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Hy-Vee Gift Card GIVEAWAY!

If you live in the Des Moines area you may have noticed all of the SUPER Hy-Vee’s popping up!

The first one opened in Urbandale (I personally shop at this one!) Now there is one located in Ankeny and Waukee!

A few things I like about the Super Hy-Vee  are …

1. Bulk Section 

Each Super Hy-Vee has a bulk section. You can find nuts, dry fruit, oatmeal, flours, quinoa, trail mixes, organic, non-organic items and much more. You can also get honey, grind your own peanut butter and almond butter! The nice thing about shopping bulk is it’s more economical. Personally, I do not have much space in my kitchen to store large bags of flour, boxes of rice, nuts, oatmeal, etc. I enjoy purchasing EXACTLY what I need for a recipe or what I will be using that week. It also saves me a lot more money that way. If it is something that I use over and over again I will buy it in larger quantities. I love to place whatever I have leftover, into mason jars and place in our cabinet. I think it looks so much more neater 🙂

2. Meat and Seafood Counter

There are a lot of pre-made items available. When I know we have a busy week coming up I love buying an already marinated salmon or a stuffed chicken breast. All I have to do is throw it in the oven, bake it, and add some veggies! Every once in awhile they will also have GREAT meat bundle packages for awesome prices and you receive fuel saver money for it also. This past summer, I would always stock up on their brats when they had their 10/$10.00 deal with 10 cents off on fuel saver! We would use them that week or I would just throw them in the freezer for when we had any family get together’s like my birthday party 🙂

3. Organic and Health Food Department

I LOVE walking through the Organic and Health Food Department! I always find something new and wonderful to try. They have Kind Bars, Almond Milk (I buy the Hy-Vee brand, way cheaper then anywhere else), Kombucha, sweet potato chips, Monte’s favorite cheese ravioli’s, and so much more. If you shop in this department on Wednesdays, you can receive a 10% discount. This helps tremendously, when you try to shop mostly organic.

4. Produce Section 

Their produce section is not my ALL time favorite, but they do offer some great deals on their produce. I also like their Hy-Vee grillables, which are various chopped up vegetables in a tin tray. You can place them on the grill or saute them and a lot of times they offer fuel saver on these too!

5. Fuel Saver

The main reason why I always shop at Hy-Vee is the Fuel Saver program. As I mentioned above, there are a lot of items they offer for Fuel Saver.

Each week, I look through the Hy-Vee add and circle any item that we may be interested in that has Fuel Saver on it. If it is an item we use frequently, I may stock up on it so I earn even more Fuel Saver, such as batteries or toilet paper. Considering Travis drives 45 minutes EACH WAY to work, almost every day, getting as much off of gas is VERY helpful with our monthly budget.

I would love to hear from YOU about your thoughts and favorite things you enjoy about Hy-Vee! I am offering a FREE $25.00 gift card to YOU!

There are a few rules though …

1. You must comment on one post. Please comment anything you would like! I am looking for feedback, so I can provide more of what YOU want to read 🙂

2. Subscribe! The 15th subscriber who subscribes AND comments will win the $25.00 gift card.

3. You have 1 week to do all of the above!

Don’t forget to go “like” my Facebook page to stay on top of what is going on!

 

Paleo

Okay … let’s talk about Paleo!

Paleo is anything a caveman could hunt or find years and years ago such as meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish and seeds.

I have just become more interested in the Paleo way of living (notice that I did not say diet). After taking a summer off from anything and everything healthy (seriously) I can tell you that I have felt miserable! I had spent about 6 months eating clean, working out everyday, lost 30 pounds, ran my first 5K, and felt AWESOME! Well, of course summer came … I took a trip, had some family emergencies, ate out a lot, and found every other excuse not to exercise or stay on track with my eating.

It is crazy how big of a difference I feel from the spring time (when I was on track) to now. I am more tired, feel bloated all the time, breaking out, etc. Although this probably isn’t the best way to experiment, this experience has taught me what my body can and cannot handle.

One thing I have noticed is dairy. Remember when I talked about my obsession with Pumpkin Spice Lattes and every other latte for that matter?

Well, I have noticed a direct affect with drinking lattes (loaded with milk) with breaking out and bloating. Also bread and pasta! They just make you feel ucky!!!!!

So, I made a trip to our local library and checked out this book …

Wow! This is a great book and I definitely recommend purchasing it! Practical Paleo does a great job explaining what the Paleo way of eating is and how it affects your body. I seriously felt that I was reading a story of how my body felt, according to my body! This book offers TONS of recipes and tear out cards to help you get on track with Paleo.

After reading this book, I continued my research online and talked to a few friends. Another popular thing is the Whole 30 program. For those individuals who are interested in starting the Paleo lifestyle, the Whole 30 is a great way to introduce you to it. It’s a straight, 30 days eating Paleo and no sugar. You also cannot create the Paleo cookies or other Paleo (awesome looking) desserts. It’s just straight up meat, vegetables, seafood, some fruit, seeds and nuts!

I decided against the Whole 30 :/ (for now at least) Mainly, because I know that I have the tendency to binge if I absolutely, cannot have something! I would rather ease my way into something then going cold turkey!

Here are the things I like about Paleo and why I will be easing my way into this lifestyle change …

  1. It’s all whole foods
  2. It teaches you to get creative!
  3. You learn a LOT!!

 

Since I have started looking at everything I eat, it’s CRAZY to see all of the additional things are added into foods that you may think are healthy or “clean”. This week is kind of my first week of beginning this process. For example …

  • Breakfast: I have been eating French Toast Scramble, (from one of my FAVORITE blogs Carrots ‘n Cake!)  With a big scoop of Almond Butter (can’t use Peanut Butter anymore!)
  • Lunch: I cut up a couple of sweet potatoes into fourths and baked them in the oven,with honey drizzled on top, and garlic salt. I then cooked several strips of turkey bacon. I eat a strip of turkey bacon, sweet potato and some pineapple and feel very satisfied!

  • Dinner: Hy – Vee has a lot of pre-made seafood. Last night I had a Sweet and Spicy Salmon filet, delish! Another place to check out is Trader Joe’s, they have a lot of frozen seafood items that can be thawed and cooked up quickly with some veggies for dinner.
  • Snack: GREEN JUICE! If you did not see, I got a Hurom juicer for my birthday 🙂 Also, I have made my own trail mix using banana chips, sunflower seeds, and roasted almonds from Trader Joe’s. It’s the perfect combo of sweet &
    salty!

 

Here is to the beginning of my journey eating Paleo! Any tips and suggestions are appreciated!