Frankfurt, Germany

We landed in Frankfurt, Germany around noon so we had plenty of time to take the train into town and walk around. We were tired, my leg hurt, but we did it anyways and with a smile. We found and paid for the train (I was disappointed because I felt like we spent a lot of money on a ticket that nobody every checked). 

So when we got downtown, we discovered that they didn't have storage for our things so we jumped back on the train and went to a different station to lock it up. Eventually we made it.

We walked through the shopping district first and then we made our way (by accident of course) to a cool festival. There we shared a delicious sandwich; It had a huge chunk of tender meat in it.

We kept walking because we wanted to find and walk along the river. We ended up walking through a beautiful park that bordered the city and we stumbled upon a couple of old buildings, a WWI memorial, homeless people, and a lot of bikers.

Finally, we made it to the river and took a ton of pictures.

We left the river, crossed a road and stumbled upon the old district. My mouth hung open as we rounded the corner to see this.

The buildings were beautiful so we decided to sit for a while and take it all in. A group of Koreans walked up to take a picture in front of the building and when they noticed Nick's hat they LAUGHED and asked to take a picture with him.

On our way back on the train Nick was able to snap this picture. It looks like Alabama he said and I agree with him. What do you think?

At the airport we took a nap and relaxed until it was time to take off. This was the first time we got on a bus that drove us to our plane and then we loaded from the back. It was a cool experience.

The bus

The plane

Although we didn't have much time there we felt like we were able to see so much. I can't wait to get back to Germany and see more one day because it's beautiful and the food is amazing.

Graduate School

As of couple of Mondays ago our first year of graduate studies has come to an end. However, we only have a few weeks to relax before our summer courses pick up.  Nick and I were fortunate to be awarded scholarships to help pay for the astronomical amount of money it costs to attend a school in the Fenway.

Our first year has been tough, not going to lie. Our business decided to take off along with taking three class this past semester. Two for our program (Teaching English as a Second Language ) and the third, a foreign language of our choice. We picked Spanish of course, it just makes sense. Simmons requires that all of its students have an intermediate level of any language and we thought two classes would get us past this rule but we found out a month ago that we have to take one more class. There is no way that we will be able to balance our schedules with a third class in the fall, so we found away around it. Nick and I are headed to Salamanca, Spain to live in a cute flat and take an intensive Spanish course for the month of June.

Feel free to leave some positive vibes!

We will travel and blog on the weekends!

Let the adventure begin!

Love you all!

A Twist to Our Trip

Traveling is always an adventure. From the places you go, to the new people you meet and the new foods to try,  there are new stories being created with every experience.  What makes these stories interesting are the little mishaps that happen in every trip.  Some mishaps work out better than others but, once you get some distance from the actual event, those twists in the story are what make the whole thing memorable and make the story worth telling.

Saturday, 3 days before taking off to Spain, I went on a 2.5 hour bike ride with a small group and right before I started to head home I had a fun, self-inflicted, little accident. A huge 12 passenger van freaked out and stopped instead of getting out of the way causing all of us to abruptly stop, well my left shoe clip and my bike pedal didn't want to disconnect and I simply fell over onto a sharp curb where I was squished by Molly (my bike). I popped up and told my whole bike group I was fine and jumped back on my bike and rode home in silent pain.

I don't think I was fine.

Due to the large amount of swelling I was experiencing, my friends talked me into visiting the emergency room to make sure I didn't have a clot or broken bone; I was cleared on both counts. However, I was still nervous about the flight because I always swell up, so I borrowed a pair of compression socks and I was sorta fine.

Look at that bruise all the way from my knee to my foot.

The second twist had Nick up the whole 7 hour ride (his 3rd day with little to no sleep). Why? Well, when you own your own business and you travel, you have to work. We have a great Chinese group of students who send us papers to edit at the end of each semester and this semester was no different. However, we had one come in last minute; it was due in 15 hours so Nick got to work as we were just sitting around at the airport. He made sure he saved it on his computer so he could edit without the internet. As we got settled in on the plane both of our phones went off, and guess what, ANOTHER paper due in 14 hours. Nick quickly saved the document on his laptop and then for the next 6 hours he was that business man on the plane working hard typing away on his laptop.

We arrived in Frankfort, Germany and spent the day (Blog coming soon) before flying to Madrid late in the evening. When we arrived, we had to contact our hostel so they could send a shuttle to pick us up because everything else is shut down (it was midnight). I went to the information desk and asked, in broken Spanish, if I could use a phone to call our hostel. I grabbed my laptop and its case out of my book bag because it had all of our important information in it and set it on the counter. I took the number out and the man helped me contact them. Through a lot of pointing for directions on where to get picked up at, I decided to write everything down so I wouldn't forget. I said thanks and walked to the pick up spot with Nick. We made it to our hostel without any issue and passed out! But, the next morning as we were packing to go back to the airport to catch a bus, I realized that my laptop was not with me. You guessed it, I had left it somewhere and the only place I could think of was that information desk. In a calm panic (I was calm, Nick was panicked) we searched everywhere before the Hostel helped us call the airport to get lost and found information. They informed us that the items from the day before would not be delivered to the desk until 1 or 2 pm but our bus was pulling out at 1. So, we said a prayer and asked our shuttle driver to drop us off where he picked us up instead of at our bus terminal. We made it back to the information desk and again in broken Spanish I asked if they had a laptop in a black case and the two ladies looked puzzled as they exchanged glances with each other. Finally, one of them spoke as she held up my laptop and I burst into tears. Now that I had Blue Ninja back life was okay again. Well, almost okay since now we had to find our way to the bus parking area.

Proof that we found the bus!

We spoke Spanish to get on and it was really exciting. We took our seats and as we were getting comfortable Nick got up to put away his backpack and the bottom to his seat fell off. I just busted out laughing because we have had such a crazy day and still not caught up on our sleep. The bus driver told us we could move, so we did and guess what?? THAT seat was broken too. I couldn't stop laughing as we sat somewhere else and guess what?? That seat wasn't broken but it had gum all over everything. Finally we moved to the very back and everything worked out nicely.

Through all of the mishaps we kept our wits about us despite being exhausted. We made some great memories.

2016 Fitness goals

At the beginning of the year I really couldn't decide on any fitness goals so I found myself at a nasty plateau. So, in March, I made a big decision to start training for two events, a triathlon and a half marathon.

Last year a lot of my church friends did a Triathlon together and I chickened out because I hadn't trained and I didn't have a bike. We all know that friend who says they will do it next year and then they never do. However, I held true to my promise.

I bought Molly, my bike, in June and we have had many adventures together. Training has been hard on both of us but we have gotten along for the most part. She has taken me to donate platelets in the rain and I have taken her to the bike shop to fix her attitude so she would shift my way. Now that bike riding was no longer my excuse for not training for my triathlon, so I went ahead and registered to encourage myself to training. I also joined a bike club to help ease my way into the whole bike thing.

Before I knew it, the race day arrived (September 17th) and I felt unprepared and anxious. Where do I park my bike? Do I change my clothes? Or shoes? So to be safe I was overly prepared and I think it played in my favor.

The goals I set for myself:

-Don't finish last

-Time under 1:45:00

You will happy to know that I finished 5/6 in my age group. There was a 1 minute time difference between me and the girl who finished in 3rd place. I didn't finish last, so goal #1 accomplished. After I crossed the finish line I printed my time sheet and to my amazement  I beat my goal. My total time was 1:41:56

Here some fun pictures of the race.

Next up was my half marathon on October 9th.

I wasn't sure if I was going to run or not because I wasn't able to finish my training. I hurt my knee in early September during a 10 mile run, and that turned into a 7 mile run plus a 3 mile walk back home. I tried a knee brace for my next jog and it didn't help, so I just massaged it everyday and kept my fitness level up with swimming and biking. When I did the 3.2 mile run in the Triathlon it hurt pretty bad, so after that race I just stopped running. I forgot about my half marathon thinking that there was no way I would be able to do it.  However, the week before my race I started thinking about it again.  Should I run or not?  My knee was doing pretty well and the more I talked to people, the more I got excited about the race. So, I decided that I made this goal and I was going to stick to it no matter what pain comes...........

5:00 AM on race day came too fast. I felt prepared until I left the house and felt the trickles of rain. I went back in to grab my rain jacket and said a silent prayer. Then I checked the weather and found that the rain was going to get heavier as time went by and I didn't even think to check the temperature which dropped 10 degrees during my race.

I walked down to the bus stop and found other runners waiting for the bus too. When we got off at Forest Hills station we searched for the "shuttles" that were supposed to take us to the race destination. The shuttles were not where they said they would be, but we found them and I did make it to the race.

I ran into some friends.

From the picture I hope you recognize right away that #1 people are wearing trash bags to stay dry and #2 it's starting to get cold.

As we were walking over to line up for the race I realized that I needed to pee and I couldn't decide whether I wanted to go now and miss the start or make a bathroom stop on the route. I posed my question out loud and I was given some options,  porta-potties on the route or just pee as I run were the suggestions I was given.

The race started and this picture happened.

Now you can think of me as this happy smiling girl or you can read what I went through and the disgusting things that I saw running .

My knee started to hurt IMMEDIATELY so many thoughts crossed my mind, should I just exit and give up or just run through the pain? At mile 2.7 there was a medical tent. I stopped in hoping they would have something. They had a little bit of tape, but they couldn't guarantee it would stay on. It took her 3-4 minutes to tape it and it felt better...... for 30 seconds before the rain washed it off.

I still had to pee.

Praying, I did a lot of it and a miracle happened my knee stopped hurting for whatever reason around mile 5 or 6. Now I was able to focus and make up some time that I lost. THEN all of a sudden my nostrils were being haunted by someone’s obvious need to use the porta-pottie. I didn't know whether I should run faster, slower, to the left or right. All I could do was fan at my face and talk loudly stating that it wasn't me and whoever did that should be shot. The guy beside me started laughing. THEN something caught my eye something hit the ground not that far in front of me and at first I thought it was an acorn because of the way it seemed to balance off the ground, but it wasn't. I figured that it was a turd ball because of the splat it made when it encountered the asphalt for the second time. The man and I were now playing dodge the turd ball. It was a bonding moment.

I still had to pee.

I wish I could tell you that this was my only poop story but I can't. Right after this happened a lady slowly passed me on my right and I instantly noticed two things, she smells like poo and she had something running from her short shorts. Ladies and gentleman if you know you are going to poop while you run please bring a wipe so others don't have to see it. Heck you could even just stop running and wipe your butt in the wet grass or wash it in one of those huge puddles we had to run through.

Meanwhile I still had to pee.

Mile 7-9 came and went rather quickly. My phone got wet and started giving me problems... BYE BYE MUSIC!!

I tried hard not to concentrate on the fact that I had to pee

Mile 10 we moved from road to muddy trail. My calf muscles started to hurt but people were cheering me on so I kept going.

Mile 11 I wanted to stop running so bad so I decided to try to walk, I regretted it quickly so I went to a slow jog.

Mile 12 I met another slow jogger and she was really nice. She stopped so I stopped to make sure she was okay. She was limping pretty bad and this might sound selfish but after I found out that she was okay I said goodbye and ran away (slowly).

Nick texted me, the stake president was at church (I needed my temple recommend interview) I texted him back because I needed something to do to keep me running.

We ran through the Franklin Zoo and I don't remember any of it because that is how miserable I was.

I really really had to pee.

Mile 13 I thought the race finished at mile 13... I cried when I found out it was 13.1

I saw the finish line in the distance so I sped up. Tons of people were cheering us on in the rain and it made me feel good. I ran through the finish line, they called my name and I got my medal and then suddenly everything I just went through was worth it.

I walked and grabbed my bag and a banana. At this point I was shaking and chattering so bad that I thought I had symptoms of hypothermia. I thought that if I peed on myself I would be warm for a second, so I thought, should I take that chance? I walked back to the shuttle line feeling alone, dizzy and disoriented. I waited too long for the shuttle and I thought about going to the hospital because I had never felt like this in my life. I started to cut in the shuttle line and people didn't seem to mind because of my condition. I called a friend to see if I could be rescued and brought to church for 5 minutes (for my interview) and then home. I made my way to the very front the line and FINALLY the bus came. It was warm. I sat right next to the heater and took this picture. Do you see how ghostly white my hand is?

I started asking questions to the lady next to me because I was really worried about my condition. Was it normal for my hands to be numb and white? Was it normal to be in this much pain? Are you cold too or is it just me? I was glad that she answered yes to all of my questions because I was seriously concerned. The bus arrived at Forest Hills station, I got off and made my way inside to wait on my friend to pick me up. I couldn't control my chattering and my body was visibly shaking I felt like a freak because people were staring at me. The cafe gave me some free HOT water. I was just standing there for about 5 minutes and I had attracted a group of people who were worried about me. I thought they were just talking with me because they ran the same race but it turned out that, as my ride showed up, one man walked me to the stairs to make sure I was okay. I fumbled down those stairs and Christian met me and supported me all the way to his car where a towel, sleeping bag and heat awaited. We made it to the church and Nick met me at the door laughing because of my situation and he ushered me into my meeting. I was wearing a towel as a skirt and I was soak and wet and a shivering mess. Finally I was out of there and home with a nice hot long shower. I finally got to pee!

I did a lot of stretching that day and I iced my knee because I was told too. That night I was in a lot of pain. Monday I forced myself out of bed and out on walks and the next day I was much better and I started my daily routine of hitting the gym again.

I did it! I set goals this year and I accomplished them!

My results: The 30 Day Sugar Free Detox

What would possess someone to rid themselves of sugar?

Most people that I talked to were shocked that I was even thinking about it because they know how addicted I am.  My relationship with sugar was no longer balanced and I had no idea how to gain back the control that I once had. I was uncontrollably eating every sugary thing insight to an unhealthy and embarrassing degree. I eventually decided that I wanted to give up sugar and so the research began. I found an audio book that I listened to around Mother's Day and I felt inspired, so I checked out a different book from the library, The 21 Day Sugar Detox Cook Book and got started. The first thing I did was set goals for myself and why I thought this diet was important. It took a few days to do this and it was the hot topic in many of my conversations with Nick.

My Goals:
1. Lose the weight that I gained over the past few months (10 pounds)
2. Feel good/in control
3. Fix bad habits
     a. not hungry but putting food in my mouth
     b. so addicted to sugar that I lose my manners
     c. the inability to control myself when it comes to food
4. Weigh myself at the beginning and end of the 30 days
5. Keep a food journal
6. Track my calories

As I was setting my goals I was also cleaning out my cabinets. I put all the food I couldn't eat up high and out of reach.

Here is a VERY simple list of Yes and No foods.

The NO list                              The YES list
beans                                           meat
dairy products                              most vegetables
flour                                             sea food
sugar                                            most nuts
soy                                               fats and oils
fruits                                             lemons and limes
bread                                           1 sweet potato a day (If I worked out)
Cashews and peanuts                   1 green apple each day

The next step I took was making my meal plan for the first week. This took a couple of days worth of preparation but the 21 Day Sugar Detox Cook Book really helped.  The book had a meal plan in it and if you went to the website you could print out the grocery list. I changed a few of the meals but it wasn't that much of a change to my grocery list. Grocery shopping was a huge adventure as we set out to find some of the weirder things we had never heard of. This adventure took a few days and more than 3 grocery stores. Our kitchen was full of foods of all varieties and I was seriously excited to try out some new recipes.

Ready, Set, FOOD!

The first Meal of the diet was lamb burgers with a homemade avocado sauce.  Nick wasn't a huge fan but everyone else who tried it with me thought it was pretty amazing.

Beats, green apples, cucumber and carrot salad. The dressing was made of lemon juice and oil. MY FAV!

Kale chips not exactly the greatest thing on planet earth, but what do you expect from Kale?  It's kinda the nasty neighbor kid to spinach. Really though, I think it was the nutritional yeast that I didn't care for.

Deviled eggs with homemade mayo and pesto sauce.  I could eat these every single day! (ok, really I could eat hard-boiled eggs every single day)

Homemade dill crackers.  These had a good flavor but they turned to a dry dust in your mouth which wasn't exactly the most pleasant experience. They went well in vegetable soup, though.

Dry-rubbed ribs with homemade barbecue sauce, so good.  These have been made on multiple occasions.

Lemon artichoke chicken.  Nick said these were good for having artichoke on them.  Personally,  I loved the artichoke.

These are just some of the foods we tried. Most of them have been added to our regular menu of meals. My first week or two I was in the kitchen for at least 2 or 3 hours everyday preparing everything I needed i.e. homemade mayo, ketchup, BBQ sauce, salad dressings, and other sauces and dips. Most of everything I made was delicious but we did have a few things that we did not care for so we gave the leftovers away.

When I dedicated these 30 days to this diet I decided that I would not cheat because I wanted to see the results and not wonder "what if." It was hard because I made chocolate chip cookies TWICE and it's a habit to lick my fingers, bowl, and the spoon BUT I DIDN'T! I was so proud of myself. *happy dance*

Results:
1. Lose the weight that I gained over the past few months (10 pounds)
I cannot tell you how good I feel. As promised, on day 30 I weighed myself, 3 times actually because I couldn't believe the number on the scale. I had lost 11 pounds!

2.feel good/in control
Oh do I feel in control. I don't need sugar to help me motivate myself for anything and that alone is an amazing accomplishment. I realized that my "hangry" self was caused by low sugar levels more than hungry levels. (Nick contends that this is debatable though)

3.fix bad habits
     a. not hungry but putting food in my mouth
I originally thought this habit was for sweets but I found myself doing it with nuts what I had done with sugar and so I locked up my nuts in intervals as well to help fully break this habit. Still working on it though.

     b. so addicted to sugar that I lose my manners
GONE!

     c. the inability to control myself when it comes to food
This was another one that I found had nothing to do with sugar, just my addiction to food. I'm still trying to control it by measuring my food out and logging it in MyFitnessPal so I am held accountable to how much I am eating.

4. Weigh myself at the beginning and end of the 30 days
Nick hid the scale from me so you think this would be an easy one right? Well let me tell you I hit the gym almost everyday and they have 2 scales there however, I didn't use them!

5. Keep a food journal
At the beginning I started a notebook to keep track of everything and I did not do it :( I did keep track of most of my food via MyFitnessPal though, so not a total loss :/

6. Track my calories
Most days I did this!

Overall I feel great and plan to keep going while adding a few things back to my diet. Right now, though, it is hard to see a future with me and processed foods. If I want sugar then I am going to have to start with fruit, although ice cream is a massive temptation.

I hope you feel inspired! If you have an out-of-control relationship with sugar I would not hesitate to encourage you to try this 30 day detox!  Or should I say 30 day Habit Readjustment Diet?

Sharp Cheddar Popcorn

What's for dinner?

Sharp Cheddar Cheese Popcorn!!! YUM!!

Here's how I made it.

 Pop your corn.

 Melt some butter.

Shred some cheese.

Butter and salt your popcorn in the bowl then pour it out onto a baking sheet with sides. Top your popcorn with cheese of your choice. Bake it on low heat until the cheese is melted.

Take out your amazing cheese popcorn, put it back into the bowl and enjoy!

5 Worst Things To Say To Someone Who Is Losing Weight

Today an interesting article came into my inbox and I had to read it because it pertained to me. The title was, "The 5 Worst Things to Say to Someone Who Is Losing Weight" Click here to see the article.

I read this article and agreed with most of it so I shared it on my Facebook page. Moments went by and Nick shared some of his thoughts about the article. I questioned my reason for posting it and deleted it. Now I have had time to ponder on its content and decided to write my opinion.

First off if you focus only on the 5 tips you have missed the whole other part of the article. Everyone has a different experience with weight loss and how it personally affects them. Weight-loss isn't the only subject that people are sensitive about. In fact there are so many topics that people can get "offended" about so one might take away ,"Why even talk to each other?" or another person might think "Wow, I didn't know. Maybe I should be more careful with my words"

I will tell you, MOST comments about my weight or any topic really, won't bother me. I am an OPEN book and I will answer questions with details.

For those of you who don't know me you can read my story here.

I started my weight loss journey at a whopping 230 pounds. I only purchased new clothes once a year knowing that I wanted to shrink out of them soon. Typically when I bought new clothes that fit was when I received comments because people would notice my efforts.

So my personal experience with these 5 things that you shouldn't say.....

1. "How much more do you have to lose?"

For me personally, I have taken this questions two ways, "I'm so proud of what you are doing, how much more do you have/want to lose?" and "I think you look fine, why are you still wanting to lose weight?"

Anyone can tell by the tone of your voice which way you are asking this question and I will answer it the best way I can. I'm going to lose weight and maintain my weight loss because it makes me happy. I'm glad you think I look fine, but I have set goals for myself and plan to achieve them. You can encourage me or get out of my way as I run laps around you!

2. "You probably don't want to eat that, right?"

SERIOUSLY, If this is said in a negative way then yes I agree with the article, but most of the time I need the extra kick in the butt to not mindlessly eat crap. For example, a few close friends here in Boston know my story, and while we were at a church function there was a lot of bad food. I allowed myself to eat a small portion because I had calculated my calories for it (I even worked out extra at the gym) But then, because of my mindless eating, I kept going back for more. One of my friends took the food right out of my hand and told me to stop. I smiled and said thank you! That's all I needed to stop my hand to mouth motion.

It really bothers me though when I am trying to be good and someone tells me, "Well take a day off" or "one burger doesn't matter" what they don't know is how much work it takes to burn off that burger. I much rather make the burger at home so I can weigh out my meat and know exactly how many calories I'm really eating.

3. "You look so much better than before"

Some people might think that this is a compliment.... BUT IT'S NOT, neither is "Well don't forget (I/People/the husband) loved you when you were fat. Seriously, what does weight have to do with love to begin with. If you couldn't love me when I was fat, what makes you think you can love me thin. On top of that what makes someone even say that? I didn't even think about it that way....  UNTIL it came out of someone's mouth. Maybe the right word is attention? However, my personality always attracts attention, so I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me.

Some of these comments have happened to me but more have happened to my husband, one in particular that I know was meant to be a compliment but it wasn't. "You are so lucky, many wives get fat over time and yours got thin." I just don't even know what to think about that one.

Maybe the author of the article would think saying this is negative too..

"Girl you have always been beautiful, but being thin really shows it off"

I get this more often then anything and to be honest I think it's a great compliment.

4. "You're just going to gain it back anyway."

Really, really... I hope you are think who in their right mind would ever says this.. Let me tell you JEALOUS people

Taco Popcorn

Making popcorn for dinner is a must on those nights that you don't feel like cooking. It's so simple and hard to mess up, and to top it off you only dirty one bowl, so clean up is easy too.

We were feeling munchy for tacos but didn't want to take the time to make them, so this idea was born. Taco popcorn!

Ingredients:

I am not putting exact measurements because you can add as much as you want!

Taco seasoning
Mozzarella cheese ( I let mine come to room temperature)
Butter
Popcorn
* for my popcorn I use my air-popper
** Also if you like spicy I mixed some jalapeno juice in with my butter and it made the flavors pop!

The way I mix everything in:
Put your popcorn in a large bowl. Then with a spoon drizzle your melted butter on, sprinkle your Taco seasoning on then stir. Repeat this until you have enough seasoning on your popcorn.

 It's so addicting!

Hope you enjoy this popcorn idea because we sure do love it!