The Blonde Diaries

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of wellnessdaily.com. All opinions are 100% mine.

I’ve written a few times in the past about my job.  I am a financial statement auditor and I just finished my 5th busy season as an auditor.  I never thought I’d make it this far.  It has taken a lot of blood, sweat, and tears so to speak to get here.  With that said, it has also led to a 30 pound weight gain over those 5 years.  I stepped on my Wii Fit that I drug out of hibernation last night and I was greeted with a message telling me it had been over 200 days since I last used the Wii Fit program and in that time I’d gained 15.5 pounds.  Talk about a shocker!

Losing weight use to be fairly easy for me.  I’d just cut my calories and go to the gym.  I was also in college with quite a bit more time and less stress.  Now I barely make it home at a decent hour where I can cook and go to the gym.  It is quite frustrating and I need to find a more streamlined method.

Tonight, I did find a new website, www.wellnessdaily.com, that I believe will be beneficial to me and to any of my readers who are looking for some motivation.  This website includes healthy living blogs, quick and easy recipes, and videos on topics such as weight loss and exercising.   Quick and easy recipes are right up my alley especially if they are healthy and can help me cut my calories and cravings.  I am also excited about videos on exercising.  I am so tired of just riding an exercise bike or using the elliptical at the gym.  Though I am reading my books, it gets dull and boring.  I would love to be able to incorporate some new exercises into my routine.  I thing the videos will be able to help me do that without injuring myself.

This website is 100% free to join and you have access to all of the information.  If you sign up soon, you can download a rebate from from Jennie-O for $5 off your next turkey product.  I love ground turkey so I am going to search for a recipe that I can make in the crockpot with ground turkey and then send in my UPC for my $5 off.

We have just entered the third month after the new year and some people are starting to fall off the resolution bandwagon, some are trying to stay motivated to continue, and some, like me, are trying to get back on the wagon. Right now I have been working on changing up my diet to a more fruit and veggie diet. I’ve been trying to lower the carbs and add protein but it has been a little difficult there. But milk/dairy is protein and protein builds muscles so I just need to suck it up and get it done. In fact, there is a good muscle milk review out there on how adding milk can increase your muscle mass. The main thing you have to be cautious about is how much you are adding to your diet as you can overload yourself and “weigh” yourself down with the extra carbs and sugar that is found in milk. I am going to try and focus in on adding milk to my diet each morning and right after working out. That way it can sit in my stomach until lunch, thus curbing the snacking, and it can burn off quickly at night right after I work out just keeping in the extra vitamins and minerals I need.

Sometimes life can be so unfair. Here I am, weighing in at 166.4 and my closet is yelling at me. My husband on the other hand is trying to GAIN weight. Yes you read that right. My husband is complaining because he needs to gain weight and keep it on. How unfair! We just placed an order for protein weight gainer which is really easy to find all over the internet but to try and find the best weight loss supplements to help you lose a little weight is next to impossible with all of the ads and conflicting reviews out there. I just want to find something halfway decent other than a slimfast shake where i am starving all day. Is that too much to ask?

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Wheat Food Council. All opinions are 100% mine.

Wheat – it is a food we often hear about and is in just about every food we eat. But do you know where it comes from? Do you know about the different types of wheat and what type is needed to make which item? I’ll happily admit that I do not know these things. I know that it is recommended to eat whole grain wheat and that I need to add more of it into my diet but I couldn’t tell you anything about the actual ingredient.

That is changing though thanks to a fun website called How Wheat Works. This website allows you to learn about the rich history behind wheat as well as picking a type of grain and “growing” it from a seed and then later using it as an ingredient in your favorite food item. I am currently growing hard wheat. Hard wheat can be found in things such as pizza crust, bagels, and all purpose flour. Since I just signed up tonight on the website (for free of course!) I haven’t made it past phase 1 which is the planting phase. I am to go back tomorrow to enter phase 2 and hopefully by the end of the week I’ll be able to make a tasty bagel.

This website, while it is educational for each of us, serves a greater purpose. The website is being sponsored by ADM and ConAgra, two of the world’s largest millers. In this sponsorship, the Wheat Foods Council will donate 2 pounds of flour (up to 90,000 pounds) to Operation Homefront, which is a non-profit organization that provides assistant to needy US Troops and their families. In order to “earn” the 2 pounds, you and I need to complete the wheat program on the website. It only takes a few minutes a day and it is completely free, so you should head over to HowWheatWorks.com and start your wheat harvest. In the time it takes to read this post, you could already have planted your crop and watched it grow. This is a great website, full of educational opportunities, and I encourage everyone to sign up. Even kids are getting into the act with the website dedicated to them: Wheatfoods.org

Mike and I love trying new food. About a year ago, we went to a local Greek-American restaurant, Niko Niko’s, here in Houston. It is always packed with people anytime you pass by. Lines going out the door, difficult parking, you get the picture. Well, we absolutely love the food especially since they sell “budget” lamb. The only thing we can’t figure out is how to eat there or any other Greek restaurant without leaving so stuffed and uncomfortable that we can barely make it home before we fall asleep.

Tonight is a perfect example. We had a very long day and didn’t remember to thaw anything in the freezer. So off we went for Greek food. We shared a small order of hummus with some pita bread (1.5 pitas), shared a half of a greek salad, and then we each ate on a plate of meat – lamb shank for me, gyros meat for Mike. Honestly, the heaviest thing to me would be the hummus but they must put oil or something must expand upon eating it because we both left with stomachs sticking out and feeling very very full. I think next time we will split one plate of meat instead of each getting our own because we didn’t come close to finishing either one but maybe sticking to one will help us feel a tad better. We don’t want to give up Greek food but we can’t seem to figure out the secret to it.