
• Decline bench press: 65lbs for 12 reps, 85lbs for 8 reps, 65 lbs for 10 reps, 45lbs (the bar) to fail
• Seated cable flies: 4 sets with 60 lbs (30lb cable on both arms) to fail (ended up being 6-8 reps)

It was a really good workout and I felt great when I was done.

Fast-forward to this weekend:

Yesterday Erik and I ventured to KC to hang out and enjoy the nice weather. I LOVE this time of year : ) For food, we decided on Genghis Grill in the Power & Light District. It’s build-your-own Mongolian stir fry. They had tons of options and basically you build your own bowl by going through a buffet and picking a protein, your seasonings, your veggies, your sauce, and  putting it all in a bowl. They then add your starch and cook it for you.   I decided upon (if I can remember it all) …

Sliced beef seasoned with granulated garlic and pepper with cabbage, a few mandarin oranges, onions, squash and zucchini with roasted tomato sauce, a little ginger citrus sauce, and garlic water. And for my starch, I picked Udon noodles. This picture was taken from the outside window, hence it’s quality, but there’s an idea of how they cook it …  I love the whole build-your-own concept that seems to be prevalent in emerging restaurants these days, because it makes knowing what you’re eating much easier. In fact, you can even put in your ingredients online and you’ll get the nutritional facts. Here was my bowl:

I tried to get most of the low sodium ingredients, because when eating out, if you don’t watch it, salt adds up QUICK. I probably could have done better, but for eating out, 600 mg isn’t that bad. (Especially considering how a serving of most of their proteins have 400-600 mg alone)

I really liked my combination but decided I put a little too much pepper in. Ha, and poor Erik couldn’t even finish his because he underestimated how hot (spicy hot) it would be.     

Have you ever been to a build-your-own stir fry restaurant and did you like it??

I was pretty picture happy yesterday in Kansas City, so I’ll have more to share later : )  Have a good one!!

 

P.S. My blog layout is having some technical issues today, so if you noticed it looks a little “off”, that’s why;)