Category: healthy lifestyle

January Monthly goals

by Ariana Peters, posted in books, healthy lifestyle, House/dating/life, school/studying, training

January

The goals for the year broken down for this month:

Blog at least 3 times a week- so I need a minimum of 14 blog posts including January 31st

PROPERLY train for and run a half, full and ultra marathon- half marathon training is up first, the minimum number of miles I need have run this month to keep up good training is- 60 miles

Revamp my diet and STICK TO IT!!!! –

Breakfast-juice and muffin or toast and coffee (I dropped my muffin this morning, sad face, so leftover slice of pizza and juice it is!)

Midmorning snack– Slimfast or smoothie

Lunch– Soup or salad

Dinner– Anything I want as long as it is make at home

After dinner– tea or hot chocolate , popcorn is ok too

 

Get A’s in all my classes this year- Keep a running tally of my % in my class(es)

Drop two clothing sizes, go from a 10 to a 6 –Stick with the aforementioned meal plan and marathon training and I should be golden

Stop overspending!!!! – I am not keeping any forms of payment on me at work so that I cannot pop next door to the little market whenever the desire strikes and I only get to eat out once this month so I better choose well.

Take a few minutes every day to sit in quiet reflection, meditate, and do something spiritual –I have a 5 line a day little diary and a 366 day devotional I am starting to use. (the first of the year was about setting your intention for the year and sending it out into the world, my intention this year is FOLLOW THROUGH!!! I am terrible about this)

Continue to work on and grow my relationship with Brandon – we need to get out and do something every week, we currently have Thursday evening through Sunday morning together and I don’t want us to just sit on the couch the whole weekend so my goal is at least one outing a weekend (they just need to be free outings lol)

Read 1 non-school book a month- I already met that goal this month ( I read online yesterday because work was dead) so let’s see if I can squeeze in a second one before school starts.

Happy New Year!!!!!/Monday motivation!

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, school/studying

 


Today is day 1, make this the year of you, the year you have always wanted to have, lose the weight, pay off debt, let the walls down, deal with your depression or other illness, travel, do whatever you want. With the right attitude you can do it! I promise anything is possible, if you want it bad enough you will find a way and the universe will bring it to you. I mean I just came back from 18 days in Europe a few months ago, I am going to school to be a nurse, I am spending my life with the man I love, I live paycheck to paycheck currently and also managed to pay off a credit card last year!!!!! Yes it was my smallest one but every thing counts!!! If you want to make a change, take charge and do it.

I hope you have a great day and realize all the amazing things this next year holds for you.

Week 2 marathon training:

 

Not gonna lie, nothing happened this week. I took full advantage of using the holiday as an excuse and sat on my butt. My roommates were out of town so I enjoyed the empty house and binged on TV. I also rationalized that school is starting soon and workouts are going to get longer to enjoy this week of total laziness.

My 2018 goals (resolutions seems like a word that means you aren’t really going to stick with them so these are goals!!! AND I will achieve my goals!)

  1. Blog at least 3 times a week
  2. PROPERLY train for and run a half, full and ultra marathon
  3. revamp my diet and STICK TO IT!!!! (I am going to do a post about this soon)
  4. Get A’s in all my classes this year.
  5. Drop two clothing sizes, go from a 10 to a 6.
  6. Stop overspending!!!! I am terrible about sticking to my budget, I have stopped over drafting and am paying off debt but I could be in such a better place if I didn’t spend so frivolously.
  7. Take a few minutes everyday to sit in quiet reflection, meditate, do something spiritual.
  8. Continue to work on and grow my relationship with Brandon
  9. To read 1 non-school book a month. I had originally wanted to do 1 a week then thought about it and changed it to every other week but now I think it will be 1 a month to be safe. I have a 40 hour work week, 6 hours of classes a week, another probably 4-6 hours of school work a week, in a few months I will have a 2 hour/day commute, training for my runs and house work.

In a few days I will post about breaking these down in to manageable goals which will help them be more attainable.

New Years Eve!!!!

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle

Be safe, have fun, spend the night the way you want to spend it! Live it up and let the stress, drama and crap of the last 365 days go away, tomorrow you start fresh. Enjoy!!!

 

I will probably be watching the ball drop on the east coast at 9pm my time on the internet lol. I have to be up tomorrow morning at 5:40am to get to work by 7am. The boyfriend is going to keep me company. This will probably be the first year, since I can remember, that I will not stay up until midnight and ring in the new year…….I guess I am getting old, or maybe just responsible. Who wants to work on 5 hours sleep?

No House News but a Great Date Weekend

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, House/dating/life

Hopefully next week I will have a house update for you.

This weekend Brandon and I used a Groupon that I had bought a few months ago to do an escape room. 

Basically they lock you in a room for an hour and you have to try to solve all these puzzles to unlock the door (you are on camera the whole time in case you freak out or something). I wasn’t sure how it was going to go but I LOVED it!!!! It was so much fun! But I love doing puzzles so that is probably why I enjoyed it so much. It was a pricier date at 30 bucks a pop but we both had fun and I think another one will be in our future at some point. Since I had bought this a few months ago we didn’t spend any money today which was nice.

I was starving after words and hadn’t had sushi in months so we went to a sushi place with those tracks where you can just pull things off the conveyer belt. These work great for me when I am starving because you can eat as soon as you sit down, they don’t work great when your boyfriend doesn’t really like sushi and is asking what everything is and you only know some of it.

The 2nd day of our weekend my boyfriend woke up before me (which almost never happens but I got up at 3am to take friend to the airport then came back home and passed out) he went to the store and got everything to make us French Toast! Awesome morning. Then he proceeded to do all the dishes in the kitchen while I laid on the couch and watched Criminal Minds.

Then he was a great sport and took me to see Pitch Perfect 3!!!! Yay!!!!! I love these movies, they are so fun! This one didn’t disappoint and I loved the way that it ended. After the movie we headed home for a quite night of dinner and we watched ‘The Santa Clause.’ It was a great weekend but definitely a more expensive one that we normally have.

Best Boyfriend ever or what?

Week 1 marathon training.

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, training

Monday- 4 miles and an attack dog when I got home. She attacks with kisses.

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Delicious chicken tacos for dinner.

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Tuesday- Some mild strength training in the house. Dinner was the last of my chicken tacos. 3 sets of 10 of the following (using 3lbs weights cause that’s all I had at home):

Single leg deadlifts, bicep curls, shoulder presses, chest flys, and walking lunges.

Wednesday- I am actually sore from that tiny little workout yesterday! 5 miles at the gym. 3 regular miles and 2 miles of sprints. .25 miles sprinting, .15 miles recovery. I wanted to die a little bit.

Thursday- walk with the dog and relax. I needed rest.

Friday- 3 miles with core work. I had sushi for lunch, which I love and is delicious but I tend to overeat so I was still bloated 4 hours later when we went to the gym. It took a little while to get these 3 miles done.

Saturday- Rest day

Sunday- Rest day

Total miles this week: 12! Nice improvement over last week, slowly inching those miles up!

 

 

House Hunting: A Possible Ray of Light

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, travel

There might be a house in our future, the details are all being looked at and calculated. We are weighing our options. Nothing is for sure at this point but I should know more details in the next few weeks, so fingers crossed!!!!!

On a fun relationship note my end of year bonus came at work which will allow me to buy plane tickets for myself AND the bf to fly down to Southern California for my friends wedding in April…..meaning he will meet all my family that is down there AND my friends, Yikes he is going to have a fun 4 day weekend in April hahahahaha. I’ll tell you all about it then. Wish him luck!

See the source image

Monday Motivation **December 18, 2017

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, training

(Image from google)

Happy Monday!

Here is how last weeks workouts went for me.

Monday: 

Tuesday: drove out to the BF’s house, we had planned on running when I got there but it was super cold, pitch black and I was bloated so that didn’t happen hahaha. Just means I gotta kick but on Wednesday.

Wednesday: 

Thursday: Ran 1.3 miles, my stomach was not my friend and I was tired from Wednesday but I got there a did something so I am happy with that.

Friday-no workout. I got 5000 steps but otherwise sat on my butt all day

Saturday- even worse hahahahahaha, I layed on the couch most of the day and watched TV while Brandon looked up other loan options and housing options and so on and so forth.

Sunday-The plan was to go to the gym after work and knock out 3 miles but around 2 ‘o’ clock painful bloating started. I tend not to get relieved for lunch until almost 1 sometimes a little later. I am going to have to start eating my lunch either in 2 smaller amounts (probably better for me anyways) or eat lunch on my break earlier in the day.

Total mileage for the week: 5.3 miles (not great but its something)

Layout of the blog.

by Ariana Peters, posted in books, food, healthy lifestyle, school/studying, training, travel

I hate being inconsistent. I really want to get to a consistent place with this blog where you can count on posts certain days and on certain subjects. I think I have come up with a schedule that works for me.

Mondays– Monday motivation- All things fitness centered, checking in on workouts and races, pics of food, hiking and all that good stuff.

Wednesdays– House stuff- house hunting, hopefully after we a house fixing it up and gardening and planting and all that jazz

Fridays– school stuff- everything related to school, studying, classes, frustrations, nursing school stuff, fun facts and so much more

Those will be the main weekly points, then above that my goal will be to post a book review at least every OTHER week (if I can get through a non-school book a week that would be awesome but I am not going to over stretch myself)

Other above and beyond things will be any traveling posts or fun things that happen. These will not be on any regular basis (unfortunately, I don’t get to set a traveling schedule hahahahaha it will be as time and budget allow.)

Is there anything else you want to hear about or talk about?

Let me know!

On the market less than 12 hours

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle

The house hunting “fun” continues.

We are using the Redfin app to look for houses and keep up with new houses. Redfin lets you share a list together so you can favorite a house and your partner can see it, and you can leave comments for each other. Redfin also tells you how many new homes have been listed since you last logged on and emails you suggestions (so far only about 1/3 of their suggestions have been close to what we are looking for but that is still good).

So I get a notice yesterday morning, I think I was already at work, that a new house is on the market, I pulled it up, looked at it and favorite it. I got home after work, took Artemis for a walk and as I am walking out the door I get a notification that the same house is now pending!!!! This house was on that market for all of 9 hours!!!!!!

We have plans to look at 2-3 houses this weekend so I will update you soon!

 

Well one of the houses we wanted to look at has an offer in so we are readjusting and looking at others. It is so frustrating! Houses are literally disappearing before my eyes.

Update from the weekend: We ended up only looking at 2 houses and by looking at I mean driving by.

1 of the houses we were going to look at was a manufactured home on a nice almost .4 acres, but we got the ever so polite correct ummm you might want to consider a different one. Apparently manufactured homes only have a “shelf life” so to speak of about 30 years and this one was over that (even though it was so beautiful inside) also I guess housing requirements are in the process of being updated and in a few years this would not meet requirements for us to resell it. So on to the next one.

Image result for house hunting meme (image from bing search)

House 2 had an offer previously but it fell through so we wanted to see it because he had liked it before. Turns out the realtor wasn’t showing it again until Monday. Oy. So we decided to just drive by it and see the neighborhood and the lot, wow was the commute so much worse than we thought it would be so that was out. I would spend no time at home, it would all be work, school, commute, sleep and start all over. So no.

House 3 is something a friend told us about, it isn’t actually listed yet but a family friend is considering selling it so we drove by to check it out. It had a good size lot and was in a decent neighborhood and is 2 streets away from the freeway to get me to work and 10 minutes from Brandon’s  work so it is situated in a good area for us.

For now that is where we are at. Things are hopping off and on the market and we are getting our earnest money and down payment and closing costs together so we are ready to jump when the time comes. I will keep you posted.

Monday Motivation ** December 11, 2017

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, training

(Image from google)

Happy Monday!!! Though in my week it is Tuesday (I work Sunday-Thursday currently)

Thanks to Groupon I am back in the gym!!!!! I really wanted to join a gym and looked at the various $10/month ones a few weeks ago but between start up fees, annual fees and driving time it just wasn’t worth it to stretch my budget; especially since I don’t know where I will be living in just a few short months so I don’t want to pay all those fees to just have to pay them again if I need to switch gyms.

I tried to let it go but it is getting colder and colder here and we are getting less and less sun. Today the sun sets at 4:27pm. I don’t usually get home until about 4:10 (on a good no traffic kind of day) even running my fastest (after getting home and changing close and getting Artemis’ collar on her I wouldn’t even be able to get 2 miles in.

So I looked for another solution because the sun won’t really come back for a good 2 months (at least not a time that works for me hahahaha) and once it does we might have snow and black ice for another month so I went to Groupon and found a gym that is about a 10-15 min drive from my house and somewhat in between work and home (and had good reviews) and they had a 1 month membership for $13!!!!! SOLD!!! and I am pleased to say it is a NICE gym. I did have to put down a $25 deposit on the key card but that is ok.

With that I got in 4 workouts this week. I signed up on Wednesday after work and ran 2 miles and did 5 min of strength training.

Thursday- I ran 2 miles on the treadmill (but hit the walking button instead of running so my bf lucked out with that in our challenge or it would have put him even more behind hahaha) and did 7 min of strength training

Friday-Rest (we looked at houses)

Saturday-because the price was so good the bf bought the Groupon too!!! Though his was $14 lol, I got an extra dollar savings. Ran 2.17 miles, did 8 min of strength training and 20 mins of the elliptical. WHEW! We then took a 2 hour nap.

We then enjoyed salad and totinos pizza to which i added stuff to make it awesome

Sunday- ran 2.15 miles then went home and stuffed my face with pasta.

I leave you with this awesomeness that has nothing to do with fitness