Girls on the Run, Girls Gone Sporty, and Guaca-hummus, oh my!

Holy heck, it's almost the end of January!!!  What the hell have I been doing all month long?!  Seriously though, I've found the beginning of 2015 to be pretty productive so far, and I'm just now getting started.  I have BIG plans for this year.  I hope you do too!

I just wanted to put this in here gratuitously because my daughter made it and it makes me happy. 

First thing, I just volunteered to be head coach for our local Girls on the Run chapter, and I can't wait to get started!  GOTR is a really fantastic program for your elementary and middle school girls to help build inner and outer strength.  It generally runs in most schools in the spring (some schools do fall as well) for 10-12 weeks, culminating in a GOTR public 5k that the girls will complete as a team.  So basically, I will be working with them to not only teach them how to push through a 5k physically, but also to gain self-confidence, build teamworking skills, and learn that they can reach any goal they set out to achieve.  I'm so stoked!  Plus to make it even better, my daughter gets to do the program with us and I can be with her as she achieves her goals.  Happy mommy moments!

If you would like to learn more about GOTR or if it's offered in your local area (and how to start a chapter if it isn't), or if you want to volunteer as a coach or as a runner for the 5k, click on the image below and search for your region:

Another fun new journey for me this year is being accepted as a Girls Gone Sporty Ambassador!  GGS is a wonderful website dedicated to helping women of all ages, shapes, and lifestyles to become fitter and healthier.  The page creator Laura hosts weekly YouTube live workouts, as well as sends out FREE newsletters with healthy eating tips, recipes, exercises, and even special offers and fitness gear reviews/giveaways.  Plus, she has a whole army of awesome ambassadors that you can search through to find fantastic blogs with everything from vegan diets to bodybuilding journeys and all places in-between.  I'm honored to be part of this wonderfully strong group of women!

So, now I will move on to my recipe.  I'm a big-time hummus addict, I use it on tons of stuff.  It works beautifully in place of cheese on a sandwich or wrap, it is an excellent veggie/pita dip, and I even like it a black bean veggie bowl in place of (or on top of) rice.  Well, I also love avocados, and we happened to have a few extra that were wasting away since we forgot to make guacamole with our dinner the other night.  Throw them together with some choice ingredients, and bam--a wonderfully easy and healthy guaca-hummus that doesn't get that nasty brown look after a few days!

After two days--looks just like hummus without the brown guac grossness, mmmmm!

Guaca-hummus Recipe:

1 15oz can chickpeas (save the juice for later!)
1 avocado, nice and soft
1 roasted red pepper
Half handful of chopped cilantro
Juice of 1 lemon and 1 lime
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp cumin
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Add all ingredients into your food processor or heavy-duty blender, and add your chickpea juice to desired consistency.  Then, eat it all!

See, easy peasy.  That's my type of recipe!

Now, let's all go forth and have a fabulous rest of our week.  My week will be full of classes, including my Cupid's Burn Bootcamp that I've previously mentioned.  For those in the snow tundras, please be safe out there!!  Find some fun home workouts on YouTube (see the Girls Gone Sporty page above for a few!), hunker down, and enjoy the downtime.  For the rest of us, let me know how you plan to get out there and sweat for the rest of this week!!

Holy Excitement, Batman!

Wow, I have some pretty awesome things happening right now that I just HAVE to brag about for a moment!  So please, bear with me.  I don't feel braggish often and need to get it out of my system. :P

Anyway, the first thing is that I'm super pumped about having moved my personal fitness studio from my murky garage to our awesome bonus room!  It was previously a huge playroom, but the kids didn't utilize it much since it was all the way in the back of the house.  I decided that I was tired of dealing with the nasty cold and all the sawdust from my husband's workspace in the garage, so I relocated the kid stuff to a smaller room and got my room set up right away!  I'm slowly building up my equipment inventory, but I still have plenty to give a butt-kicker of a workout for sure.  I tested it out for myself last night, and I trained a few people there yesterday morning.  Plus the kids love the mats for their TaeKwonDo form and kicking practice.  My daughter even led us in a "family workout" last night, and I'll admit that I was impressed by her moves.  So far the room is a hit!!

Chalkboard wall to the left, and soon I'll add in a wall-mounted pull-up bar with TRX!

She moves too fast for my crappy iPhone camera. :P

My second exciting brag news is that I will be hosting a fun bootcamp workout at a popular local bar in Uptown Charlotte, as a fundraising effort for Cupid's Undie Run.  The workout will be donation-based, and I hope to have a really awesome turnout.  And to add to that, I'll be going on a little news segment along with the race director on the local Fox station this Wednesday!!!  Eeek!  I've never been on live TV before, and I'm more than just a little nervous!  I get to get up suuuuuper early and make myself presentable enough to haul my tired ass Uptown and talk about the run, my bootcamp workout, and fitness in general.  And because I'm me, I'll more than likely be doing burpees on television. :P  

If you're interested in donating to the Undie Run and helping to fund research for Neurofibromatosis, please feel free to visit my fundraising page and/or join us at the bootcamp!  Click the image below for details!

So there you go, that's all my excitement for now!  I'll hope to have a recording or at least a link up of the interview after the fact.  Unless I suck.  Then you're never gonna see it EVER.  

Have a great day, and keep on sweatin'!

I'm BAAAAAAAAACCCCKKK!!!!!!!

Holy cow, it's been a LONG time since I've blogged!!!  Like, over a freaking year!  Well, let me recap please:

I got injured before the NY Marathon, but I ran it anyway.  It hurt.  A lot.  I'm better now.

I lost my little sister almost a year ago.  That basically took away all drive to blog or do a lot of other things.  I'm (kind of) better now.

I started working more, and then more, and then a little more.  I'm teaching three times more than I was at first, and I LOVE it.  It's my release from sadness, stress, frustration, and general day-to-day blahs.  It makes my heart very happy.  And I'm really good at it, if I say so myself.


My family is doing great, the kids are growing and becoming more awesome and yet more insane by the day.  With age comes attitude, but I still know that they are some of the coolest kids around.  My daughter is advancing quickly in TaeKwonDo and is due to get her black belt this coming August!  We're blown away by that, and also super grateful that she'll be prepping for it during summer break when she doesn't have homework.  The boy is also doing well, and is enjoying his preschool immensely.  He's becoming a gamer a little more than we'd like to see, but we make him go out for exercise as much as possible.  The second he gets outside he's happy as a lark, so I know we're doing alright.  He's also in TaeKwonDo, and his favorite part is the loud yelling.  Of course.

Christmas kiddos

My husband is also doing well,,working hard, and training with me for a faster half marathon.  He'll also hopefully be a new contributor on the blog!  He is becoming a better cook as we speak, and I'm trying to convince him to audition for Master Chef.  He'll be adding some wonderful healthy recipes to the page as I request (aka beg and plead) of him.  Please, if you know him, pester the living crap out of him to help me with this.  Seriously, your mouths will thank you later!!

So that's it.  It's been a busy year, a painful year, and it's now a new and MUCH more awesome year.  I personally plan to grab life by the balls and kick as much ass as humanly possible this year.  I hope to start offering some fun new workouts, monthly challenges, healthy recipes, daily tips, and general healthy family fun-ness.  Game on!!