Saturday, June 14, 2014

Girl's Night Out

We all need a night out once in awhile and last night was the perfect opportunity to dress up and throw a pair of heels on! It was my friend, Liz's twenty second birthday so my small group of girlfriends and I all went out for dinner and had a blast. Girl's night out are the greatest right?!



Jeans are probably my favorite clothing item...I wear them almost everyday. I love the support they give me and I love how I can dress them up like I did last night or have them be extremely casual with a t-shirt and flip flops. If I am going to dress up an outfit with jeans I prefer a very dark jean, these I got from Forever 21 (where else dee..). 


I absolutely love this top I got recently from Forever 21. I love all of the colors in it which made it perfect for the summer season. I am not one to wear a lot of patterns or colors for that matter, but I thought why not for summer?! What I also adore about this particular style of top is the off the shoulder detail. I am very self concious about my arms so I love how it has a spaghetti strap and then a cut out on the shoulder and a small sleeve. This covers up exactly where I need it to and I don't feel uncomfortable. 




Candid's are the best am I right?


Every female should own a pair of nude pumps. I rarely and by rarely I mean hardly never wear heels, one because I usually don't have anywhere to wear them and two THEY HURT! I thought I would dress up my outfit though last night and added these adorable patent nude pumps that I got from Target

I hope you all enjoyed this post and I will make sure to do some more posts about fashion in the future because that is one aspect of my life I love expierimenting with now more than ever since I have a new body!



Monday, June 9, 2014

Graze Box!

Everyone loves food right? Everyone loves to snack, am I right? Well what's better than going to your mailbox to get your snacks instead of having to go to the store? I recently heard about Graze which is a website where you can choose from multiple different healthy snack foods and have them ship straight to your house. I was even more excited when I found a coupon for my first box for free! How awesome is that? I took full advantage of it and decided why not try it? 




When you go to the website you can choose to 'Get Started Now' and then enter in your information or you can choose to enter in a special promo code which is what I did to get my box for free. After you enter in your information, you then get to browse all of the different snacks and you have an option to click 'Try' on a certain snack which let's the team at Graze know that you would be interested in trying that particular one in your box or in a future box. 

You can choose between two different boxes such as A Nibble Box or a Caloriecounter Box. 

Nibble Box
You can choose between 90 different snacks all of which are healthy.

Calorie Counter Box
Each snack to choose from are between 50-150 calories if you are counting calories.


Graze is passionate about all of their packaging being 100 % recyclable so you don't feel bad about throwing your box away after. Starting with the box, it is made out of cardboard made from sustainable forests and is extremely thin but sturdy enough to keep your snacks safe throughout the shipping process. 

Each snack pack is made out of plastic but is also recyclable. It also comes with a booklet filled with all the information you  need about each one of your snacks including a detailed description and the nutrition facts for each. This booklet is also made out of sustained forests and is 100 % biodegradable. 




First, Poppy seed Pretzels and Cinnamon Honey Almonds which was my favorite snack out of all four. These are made out of all natural and healthy ingredients and are the perfect combination of salty and sweet because we all know how much I love my sweets!

Poppy seed Pretzels 
(wheat flour, palm oil, malt extract, sugar, salt, yeast & poppy seeds)
Cinnamon & Honey Almonds
(roasted almonds, sugar, honey & cinnamon)

Nutrition Facts for 1 snack pack:
Calories: 130
Total Fat: 8g
Sugars: 6g 
Protein: 4g


The next snack in my box was this Raspberry and Coconut Muffin which I thought sounded odd because it was nothing like a muffin it was more like a trail mix, but it was good none the less. With long thick strips of real coconut and the Amaretti drops were something different but so tasty!

Raspberry and Coconut Muffin
Amaretti drops
(sugar, sweet apricot kernel, bitter apricot kernel, free range egg white, sweet almond)
Raspberry infused cranberries
(cranberries, sugar, natural flavor, citric acid, sunflower oil, elderberry juice concentrate)
Almond slices
(blanched almonds)
Coconut flakes
(coconut flakes)

Nutrition Facts for 1 snack pack:
Calories: 140 
Total Fat: 8g
Sugars: 11g
Protein: 3g


The third snack I got in my box was called Mai Tai. These unfortunately were not my favorite out of the box because I am more of a sweet or salty snack person not much a spicy which these weren't necessarily spicy but the sauce had a kick to it. My dad loved them which was good, but I guess there was going to be one snack out of all that I wouldn't have liked as much. 

 'Mai Tai'
Baked Soy Bites
(rice, sugar, palm oil, modified tapioca starch, soy sauce, salt, caramel, paprika extract, liquorice powder, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate)
Sweet Chili Sauce
(sugar, water, spirit vinegar, red chili puree, cornflour, white wine vinegar, garlic puree, salt, dried garlic, ginger puree, dried red peppers)

Nutrition Facts for 1 snack pack
Calories: 80 
Total Fat: 1g
Sugars: 11g
Protein: less than 1g


The last and final snack I got in my box were these Fruit and Seed Flapjacks which were basically miniature fruit and nut bars. These were really good and would be a nice breakfast option if you were running late and needed a quick meal. I wouldn't eat all three bars in one sitting because these could be quite filling. You can visibly see the fruit and seeds throughout which proves how natural and healthy these are packed full of healthy ingredients. 

Fruit and Seed Flapjack
(rolled oats, non hydrogenated margarine, golden syrup, demerara sugar, apricots, dates, sunflower seeds, sultanas, raisins, currants, pumpkin seeds)

Nutrition Facts for 1 snack pack
Calories: 230
Total Fat: 11g
Sugars: 19g
Protein: 3g




Overall I am very pleased with my Graze box and I hope that some of you try it out! Graze also caters to everyone and has a tab if you have dietary preferences and sections off the snacks based on each preference. For example, with or without gluten, with nuts or without, with milk or without, spicy foods and ones that requires a microwave. What I also really like about Graze is that you are able to subscribe and get your boxes on a regular basis depending on which box you choose. One being every two weeks and the other once a week. But you are also able to just go and purchase one single box with no subscription if you want to test the box out which is what I did, but I will be purchasing another box again for sure. If you think about how expensive some of the healthy snacks can be at these health food stores or just for the price of each of the ingredients to make one snack equals the price of one box, $6! 

Make sure to check them out at www.graze.com 

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Watermelon Rosemary Lemonade

Summer is here and that means one thing..LEMONADE. Being one of my all time favorite drinks, lemonade unfortunately can hold a lot of sugar which is not the healthiest. Why I love this particular lemonade is because it doesn't taste like any other normal lemonade you buy from the store and is made out of so few ingredients. I found this Watermelon Rosemary Lemonade recipe from Tone It Up. As soon as I saw a this recipe I knew I had to try it out and it has quickly become my new go to summer beverage. 


This was such an easy recipe and what I love about it is how there are no unknown ingredients in it with weird chemicals. It makes enjoying this drink that much more knowing what you are putting into your body and you aren't loading up with a bunch of sugar and calories. 


Watermelon is already one of my favorite fruits and lemonade being one of my favorite summer beverages, this combination is perfect. Adding the rosemary was different and I have never really tried rosemary or cooked with it before so I was excited to see how it tasted with the watermelon and lemons, and they went together so smoothly!


Look at what a beauty that watermelon is...ah it just screams summer doesn't it? There is something so satisfying about cutting open a watermelon and seeing the vibrant color. What I found that worked the best when measuring out your watermelon was using a ladle and scooping it out into a bowl. 



I seem to always have lemons in the kitchen because I use them for just about everything. From recipes, to face masks and beauty treatments. They are full of antioxidants and vitamins and I consider them sort of a super fruit! Using fresh lemon juice instead of the pre-packaged lemon juice in the bottle, gives this recipe even more of a tang and freshness. 


After you have all of your ingredients measured out, all you have to do is start to put all of them together into your preferred canister. This recipe will make a couple of servings so make sure to keep the rest of your lemonade in the refrigerator and it should last for a couple days.



All of these ingredients are fresh and can be found either in your kitchen already or at any grocery store. I can just see myself this summer making this lemonade all the time. I hope you guys try it out!




What you need:

- 6 lemons
- 3 cups watermelon
- 3 sprigs rosemary
- 4 cups water
- 3 tbsp agave nectar
- 4 packets stevia

 What to do:

1. Combine 2 cups of boiled water, rosemary and agave nectar and let sit for thirty minutes.
2. During the thirty minutes, blend your watermelon in a blender into a liquid. When the thirty minutes is up take the rosemary water and pour into your canister leaving the rosemary sprigs out. 
3. Take your watermelon and pour into the canister along with the remaining 2 cups of water, the juice of 6 lemons, and your stevia. Mix well, pour into a glass and enjoy!