Monthly Archives: November 2017

Dieting? Eat Turkey. Gobble Gobble!

Blog post written by: OhDaisyBi

It can be hard to keep fit and stick to your healthy lifestyle during the holiday season. You start a diet or exercise plan and tell yourself that you will only take one day off and then go back to being healthy. The only problem is that you don’t go back.

We’ve all been there.

The Holiday Season kick starts with Halloween, followed shortly by Thanksgiving, then Hanukkah and Christmas, and finally the New Year. The festivities never seem to end! And we aren’t considering delicious seasonal favorites like the pumpkin spice latte! The calories can add up fast.

Although the holidays fill us with lots of joy, they can be tight on our jeans’ waistbands. Here are a few “tricks” that will allow you to enjoy the festive meals and stick to your healthy lifestyle.

1. Wear a Corset.

One downside to our perception of the holiday feast is to eat to our fill, and then some. To stop yourself from overeating, wear a corset. The idea of a corset may seem archaic, something that came out of the Victorian days, but it has its uses.

The corset restricts the amount the stomach stretches and limits overeating. You can also wear it all year round. Other benefits include:

  • Eating slowly,
  • Eating frequently throughout the day,
  • Eating small quantities of all your favorite foods,
  • AND you don’t feel hungry!

What can be better than that?

I bought my first corset after my second pregnancy (I used a postpartum waist wrap after my first pregnancy). When selecting a corset, remember to be conservative with the sizes. I purchased two sizes, a large and a medium. The large helped me slim down to sizes 10 to 12, and the medium helped me get to size 6 to 8. I’m currently a size 6. If you want to know more about how I lost weight after my pregnancies (or losing weight in general), leave me a note in the comments below!

I personally recommend the Yianna Women’s Corset. This corset is a steal at $20.88 on Amazon. It is comfortable and hid well under my clothes. I’m also intrigued to try the Spanx Waist Cincher. This corset is sold at Target for $28.00.

So, put the corset on in the morning and wear it all day long while you munch away! You’ll stay within your calorie count, and you get to eat everything too. This is one time where you can have your cake and eat it too!

2. Eat Healthy

Keep in mind that the corset will not do all the work. You have to be mindful of what you eat too. So, stick to healthy carbohydrates:

  • Eat whole grain bread. Consider trying to cut down the amount of bread you eat altogether.
  • Eat more vegetables.
  • Eat turkey with light gravy.
  • Drink more water.
  • Include a larger quantity of fruit on your dessert plate with a small slice of pie on the side (Yum!)

Let the feast begin!

About the Author

OhDaisyBi is the newest edition to the Belles & Books blog. Lawyer by day, Mother of two by night, she will be posting about all things kid. She’s also passionate about answering the internet’s burning questions on the “Women Can Do It All” lifestyle– time management, budgeting and finance, and boss-woman things. In her “free” time she’s usually attempting Pinterest cooking ideas and working out. Join her on here every month for a new post!

Giving Thanks Under an Open Sky

Ah yes, Thanksgiving! It’s my husband’s favorite time of the year, and why not?  Football and an unlimited supply of food while lounging with the guys yelling at the TV, and looking forward to a mountain of leftover sandwiches for days to come! It’s any man’s dream! Of course, if your family is anything like mine, it can get a little cramped in the house. So this year, take thanksgiving…OUTDOORS! If you live in the south or have warmer weather during the holidays like I do, try to enjoy it out amongst the beauties of nature! It’s a fresh new outlook and offers a comfortable amount of space for large parties.

For all of you who love a little something new, below are a few of ideas on what you can do to make this into a reality!

TREES, TREES, EVERYWHERE!

What could be better than the natural canopies provided by trees? If you’ve been blessed with many trees in your backyard, it’s a perfect fixture to set and decorate your table. Hanging lanterns and fairy lights off the trees can add a little sparkle to your table décor and also help provide that soft glow if the natural light fades.

BOUQUETS FOR DAYS

Centerpieces and table décor doesn’t have to be a huge expense! The best thing about fall is the changing of the leaves, and what better to adorn your tables than a bouquet of beautiful red, yellow, maroon and green leaves set with red and purple berries tied with twine string! This is a great way to get the kids involved in making some creative bouquets for the table settings!

CANDLES, GOURDS AND PLACE CARDS, OH MY!

Get creative with your left over Halloween décor! Chances are you still have a few of those tea candles and decorative pumpkins left over from last month! Recycle your décor brilliantly by experimenting with candles and small pumpkins as part of the table centerpieces. Candles of different sizes add dimension and a little fun to the whole theme of the table, and using simple place cards with a personalized message can be a beautiful way to show how much your family means to you.

DON’T FORGET TO ADD A LITTLE HEAT

Even with the warmest of weather, the evenings can get a bit chilly. Space heaters to the rescue! Help warm up the nights with a little heat so you can enjoy the outdoors a little longer without compromising that comfort.

Of course, there is no end to the creativity! These are just a few ways you can change up the holiday to add more space and sparkle and a little bit of your own custom touch to a meaningful get together!

 

MyFairLady is the latest addition to the Belles & Books writing team, so of course she’s an avid reader  ^_^ .  She’s a surgeon with a quirky side.  An ‘artsy’ mommy-to-be, she’ll be writing about design, decor, and DIY.  In her free time she indulges in new food finds around the Dallas/Fort Worth area. 
All images used in this post are from Google images.

Ready, Set, *Bang*: NaNoWriMo 2017

While some people are waking up to Nov 1st saying “Rabbit Rabbit”, writers all over the world have been up since midnight, furiously typing away in an attempt to write 50,000 words over the next 30 days. Why? Because it’s NaNoWriMo.

What’s NaNoWriMo?
NanoWrimMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It happens every November and it is self-inflicted insanity. In every corner of the world, writers are meeting up online and in person, getting together simply to motivate each other to write their dream novels in a sprint-style race against the clock. The goal isn’t to have a publishable work, perfect and pristine at the end of the month. It’s to make PROGRESS. A typical novel has about 80,000 words. Getting 50,000 of those down on paper in a rough draft format is a huge accomplishment, and if you’ve ever been stuck with writer’s block, you’ll understand what I mean.

write everything

I first found out about NaNoWriMo almost 7 years back but never felt like I could do it. Not this year! This year, I’ll be joining the fray for the very first time and I couldn’t be more thrilled and excited to see what I can do when I’m really pushed to my limits. I’ll be busy typing away for the rest of the month so I won’t be posting live updates each week but if you want to know how I’m doing throughout the month, it’ll probably look a little like this:

NaNoWriMo Calendar.png

Check back here on December 1st for my reaction to what is, by unanimous vote, the craziest adventure any writer takes each year. Fingers crossed I’m not brain dead by then!

You should be writingWell said, Doctor. Well said. *Gulp*