Our Valentines Day-cation

Hello little minions. Hope you had a fantastic Valentine's Day. My hubs and I just got back this afternoon from our Valentine's celebration, which we celebrated a day late- on purpose. We beat the crowds, the craze, and had an awesome over-nighter (thanks to our friends Jake & Lauren who babysat for us!)

So I have some new recipes for ya'll. On actual Valentine's Day, obviously we stayed in, and I cooked yet another healthy meal from recipes I found on pinterest... and they were amazing!

kale chips and lemon dill chicken skewers

The chicken was SO good, not even kidding, and I just grilled em in the George Foreman. I felt like it needed a dipping sauce so I just kinda mixed together some plain yogurt with lemon juice, dill, and chives.

I realize the kale chips are a stretch for some of you, but I was curious to try them! K let me tell you- the easiest thing in the world to make, and they were actually pretty good! Between my husband and I, we ate the entire head of kale. Success!

Yesterday we dropped our son off with our friends and headed to my meeting with Sandy, who trains girls for fitness shows. I hired her to help me with posing. I brought my husband along even though he has harassed me from the get-go about the ugly, manly Frankenstein poses, which I will reluctantly share with you now...

Feel free to laugh ;) My husband actually kept his cool pretty well during this.

So here we are down to my swimsuit, and you'll notice the window behind me.. yeah, I was in the aerobics room of Gold's gym, with windows all along that back wall, where the dumbbell weight rack- thus a bunch of dudes-is located. Talk about embarrassing. (PS I should be smiling in all of these.. whoops, gotta work on that)

This "posing" is a lot more complicated than it looks... There's a walk, and a wave, and certain stances, and mandatory poses that we had to go over. And I still feel pretty um.. not confident.

So here's cute little coach Sandy, who busts out the competition suits for me to try on (since I still haven't bought one). Don't mind the fact that my butt is completely hanging out! How weird am I, that

 Well, after this revealing and intimidating afternoon, I feel like I'm heading in the right direction, but still have work to do. I pretty much still need to drop 10 pounds! And probably 3% body fat, in 5 weeks.

Well to sum up our awesome date yesterday- after this lovely posing session, we worked out, and worked up an appetite and planned on sushi for dinner.
Now, my trainer actually might disapprove of this, because I need to be limiting my salt, and being very selective with what I eat, so this was probably a no-no.
But just FYI, sushi is typically a pretty good choice for when eating out- but it can turn fattening and straight up horrible, if you're not careful. Here's some tips!
*ask for brown rice
*request lower sodium soy sauce- you can't even tell the difference
*watch out for mayo-based sauces (even spicy tuna, surprisingly is mixed up with mayo)
*tempura means fried- so opt for something else
 I got this Bora Bora, which was salmon with a little bit of crab, jalapeno, lime, and cilantro. It was so. freaking. good. (The rest are my husbands- don't think I ate like 4 rolls lol)

We went to a movie then stayed last night at the Anniversary Inn in Salt Lake. By this time, I was kinda hungry again, and let me just tell you about the temptations!!!
Chocolate cookies at the front desk when you check in
Free cheesecake and sparkling cider in the fridge in our room (i LOVE cheesecake)
Breakfast options were: ham & cheese croissants, raspberry cream cheese danishes, hot cocoa, and sugary juice.
Basically not a THING that I could eat... so my kind husband drove us to Whole Foods late at night so I could get a protein bar to satisfy my sudden "dessert craving," and oatmeal for breakfast the next morning =)

This is hard. Not gonna lie. Some things get easier but sometimes those temptations and those cravings still hit ya and it takes A LOT to keep yourself on track. Thank goodness for a great supportive husband!
You better watch out, cuz those croissants and cheesecake will land you here lol... and you do NOT wanna go here!