Fit Friday

Sans photos - again. I'm sorry! MrHoppy has been working a TON this week and is working 17 hours today (yikes!) so I couldn't bear to wake him up to take my photo this morning. Not to mention he worked last night too so didn't get to bed until after 1AM. Good luck today husband!

So, let's get down to business:

Fitness: I did well this week even though I had plans Monday night and last minute plans last night. I worked out early Monday morning at home with Jillian Michaels. 30 Day Shred baby. Tuesday night was running and lifting. Wednesday morning consisted of my 30 minute core class at the gym, a run and upper body. I was going to hit the gym last night since MrHoppy was working but met up with my sister, BIL and nephew at the mall instead. :) Fridays I'm off but I'll run outside tomorrow morning. I'm going to attempt a long-ish run (for me) of 4 miles. We shall see!

Nutrition: Ate well this week although some days were kind of random. I need to focus more on vegetables and could use some ideas of how to incorporate them more into my meals. Ideas anyone? We have plans all day tomorrow (drinking, eating, drinking more, eating some more and going out on the town) for my BIL's birthday so portion control and making the best choices possible will be key.

Weight: 118 today. I was 117 all week and I'm happy with my progress. Swim suit season is almost upon us and I need to continue my toning to rock a bikini soon!

Happy Friday everyone, what plans do you have this weekend?

My New Favorite Dinner

Happy Thursday! I usually talk about diet and healthy eating on Fridays but thought I would include a post about a dinner we had recently that I loved!

Elk tacos. Yes, we eat elk. And we drink beer as you can see in the background. We are in the micro-brew capital of the nation. Of course we Colorado folks LOVE our beer. :)

Details on this delicious-ness are below...

A little sidenote... MrHoppy was born and raised in the mountains of Colorado so hunting has been part of his life for many, many years. I am not going to pretend to like it but I'm not against it either. I am OK with hunting as long as the meat is eaten and as much as the animal is used as possible. Just don't be thinking that I join in or have any part in it. I do, however, eat the meat. Our freezer is full of elk meat from last Fall so we try to use it instead of buying beef at the store.

Elk meat is super lean. As far as red meat goes, it's pretty good for you. It's wild, grass "fed" and about as natural as you can get. The taste is a little "gamey" for me so we usually include it in dishes with seasonings and sauces.

In this meal MrHoppy marinated 2 elk steaks for a couple days. I'm not 100% sure what all he used but I believe it was a concoction of Italian dressing, red pepper, Srichacha, and some other seasonings and spices.

He put the meat on the grill and when it was cooked through we diced it up into tiny pieces. While he grilled the meat I steamed corn tortillas, diced up tomatos and made guacamole (just avacado, garlic, onion, tomato and Srichacha). We put the meat on the tortillas, added tomato, spinach, sour cream and guac. The meat was spicy and had great flavor. I love adding lots of veggies to my tacos.

So what do you think? Does this look and sound good? It could be done just as easily with lean beef steaks. It's pretty "clean", low in fat and you are getting protein and vegetables with your dinner.

Easter in the Ol' Wild West

On Friday morning the Hoppy house packed our bags and headed out. A weekend in the Wild West (Wyoming) was in our near future... We geared up for the 5+ hour drive with a big breakfast and a pep talk to the dogs:

"OK pups we have a looooonnnnnnng road ahead of us, it's time to snuggle in and be good." Once on the road we realized the wind was going to be an issue. 70MPH winds made for an interesting afternoon.

This is probably the only time MrHoppy smiled the whole time... This was 5 minutes into the drive.

Wide open spaces...

One of the many coal trains we saw on our drive. It's a big part of the economy in Wyoming.

The weather was (just a little bit) less than beautiful when we finally arrived.

After hardboiling about a million eggs MrHoppy's little sister dyed them while I supervised.

Big yawn from Cricket

The weather was much nicer on Saturday. After a pedicure with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law we headed down to the ol' barn to take care of the horses.

They come up pretty quickly when they know it's time to eat

Wyoming does have it's beautiful moments...

On Sunday morning the weather was even better. We had quite a drive ahead of us but decided to take advantage and ride the horses. I don't ride often so I was nervous at first. Riding Maggie is simple though... For the most part she follows the other horses. Except when she wants to stop and try to nibble on green grass!

We had an absolutely wonderful weekend with his family. I truly wish that they lived closer so we could see them more often. We spent time catching up, playing games, watching movies and relaxing. Since it's graduation season we'll be seeing everyone again in a few weeks!

Busy Bees

We have been busy at the Hoppy household! I haven't had much time to blog or take photos this week, let alone download and organize them!

Last weekend was kind of a blur and that spewed over into this week for some reason.

I've been at the gym a lot and then last night was able to surprise my husband with something amazing. More on that to come... I will say that this morning he said it's the coolest thing I have EVER done. Wow! He surprised me with something amazing last Friday and there will be more on that soon also... I just want to include photos in the surprises and there aren't any yet! I'm really not trying to be vague!

Today is my last day of work this week. 3 day weekend, woo-hoo, par-tay! We are planning to veg out at home tonight, we haven't really seen each other since Sunday night. And it feels like longer than that! There is catching up to do and hopefully I'll have time to organize photos and be a better blogger next week!

Happy weekend everyone!

Infertility A to Z's

I haven't written much about IF recently but though this was kind of fun. :)

Stolen from a fellow blogger, MrsSmoke, check out here blog here

A. Age at Which you Started TTC: 27

B. Baby Dancing or Sex: Sex, seriously who says "baby dancing"??

C. Children Wanted: We wanted 2-3

D. Dogs/Cats/Fill in Babies: 2 dogs and a cat

E. Essential Oils/Vitamins: Eh, I just take a multi-vitamin

F. Fertility Meds I've Taken: Clomid and Ovidrel shot in my boot-ay

G. Gain, What have I Gained from Infertility: Strength. If I can make it through the emotions of IF I can make it through anything!

H. HSG: Yep, all clear. Pretty uncomfortable procedure

I. Infertile Pet Peeve: I'm so much better now that I'm not doing treatments, honestly.

J. Job Title: Insurance Agent

K. Kids Names your are Afraid will be Taken: I used to be afraid "Sam" for a boy would be taken. Now I hope someone uses it because I love the name!

L. Lengh of Time TTC: We tried for 2.5 years

M. Miscarriages: None, I have never seen 2 lines on a pregnancy test

N. Number of Times you have Switched REs: None, we stayed with our "in-network" RE

O. Ovarian Quality: Great, I always ovulated on my own and produced a good number of eggs from minimal medications.

P. POAS or Wait for AF: Wait for AF

Q. Quote from an Obnoxious Fertile: Go on vacation, that's what worked for my friend!

S. Sperm: The few sperm he has aren't great swimmers and are mis-shapen. Poor little spermies :(

T. Time you Tried Naturally: One year

U. Uterus Quality: Good, it is "tipped" though. Can make for a tricky IUI catheter placement

V. Vagina: Um... Yes?

W. What Baby Stuff do you Already Have: Not a thing, I never bought anything actually!

X. Xtra, Xtra, Hear all about it! How many people know about our TTC Journey: We are pretty open about it. Most of our friends and family know. We "came out" pretty early on. The support was nice and people finally stopped asking so many damn questions!

Y. Yearly Exam: Still have 'em!

Z. Zits: ? Never really got them, still don't. What does this even mean?! :)

Fit Friday

This edition is going to be sans photos. MrHoppy took them and I downloaded them and then I looked at them... Um, no thanks.

Do you ever have a day where you look at yourself and just think you are fugly? That's the kind of day I'm having. My body looks fine but I thought my hair, makeup and face looked terrible. :::sigh:::

Just one of those days I guess...

Anyway, moving right along...

Fitness: I worked out Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. All were excellent workouts. I might go for a run outside tonight, we'll see. I will definitely be hitting the gym tomorrow though. It was a good week for fitness, I'm happy with my progress but know I need to be lifting more. Tone, tone, tone!

Nutrition: Ate well this week. Pretty clean until last night. We met my brother in law and nephew for happy hour. Shared nachos but I'm happy to report that I didn't over-do it in the least! Now the weekend will be the tricky part...

Weight: 117 today. No complaints!

How did everyone else do? Any new recipes or workouts you would like to share? I'm always looking for suggestions and love to read about what works for others!

A Look Inside

Good morning! A couple weeks ago my darling MrHoppy took a big trip to the grocery store to fill our refrigerator with healthy items. He does the grocery shopping most of the time and I have a love/hate relationship with this set-up. I love it because he stays on budget and gets everything on the list I give him. I hate it because I myself love to grocery shop! Yes, I'm crazy. I love going up and down the aisles, reading labels, loading my purchases in the cart and organizing everything when I get home. I'm weird like that.

I have mentioned before that I have been reading blogs and doing research on clean and healthy eating. I wanted a few new items to try out some ideas I had. Not only did he get everything we needed but he also did some organizing to make my life easier.

Exhibit A: The Freezer

Ignore the Patron on the left side of the freezer. :) If you look just right of that in the individual tupperware containers you will see cut up chicken breasts. Some plain, some marinated. At the beginning of every week we cut up 2 chicken breasts and bake them for easy and protein packed meals. I had been thawing the breasts out and cutting them up each week. MrHoppy took care of that part all in one afternoon! Now all we have to do is pull out the container, let them thaw, slap them on the baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes. Easy and healthy eating made simple. You will also see brussels sprouts back there, a large container of homemade green chili (yummy!), ground turkey and ice cream. Which I avoid of course...

Exhibit B: The Refrigerator

In the bowl you will see another easy, healthy and fast protein. Hardboiled eggs. We try to keep them on hand for breakfast or to whip up low-fat egg salad sandwhiches. The Stonyfield organic yogurt and almond milk go into our new breakfast of choice. Overnight Oats. See where I read up on these bad boys Here. We add frozen fruit, bananas, peanut butter and MrHoppy puts maple syrup in his. Delicious! You'll also see low fat cottage cheese, 2% Fage greek yogurt, and of course my Orange Juice. I have a new love affair with OJ and the Trop 50 is actually pretty good!

What you don't see is the bowl of fresh fruit that sits on the counter. Or the drawer full of vegetables that we keep on hand. I have to have healthy options easily available to keep eating healthy. If I make it easy for myself I won't stray.

I have also started shopping at our local Sunflower Market (check them out Here )on Wednesdays when they do "double ad" sale days. The previous week and next week of sales overlap and I get some great deals. It takes preperation, list making and deciding what to buy and where, but I think it's helping with the grocery budget. I got 3 bags of fresh and organic food yesterday for just $19!

What does your refrigerator look like?