• New Year’s Resolutions for 2020

    It was one year ago when I launched my blog and then followed up with my new year’s resolutions. In that post, I shared new year goals of eating vegetarian 4x per week and daily yoga/meditation practice. And I managed to keep up the resolutions for the first half of the year! After that, I didn’t throw them out the window, I just wasn’t as consistent but still was at a better spot than before. For this year, I am making short term goals to start out the year in hopes that it will build more healthy habits through the rest of the year. I have found if I set…

  • Staying on track during the holidays

    It’s always hard to stay on track during the holidays. During the holiday season, there are parties to attend, happy hours and social gatherings, cookie baking parties and so much more that give constant temptations during the holidays.  If you are like me, you may have a sweet tooth and can’t say no to all of the yummy treats around and you may love socializing so you are happy to attend parties where you usually partake in the drinks (alcohol included of course).   Also if you are like me, you may be trying to build and maintain healthy lifestyle habits.  During the holiday season, I used to put my goals…

  • What I prioritize in wellness

    Wellness can mean so many different things, so you really have to prioritize on what is important to you. Wellness can be anything from eating healthy, exercising, mindfulness, healthy finances, balancing work and life, and so much more. I write about many of these on the blog but I really have to prioritize wellness focus areas. There are two areas that I’ve been focusing on as of late for wellness in my life. These wellness areas are mindfulness and eating healthy. I am still working on the other wellness areas but there aren’t my main focus right now. My first focus area is on eating healthy. If you’ve been following…

  • What I love and hate about the Whole 30 diet

    As Lindsay mentioned in her previous post, in late 2017, I wanted to attempt the Whole 30 diet.  I listened to the audio book during long runs over that summer and was intrigued enough to try.  However, the attempt ended as a Whole 19.  There are a variety of reasons for this (starting a Whole 30 with two kids 3 and under is probably not the best idea…) but I did learn a few things that I love and hate about the diet that I want to share. Love: The rules are VERY specific Many people want to eat healthy, but what does that really mean?  Well, Whole 30 presents…

  • Changing mindset with Whole 30 rules

    Ryan wanted to start up the Whole 30 again because he wanted to give it another try after our fail two years ago with it.  I am usually always up for diet challenges so I put together a meal plan and went to Costco and bought a ridiculous amount of veggies and meat.  Then I spent hours last Sunday chopping and roasting veggies and prepping food for the week.  We woke up Monday morning and started our day with a huge breakfast of eggs with sautéed veggies, lettuce and tomatoes with balsamic, avocado, bacon and strawberries.  It was a larger breakfast than I would normally consume, which seemed weird to…

  • Ryan’s 100 mile update: the epic year of running concludes

    Hopefully you’ve enjoyed following my journey throughout the process of preparing for my first 100 mile run, the Savage 100. Throughout the year, I’ve been providing regular updates of my progress. If you want to reread or read for the first time any of the previous updates, all of the links are below. Why run 100 miles? The training and racing plan Napa Valley Marathon & goal setting The importance of building a strong base of fitness The real training begins Running a lot while avoiding injury Two crazy prep “races” – Part 1 Two crazy prep “races” – Part 2 Twin Cities Marathon & Final Race Prep With that,…

  • Ryan’s 100 Mile Update: Twin Cities Marathon & Final Race Prep

    As mentioned in a previous blog post I am running the Savage 100 mile race in October. As I prepare to take on this challenge, I will be providing monthly updates on my progress. This is as much to hold me accountable to my training as it is for anything else, but I’m hoping others find this interesting and maybe inspirational as well. For this update (the last before race day), I’m going to recap my experience at the Twin Cities marathon on October 6th and then talk a little about prepping for the 100 mile race on October 19th. Here it goes! The surprising results of the Twin Cities…

  • The three aspects of having a healthy and balanced life

    The main goal of this blog is to help you pursue a healthy and balanced life.  We hope to achieve this by explaining how we are working to pursue this goal in all aspects of life.  I’ve been thinking lately how to boil this down to a simple strategy to pursue.  Overall, we do this by trying to maximize three areas of life: family & friends, health & wellness, and financial freedom. So for this post I’m going to explain how I think of each of these areas and work to maximize them.  I will also provide some specific examples of how we work toward this along with some examples…

  • My Morning Routine

    As we move into fall, schools have started and new routines are forming.  This is the perfect time to introduce a new routine into your life. One of the most talked about routines these days is the morning routine. Some people would say a morning routine can make or break your day. There are articles about how very successful people have “amazing” morning routines that they attribute to helping them be successful. Because of this, I wanted to share my morning routine to give some insight into how I manage the first part of my day. My hope is that this may give you some ideas or inspiration to build…

  • Ryan’s 100 mile update: Two “crazy” prep races – Part 2

    As mentioned in a previous blog post I am running the Savage 100 mile race in October. As I prepare to take on this challenge, I will be providing monthly updates on my progress. This is as much to hold me accountable to my training as it is for anything else, but I’m hoping others find this interesting and maybe inspirational as well. In my post last week, I talked about my completion of the Border Route trail run/hike. This was a run my friend and I invented for an interesting challenge. Part 2 is all about the Pike’s Peak Marathon which was a completely different challenge. Pike’s Peak marathon…