Healthiest Starbucks Drinks & How to Lighten Up Your Beverage

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If you’re like me, nothing screams comfort more than a hot Starbucks drink on a chilly day.

And yes, I’m a California girl (aka temperature snob) and consider anything below 65 degrees to be chilly.

One thing I’m not the hugest fan of, though, is the amount of fat, sugar, and calories that tempt me on the menu when I’m ordering. While I definitely treat myself to unhealthy drinks occasionally, I try to make a habit of ordering lighter items most of the times so that the only thing getting damaged is my wallet! 

Since the weather is getting cooler, I think that we all could use a guide to which Starbucks drinks provide a winning combination of flavor and healthier nutritional stats!

Healthiest Starbucks Drinks Guide

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for hibernating in hoodies and sweatpants, gaining some extra fluff is not on my to-do list! Here’s how lightening up your drink can help:

Order nonfat milk: I personally barely notice the change from 2% (Starbucks standard) to nonfat milk in my drinks, especially with flavored lattes. By ordering your drink to be made with nonfat milk, you can cut around 1/3 of the calories and around  7 grams of fat in most tall drinks!

Go with a smaller size: As Americans, we’ve gotten so used to humongous portion sizes in both meals and drinks. By simply ordering a smaller size, you’re cutting unnecessary calories, fat, and sugar from your drink while still getting a pretty sizable treat.

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Skip the whipped cream: Whipped cream can add around 120 calories and 11 grams of fat to your drink. What a ripoff! You could drink two nonfat lattes for the amount of calories whipped cream tacks on and save on all 11 grams of fat. If whipped cream is a must for you, though, order “light whip” so they go easy on the good stuff. 

Add spices for flavor: I love adding a bit of cinnamon into my drink for a punch of delicious flavor and the soothing smell! In fact, spices such as cinnamon have been shown by studies to have positive health effects such as regulating your blood sugar, reducing LDL (the bad kind) cholesterol, and reducing inflammation. Win!

Now, let’s go hit up the ‘Bucks!

Also, I worked for a couple of hours today on coming up with a new subscription newsletter for when I update a post! It’s pretty and informative so you should…uh… subscribe.

(shameless self-promotion)

Subscribe to EmailsQuestion of the Day: What’s your go-to Starbucks drink?

xo Christine

 

Hiking Adventures

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Hi friends! Hope your Saturday went swimmingly, here’s what happened in mine!

Like I mentioned in my post yesterday, Kyle and I had plans to go on a long hike with another couple. We ended up going over 4 miles and were completely spent by the end! Now that I look at the elevation climb, it makes total sense!

IMG_3159IMG_3170The area where we usually hike at has the most interesting terrain. It’s almost savannah like in regards to the brush and dust, but you can hike down from the top down to the ocean if you wanted to! I was surprised at how many people were out since it was midday and the sun was blazing, but we saw plenty of other hikers and dog walkers. 

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Kyle always makes me laugh, he’s such a little boy at heart.

“Christine! Christine! Look at this rock I found! I like this rock!” 

(in his defense, it was a very nice rock)IMG_3158

We ran out of water for the last 3/4th of a mile, so nothing sounded better than making a beeline to Starbucks for some of their Refreshers. We ended up ordering a Very Berry Hibiscus and Valencia Orange, which were the perfect drinks to quench the monster thirst that had built up! 

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I also mentioned yesterday that in the evening, we had plans to make a big spaghetti dinner. We ended up changing our plans since their was a very impromptu family get together at my parent’s house. Dinner ended up being the most delicious Chinese chicken salad, pizza, and a whole wheat strawberry shortcake from Whole Foods. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of the cake, the salad was out-of-this-world good! 

The plan for today is to hit up the gym, try out the first day from Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred (anyone else try this before?), paint an old bookcase to match my apartment’s  theme, and eat my weight in meatballs. There might also be another post coming up today with a new recipe, so stay tuned!

xo Christine 

 

Beach Club & Saturday Fun

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Hey guys! 

Just popping in to check in and say I’m sorry for not blogging the past couple of days. I was in a bit of  funk and didn’t feel like writing or have anything interesting to talk about!

I had an awesome Friday night and went to the Beach Club with some of my old (I’m talkin’ Kindergarten here) school friends and it was just so nice to sit around a campfire making s’mores and exploring the tide pools with them.

(Erin on the left, Karissa in the middle, and my friend Lauren taking the pic) 

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We found this huge crab just sitting on the sand and couldn’t help but snap some selfies with him!

Poor guy was on his last claw (hahaguffaw get it? Last claw? LOLZ) and was probably near a very crustaceous heaven. 

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heart rock! <3

IMG_3145I’m pretty pumped to have an awesome Saturday as well. Kyle and I are going on a hike with our favorite couple to double date with and then making a big ol’ spaghetti and meatball dinner with cheesy pull apart bread. Sounds like the perfect day to me!

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What are your plans for the weekend?

Catch up with ya’ll in a bit!

xo Christine

 

The Benefits of Self-Hosting Your Site

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Hey guys! On my last post I asked if anyone would be interested in me writing a post about becoming self-hosted and my thoughts on it. I got a ton of positive feedback requesting one, so here ya go!

Let’s start off with a basic definition and what web host I use.

What is self-hosting exactly? 

“Self hosting is the act of having your website totally under your control. This can include you managing all whole aspects of it, from setting up the web server to installing software, to simply managing your weblog software like WordPress.”

What Web Host I Use: Bluehost!

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I personally use Bluehost as my hosting site and love it. Here are some reasons why:

  • They have fantastic 24/7 support via phone (they called me to help me set up and to answer any questions I might have when I first signed up!), email, or live chat.
  • Bluehost is affordable and only cost $4.95-$6.99 a month.
  • WordPress only recommends three hosting services- Bluehost is it’s top choice!
  • It doesn’t have limits on your disk space or domains. That means you can host multiple blogs on one site!

What do you have now?

“The opposite of self-hosting is free hosting, where you use a free service to host your site. Usually this is done either through Blogger, WordPress.com, Livejournal or any other popular system. This means that you have very little control over your site other than the content and you have to follow specific TOS, which are very frequently quite limited.”

 I know, I know. SNOOZEVILLE.

Try to keep your eyes from glazing over! To make it more simple (I don’t really even get what all that mumbo-jumbo means), here’s a more understandable list of what changes becoming self-hosted will bring.

Advantages: 

1. More freedom over your blog code.

1. Hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of available themes/designs for your blog.  

After you become self-hosted, you have much more control over how you want your blog to appear. When I first made the switch, I scrolled down the available layouts for over 30 minutes before finding the perfect fit for me, but I still haven’t seen nearly all of them.

Screen Shot 2013-09-01 at 2.33.58 PM3. Countless different plugins.

Plugins are similar to the apps you can get on your iPhone and are only available to self-hosted sites. There are countless numbers of them and each one of them serves a different purpose, is free, and you can install them with a single click. 

 For example, if you look at my site you can see the boxes on the side that show my latest pinterest pins, twitter feed, about me, “Share” on twitter/pinterest/facebook etc.

Self-Hosting Plugin Pic

One of my favorites is called “EasyRecipe”, which puts my recipes in a cute and easy to read/print format. It also has an added bonus that lets a picture snippet of my recipes or blog to show up if you google me!

Plug In Example 1 Plugin Example 2

 Plugins allow me to customize my site in any way I’d like and to bring much more of a personal feel to it. I noticed a big spike in traffic form people finding me on Google since being able to add my pictures next to my site! **Probably my favorite benefit of self-hosting! 

4. Advertising and monetizing your blog.

This can be a touchy subject among bloggers, but I feel like it’s definitely worth mentioning. While I don’t blog for the purpose of making money (it’s really something I just LOVE to do), earning a little on the side from advertisements and getting to review products for free is a major bonus.

One of the biggest differences from self-hosted blogs to free-hosted blogs is that you are able to run advertisements on your blog. For example, free blogs on WordPress are banned from putting up Google advertisements and could get in serious trouble if they tried to do so. 

Advertising Limits of Non Self-Hosted Blogs

While I don’t make a ton of money off my site, it’s more than enough to cover my monthly fees from being self-hosted and pay for my Starbucks addiction! So, in my honest opinion, it’s a win-win since making the switch to self-hosted doesn’t cost me anything (I actually make a tiny bit of profit!) and I reap a ton of benefits for my blog.

Disadvantages

As far as disadvantages, I can only really think of two:

1. You have to pay. 

Like I mentioned before, this doesn’t bother me since the few ads I run and products I get to review more than make up the cost, but it definitely is a downside.

2. Setting it up can be a pain in the butt.

I was pretty frustrated for about two days after I made the switch. I feel like this comes with any new change, though, and now I have absolutely no problem navigating my site (the dashboard will still look almost exactly like your free WordPress one). Luckily, there are some pretty great guides out there to help you out with step-by-step instructions. If you’re good with technology, it shouldn’t be a problem for ya! 

Let me know if you have any questions!

**If you are thinking of signing up and found this helpful, I’d love it if you could click to the site from my affiliate link :). If you go from my site to Bluehost (with this link), I get a portion of the cost they get paid from you signing up (with NO expense to you of course)! That just means I can afford more pumpkin spice lattes! 

Click Here to Sign Up For Bluehost!

xo Christine