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I have always struggled to wake up in the morning. I absolutely hate alarms... 6am or 10:30am, I am still the wildly sleepy girl. For the last month, I have tried to fix my morning routine to feel more awake, happier, and to jumpstart my morning feeling more positive throughout the day. My mornings are composed of 6 main components, all easy to incorporate in your own routines. 1) This first tip is more so for your nighttime routine (I cheated). I try to go to sleep before midnight; this makes a huge difference in how I feel in the morning, but it isn't easy for me to do with work, school, and staying up late with friends. In addition, the later I stay up repetitively, the more I get used to it. We're working on this slowly... 2) Once I wake up, I workout. I love using the Tone It Up Studio App best due to class variety and the layout being similar to a studio class you can do on your own time. You can even sign up for live classes to connect with friends as well. If know I'm getting more than 7 hours of sleep, working out is not a question, I will do it. Sometimes I sleep terribly and if at 5am I wake up knowing I barely slept, I'll skip my workout. It's all about how you feel and knowing your body. This said, I won't skip my workout that day, I'll just do it in the evening. Finding the balance between sleeping and being realistic to move your butt in the morning is necessary. Despite my lack of being a morning person, I notice when I work out first thing in the day, I feel good and confident later on. This also tends to help me make better decisions throughout the day, whether this be for food choices or my productivity. 3) As soon as I finish working out, or if this was skipped, first thing after I wake up, I start my day drinking Meta D, a recipe from the Tone It Up nutrition plan. Basically it's 1tbsp apple cider vinegar with cinnamon, mixed in a cup of juice, a perfect metabolism booster for the rest of the day. Make sure to check out their own recipe! 4) Next up, I shower or at least wash my face to focus on my skin. I take my skincare very seriously and I feel lazy and gross when I don't wash my face first. I've been struggling with acne the last year and have just recently started seeing improvements so I stay on top of it daily. I spend a good 15 minutes taking care of my skin before heading out the door or going to bed. I will make a post regarding my skincare routine in the future :) 5) Never skip breakfast. I can't reinforce this one enough. I've been eating clean and mostly unprocessed foods for the last month and it's been going well. My most common breakfast options are overnight oatmeals (usually involving chocolate), or banana protein pancakes, my personal favorite. Both of these options are from the Tone It Up plan and can be customized in so many ways between adding fruit, chocolate, almond/peanut butter... It never feels repetitive. Finding your own versions of these recipe are easy well! 6) Lastly, I get dressed and depending on how I'm feeling I'll do my makeup. I try to not use my phone until at least breakfast, excluding and exclusively for the use of my workout app. During this time, I am still in do not disturb mode and therefore do not see any notifications. I know this one is hard to do but doing this eliminates useless morning scrollings through social media instead of starting my day later. If I'm already dressed and ready for plans, I'll likely make some. This is what I do every morning and I've been feeling great. I would love to know what you guys do each morning or tricks you have that I could incorporate in my own routine.

I've heard about juicing for years, curious about the benefits but not interested in feeling starving and giving up food. Two weeks into 2019 and I have decided today was the day to try this. I went into Pressed Juicery® last night and bought the Cleanse 1, the beginner cleanse. The lady at Pressed described this cleanse as the highest in calories making it easier to not feel hungry, and the most "tasteful". As a picky-eater, this was for sure the way to go. This cleanse came with 6 drinks, and since I signed up as a member, I got 2 free shots and bought two of their premium waters. I was instructed to drink the juices every 2 hours, the waters throughout the day, and the shots whenever I felt like it. Juices: Vanilla Almond, Chocolate Almond, Greens 2, Greens 3, Roots 2, Citrus 2 Shots: Probiotic Shot, Elderberry Shot Water: Lemon Cayenne H2O 11:30 — I started off the day with Vanilla Almond (almond, dates, vanilla, sea salt). This drink was pretty good to start off with. At this point, I have very low expectations for this cleanse. I'm not a huge fan of vanilla flavor to start off with, but it wasn't bad. I became full off the first drink so my day started off pretty good. I'd rate the flavor a 6/10. 2:00 — Next up was Greens 2 (kale, spinach, romaine, parsley, cucumber, celery, apple, lemon). I'm not gonna lie, I'm scared of green juices. On that note, I loved this drink. There's no doubt that I will be going back and being this juice just for fun. This drink gets a solid 9/10. It tastes a little green but the lemon overpowers it and I really liked it. Soon after, I tried the Probiotic shot (apple, lemon, ginger, red cabbage, probiotic). It was really tasty. If you struggle with ginger, this might not be for you but I really enjoyed it, 9/10. 4:00 — This next one had me terrified, Roots 2 (carrot, kale, romaine, spinach, parsley, apple, lemon, ginger). I've never liked carrots, and this was the first ingredient listed. I took a sip and I was scared. I made the past drinks last about 30 minutes because they were tasty and I wanted to keep the fun going... NOPE. This was was to be drank all the way through. I enjoy ginger so I tried to focus on the ginger portion. I rate this drink a 5/10 simply for the reason that if you told me I could drink this day every day in return for a many health benefits, I probably would. I also tried the Lemon Cayenne H2O and it was good, nothing exciting. It just tasted like lemon water, couldn't taste the cayenne... probably a 6/10. Nothing special. 6:30 — At this point, I had been hungry for the last 45 minutes but I was out of the house and didn't grab an extra juice. Good news was, the next drink was Citrus 2 (apple, pineapple, lemon, mint), and it was the only drink I've had before, and I loved it. When I was finally back home, I grabbed my drink and relaxed in front of the TV, taking my time with this drink since it's delicious. This drink gets a 10/10. You taste the pineapple and there's a mint lemonade backtaste. 8:15 — I started getting hungry just around the time it was for me to eat so that was a good thing. The next drink was Green 3 which is just like Green 2 but with ginger (kale, spinach, romaine, parsley, cucumber, celery, apple, lemon, ginger). I liked it but the ginger was a little kick in the drink, making it not as sweet as Greens 2 did. I would rate this one a 6/10. I liked the sweetness of the prior version but the ginger allowed me to feel full once again pretty fast. I also finished up with the Elderberry Shot (honey, elderberry, lemon, cinnamon, cloves) and I find the taste confusing. It tastes like weird honey but I'd drink it again. I'd rate it a 7-8/10. I'm a little indecisive on this one. I also drank my last Lemon Cayenne H2O throughout the rest of the night. 10:00 — The last drink of the day was Chocolate Almond (almond, dates, cacao, sea salt). I wasn't that hungry until I started drinking it and the taste shift form a 7 to an 8/10. It was the good way to end the night, filling and sweet. If I customized this drink, I would probably add more chocolate flavoring and more sea salt for a better contrast. If we look at the ratings for the drinks part of Cleanse 1, this cleanse got a solid 7.3/10, way higher than I was expecting. I came in thinking I would struggled through each drink (minus Citrus 2) but I was really happy with this experience. I never felt too hungry; I felt good and energized throughout the day. I heard some get headaches from juicing, totally normal, but I didn't. I went to bed not feeling hungry and felt great throughout the next few days. Overall I really enjoyed this experience and I have decided to do this cleanse biweekly, allowing me to progressively see the benefits as well. Cleanses help with the removal of toxins from the inside of the body, and therefore in the future, I hope to see clearer skin and becoming less fatigued overall, both of which are common benefits of the cleanse. Let me know if you want a progress post in the future!

There's something about a new year that makes people want to start fresh and improve their current life. This year, being 19 and being in my second year of #adulting, I have decided to narrow down my goals to eight New Year's resolutions. 1. Read one book a month I have always loved to read, however over the last few years, I have found myself prioritizing Netflix or random social media scrolling. I may have read 2 books this year at the most? 2. Drink 64oz of water a day I can't remember the last time I have actually finished my 32oz Hydro flask. Sometimes I go a day drinking only a small 6oz water cup for dinner and a small cup of orange juice in the morning. I'm also hoping to see new benefits that come from drinking more water. 3. Workout at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes Throughout my entire life, I have played many sports. When college came, I would wake up before class to go workout at the gym. Since starting my new job and becoming a commuter student, I have not kept up with my workout routine. I will not let this continue! 4. Run a mile a week Here's a new goal of mine. I have always loved running but never made any goals of it. I have decided I want to improve my mile time which is currently at just over 11 minutes. 5. No more than greasy fast food once a week I used to eat a lot healthier than I have the last few months and have decided to end this. I am committing to limiting my consumption of foods such as fries and greasy burgers to no more than one meal a week. 6. No spending more than $25 over budget in one category I have been tracking my finances since middle school. Through looking at my spending patterns over the last years, I have found that I stay under budget for the month overall, however I overspend in certain categories quite often. I figure by limiting this overspending, I will in fact save more money. 7. Update "Life in Pixels" For the last two years, I have kept up with a color coded grid demonstrating my mood for each day of the year. The equivalent is rating my days from 1-5 each day, making me realize that most days are in fact 4 or 5, meaning my life isn't so terrible after all... it's a fun way to reflect back on your day and the year. I have an example of it at the bottom of this post :) 8. Highlight best of the week and add it to mason jar I found this idea on Pinterest a while back and I thought it was so cute. Basically at the end of the week, I will be adding to a jar my favorite memory to then open on New Year's Eve in a year. I believe it will be a fun way to remember what has happened during the year. I have all of these goals written down in a notebook, ready to check mark each day/week/month I have completed each goal as a way to monitor myself throughout the year. I also plan on reflecting back in 6 months to see if there are any areas in my resolutions that I need a little more of a push for. I would love to know what are your own resolutions for this upcoming year so be sure to comment down below a few of your own ideas!