Have you heard of Fitbit? It’s sorta like a pedometer in that it tracks your steps, but it does so much more than that. My husband ordered Fitbits back in December for us. You wear the little tracker during the day as well as at night and it will track your steps, stairs climbed, calories, weight, and sleep. There is an iPhone app that it works with where you can enter the food you eat throughout the day. In addition they have a scale that syncs up with everything so you know your BMI. You can set up weight loss goals and it will tell you what your calories should be for the day to lose weight by a certain period of time. You can also add how many glasses of water you’ve had.

The MOST interesting aspect for me is how it tracks sleep. After having used the Fitbit for the last few months I have determined if I am awakened anytime between 12a and 2a I will definitely be dragging the next day. If I somehow manage to not be awakened during that time I seem to be fine. It’s quite interesting. Here’s a bit of the data on me in case you are interesting in what the dashboard looks like.

I will tell you that night of sleep that I’m showing you in the picture…I was not just dragging the next day, I was downright grumpy.

For the record, Fitbit didn’t pay for any of this, we bought it ourselves. 🙂

Kids and food…it’s a toss up right? Some days they eat great, some days you think they are a bottomless pit, and other days you wonder how they keep the energy up with the minuscule amounts of food they ingest.  On those days I’m all, let’s have a little bit more milk, whattayasay?

1. Healthy Habits Kids Food Plate–Danielle and I were talking about this plate the other day and how great it is that it helps US the parents know how much to serve and also teaches the kiddos portions of food at mealtimes.
2. Jane Jenni Funky Monkey Melamine Plate, Amazon
3. Fred & Friends Food Face, Amazon-This might just instigate playing with food but its funny no?
4. Stephen Joseph Melamine Tray, Amazon-This is the type of plate I should have had as a kid because I wanted all my food separate…DID. NOT. WANT. IT. TOUCHING.

Do you guys have picky eaters or bottomless pits?

Let me start this by saying I am an apply crisp lover. However, now matter where you get it, it is bound to have a million gazillion calories. That doesn’t really work for me. What I have discovered, ladies, is the answer to my prayers. Dole Apply Cinnamon Fruit Crisp. Individual apple crisp serving that can travel with me wherever I may go. Low calorie, low fat, and delicious. A+ rating in my book.

I am not generally a chocolate person. I don’t like chocolate ice cream, chocolate pudding, chocolate cake, or plain chocolate candy (gotta have some nuts or something in it 🙂 ) But I LOVE brownies. If you put a pan of brownies in front of me, I guarantee you I will eat the whole pan more than one. Needless to say I don’t get brownies often. But I have discovered the answer to my chocolate prayers.  I found these at my local HEB (grocery store here in Texas) and they solve my dilemma quite nicely. Real brownie pieces in a 100 calorie pouch. Just enough to quiet my craving but not enough to expand my waistline.  Not to mention they taste soooo good…

That’s right, you heard me.  Now I don’t usually buy Weight Watcher’s products, because most of the food items are a little pricey for me. But these Weight Watcher’s Strawberry Smoothie Low Fat Yogurt Bars are DA bomb, and are worth every penny. They literally taste like a smoothie on a stick, and at a mere 50 calories a bar, you can’t beat that.

Healthy snacking is always a challenge for everyone and I get very sick of eating the same thing all the damned time. I’ve come across an unbeatable, low cal combo that I just have to let y’all in on.

Fresh Food Concepts Spinach Dip (45 cals per serving) and Special K Savory Herb Crackers (90 cals per serving)

Let me tell you what’s been makin my mornings for the past few weeks. Bagel-fuls! It’s like a bagel with cream cheese filling already in it! Delish, 200 calories, keeps me full…. and drum roll please….. heat in the microwave for 30 seconds and your out the door! I like the chives flavor, but there are so so many and they are all so yummy!

I have held many gym memberships in my past, 4 to be exact. Every time I start out pumped to no end, only to have the very same outcome of membership cancellation. About 2 years ago I realized that I am just not a gym person, as I signed the cancellation documents of my latest gym member failure.  Here are the ways that I stay in shape WITHOUT a gym.

1. Jillian Michaels Banish Fat Boost Metabolism is the hardest of the Jillian videos. Your thighs will hate you, but they may thank you later when they are looking oh so fine.
2. Jillan Michaels No More Trouble Zones is great circuit training. There are many 7 minute circuits that you can choose from to highlight different areas that you want to work on or you could do the entire workout all at once if you are some kind of badass.
3. Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred is one of the best sculpting workouts that I have found. I never lost any pounds on this workout, but the improvements that I saw in my overall tone and fitness were outstanding. And did I mention it’s only 20 minutes long. Anyone can find 20 minutes to workout.
4. P90X DVDs is an out of this world workout for the entire body. BUT you may not be able to just jump right into this one. I feel that it is more of a challenge than all of the others that I will list below, but totally worth it.
5. Turbo Jam: Punch Kick and Jam is a longer workout, at 45 mins, but it is great on one of those days where you just want to punch kick and jam someone’s face off.

My now husband proposed to me in late 2007 after having dated for over 6 years. Imagine how THRILLED I was to finally get that rock on my finger! Then I saw a pic of me + 6 chins from the night of our engagement… thrill over, well sorta.  Good news: Fiance loves me and all my chins. Bad news: I have GOT to get rid of this shit before I walk down that aisle!  Over the next 6 months, I lost about 50 pounds.  Here were my staple weightloss foods for those of you who are looking to lose a couple chins yourselves.

1. Smart Ones Baked Ziti-The perfect lunch. The cheese ratio is ultra high, so this is a cheese lover’s delight.
2. Nature’s Own Wheat Light-Toast, sammiches, you name it… 40 calories a slice and good.
3. HoneyCrisp Apples-As sweet as candy, but not candy and therefore a good choice.
4. McDonald’s Ice Cream Cone-150 calories is a small price to pay for the deliciousness that is this treat. I am decently sure that I drained majority of my local Mickey D’s of all ice cream inventory during 2008.
5. Frigo Cheese Head Light String Cheese-50% less fat than other cheese and still cheese, so perfect.