Sweat It Out {1}

Happy Wednesday, girls! Welcome to the Sweat It Out link up! I hope you'll join along so we can all keep each other motivated and share our health and fitness tips! Sidenote: Sweat It Out goes live on the first Tuesday of each month. I completely over booked myself and had two finals yesterday which comes first. On top of that my computer freaked out on me and I'll be seeing the Geek Squad this weekend. So, I'm late to my own link up! However, it runs through Sunday so, if you're like me, you still have plenty of time to join in!

As I stated in this post, I've struggled with getting back on track for quite some time now. I keep making up excuses for myself and never really get motivated. Last month started off as a really good month for me and then we went out of town, had family in for the weekend and slowly I jumped off my game.

Last Monday I started the 8 Week Bikini Challenge with Tone It Up (yes, I talk about them a lot but truthfully, I love them and their program!) and up until yesterday I did great - I'll blame it on finals and I reallllly tried to say no to tacos but couldn't.

Again, the excuses! I did receive my 8 week progress journal and the rest of the package I bought along with their great meal plan and cannot wait to finally dig into that! My main goal through all of this is to tone up and lose about 15 lbs - which is very reasonable and doable. Yes, the number on the scale shouldn't matter, but the number it is now doesn't really make me happy. I also want to start eating much cleaner, and more of the time. I eat relatively clean, but hello... tacos (as mentioned above!), and I think periodically it's okay to have a treat as long as it's in moderation. Now that it's looking like spring is here to stay and Tate is finished with softball, I'd like to get back to running again and really pushing my morning workouts. With all that said, I'll be checking in my progress once a month and sharing what I've learned in the process. Ladies, we can do this!

Summing it up:
1. lose 15 lbs and tone up
2. eat clean
3. start running
4. push harder during workouts

Also for today, I wanted share with you my current favorite workout and post-workout smoothie! Yes, it's a Tone It Up workout, but read above! And as for the smoothie, it's been on repeat so much in my house, Brylee and I cannot get enough of it!

 Burn It Up - A quick HIIT workout in less than 15 minutes, yes, please!



And this Banaberry smoothie - so good! (Brylee named this one :)!)



-1/2 C unsweetened almond milk
-1/4 C of protein powder*
-1/4 C Greek yogurt
-1/2 frozen banana
-1/2 C frozen blueberries

*I say 1/4 C because each protein powder scoop may be different. Mine equals 1/4 C.

Place all ingredients in blender (in that order) and mix until reaches your desired consistency. Sometimes I like to add a bit more frozen fruit to make it thicker for a smoothie bowl! This smoothie is a great source of protein, vitamin C, fiber, potassium and is a great antioxidant! Enjoy!

Quick tip on my smoothies - we buy a TON of fresh fruit in our house and if we don't happen to eat it before it starts to go bad I cut it up, bag it and freeze it! So easy to make smoothies with regardless of the fruit. A lot of times I have a mix and match of everything in there!

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