Hungry Girl Chocolate Muffins: A Cupcake Alternative

I admit it. I am a sugar addict. I can eat cookies, candy, chocolate, cakes, pastries, or ice cream all day, every day. My biggest downfalls are the sugary treats that people generally think are healthy, but are not: such as muffins! A single muffin can have more calories than a chocolate donut, believe it or not. They are filled with sugar, which is probably why I love to eat them. 

Yesterday, I was watching The Hungry Girl cooking show. Hungry Girl is the brand that generally gives healthy alternatives to your favorite foods. I bought the first cookbook they came out with a few years back and wasn't too thrilled with some of these "healthy" options because they tasted like cardboard, so I was a little iffy with this recipe, but I tried it and found it's edible and even enjoyable. It's no cupcake, but it gave me the chocolate/sugar fill I needed for the day without going overboard. 

Plus, IT'S EASY! You only need 2 ingredients. How perfect? And each muffin is less than 200 calories since you don't add in the fat from eggs and oil. Here's the recipe:

1 box of Devils Food cake mix
1 can of canned pumpkin (make sure it's not pumpkin pie filling)

Mix the two ingredients together. It should get thick and hard to stir towards the end. Scoop into muffin tins. Bake for 20 mins at 400 degrees. Voila! 

One Step Forward, One Giant Leap Back

I FINALLY (after 3 weeks of waiting) had my first drs. appointment at the women's health clinic on Monday. It was exciting to finally ask some questions that have been haunting me since I first heard the news. Even more exciting: being with my husband, getting to see our baby move around and watch the heart beat. Probably one of the coolest things we've done together. Well, that and picking out each of our puppies (they are still all my babies). 

I was a little disappointed with the appointment. I originally scheduled the appt. thinking I was 10 weeks along only to find out that I am now only 7 weeks and 5 days along. I feel like I regressed, even though nothing about me has actually changed. My due date: Sept 12! 

I still feel like they didn't really give me too much info-what I can or can't do, so I'm grateful for the books I've been reading, the Facebook groups I'm in, and the moms that are in my life right now. They have been the best resources. 

I feel like my body is getting bigger. Not fatter, but bigger, like my rib cage is expanding front and back ways. I feel thick. Maybe it's just my imagination. 

I. AM. HUNGRY. My cravings have been nonstop, and extremely ridiculous. I feel like I can barely go an hour without eating. And I have been craving foods I never eat. I don't eat red meat, but my two biggest desires have been:

Burgers
Hotdogs

Followed by junk food I usually avoid

French fries
Potato chips
Tots
Mashed potatoes
Doritos
Cheesy bread

You know something is wrong with me when I actually want McDonalds over pizza. I haven't given in to the fast food industry yet, but G is taking me on a date this weekend to Red Robin for the first time to get burgers and fries. He's so good to me :)

It never occurred to me that I am supposed to be eating more until I read in a book that I should be ingesting about 2300 calories a day. For me, that's a lot! Considering I'm always working out, it's no wonder why I'm always starving. I only have to work on what kind of calories I'm putting in my body. I'm working hard to stick to fruits, veggies, and protein, but let's just say my diet has not been ideal. 

For me, pregnancy is a work in progress. Even though I feel like I just added an extra 3 weeks of waiting for my second trimester, I'm glad I won't have to buy some new pants just yet. 

Week Nine, Not so Fine

I still can't believe I'm a week away from my first appointment. It seems like too much time is passing for me to go with questions unanswered. It also seems like there are things they should have told me not to do until my appt., for ex. drinking caffeine (luckily, I already knew this one and cut back on my own), however there are things that I keep finding out that I'm doing, that I shouldn't such as using acne medication. Who'd have thought? My appointment is on Monday and I have a WHOLE list of questions for them.

Week 9 is already different from week 8. I had no morning sickness last week. This week, I'm not so lucky. I always pictured morning sickness playing out like this: 

You wake up feeling great. Start your day. After about an hour, you feel nauseous, run to the bathroom, and dry heave a bit. Nothing happens. You feel miserable. 20 minutes later, you finally throw up. And then you throw up a few more times before noon and then you're better.  

With a name like "morning sickness" I thought it would be designated to the whole morning. Well, my morning sickness is different. This is how my days have been playing out. 

I wake up. Feel sick. Eat breakfast, and feel better. 30 minutes after I eat my stomach kills. Everything I eat goes right through me (not coming up) and it lasts all day long. I walk around with constant stomach aches and eating only helps me feel better for up to 30 minutes if I'm lucky. Also, I crave foods, and when I put it in front of me, I feel sick to the point of throwing up. Take it away, and 15 minutes later, I'm craving it again. Go to sleep feeling sick. 

I would so much rather have the "morning sickness" I imagined. That way I can tell people I'm out of service until about noon everyday. This thing I've got going on, I never know when I'm going to keel over or have to run to the bathroom. It SUCKS. 

My solution: write down everything I eat and how I feel afterwards. That way, I can start eliminating the foods that make me feel worse. 

Enough about that. Last week I rented a whole stack of books from the library. I've read two: the book of baby names (we already have our list written down of ideas!) and The New Mom's Manual by Mary Jeanne Menna. This book is awesome for first time moms. It basically gives ideas and opinions from other moms. And it's completely unbiased. One mom will say she loves a certain product, another mom will say she hated it. It's great because it gives you different aspects of situations which allows you to think of what will work for yourself, rather than being told what to do.

For example, there's a section in there about disposable diapers v. reusable. I never would have even considered reusable diapers until I read the benefits (keeps baby from breaking out, more comfortable, etc.) and how they are used. I had no idea that there were liners that you flush down the toilet, they came with snaps rather than pins, and how much less they cost. I totally would have considered this option (because let's face it, I'm going to be doing that much laundry every week anyway, what's a few more diapers to throw into each load?) except for one part that really turned me off. Many mothers mentioned with reusable diapers, you usually keep a pail of a baking soda mix by your changing areas to soak the soiled diapers. For me, keeping a pail of water in the house seems gross, tacky, and a recipe for disaster when baby starts moving around. That there made me realize that I want to use disposables, but I'm glad I was able to assess each side first before deciding. 

With disposables being our options, I have already started clipping out coupons, joining the "Pampers exclusive" list for discounts and savings and we're going to start buying diapers now (7 months out) to start stocking up so when the baby gets here, we won't have to worry about that spending money and can use it on other last minute items we'll probably need. 

My biggest challenge that I need to start working on (other than getting through the day without cringing pain) is the dogs. We have three very, very needy pups who always try to get up in my lap and jump on me in the middle of the night to cuddle. It's going to be hard telling them "no" when it's my favorite part about waking up to balls of fluff in my arms, but I don't want any harm to the baby when I start ballooning up. Also, it's going to be a work in progress when the donut baby gets here to make sure they don't get jealous or angry. 

There was one VERY exciting part about my week last week. I went to an ultrasound appointment to have a cyst on my ovary checked out (I made this appt before we even knew we were pregnant and I waited almost a month for it, so I was keeping it!) and at the end, the girl said, "I'm really not supposed to do this but..." she turned the screen and showed me the baby! It was so little! I had a little round head area and a tadpole body. So exciting to think that this little bugger is causing me so much grief!  I love every second of it :)

With a New Year comes New Life.

Twelve days ago my life changed. January third was the date that I found out that I was pregnant. Well, more specifically, January third was the day I had my first of three positive pregnancy test. 

Of course, being a married women, I am extremely excited to get this news. There is no better news I can expect at this point in my life, other than maybe winning the mega million lottery, which we don't even have in Alaska, so this news was the peak. However, even though we were trying, I don't quite think I'm ready for all that is going to get thrown at me. 

I am a fitness instructor. I teach Zumba 4 days a week and was trying to add an extra class to my schedule this season. Working out is usually the focus of any given day in my life. Being pregnant, I know that things are going to get even harder for me, and will eventually have to come to a halt for a while, which to me, is unthinkable. 

Another thing I'm worried about is my eating. People think I'm a healthy eater because I'm a thin instructor, but they're wrong. I do not eat fast food and I avoid red meat, however I do have a sugar obsession and snack foods always get to me in between my meals more often than not. My husband and I can go through an entire large bag of chips in a weekend, easily. And that doesn't even include the chili cheese dip that we dip them in. I can even eat an entire pizza in one sitting if I wanted to. In fact, it was done about 3 weeks ago. 

Now, I'm stuck trying to watch everything that goes into my belly. I'm no longer eating for 1, rather for two so it's going to take a lot of commitment and creativity during these next 7 months or so. 

So how far along am I? According to the "when was the start of your last period" I should be about 8 weeks along. I have no idea, though. I took a pregnancy test two weeks before we found out and that one came out negative, which means it was either not showing yet (5 weeks after this said date) or I wasn't pregnant. My first appointment is on the 27th and I'm hoping to gain some insight then. 

The only people who know right now are close friends and family. I'm waiting until I have an actual due date to announce. And, if you know me at all, I like being creative with communicating. At week 7 I told my family, and this is how it went down:

P.S. Don't mail a pregnancy test to your parents when their thermometer just broke and they needed to buy a new one. 

At 8 weeks, where am I?

~My boobs have grown HUGE overnight as of week 6 and they hurt. But they do look hot :) I'll enjoy this while it lasts. 

~No morning sickness! Hooray! I apologize to all of you mommies out there hunched over the toilet every morning. Really, I feel it for you. My biggest fear was getting sick during one of my classes. I can cross that one off of my giant list of fears. 

~I am WIPED. Exhausted. I still work out 5-6 times a week as I usually do, but it takes a little more out of me to get it going. In fact, I can tell that my boobs aren't the only thing bigger. My legs are thicker, which is my motivation to stop using couch days as an excuse and kick pregnancy's butt, in a healthy way of course. 

~Everyone pisses me off. I'm easily angered. I think I honked and flicked off everyone I passed in traffic yesterday on my way home. Of course, people were driving 50 on a 65. But still, the little things I usually shake off are not so easy to ignore these days. Thankfully, my amazing hubby had flowers and Reese's cups at home waiting for me, knowing I was very upset about the traffic. As mentioned above, sugar is a great way to my heart. 


This post is my introduction to my whole journey. Why read my posts? I am an army wife, living in Alaska with three dogs, a baby on the way and loves to work out. There are so many women out there in similar situations and I know reading their personal blogs have helped me stay calm. Plus, the internet has multiple opinions on everything, yet sources are not always reliable. I love personal testimony over an article which may or may not be true. 

Comment if you have posts, input, ideas, or even comments. Support goes a long way and I could use some other ladies to keep me going! 

Lots of love. 

Winter Solstice- a 2013 reflection

It's been 4 weeks since my last post. Let's face it, I'm not the best at keeping up with my blogging, but today is a special day in Alaska: the winter solstice. I think this day is special to us up north because after today, the days can only get lighter. For those of you in the lower 48, you may think of this as a metaphor, however I'm meaning this in the most literal sense. Today, we get maybe 5 hours of total sunlight. I think it's actually somewhere around 4 hours and 45 minutes, I'm not 100% and the darkness is a drag. The idea of longer days is what's going to get us past that holiday bump and through the next 4 long months of winter. 

Yesterday in yoga class, our instructor did use the winter solstice as a metaphor. She said, "what better day to rid of the darkness from 2013 and start a new beginning" and it made me think. I really don't have any dark days of 2013. None. It was a fantastic year. 

In 2013, I had the wedding I've always dreamed of having, and then some. G and I got to go to Hawaii for the first time, go camping, lots of hiking, it was a warm summer, great Thanksgiving with some amazing friends, we got a new puppy, I learned to ski (which was probably my "darkest day", though it was still something I got to to cross off my bucket list), saw my friends and family multiple times, had a bachelorette party back home, met my future in-laws, saw my first dog races, turned 26, gained my first Zumba class, and then some, took a group fitness certification course, and realized what a strong person I truly am when my husband is gone. 

That list is huge and it's going to be hard to beat next year! I mean, what can really beat a wedding and 7 days in Hawaii? Well, let's find out! I made some New Years resolutions for next year. I'm sure a million people are rolling their eyes because resolutions are usually only good for the first week. Well, to all you uncommitted haters, you should know I make a list of resolutions at the beginning of every month. So there. Okay, my list goes as follows:

1. Stop wasting money on crappy foods. This is something I'm going to have to work on with my husband. I go out of my way to create menus for each week so we have food to each for each meal, so when G and I go out to the movies, a hockey game, a fair, or even dinner, we splurge on crappy foods. Not just one treat, but multiple. For example, we spent $40 on nuts, corn fritters, chicken tenders, and a beer at the hockey game two nights ago, after I made us dinner beforehand. I think we eat out of boredom or awkwardness of not having something to do with our hands, and I want to work on that. It also applies to eating at home or ordering appetizers at dinner. 

2. Focus on more natural sugars in my diet. I'm a sugar addict who loves to bake and try out new recipes. That's a recipe for disaster right there (no pun intended, heyo!). In fact, my breakfast this morning was a christmas cookie with coffee and pumpkin spiced creamer. Not healthy at all, but do I feel pumped for the day? Yes. Today is an example of what needs to be resisted next year. 

3. Budget, save, and shop! I don't have a huge income, so the small bills I do get, I want to start saving for a trip I'm planning in 3 years. right now, 10% of every paycheck goes to that cause, and another 10% goes to a basic savings account. I want to make sure I stay on top of managing my money to save, get out of debt, and of course, have enough to shop when I need to do so. 

4. The move. Our lease ends June 1, which means we'll probably be moving either on base or to ER this summer for our last year. I just want to get this accomplished with as little stress and damage to our belongings as humanly possible. 

5. Stay productive while G is gone. He leaves me for a month next year for training. I just want to make sure I don't use this as an opportunity to sugar binge or overspend like I usually do when he's gone. 

6. Get my dental work done. I can't guarantee all of it, but I want to save up to get another crown in my mouth next year. And I want to stay on top of flossing!!! If there's anything people need to do to prevent cavities, it's to floss. I'm going to add to this making sure my husband stays on top of this too. He tends to not care so much about what goes on with his teeth. Enter Molly. 

7. Juggle the dogs. This includes shots, grooming, dental, exercise, and not going crazy when they decide to be incredibly hyper at 6 in the morning. 

8. Run a 5k. I've never ran one before. Not so much because it's hard, I just haven't really had the funds to sign up. This time, I'm going to use the money I save by not eating junk food (see resolution #1) and get involved in multiple races. I want to eventually get my time down to 25 mins or less and also I want to start building up to 10k or half marathons. Probably not this year, but in the future. I teach so much Zumba and I still need my body in working order. 

9. Donate money. Last year, I donated only a little bit to the ASPCA and that charity that protects the pandas and other endangered animals. I want to donate more. I know resolution 8 often times automatically helps with this goal, however I want to try to start my own fundraiser. Maybe a Zumbathon or something that will go to a local charity or more towards animals. 

10. I want to finish the next Game of Thrones book (4) before season 3 comes out on DVD (right after Valentine's Day). And then I want to finish book 5 sometimes before 2015. 

11.   Stay positive and communal. What I mean by this is keeping that Christmas spirit alive throughout the whole year by being nice to strangers for no reason (not in a creepy, call the cops kind of way), giving compliments and being sincere with conversations at the check out counters. I think this country needs to build a foundation of trust within each community through everyday interactions. Sure, you may think you don't steal or cheat or do anything bad, which relatively is helping the world out, but when you're the a-hole speeding down the highway every day in heavy traffic and pouring rain, that's making a dangerous situation for the community. You have this amazing thing called a brain that actually allows you to think about every situation you're in an react to it. How awesome is that? 

12. And of course, continue to learn about the person that I am and the person that I want to be.  I think the biggest impact 2013 had on me was the realization that I'm a lot stronger of a person than I originally thought. I don't know if it's because I'm so far away from friends and family, but I feel like there is nothing out here that can negatively impact my life. We started from scratch and got to pick and choose what kind of people we want in our lives. With that, I feel like I've gained patience (my biggest area that needs work), kindness, and I've become wayyyy less judgmental than I used to be. I realized that yes, one day I do wants kinds and when I do, I will be an EXCELLENT mother (mostly because these dogs have given me practice of cleaning up nonstop poop, waking up a million times throughout the night, constantly revolving each day around their schedule on maybe 4 hours of sleep, and a ton of other things moms on Facebook constantly bitch about. Of course, children will be way harder and last longer, but I think the biggest shock will be the idea of something popping out of my area. That, and them growing into adults who will one day get up and have their own lives away from me.)

13. Write a book. I've started about 3. No more than a chapter. I'm not going to have it published, but I at least want the option if I ever felt that I wanted to. 

14. Become less attached to FB and texting and more on actual person-to-person socialization. 

Why did I decide to make my resolutions a blog this year rather than jot them down on a piece of paper like I usually do? Maybe to give insight. Maybe to encourage people to make their own resolutions. Maybe to encourage people to make my resolutions their resolutions. Or, maybe because I really like to write. 

Either way, these are my resolutions. If you read them, that means you probably are someone close to me who actually cares about what I'm saying. If we aren't that close and you did read this, well, let me know. Maybe I should re-evaluate our friendship since you stuck through each word that is personal to my life, unless you were reading this for unkind purposes. But still, you took time out of your day, so I thank you nonetheless. 

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of my life in 2013. I wish you all a cheery winter solstice, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

Pumpkin Spice Sugar Scrub

Make sugar a HEALTHY habit...

... as a body scrub!

Now that winter is upon us and the weather is cold and dry, the chances that I fell upon an at-home sugar scrub recipe was a gold mine! I'm obsessed with exfoliating scrubs (I use them usually no more than once a week) so constantly stocking up on scrubs can get kind of pricey. When I skimmed the recipe, I realized I already housed all of the needed ingredients in my pantry and I got to mixing, and let me tell you, my body felt so good after I used this!

Some tips about this scrub: 

1. The recipe I found online was a little dry. I had to add more oil to keep the mixture from looking like a pile of sugar. 

2. You can use any oil in your recipe, however beware of the scent. It's supposed to be a pumpkin spiced aroma, but if you use stronger smelling oils such as olive oil, it can smell a little funky. I used 1 TBS of olive oil and immediately regretted it, resulting in me dowsing more vanilla and pumpkin spice to the mix. I used canola oil for the remaining TBS. 

3. Caution if you have very sensitive skin. It's a rough scrub due to the small sugar follicles. I have sensitive skin, but I felt okay even using it on my face. I'd recommend starting off small and seeing how it feels before gunking it on all over your body and having an after burn. I don't think that'd be the case because the oils in the scrub neutralize the skin and the ingredients are without added dyes or fragrance.

4. If you have someone around willing to rub this all over your back, DO IT! It did feel like sandpaper, however it felt so good on my back-like a newly manicured hand was scratching me. ahhhhh-maaaaah-zing. 

5. Like any exfoliant, you don't want to over do it. I wouldn't use this more than once (or maybe twice) a week. It may irritate your skin to be consistently taking layers off. 

Okay, and here's the recipe. Make it for your self, or as a gift to friends or family :)

Recipe

Mix together:

3/4 cup white sugar

1 TBS brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon 

2 TBS pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp nutmeg

4 TBS oil (canola, olive, coconut, sunflower, etc.)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Pour mixture into a jar for easy use. 

Click here for the original source! 

Acts of Kindness

This post has nothing to do with the flow of my other posts, but I get urges to write when I have a lot of emotion. 

Last night I did something so udderly stupid. I still feel like the biggest jerk in the world thinking about the ridiculous of this mistake. I lost my iphone 5 on top of a mountain. My mistake gave me some insight into my life: not only do I have the most incredible husband in the world, but we are blessed to have another couple in our lives who will drop what they're doing to bring flashlights and climb a mountain to look for white phone in the snow on a Sunday night. I still feel bad about this situation, but I'm not mad because I know that this phone can be replaced and I've been given a greater gift of love and friendship that can never be purchased. 

With that being said, let me explain some background info. My iphone was a Christmas gift from my husband last year. It was my first smart phone (I'm a little behind the age of technology, okay?) and the excitement of having internet on my phone was incomparable. However, to me, it was more than a smartphone. My husband knew I'd been wanting an iphone for the past couple years, I just never had the money to buy one and keep up with the monthly payments. When we went home to visit my family in Chi-town, we went shopping along the Magnificent Mile and my husband disappeared. While he was gone, he went out and bought me the phone, went to AT&T and had it activated and surprised me at lunch with it. To me, this is the importance of my iphone-not it's ability to download apps, take pictures, and check FB every hour. It represents the generosity of my husband and always makes me think back to this day.

It hadn't even lasted a year and I lost it. I LOST IT! I'm usually so responsible with all of my goods and electronics. I brought the same purse I always bring when I do this hike, and never before had I had any problems. The worst part was that I usually do continual phone checks throughout my hikes to make sure I haven't lost keys, phone, wallet, etc. and this time, I didn't do a single check until we were nearly at the bottom. Such a sinking feeling when you get to the bottom of the mountain and realize you're missing something of importance up by the top. At least, I think it was by the top because I fell a couple times at the steep parts. I have no frame of reference though because I didn't do a stupid check! UGH. 

What we thought was going to be a calm, Sunday evening hike (with three dogs, mind you) before going home and cooking dinner turned out to be a 4 hour event. The dogs were wiped by the time we got to the bottom of hike #1 and sunlight was already depleting by the minute. I felt terrible that the dogs hadn't eaten dinner (and due to daylight savings, it was already an hour past their regular dinner time) but the good news was that they were so exhausted from their adventure, we were able to let them sleep in the car while we did the hike AGAIN. 

At the top of Mt. Baldy, round 1.

I had already done Zumba right before the hike: I taught my 1 o'clock class to come home and get ready for a hike that I knew was already going to wear me out. I ended my day yesterday with one hour of Zumba and a back-to-back double hike up a very steep mountain. Let's just say I went to bed with muscle contractions every 15-30 seconds. The hike was no joy ride for my husband neither. He has asthma so intensive cardio+high altitude=out of breath husband. Yet with no complaints, he went back up a second time. In fact, he told me he'd go up there alone so I didn't have do the hike again, but I told him there's no way I'd let him do this. He is such a stud.

The sun was setting and we only had 25% charge on his phone so light source was an issue. We called our friends who lived in the area asking if they had any flashlights. They dropped everything that they were doing and drove up, and not only supplied light, but hiked with us up the mountain. Talk about friendship. I wanted to just call it quits so we all could go home and eat pizza, but they stuck with us to the top and back. This hike wasn't just steep; it was dark, icy, and had 60mph winds at the top (according to another climber we talked to earlier). AND they had just returned last week from a Hawaiian vacation-I'm sure hiking through the snow was something they were planning to put off for at least a couple months, so the fact that they were there by our sides was something I am very thankful for.

I am so incredibly appreciative that, even though we didn't find my phone, I have people in my life who are there for me even though my task seems near impossible. I don't feel like I failed by losing my phone because I feel like I gained something more. But I do still feel like an ass for the following reasons:

1. I lost the Christmas gift my husband bought me last year. 

2. I made my little angel pups wait until about 8:00 before eating dinner.

3. I lost a WHITE phone in the snow-worst game of Where's Waldo? ever. 

4. I brought two other people into such a crazy cold conundrum.  

It was an experience that I'll never forget, because I not only learned that my body CAN do 5 hours of cardio in one day, but I know in the future (once my new phone is reloaded with my contacts and music) we will look back and laugh at what a crazy adventure last night was.