health, fitness, beauty, motivation, plus size, make up, hair, hairstylist, oribe, bumble and bumble, MAC Cosmetics, comedy, Paleo, besties, best friends, meatballs, exercise, life change, lifestyles,
WEEEEEEEEEE DIDDDDDDDDD ITTTTTTTTT! We survived vacation and both lost weight! This is a huge milestone for us!!!! And it feels amazing. We couldn’t do it without you.
Who doesn’t love a side by side and a before and after…so we made a montage #picstichobsesh
This was by far our funnest shoot…it’s reallllly hard to think of new things to do and believe me some of them fail….hard!!! #volleyballscene #morejumping!? #overit
But here is a little visual progress report from our first weigh in until now!
APRIL MAY JUNE JULY
It’s crazy right!?!?!?!?
But these seem the craziest to me!!!! Such a transformation!
And finally our favorite fat picture vs our last date at a wedding…
Sooooo, what do two proud little meatballs do to celebrate all this exciting news….EEEEAAAAATTTTT!!!!!
We realized that we haven’t been out to dinner since we started this adventure! We’ve met at Whole Foods for breakfasts and Starbucks for coffee…we’ve shopped for smaller clothes and we’ve even gone to the movies…but never to dinner! Through this process we have really wanted to keep living life and not be as militant as we had been in the past. Being overly restrictive only makes us want to CCCHHHHEEEEAATTTT! Eating out is such a social thing but can be a very slippery slope. We didn’t want this to be a reward/cheat thing…just a night off of cooking and a little datey poo!
So we decided we wanted WIIIINGS!
And of course yummy veggies!!!
We had soooo much fun as per usual but we did indulge in too much bleu cheese…#notpaleo #bubbleguts4real #wyatt
Thanks again for all the support y’all! Can’t wait until next month!!!! We love you.
Knock knock…who’s there?!…TWO MEATBALLS AND A SCALE!!!
As fun as our vacations were…
Annnnd they really were soooo fun…
The time has come to put our numbers up or shut up…
NOOOOOOO butts about it (did you see what I did there?!)(if you didn’t, you’re about to)…
Did we survive June and our family vacay’s!?!
Or did we tip the scales in the wrong direction!?
Enough farting around..clothes off and signs up…
Let’s see who’s up first….
How did she dooooooo!?!?!?!
I lost!!!!!!! Vacation was really challenging , and I am so glad I was able to lose. I feel like I kinda drank my way through June with 3 weddings. So I was slightly terrified going into this weigh in. I am excited to start July and continue this awesome journey! I’m really starting to see changes in my life. I am always looking for fun and different workouts. Who am I????? I am incredibly happy with progress thus far! It’s only going to get harder, and I need to keep a fire under my ass! Thanks for all of the support as always! Love you!!!
Round two…Sara, jazz step your way to the front of this line!!!
Don’t mind if I do….but how did I doooooooo!?!?!?
Holy rice a roni you guys!!!!I’VE LOST OVER 50 pounds and I FEEEEEL INCREDIBLE (I’m yelling this sooooo loud!) I just didn’t know that it was humanely possible to feel this great…but I do! I feel so itty bitty and I look forward to getting even smaller. I have so much more energy and perspective on the world. Sandra…you are such a wonderful person!!! Thank you for everything you do. To everyone who has supported this little adventure that we dreamed up…I just don’t know how to thank y’all! You keep me going, you keep me inspired, you keep me driven and I just want to tell you how grateful I am and I won’t let you or myself down! Feeling like a got dern champ! xoxoxoxo
Brandon…thanks again for putting up with us and deciding to play too!
His stating weight is 310…stay tuned for his progress!!! We love you!!!
And as always our loyal friends…here art thou outtakes #someofthesewerereallybadideas #sillysally’s #holymotherofpearlwhitebelly #whydidithinkthatlookedcute #dammitbrandontelluswhenitsugly #westillfeeladorableasever #ghostface #weneverstoptalking #thisiswhowereallyare #crackingup
Another weigh in ta-done!!!!
We love you soooo much…please share this post on facebook….Ellen here we come!!!
PS Roseanne if you are reading this xoxo times a mil!
Ooooooooo emmmmmmmmm geeeeeeee…I missed you guys sooooo much!!!! Thank you to Jenny for holding down the blog and letting me decompress at the beach! So much happened while I was in paradise with the fam! First off, Jenny mentioned the wedding that we both attended with my sister last week but I had a few more pics and stories to share!!! This was one of those happy overlap occasions! Try to keep up…this is a complicated web I’m going to weave…Jenny is the stylist to the bride Megan and mother of the bride, Susan. My sister Kelly works for Barry the father of the bride (and my mom’s former boss) and with the mother of the groom Debbie whose son the groom Michael, also works which my Aunt (mom’s sister) Deb is also a part owner and she brought her husband (my dad’s brother) Uncle Steve. #notincest Confused yet!? And we also ran into my childhood bff Amanda’s mom and step dad, Pam and John. Because of the family connections, I babysat the bride and her brother Brian (a groomsman) once when I was a kid and we watched Mulan 1,000 times. Brian’s girlfriend Kali is also Jenny’s client and did a lovely speech at the wedding. Also the grooms brother Dustin (another groomsman) is married to one of our pals Kirsti….so this wedding was literally FILLED with familiar and friendly faces!!!
The ceremony was gorgeous and the Megan was STUNNING!!!
The event was at Fearrington Village and after the I do’s there were apps and cocktails….AND A MAGICIAN!!!
I don’t know how he did what he did but we were obsessed…especially Kelly! #magiciansarecoolnotlame
The venue was gorgeous and no detail was missed…
The food was incredible and there were soooo many paleo friendly options! This was perhaps the first wedding I attended since I was a kid where I didn’t drink…but I was triple fisting water bc it was sooooo hot that my uncle sweat ombre’d his shirt!
So to Megan and Michael…thank you sooo much for having us! It was such a beautiful wedding! And thanks for having me as your date Kel! #everythingisbettertogether #fisters
On to the Weally big Milestones:
We hit 400 likes on facebook…
Thennnnn…We hit 20,000 views on the blog…
Aaaaaaaand is if those two things weren’t enough… we got an awesome shout out on Mix 101.5 as well as a facebook blast from the radio personality who promoted us! Thanks Patrick!!! Click play below to hear it!!!
I was dead asleep Thursday morning in my comfy, cozy bed at the beach with my super best buddy nephew nugget Wyatt next to me when…
when my phone rang and it was my cousin Tim!!! He said The Meatballs just got a huge shout out on Mix 101.5…did you know that they were going to do that?!? In my fog of grizzly bear hibernation sleep my response was WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!? This guy Patrick who works for Mix was inundated by our mutual friends reposting the blog and finally read it and LOVED it…so much so that he said quite possibly the nicest things we could have dreamed of someeone saying about the blog! So are we on cloud 11 yet!?!? Big thank you to everyone who reads and reposts our blog and a huge thank you to my cousin Tim for alerting us of this huge, unexpected media plug and my cousin Kristina for sending us a link to hear it for ourselves! We appreciate you guys sooo much!
Now on to the countdown to the WEIGH IN and jumpin in WAVES!!!!
Vacay with the Beards was a blasssssst!!!! What idiot schedules their vacation RIGHT before they have to get into bra and panties and WEIGH IN!?!?! This girl right here. But you know what…this is a lifestyle change and I have to keep living life while losing weight. Sooooo, I came to the beach prepared to relax, recharge, have fun, tan war it up aaaaand stay on track! I brought a blender, food processor (I forgot to pack the blade #useless) and a cooler full of smoothie materials and super paleo friendly food! I packed my trunk with weight, kettle bells, resistance bands and yoga mats for exercise! If you fail to plan, you plan to fail…am I right ladies?!
I even brought my scale!!! Bc when you know better you do better…am I right Oprah!?
While at the beach with my favorite people on earth…my awesome family…we typically ate breakfast and lunch in and then dinner out! There was lots of bacon and eggs happening, some smoothies and for lunch, lettuce boats with tuna or lunch meat. Snacks usually consisted of fruit and you guyyyys are not even going to believe this but PISTACHIOS!!!! #ineedhelp #itsarealproblem and for drinks…LOTS of water, sparkling water and Kambucha!
The top two were homemade meals of turkey meatballs, tuna boats and squash and onion sautee and blt sweet potato sliders and fried eggs. The bottom was the best of the worst choices at a typical fried seafood heaven at the beach and the hushpuppies that stared me down during dinner. Then the kids were tempting me like crazy…the beach=ice cream…
…But I walked away victorious (sang like Biggie’s Notorious). On one of our last nights together Aunt Debbie made Shrimp Alfredo with caeser salad and garlic bread #paleonightmare #yikesabeez…but she saved me some uncooked shrimp. I sauteed them with coconut oil and old bay seasoning! I also boiled some cauliflower and blended that with olive oil and salt and pepper and made my own little paleo shrimp and “grits” on the fly. I got to really enjoy dinner with my family without straying from my new lifestyle or feeling deprived…bc it was fuggging delishballs!!!
My family as you know is suuuuper supportive and there was always someone around to exercise with and keep myself on track! They also were soooo great about celebrating all of our good news mentioned above!
On our first morning at the beach mom, dad, Kelly and the kids and myself went down to the beach and did sprints, squats and push ups. Then mom, Aunt Carole and Wyatt let me be their water aerobics instructor which was the living funnest! I’m so lucky to have all this support. My dad and I even had a midnight swim one night after a really big meal!
This was everyone being active together…Uncle Kelly wins big time!
The pool and beach proved to be great exercise grounds. We played volleyball and frisbee. We had handstand contests, did gymnastics, swam, ballet, mountain climbers, more aerobics…the list goes on! Chase and I had a game where he surfed on the boogie board…my arms are still burning!!!
The morning that I would have worked out with Sandra and Jenny…I set my alarm and my dad and i did circuits around the pool. It was hot and one hell of a workout! We did circuits and then jogged around the pool in between each stations. My dad is the coolest! He really kept me focused and is always such a fun person to work out with. Love you soooo much!
And our finisher was running up stairs….wooooof!
I thought I was going to die! These stairs provided lots of opportunities to exercise or at least feel better about the meal we ate out seeing as how we were on the 4th floor! Thank you mom, dad, Kelly, Uncle Kelly, Aunt Carole, Aunt Deb, Uncle Steve, Wyatt and Chase for helping me get healthy and showering me with support. I love you guys sooo much I want to shout it from the roof top! As far as food and exercise go the beach was a huge success. I ate more than I should but nothing that I shouldn’t have…baby steps?! I also stayed strong with the no drinking thing! #success #bigchanges #ilovemyfamily
So now that I am home, writing this I am about to hop into the shower and pick out a cute pair of undies bc I’m headed to Jenny’s later for our 4TH WEIGH IN!?!?!?! Can you believe it? Hopefully her killer workout from last week and my dedication at the beach pay off. It will be interesting to see how we do when we both had vacation this month!!! More to come about my super fun vacay and see you tomorrow morning bright and early for the weigh in!!!! Here is a little sneaky peeky boo… xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxox
So the pickins are gettin slim. Haha funny. I’m running out of fat back friday pics!!!! I am sure I can find some pretty awkward fat childhood pics. But I aim to please and I found a couple of goodies.
We are looking kind of rough. And I was so happy, but I can’t go back to that place.
Brandon, me and Jordan( Brandon s bff!)
So I met with The Legend the Myth……. Sandra today, alone, without my meatball! And I got through it. She is the kindest, most genuine hard ass ever. Literally and figuratively! Go see her! I am sure you will love her too!
Pre game pics!
She had me warm up on the treadmill for a couple of mins. The last time I was on a treadmill I fell and it flung me back and tore the shit out of my leg. It was awful and so hilarious!!! Falling is so funny to me. Yes I am laughing at you not with you! Any way this workout was hard, but I felt so amazing the rest of the day. We started with 30 crunches.
Then high knees, timed.
Lower abdominal thing, theses sucked!
Then a min blank
Timed weighted jumping jacks
Side blank with15 pulses
Then 10 push ups.
Then we did some ropes. 20 seconds pushing it, and 10 second breaks.
Squat with little fast waves
Then medium waves, with pulsing squats
Then high wave and slam the rope down.
Then low squat snake with the right arm, then with the left then together.
Then ten over then head.
After that was done it was back to the cardio/core. Then back to the ropes. And the core again. And ropes again.
Fantastic work out! Thanks Sandra!!!
Next time we talk Sara and I will be weighing in, see you there. Love you guys. Thank you for all the support!!!!!
Ok so yesterday was a complete bust. Sorry guys I fudged up! So here we go!
London came home from grandmas! She was there for a couple of days and missed her so much. I just wanted to play when she got home.
Before I knew it, it was time for dinner. So I whipped up some zucchini pasta and turkey meatballs. Then bath and bed time. And I still needed to go grocery shopping. So I ran to the store( love Harris tetter) and got some stuff.
Bacon has become my fav!!! never a huge fan before, weird!
Love tomatoes and avocados. A total staple in my diet!
I WANT THIS! SURELY THIS IS PURE DIARRHEA. NO THANK YOU
My mom always said have an onion and ginger ale in your house, they make everything better. So I do, I have alot of strange rituals.
And theses are great for work!
I told Brandon probably six time I was going to skip the gym. The day was just too slammed to add anything else and he kept saying just go you will feel better when you are done. Guess what?? He was right. He was definitely my better half that moment! Support is so important to have. So I pre gamed before they gym.
Oh yeah and my gym braid…check!
Here are just a couple off songs I heard during my workout on spotify.
Brandon gave me some fantastic ear buds. They are very comfy and the quality of sound is outstanding.
I always look so disgusting after the gym and I love it!!
Weigh in weigh in is almost here!!!! Thank you for all the support! Working oit with sandra tommorow on the blog
Hellllo! It’s Jenny and we are only days away from our weigh in Ahhhhhh! So I’m going as hard as I can at the gym this week. So let me take a workout selfie!
I’m feeling pumped about maximizing this week! June has been full of vacation and I haven’t been as discipline about my food. So I’m a little scared to see what the scale says on Sunday. While I was at the gym I ran into a meatball fan!! This was so exciting! Her name is Katie and she was full of excitement and positive reinforcement, which was just what I needed. Thanks Katie!!! Yup we took an Usie (haha got that from sandra).
So after my workout I got my favorite green smoothie form Tropical smoothie. The island green!!!! Yummmmmmmmm!
Five minutes after I bought it. This happened!
My car has been thrown up on to many times! I am such a clutz! Ekkkkk I almost lost my shit, but deciding to total blow it off was amazing. Then my family got together to celebrate my brothers birthday. Omg I love him!
He has also become really passionate about fitness and nutrition. In our former life my brother and I could go to town on some junk food. It was bad. So I am so glad we are on this journey together. So what did we get him for his birthday you ask??
An amazing blender that practical is a juicer. And a Harris Tetter gift hard so he can load up on all the fruits and veggies he wants. Genius! So my mom prepared the best birthday meal. My mom is amazing at pleasing everyone. We have some non seafood eaters, some paleo eaters(wink wink) and a two year old, enough said. So we had pulled pork, veggies and potatoes, tomato salad, and shrimp boats.
I need to take a moment and brag on my sister(kitty) a moment. She is so efffing supportive. She has been paleo since april and has lost 19 pounds! Having support around me is huge party of my success. I am so grateful. Thanks guys! Love you so much. See you soon as we near the weigh in!!!!!! Xoxo
Sara is gone!!! 😦 She is at the beach with her family. I know they will be having the best time. Love that crazy meatball!!! Soooo Its the Jenny show this week!!! And we are nearing the end of the month and it is weigh in time again wtf ?!?!?! Ahhhhhhh Before Sara left, she, her sister (kelly) and I went to a wedding of our buddy/client/family friend Megan Simmons! The ceremony was absolutely beautiful. Sara and I saw there was a magician at the cocktail hour, so of course we flagged him down and couldn’t have been a better audience. We were amazed!!!! So Fuunnnn!!!!
My client and friend Kali was also there!
I adore you and all of your support!! I am such a lucky girl with best clients in the world!
So immediately following the wedding ( another cake less wedding!!!) I headed to High Point NC to be with my mother in law (Alisa), her new husband Bennett!!!! Brandon and London. Bennett’s home is on alot of land with lots of wild life. London’s dream!!! I showed up right at dinner time. They were having the most amazing southern comfy food. After the long day I had had I was tempted. But was completely satisfied with my huge steak #firstworldproblems! Bennett is an awesome guy who fits right in with this group. He even sent me home with fresh zucchini, squash and peppers from his garden!!
Thanks buddy!!! We had the most fun hanging out, running all over his property! Haha activity points! Baby kitten were even born a couple of weeks before!
Love hanging out with the fam!
London is staying with grandma for a couple of days. So I am going to try and get a couple of good workouts in this week. Gotta lose lbs!!!!!! See ya tomorrow!!!!!
Hiiiiii you guyyyyys!!!! So as you know I’m OSBESSED with these photo collages…so I made a before to now. For those of you who are new to the blog first off, thanks for driving by… this is a little visual catch up session. The first shot is almost unrecognizable now…December ’13 at our work tacky Christmas sweater party. At the time we thought we were so adorable…and we were but just soooo unhealthy! We were in such a different place…terrible food choices were being made on the reg and soooo much partying. Then in March we decided to make a huge life change and get healthy. We started following a paleo lifestyle, cooled it on the drinking, and started this super fun blog. The second picture is our first weigh in…we didn’t tell anyone that we were stripping down into our skivvies and putting our weights out there into the world. I think we both agree this was the best, most freeing decision that we ever made!!!! That was on April 1, 2014. The next thing that happened really changed our lives. A wonderful woman named Sandra Axman reached out to us and offered to personally train us. http://www.innovativefitnesstraining.com This was literally a game changer. We feel so strong and powerful and found out how important it is to change your eating AND work out! This third photo was taken in May…you should call Sandra TODAY! And finally all of these decisions have brought us to the last photo….a photo of two happy, healthier super bffffff’s(this is quite possibly the besssst picture we’ve ever taken!) ready to take on the world and continue down the path to healthy living…and one day reach our goals! Thanks to each and every one of you who read this blog and reach out and help us stay committed and keep going on the tumultuous journey. We couldn’t do it without you.
Now….back to Sandra of Innovative Fitness Training…Sandra, we love you sooooo much! You are such an amazing human and we both sooo look forward to getting our asses handed to us by you errrrry week. You are so fugggggin likeable, encouraging and knowledgeable and smokin’ hot and unafraid to push us and expect more from us than we expect of ourselves. We are both really starting to see muscles!!!!
I meaaaaaaaaaan look at her…she is the bees muscular knees. Ok so enough gushing…sign up with her today. Not only does she offer personal training, she also offers group sessions. Based on my before mentioned co-dependency issues and the whole idea of TWO meatballs…you know that we think group is the way to go!
Today we did TOBATA”S which I always think are called chiabata’s like the bread and I still am not convince that I said or spelled anything right…oh well! But basically you exhaust a muscle group for 20 seconds then you have a 10 second break and then do that pattern for 8 rounds. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh nuts…jk….not really! First we did jazzy side steps with 5 lb weights…
After round four these became so hard and we were concentrating so hard that Sandra had to remind us to smile!
Happiness is a choice am I right ladies?!
Next we did lunges on the TRX…first round right leg second round left…
Then we did 3 TRX arm circuits…first a row, then a W, then an I…
At this point I lost track of what was what…there were 2 other exercises where you did a Superman thing and your arms burned like a mother as evidenced in my face in the second pic…in the same pic, look at Jenny’s form…she is so amazing!
Then there was 4 dumbell bicep drills with 10lb weight…there was like a hammer curl, one with elbows glued to sides, one up to the chest and one behind the back…
It looks like I didn’t participate in ANY OF THESE but I swear I did!!! hahahahah
Theeeeeeeennnnnnn we did bicycle crunches, push ups and chest flies as our next exhausting circuit…
And then we did Leg TRX stuff…
And then we did TRX sit ups….for like EVER!
Shew….now it must be over right!?!?!?! WRRRROOOOONNNNNGGGG! Sandra hadn’t read the yesterdays post yet so it was a total coincidence that we closed our workout with BALLET! We have literally never done this and last night at the So You Think You Can Dance party we did madddddd ballet…talk about self fufilling prophecies. Remember this…
This was hard as shit…your muscles are already done and this was a hell of a finisher….however I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t totally the funnest thing we did!!!
Soooooo hard but soooooo fun and we feel amazing every single time that we leave! I love trying new things and there is never a dull moment with Sandra.
We love you guys! Have a great weekend. We are one day closer to weigh in time!!! Ahhhhhhhhh….xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxox, your loving meatballs
Sooooooo…we have another big weigh in coming up…it’s 12 days until we hit the scales and Jenny and I both are STUCCCCKKK! We both understand that this is part of the progress but some times you just need to talk it out…
And who better to talk it through with than your meatball!? Turns out we were both worried about the SAME thing (shocker)…what if we don’t lose any weight before the 1st!?
We would probably be supes dupes sad…
Then really angry that all of our hard work wasn’t paying off…
So we talked it through and realized that not losing any weight would make for an extremely relatable post…everyone hits a wall on their path to wellness…
We just have to stay positive and know that we have each other!!! We know that you’ve heard this from us before but we just have to keep reminding ourselves that there are hiccups on this little baby. So what should we do to get ourselves re-motivated and celebrate the great progress that we have already made?!?!
Date night with out super best buddies…Kelly and Krista!!!
And what shall we do!? Well since Jenny and I have the most supportive group of people surrounding us we are going to my sister’s house for a paleo app night and watching the greatest show of all time….So You Think You Can Dance or SYTYCD as it goes with the Beard girls. This are our ballet poses…we used them to get pumped up for the night ahead!
Who is this adorable!?! Let’s see what Kelly has on the menu tonight!?!
Grilled Squash and Zuchinni…toss in olive oil, salt and pepper and grill for 20 minutes
Roasted okra (recipe on previous blog)
Meatballs (ohhhhh the irony) jalapeno and mango from CostCo
Sweet Potato Chips and Guacamole (recipe on previous blog)
Stuffed Jalapenos…She found this one on pinterest…its the one you stuff with pulsed cauliflower and wrap in bacon
Sounds amazing…time to cook!
Food Safety tip (of her finger) (see what I did there) from Kelly on how to use a Mandolin and survive to tell the tale…
Safety first dammmit!
While the food was cooking what better way to prepare yourself for the greatest dance competition show of all time than DANCING!!!! This totally counts as cardio right Sandra!?! Here is our dance genre retrospective…you’re welcome!
May I have this dance?!
Middle school slow dance…
Ballet…
Twerking…(so sweet of them to play our reindeer games)
Old School…
Hip Hop…
Ballroom…
Contemporary…
The Jive or Disco…I’m not sure…
Heyyyy…how did that get in there…we are clearly losing focus and getting sweaty!!! Time for sup sup…
What a great night!!! Jenny and I are always looking for creative ways to be social without drinking and eating terribly! This night included all paleo food, tons of cardio and my very favorite people on earth! Who could ask for anything more. Thanks Kelly and Krista…we love you!!! Now…on to the show!