The Biggest WINNER

My family has planned a trip to Lake Powell at the end of May. 

We have Rock and Kenzie's wedding in April.

IT'S SPRING TIME AND SOON TO BE SWIMSUIT WEATHER.

Find a reason to get in shape and come along the ride with us! It'll make it that much more worth it.

My family was recently in town last weekend, and we were discussing Lake Powell. My mom then threw out the idea of the "Biggest Winner" contest (basically the Biggest Loser). 

Well, Dan and I wanted to be hard core about it. We have done a few things that help:

1. Bought a scale, one that measures body fat percentage. (We got ours on clearance for $30 at Bed, Bath and Beyond). 

2. Sunday night we took swimsuit pictures (All the more motivation, right?)

3. We made goals for weight loss and fat percentage lost by May 20th.

4. We limited ourselves to one cheat day a week! It keeps you going when you know you have a day to have an ice cream :)

5. We are weighing once a week, and snapping pictures every Sunday.

6. It totally helps to have a buddy to help you!!!

7. Make sure your goals are obtainable and healthy. Stay within your BMI range-- being too thin is just as unhealthy as being overweight! The sure way to lose weight and keep it off is by doing it healthily! 

If you'd like, feel free to follow along. I will be posting some of our workouts and meals, and our progress! It's the fourth day into it, and we are already feeling so darn good!! I promise our meals are easy, haha we are newbies but they are also good and super healthy! They will fill you right up! Dan and I have both taken nutrition so we love applying things which we have learned.

Here are some of the meals we have done:

1. Chicken fajita, brown rice and broccoli dinner.

-We skipped out on the tortillas and substituted our carb for brown rice. We added a little salsa to the rice for flavor and it was way good! We sliced up the chicken and cooked it on a skillet in olive oil and minced garlic, and when almost cooked added bell peppers and onions. Add minimal amount of water to the broccoli and steam it to maintain the most possible nutrients. Add some salt and pepper to taste. We also sliced up some alvocado. Voila! You have protein, good whole carbs, fat, and vegetables. 

2. I have been replacing my chocolate fixes with fruit. Don't forget you need your fruit serving!

Honestly this one is great because you satisfy that sweet craving, while also getting essential nutrients. I did strawberries, blueberries and bananas, then topped it off by sprinkling some granola over it!

3. Steak, asparagus and potatoes! Mmmm so good. 

You want your steak to be about the size of a deck of cards. Grill the steak. We cooked the asparagus on a skillet in a little bit of olive oil and sprinkled light parmesan cheese over. Cut up potatoes and cook on a skillet in light olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Again, nice variety of protein, carb, and vegetable. Get those servings in!

Take every opportunity you can to stay active-- outside of gym time. This will make a difference! Take walks together (great for talking, too!), walk to class, run to the gym (if close enough), go country dancing, go hiking with friends. These are ones we have been doing and love! Do it with a buddy and it can be fun, enjoyable and motivating. Or do it by yourself for some pondering and stress relief!

Cheers to being healthy and active!!! Any ideas?? Let us know!!!

Emmaline

Opposing Fear

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a fabulous Valentine's and President's Day weekend! Ours was full of adventure. It was a blast!! 

Today in class, we were discussing marriage. Of course, I love this topic :). We talked about why people just don't seem to be getting married anymore. We discussed that since the 1960s, the rate has gone from a whopping 59% to 20% of people ages 18-29 getting married. Wow.

Here are the top 10 reasons that statistics have show for why people don't get married (for LDS and non-LDS people-- in no particular order):

-Fear of making a mistake 

-Need more emotional maturity

-No opportunity to marry

-Desire to finish school

-Fear of responsibility

-Desire to establish a career

-Fear of responsibility of parenthood

-Pressure from family not to marry

-Pressure from friends not to marry

-Unworthy to get married

Now how many of you have heard or seen these take place? 

I know in my own life, it was even a problem.

I was just recently married at the young age of 19, and I received every piece of advice you could imagine. Especially with a mission call, everyone gave me their two sense on how I should live my life. It used to confuse me, make me scared, feel like I was lacking, and question this choice.

Ultimately I realized that this decision was up to me, the Lord, and Daniel. I felt so at peace with it and that it was right and the timing was right. So what else matters? At the end of the day, I am answering to God and to no one else. At the end of the day, I am doing what He would have me do. At the end of the day, I chose my love and loved my choice. And I am soooo, so happy. Nothing is better than kneeling across the altar with the one you love and committing yourself to them, knowing in that moment that the decision you are making is right. Not just for today, or for a few months, but for eternity. To have a best friend, confidant, and lover. Daniel is truly helping me become the person I want and need to be. We have been blessed with true happiness since making this decision and trying to live true to our covenants.

In the reasons above, I found it interesting that 3 of them were the result of fear. We know that fear is the opposite of faith. I saw this video of Elder Russell M. Nelson of the LDS Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and it touched me deeply. It reminded me of the experience I just recently went through, feeling peace when people around me may have not.

Russell M. Nelson knows who he is and does not live in fear. Russell was married in 1945, at the age of 20. He graduated medical school at the age of 22, gained many awards and achievements from being a heart surgeon, and performed the first successful heart surgery. He saved the life of a beloved man, who would later become a prophet, President Kimball. Elder Nelson is doing what the Lord created him to do.

May we live a life of love and faith, not listening to what the world has to say about us. Live so that the Lord will be on our side, remembering our divine identity and purpose here, and have an eternal perspective, so we can conquer all.

Of Female Beauty

      In contemporary society there are many attractive voices clamoring to be heard. Many offer strong opinions on what makes a woman beautiful.  Media today has all sorts to say about that—creating an unrealistic image in our society of what a beautiful woman is.  Most women do not fit that mold, leaving them unsatisfied and struggling with self-image problems. 

Recognizing the gap between reality and popular culture, the makers of Dove beauty products developed “A Campaign for Beauty,” wherein the answer to what makes someone pretty would be revealed.  Creators are determined to make media, models, and the human race aware that one does not have to fit into a uniformed Barbie mold. In a commercial created by Dove titled, “Evolution”, we watch a model who starts off as looking like herself come to work.  The model arrives ready to shoot pictures for magazines, fashion, billboards—the images that we all see everyday. 

When I first saw the model, my naïve mind thought, “Wow, she is not like the person I see in the magazines. She doesn’t look like she has the features that those beautiful models possess.”  Hmmm…why would I think that?  After all, she was that model.   But what I saw next introduced me to reality. Producers took this model, put pounds of makeup on her, covered up all of her imperfections, did her hair, changed the lighting, and then snapped pictures. 

      But the process didn’t stop there. They then took one of her best photos and doctored it. They elongated her neck, made her eyes bigger, airbrushed her face, made her features more striking, and slenderized her cheeks. That was the image that appeared on the billboard. The image that people pointed at as they walked passed.  That is the image women see and think, “Wow, she’s so perfect. How come I don’t look like that?” The answer is simple.  Because even the model doesn’t look like that.  Hardly anyone does. 

      Our perception of female beauty has been distorted by popular culture. And whether we like it or not, this is something that defines us. That makes up part of our society. That girls and women everywhere from the time they can apply makeup and from the time they watch their moms paint on cosmetics, strive to be like. And the matter of fact is: we will not be satisfied with who we are and what we look like if we keep striving to be someone else—a woman who in many cases, does not exist or who is also unsatisfied with her looks. 

      This image of beauty can prevent us from reaching our full potential. What if women considered that being beautiful was defined by being unique, confident, happy and healthy? Now that would be an image worth plastering across a billboard. Women everywhere have become addicted to finding the latest trend to look like that… but who decides what that is? I admire someone who is 100% confident in herself—one who strives to achieve what God would have her. 

No other earthly creature competes for vanity the same way humans do…and we admire and love the many qualities of each. Consider dogs, for instance.  Take the competition and emotion out of the human beauty equation, and it is easy to recognize what makes one species of dog from another—all are beautiful and unique.  And we simply classify them based on what we value most.  Some recognize the Golden Retrievers for their loyalty; another adores a poodle for its curly crazy hair. Any way you cut it, a Golden Retriever, no matter how hard it tries, will never be a poodle. Bottom line. And you know what? I think I’m okay with that.

Emmaline 

To watch Dove's commercial, click HERE

Adventures

Dan and I both had school off so we thought we'd go on a little adventure. This was the result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXUHEL9iOiA&feature=youtu.be

Back to Reality.

When I get more pictures from the wedding reception I will put them up!!

We had sooo much fun being engaged and getting married, and now we absolutely love being married! It's the greatest thing to have your best friend with you 24/7 with no more goodnights!

We are back up going to school where we have a couple classes together and studying is so much easier. Dan's been making me take this 7 am class with him which I thought would be the death of me, but I actually really love it. 

I'm taking a nutrition class because it interests me, and now I'm minoring in that!! Woohoo! Life is good. We got married the 28th of December and it was the greatest day of our lives. I love the temple and it was so incredible to look into Dan's teary eyes across the altar!

Christmas Eve in Scottsdale Mall... we got on the news!! The reporter said, "You two are just glowing. What's the deal??" Hahaha

Everything turned out wonderful with the wedding, then we were of to the magical land of Cancun!! We would highly recommend this honeymoon to anyone. It was sooo much fun and just seriously amazing! We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel in Puetra Venturas and it was a blast! All inclusive. All you can eat. All you can drink.. diet coke hahaha. We were there over New Years which was a blast! The hotel threw a huge party and we went crazy too. I think the greatest part though was that the hotel was just newly taken over by Hard Rock Hotel, and so only half the rooms were full because the rest were being remodeled. So we enjoyed the beach and pools and restaurants and it was hardly ever crowded!! Probably my favorite day was New Years Day. We decided to start the New Year off right by being a bit adventurous. Anyone who knows Daniel, he's crazy. Hahaha he's not afraid to do like anything. So we went to this adventure park and went hard core zip lining, hammock gliding, ATV riding, swimming through caves, and river rafting! It was an absolute BLAST!!!

One crazy thing was the Iguanas everywhere!! They were HUGE and would be in the grass, and all over the rocks. We even saw one while zip lining way up in the tree tops! 

We are now back in Provo and loving life.

It's been so fun decorating our little home and getting into the routine of things! We love our ward and where we live! Life is good. We will be heading for Chicago in the summer for Daniel to sell pest control! We are excited for that adventure! But for now, we looove being together.

Emmy

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