Kelly Trepp, Author

I see a fair amount of irony in the fact that I obsess over healthy eating and preach it to everyone I know, but don't always follow my own principles; the most important of them being to make sure I'm consuming enough calories. Bottom line: Nobody's perfect. I had my final dress fitting on Friday for the wedding (well, not quite final as the hem was incorrect and I have to go back one more time before picking it up, but I digress). I have been super organized and in go mode for the last month putting all the finishing touches on the wedding. Having taken off work Friday and the dress appointment being in the mid-afternoon, I took the opportunity to sleep in and make up for some of my sleep deficit. Unfortunately, I slept well passed breakfast and woke up just before lunch time and had to get on the road right away. I insisted we stop for lunch along the way. Chick-Fil-A , naturally, was my choice. I consider this to be the best fast food, as far as healthy eating goes. It&

I've been slacking in the updates here lately, and for that I apologize. As some of you know, I'm counting down the days until my wedding. Today we have entered single digits and it cannot come too soon! I'm ready to walk down the aisle, sporting my Essense of Australia gown, and flexing my muscles from all those push ups I've done in preparation for this day. But the countdown isn't over in nine days, nor did it begin with the proposal. The countdown I'm talking about is for counting calories. I mentioned before that I lost quite a bit of weight with South Beach Diet. I had even become a member of their site to plan our meals, chat on the forums with people in similar situations as me, and track my progress. Before long, I had plateaued and it became plain that cutting out processed foods and eating healthier carbs alone wasn't the answer. Yes, I took up running and became more active; but I found myself to be lethargic and having less stamina on days wher

I've been in a bit of a sprint to the finish with our wedding coming up and haven't had much time for preparing full meals. But fast food is pretty much the opposite of good for you food. Brinner (Breakfast for dinner) has always been a quick and easy alternative for dinner, but it can get boring. Why not spice it up? Enter: the pizza omelet! "Doesn't look delicious," you say? Think again. The key is in the marinara sauce. Here's what I put into my pizza omelet; a few items I already had in my fridge, thankfully. 2 Eggs, Beaten 1/4 cup organic 1% milk 1/4 cup ricotta cheese 2 baby bella mushrooms, sliced 10 turkey pepperoni slices 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella Ragu Chunky Marinara (it's what was in the fridge) Beat the eggs, milk and ricotta together. Pour into hot pan. Let set. Spread marinara over top of egg to your liking. Place mushrooms and pepperoni slices. Cover with mozzarella. Voila! I folded the egg creation like I would any omele

Coming off of my post about growing your own garden, I thought I might share some quick and easy recipes for sides or appetizers that I make frequently with fresh veggies from my garden. Garden Fresh Pesto Basil is always a strong herb in my garden; no matter how much I plant, we always end up with a bush taller than me. It's a good thing we like pesto! The above picture is of whole wheat rotini noodles with pan seared chicken, garden fresh tomatoes, mushrooms and pesto made from the recipe that follows. 3 cups packed fresh basil leaves 4 cloves garlic 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (I add extra cheese liberally, it's kind of my thing) 1/2 cup olive oil 1/4 cup slivered almonds 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (also picked from the garden) Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor, I prefer the Magic Bullet , and blend until smooth. I love tossing this pesto with rotini because the ridges of the pasta pick up the creamy sauce quite nicely. Spicy

Just over two years ago now, I became obsessed with reading Martha Stewart Living magazine. I'm talking obsessed. I started tearing out pages and leaving copies all over the house to the point that FI needed to have an intervention. One of the greatest ideas Martha ever gave me was to grow my own garden. FI and I have a townhouse with minimal yard space, and when it really comes down to it, I'm kind of lazy and wanted to do as little work as possible. Sound like you? PERFECT! Keep reading! FI and I decided that our best option with our limited space was a raised garden bed . We purchased a 6'x4'x1' garden bed and went to work. We filled it with a mix of Miracle Grow Garden Soil and regular old top soil as directed on the back of the Miracle Grow bag. We purchased a rake, a hoe, some gloves for getting dirty, some seeds and a professional greenhouse plant starter kit . I drew a grid of my garden on a piece of paper to plan out what seeds needed to be planted where

It's Wednesday morning. You wipe the sleep out of your eyes and stretch as you roll over to check the clock. Time for your weekly Wednesday morning weigh-in. A million things run through your mind. I shouldn't have had that extra slice of garlic bread with my spaghetti last night. Forget the bread, why did I eat the pasta? You take a deep breath... We've all been there. The battle with the number that we see on the scale. Society puts unrealistic pressures on us to be a certain size, look a certain way, and reduce ourselves to a number. But what does that number really tell you? When you step on the scale, it doesn't tell you your muscle mass, or your BMI or any other healthy way of measuring your fitness. So why should a number constitute a fitness goal? Let's forget numbers all together. As I started losing weight thanks to my healthier meal selections, I tried to make exercising fun for myself to speed up the process. Sort of like this, but less 80s. I'm a f

My first attempt at dieting came, as I said previously, when I realized the monster I had become. Eating every carb in sight, guzzling sodas filled with sugar and consuming as much pizza as the country of Italy in a single week. Ok, I may be getting carried away, but regardless, I determined the carbs had to be doing me in. So I turned to Google, **Angels sing** and Google turned me to the South Beach Diet . The basic principles of the South Beach Diet (SBD), as I gathered them from my quick google search, were to eat low carb foods until I felt full. I was intrigued. I did more research to determine that the SBD is more than a low carb diet. It's a lifestyle change. The three phases of the diet are designed to kickstart your metabolism, help you lose weight steadily, then maintain the healthier you. In the first phase, which I'll return to every now and again when I've had a particularly binge-full weekend, SBD cuts out sugars, including natural sugars found in fruit, brea

In June of 2010, the love of my life, we'll call him FI (fiance), proposed to me on our vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The ring was everything I had hoped it would be. Beautiful platinum crossing band with inset crushed diamonds with a gorgeous center stone that was everything I had dreamed of. FI was making my dreams come true. FI with his beautiful hazel eyes, luscious eyelashes, masculine muscular build and swagger. And I, well, I was about 20 pounds heavier than I ever wanted to be and in a right state to pass out when attempting to complete a mile run. Let me back up a bit... I was a fairly active teenager. I played a lot of sports growing up, and I danced two hours a day through most of high school, give or take a few months due to related injuries. As you may glean from these blog entries, I'm a giant klutz. As a consolation of my active lifestyle, I was able to eat pretty much anything I wanted in copious amounts. Fast forward to freshman year of colleg