health journey Archives - Girl Loves Glam

5 Simple Tips for Healthy Eating this Holiday Season

November 21, 2016 By McKenzie 1 Comment

Many of you have made comments about my husband’s noticeable weight loss that has occurred this year. He has lost over 50 lbs since May! While I have been been putting on the baby weight, he has been focusing on his health in a major way and has lost more weight than our four year old weighs!

One of the things that Dave has really changed has been how he eats. Going from someone who drank a lot of Dr. Pepper everyday to someone who loves to stay home and make delicious, healthy food is a pretty huge transformation itself!

He recently started a blog called Run.Eat.Poop.Repeat. where he is documenting his experience as he continues to strive to live a healthy lifestyle. He offered to share some of his tips to eating healthy during the holiday season for all of you! Although he hasn’t experienced a Thanksgiving or Christmas with his new, healthy lifestyle, he has endured anniversaries, birthdays, etc throughout the year that he has really learned from. If you are interested in following along with his journey and getting more tips, you can follow his blog. He would LOVE the support!

Here are his 5 Simple Tips for Eating Healthy this Holiday Season:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: christmas, health, holidays, thanksgiving, tips Tagged With: christmas, health, health journey, healthy, thanksgiving, tips

Part of the Bold Percent

October 5, 2016 By McKenzie Leave a Comment

I’m sharing #LISTERINE in my life as part of a LISTERINE® sponsored series for Socialstars™

You have probably noticed that I am a big fan of the LISTERINE® Bring Out the Bold campaign. I just love it when companies encourage people to be the best versions of themselves! The group of people who take the challenge to live their life boldly are part of what LISTERINE calls the Bold Percent.

One person that I definitely think is part of the Bold Percent is my husband, Dave. Many of you have commented when he shows up on my social media channels because he has lost so much weight.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: health Tagged With: dave, health, health journey, listerine, weight loss

Teaching Kids to Love Themselves

August 28, 2016 By McKenzie Leave a Comment

I’m sharing #LISTERINE in my life as part of a LISTERINE® sponsored series for Socialstars™ #Sonicare

As you may recall, I touched a bit about the weight of responsibility that I have felt over teaching my child to be confident and bold in who she is. It was one thing that I never thought about when I looked into the future and thought about what life might be like as mother. Although she is only four years old, I want my daughter to grow up loving herself from the beginning so that she doesn’t have to create that self love later on.

Today she was given the opportunity to give a little talk in church about treating our bodies well. I had helped her get the talk ready and I truly hope that the message came across to her as we practiced and as she spoke today. The message she shared was that she was born prematurely and wasn’t a healthy baby but through the help of the NICU nurses, she was able to come home as a healthy baby. She had to continue to work to be healthy so that she could grow up to be the healthy little girl that she is today. She talked about how our bodies are gifts and that we need to treat them with kindness in both how we treat them and how we speak about them. Although it was just a little talk given to small children by a four year old, I hope the spirit of the message came across clearly.

It is so important to love ourselves! [Read more…]

Filed Under: life Tagged With: bold, health, health journey, healthy, life, listerine, parenting, self confidence, self love, sponsored

My Health Journey Must Haves

April 17, 2014 By McKenzie 1 Comment

When I decided it was time for me to step it up and get healthy, I knew I needed to be equipped with all of the right gear too. I want to share with you a few of my must haves in order to stay on the healthy path.

Eat Green Tea Leaves– Guys. These are life changing. Life changing I tell ya! So I don’t like the taste of green tea at all, but I wanted to get green tea into my system somehow because it helps support a healthy metabolism and gives you natural energy. My friend, Andie showed me these green tea leaves that are edible. I add them to my protein shakes in the morning and they make a HUGE difference. I put one teaspoon in each of my protein shakes. Each bag is $25, but they last forever if you are only using one or two teaspoons a day.

Bulu Box– If you haven’t heard of Bulu Box, you need to sign up now! It is the coolest thing ever. It is a box you sign up to get each month that is packed full of awesome, healthy items. I have gotten protein pancake mix, vitamins, and even hummus in my box! I love that Bulu Box can get me out of the health ruts that I get into by getting me excited about new products to try each month. They are offering my readers 50% off your boxes or your first month for free if you use coupon code: BULUGAN698

Polar FT4 Watch– I love this watch. I finally feel like I can accurately track how many calories I am burning during my workouts. This watch tracks my heart rate and tells me when I am in the zone to burn the most fat too. It is a seriously amazing watch. It was a fabulous investment for me. I got mine on Amazon. I linked up the title of this section with the link to where I got mine.

Pinterest– I know that sounds silly, but Pinterest has totally helped me stay on track. There are so many great, clean recipes out there on Pinterest. I love trying out new recipes that are healthy, but are also foods that my family will eat. Pinterest has helped me do that. I will be pinning a lot more healthy food options too so make sure you are following me on Pinterest.

Blendtec Blender– You probably already know this, but I am obsessed with my blender. There is no way I could survive without it. I have been able to create so many healthy snacks with my blender that I wouldn’t have been able to create before. This thing can make so many different textures it blows my mind. There is so much power packed into that little machine! If you want to go on a health journey of your own, you need a Blendtec.

This week, I started the Beach Body 21 Day Fix. It has been really good for me to do, but also one of the hardest things I have ever done. I have come to the realization that I am a serious sugar addict! Although I am not perfect with my eating everyday, I am proud to know that I am getting better and better as I go. I would love to hear about your health journey. How do you stay on track? What items help keep you motivated?

Filed Under: health Tagged With: health, health journey, healthy

Skinny Tropical Fruit Sorbet Recipe

April 3, 2014 By McKenzie 6 Comments

I love sweets. When I am trying to keep my sugar intake to a minimum, I crave sugar like nobody’s business. I think that is a problem every sugar addict has. That is why it is so important to have recipes that I can fall back on that are both healthy and sweet tasting. I created the perfect combination to make a sweet, delicious frozen treat that is silky smooth. This skinny tropical fruit sorbet is just what I need when I need sugar in my system.

Skinny Tropical Fruit Sorbet Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups Frozen Tropical Fruit
6 oz Orange Juice

Instructions

Put frozen fruit in Blendtec Twister Jar. Pour orange juice in Twister Jar. Put blender on ice cream setting and blend. Twist the twister jar lid counter clockwise while the blender is working. Blend until the fruit is all blended up and the mixture is silky smooth.
Makes 2 servings
Enjoy!

This Blendtec Twister Jar is the perfect little piece of equipment for recipes like this. It is great for smaller servings and is made to create thicker concoctions than your regular blender. This little thing is a BEAST! I love how much power it packs and the results are incredible… incredibly delicious!

Now to talk a little about my health journey. This week was rough. It has been Spring Break. With any holiday comes more temptations to sleep in and eat nothing but junk food. I hate to admit that I have given into that, but that is why I am grateful for new beginnings. Each journey goes through twists and turns. This has just been a little loop in the road. What are your favorite go to foods to help satisfy your sweet tooth, while also keeping your health in mind?

Don’t forget to check out last week’s health journey post with a recipe to this delicious Berry Pineapple Smoothie!

Filed Under: health, recipe Tagged With: dessert, food, fruit, health, health journey, healthy, recipe, sorbet

Pineapple Berry Smoothie Recipe and Health Journey

March 27, 2014 By McKenzie 6 Comments

I know that I have talked a lot about my health/weight loss journey in the past. That is because it is a journey I have been on my entire life. My entire life I have struggled with my weight. I know that I am not huge. I haven’t ever been huge. I did get fairly heavy for my frame when I was in beauty school, but I was able to lose the freshman 25 and feel better about myself. That was nearly 7 years ago and I am at a place that I don’t feel great anymore. I am about 5 pounds heavier than I was when I lost all of my weight, which isn’t a bad thing considering how long it has been and that I have put on pregnancy weight and lost that baby weight since then too. The problem is that I just don’t feel good. It isn’t even how I look necessarily. It is how I feel. I don’t feel good because I haven’t been treating my body well.

I have tried living a healthier lifestyle many times. I do really well and then I fail. When I fail, I fail hard. It happens when life gets in the way. Usually when I have to go out of town. Which I have done a lot lately. That is why I am starting over again. Today! I am getting all geared up to start the 21 Day Fix Challenge starting on April 14th, but instead of waiting until then to make a change, I am working on kicking the sugar habit and drinking more water until then.

I am bringing you along on this health journey of mine! Once a week, I will be updating you on my progress! Blendtec has also decided to help support me in my journey and I am so grateful for them! I am going to include some of my favorite healthy recipes in my health journey updates. Many of my healthy recipes use my new Blendtec blender that I am officially OBSESSED with!

The first recipe I am going to share with you is this YUMMY Pineapple Berry Smoothie. It is perfect for the times that I need something sweet. I have a serious sugar addiction and this smoothie helps sooth my craving without actually eating all of the sugar my body thinks it needs.

Pineapple Berry Smoothie

Ingredients

2 cups of chopped pineapple
1 6 oz can of pineapple juice
1/2 cup frozen raspberries or strawberries
1 cup Vanilla Almond Milk

Instructions

Put all of the ingredients in your blender and serve! If you have a Blendtec blender, use the frozen drink option on your blender. It makes for the perfect consistency for the smoothies.

Thank you for joining me on this journey. What do you do to keep you motivated to stay healthy?

Filed Under: health, recipe Tagged With: drink, health, health journey, recipe, weight loss