Pakistan

In honour of throwback Thursday I thought I would throwback to my trip to Pakistan last spring! My family and I stopped into Pakistan on our way to Europe to visit my dads side of the family. It had been about 6 years since the last time we'd been there so I didn't remember that much about it. It was a great trip though I loved seeing all my family, I have over 50 cousins and around 16-17 aunts and uncles. There's definitely never a dull moment! My grandparents live out in the country in a little village so we have to drive from Islamabad(capital city) to the village which takes around 6 hours. Not my favorite part of the trip I'll have to admit, after flying for almost 24 hrs a 6 hr drive is the last thing you want to do. I usually just stick on some music and sleep. Once we get to the village our whole GIANT family is waiting at our grandparents house to meet us which is amazing yet kind of overwhelming because of how many people there are. Plus I mean we look awful from all the traveling so the last thing you want to do is be surrounded by people you haven't seen in years. I love being out in the country though, we have a huge wheat field in the back and I love to go out there. It's the most relaxing place in the whole house.  They don't have stoves so we have to cook on fire, which for 2-3 weeks is actually fun but I don't think I could do it forever. My grandparents also have tons of chickens and goats so naturally we have baby chicks and baby goats every time we go and they are absolutely precious. One of the biggest downsides of the village is that there are no toilets. This is literally the worst because all we have is a hole in the ground where you squat. Luckily they have toilet paper which kind of helps make the squat hole a tiny bit better. Going to Pakistan definitely makes me appreciate my very blessed life I have here. We take so many things for granted, simple things like stoves and actual toilets. Many people in the village can hardly afford food for their families let alone luxuries like tvs, iPhones, and computers. It's a very humbling and eye opening experience to see just how blessed we all are to have all these normal everyday luxuries that people over there will never have. My parents and I actually started a school in our village for all the girls and boys who couldn't afford to pay for school and it is thriving! We have over 100 kids and growing. I will be writing a post on our visit to the school soon.  Here are some pics from our trip I hope you guys enjoy them! 

Here is myself and two of my favourite little cousins.

 Two of of my favorite little girl cousins. 

Me and my dad. 

My aunt and I working on dinner, this is our "stove"

Wheat Field, which I'm twinning with!! 

Taking a ride to the market with my little cousin. 

Did a little impov Photoshoot in the wheat field because "hey, why not?"  

My precious baby cousin!! 

Henna! 

Super Bowl Dessert

Hey guys! 

Since the Super Bowl isn't far off I thought I would start posting some yummy football themed recipes to get us all ready for the big game. Since my mom and I both love desserts the most my first recipe is football chocolate dipped strawberries. They are super simple to make and look absolutely adorable. Plus strawberries are fruit and fruit is good for you so doesn't that technically make this a healthy treat?  Let's keep telling ourselves that anyway. Okay so here's what you'll need

Ingredients-

One pack of strawberries

One bag of dipping chocolate

Toothpicks

And white chocolate chips

Directions

So first off melt your dipping chocolate in one pot and your white chocolate chips in another

Take your strawberries and dip them in the chocolate( I find us using a toothpick helps with this)

Lay them on a piece of parchment paper lined with a little coconut oil to keep them from sticking while they dry

After they have dried take the melted white chocolate and draw some little white lines across the strawberries to give them a football like appearance.

When you're done they should look something like this 

Don't they look adorable? They will make the perfect addition to any Super Bowl party guaranteed. 

T-shirt Hoarder

Okay guys I'm officially in love with this new Tee I found at Kohls I literally let out a squeal of fan girl excitement in the store when I saw this, how could I not?!?! I mean c'mon it's Fault in our Stars!! It was only $12 which I think is basically a steal considering I would have paid like $30 because it's just that amazing! I'm really kind of a T-shirt hoarder, like its a problem but I couldn't resist adding this one to my collection. It's perfect okay? Okay. 

Transformation Tuesday

Hello Everyone!
Today I'm going to be sharing a little bit of my weightloss story. I am sharing it in the hopes that it will help inspire or at the very least motivate someone out there to start leading a healthier lifestyle. I just want to show you guys that you can lose weight in a healthy and very do-able way. You do not need some crazy diet or pills, just determination and some dumb-bells ;) Okay so lets get into then.


My weight loss journey started around the beginning of 2012, when I was 158 lbs and wearing a 2X. One day I basically woke up and decided that I was tired of eating junk and feeling bad. I wanted to feel better about how I looked in my clothes and how I felt about my myself all together. So from that day on I started running. At first I'll tell you it was a complete nightmare. I could only go for about 10 minutes before I felt like dying but everyday I kept doing my 10 minutes and soon that turned into 20, then 30, and so on.

After about 2 months of running I started to notice a few pounds come of but still nothing drastic like you hope would come from running your butt of everyday. That's when I decided to start looking at my diet. They say that losing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise and that couldn't be more true guys. My family has always eaten pretty healthy but my biggest problem was portion control( nothing is that healthy that going back for thirds won't hurt you in trying to lose weight.) and snacking on the wrong foods. 

After I began to change my diet, that is when I really started to see results. I started cutting back my portions to healthy sizes and started snacking on fruits and veggies instead of candy and chips. I started eating salads, drinking smoothies, and I had never felt better. All this whole food gave me the strength and energy to run longer and even start yoga. After about 6 months I noticed a very pleasant change in my body. I was stronger, more in shape, and was down to 120 lbs and could fit in a size small! 

When I reached 120 I started to realized that my body was still flabby, not 156 flabby, but just not as toned as I would like to be. That's when I started incorporating strength training into my daily workouts.  I went and bought some light dumbbells and at first I was at a complete loss as to what to do with the stupid things. I'm not kidding i had no idea. I started going on YouTube and looking at workout videos that used dumbbells to get an idea and that helped me a lot. I realized that all cardio wouldn't give me the toning I wanted so I started doing a lot of workout videos to build some muscle. I continued a good mix of strength and cardio combined with eating healthy all the way into 2013 and the beginning of 2014. At the beginning of 2014 I weight 112 and had finally gained some muscle. I continued to eat healthy and control my portions but I had to increase my calories a little because of the strength training which meant upping portions. 

I am currently still 112 lbs and still building muscle. I continue to eat as healthy as I can, I do cheat every once and a while because hey life was meant to be enjoyed. I won't completely give of all my favourite foods, like pizza and chocolate cake, I just have them in moderation balanced out with all my whole foods. If you guys have any questions for me I'd be more than happy to answer them, just post them below! I hope my story will motivate you guys and show you that losing weight and becoming a healthier version of yourself is completely doable and that anyone, including you, can do it.