Life Update & Healthy Meal Plans

I seriously can’t believe we’re in the last half of August! Anyone else feel like summer has totally flown by? I’m still working on scheduling some pool time to get a tan, haha! I’ve still got a few weeks left, right?

It’s been a while since I gave you guys a life update, so I figured I’d fill you in on what’s been happening in our lives lately. The short of it, not a whole lot! We’ve been in town since Owen and I went to Aspen to visit my parents, but we’ve been keeping ourselves busy with little projects around the house like my mini patio garden and picking new furniture from Interior Define for our bedroom and living room. I cannot wait for those pieces to arrive and show you guys our updates!

The biggest life update is that I enrolled in a Functional Nutrition Course to become a Functional Nutrition Guide. This is something that I’ve been wrestling with for months. On one hand, it was something I knew I wanted to learn more about and was really excited to do, but on the other, I worried that I wouldn’t have the time to actually dedicate to it with a job and a baby. Eventually I found the course that was right for me and thankfully it’s all online. It’s also not as structured as some of the courses out there and my certification isn’t anything really fancy, but that wasn’t what was most important to me.

More than anything, I just wanted to have a better understanding of food, nutrition and what it can do to heal (or hurt) our bodies. Functional nutrition has played such a huge part in my own healing and it’s become something I’m really passionate about, so I’m pumped that I finally just went for it! I have to admit it has been a little tough to find the time, but as long as I schedule to go through sections of the course at the beginning of the week, I make it happen.

There’s small things we can do every day to make a big difference in our overall health. I start each morning with a scoop of Vital Proteins collagen in my coffee or a Vital Proteins Collagen Matcha latte (my recipe is amazing, so get it here). It supports healthy skin, nails and hair and also does wonders for my gut health.

This leads me into another thing I’m really excited about—those meal plans I’ve been talking about on Insta Stories! First off, thank you so much to for giving me insight on your own eating habits and diet plans so I could make these plans as helpful as possible (and I really hope you like the recipes!). I wanted to test the measurements on everything to make sure it was easy to follow because often I just wing it while I cook. Now that it’s done, I’m happy to finally share them with you! Click here to get your meal plans!

I included a vegetarian meal, paleo-friendly meal and two other well-rounded healthy meals. We don’t follow any specific diet, but usually eat very little to no gluten or dairy and these recipes reflect those choices!

More and more, meal planning has become so important in our own lives. It makes my weeknights infinitely easier if I already know what’s going to be cooked and have the ingredients in the fridge. It assures that we get a healthy meal because if I’m running on low and have no dinner plans, we usually just order takeout which ends up not being very healthy.

Second, it’s a huge time saver! I used to spend several hours throughout the week searching for recipes or trying to come up with new ideas for dinner—now I do it in advance, shop on Sunday and I’m ready for the rest of the week, which makes our weeks much less stressful.

Lastly, it saves us a good chunk of change. For one, we order less takeout when we have a stocked fridge and I have less food waste because I try to utilize similar ingredients in multiple recipes so I’m not left with a ton of stuff!

Get your healthy meal plans here!

Okay, so go ahead, download them, shop and cook and please let me know what you think!

As September approaches, we have a few things on our calendar—a wedding in Atlanta, which means we also get to see my sister and brother-in-law. We had so much fun visiting them back in June. I so wish that I lived closer to my sisters, but for now, this will do! We might plan one more fall trip, but it’s still up in the air!

Hope you’re having a wonderful August and enjoying the last few weeks of summer!