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Bliss: 28 Day Challenge Favorites!

Welcome to Bliss!  Can you believe it’s the end of August?!  I’m a little baffled with how fast this year has gone!  We’re right around the corner from Fall and the changing of the seasons are always my favorite – whether it’s summer to fall or winter to spring!  Fall & Spring provide the absolutely perfect temperatures here in the South!

Blogger Bliss Button updated

New Here?  Bliss is a monthly link-up where we share our favorite things from the month.  I’m excited to co-host this link-up with one of my best blogging friends, Meg!  I just the made the final decision to head up North for Meg’s wedding next month and I’m so excited about seeing her again (We met at the Disney Wine & Dine race).  Back on track… you can be as creative as you want, your favorite things can range from products to events to people to other bloggers!  Share your links below, check out what other bloggers are favoring this month and maybe you’ll find your own new favorite thing!

I’ve been doing the Health Starts Here Challenge with Whole Foods Market Jackson this past month.  I’ve had a lot of questions about the challenge, both from bloggers and people I see in my daily life.  I wanted to share my favorite things from the challenge because these are things I’m going to continue incorporating into my daily diet.  I’ve seen such a huge improvement and I hope to maintain a diet similar to what I’ve been doing for the past 28 days.  If you have any questions about my 28 day challenge, feel free to e-mail me at nobolognablog@gmail.com.

challenge-snacks

SNACKS

365 Brand Woven Wheats & Peanut Butter

Larabars – Peanut Butter Cookie, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Cherry Pie, Banana Nut were among the ones I tried

Fresh fruit & vegetables

challenge-breakfast

BREAKFAST

Ezekial Bread – english muffins & sliced bread.  I topped mine with almond or peanut butter & sliced fruit with honey

Uncle Sam Cereal is your typical granola cereal and is good at filling me up quick in the morning

365 Hash browns were plainly shredded potatoes.  They were delicious (when I didn’t burn them!)

Engine 2 Rip’s Big Bowl – the fruit in this cereal was really sweet so it kept it from tasting bland

challenge-meals

MEALS/COOKING

Frozen Vegetables – they made my life 100 times easier during this challenge!  Among the staples I keep now: chopped onions & stir fry mixes

Whole Foods 4 for 4 deal.  I’ve mentioned this before, but it was perfect for me and lasted about 3 different meals.

Almond Milk – this was my substitute for creamer and what I used for any type of baking I did.

Rice & Veggies – my go-to meal because it was easy, cheap, and made enough for leftovers!

RECIPES I TRIED

Quick & Easy Veggie Chili

Whole Wheat Cornbread Muffins

Coconut Lime Macaroons

Whole Wheat Blueberry Pancakes

Banana Cocoa Snack Cakes

28 DAY CHALLENGE BLOG POSTS

Orientation

Week 1 Recap

Week 2 Recap

Week 3 Recap

Group Run

Week 4 Recap

Can’t wait to see what your favorites were for the month of August and let me know if you try any of these products!  Link up below!

Health Starts Here: Week 4 Re-cap {Adobo}

Good Morning friends!

I don’t have much time before I need to get ready and head off to work.  This week has already been super busy & tight for me, but I love this little break to come and blog!

Our week 4 session doesn’t cover much material because we had a cooking demonstration from a local Restaurant owner/chef, Chef Luis Bruno who owns Adobo in Jackson, MS.  He was such a sport when Mary Lindsey told him what our stipulations were for the challenge and he accommodated everything to fit within our restrictions!  He was hilarious and fun to spend the evening with!  I can’t wait to try Adobo for myself and if you’re in the Jackson, MS area, you should too! 

A little about the Chef: Chef Luis is Puerto Rican, but has been in the Jackson area for 20 years now.  He grew up in the Bronx and his life was far from easy.  He dealt with a lot of health issues throughout life including fluctuating weight, club feet, diabetes, and multiple family deaths.  He decided to attend culinary school in Florida and gained even more weight there.  He ended up in Mississippi at the Governor’s Mansion, but eventually opened up his own restaurant.  He did the liquid diet through the Baptist Hospital where he lost a lot of weight and began cooking healthier.  His restaurant now uses very little oil to cook and does not fry a single thing on the menu.  If he adds cheese or other flavorings, it’s in moderation and it acts as another substitute (ex: He adds feta cheese to his Roasted Corn Salsa, he didn’t in our demonstration, but he says the cheese was his salt.  It was not the main part of the dish, but it added that little seasoning flare).

On the Menu:

Black Bean Burgers

Asparagus Salad with Roasted Red Peppers & Capers

Spicy Basil Guacamole

Roasted Corn Salsa

 

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roasted-corn-demonstration

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asparagus-mushroom-sample

black-bean-burger-sample

Chef Luis did an excellent job and delivered dishes that were easy to make and flavorful!  He also has a cookbook with all of these recipes in there!  If you’re ever in the Jackson area, be sure to check out Adobo!  Thank you Chef Luis for a wonderful evening with the Health Starts Here Challenge!

My week 4 went really well.  I was strict throughout the week and did a lot of prep before hand with chili & veggie rice.  I also stuck to it on the weekend and my parents decided to eat lunch with me on Saturday at Whole Foods.  That was the first time all month that I’d eaten out with my parents because I opted not to go the other times when they went out to eat.  Again, I cannot express how much I enjoyed this challenge!  I’ll be re-capping our graduation as well as some topics we discussed that I believe will help me maintain a diet similar to the one I was challenged to for the past 28 days!  Can’t wait to share my overall thoughts more in depth!

Have a wonderful Tuesday y’all!  I’ll be back shortly to share about Graduation night!

Easely Amused and Saturday Group Run

Good Morning friends!  Hope you’re enjoying this beautiful Saturday morning.  It’s not typical for bloggers to post on Saturdays I think.. at least that’s what I’ve picked up on over my years of blogging.  I think some do occasionally and others may post every Saturday, but for the most part bloggers “take the day off” or they schedule out all of their posts for the next week.  For some reason, I love a good Saturday morning blog post!  Since I’m awful at re-capping my weekends on Mondays, I’m going to go ahead and re-cap today because I’ve already finished up my weekend plans.  The rest of the weekend will be spent with my eyes on the computer screen watching videos for my Series 6 Exam that is scheduled for Thursday night at 6:30pm!  {Prayers are greatly appreciated!}  Also, I’ll be doing my best to stay around throughout the week, but if I end up missing the entire week (except for Bliss on Wednesday, of course) then just forgive me and expect me back up and running after the test!

EASELY AMUSED

Last night I joined some co-workers for a wine & painting night.  We have a local place called Easely Amused and they offer classes that you can purchase tickets for.  We decided to purchase the wine night tickets and have some girl bonding time!  Someone brought the sangria and the cups and then Easely Amused provided the canvas and paint and supplies.

easely-amused-part-1

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That’s the progression of my painting!  I chose the saying, “Nothing’s better than a glass of wine… except maybe two!”  I had such a fun evening with the girls from work and I really enjoyed laughing and getting to know them on a different level.  We decided that a girls night/get together should happen quarterly.  Can’t wait to see what our next evening brings.  I got home around 10pm, so I’d call that successful night!

coworkers-wine-painting

easely-amused-finished-product

HEALTH STARTS HERE GROUP RUN

I woke up this morning with so much excitement!  Ever since I started the 28 day Health Starts Here Challenge, I’ve been looking forward to this group run with our local running store, Stinky Feet!  I got dressed and headed out the door.  Our group of challengers has gotten smaller and smaller each week, but I’m glad we still had some participation for this group run.   We met at Parham Bridges and did 2 laps which was close to 2 miles.  I made some new friends and kept a pace that I really enjoyed throughout the entire run.  The weather was perfect and Whole Foods brought some snacks for us afterwards – Lara Bars, Coconut Water, Bananas, and water.

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group-run-stretches

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I had such a fun time getting to know the people at Stinky Feet & enjoying the beautiful Mississippi weather we are having today.  I also got my workout in for the day so I can focus on studying for my test now!  Wish me luck, I’m off to study, study, study and hopefully find a few breaks here and there so I don’t overdo it!

Hope y’all have a beautiful Saturday with your families & friends!

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