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Jawbone UP24

Jawbone Up24
Happy Friday, Everyone! Fit Friday is back and today we are talking all about fitness trackers, specifically the UP24 by Jawbone. Our company is having a fitness challenge and is paying $100 towards a fit tracker for each of us. I think that this is such an awesome way to get your employees thinking about health and fitness in a new light. It has already helped a lot of the people at my company to realize how much we do or don’t walk in an average day. For my device, I chose the UP24. It counts your steps and work out, but also tells you how much sleep you are getting and how good or bad the food you are eating is. So far, I am a huge fan!
On average they say you should strive for 10,000 steps per day. If you are like me, you have a job where you walk around a lot and this is no big deal for you. On average, I walk about 9,000-11,000 steps just at my job. Then I get home and take Sophie for a walk, go for a run, or just walk around in my house. I am a pretty active person to say the least. There are some people at my company though, who have jobs that involve being on the phone for the entire day and they don’t get in more than 1,500 steps while at work. Trackers are great for these people because they can see how little they actually do move throughout the day and make adjustments to their lifestyle in order to work in those extra steps. Even as someone who walks a lot throughout the day, I benefit because I set my goals even higher than 10,000 and work towards some pretty high steps. I’m really striving towards being even more active person and the tracker has helped me along the way!
Jawbone App Steps
The feature I love the most besides the steps is the sleep app. It’s super cool how it detects when you fall asleep and tracks how long you are in a deep sleep. Then, you can set a smart alarm that will vibrate to wake you up within 30 minutes of your alarm time. It detects when you are in a lighter sleep and wakes you up gently during that time so that you aren’t all groggy an sleepy! I don’t know how it all works, but so far it has done very well!
Jawbone App Sleep
This post is not sponsored by Jawbone, or anyone else for that matter, I just really love my UP24 and wanted to share all the info with you guys for Fit Friday! If you do decide to get a tracker, shoot me an email (allthatglitters810 at gmail.com) so we can be friends on the UP app or we can compete on matchup.io! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and I’m going to leave y’all with some of my favorite ways to get extra steps in throughout your day! Enjoy and be healthy!

Ways to get your steps in:

  • Talk a long walk on your lunch break
  • Walk to other people’s offices or cubes instead of calling or messaging them
  • Place things that you need or want in inconvenient places
  • Walk to the grocery store
  • Park in the farthest spot from the door
  • Walk down every aisle in the grocery store
  • Pace while you talk on the phone
  • Only take small amounts of water from the cooler/fridge so that you have to get up to refill often
  • Play with your/the neighbor’s/your sister’s kids
  • Walk to/from any place that is under 1 mile from your home
  • Take the stairs
  • Take your dog for a walk
  • Go for a run

You can buy the Jawbone UP24 here in black for $92.87 or in red for $69.78 with free Prime shipping. If you want pink like I have it’s hard to find, but they have it at Kohls for $124 (usually $129) here.

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Green Chile Mac & Cheese: AKA The Best Mac & Cheese You Have Ever Tasted

Mac and cheese with green chiles- to die for

Mac and cheese is one of my favorite things to eat, I’m pretty sure anyone in my family will tell you that. There’s just something about two of my favorite things, pasta and cheese, mixed together like that…it makes my mouth water just thinking about it. It doesn’t matter if we are at a 5 star restaurant or a dive bar, if there is mac and cheese on the menu, I want it.

There’s a specific mac and cheese that they have at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Texas called green chile mac and cheese. It is to die for. They took it off the menu for a short time a while back and I wrote an email to the owners because it is the only reason I spend the extra money to go to the Alamo Drafthouse. (I’m pretty sure that this only happens to me, but if I like something at a restaurant they end up taking it off the menu. I don’t know if I have weird taste in food or what, but it’s true. That’s besides the point though….) I guess I wasn’t the only upset customer because they ended up bringing it back to the menu, which made me SO happy!

Well, this mac and cheese, it’s great and all…but it’s not worth seeing a movie I don’t want to see in order to get, so I decided that since I found the best mac and cheese recipe ever I would make the green chile mac and cheese with it. It was delish! Absolutely great….dare I say BETTER than the Alamo Drafthouse’s? I think I dare to say it. You have to give it a try…and if it’s not fantastic then you are doing something wrong!! Green chile mac and cheese- the best i have evr had

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 3 cups milk
  • 1/2 stick of butter
  • Noodles
  • 2 cups of shredded sharp cheddar
  • 1/2 cup of shredded romano cheese
  • 1 can diced green chiles
  • Crushed Red Pepper
  • salt & pepper to taste

Green Chile Mac and Cheese Recipe

Directions:

  1. First, get a pot of water boiling for your noodles and put them in there.
  2. Put the 3 cups of milk into your saucepan on high until it boils. Once it is boiling remove it from the heat.
  3. Melt your butter in a saucepan.
  4. Take butter away from heat and whisk your flour into the melted butter until it is a creamy brown color.
  5. Take your hot milk and whisk it into the butter and flour concoction.
  6. Turn your heat back on and cook the sauce until it is thick.
  7. Once the sauce is thick and creamy start to stir in your shredded cheeses. 
  8. Once all the cheese is melted you have what we call the “mac sauce”- you can add salt and pepper here if you would like.
  9. Add your noodles to the mac sauce and mix it up.
  10. Open your can on diced green chiles and drain the liquid from it.
  11. Stir those babies in to your mac and cheese.
  12. Add some crushed red pepper for a little bit more heat.
  13. Put your mac and cheese in to a oven safe casserole dish and bake for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

Great recipe for green chile mac and cheese

You have no idea how happy I was eating this. I probably looked like a 5 year old eating a giant piece of chocolate cake on her birthday…..<sigh> it’s the little things in life! Enjoy everyone! I will see you all back here tomorrow for Fit Friday! You know, to work off all of the calories from the mac and cheese! :)

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Nautical Is The New Black

Navy and white dress with mint handbag

You’ll have to excuse the blurryish pictures today. I’m not really sure what was up with my camera this past weekend when I took these. <sigh> This outfit makes me happy. Nautical themed is one of my favorite ways to dress and when I saw this dress at Target I knew I was going to need it. It’s cute, it’s comfortable, and it was only $25. Score for Megan! This past weekend was beautiful here, as you can tell from the photos. So far this week, not so beautiful. It rained all day long yesterday and has been chilly. I want my spring weather to come back so that I can continue to wear pretty spring dresses like this one! Navy and white nautical striped dress from Target Nautical striped dress with mint handbag and gold jewelry Nautical look- Navy and white stripes with mint Target blue and white striped dress with mint handbag Nautical dress with pink lips and mint crossbody Mint riveted handbag with gold accessories and striped dressGet The Look:

Target Dress  & Wedges  //  Charming Charlie Handbag, Necklace, Sunglasses, & Bracelets

I have been doing so well with my steps on my Jawbone! I still absolutely love it! I took over 16,000 steps yesterday and over 11,000 the day before! Woot woot! I’m kicking everyone at work’s behinds which is always fun since I’m the girl. I’ve also been keeping track of my food on My Fitness Pal which has really been an eye opener for how many calories I am actually consuming. Sugar too…I have a sugar addiction and it’s a problem. I really think this is the beginning of a new lifestyle for me which is awesome. I have always worked out, but now I have a little bit more motivation to do so and these apps are super great for keeping yourself in check! I hope everyone else is having a wonderful (and healthy) week! Thanks for stopping by!

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Bright Is Best

Colorful spring outfit inspirationIt’s Monday yet again. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed the Super Bowl if you watched it. We had it on in the background while Wes and I did some work and payed attention for the commercials, the half time show, and that fight there at the end! Are you surprised? Probably not…..

I did a lot of crafting this weekend for my new Etsy site, and watched a lot of Bones. Wes and I have been watching every season on Netflix for the past month or so and are finally on the last season. Let me just say, we saw the first few episodes of the season and I cried like a little baby. I don’t want to give it away in case you haven’t seen it, but I was distraught. Me=not a happy camper. I also bought a Jawbone UP24 on Saturday afternoon which I am SUPER pumped about. We are doing a fitness challenge at work and our company is paying $100 towards a tracker of our choice. After debating with myself and researching for a week or so I picked the Jawbone. I am loving it so far! I’ll have to give you all a run down of the features some time soon, but after using it for 2 days I am satisfied with my purchase:) I can tell already it is going to be a great big step for me in becoming healthier overall.

Green cardigan- perfect for spring outfits Green spring outfit- Target pencil skrit and Old Navy cardigan Mint handbag with gold rivet trim Cream bow tie top with cardigan Gold and white headband

Get The Look:

Target Skirt (old)  //  Old Navy Cardigan  //  Delia’s Top (old)  //  Charming Charlie Pumps & Handbag  //  Sam Moon Headband  //  Steinmart Sunglasses

Shop Bow Tie Tops:

I loooove the bow tie top in today’s outfit. I have had this top for years, since back in the retail working days and it has stuck around since. I have seen a lot of these bow tie tops around lately and can proudly say that I’ve had mine for years:) Haha! I think it classes an outfit up a little bit and gives it an extra bit of personality. After all, bows are my favorite and any way that I can incorporate them into my wardrobe is the best!

Stay tuned later this week for my Jawbone review and hopefully for a little Valentine craft that you will all love!! Have a wonderful Monday and thanks for reading!

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Fit Friday: Ikea Hack Standing Desk

Ikea Hack Standing DeskHappy fit Friday, everyone! Today, I’m going to talk about something that I, personally, have done at work to help myself stay active….a standing desk. Back story time!
After doing some research online, I decided at the beginning of last year to start sitting on a exercise ball while at my desk. Well, a day into it my back started hurting more than usual. After a little more research, I learned that you are only supposed to do this for part of the day because it can cause even more back pain than usual. Well considering I already have a bad back I decided to nix that idea! My next idea was a standing desk. I worked in retail management for 5 years prior to my current job, and if you know anything about retail you know that you stand all day long. Well, I was pretty used to standing all day and thought that if I could stand for most of my day at my current job I would feel so much less lazy! So, I looked online a little more and found a really great “Ikea hack” standing desk. One of the guys in my office actually had this exact same one so I knew that it would work well.
Standing Desk made from Ikea furniture

How to make it:

Start with an Ikea “Lack” side table, 2 shelves, and 2 brackets. (You will only need one table if you only have one monitor, but I have my laptop stand and a monitor so I needed two!). Attach the brackets to the lack table, and throw that shelf on up there! It is the perfect set up for me and puts my monitors at a really great height. I am about 5’4″ and my desk is 2’5″ tall for your reference. You could probably be up to about 5′ 8″ or 5’9″ before they would start to be to low at this desk height. You could always remedy that by sticking something underneath the legs to make it taller.

I feel like the standing desk makes me walk around more. Instead of sitting there in my chair when I am thinking, I pace my office. I also like to do some exercises while I am standing there. If you are sitting at a desk all day, you are much less likely to get up, move your chair, and then do exercises, but when you stand all day it just happens. Plus standing still for a while at your desk will make moving around feel great! I’ll be sure to let you in on my Standing desk work out sometime in the near future:)
Well, now that you know how to do it for a great price, there is nothing stopping you from getting a little healthier and building your own standing desk! Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Thanks for reading!
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