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Blogs I love, Fitness, Health

The Balanced Blonde App

October 23, 2014

The Balanced Blonde (a.k.a Jordan Younger) is a blogger who recently released her own app! For those who do not know Jordan, let me give a little bit of background information about her. 

Who is ‘The Balanced Blonde’?

creator of The Balanced Blonde App Jordan Younger

Jordan was formerly known as The Balanced Vegan, before changing to The Balanced Blonde (read more about that interesting development here). She is a gorgeous and very sweet blogger whom I recently discovered, and who is one of the few bloggers in the health and wellness sphere that is relateable. She is very down to earth and is honest in how she tries to keep an active, healthy, and happy life. Jordan was kind enough to answer some questions I had about the app.

HF: Where did the inspiration come to create an app?

TBB: I wanted to create an app for a few reasons. The first and most important reason is because I am hugely passionate about bringing health and wellness to as many people as possible, and creating an app seemed like the best way to reach the largest amount of people in the most affordable way for them. There is a stigma that eating healthy has to be expensive and time-consuming. While I do invest quite a bit in organic produce and fresh fruits and veggies, I do NOT spend a lot of time in the kitchen. These apps were created for the busy, on-the-go, kicking booty young/old/everything in between business women and men, and moms and dads who want to be as healthy as they can without dedicating their whole lives to cooking healthy food. It’s all about BALANCE, yes?
 
Secondly… I am totally obsessed with creating as much for my readers and following as possible, and an app seemed like the logical next step. I love sharing healthy recipes, wellness tips, food photography and above all else CONNECTING and giving back to the amazing following who I appreciate ever so much. I could go on and on, but these are the main reasons. Oh! And Cyrus Kiani from TouchZen Media reached out with his expertise and an amazing plan, and the rest was history!

HF: What else can we expect to see from The Balanced Blonde and TBB app in the future?

 
TBB: Well, The Balanced Blonde is doin’ some exciting things over here!! I am working on my memoir right now titled Breaking Vegan that will be out in October 2015. The memoir is a firsthand account of my battle with orthorexia, my journey through veganism, and how I found balance again. The second half of the book is a step by step guide to finding balance in your life and living healthfully without letting it take over. There is a fitness guide, 25 recipes never before seen on the blog or app, and a lifestyle guide. And TBB App will continue to be updated once a month with 4 new (free) recipes per month, and 1 new (free) healthy living guide per month. I hope to continue adding and creating as much as possible! And of course TBV Apparel is up and thriving, and we are hoping to get that into stores ASAP. Right now it’s available on www.theblondeveganstore.com and we have a ton of fun with it. And of course I will continue blogging on the daily, because that’s my bread and butter! And connecting with all of my amazing peeps.
 
All exciting stuff, huh?!

My Thoughts on TBB app

Jordan asked via social media to email her if anyone wanted the pre-release link for the TBB app, and of course I did! She was kind enough to send me the link and I wanted to let you all know what I thought about it. I downloaded it on Wednesday afternoon and my first thoughts upon opening it were “SO CUTE!!!”. The app opens up with a beautiful collage of various recipes and then takes you to a recipes page which features breakfast recipes, dessert recipes, and more. The ‘Jars of Yum’ was probably my favorite section as I love anything that I can put in my mason jar and easily bring around with me. You can favorite recipes you like and you can also add them to a ‘shopping list’ so that you know exactly what ingredients to buy. There’s also a section where you can view  Jordan’s clothing line ‘Truth, Balance, Virtue’. I think this is a great idea because a lot of times, I find browsing through online stores on my phone to be such a hassle. They are not optimized at all, whereas TBB app is 🙂 

 review of the balanced blonde app

A real stand out feature for me was the ‘Guides’ section. It contains several guides which give you really detailed and informative advice. Here’s a teaser … “Debunking the Diet Myths” and “8 Tips for Losing Bloat & Water Weight”.

Stand out recipes: Blueberry Mint Cocktail, Chocolate Quinoa Dessert, PB & J Chocolate Oats, and the Mashed Avo Breakfast Pizza

The app does come with a price however. At first, like most people, I was not too happy about paying for something. But I got over that really fast because you know what? $3.99 is the price of a latte from Starbucks and quite frankly, I could tell that Jordan put in so much hard work and time into the app. The app gives you a wealth of resources and will be updated once a month with more free recipes. Although yes, you can find healthy recipes online, I absolutely love the variety and creativity of the recipes and the fact that you can create shopping lists, organize your favorites and have it all stored in one easy place. Also, just an FYI, there are no recipes involving meat. But you can add meat to a lot of the recipes if you want, and it’s always fun to experiment with meatless meals.

Do any of you know about The Balanced Blonde? What are your experiences with the app?

Honestly yours,
Alice xx

Fitness, Health

What is Fitmob? + Athleta Giveaway

October 20, 2014

This weekend, I had the good fortune of attending a Fitmob class and seeing for myself firsthand what Fitmob was all about. I first heard about Fitmob from my boss of all people, and I had been interested to learn more ever since. So …

What is Fitmob?

What is Fitmob?

What is Fitmob? Good question – Fitmob wanted a way to help motivate people and make fitness fun again! They have a really cool community based approach to fitness that let people workout both indoors and outdoors within their own neighborhood. They essentially are creating fitness communities within San Francisco and holding great workout classes for people to attend! It’s a very innovative approach and so on point, as most people enjoy working out with others and not alone. Fun fact, Tony Horton is one of Fitmob’s co-creators. Yep, the P90X guy, how cool is that?!

My experience with Fitmob

If you go on the Fitmob website, you are prompted to enter your zip code and are then brought to a page where you can browse through a bunch of different workout classes. I decided to try a class called ‘UrbanKick’ this saturday because I absolutely love kickboxing.

 review of fitmob training in san francisco

 Fitmob Headquarters; easy to spot!

I went with a friend (double the fun!) and unfortunately, we could not do UrbanKick because there was no power in the Fitmob HQ, and the door was locked! The instructor, Justin, was quick thinking and asked if we would all be alright with going to a park nearby and doing a bootcamp style workout. I did not mind although I asked if we could do a more cardio focused bootcamp since I had done a Kayla Itsines circuit the other day, and he was very accommodating. The workout itself was great! We started out with a warmup consisting of high knees, jogging on the spot and sprints (shudder) and moved on to some leg work (think squats, squats, and more squats!) and then finished up with some core work. It was definitely a good workout although the park was pretty muddy and I got my new Asics all muddy!!! I wish I had worn my old Nikes haha, but oh well. Justin was such a fun instructor and kept us all laughing despite wanting to yell obscenities at him when he made us do jumping lunges (they are HARD!).

review of fitmob training in san francisco

 Me and my lovely friend, Amy

review of fitmob training in san francisco

 Me and Justin, our instructor!

Although I do prefer doing my own workouts, I think Fitmob is definitely something to try if you want to be motivated and to have fun whilst working out. There was a great community feel and everyone was very friendly and welcoming.

Athleta Giveaway

Onto the fun stuff … giveaway 🙂 Who doesn’t like the chance to win free goodies? And this is a truly good one as you get the chance to win a $25 gift card to Athleta! Athleta is a chic brand that sells activewear such as yoga pants and lots of other fun workout clothes. All you have to do is follow the instructions below, easy peasy!

EDIT: Although it is not required, I would love for you to leave me a blog post of what you answered for the question. I was supposed to make that option ‘Leave a Comment on the Blog’ as opposed to ‘Answer a Question’. You don’t have too, but I would truly appreciate it 🙂

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hope you all enjoyed this post. I am so happy I finally tried out Fitmob and I hope you try it out soon too!

Honestly yours,
Alice

Special thanks to Sverve on behalf of Fitmob for sponsoring this post & giveaway. All views remain my own unbiased opinions.

Fitness

Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 4

October 19, 2014

I cannot believe it has already been a month since I jumped back onto the Kayla Itsines train! Although the last two weekends have seen me indulging a bit much, I can see that my arms and core are much tighter, and that my clothes are fitting better. I decided not to weigh myself because it is coming up to be ‘that time’ of the month and because I had more food than I should’ve this weekend. Oops! I do not want to discourage myself so I will weigh myself again in a few weeks and focus on the physical changes more. I will have to be more active in ensuring that I do not indulge every weekend. Every few weekends sure, but I want to give my all during my Kayla Itsines challenge.

Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 4

The rest of the week food-wise was fine though. I am obsessed with having brown rice in my salads as it makes them much heartier and gives a great texture. I met up briefly with a good friend of mine this morning and we got some green smoothies! Needless to say, I made a custom smoothie and while it was very healthy, the taste was not so fun. I don’t know why the photo is so small! If you go to my Facebook page, you can see a bigger sized version of the photo 🙂


Kayla Itsines Round 2 - Week 4

Fitness wise, I feel SO much stronger! My big weakness for this week was previously the push ups with mountain climbers, and although I am still not 100% at them, I was able to do much more in a row than I could two weeks ago. Ahh, progress is so satisfying! I had the most ridiculous experience at the gym on Friday by the way guys. I normally always workout in the group exercise room at the gym because it tends to be less full and there is more space to workout. There was thing young guy (guessing 14 or 15) who I kid you not, was facetiming his girlfriend. He kept doing a few burpees every couple of minutes and saying ‘I love you’ constantly too. I tell you, I was SO frustrated!! Plus I forgot my headphones so I could hardly drown the guy out. Ugh. Sorry for the tangent, just had to share with you. Who comes to the gym to Facetime people and do 30 burpees in the space of 20 minutes? Thank goodness I look like such a bad ass doing my Kayla Itsines workouts (might be exaggerating heehee). Especially with my new ASICS 😀

Kayla Itsines Round 2 - Week 4

That’s all from me! I have to get back to doing work and studying, sigh. Who else here is a graduate student? Can we complain together please?!

Keep your eyes peeled for an exciting post tomorrow which may involve free stuff … wait, what? 😉 

Honestly yours,
Alice xx

P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to Honestly Fitness to get early insider scoop as to what is happening tomorrow!