Life is Short Make it Count. #19

Hiking Andrews Bald in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Last Thursday I went tubing with Scott's sister, her daughter, and son. It was an inexpensive way to have a little fun before they went back to school! During the day Saturday, we took it easy so that I could get some work done and also finish up some things around the house. Saturday night we went to the pool to hang out with some of our neighbors. We had plans to go to bed early but ended up staying at our neighbors much later than expected. We almost didn't even get up to go hiking Sunday but I am so glad we did!

Sunday was a big day. We woke up around 6 AM and drove three hours to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The plan was to do Charlies Bunion and The Jumpoff. Then we were going to stop at Mellow Mushroom on the way home. The weather was so nice we decided to stay and hike more! We did Charlies Bunion and The Jumpoff, went to eat pizza (and a salad!) in Gatlinburg, and then wrapped up the day with Andrews Bald. It felt more like October than July and we definitely made the right decision to stay late! We ended up hiking over 12.5 miles with an elevation gain of over 3,000 feet.

Hiking Charlies Bunion in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

We always start off with a Greek salad (no olives!) at Mellow Mushroom. The dressing is amazing and we even dip our pizza in it!

On the way out of the park, after hiking Andrews Bald, we both ate our last piece of pizza, with a view! And, yes, the box does say something about "for your health's sake"... :-)

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Workouts:

Last week I continued with the She Sweats 12-Week Run Builder program. This week I actually joined a boot camp with one of my neighbors. They are having a six-week special which puts me right up until our trip so I figured I would give that a try! It's been good so far because we do things that I normally wouldn't do on my own. I don't think that this is something that I would do on a regular basis but it's good for a short period of time and will hopefully help with my speed and agility (for our hiking trip!). We are also walking/running the neighborhood almost every day. I'm trying to keep the same training schedule as the Run Builder but just substituting boot camp for some of the workouts.

Grocery Shopping/Food Prep

Visit this link for our shopping lists and this link for ways to save money grocery shopping.

Since we were at the park so late we didn't have time to prep much food but I did cook some bison meat and quinoa as soon as we got home Sunday night (around 9 PM). It took me about 10 minutes and at least gave us something for lunch on Monday! On Wednesday night Scott grilled some more food when he got home from work. We did the regular lean mean bison burgers and orange chicken.

Until next week, have a good one! Let us know if you ever have any questions or comments! I've loved hearing from you about the updates! Click here to read all of our updates.

Life is Short Make it Count. #18

Last Saturday we went tubing with some of our new neighbors. It has been a long time since I've been tubing on a river and it was a blast! It wasn't rafting where you actually have to work and pay attention, this is more like floating. We went on a two-hour trip (you choose between two and four hours) and as soon as we unloaded our tubes from the bus it started thundering. It didn't look like it was going to storm where we were though so we went ahead with the trip. You aren't out there on your own, there's a lot of others rafting too. It thundered a few more times and then started raining. I would say for about 45 minutes of the trip it was either thundering or raining. It was pretty funny though and made the trip even more interesting. The sun started shining again as soon as we were done rafting (of course!).

Last summer we did go white water rafting (for the first time) with my dad (who is in his 60s!), my sister, and her friend. You actually have to pay attention and work when white water rafting and it can be pretty scary! We hit a HUGE rock going really fast, we all ended up on the floor of the float but it was awesome! Just for fun, below is a picture of our real white water rafting last summer. We went to the Upper Ocoee and used Sunburst Adventures in Benton, TN. They usually have Groupons for rafting! :)

My sister (L) and her friend are in the front row, me and my dad are in the second row, and Scott and the guide are in the back.

On Sunday we just took an easy day, my parents stopped by, we did food prep, and I worked. We are excited to finally be getting back into a routine after a crazy year.

Be sure to follow us on the following social media accounts (and snapchat under hesheeatclean) and also sign up for our newsletter so you never miss anything!

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Workouts:

As I mentioned on Instagram and Facebook, we started the She Sweats 12-Week Run Builder this week (yes, men can do the "She Sweats" workouts!). We started on week 5 since our hiking trip is in 7 weeks. We wanted to do the Run Builder this time since it still emphasizes weight training but also ups our cardio, which we need that before our trip! I was doing the She Sweats Extreme 4-Week Shred but wanted something with more weight training since I don't weight train that much at all during the month of September...I need to get it in now! For some reason, if it's written down and laid out for me, I'll do it! So far, so good!

She Sweats 12-Week Run Builder

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Grocery Shopping/Food Prep:

Visit this link for our shopping lists and this link for ways to save money grocery shopping.

It was another week of grilling! It actually started pouring while Scott was grilling, good thing we have a covered patio in this house! :)

• lean mean cheeseburgers (with bison)
• zesty grilled chicken
• brussels sprouts (new recipe!)
• green juice
• grilled Aidells chicken & apple sausage from Costco

DISCLAIMER: NOW Foods sends us a free box of products each month to try out. I figured these weekly (or sometimes monthly...) updates would be the best place for us to share some of our favorites! All opinions are my own.

One of my favorite things in this months box from NOW Foods is the Organic Yerba Mate tea. It's a nice, natural, and healthy (and yummy!) boost of energy. I love drinking teas because it helps me get more water in without just being plain 'ol water! If you've never tried Yerba Mate before, you are missing out!

You can purchase many of the NOW Foods products here on Amazon or browse their products here. There's a lot to look at...from brownie mix to trail mix!

Until next week, have a good one! Let us know if you ever have any questions or comments! I've loved hearing from you about the updates! Click here to read all of our updates.

Life is Short Make it Count. #17

Well, these are quickly turning into monthly updates but I'm okay with that because I'm all about not stressing myself out over the small things. :)

I'll try to pick up here I left off in this one...For the July 4th holiday, we just stayed at home. We were going to go to the mountains/lake but the weather wasn't so great so we stayed put. On Saturday Scott's mom, sister, brother in law, niece, and nephew came over for a big fireworks show in our neighborhood. The rain delayed the show a little bit but we still had a great time! Some of Scott's co-workers also came over so we had a full house. Sunday through Tuesday we just got some stuff done around the house and went to the pool for a few hours. We met a lot of people on our street so I'm glad we decided to stay home.

They had food trucks for the fireworks show and we actually ended up eating twice because we were there so long and we were still hungry! I ordered the chicken fajita tacos and Scott ordered BBQ. A few hours later we split an order of BBQ nachos (not pictured but delicious!). We also tried out this canned wine we found at Trader Joes a few weeks ago and it was actaully really good!

We had friends over on Sunday and grilled out. We made the usual: lean mean cheeseburgers (with bison), zesty grilled chicken, sweet-sweet potato cubes, and brussels sprouts (recipe coming soon!).

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We have only been hiking once since our last update (on June 30). It's just toooooo hot down here now. We did Blood Mountain again. We had actually planned to go to the Smokies but we didn't wake up in time. We default to Blood Mountain because it's only an hour from our house and it's the highest peak on the Georgia section of the Appalachian Trail. Fun fact: my dad, who is in his 60s and has had triple bypass heart surgery, hiked over 1,200 miles of the Appalachian Trail!

Hiking Blood Mountain on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia

About a week ago the camera on my phone just quit working. I didn't drop it, get water in it or anything but every time I tried to take a picture it was very blurry and shaky. It worked on selfie mode but I actually hate selfies so I never use that anyway! I was finally able to get it fixed last week. I lost everything on my phone (most of the pictures I was able to save). I'm not the kind of person who freaks out about my phone so it honestly didn't bother me that much. Many of the pictures I was able to save were from our hiking trip last fall and I JUST posted the recap of the first part of our trip...I am just a little late! Here is the link to read more about our hiking adventures in Kootenay and Banff National Parks. I also messed up our He and She Eat Clean email somehow so if you've emailed us and you are waiting on a response, I'm sorry! I combined H&S email with my personal email and it's just a HUGE mess right now!

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Last weekend we were in Florida for a family reunion for Scott's family. We arrived late Thursday night because we left after Scott got off work and we were only there through Sunday. We had an awesome weekend between the resort, beach, pools, the guys playing golf, and just hanging out with family. Full disclosure that Marriott Sawgrass put Scott and me up for free. This was the same resort that we went to last year with his family.

I will do a full trip recap/review soon but below is a picture that I posted a few days ago on Instagram and Facebook, with the same caption I used.

At first I didn't want to post this but it's the only picture we took together. We just got back (at 4 am this morning to be exact) from a very short 2-day trip to the beach for a family reunion. - We didn't do any "extra" workouts just because we were going to the beach. - We didn't live in a box for 4 weeks before and only eat fish & veggies - We didn't spend every moment before going worrying about getting a "beach body"

Have we been leaner? Yes. Could we have "leaned out" for this trip if we wanted? Yes. Could we have "forgotten" our swimsuits so we could avoid the beach altogether? Yes.

But what exactly does that add to our lives? A few pics with abs popping on the beach?! It's not worth it to us. We have a healthy balance of working out & eating a healthy diet. We also skip workouts and eat pizza & ice cream occasionally.

I love the beach because there are so many different body types there. You might be self-conscious but honestly, no one is really paying attention & if they do have a problem with you, it's really a problem they have internally. Don't be the person who wears pants & long sleeves for fear of their body (I know there are some medical reasons one might have to do this). Definitely don't be the one who skips trips completely because you aren't comfortable with your body.

Your life is RIGHT NOW - not next month, year, or next "swimsuit season" when you have the "perfect body". From experience I can say that it doesn't matter how little the number is on your clothing or how small the number is on the scale, you will STILL pick yourself apart. Be free & start living today. 

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Be sure to follow us on the following social media accounts (and snapchat under hesheeatclean) and also sign up for our newsletter so you never miss anything!

Until next week, have a good one! Let us know if you ever have any questions or comments! I've loved hearing from you about the updates! Click here to read all of our updates.