{Clean} Sloppy Joe's

I'm always on the search for delicious recipes.  My hubby has ambitious aspirations regarding BBQ, and loves to cook, so he's a hard one to impress.  Especially if the word "healthy" is involved.  I can't blame him; a lot of people feel this way.  They think of bland salads, dry meat, very little flavor.  I'm hear to tell you, {healthy} food doesn't have to taste that way! I'm all about delicious, savory, taste bud exploding flavor in my food.  As I find recipes, I'm tailoring them to meet our families taste and then delivering them to you!

1.25 lb ground turkey

       opt: ~1/4 tsp freshly grated black pepper, 1/2 tsp garlic & onion powder when cooking meat

15 oz can {no salt added} tomato sauce - Hunt's makes a great one! 

1/2 c ketchup {preferably as clean as you can find}

1/2 tbs mustard {Dijon is delicious!} 

1 tbs EVOO

1 tbs {ish} pure honey 

1 tbs Worcestershire sauce 

1 tbs red wine vinegar

1 tbs garlic powder 

1 1/2 tbs onion powder

green bell pepper - {1 only use 1/2}

red bell pepper - {I only use 1/2}

Pour EVOO into a skillet, add meat, and brown over medium-high heat.  I also like to throw in a sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder to my meat when I brown it for added flavor. {note: the measurements above are an estimate, I just grind the pepper/shake the powder over the meat and eyeball it.  it doesn't take a lot!} 

Drain the meat, then pour it back into the pan.  Add the rest of the ingredients in, and stir until it's all mixed up really well.  Allow to simmer for 15-20 min to allow the flavors to really soak through.  

Obviously, if you're wanting to eat as clean as possible you'll want to hunt up as clean of a hamburger bun as possible.  Trader Joe's, Sprouts, and Central Market are fabulous places to find clean breads.  

Enjoy!

adapted from: the gracious pantry.  

{Clean} Spaghetti Sauce

I went to make dinner tonight, and realized we badly need to go shopping and restock.  It was kind of ridiculous.

I scrambled and immediately starting searching Pinterest for a recipe I could use that didn't require hours in a crock pot! I was able to find one pretty quick {luckily}, had all the ingredients, and adapted it to fit our particular tastes.  So, without further adieu, my first {featured} recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 jar {28 oz} diced tomatoes 
• 1 jar {8 oz} tomato paste 
• 1/2 can {15 oz} pumpkin 
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp oregano 
• 1 tsp basil 
• 1 tsp sea salt {or kosher, that tasted great!} 
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 3/4 - 1 tsp crushed red peppers {I'm actually guesstimating on this measurement bc I added to taste!}
• 1/2 - 3/4 tsp Italian seasoning {also guesstimating... I tend to add until I like the flavor, haha!}

Puree diced tomatoes and pour into sauce pan.  {I like to do this, because I hate chunky tomatoes in my sauce.  You are welcome to skip this step!} Mix remaining ingredients into sauce pan, and let sit on medium high until it starts to bubble. Stir, and lower to simmer.  Let sit for an additional 10-15 minutes.  

Optional: you can brown ground turkey beforehand and mix with your sauce.  We added Earth's Best Mini Meatballs to ours {since we had no meat}, and it was delish! 

Serve over pasta {we used whole wheat linguine}.  Enjoy! 

Adapted from The Naked Kitchen.  

let's make some goals!

i don't know about y'all, but i'm not really a resolution maker.  i like to make goals, i feel like they stick around longer.  plus, they seem more long term than resolutions.  :)

i came into beachbody because i felt like it was the absolute best fit for rme: a way to help others improve their lives, through their health, diet, fitness, and nutrition which is something that i'm truly passionate about.  it also happened to fit one of my biggest goals of this year: step out of my comfort zone and make a difference.  

another goal that more or less fell into my lap was to eat clean: our daughter was diagnosed with a milk/soy protein intolerance at 6 weeks old.  if you've never had to deal with this, good for you! it wasn't so much the huge lifestyle change that we've had to make with our eating habits, it was watching our daughter suffer and we had no idea why.  the lifestyle change has actually proven to be one of the best thing i've ever done.  not only do i feel better, i've lost the baby weight faster {and so has my hubby, haha!}, but i'm not putting ridiculous amounts of processed food in my body.  have you ever taken the time to read the labels of the food you're ingesting? i had occasionally, but i had no idea what most of it meant.  i'm still educating myself but y'all, it's scary stuff.

if you haven't sat down and made a list of goals for yourself, you should.  you can always add to it throughout the year as well.  in fact, take a moment to do that right now and then leave a comment at the end of this post.  i can't wait to read what you want to accomplish in 2014 and beyond!

i'll share mine:
- step out of my comfort zone and make a difference
- workout regularly
- eat clean {with the occasional indulgence of course, we love our southern food here}
- set a healthy example for our kids
- reach out and meet new people {this is a super tough one for me!}
- find a church home
- participate in whole family physical activities {like the 5k i already signed us up for!}
- find a job i can be passionate about while also relieving some of the financial stress on my husband and continuing to stay at home with our children

i'm going to keep adding to this list as i think of things, but this is where i sit today!

what are yours??

welcome to southern charm fitness!

welcome y'all!

sharing my love of fitness has been something i've been chewing on for awhile now.  apparently right now was the time God saw fit to provide an amazing opportunity for me to do so.  :)  

southern charm fitness isn't just my outlet to be an online coach for beachbody, it's a way for me to encourage, teach, motivate, and inspire you to be the absolute {best} version of you.  

we are still new, so bear with me as we get off the ground, but keep your eyes peeled for notes of encouragement, recipes, workouts, tips, devotionals, inspiration, and downright good fun.  

southern charm fitness is a place for you to learn how to love yourself and lead a healthy lifestyle with a little bit of southern charm...  

a little about me.

i'm all about keepin' it real.  i'm a 31 year old stay at home mom to two precious kiddos and a devoted wife to a hardworking husband.  i love the outdoors, country music, the sounds of nature, laughing so hard it makes you cry, and making memories with those that mean the most to you.  i hoard fitness magazines and ambitiously try out new workout routines and dvds, because i absolutely love them.  i love firepits in the winter at our lease on the river, i love lightning bugs dotting the evenings in the summer, i love a great concert or a loud playlist vibrating the water at the lake or the river...  i love living life.

i, like millions of other women out there, have suffered from self-esteem and insecurity issues.  not only are we bombarded daily with what society thinks we should look like, we have our own opinions.  and people like to share those opinions.  it doesn't matter your weight, somebody is always commenting on how skinny you are or how much weight you should lose.  shouldn't it be more about how healthy you are rather than a magic number on the scale? a clothing size you've predetermined you need to be able to fit into?

starting in about eighth grade, i decided i needed to lose weight.  i have never, by anyone's standards, been what can be considered "overweight".  but i didn't fit in with the girls, boys didn't seem to be attracted to me, and how i looked was the one thing in my mind i could control.  i'd eat one banana and do a hardcore workout video and then run on the treadmill or go workout in the pool for at least another hour.  i think at one point i'm being gracious to say i was taking in 500-900 calories a day.

this trend continued off and on through high school, where i still continued to feel like i didn't fit in, where i never found my place with "the cool kids".  {you know the ones.}  i finally gained a little footing in my confidence in my senior year after recovering from the devastating experience of not making cheerleader for i think the third time, and realizing that i had to be ok with me or my senior year was going to be miserable.  i danced, i met an incredible guy that allowed me to blossom, and i loved life.

unfortunately, things moved on and i met a guy two days into my college experience that completely wrecked the person i'd become.  it was gradual, so i didn't even notice what was happening.  bad habits returned full force and i began to restrict calories, work out too hard, and this time, i was armed with the assistance of a little diet pill called ephedra.

 i'm not proud of my choices.  i'm not proud of all the pills i popped and how hard i worked to be the picture of someone else's perfection.  but i was lucky enough to break away from it.  to get the chance to start over and truly live healthy.  i would be lying if i said making the right food choices was easy - i struggle a lot less than i used to, and my dear husband has been an amazing cheerleader in helping me realize that food is not necessarily my enemy.  it's meant to be enjoyed.  but you have to practice control, which isn't always an easy thing to do.    

now i'm a mom.  i've been through two pregnancies that have changed my body forever.  my weight has fluctuated to numbers that a younger version of me would have sobbed over.  but as i sit here typing this, with the newest addition to our family snoring softly on my chest, i can't imagine never having had those experiences.  i've learned to see my body as beautiful, regardless of that number on the scale or what size clothing i fit into now.

if nothing else, that's what i want to pass on to {YOU}, my readers.  that you're beautiful.  it's not a number, it's how you feel.  it's being comfortable in your own skin.  it's knowing that you're making food choices to better your life so that you can live it to the fullest extent possible, expand your family, play with your children...  being active so you can sleep better at night, improve your health, live longer, play harder.

i can't wait to get to know every one of you: your ambitions, your dreams, your challenges...  think of me as your personal cheerleader! lookin' forward to a happy, healthy, fabulous 2014!