As a mom, I seem to have an endless to-do list. From taking my kids to their daily activities, to making dinner, feeding the cats, the dog, the lizard and more. But while trying to keep my family members happy, oftentimes I forget about taking care of myself.
For me, the one thing that always seems to fall by the wayside is my weight, While I try to go to the gym on a regular basis, I can be known to come up with a host of excuses as to why I can’t make it there each morning. So when I’m not hitting the cardio machines or trying out a grueling pilates class, I’ve discovered five painless tips to lose weight. Give it a whirl and let me know if it works for you!
1. Don’t diet: Yes, dieting is not a solution. Instead, add healthy food items like crunchy snow peas, juicy grapes, deep-red cherries, etc. Many a time, mommies opt for dieting and end up falling sick. This is because there is no proper food intake and the heavy schedule is still on their back. So, don’t cut down on your food intake. Add healthy goodies to your diet.
2. Dance moves: No need to take out a membership for a regular dance class. Just play some of your favorite music and start moving! Just five or ten minutes a day of dancing and you can be burning calories the fun way. If you want to buy some good dance music CDs, chameleonjohn.com can be a helpful source to get great discounts. It offers coupons for the latest music CDs at the cheapest possible rates.
3. Hydration: Drinking water at regular intervals is good for your health. It enables mental alertness, stronger immune system and improves digestion. At the same time, it serves a hidden purpose; you eat less. If you drink some water before your meal, you won’t hog down everything and anything because you will not be so hungry. At parties, grab a low-cal drink and sip it at intervals. It will help you stay away from the buffet as well as from having endless cocktails.
4. Avoid high-calorie food items: You may love cheese and ice cream, but if you want to avoid weight problems the best solution is to opt for lower-calorie food items. Try low-fat ice cream and reduced-fat cheese. That way you will trim down your calories, without compromising on the deliciously tasty items. Did you know? Pizza with reduced-fat cheese tastes exactly the same as with regular cheese. So, get rid of fatty items and buy low-fat items. Chameleonjohn.com lists a discount coupon for your every need. In fact, the site offers online coupons, promo codes and deals for your favorite online stores with over 100,000 coupons available!
5. Save it for tomorrow: While trying to lose weight, the biggest challenge is to resist the temptation to have such goodies, which add on to your weight. The simplest option here is to save it for tomorrow. Every day you need to tell this to yourself; ‘Not today. I’ll have it tomorrow.’ However, reward yourself with that delicious goodie once in a while.
These painless tips will help you lose weight without any intake of supplements or harmful items. So, start today and lose weight the painless way!
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Chameleonjohn.com.
Take Back the Kitchen: Alma’s Buckwheat Salad
I made a big batch of buckwheat the other day but added too much water in my rice cooker by accident! It came out soggy and mushy. Instead of tossing it, I decided to turn it into a pilaf and give it some more texture by frying it up and adding some interesting ingredients. The results were a delicious scramble of sorts. I hope you like it as much as I did!
Buckwheat Salad:
2 tbsp avocado oil or olive oil
4 cups cooked buckwheat
2 medium sized carrots, shredded
1/2 cup golden raisins, soaked in 1 cup water for 10 minutes and then drained and chopped
1 1/2 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tsp Kosher salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds
Steps:
In a large pan, heat up oil.
Add in the cooked buckwheat and stir until heated through.
Add in the grated carrots, soaked raisins and spices and stir to fully combine.
Top with the seeds and serve warm or hot.
For more great recipes, please visit takebackthekitchen.com
Don’t Miss The Howlidays at Great Wolf Lodge
Written by Role Mommy Wing Mom Danielle Feigenbaum
Last week my family and I had a taste of the fantastic Great Wolf Lodge right in New York City. Great Wolf Resorts is the world’s largest chain of indoor water parks which owns and operates its family resorts under the Great Wolf Lodge brand. Even though we were in a hotel ballroom, we were transported to a magical land with holiday celebrations galore. There were crafts, delicious food, cookie decorating and of course the famous wolves, Wiley and Violet. My husband, kids (ages 10 and 7) and I all thought the food was really good, especially the desserts. The kids decorated howl-o-ween bags that they will use to trick or treat next week and my daughter and I were transformed into princesses and treated to some pampering at the “Scoops Spa”. Here is an idea of how much fun you can have around Halloween at any of the Great Wolf Lodge locations…
Howl-O-Ween:
Great Wolf Lodge – North America’s largest family of indoor waterparks – presents Howl-O-Ween, a Halloween celebration dedicated to providing “spooktacular” fun for the whole family with rates starting at $199 per night. Available at all twelve Great Wolf Lodge locations spanning Kansas City to New England throughout October, families can participate in a bevy of seasonal thrills and chills when noting the HOWL promo code at time of booking. During Howl-O-Ween, children are free to join a trail of trick-or-treaters as they collect ghostly goodies along a spooky path, don their most frightening costumes for a parade, attend a monster-themed dance party and end the night with some boo-bit scary stories.
Most families are looking for something fun to do during the holidays when the kids are out of school. Look no further…
Snowland:
Snowland, Great Wolf Lodge’s month-long winter celebration (available at all Great Wolf Lodges spanning Grand Mound, Washington to Williamsburg, VA), offers up festive activities from visits with Santa Clause to indoor snow showers to a Polar Wolf Walk. For a truly delectable experience, visitors are invited to dine inside the resort’s life-size gingerbread house. Great Wolf Lodge has partnered with Just Born, makers of PEEPS, Mike and Ikes and Hot Tamales, to create the edible gingerbread house. Featuring more than 5,000 candies, 600 pounds of gingerbread dough and 1,320 pounds of sugar, the gingerbread house will be baked, iced and candied to perfection, providing the setting for a memorable holiday feast. The appetizing walls of the lodge-baked abode have as much heart as taste as the proceeds for each meal go to charity.
From our little peek at what Great Wolf Lodge has to offer, we are looking forward to visiting a location near us soon!
Take Back the Kitchen: Alma’s Leftover Black bean Pasta with Sausage and Roasted Squash
To avoid the extra weight that I always seem to put on in the winter, I am switching my pasta to a healthier ad more delicious one. I discovered black bean pasta at Costco and am now a convert! 2 out of my 4 kids will eat it as well as my husband and that speaks volumes about it’s pleasing texture and flavor. Look for it in health food stores or google it. Try it with whatever you normally eat pasta and you be the judge!
Quick Leftover Pasta with Roasted Squash and Sausage:
8 oz cooked black bean pasta (cook according to instructions))
2 cups already roasted butternut squash, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cooked chicken sausage , diced into 1/2 inch chunks
salt and pepper to taste
Steps:
In a medium sized frying pan, heat up the oil and butter and saute the minced garlic until wilted.
Add in the butternut squash and coat with the oil and garlic.
Add in the pasta and chopped sausage and stir until heated.
Serve immediately.
For more great recipes, please visit: takebackthekitchen.com
While You’re Away Send Your Pup to DogVacay!
This coming December will mark the 1 year anniversary of when my wife and I adopted our third child. And similar to how it was when our daughter and son were born 15 years and 12 years ago, respectively, my wife and I have found it difficult to go on vacation without the little one. My two kids might take exception with me referring to our dog Santana as our third child, but it’s hard to argue that the amount of time we put into caring for our amazing canine is much less than what we did and still do for our son and daughter. It’s not just the basic requirements of providing food and shelter, cleaning up waste and seeking veterinary care when needed, its the countless hours I spend with Santana playing outside, mostly at our amazing nearby dog park. I like to put on a good front for the family that taking Santana to the dog park is a choir and not leisure. The truth though is that I get tremendous joy in seeing the unbridled energy and excitement Santana displays every time she steps foot inside the wide open space of a dog filled playground. So the thought of going on vacation and leaving our little one in the hands of someone or someplace thats does not share the same enthusiasm is an uncomfortable one.
But sooner or later, it’s going to be time for me to let go, pack the bags with the wife and kids and leave Santana behind. As much as I love having Santana with me at all times, the reality is that having a dog with you on vacation does limit the number of activities you can enjoy, not to mention the costs of traveling with an animal. Fortunately, we found a service that can put my mind at ease, DogVacay. For pet owners like me that don’t want to use kennels, DogVacay allows your dog to stay in a loving home while you are away with the comfort of knowing that you will receive daily updates on how it is doing so you never have to worry while you’re gone. And unlike other companies that might offer similar services, DogVacay provides free pet insurance during the stay at the host’s home as well as 24/7 customer service.
Why Host?
The part about the service I find most appealing is the ease of use. Pet owners can simply enter their zip code and find a Host nearby who will care for your animal. Despite what the name says, cats and other animals are also welcome. There are over 20,000 hosts in the DogVacay network and all of them must maintain a 5 star review in order to stay in the program. So while there might not be someone out there that can care for my dog the way I do, at least I know its pretty close. And if you are inclined to be a part of the host community yourself and meet the rigorous standards of care that are expected for other people’s pets, DogVacay can be a fantastic way for dog lovers with flexible schedules to make some extra money. Watching just a few pets each month can translate into hundreds of dollars in extra income which isn’t too shabby.
I’m not quite sure when our next family vacation is going to be, but I think it has to be one where I take a break from the local dog park at the chosen destination. Santana, I feel very guilty for even thinking that way. But I know your DogVacay vacation is going to be just as fun as mine and when we get back, we can talk about the great time you had getting those non-stop belly rubs. On second thought, maybe I’ll join you.
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by DogVacay.com. However, all opinions expressed are 100% are own!
Take Back the Kitchen: Alma’s Easy Pumpkin Thai Curry
Want a very quick and easy Thai curry recipe that will serve 2-3 people and takes just a few minutes to prepare? Well, look no further! I substituted the sugar I usually use in curries with dates and it worked out great. Enjoy!
Easy Pumpkin Thai Curry:
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup pumpkin puree (can use canned)
2 tsp Thai red curry paste (can get in most supermarkets)
4 dried dates, pureed in a food processor
Splash of fish sauce (found in most Asian food stores and some supermarkets)
Steps:
Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor.
Heat in a small sauce pan over medium heat until it starts to reduce a bit, approximately 10 minutes.
Serve with rice, vegetables, meat or whatever you like.
For more great recipes please visit: takebackthekitchen.com
The Best of Me
Written by Rolemommy contributor, Kristin Flannery.
Ever wonder what it would be like to reconnect with your long, lost love? I have to say that this Rolemommy contributor found out but alas we figured out why it didn’t work in the first place. This wasn’t the case with Nicholas Spark’s THE BEST OF ME which opens in theaters on Friday October 17, 2014.
Rolemommy sat down with the films stars James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan to find out what it was like during filming and if they ever found their own lost loves.
This isn’t the first time that James Marsden has been in a Nicholas Sparks movie (he played the ditched fiance in The Notebook) so we were wondering if he was promised a happy ending…
James Marsden filled us in “Yes, he’s a sadistic, isn’t he? Oh, I have to be careful. You’re recording this. I didn’t mean that, Nick. Which is going to be a slow progression over the next 10 years, when I’m in the next Nicholas Sparks movie.Something else is going to happen right before I get the girl. No, I didn’t actually meet Nicholas until “The Notebook” premiere. So, he’s obviously is a presence in these movies. But, when we’re out there filming the scenes and working with Michael (director Michael , it’s pretty much just us.” Michelle Monaghan thinks “he is writing the next 10 books, basically, while we’re out shooting.”
We thought that this one was the most violent Nicholas Sparks movie, book, that we have seen yet so we wondered how was it on the set.
James Marsden confessed “It’s pretty intense. I mean, I know that Luke got the brunt of all of that, and dealt with that more than I did, except that I, you know, I’m sort of the product of that down the line. But, I think, there’s an edge to this movie. And his upbringing, love and someone defining that for him at a young age was very absent in his upbringing. And so, that’s what I think when he meets Amanda. It’s like he comes alive, you know. It’s the first time he’s ever felt these emotions for somebody else, and what it feels like to be cared for and to care for somebody else. It was a very serious thing that he was dealing with, and in having an abusive father.”
It’s a really nice story, I think, as somebody in middle age to see you come back and you have a second chance in there. And are there anything that you guys would want to have second chances at now in your life?
Michelle Monaghan believes “It’s funny because you can sort of look at your life and go, “Okay. Well, maybe I would have made a different decision,” or something like that. But, I guess regrets are kind of hard because every single one that I’ve made, whether they’ve been good or bad, they’ve informed my life in some way. So, I can’t say, “Oh, dear, that was maybe not the right thing to do.” But, I learned something from it, or I have grown from that. And I think that’s where people in general just grow.”
We wondered have you really been in this kind of love, like in this love, because it’s lovely to see these kind of movies, but thinking in real life?
James Marsden replies “Not everybody is lucky enough to find it. I like these characters so much in this movie because there’s so much goodness about them, and they’re so unselfish with the love that they give to one another and how they show it. And I think you can better your chances at maybe finding that by nurturing it as well. It’s not just like love at first sight, and the universe has these two people. And then, for some reason, just them, they’re the only ones allowed to experience it. I think that it’s what they do with their initial reaction to one another and how they treat one another that it’s that that love is then nurtured, and then it becomes that sort of timeless love, I think.
In closing we wondered if they found those emotional moments a lot when they were filming, where you were so drawn into it that you were off-set or on-set like–.
Michelle Monaghan believes “Yes. Well, I think that’s the beauty of these sorts of films, it’s like a privilege to be able to go there, because I think we’re so used to shooting a lot of films, like James was saying yesterday, there’s a lot of bells and whistles, and a lot of special effects and things like that. And this really is just about the emotion. And it’s about these scenes. So, you’re invested in these characters, and you really want to bring as much emotional truth as you can to it. And so, James and I, along with Michael, we really spent a lot of time in creating this emotional arc, and making sure that it made sense, and that it was truthful and based in reality, and it was grounded, and that the emotional responses were earned and deserved. There is joy behind heartache. That is so Nicholas Sparks. There really is joy behind heartache.”
Don’t miss Nicholas Sparks’ THE BEST OF ME in theaters October 17th and for more information follow them on twitter at #thebestofme.
Check out the special trailer here.
Not Shop Till You Drop — Saving Money on the Groceries
Even though it’s important to provide your family with nutritious, tasty food, the weekly grocery shop is an expensive affair. The cost of living continues to grow, but the last thing any parent wants to do is compromise on food quality.
As a result, an increasing number of us are looking at ways to save money on groceries, which is often easier than you think.
Buy in bulk
Set aside more room in the fridge or invest in some extra food storage space with an additional freezer. Bulk food buying will inevitably save you lots of money in the long run. Provided they have a lengthy shelf life, you may want to consider buying lots of discounted items at the same time too.
Purchase seasonal produce
Despite the fact that fresh fruit and vegetables are quite expensive, you’ll save lots of money if you only buy in-season produce, which comes from local sources. Food that has been grown and imported elsewhere costs more to purchase, might not taste as good and may have a detrimental impact on the environment.
Make use of coupons
You may look down or frown upon using coupons for grocery shopping, but when it comes to pinching the pennies, they’re invaluable. Even small savings per coupon will add up when you get to the checkout. But remember to exercise caution, as you might make impulse purchases simply because you have a coupon.
Choose generic or own store items
Quality is important, of course, but some generic or store brand products are just as good as name brand items. It’s a good idea to choose generic brands for food staples, such as flour and sugar, canned produce like fruit or vegetables, and frozen goods. Read the ingredients on the packet, or online reviews, if you’re concerned about buying below-par products.
Look high and low
Grocery stores and supermarkets think very carefully about where they position their items. The most expensive products tend to be at the shopper’s eye-level, so look low for the cheapest goods or the best deal. Also, be sure to check the reduced section too.
We all know that the weekly grocery or food shop is absolutely essential, but that doesn’t mean to say it has to be a pricey exercise. And it certainly won’t be if you follow these money saving tips.
Disclosure: This article was contributed by Tesco.com
Check out Kid President’s Socktober appearance with Grover!
Get in the Game! Learn about School Lunch Nutrition and Possibly Win Some Money
Written by Role Mommy Wing Mom, Danielle Feigenbaum
Today kicks off National School Lunch Week! Created by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, National School Lunch Week is a weeklong celebration of the school lunch program. School Nutrition Association members celebrate in their cafeterias every year with decorations, special menus, events and more. The 2014 theme is “Get in the Game with School Lunch.” It’s about encouraging kids to find a balance between healthy eating and physical activity. This year’s theme recognizes the importance of eating well and getting active!
If your kids are in school full time, are you packing them lunch each day or are they buying their lunch in the cafeteria? How much do you really know about the food at your child’s school? You may think you are packing them a healthy lunch, but what if you could save time each morning by not packing lunches and they could get a really healthy lunch right at school?!
We need to start educating ourselves about what is going on in the school cafeteria. If you need some help getting started, visit the School Nutrition Association website for tool kits and lots of great information. Get in touch with your School Nutrition Director and ask questions! How can you get involved? My kid’s school raised funds to start a garden where the kids can plant and grow vegetables. When you involve kids from the beginning of the process, they will feel proud of their accomplishment and maybe even try the veggie once they have picked it. Wouldn’t that be something? Some communities will go apple picking and then donate the apples to the school. There are so many ways you can make a difference in your child’s school nutrition. The combination of serving healthy foods, educating kids on the importance of eating healthy food, making it fun and getting kids to be more active is a win for everyone!
Whether you are super involved in your kid’s school or have no idea what’s going on, this week is the perfect time to learn more about school lunch nutrition! Wouldn’t it be nice to win some money while you’re at it? TrayTalk.org is a non for profit that provides hot topics articles, success story profiles and facts on school meal programs nationwide. Visit the Tray Talk Facebook page this week for a chance to win a gift card. They will have 5 days of $100 giveaways for followers that participate by answering questions and submitting info on your children’s favorite healthy foods or school experiences. One winner per day – go to the page now for your chance to win and educate yourself and spread the word to fellow parents on the importance of School Lunch Nutrition!
Please take visit this wonderful online resource community of parents and school nutrition professionals. http://www.schoolnutrition.org/NSLW2014/About/
