DIY Snowflake Canvas

Sorry this post did not go up yesterday, I have been having some problems with the internet for the past few day but I think we got it fixed! Todays post is this awesome DIY canvas snowflake art that I made for part of my wither decor. 

Items you will need are:

- canvas

- glitter paper

- glue

- paint

- paint brush

- scissors

- pencil

- ruler 

First, I measured out some stripes on my canvased and painted them.

Next, I flipped the glitter paper over and drew my snowflake. I measure out my own design but it might be easier if you find one you like on the internet to print it out, cut it out and trace it on the back of the glitter paper.

I then cut it out and glued it to my canvas. 

Mine did not come out perfect but I still love the way it turned out and I have gotten multiple complements on it!

You can also pick a different object for the glitter paper like a snowman, a letter or anything that tickles your fancy! 

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it helpful! If you have any suggestions or comments please leave them below. I hope you have a great day and are one step closer to becoming you. 

January Fitness Plan

Hello! First thing first, MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Second thing second, here is my January Fitness Plan! It is similar to my December Fitness Plan in the way I formatted it but if you look closely I switched up my split (aka what muscle groups I work and and in what order). Feel free to save the picture above if you would like.

Lets talk about last month for a minute! I was very dedicated to my workouts and killed them even on my bad days and while studding for finals. I even studied flash cards while on the stair master! However, with that said I slacked tremendously on my nutrition. Because of that I did not see a change in my body but it really made me realize how I need to focus on my nutrition more. I decided to take a week off of the gym and really focus on my nutrition and creating guidelines to follow. This week break ends tomorrow so come Saturday I will start my January split early.

January Split:

Day 1: 40 minutes cardio

Day 2: glutes and abs

Day 3: bi's, tri's, and chest

Day 4: whammies and quads

Day 5: back and shoulders

Day 6: rest day

I will also be following that same guidelines for setting up my workouts that I laid out in my December Fitness Plan. For my nutrient I really want to increase the amount of vegetables I consume along with my protein intake. To do this I plan to eat a serving of vegetables and protein with every meal. When it comes to "cheat" meals I will also be following some guidelines. 

1. 1-2 small cheat meals a week.

2. Cheat meals can not be on the same day.

3. Cheat meals can not be on rest days.

I hope these posts are helpful and you enjoy them! If you have any questions please let me know in the comments below! I hope you have a great day and become yourself!

December Fitness Plan

Setting And Achieving Your Goals: Step 3

Hello! This post is coming to you a little late with all the hustle and bustle of christmas going on! In todays post about setting and achieving your goals we are going to focus on breaking our goals down in order to keep ourself accountable. If you missed Step 1 or Step 2 you might want to catch up. (;

Lets take a look at our goals that can be measured and are worded in the correct way!

1. In 2017 I am living a fit and healthy lifestyle with my goal body of 125 pounds.

2. I am knowledgeable and continuing to grow my knowledge threw books by reading at least one self-improvement book a month.

3. In 2017 my blog is growing at a great rate, is profitable of $100 a month and on its way to being a sold income.

4.  In September of 2016 I am living a balanced life between work, keeping my grades high, the house clean, and my social life strong. 

Now some people can stop here and achieve their goals with no problem, for other people they have a harder time keeping themselves accountable and on track. For those "other" people, myself included, we are going to break our goals down into small tasks that can be done daily or weekly that help us reach our goal without use even noticing too much.

Lets start with goal 1. Some simple tasks that I want to do daily to reach this goal is to track my water intake so I know I am getting in plenty or it! Work out daily including rest days, you can find my December workout split here. To help with motivation I want to take progress pictures weekly along with allowing a cheat meal 2-3 times a week (my cheat meals can not be on the same day or on rest days). 

Goal 2 is a simple one and takes a little less effort, I plan to read 15-20 minutes every day. 

Goal 3 will take more effort and planning! I want to post 3 times a week along with come out with 2-3 projects threw out the year.

Goal 4 will also take more work but it is work that I find very enjoyable! I want to separate my planners into personal/school and this blog. I want to set aside some time every week to plan my future week in both planners keeping in mind to plan out time for myself, friends and family. Every morning I would also like to create a detailed todo list that includes my "todos" from both planners.

I hope these posts are helpful and you enjoy them! If you have any questions please let me know in the comments below! I hope you have a great day! 

Previous Posts:

How To Set And Achieve Your Goals: Step 1

How To Set And Achieve Your Goals: Step 2
How To Set And Achieve Your Goals: Step 4

Life Update!

I can not believe it has been a month since I posted last! I have been studying like crazy for my finals this semester because I had very high goals for all my classes. I took 17 credit hours so I also had quite a few finals to study for. Some people told me I was crazy for taking that many classes but this semester is that best I have done so far. I am definitely the type of person who likes to have a full plate and I feel I perform my best when I have a lot going on. Next semester I am taking 20 credit hours along with taking on more hours at work. I plan to post three times a week but please forgive me if during midterms and finals I am a little MIA or the posts tend to be short and sweet. If you have any ideas for post please feel free to let me know in the comments. 

December Fitness Plan

I have created my fitness plan for December and I would love to share it with you guys! It's pretty basic with just muscle groups that I plan to hit that day but in a way I think it makes it easier for more people to follow. You have a choice to use gym based workouts or home based workouts. You also have a choice to use your favorite workout for each muscle group or special workouts that may work better for you if you have an injury. There are some guidelines that I like to follow when I set up my workouts that I would also like to share.

1. 3-4 workouts per muscle group

2. superset with 2-3 workouts at a time

3. cardio: 2 different forms such as treadmill and elliptical for 20 minutes each.

I plan to share my monthly workout plans at the end of each month with you guys. They will mostly look like this but I will switch up the what muscle groups I work together and how often. For example this month I am focusing on glutes and when it comes closer to summer I will probably focus on abs and cardio more. As I get further into my fitness journey I will also reduce the amount of rest days but I will always link previous months in future posts. 

You can save and print the calendar above. 

January Fitness Plan

You might also be interested in:

What's in my gym bag

Tunes on repeat for November

How to set and achieve your goals 

Setting And Achieving Your Goals: Step 2

I know it's late, but better later the never! Here it is step two of how to set and achieve your goals. You can read step one here if you missed it! In step one we focused on physically writing your goals down and wording them correctly. This week we are going to focus on making sure they are measurable. I want you to take the goals we started last week and add a completion date as well as other number that you will use to measure your goal by. 

Here is what I mean:

1. In 2017 I am living a fit and healthy lifestyle with my goal body of 125 pounds.

2. I am knowledgeable and continuing to grow my knowledge threw books by reading at least one self-improvement book a month.

3. In 2017 my blog is growing at a great rate, is profitable of $100 a month and on its way to being a sold income.

4.  In September of 2016 I am living a balanced life between work, keeping my grades high, the house clean, and my social life strong. 

As you can see I did not add a completion date to goal 2 because I always want to continue to grow my knowledge. I also didn't add another number form of measurement to goal 4 because it is hard to add number value to any of the thing pertaining to that goal. Instead I know what grades are "high" in my mind along with being able to tell if my house is clean just by looking at it and if I feel like I am balanced. Feel free to make your dates specific as you want, as the year grows closer I am sure I will change the vague 2017 into a month and day date.

Once again if you have questions let me know! 

How To Set And Achieve Your Goals: Step 1 
How To Set And Achieve Your Goals: Step 3
How To Set And Achieve Your Goals: Step 4

Food for Thought

Think about this, most of the things we complain about on a day to day basis are things we have control over. "I hate this job." Quit. "I have no energy because of my diet and weight." Change it. "My mind is a mess because my house is a mess." Clean it. There is a way to change the things that make us unhappy we just can't be afraid to make the changes and take the chances. 

This week I want you to think about all the things you find yourself complaining about and pick one and change it. Then, pick another and another until you no longer feel the need to complain anymore. If you do start to complain again think about why or what it is and make the change or take that chance, you can do it.

Tunes on Repeat for November

We all have different tastes in music, for me I like a bit of everything but when I work out I typically like to listen to something that makes me feel dramatic or like a bad ass bitch. I have been listening to these songs at least once a day, when I'm cleaning, driving, but definitely when I'm lifting heavy! 

I forgot how much I use to love Selena Gomez but I heard this song a few weeks ago and bam, I was hooked on her all over again. She is one of my female idols and I think she is drop dead gorgeous so I like to listen to this song when I am stretching or warming up because it makes me channel my inner Selena and feel fierce and ready for my workout.

I wasn't huge on The Weekend with I first heard them but this song came on when I was doing squats one day and immediately I felt strong and sexy. I like to listen to this song when I am at the end of my compound movement like squats or pull ups because it gives me that extra push that I sometimes need to finish out strong.

That is all I really wanted to say about these songs because they speak for themselves on how amazing they are but you can definitely expect me talking about both Selena Gomez and The Weekend in future posts!

Setting And Achieving Your Goals: Step 1

This is the first post in my new series on how to set and achieve goals. When I first started my blog I did a goal series but since then I have done a ton, and I mean a ton, of research on goals. I never had a problem sitting down and writing out my goals and the steps I was going to take to achieve them. However, even when I followed my steps I realized that a lot of the time my goals were still never fully achieved. I have finally found the secret to goal setting and I want to share it with all of you!

How I want this series to work is every Wednesday I will post a new step, today being step one, as well as set some new goals and use them as examples to explain some things that might be a little more confusing to understand.

Step one is to write out your goals. This is the hardest step for people to get right they make their goals too generic and they don't word them properly. 

Here is what I mean, my generic goals are:

1. lose weight

2. read more

3. grow my blog

4. organize my time better

If your goals look like this I want you to forget everything you know about setting goals. I want you to take a second and picture your life a year from now if you were to keep living the same way you do now and don't make any changes. Are you working the same dead end job, sitting on the couch eating what you always eat, are you basically in the same position you are in now except maybe you have a 3 cent annual raise,  or are you renting out a different apartment because your yearly lease was up? Now I want you to picture your life a year from now the exact way you want it to be. Are you enjoying your new promotion, going out on a nice date with your new love interest? I want you to dream big and write it all down be specific with everything. What brand of clothing are you wearing, what is the view form your office like? 

Here is what I mean, my vision:

I was fit and healthy exercising daily, had my goal body that all my clothes looked awesome on.

I was reading self improvement books and making myself a more knowledgeable woman. 

I wasn't stressing about money because my blog was profitable and growing. 

My house was clean, my homework was done, and I was enjoying a home made dinner and hanging out with my husband.

Now that you have put the picture from your head into words turn those into goals and write them in present tense.

Here is what I mean, my new goals:

1. I am living a fit and healthy lifestyle with my goal body.

2. I am knowledgeable and continuing to grow my knowledge threw books.

3. My blog is growing at a great rate, is profitable and on its way to being a sold income.

4. I am living a balanced life between work, keeping my grades high, the house clean, and my social life strong. 

Your brain is a powerful tool and it doesn't like to be a liar or make you look like a liar because of this use the words "I am" in your goals, it will make your brain look for new ways to achieve your goals and you won't even know it is doing it. Don't make your goals negative if your goal is " I want to stop smoking." your brain is going to still focus on, "I want to smoke." Kind of like when you tell a kid, "Don't slam the door" and right after you say that they slam the door, it is because their brain focused on, "slam the door". You want to try and remove and negative focuses, so change your goal to, "I am living a healthy smoke free life." Even though it still has the word smoke in it it makes you think of smoking in a different way. 

The next few steps all build off of this step so make your your wording is strong is you have questions or need help trying to word a goal feel free to comment and I will be happy to help. 

 Friday's post is going to be November's Spotify playlist so make sure you check back for that! 

How To Set And Achieve Your Goals: Step 2

How To Set And Achieve Your Goals: Step 3

How To Set And Achieve Your Goals: Step 4

Follow Me to Fit: Day 4

Today I was feeling really, really weak during my workout. I had a good meal before my workout and had plenty of energy but once I started my workout I barely had half the strength I normally do. The only thing I think it could be is that I might have been dehydrated. I completed the exercises listed above and finished 30 minutes of cardio after.

I finally went grocery shopping and restocked on all my favorite fruit. I enjoyed an apple and protein shake after my workout to refuel my body.

As I was eating my post workout snack I looked over at my dog and saw him like this. I think he was trying to tell me that I needed to shower after my pull workout today. 

I tracked my workout with my heart rate monitor today and was pretty surprised with what it recorded, I am definitely going to use it more often! This is from my whole day not just my workout, however typically my daily goal only reaches 60% when I don't track my workout with my heart rate monitor. 

Follow Me to Fit: Day 3

I thought yesterdays post was short and sweet but todays is even shorter and sweeter! 

I hit an early morning  ab gym session today. I completed the following ab exercises listed above and finished it off with 15 minutes of cardio. I was aiming for 30 minutes but I was feeling a little under the weather today and having an itchy sore throat did't make running very fun.

I checked the mail on the way home from the gym and found these goodies! I ordered them from the last Alphalete Athletics launch and couldn't be happier with how they look. The crop top is a size medium/large and it is tight in all the right places. You can check out all the Alphalete gear at www.alphaleteathletics.com.

Since I wasn't feeling very good today I took a little nap and enjoyed one of these Powerade Zeros to replenish some electrolytes. 

Follow Me to Fit: Day 2

I've got to be honest not much happened today so this might be a boring post but I figured I should post it anyways!

Today I finished my workout around 1:00 pm. I completed the push workouts listed above along with the one pull workout being lat raises. I ended my gym workout with 30 minutes of cardio and some stretching.

I had a post workout meal of,

- full serving of plus pasta

- 1/2 serving of marinara

- 1/2 serving of cheese.

This is by far my go to favorite meal to make, I literally eat this 5 out of the 7 days of the week. I am a carb LOVER and it is by far one of my biggest weaknesses! 

I figured since todays post was a little bland and short I would throw in a selfie of my friend and I from the Train concert we went to on Sunday! It was a blast and they put on a great show. 

Follow Me to Fit: Day 1

Hello my friends! Today is the start of this new series that I will be doing called Follow Me to Fit. I have tried this series before but I wasn't digging how it was laying out so I re-evaluated it and came up with a plan. I want to continue this series up until the begging of the semester, around the end of August. Not saying I will quit once the new semester rolls around but I at least want to keep it going until then! To be honest I have no idea what this series will hold when it comes to content as I am gearing it toward a daily blog type of thing where I will probably talk about almost everything! I hope you enjoy it and here is day 1! 

I started my day a little later then I would like, I went to an awesome concert last night and didn't get home until pretty late. Once I finally woke up around 9:30 I made some breakfast that consisted of,

- 1 whole egg

-2 egg whites

- 1/2 a serving of cheese 

- 1/2 a serving of turkey.

Typically, I would also have had some fruit but I still need to go grocery shopping, there for we have no fruit at the moment! 

I also got my new Umoro cup in the mail today. I love it like crazy! You can get yourself on at www.umoro.com.

Today's leg workout was a bit later then normal, happening around 8:30 pm. I completed 20 minutes of cardio on the treadmill then smashed out the leg exercises listed above!

Once I got home I decided to end the night sipping on some combat protein powder in the flavor chocolate milk from Muscle Pharm in my new Umoro cup while I type up this blog post! 

That's everything I have for you guys today, I hope you enjoyed it and check back in tomorrow for day 2!

What's in my gym bag? - Essentials

Okay, so today I wanted to talk a little bit about the essentials I keep in my gym bag. If you want to make  a fitness/health related change in your life, like going to the gym you need a gym bag! You need that thing to carry all the stuff you need to get in a good workout and you need to be abele to just toss in your car when you have to go to work, school, and another tasks that you may have to complete during the day. Having a gym bag packed and ready to go is going to eliminate almost every excuse you have to not go to the gym. I pack my gym bag the night before so that it is ready to go and I don't have to worry about it in the morning. 

I always have water bottle and my headphones, but for the smaller things I keep them in this make up bag from Sephora.

Here is what i keep in my essentials bag.

- Deodorant, always something to have on hand as during the day the layer you put on in the morning is most likely not going to be there once you get to the gym.

- Something to relief pain from headaches or that sore pain in your legs from leg day.

- Makeup wipes, not an essential for everyone but I find them handy when I go to the gym after class and I don't want to workout with a full face of makeup.

- Hair ties, headband, bobbie pins and a brush to put my hair up and get it out of my face so I can workout.

- Tampons, you can never be too safe when you are a girl.

- Chapstick, to keep your lips hydrated.

- Tiger Balm, again not an essential for everyone but really great to have on had for when you are sore or are having shin splints.

Motivational Thought: 1

Motivational Monday

You must first have a plan in your head, then put it on paper, then you have a goal. You have something to work for everyday and something to look forward to. 

Arm & Ab Workout Level 1

workout of the day: arms & abs

level one

The only equipment you will need for this workout is a chair or bench to complete the tricep dips, other then that you can complete this workout anywhere. Complete each circuit twice with a little water break (about 30 sec. to 1 minute) between each circuit. In total time it shouldn't take more then 30 minutes to complete this workout. During the workout do not consume too much water as this can make you feel a little sick, however make sure to properly hydrate before and after your workout.

Circuit 1:

- 15 straight leg sit ups

- 15 lay down push ups (on knees)

- 30 bicycle crunches

- 15 tricep dips

Circuit 2:

- 15 straight leg raises

- 15 push ups (on knees)

- :30 sec. plank

- 15 toe taps

Along with the resistance workout I suggest 30 minutes of cardio, I like to complete this by running/walking and using 5K races as a goal to speed up my running time.

* Please keep in mind that I am not a doctor or licensed fitness expert and results may vary from person to person. Please consult a doctor before starting any fitness routine.

Work It Wednesday - 2

Sorry about the post being late, I was having some technical issues yesterday and this morning! Better late then never thought! Today for Work It Wednesday we are going to go over what I have been eating almost everyday for breakfast for the past four weeks. It is this delicious egg scrabble with some fruit.

Here is what you will need:

- 1 whole egg

- 92 grames of egg whites ( I used egg beaters )

- 4 slices of honey smoked turkey ( my favorite thing in the whole world! )

- 1/8 cup shredded cheese ( I used a mixed cheese but you can just use your favorite cheese )

- fruit for your side ( I use anything from apples, blueberries, and even yogurt if I want a little more protein. )

I didn't take any pictures of the cooking process because I am terrible at multi-tasking and I would have been eating burnt eggs that day! There for, I will just be going over the steps.

First, I weigh out my egg whites then add my whole egg mix it all up with a fork and add it to the pan at medium heat and let it start cooking.

Second, while the eggs are coking I cut up my turkey. I normally cut it into smaller pieces then I did the day I took the picture but even with it being larger pieces it still worked fine.

Third, scramble up the eggs then add the turkey and cheese. I like to let the cheese melt a little before string it again. Instead of doing a scramble you could also just make it into an omelet, but lets be real I suck at cooking so I can't make omelets! 

Fourth, place it on your plate and add your fruit!

It is really an easy dish to make and it takes less then 10 minutes. I hope you guys try it an enjoy!

DIY Day - 2

Today we will be going over a DIY that I have wanted to do for a loooong time! The top of my coffee table is always covered with planner stuff, school supplies, book and normal living room stuff like remotes; it is almost impossible to use for anything other then a storage table. Since I do most of my work work and school work in the living room i wanted it all to be accessible so I wouldn't have to walk to another room and make several trips to acquire everything I need to complete my daily tasks. In this DIY I will go over how to make this cute box, plant pots, and notebook to keep everything together.

What you will need:

For the box:

 - box

- paint

-paintbrushes

For the plant pots:

- pots

- paint

-paintbrush

For the notebook:

- a notebook (mine is a medium size)

- templete

- exacto knife

- sponge brush

- paint

First, well shall make the paint pots! I was planning on using three different colors of paint for each pot but I ended up just using two. I started with the gray on the bottom and the white on the top.

I then mixed the the gray and white paint and placed it in the middle.

I made sure to not have any excess paint on my brush as I tried to spread it into the white and the gray to create an ombre affect.

I did the same with the blue pot. Placing the blue at the bottom and the white at the top then mixing them and placing it in the middle.

Second, we will be doing the notebook! I took my rose template and cut it out with the exacto knife being very careful to get as much detail as I could.

I mixed the same gray and blue paint together to get this grayish blue color and used the sponge brush to paint over the template. 

Thirdly, I just painted the box. I used the same gray and blue paint as before, painting a majority of the box gray and using the blue for more of an accent of color on the bottom, top, and inside the handles. I got everything I needed at Michael's other then the notebook, I got that at Walmart.

I keep it on the coffee table to store my pen, pencils, planner accessories, planner and idea notebook. I placed my books underneath the table and my class binders in my backpack under the side table. It keeps everything easily accessible but neat at the same time.

You could also use it to keep remotes and other necessities as seen in this photo above!