Hi everyone!

So I have some sad news…at least it makes me sad! I’m going to have to take a break from blogging right now. Life and my internship are just crazy busy and I don’t have the extra time to dedicate to blogging.

These past few weeks blogging has become an absolute chore and I’m not enjoying it. I’ve never wanted blogging to feel that way. To me, blogging has always been something fun and something that I love to do. But right now I barely feel like I can relax and have some semblance of a life while completing my internship and two associated projects. I’m overwhelmed as it is and I don’t need blogging to add to that or else I know I will come to hate it. And that is definitely not something I want to happen.

I don’t think I will give up blogging forever, because I honestly believe that I will miss the writing and creative aspect of it….and more importantly I will miss all of you! My hope is to come back to more regular blogging once my internships are done in December…but we’ll see!

Right now my focus needs to be on the life right in front of me and not one that occurs online. I need to dedicate most of my focus to my internship in order to succeed. And I need to dedicate my time outside of that to the people in my life and to things like wedding planning.

I am so sorry to leave all of you right now. I will truly miss my readers and all of the blogs that I read! You all have become such an important part of my life and this entire blogging experience has been wonderful and life changing (in a good way!).

I wish you all the absolute best. Know that I love you! And that I will be thinking of you and catching up with blogs when I can. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to pop up every now and then and update you with my life. But right now I’m not going to make promises that I may not be able to keep. I hope you understand!

xoxoxo – Lindsay

Hi!

Have any of you played (or still play) the game “never have I ever”? Well in case you haven’t, let me describe it to you .

“Never have I ever” (also known as “Ten Fingers”) is a often popular party game that involves drinking. The verbal game is started with the players getting into a circle. Then, the first player says a simple statement starting with “Never have I ever”. Anyone who has done what the first player has not must drink and put down a finger. It continues around the circle, and the next person makes a statement. There is also a non-drinking version that is basically just used to get to know one another and you put your fingers down instead of taking a drink. Once a player runs out of “fingers” the game is over.

Back in middle school and high school I always played the non-drinking version at things like cheerleading camp, sleepovers, and parties. It’s always a good time. And generally, when you’re a bit older, it often turns naughty.

Well today, I thought I would do my own little blog version of the game. Except not really because no one is putting their fingers down, but you get the idea. I’m going to tell you 10 things I’ve never done that relate to healthy food! Ready? Here we go:

1. Never have I ever: eaten kale. I’m not a veggie lover. I have to generally “gently” remind myself to eat them. And kale sounds a bit too strong in taste for me. How would I know? I don’t haha.

2. Never have I ever: made my own peanut butter. I should really try this!

3. Never have I ever: tried cashew butter. I think this is a blogging sin. I’m pretty sure the only reason I’ve never tried it is because I didn’t want to shell out the cash to pay for it.

4. Never have I ever: liked raw broccoli and cauliflower. The texture of both of them when they are raw gives me the willies hehe.

5. Never have I ever: mixed avocado into something sweet (like a smoothie or dessert of some sort). The idea freaks me out. I know I need to get over it haha.

6. Never have I ever: like chia seeds. I’ve tried them several times. Um no. No no no. They gross my taste buds and sensory receptors out!

7. Never have I ever: made one of the oh so popular microwave muffins. Why? I never have all of the ingredients on hand. I should just suck it up and go by some because they always look so tasty .

8. Never have I ever: followed a fad diet.

9. Never have I ever: tried to make a protein pudding.

10. Never have I ever: completely given up refined sugar. Sometimes I just want a real dessert that has the white table sugar in it. If I completely give up eating real desserts, I’ll go crazy!

Your turn! Tell me something that you’ve never done that’s food related!

Hi everyone!

Sorry I’ve been MIA this week. I have been really busy with my internship. Which is going really well btw! I love occupational therapy more and more all the time. And I found this picture the other day that is awesome:

I can’t wait til I officially become an OT!

And now I have a great new workout for you all that I did today . Wow was it challenging! It took me just over 20 minutes to complete and my chest was on fire throughout a lot of it haha.

Talk about completing a crazy amount of burpees! If you complete the workout the way I did, then you’ll do a total of 120 burpees at the end! However, I didn’t include push-ups in my burpees…I just didn’t feel like it…so you can choose which way to do it!

I followed this workout with a 20 minute walk through my neighborhood to cool down and get my heart rate lowered. All I can say now is bring on the food! This definitely worked up my appetite .

If you are unsure of any move, you can search them on youtube!

I recently finished a great book called The Nightmare by Lars Kepler. It was awesome! This is Kepler’s second novel and the second in a series. I read the first one, The Hypnotist, last summer and it was really good as well! They are both swedish crime novels.

Here is the synopsis from Barnes and Noble:

On a summer night, police recover the body of a young woman from an abandoned pleasure boat drifting around the Stockholm archipelago. Her lungs are filled with brackish water, and the forensics team is sure that she drowned. Why, then, is the pleasure boat still afloat, and why are there no traces of water on her clothes or body?

The next day, a man turns up dead in his state apartment in Stockholm, hanging from a lamp hook. All signs point to suicide, but the room has a high ceiling, and there’s not a single piece of furniture around—nothing to climb on.

Joona Linna begins to piece together the two mysteries, but the logistics are a mere prelude to a dizzying and dangerous course of events. At its core, the most frightening aspect of The Nightmare isn’t its gruesome crimes—it’s the dark psychology of its characters, who show us how blind we are to our own motives.

This book was sooooo good! It was really intriguing and kept me guessing throughout it! If you like thrillers then I definitely recommend reading both of Kepler’s books!

Have a great weekend everyone .

Hi everyone!!

This morning I made my first smoothie since moving back from Boston. Crazy huh? I don’t know why I waited so long because it was just as tasty as I remembered .

I also did something new (to me anyway) with it. I added oatmeal! Chris has always done this and I saw that Ashley adds it to her breakfast smoothies too so I decided to finally try it. And guess what? You can’t taste it haha!

That would be a 6-pound bag of frozen strawberries from Costco. Yes, 6 pounds! And that is almond-coconut milk. SO TASTY .

Here’s what all went in the smoothie:

• 1 medium banana
• Handful of frozen strawberries
• 3/4-1 cup of unsweetened almond-coconut milk
• 1/2 scoop of chocolate protein powder
• 1 tbsp peanut butter
• 1/4 cup oatmeal
• 4 drops liquid stevia
• Ice

I have a feeling that smoothies are going to be making more appearances in my life right now!

I downloaded a new CD the other day and I’m obsessed with it! It’s country and it’s the new Love and Theft album! I love every song on it, which is rare for me.

These two guys are pretty good lookin’ if I may say so . Don’t worry Chris…you’re my number 1! I heard their song Angel Eyes on the radio and loved it.

I may or may not have been listening to this CD on repeat since I bought it hehe. Speaking of country music…yes, I do enjoy some of it!…the new Gloriana album just came out! I think I need to get that one today. And then I’m gonna want to be boppin’ my head along to the music while working out .

What’s your recent favorite song/album??

I hope you have a great day!

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve been having a good weekend so far . And I’m glad you all thought my bridesmaid dress choice was a good one! I’m super excited about it!

Oh and speaking of wedding stuff again…I found a dress yesterday for our engagement pics! I was so excited I tweeted about it hehe.

And several people wanted to see what it looks like so I found a pic to share! The only thing is that I like it better on me than I do on the model haha…but whatevs.

And here’s a shot up close so you can see that there are little polka dots on it!

I’m in love . And the good thing is that this dress is totally re-wearable! In fact, I think it will be a perfect dress for our honeymoon!

Okay enough about that. I had another blogger meet-up this past Thursday! Natalie from Southern Fit Foodie was in town for the evening. Over the past few months Natalie and I have become better and better friends. We “met” through Kristen when all of us started an online Bible study sort of thing with Ashley and Brittany. I hadn’t seen her blog before then but after that we began constantly chatting and texting and getting to know one another. We have so much in common and I could tell that we would be good friends!

I was ecstatic when I found out that Natalie was going to be in town. I met her in German Village and we went to a bar called Hey Hey and then went to dinner.

I had SO much fun with Natalie. Seriously it was like we had met before and been friends forever. I absolutely can’t wait to see her in person again. We’re already trying to think of something where I can go meet her in Nashville!

To continue with friend stuff, I have had so much fun hanging out with my bestie here at home! She just moved back home from Cincinnati and it’s great to have her back here. We went for a nice long walk on Friday and last night we had dinner and fro-yo . YAY for friends, both non-blog and blog ones!

Now it’s time to start getting ready for church! I hope your Sunday is fantastic .

xoxo

Hi everyone!!

Now that you know my wedding colors, I thought I would also tell you that we found our bridesmaid dresses on Sunday!! Apparently I’m a really easy bride to shop with because I would easily say no and yes to things and I made a decision rather quickly haha.

There were several things that I wanted to make sure of when shopping for bridesmaid dresses:

• I didn’t want them to be too expensive. I know that ladies rarely wear their dresses again and I would never want them to waste a bunch of money on something that they wear just once!
• I wanted a dress that all of my bridesmaids would feel comfortable in.
• I had it in my head that a chiffon-type dress would go best with my wedding dress.

And I would say that we were successful in all three of those things! The dress was a really good price…I was amazed when I heard what it was! I had three of my bridesmaids go with me, all who have slightly different body types and it looked fabulous on all of them. And it was chiffon .

So what does it look like??

And yes, it’s in that color! It’s a halter dress, but I love that the neckline is wider and that it’s sweetheart. I had my bridesmaids try on about 6 dresses and this one was by far my favorite. I can’t believe how easy it was to pick it out! Thank goodness .

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the dress is from Alfred Angelo!

In other news, my new workout plan is going great! The strength workouts that Chris created for me are a definite challenge and it’s so nice to feel like I’ve worked really hard when I’m done….or actually when I’m done with one set haha.

My two favorite moves so far are the close grip push-ups on a bench and the hand walk-outs.

The close grip push-ups target your triceps and wow, they are definitely harder for me than regular push-ups!

Um yea…these are really hard! But I liked doing them. They made me feel kind of bad-ass….no idea why haha. You definitely need to try them!

And my schedule was switched around a bit this week so I have tomorrow off …yay for a long weekend! I hope you all have a great day!

Hi everyone!!

I have such an exciting thing to share with you all today . I was recently selected by Glam Media to take part in a little program with Nike! This involves me designing my very own Nike LunarGlide+ shoes through NikeiD. Um seriously, when I got this opportunity I squealed with joy a tiny bit hehe.

The Nike LunarGlide+ iD is a lightweight shoe that is responsive, has “lunarlon” cushioning, and has a flywire lacing system that helps provide comfort, support, and stability. NikeiD allows people to create a personalized shoe. And the NikeiD exclusive options on the LunarGlide+ iD includes: adding a fade to the upper, mixing multiple midsole colors, and choosing a reflective inner sleeve for added visibility in low light.

I decided to use our wedding colors as inspiration for designing my pair of shoes . I mean, I have wedding fever so why not let that carry over to something completely non-wedding related?

I knew that a straight orange color might be a little much for me on the shoes, so I decided to search and make sure that I liked blue and coral together. And I did .

So, let’s take a little look at this customization process shall we?

I decided to have a solid color instead of going for the faded look and made the inner sleeve blue instead of reflective.

I also made the dynamic flywire blue because that color can be seen under the mesh part and I didn’t want two colors coming through.

Next I made the swoosh a coral color. Our wedding colors are more orange instead of coral, but like I said, the orange was just a bit much for me…it was too loud.

I made the midsole colors blue and white to keep it looking uniform and not too busy.

Then I went a little cray cray and made the laces coral .

Can you see what I wrote for my personalized toungue iD?? It says LOVE on the right shoe and LIFE on the left one. So looking at it you would read LOVE LIFE…and I love that!

Here is the final look!! Isn’t it so pretty?? I have a feeling that every time I wear these babies I’m going to be reminded of my wedding haha.

The customization process for the LunarGlide+ NikeiD was really simple to navigate and I loved playing around with all of the options! I think it’s amazing to have the ability to customize a shoe to look the way you want. I mean, not everyone likes the same color combinations and this allows your preferences to be utilized and you can make something truly unique.

I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to customize a pair of my own LunarGide+ NikeiD shoes . I can’t wait til they come in and I can parade them around for all to see!

I hope you all have an awesome day!

Brand Statement: NIKEiD is the ultimate customization experience and allows our consumers to take their unique inspiration and express it within our Nike product, which results in a perfect intersection: personalized looks on the best performance athletic performance gear in the world.

Disclosure: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Nike

Happy weekend everyone!

I somehow managed to sleep almost 11 hours again last night like I did last weekend. Apparently my body needs it! I just thought I’d share some of my recent favorite pinterest finds…many of which are wedding related hehe .

Source: blogyourwine.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

Source: imgfave.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

Source: lover.ly via Lindsay on Pinterest

Source: soon2befit.tumblr.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

Source: bburkeyphotography.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

Source: theglitterguide.tumblr.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

Source: stylemepretty.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

Source: stylemepretty.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

Source: recipenewz.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Lindsay on Pinterest

Pinterest is addicting haha. Does anyone else feel this way??

I hope you all have a great weekend! xxoo

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Hi everyone!

I mentioned in Monday’s post that my Monday workouts are going to involve doing intervals. So, I have a new workout for you! This workout involves completing 3 minute long working intervals with recovery intervals that progressively decrease in length (and the longer recovery intervals include both jogging and walking). I was impressed with myself for being able to pump this workout out at 5:15am!

The total milage at the end was just over 3 miles…not bad if you ask me! As always, feel free to adjust the speeds to your liking. A 7.5mph speed is pretty challenging for me to hold for 3 minutes, but it may not be for those of you that run faster on a more consistent basis!

Anyway, last night my mom and I met with a DJ for the wedding and we really liked him. That’s another thing we can now check off our list! The only big things we have left are bridesmaid dresses, flowers, and cake. And bridesmaid dresses are going to be looked at this weekend .

I hope you all have a great day! Stop by Kristen’s blog to see my guest post today!

]]> http://insweetnessandinhealth.com/2012/07/18/30-minute-endurance-interval-workout/feed/ 29 http://insweetnessandinhealth.com/2012/07/16/new-workout-schedule/ http://insweetnessandinhealth.com/2012/07/16/new-workout-schedule/#comments Mon, 16 Jul 2012 10:00:58 +0000 Lindsay http://insweetnessandinhealth.com/?p=3277

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a great weekend! Thank you for your support on my new blogging policy! I’m so glad you guys understand where I’m coming from.

So not only is my blogging “schedule” changing with my internship but my workout schedule has had to change as well. I used to be able to exercise 6 days a week but that can’t really happen anymore. I just don’t have the time or energy to workout two days of the week, and I’m trying not to worry about it.

Chris was amazing and yesterday he wrote up a 12-week workout plan for me . He gave me guidelines for what to do for every workout, but the only ones he really wrote out were the resistance ones. Which is perfect and exactly what I asked him to do. I’ve been kind of in a rut with lifting and it will be really nice to be able to go to the gym and not have to come up with exercises on my own!

My new workout schedule will look something like this:

• Monday: interval workout
• Tuesday: resistance and abs/low-back workout
• Thursday: interval workout
• Saturday: resistance workout
• Sunday: cardio and abs/low-back workout

I started this plan this morning! And I’ll probably be making up a new interval workout for you guys with the workout guidelines he gave me .

The other thing I wanted to discuss was how I prepared myself for workouts at 5am in the morning. I never used to workout that early in the morning….much less feel like I was awake enough to ever feel like I could MOVE that early in the morning haha. So starting the week before my internship I slowly adjusted my sleep schedule.

I progressively started getting up earlier and earlier and tried to go to bed at earlier times as well. This way I wouldn’t feel like I was hit like a ton of bricks on the first morning of my internship. I started with waking up at 7:30am. The following days I would wake up either 15 minutes or a half hour earlier. And let me tell you- it worked!

Sure, my first workout after getting up at 5am may not have been stellar, but I was able to wake up fairly easily and felt awake enough to push myself! So, it totally is possible to get your body adjusted to working out early in the morning. I would just advise you not to go into head on. Ease yourself and your body into it and I think it will be much easier!

Anyway, I hope you all have a great Monday!

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