Merry Christmas!

 

I hope everyone that reads this blog is having a wonderful and lovely Christmas! It has always been one of my favorite holidays, even when it has been filled with quiet and loneliness at times. I think that is one of the things that people always take for granted sometimes. Holidays are times when you gather with friends and/or family and celebrate with each other the wonders of the holidays and you don't really ever think that there are people who may not be able to do the same.

I also placed my order for my New Year's Eve outfit. It isn't as sparkly as I would like but it's super cold here and most sparkly clothes/dresses/skirts were not winter friendly. It's okay though! I love the outfit I got. It's simple but cute, in my opinion.

Hopefully it get's here in time! I did pay for Express shipping because I wasn't sure when it would arrive otherwise! Yes, it was $20 but I don't care. I wanted my outfit and I was scared to brave the mall since I've only heard accident stories on the radio all week!! Anyway, that is about all I have for today. Have a wonderful rest of your Christmas!

xoxo

Nena

The Kettlebelle

2AM Fire Alarms

There is absolutely no better way to wake up on a lovely 14*F December night than by the shrill noise of a fire alarm outside your apartment door. Especially when you are sick! I have been plagued with this ridiculous chest cold for a whole week now and I am ready for it to be done. However, I highly doubt I will be back to healthy if I have to keep spending unnecessary time outdoors in the freezing temperatures!

Let me recap last night for you, since I am sure ya'll are interested (okay, I know you are not, but I want to vent anyway!) I was all snuggled in my warm, cozy bed dreaming about something when this ear splitting, mind jarring, shrill blasts into my apartment. I groggily wake up, look at my alarm clock which I swear says 4:30AM and then lay there for a few minutes trying to grasp what is going on.

As I told my supervisor, who scolded me when I told her how long it took me to get out of my apartment, I didn't smell smoke so I was not in any hurry. Plus, I am not one of those people who sleeps in lots of clothing. Even in the winter time, the less the better I sleep! I was wearing shorts and a tank top but that is hardly 14*F attire! I had to then dig around for some sweatpants to throw on, and then a sweatshirt, socks, shoes, jacket, scarf, gloves, etc. I ran a brush through my hair (I don't know, I was barely conscious but that is what I thought I had to do) and stuffed a few things into my purse (aka my nook and my cellphone), found my keys and then locked my apartment door and went outside. I know, I'm slow. Had this been a real fire, I'd be dead because I live on the third floor so... yea. Anyway, I wasn't the last to leave my apartment building so at least I was somewhat quicker than my neighbors were.

There was a total of five firetrucks outside and it still took them a whole fifteen minutes to figure out that the building was not on fire and we could return inside. I think I tried to ask a neighbor if they saw anything but a crackling frog croak came out of my mouth instead. Like I said, I am sick. Finally they let us back in but does that mean that the alarm was turned off? No! It took another 45 minutes for that damn noise to stop blasting away. I was so unhappy. However, on a good note... it was not 4:30AM... it was only 2AM so I was still able to get some sleep in afterwords.

The moral of this story is that I would burn/suffocate to death if this was an actual fire because I have the response time of a snail that is half asleep.

On another note, I made progress in my hooping practice today and I only managed to cough nonstop for 30 minutes afterwords! My boyfriend wonders why I didn't want to go to the gym yesterday and today, well this would be why. I hack up a lung. I also was going to make our premade meals this week but I don't think he would appreciate receiving my cold... though I think he gave it to me in the first place so who knows.

That is all for now! I hope everybody is having a much healthier week than I am!

xoxo

Nena

The Kettlebelle

It's So Cold Outside!

Well, winter has arrived. It has been pretty cold out but we got our first snowfall this past weekend and I was not thrilled about it. Snow makes me unhappy, which is unfortunate since I live in Wisconsin. We only got 2-4 inches but it has been ridiculously cold outside as well. It's supposed to be -9*F tonight. -9! That is unacceptable.

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was on tonight, which is always a kicker for me to be motivated. I know, it's silly to have to see things like that to be motivated but I can't help it. In the winter, I really suck at not wanting to lay in bed/under covers drinking tea while watching Christmas movies. It's the thing to do!

I don't really have a whole lot more to say. However, it seems that soon I will be the owner of a DSLR camera which means that when I make nummy Paleo foods, I will be able to take excellent pics of it! Hopefully, anyway. That is my goal.

I'm sorry that this entry has been pretty boring. I haven't done anything exciting normal or exercise wise since my last update. For shame!

xoxo

Nena

The Kettlebelle

I cannot flip banana pancakes

As the title says, I absolutely cannot flip banana pancakes. Now I was all set to take a pretty picture of my lovely pancakes but well... they didn't turn out lovely. They taste amazing, but not so pretty to the eyes. They are 100% paleo so if you are interested in making them, this is what you do (maybe you will have better flipping luck!)

- 2 ripe bananas
- 1 egg

Mix those two ingredients together until the "batter" is smooth. Grease pan with coconut or olive oil and flip your pancake once the batter has the pancake air bubbles in it. That is it! They taste like banana bread, if you like banana bread. Very nummy. They will also be my breakfast tomorrow as well.

I have also decided that I am not a huge fan of mushrooms and cauliflower together. Not raw mushrooms but cooked mushrooms (ex: mushrooms fried with EVOO) because the mushroom "juice" absorbed into my cauliflower (steamed) and I dunno, tasted off to me. Otherwise my whole dinner today was delicious! I just had a grilled chicken breast, steamed cauliflower/broccoli, mushrooms and one half of a sweet potato. It may not seem that delicious to some because it was so plain but trust me, it was good (minus the mushroom juice part).

As for exercising, I spent an hour practicing with my hula hoops, and then I went to the gym for 45 minutes. I probably could have lasted a bit longer in the gym but my boyfriend wanted to go so, yea. I didn't go to the gym yesterday due to the weather (freezing rain + snow = no fun) so today I just did the stair master for 20 minutes and then did 12 x 3 rowing, 12 x 3 shoulder press, 12 x 3 chest press and 12 x 3 pec fly machine. When I got home, I did kettlebell swings for 5 minutes and 20 squats with the kettle bell. My abs are still ridiculously sore from yesterday's blogilates ab videos so I didn't worry to much about my core. Tomorrow is leg day. Hurrah.

On the mental health front.. my friend is still not talking to me. He claims he isn't avoiding me but evidence shows otherwise. I hate this immature crap. Anyway, that is all from moi. Toodles!

xoxo

Nena

The Kettlebelle

Toodles, November!

Today is the last day of November and it is closing with a bang since I woke up to no hot water in my apartment this morning. I am very unhappy about that! I feel all gross but I really don't want to take a shower in ice water. Meh. I contacted my Landlord so hopefully there is somebody out here pronto to fix this! I cannot be the only apartment without hot water as I share the water heater with another apartment. I thought I heard him in there but we shall see.

Anyway, onto more health related stuff. The New Body Makeover calendar has come out on Blogilates! I downloaded it, printed it off and it's now on my stats marker board so I can remember to do it. The only issue that I am having is that I eat 85% paleo and the meal plan is not Paleo. Not at all! I need to figure out meal replacements/substitutes for those ingredients because I don't want to eat edamame, oatmeal, peanut butter, quinoa, etc. Well, it's not that I don't want to eat those things, I just feel like I shouldn't! Plus, I'm not a fan of edamame...

The one thing I am excited to eat are the banana pancakes! These are definitely paleo being they are only 1 egg and 2 bananas. Yep. That is all they take! I can put some almond butter on top and mmmm! Delicious. I've actually never made them before because 1) I am lazy and 2) I am not a breakfast person. At all!

I just noticed the 'run 1 mile' part of the calendar. Um... that may be an issue. I get really bad shin splints when I attempt running, and I really dislike running especially on a treadmill. No way am I running in freezing temperatures either. I wonder if a mile on the stairmaster will work just as well... I love the stairmaster!

Well, I'm going to test the water again to see if it is still ice cold and then decide if I want to submerge my head into that to wash my hair. Wish me luck!

xoxo

Nena

The Kettlebelle

Thanksgiving Aftermath

So, we didn't end up having Turducken. Apparently you can buy pre-made Turduckens but that wasn't found out until after the fact. They are extremely difficult to make, apparently, so instead we had a turkey, a duck and two cornish hens. I didn't have any turkey (I don't know why!) but I did have some cornish hen and a piece of duck. Duck is... different. The piece that I grabbed was almost all fat. It was gross. I wasn't a fan of the duck flavor, if I am to be honest here.

I will say that I ate barely anything paleo yesterday. I consumed the following:

• - cornish hen
• - duck
• - bacon wrapped water chestnut
• - green bean casserole with mushrooms, french onions, water chestnuts, and bacon
• - mashed potatoes with bacon on top
• - two rolls
• - yams with cinnamon, brown sugar and marshmallows
• - stuffing
• - pumpkin pie with whipping cream
• - 2 budlights
• - margarita

I regret nothing! Well, maybe I do. I had an irritating headache on the drive back and I took a 30 minute nap but didn't feel much better when I woke back up. This caused me to go to bed around 10:00pm but at 11:30pm, I woke up with a gut wrenching stomachache. It was horrible! I haven't had that bad of a stomachache in a really long time. I'm not quite sure what caused it, to be honest. I just know that it happened and it was terrible.

To top it off, I woke up with a terrible migraine this morning. I popped three Excedrin Migraines and went back to bed which luckily made it go away. Now I have to plan out next week's meals! I am going to be doing the Blogilates New Body Makeover but I haven't received my Fit Journal yet. However, it comes with a 12 week meal plan and it's not Paleo, unfortunately. This means that I have to convert it to Paleo! This is going to take me a bit but I will do one week at a time. I'm going to make my boyfriend do it with me, even if he doesn't do the Blogilate workouts, he can at least eat healthy.

Now if it was only this easy to make myself healthy mentally. I have seasonal affective disorder which makes me very bummed out when the time changes. It gets dark so early now, I hate it! Plus, it doesn't help that one of my good friends decided that he wasn't going to talk to me this month. It sucks, so much! It is tied up there with my boyfriend (former) of seven years cheated on me with a coworker and then broke up with me by posting a photo of them hugging in a text message. Yet he keeps telling me that he isn't ignoring me on purpose or actively avoiding me. Mmk, well you aren't actively trying to be a friend either. I am trying not to make it a big deal but it's so not easy. Oh well... maybe December will be better.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

Tomorrow is the day of stuffing ourselves with Turkey, and I am looking forward to it! I haven't had a  real Thanksgiving in a really long time. I am trying to recall the last time that I got together with family & friends for it, and I am going to say... 6 years ago? 5? Not sure, to be honest. However, tomorrow I am going with Ryan to his sister's and we are going to eat a Turduckin. I had to Google it before I even knew what that was!

Apparently, a Turduckin (Turkey+Duck+Chicken) is a 3200 calorie full blown bird feast. It is a stuffing stuffed chicken, stuffed into a duck, stuffed into a turkey. The images on Google look gross so I am not going to post one, but maybe (if it doesn't seem too rude) I will sneak a camera pic of the bird creation tomorrow. We shall see! I am pretty sure that the stuffing part of this beast is not Paleo, but I guess that will have to go towards my 15% non-Paleo for the week. It's Thanksgiving, I'm allowed to. I'm 99% sure that there will not be one single Paleo dish at the dinner. I am hoping my stomach survives the whole ordeal.

Speaking of my stomach, I have had this aggravating cramp on my lower left side for a few weeks now. I had it back in September too but my doctor thought it was an ovarian cyst. They did an ultrasound (both types) and nothing came back from it as abnormal but ironically the pain went away the same day that I had it done too. I should probably go back to the doctor... I swear I live there sometimes. I've been to the dang doctor more times this year than I have in my whole 30 years of life!   Seriously. First it was the sinus headaches that were actually migraines so I had a bunch of stupid testing done for that, then I had to have a MRI done on my head and it turned out that my pituitary gland was too big so then I had to keep coming in for tests to make sure it wasn't a tumor, and now this. Thank God for insurance.

Well, I think that is about it for tonight. I will be working on some Paleo recipes after this whole Thanksgiving ordeal is over with! I'm excited for that. Oh, and I am also doing the Blogilates 12 Week Challenge which is supposed to start either December 1st or January 1st. I think I will start January 1st because I don't have all my stuff from Blogilates yet! That will be on this blog too. Anyway, I hope you all have a safe and fun Thanksgiving!

xoxo

Nena

The Kettlebelle

Let's Get This Started (again)

I have been wanting to start a journal/website that is completely fitness/paleo/clean eating related for quite sometime now. However, when it comes to blogging I am super lazy. I have had my personal blog since, gosh, 2007 and I will write in it maybe once or twice a month. Terrible! You'd think if I was shelling out $120/year to keep my domain up, I would be better at blogging. Guess not. That is besides the point though, isn't it?

Let me introduce myself. My name is Nena. I am from the cold state of Wisconsin which means that I really do love cheese. Seriously, it is the single hardest thing for me to not eat. I crave it so much! That is why I follow a 85% paleo diet. Cheese and beer are my two hardest to give up items. I KNOW, it's so bad for me! I can't help it. Do you know how hard it is to give up these two items when Wisconsin pretty much lives off of them? Exactly.


So, how did I start my journey? Well... it started all the way back in the fall of 2012 when my good friend, Brandon, introduced me to the Paleo diet. He showed me some scary articles about grains & legumes which convinced me that I needed to make a change. Plus, I have always had stomach problems. To the point where I was scared to try new foods! I was always getting sick to my stomach and the consequences of that were horrid. Anyway, I gave this paleo thing a try and I loved it! It was hard not to eat oatmeal and peanut butter all the time, plus fast food, but my stomach problems started to go away! Around February of 2013, even though I had been eating healthier, I decided to kick my ass into gear.

That is when I discovered Kettlebells! I am not going to lie, they are the most amazing pieces of equipment that I could have ever purchased. From February to March, I lost a total of 23 pounds and over-all 33 inches. Yes, you read that right. 33 inches. Shocking? I know!

This is my place to blog about the rest of my journey and I hope I can motivate/encourage others while I am on the path to my best version of myself.

xoxo

Nena

The Kettlebelle