You’re a Jawbone.

So I have a new favorite fitness toy. It is my Jawbone UP bracelet. My skinny sister, Carrie had one and of course I want to be just like her, so when I got my new job LJ let me have a “promotion present” and this was what I picked.

This thing is so freaking cool. It measures your steps, and your sleep, it can wake you up at the peak of your light sleep and most importantly, keep you motivated to get your ass up and move.

Technical it is just a fancy schmancy pedometer but it does so much more. First off,  you set an amount of “steps’ that you want to take each day and the bracelet will count them for you. There are graphs that show you how many steps you take throughout the day or during a certain activity. These are my “steps” that I took during my Sunday spin class that I teach. It is nice to actually be able to see that the class that I created translates into real movement on the bike. You can see when there were faster songs vs slow heavy hills. 

Pretty stinking cool. Here is another example of Cycle and Sculpt. Here, there are breaks in the workout because we were off the bike using hand weights and our feet were not moving. Again, you can see the faster songs vs the slow heavy resistance ones. Amazballs!!!

Here is what a whole day of steps typically looks like. I just barely hit 10,000 steps on the 12th. I was totally pacing around the house trying to hit my 10k goal!!! Whoomp whoomp.

Honestly it was because it was a work day. I have the bracelet set so that every 15 minutes of inactivity, it will vibrate for a second, just for a little reminder to move. Usually after 3 "vibrations" I get up and walk around the building. It is really nice to have something to remind me that I sit behind a desk all day lol.

My favorite thing is the sleep function. Sayyy whaattt this thing can track my sleep???!! Booyahh. I sleep like crap so this was one of my big selling points. Here is a night of typical sleep for me. 

The high darker color is the deep sleep while the light blue is the light sleep. Orange is awake time. I totally felt like I didn't sleep well last night too. I usually wake up around 3 am, which is what Susie Novak calls the witching hour. We probably should text each other then because we are both always up. Hi mom!!

The bracelet can even become an alarm clock. When I work out in the morning my alarm is stet for 5:03am. I have the UP set for a 10 minute block before that time period where if it senses that you are at the peak of your light sleep, it will vibrate until you turn it off. And there is no snooze!!! Wonderful! You wake up like sleeping beauty. Birds are chirping, prince charming is there, and miraculously you have no morning breath! Crazy!! It really does help me in waking up, but I still have karate breath.

Finally, because I am a super dorky engineer and I LOVE some graphs and trend lines, the app on your phone enables you to trend different attributes pertaining to your over all day. Steps, active time, idle time, deeps/light sleep, etc. Here is a graph that shows a direct correlation of my active time vs my deep sleep the more active I am throughout the day, the better my sleep is!!!

You can change the axis to any thing that you want to see how two functions correlate to one another. Who doesn’t love some bio feedback like that!

I think the only thing that could make this cooler is if it was a heart rate monitor as well. Ehh cant win them all right?? There is a calorie counter that adjusts based on your activity but I feel like my actually HR monitor is much more accurate.

So all in all, I am quite the sales girl for this thing because many of my friends have gotten one too!! We all follow each other and egg each other on if we are being lazy throughout the day. We can also keep tabs on each other food because the UP app links up with My Fitness Pal which we all use as well. Basically, everyone should get one and we can all be on the same fitness “team”!!! 

All hail the Jawbone UP girls!!!

Do Great things

Linds

Kate got Married, Carrie Got Skinny, and I got a New J.o.b.

Factual statement: I suck at blogging. In my defense things have been hella crazy for us the last month.

There is going to be a lot going on in this post because well I haven’t updated in a long time.

Kate got married:

LJ and I made the trek home June 1 and stayed with his parents until the 3^rd.  Nothing is better than hanging out at the lake with them and eating Bell Mell Pizza and having Tofts ice cream. Holy Fatty McFatFat, but it is a treat I only get once or twice a year so I'm eating it! 

We drove to my house and for the next two days we watched my nephew rock out at baseball. Pa Novak wanted to watch from the swing set. Adorbs. Probably the cutest man EVER. We also played some ball in the back yard. Clay is way better than any of us-I'm sure he struck Levi out in this picture.

Then it was time for wedding Jazz!!! Wednesday was Kate’s bachelorette party!!!! We had a gigantic cheese and chocolate fondue party with a crap ton of dippers. (Obviously, this was not a low calorie vacation home) We played typical bachelorette party games and we drank margaritas! Thursday and Friday I made their cake to cut during the reception…Looks pretty damn good if I do say so!!       

                                             

Saturday was wedding day and everything was perfect!! It was freaking gorgeous out and Kate looked stunning! I am so happy for her and Jake and can’t wait to see them living the married life!! Can you even handle this? (Wedding photos by SLL Photograpy)

No wedding is complete without the “bridesmaids”  pose!!

Holy crap my best friend is married!!!

Carrie Got Skinny

So lets freaking talk about this for a second. I'm all "I wanna lose weight, and be healthy" and Carrie is my go to person who agrees with me and rocks out for a bit and then decides that 8 large pizzas sound great for dinner. Well, here I am, eating chipotle and bullshit, and Carrie is beasting up the gym and getting her swole on everyday. She is the size of my left leg now and dayummm she looks good!! It is so nice to have someone to workout with when I go home because Lord knows there is zero motivation there. She has lost about 60lbs!!

Before/After

The nice/sucky thing is that when we were home she had a huge pile of her clothes that she outgrew that she gave to me. Whaa whaaa. At least I got 5 pairs of Gap jeans and lots of workout clothes!! Can’t complain about that. Carrie Ann you look smoking hot! Keep up the good work and I want to be just like you!!

I Got A New Job

Hoorayyy!! I now am a Project Engineer in the Surgical Division!!! I am super happy to get settled in my new role, and I am sure I will have updates along the way!!

Do great things

Linds

Link up!!!!

Finish the sentence linkup with Jake and Holly. They are giving away a gift card for the funniest replies---I have funny replies.

Unlike my Siblings (that I love very much)- I decided to move away from Ohio, and start my own life in NC!! See ya winter, you are no longer welcome in my life. Peace out bitches.

My best friend says... I am abrasive but genuine. I agree with this 100%. I do genuinely care about people but I have no problem telling them they are ridiculous.

People call me... Linda. Only because "Linds" gets autocorrected to Linda on the iphone. Siri blows.

The best part of my day... When I leave the office and have 15 minutes of "me time" on the drive home.

I really don't understand... Why people cannot act like adults and why everyone is so afraid of "hurting someones feelings." If something is wrong-tell them, and then Get a damn helmet.

I get really annoyed... at everything lately--please see Karma for an explanation. Here is my current list: talking too loud, snotting at your desk, people who are being a pussy, my weight, my tires on my car, having to sweep hardwoods everyday, and not having enough lives in Candy Crush.

There's nothing like a... good "boom" in the morning. I mean you can sit, catch up on your social media, play some Candy Crush, lose a few onces or pounds depending on what you ate the day before...Its just a perfect time. you were all thinking it-I just said it.

Lately, I can't get enough... Freaking Candy Crush!!!! What in the world is wrong with me!!!!

One thing I am NOT is... serious. Everything is a joke to me. I like to laugh, and make others laugh too.

I spent too much money on... everything. freaking everyday I am cutting a check for something. If I had to pick one thing it would be food. We love us some grocery shopping. It is like our bonding time. Food = Love

I want to learn.... how to knit. Like grandma style. Afghans, booties, hats for everyone!!!

If I ever met Kid President in real life , I would... give him a fist pound and say "You are Freaking Awesome!" and then I would say that I love Space Jam too!!

I can't stop... picking at Levi. Seriously, its a problem. Hair, scabs, zits...OMG I love them!! This also transfers to my own body. Any time I have a zit, I cannot focus until I pop it. This usually lands me with a big nasty red gunky spot of my face or a nice scar. Dudes dig scars.

Never have I ever... I suck so bad at this game. I lose every time. hussy.

Reese Witherspoon... is smokin hot. She might be on my free pass list. Get it gurrlll.

This whole thing made me kinda miss myspace lol I used to love those little surveys.

Do great things

Linds

Karma is a rookie biotch.

I think Karma got me today. She is a real B I tell ya.

Back story: I have been a real crabass lately. If I have talked to you in the past week or so, you have probably gotten on my nerves, and I have probably wanted to throat chop you. Doesn’t really matter who you are, I have just been a crappy human being and disliking everyone. It happens right!?

So my good friend Corey Beth was on business here in NC, and we decided to meet up for a morning spin workout just like back in college. Ehyooo!!! We even went early so we could have 20 mins catch up time before hand. Right before we got out of the car, the radio flickered and went crazy, and the locking mechanisms on the door fritzed, and locked and unlocked several times. Being the girl that I am, I removed the key from the ignition, and we exited the demon car not really thinking about it too much. Spin class kicked my already sore legs, and I was tired. After, Corey and I hugged and went our separate ways. Well she did. I stayed put because my car had no desire to start. Cool man, real cool. I called my knight in shining armor LJ, and he rode in on his “gun metal grey” ford focus, to save me.  Obvi, neither of us know jack about cars so the first step was to try and jump it.

No dice. Its 7:00am now and I need to leave for work at 7:37-I'm a sweaty-ass mess and look homeless. The car can wait. We will figure out that money pit later. Not only is my car broken, but I need 4 new tires too. Schwing.

So we drove home, and divided and conquered the morning. LJ made my lunch and I got myself to look like a human. Out the door at 7:43 booyahhhh. Somehow, the silver lining in all this was that I had enough sense to have LJ pack me some yogurt and cottage cheese for my breakfast instead of rollin' with my homies through the Bojangles line. Hooray non-scale victories!! Although a chicken biscuit would have totally cheered me up. 

Now, usually I call Ma and Pa Novak on my way to work. It is our little catch up time. Don’t judge, I am a good freaking daughter. Well today I didn’t call because I had other crap to deal with. I figured I would call home from my desk. “Hey Papa, how are things? Fine. My cars a piece of junk…blah blah blah. Well Linds, here’s what could be wro----DAMNIT, ILL CALL YOU BACK! I JUST SPILLED COFFEE ALL OVER MY KEYBOARD. Yes, there is always time to stop, laugh, and take a picture...

This is after moving my keyboard from on top the huge puddle of coffee.

Well cool. How am I supposed to get anything accomplished with a nasty, soggy,  keyboard? Karma will probably electrocute me. Here are my awesome engineering skills at work. Thank God for Youtube and how to take apart keyboards.

400 mini screws. love that.

 

everyone loves messing with circuits and rubber keyboard plunker things

I got the POS cleaned out and dried off and put it back together. Low and behold it still works. Suck It Karma-I will throat chop you.

Do Better things...

Linds

The New House and Jillian Michaels

Well, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!!

Hooray! We have been moving at about 90 mph the past week so life has been overly hectic for us!! We closed on Thursday (in only 22 minutes lol) and started moving boxes and other random crap over to the new house that afternoon. How the hell a little 600 sq ft apartment accumulates so much crap is beyond me. Here is the kitchen piled high with everything. I will admit that I was super stoked to use all of the the place settings and the new silverware that we got for our wedding. (Levi wouldnt let me open it until we moved into a house---you know...7 months after we got married)

As if I didn’t have enough going on Thursday, Jillian Michaels was in town for her Maximize Your Life Tour. Amy and I were totally bugging out to see her!! We went to Big Daddy's Burger Bar before the show and it was ridiculous. We semi ate healthy. I would be lying if I didn't smash some sweet potato fries. Obviously, I know I was totally counter productive going to see the holy grail of weight loss people and stuffing my face with fries and a burger but whatever. As for the show, HOLY AMAZING!! She was so real and down to earth and just told you how it is without any bogus diet/exercising nonsense. Eat less + move your ass = weight loss. Well I’ll be damned. She gets paid loads of money for that. She also spoke about how to read nutrition labels and how many times sugar is broken up into different components so it can be labeled further down on the ingredients list and therefore you don’t think it is such an unhealthy food because “sugar” isn’t listed first! Basically, everything she said made perfect sense and if possible you should go see her. Sorry for the super crappy picture, I was too busy drooling over her to hold my phone still. And yes, we were super close. Be Jealous.

Friday, we moved all of the big stuff over and began unpacking. Our friends Sam and Brian helped move and organize everything, which was such a giant help because we both were exhausted and were over it. That night we grilled out and watched the draft with them. Unpacking sucks the big one. Our fridge was at least packed up with the essentials…beer and subway. The perfect combo for any move!!! 

Saturday I taught a cycle express class at 8 am because, well, why not. I’m already exhausted why not beat some other people up too J After that, we ordered our new dining room table and set off to other stores. Of course, no new home purchase is complete without a trip to the container store and sears, so there we went to spend more money!! We ended up just going to sears on a whim, and our patio set that we had been looking at was on sale. I also asked for a 10% discount on top of it just for the hell of it and dude gave it to me!!! Saaaweeetttt.

Sunday was full of unpacking and getting our lives in order. Lets see how long that takes.

At least Frank loves the windows J

Do great things

Linds

Cake Batter Batter!!!!

The big move is only 13 days away so our house looks like a bomb was dropped on it. Boxes everywhere, the closets are half empty, and 80% of my spices are put away. Now that the cupboards above the stove are empty, I have somewhere to put all my cake stuff!!! Good thing too because this whole mini cake business is really turning out awesome!!

After some pushing from people at work, I finally made a website www.cakebatterbatter.com. Who knew it was so easy!!! There has been tons of people asking me about cakes and cupcakes!!! It is so cool that people want to buy my cakes!! Thank you everyone!!!

Cake Batter Batter

The link on cell phones is a bit funky-I'm still working on it!!

So I figure that if people are willing to shell out cash for my confectionery creations, I better be legit. I have been taking Cake decorating classes every Wednesday for the past 8 weeks and have learned a TON. The other day I came home with gum paste flowers, and Levi was so impressed he wanted to watch me make one so he knew I didn't steal it from the teacher and pawn it off as my own. :) Through this process I think that I like to work with gum paste and fondant more than butter cream. I like the idea of being able to make characters, stripes, perfect circles, and flowers. I would be lying if I said that I didn't send the pictures of my flowers to my family and friends because I was so proud of them. You can find them on the pictures tab of www.cakebatterbatter.com. Cake baking is totally therapeutic to me. Yesterday, I was having a super crappy day but I was so excited to come home and begin working on a "Mommy to "Bee" Cake" where I had to shape cake into a beehive and create gum paste bees to sit on it. How stinking cute are these!?!? I cant wait to see them on the cake and cupcakes!!!

Hope everyone has a Bee-utiful day. I am so funny!

Do great things!
Linds

1984 called. They want their hairstyle back.

Word.

Yesterday, while mindlessly strumming through the world of Pinterest while LJ watched baseball, I stopped and watch a hair video on the famous sock bun. Apparently, they were all the rage in the 80’s (how would I know, I was in that decade for only 3 years) and everyone rocked the ballerina bun. This video was all about using the sock bun to create curls instead of the redic bun. Eh, what the hell, lets chop up a sock that has been on your feet, and toss it into my hair and see how it turns out. So, Levi found me two socks that looked like they had seen better days and I hacked of the toes and rolled them into balls/donuts.

I then took my less than damp hair, tossed some curling mouse and some volumizing spray into it, and rolled them up. 100% super sexy, right!?!

 I used two socks because I have mass quantities of lettuce on my head and I knew that for sure one sock wouldn't cut it. The two buns were stabilized with a few bobby pins and a headband around both of them.

I went to bed and they didn't bother me at all because I had placed them so high on top of my dome. I unrolled the first bun and thought, “well no shit, this might actually work.” Then the second, “Man, I am awesome.” I gave myself a little half poof and here is what I ended up with:

Pshhh. How freaking easy was that. I can curl my hair every day. This is ridiculous. Obviously, I would have been the coolest chick in 1984, and I would have most def had the high standing bangs with sock bun curls.

Do great things...

Linds

Parties, Packing, and News

So it has been a pretty crazy few days for the Johnsons.

Friday, I had the day off from work so I started it off the right way by getting my ass out of bed at 5:15am and enjoying some SYNCcycling and then went to a class that I normally do not do called Rock the Band. Yowza. Freaking resistance bands don’t lie. After, we went to visit our friend Carol and then went to Amys to frost birthday cupcakes for her sons birthday party!!

Saturday, was the big party day, so after a morning workout beat down from Bo, I headed over to Amys to help get more frosting completed and to help her get some party prep accomplished. Here are the pictures of the “Thing 1” cupcakes and the cake I made him.     

  

Check out Amy's Blog on his whole shebang. She did an amazing job with everything.  And the answer is YES, I ate a cupcake, and popcorn, and pecan pretzels, and some carrots to make it healthy. You have to celebrate a first birthday big!! After partying, Levi and I went furniture shopping and purchased a pimped out dining room table for the new house! I am so happy to finally have “big girl” furniture that will last for the duration of our lifetime!!

Sunday, we slept in until 10!!!!!! Happy freaking Easter!! Talk about wasting the day. Sunday is typically our cleaning day and now with the new crib, we have decided to make it a packing day. So we began the daunting task of packing up our lives. Frank and Nora helped as much as they could.                                               

                                                

Stupid cats. You would have thought they were in heaven with all the empty boxes around the house.

All in all it was a good weekend. Then Monday came.

We got some news that wasn't exactly what we were hoping for, so we comforted ourselves the best way we knew how. I made a cake, and we ate a big dinner of chicken parmesan with spaghetti. Honestly, food sometimes makes everything better. In hindsight, the news really doesn't affect our lives too much, it just pushes some timelines back a small amount. No Harm No Foul. The best thing for us right now is to focus on the new house and rock out on the Bar in July.

Way to kill the mood Linds. 

On a lighter note, yesterday I also signed up to run the 2014 Raleigh Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon. It will be my third half so I know what to expect. However, I am running it with my awesome friend Sara and it will be her first time!! I cant wait to run her into the chute and see the giant smile all over her face full of pride and accomplishment. That was such a good feeling having my girlfriend CBM meet me and run me in to finish my first race!! Here's to kicking ass and running fast Sara!!!

As a final thought,  I leave you with this super funny ecard. 

                 

Do great things...

Linds

A big FAT thanks!

After only writing a few blogs, I have received tremendous amounts of comments, help, amazing opinions, and "I love your blogs!" Soooo, I just want to take a few minutes to say thanks!! You all are awesome and make this clean eating, working out, life journey, much more manageable and enjoyable. The amount of facebook messages of people supporting the blog and my "new" eating are redic. My friends have been so overly supportive, and have only had kind words of encouragement!! Hooray! We can do it together!!



I also want to say a HUGE thank you to my sister!! She probably doesn't realize this but I think she is totally an inspiration!! Homegirl, started her weight loss at a work event to be the "biggest loser" and she is kicking some serious booty!! Carrie has cleaned up  her eating, and rocks out at the gym, and boy has it paid off! She has lost 41 lbs the last time I asked her about it!! The last day of the competition is in 2 weeks-ish. And in that time, Carrie will be going on a cruise with her family. I dont know about y'all, but on all the cruises I have been on, I came back hella full of food and weight about 7 lbs heavier. I asked her if she was going to weigh in before she went on vacay so she could stuff her face, and her response was simple, "No Pig, I cant just go back eating shit the way that I used to just because I am on vacation." (PS she has called me some variation of *Pig* my whole life) How awesome is that! Way to go dude, you're freaking awesome and I hope you win the competition! Thanks for inspiring me  to feel better and maybe this can turn into a family thing where the rest of the fam takes steps towards a healthier lifestyle too!!

My inner fat kid loves Jenna Marbles

Ahh Jenna Marbles. My best friend and far away neighbor. Or so I would like to think if we ever met each other. She basically is hitting the nail directly on the head today with this one about falling off the wagon, into the ocean of eating. Damn inner fat kid. I want to put my butt in a bikini.

 

Keeping with Jenna's fat kid confession theme, here is a list of jacked up things that I have done that have involved food in the past few weeks.

1. The answer is, YES I have scrounged up change in the apartment to buy cheeseburgers. No one wants a charge on their credit card that says McDonald's...$4.58 

2. Leveled off 6, 8 inch round cakes and eaten the top cut off parts of ALL OF THEM

3. Tried a spoonful of Crisco, just to see how my frosting was going to taste

4. Eaten a whole bag of chocolate chips, and Hershey kisses which are just giant chocolate chips

5. Oh those new Lays flavored chips- bought all three-demolished the by the next day (My favorite is chicken and waffles BTW)

6. Sometimes I eat sprinkle cheese right out of the bag, with my hand.

7. I have made butter cream just to eat-not to frost a cake. Same goes with Cookies. 

8. I have bought a pre-made, microwavable, personal apple pie, which I ended up eating at 10:30 at night!! WTF

9. Spoonfuls of peanut butter don't really cut it for me. My average PB consumption in one sitting is somewhere around 1/4-1/2 a cup of the creamy, delicious, smooth, delicacy. YUM

10. And lastly, sometimes we roll to the grocery and just by shit because we can. We call them fat nights. Two pizzas, some breadsticks, chicken wings, a gallon of milk, E.L.Fudge elf man cookies, and some oreos really balance it out.

Too bad I was not lifting weights while I was typing this.

Pick up something heavy and we will move it together :)

peer pressure for the win

Well, obviously I have taken a bit of time off for my non-existent blogging life. Whatever. In the last year, have been all over the map.  I lost 30 lbs for the wedding like I had planned, honeymooned (gained 5 lbs), over-indulged in married life (+4 lbs),  watched my husband go through taking the NC bar (+2 lbs), recently realized that I can bake pretty legit cakes, and people buy them, whaaa??? [Translate that as "I am eating creme and cake like a fatlard" (+4 lbs)] and finally, begun the wonderful process of purchasing a house! Add another fat 2 pounders to the total and you get....17 lbs gained back. shame. By the time we close in April, I will be into my groove again!!

So you may be asking, "Whats the deal with the peer pressure Linds? Why the title??" Well, my friend Amy has been kicking some serious booty losing weight and frankly I'm jealous. I have been watching her shrink and then going home and stuffing my face with peanut butter, thinking that it was okay because I just taught a spin class. [yes true-overweight spin instructor right here--this will be addressed in another blog I'm sure at some point] I need a reality check and she has given me one. Thanks Amy!! I am finally on board with you and am geared to rock this out!!

In the mean time here is look at my sick cake action. It is ridiculous how awesome I am. They are all butter cream and not printed decals...I'm pretty proud!!

UNC Ehyyooooo

KISS- You cant go wrong!!!

Dr. Seuss!!