Sharing the details of this 21 day healthy habits challenge. We start on January 8th and details to join are here!

Hi friends! How are you? I hope you’re having a wonderful week and that those of you who were celebrating Christmas had a beautiful holiday. We had an amazing holiday here, and I’ll definitely share a recap in this week’s Friday Faves.

For now, let’s talk about a little healthy habits reset.

I’m not sure if you’re feeling the same way, but I’m definitely ready to get back in my routine and start 2024 feeling energized and amazing. It’s been a bit of a flood of alcohol and sweets around here, and while it was 1000% worth my while I enjoyed every second, I’m looking forward to getting back to the habits that make me feel my best.

I figured we could do a little 21 day challenge, and I’d love to have you join in!

When I talk to friends, clients, and potential clients, they typically fall into two categories:

– Those who are overwhelmed and not sure where to get started to accomplish their goals

– Those who know what to do, but are unsure of how to make it work in their real life. They start off too strong, are doing things they don’t even necessarily like, and when they can’t stick with it, they give up, or move onto the next new thing.

21 days of healthy habits

Here’s how the 21 day challenge will work:

We’re focusing on building foundational habits that you can maintain for the long haul. We’re creating the anchor habits that will help you improve body composition, sleep, mood, mindset, overall health, and performance. You can get the results you’re waiting for, without fighting your body, and while keeping your hormones and nervous system happy. 🙂

The party starts January 8th with an optional 7 or 14 day functional medicine detox. (If you’d just like to do the detox, my tracking link is here and you can use the code FITNESSISTA10 for 10% off!) I’d order yours ASAP if you know you’re going to do this. Sometimes shipping is very fast, other times, it takes a little while. I’ll be doing the 14-day version! This detox is completely optional and Read more

Hi friends! I hope that you have a wonderful day, and a very Merry Christmas to my friends who are celebrating today. Wishing you joy, happiness, love, and vibrant health. Thank you so much for being a part of my life!

For now, we’re going to enjoy some coffee and nana’s egg casserole, watch the babies open gifts, and spend the day in our jammies with family.

Have a great day and I’ll see ya soon.

xoxo

Gina

The post have yourself a merry little Christmas appeared first on The Fitnessista.

20 Minute Cheesy Caprese Pesto Tarts

I don’t know about you, but I adore appetizers, especially around the holidays. We make these 20 minute cheesy caprese pesto tarts all the time!

It’s easy to make a savory appetizer with puff pastry for gatherings and using a few key ingredients will make it taste like you’ve been in the kitchen for hours. Which is my favorite thing, make people think I’ve worked harder than I did.

We’ve done a whole post on pesto, how to make pesto, how to store pesto, how to freeze pesto, how to keep pesto green, how long pesto keeps, and we have plenty of recipes that use pesto which we will link up to at the bottom of the post. So, refer back to that post if you need to read up on pesto.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Fisher Nuts, however all opinions remain our own.

What Do I Need to Make Pesto Tarts?

Here is a quick rundown of all the ingredients you’ll need. The measurements for everything can be found by scrolling down to the recipe card below.

For the Pesto

• Basil: you can make your own fresh pesto (highly recommend!) or go with store-bought pesto to save time
• Garlic: fresh whole cloves
• Fisher Walnuts: We use walnuts instead of pine nuts to really push that more nutty flavor in this pesto.
• Olive Oil: make sure it is extra virgin for the best flavor
• Parmesan Cheese: adds flavor
• Lemon Zest and Juice: adds a bright pop of freshness and helps keep the basil green
• Salt: enhances all the flavors

For the Tarts

• Puff Pastry: We use store bought puff pastry because hello, who has time to make that from scratch?
• Grape Tomatoes: You can half them or leave them whole depending on the size.
• Mozzarella Cheese: grab a block of good quality cheese and cube it, it melts so perfectly!
• Black Pepper: adds flavor

Tips About Walnuts

Just as with our classic pesto, the secret to really great flavor is in toasting the nuts and garlic. Walnuts, when fresh are not bitter like you may believe. Instead they have a sweetness to them and with that robust garlic it really makes for a great pesto.

The pesto we will make today is a little different as it uses Fisher Nuts Walnuts. We did a random sampling and Fisher Nuts were preservative free, tasted the most fresh and not bitter since they weren’t past their date of freshness.

Did you know that? That good fresh walnuts taste juicy, nutty and sweet? To store walnuts, I keep mine in the blue bag we buy them in as the dark colored bag actually is best to keep them fresh, then we place them in the kitchen cupboard as light degrades the oils.

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Hi friends! Happy holly jolly weekend to ya. What are you up to? We are baking cookies, cleaning, and getting the last bit of holiday to-dos completed. I’m also putting together something fun for January; I’ll have it up here on the blog next week.

We had a loss in our family this week, so Christmas is going to look a bit different from our usual routine. I’m definitely looking forward to mass with the fam, spending time together, and watching the kids open their gifts. I may share more later, but my heart is hurting right now.

Friday Faves 12.22

A roundup of the week + some faves:

A trip to the Fairmont Princess in Scottsdale. This has become a yearly tradition, and it’s something we all look forward to. They turn the resort into a winter wonderland, with tons of holiday light displays, Santa, ice skating, s’more pits, and rides. The kids always have a blast. This year, we went with a group fo friends and it was even more fun!

Some pics from the trip:

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Welcome to the weekend, my friends! I hope your week (and your weather) have been fantastic and that you’re enjoying the holidays however you choose to celebrate them. We enjoyed a dusting of snow this week and I was in heaven for the brief day that it lasted on the trees. 

I can dream of a white Christmas, but this year, it’s only a dream. We’re supposed to hit 60 degrees on Monday (just a few degrees lower than the forecast for Phoenix) – what kind of nonsense is that? At least I can look forward to an afternoon walk in the warmer weather.

What we’re EATING: It’s been a seriously delicious week over here without a single new blog post to show for it. (And I’m not at all sad about that right now.)

Sean made the Ground Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry the other night and I may be guilty of having hidden the last serving for my lunch – zero guilt here, that’s how we roll. I tossed the leftover beef and broccoli with some leftover Noodles with Cabbage and the combination was so flipping good it gave me an idea for another new recipe.

I made a batch of Cinnamon Crinkle Cookies and then proceeded to eat an absurd number of them with my morning and midday and late afternoon coffee. I’m pretty sure that when a cookie encourages me to drink more and more coffee, it might not be a good thing, but the cookies are just so perfectly chewy with a buttery cinnamon sugar flavor, sigh. I love them.

We’ve been on a roll with Breakfast Sandwiches lately, although they often get made closer to lunchtime. I’ve also been informed that “Dad’s sandwiches are better than yours, Mom” with the added non-apologetic comment, “Sorry, but it’s true.” So, it looks like I may need to investigate exactly what makes his better. (Odds are good that it’s a whole lot of meat, as my carnivore crew can’t get enough bacon and sausage in their breakfasts.)

I made a version of this Cashew Chicken Salad, but wound up swapping so many ingredients both because they sounded good and because I didn’t have everything on hand, it became a whole new recipe. Not sad about that though, as I made notes so that I can make it again. The whole family was eating the chicken salad on crackers, right out of the mixing bowl.

My youngest son helped, actually did most of the work, to make his favorite dinner last night and it was perfection. Buttered Steak Bites (with mushrooms) and a big pot of Truffle Mac and Cheese, along with a Read more