Spinning on the Savannah

 Last night I participated in a 5 hour spin event to benefit Camp OO-U-La, a camp put on by the Georgia Firefighters Foundation for children burn victims. Each rider had to raise $100 to participate, and I rode along with my coworkers making Century Glen Apartment's contribution to the children a whopping $300! My manager, assistant manager and I all spin at the Spin and Fitness Gallery in Evans, GA- which was the host of the event. We were thrilled at the challenge of a 5 hour ride and decided to take the opportunity to do something philanthropic as a team and include our other coworkers and residents in raising the funds. Through generous donations from our maintenance staff, residents, vendors, friends and family we raised the $300 needed for us to ride.

view from my bike at beginning of event

  The event appropriately titled "Spinning on the Savannah" was truly awesome. About 35 bikes were placed on the amphitheater stage in downtown Augusta, GA directly on the Savannah river.
We were led by Ivan Trinadad the owner of the Spin Gallery and entertained by a DJ for the whole 5-hour ride. The type of spinning we do is dubbed "Tae-bo spinning" and you wont find it in most gyms. We straight up dance on our bikes. We work our arms, abs, glutes and flat out boogie down. If we didn't there is no way I would enjoy riding in place so much!! From 7pm until midnight last night a group of 30+ women (and a few token gentlemen) rode their butts off to support Camp OO-U-La and raise money for the children. The point of such a scenic and public location was for more than the view! The music and and event drew a lot of onlookers and supporters who all helped the cause by dropping off donations! With my girls in front of and next to me I successfully completed 4 hours of the spin....I feel certain I could have done the 5th hour had I not been nursing and infant I needed to get home to (4 hours is a long time to go-even when you're wearing two sports bras-lol)! Here are some pictures one of the event staff shot for me with my camera! We had a great time!! Hope you had a fabulous Saturday night, as well! Love, Layne

Jennifer and Me- hour 2

doing it Puertorican style...

the Century Glen staff...London (manager), Layne (leasing specialist) and Jennifer (assistant manager)

The week so far...

  So....day two of being a working mom. Not all it's cracked up to be. I'm loving being around my work fam again, but I definitely miss my baby girl more than I ever thought I would. Also- ridiculously small amount of time to do ANYTHING. Including blog as much as I'd like.

Working out and dieting this week hasn't gone as planned, but not bad- per say. Monday and Tuesday I didn't exercise at all but I stuck to my diet perfectly and ate VERY well. Wednesday I started a new work out plan....Insanity did NOT blow my mind. It was crazy boring. It was 90% plyometrics and 10% cardio and no music or fun- I could not focus or get into it. Instead I started doing Hip Hop Abs....it's by the same instructor and is a lot more my style. I get to dance and jam out and that makes exercising a lot more fun and something I'll commit to. Wednesday I got a great work out in, and went to work prepared to eat my healthy lunch of a salad, rice cakes and Oikos yogurt. Diet fail. I ate like 4 cookies- we had 3 different types made at work and then someone brought up two more types of homemade cookies, AND a resident brought us gourmet chocolates. Yikes. It was like the universe was telling me to indulge!!! Today I haven't worked out yet but plan on it, and I've done really well on my diet. Overall, I'm not on track to lose 3lbs like I was aiming for, but I will lose this week and not gain--we'll see how much on Monday morning.

Tuesday night I made an awesome White Veggie Lasagna that was really low fat and low cal! Here is the recipe!!!

Dice up your choice of fresh veggies! I used yellow squash, zuccini, orange and red bell peppers!

I shop at WalMart for all of our generic food, so this was affordable, too! Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and grease a casserole dish. 

You need a large box of noodles (I used about 11 strips). And  a pack of Alfredo and Garlic Herb Knorr sauce mix.

Follow the instructions on the sauce packets but use slightly less milk than it calls for. I used skim milk to keep it healthier and light margarine, as well. 

Next you need a container of Skim Ricotta, egg, shredded mozza, and shredded parmesan (fresh would be tastier but I went for convenience...)

Mix the entire container of ricotta with 1/4 cup of the mozza, 1/8 cup of the parm and the egg. Once the sauce is ready add your veggies to it. Now layer your lasagna: row of noodles, 1/2 the ricotta mixture, veggie sauce, noodles, other 1/2 of ricotta mixture, sauce, noodles, sauce and then top it with 1/4 cup of mozza and 1/8 cup or parm.

VOILA! The calorie content is 300 calories per serving with it yielding 8 servings!! Sorry I didn't get an after pic, but it was BOMB.

This weekend is my birthday weekend, hopefully I'll have some fun and good pics to share! Love, Layne

A new week...

So after week 1 of "insanity" I've actually gained a pound or two. I'm not surprised, though. I only did 2 of the Insanity workouts last week, and 1 walk around the neighborhood- then this past weekend was spent with Chad's family and included 2 birthday party and cakes with ice cream... I do think y'all should know that on Friday before we left town I finally trashed the cream cheese icing I had been snacking on all week. Down the drain it went, I didn't even put it in the trash because I didn't trust myself to not go back and pick out the chunks off of the top (gross, I know and sort of a jobe- but that is how good this frozen icing was.) My goal this week is to lose 3 pounds. It's a steep goal but here is my plan...

1. Continue to breastfeed every 4 hours and pump every 2 hours in between-this is normal but it is a help, regardless.
2. Insanity workout or power walk EVERY day.
3. Keeping to my menu plan.
4. Blog about what I'm doing.
5. Going back to work.

My plan this week (and we'll see how it works) is to be accountable. First, I typed up a menu plan and wrote down what I'm going to eat Monday- Friday. I printed it out and it's on my refrigerator and I'll cross off what I what I eat each day and write down if I add anything or cheat. Second, I start work back on Wednesday which will really help with my weight loss. It's super easy to over snack when you're in the house in your kitchen all day like I have been the past 6 weeks with Noah. Packing a lunch for work will help me stick to my diet. Third, I'm going to blog as often as I can and let y'all know how it's going. It's amazing how motivating typing out your failures and successes and then sharing them with the world can be. So, 3 lbs is the goal, folks!! Wish me luck, thinner thighs and a tighter tush! Love, Layne

First out of town trip with Cloth Diapers

      We spent the past weekend at the beach with my in-laws. This was Noah's first big trip, and our first out of town outing with cloth diapers. The trip was a breeze, I didn't encounter any serious issues, I learn a few things, and overall it was a great first vaycay experience.
    To begin I washed every diaper we had other than the one on Noah's tush. We have 12 newborn BumGenius diapers that we use consistently and about 8 one-size diapers from other brands (Oh Katy, Sun Diapers, Fuzzibunz) that we have worked into our cycle since she is close to growing out of the new born size. Then I came across our first small dilemma. We use a FuzziBunz hanging diaper pail at our house to store all of the dirty dipes until we wash them. It's big and can hold a bajillion dirty dipes, it hangs on our bathroom door knob and does a great job of keeping the odor out of the air. Other than the hanging bag, we have a small Kushie's wet bag that stays on our pack-n-play changing table and medium sized wet bag from Target that goes in our diaper bag and holds several diapers...the Kushies and target bags were not going to cut it for a weekend trip so we washed the hanging bag with the load of diapers and packed it, too. Then left the two dirty diapers from Friday morning in a small wet bag in our bathroom sink and that was that! I packed what looked like a ton of nappies, but ended up using all but one diaper between 2pm on Friday and 9pm on Sunday. The two other small issues that I stumbled upon were not having a diaper sprayer I didn't know how to pre-clean the dirties to prevent staining. I rinsed one under the tub faucet but there wasn't enough water pressure to do any good so all of the diapers stayed fully dirty all weekend. I am worried about staining from the poo soaking in that long. Additionally we took disposable wipes which at first you'd think would be easiest, but I didn't want to flush a ton of wipes and mess up their plumbing, and didn't want to toss smelly wipes in the bathroom trash, so they went in the hanging bag, too and I'll have to pick them out of the washer now. We haven't done a lot of cloth wipes so far, but we do have plenty and I do have a wipe spray solution prepared. Next time we should do perfectly! Here is a picture of Noah being held by her oldest cousin this weekend.