You have to walk the path...just you.

Greetings and salutations my friends. So what do you do when your partner or spouse isn't on the bandwagon with regards to the changes you want to make in your fitness and nutrition? Do your rely on someone else to motivate you to workout each day or to eat well?

All too often I hear from individuals who started P90X or some other fitness/nutrition program with a wife, husband or partner and loved it, but when the significant other quit, they did too. They felt it was just too much of a challenge to do on their own. To this, I have to ask, "Why?"

This journey isn't about your spouse's health or about your boyfriend or girlfriend's fitness, it's about YOURS. YOU are the one who has to make the decision and the commitment to make your life healthier through proper nutrition and exercise. It's not your responsibility to drag anyone else along with you, nor are you their responsibility either.

Sure, it would be a heck of a lot easier if my Little Debbie breakfast eating (seriously, I wish I owned stock in Swiss Cake Rolls), Coca-Cola swilling, Big Mac loving, cigarette smoking husband would embrace the changes that I've embraced over the past 16 months. But he hasn't. He's 6'4", thin, and every year at his annual physical, his doctor says he's in good health. He says he wants to stop smoking, he says he wants to eat healthier, but he always has an excuse for why he doesn't. He always is talking about tomorrow, and tomorrow has never come. If I waited for my husband to join me on this journey, I'd still be a miserable, 200+ pound woman who couldn't stand the sight of herself in the mirror.

Instead, I had to go it alone. And you know what? It's okay. In fact, I've relished in the fact that I've done this all by myself. I've become empowered by the process, and love myself even more for doing it all by myself.

Perhaps one day, Mr. Little Debbie will realize it's time to make changes. I hope the day will come soon, but I know that the more pressure I put on him to make those changes, the more he'll keep them at arm's length. He's got to do it for himself, just like I did, and right now, he's not ready.

For those of you who ARE ready, find your motivation. Ask yourself, "WHY do I want to make this change?" Write down your answer. When you're tempted to cheat on your nutrition or not workout, go back at look at your why. It'll remind you to stay focused and to keep fighting.

Find others who are like-minded and surround yourself. There's something very powerful in finding others on the same journey, even if you only are in contact with them through Facebook or through myfitnesspal. I have over 700 individuals who are on my Facebook friends list. I don't personally know 75% of them, but the majority of them have impacted me in a positive way and helped me stay focused on my own goals. I hope in the process that I have helped them as well.

If you're ready to start, but don't know where to begin, send me a message. We can talk about your goals.

I LOVE FOOD...too much sometimes...

Greetings and salutations my friends!! So here's the deal...I love food. I love it a lot. Sometimes I love food too much. Seriously, I wake up in the morning and the first thing I think about (well, perhaps the first thing I think about after going to the restroom and letting the dogs out) is breakfast. Then I think about my mid-morning snack, and after that it's what's for lunch, then an afternoon snack, and then it's dinnertime, and I'm off to bed and once again waking up thinking about...BREAKFAST!

For many of us, our struggle with our weight isn't our lack of fitness or exercise time, it's food...mainly too much of it. I'm fortunate...at 5'9", I carry more weight than your average height female, so lucky me, I get to eat more! However, I find nutrition to be a battle almost every single day. Bad habits, such as taking the entire bag of pretzels into the living room to watch t.v. (as Chalene Johnson says, "Open bag = Saddle Bags!"), 'grazing' while fixing dinner, or convincing yourself that since you did workout today you can eat the 2 dessert servings, rear their heads from time to time, and sabotage your results. So...what's a girl (or guy) to do?

With regards to my own nutrition, the best thing I have done so far is log my calories every single day. I got out of the habit this spring when I was injured, and slowly, but steadily, I started to pack on a few pounds. Now that I'm back in the habit, it really helps keep me accountable and makes me more aware of what I'm putting into my body. I use an online food diary called My Fitness Pal, and I like it for it's ease of use, the fact that it's free, and it's extensive food database. If you join, I'm on there as "Glfprncs2." Look me up, friend me...we can support one another! If you're really brave, make your food diary 'public' and let the world see. Talk about some major accountability! There's also a really nice group of supportive people on the message boards who really want you to succeed.

If you are going to utilize a food diary, you've got to be TOTALLY honest with yourself. You can't have the candy bar at work and not log it in...period. No grabbing a handful of pretzels or peanuts as you fix dinner without logging it in. You eat it, you log it. You want results, you track it. Simple as that. It's truly an eye opening experience.

The other thing that's key for me is setting myself up for success when I hit the grocery store. My biggest piece of advice: DON'T GO GROCERY SHOPPING HUNGRY! You know as well as I do that you'll buy the Chex Mix and eat the bag before the kids get home from school. Go after you've eaten so you don't make those 'munchy' purchases because it looks good.

Second...shop with a list and stick to the list. Yep, I'm sure that when you walk through the pastry section the pound cakes, sugar cookies, and glazed doughnuts look appealing. Well, unless it's on your list, you dont' put it in your cart (and I'm here to tell you, the pound cake, sugar cookies, and glazed doughnuts shouldn't be on your list!). If you're tempted...keep reading...

Finally...if you pick something up that's not on your list, I want you to really think about it before you put it in your cart. Ask yourself, "Will this food item nourish my body and provide it the nutrients that it needs to sustain my life?" If the answer is no, then you need to put the object back on the grocery store shelf and allow someone else, who doesn't mind gumming up their own gut with preservatives and non-nutrients, pick it up. I know that sometimes things just look yummy...it can be agonizing, especially when your head says, "Buy it! I want it!" On Monday, I agonized over Honey Graham Crackers. It's just a graham cracker, I know, but was it something I needed? I think I put it on the shelf and picked it back up 3 times. I WANTED the graham crackers. After reading the label for the 3rd time, and knowing that the honey grahams really weren't going to provide my body with much nutrition, I put them back, and went on my way. The inner battle was maddening!

Food can be tough...take it one day (or even one meal) at a time. If you mess up, and totally blow a meal, don't allow that to be an excuse to ruin the rest of the day. Pull up your big girl (or big boy) panties, forgive yourself, and do better next time. It's a process, and little by little, you'll win the fight...

Message me if you'd like some help on your own journey...

Feel the FIRE!

Greetings and Salutations my friends! I can't believe it's already July...that means my summer vacation as a middle school teacher is already halfway over and I'm going to have to change the spinning of my wheels from fitness, fitness, fitness to fitness, reading and writing. I'll be honest...I'm not ready for the kiddos to come back into my classroom just yet. I'll get there, I promise, but it'll probably be August 9th at 7:25 when my new sweethearts walk down the hallway as the biggest, baddest 8th graders the school has seen. You see...THIS is the real reason why I workout!

I finished my first 90-day round of ChaLean Extreme on Saturday even though it took me about 110 days to finish (due to a muscle injury in my groin, hip and low back. I absolutely LOVED the program. The injury, though, inspired me to listen even more to my body (I wish I would remember this lesson as I tend to forget it from time to time) and I've started studying yoga at a local yoga studio. Let me just say...Yoga IS TOUGH. Seriously, those yoga peeps are strong, strong, strong. The thing is, I'm strong too, but not yoga strong. Yoga will identify every single one of your weaknesses within the first 5 minutes of class. It's a very humbling experience, but I know that if I keep up with it, it'll make me a better person overall as well.

Anyhow, my purpose today is to talk about FIRE...as in Turbo Fire.

I started my 20 week (yes, I said TWENTY WEEKS) hybrid schedule that combines ChaLean Extreme and Turbo Fire yesterday and I am SO psyched about the results I know I'm going to get. Chalene's Turbo Fire workouts (both the Fire and HiiT) workouts are killer calorie burners (seriously, I got 700 calories in a 55 minute workout the other day!!), and combined with the strength training with ChaLean Extreme, I don't know that there's going to be a better combination.

One of the 'new' things in the Turbo Fire program is a concept called HIIT...High Intensity Interval Training...short bouts of high intesity exercise for about 45 seconds followed by short rests. Rinse, repeat. Granted, you may be looking around for your left lung between HIIT intervals, but the good thing is that the HIIT workouts are generally short (15-25 minutes) compared to the Fire workouts (30-60), but continue to give you the 'afterburner effect' once finished.

Here's just a little sneak peak of what the HIIT 15 workout entails (though this is just 2 of the 3 intervals...I somehow managed to erase the 3rd circuit off my camcorder and my body was too toasted from fatigue to try to record it again once I'd realized my faux pas):



Now, I know, I know...many of you want to tell me that, "I don't jump." Well, you know what? I didn't either a year ago. I was too fat to get my big old booty off the ground. It was like trying to jump with an anvil in my pants. But here I am today, a regular old jumping bean! Don't fear, though...every single move on every class session of Turbo Fire has been modified for those of you who don't want the impact of jumping. You'll still get a great workout, but without stressing your knees.

There you have it...my two favorites...Turbo Fire and ChaLean Extreme. Who would like to join me and fuel their fire?? Message me!!

Number 2 is number 1!!!

Greetings and saluations my friends!! I know, I know, it's been a long time, but luckily, I've got a fantastic topic to discuss with you today...if you guessed from the picture to the right that I may be talking about regularity, you're right on the money.

So, before I begin, I wanted to offer you fair warning that what I'm about to discuss may be considered inappropriate chat amongst friends. The problem is, I used to work for my dad's construction company, and building and installing sewer systems (waste water treatment facilities if you want to be politically correct) was our specialty. In fact, one year my grandfather (who started the business) said that he wanted to get hats made that said, "Your !%(#'s our bread and butter." Obviously, poo is important to both my family and I.

Now, back to the topic at hand. The #2, poo, poop, b.m., whatever you want to call it, is an important function of our body. No one knows this better than those of us who have suffered from irregularity either for a brief or, even worse, an extended period of time. Let me explain (because I know you're all giddy with anticipation to hear my poo drama).

As a kid, I grew up in a Southeastern Ohio meat and potatoes family. My mom cooks great food, don't get me wrong, but all my life, as far back as I remember, I have dealt with a giant lack of poo. As a kid, whenever I had a stomachache, the first thing my mom would say is, "Do you have to #2?" The answer, inevitably, was always a resounding yes, but the problem was, things weren't moving...AT...ALL. This led to upset stomachs, bloating, gas, and just an overall feeling of being about to blow up. It was awful!

As an adult, I drank my daily glass of orange fiber therapy (which truly is like watered down orange drink with sawdust mixed in), added fiber supplements to my diet, but about the only thing that could get things moving was a good Friday night out at the bar. Inevitably, once coffee hit my gut on Saturday morning (after the 12 oz. curls that were done the night before), things were moving, and quickly. But clearly, you can't rely on a good bender to get things moving. Plus, pooping once per week just doesn't cut it. I wanted poo, and I wanted it at least once every other day. What does one do?

I changed my diet, I ate lots of fresh fruit and veggies, I supplemented with fiber, I drank nine gazillion glasses of water a day, and I still couldn't poop unless I had a death grip on the toilet seat and a vein popping out of my forehead. NOT enjoyable.

Then, one day, I heard about this thing called Shakeology. It was supposed to increase your energy, help reduce cravings, aid in weight loss, and (can you hear the trumpets blaring now?) improve digestive health and regularity! Okay, seriously...sounds like a wonder product, doesn't it? Knowing I had to give it a shot, I commited to the product for 90 days...3 months of Shakeology. And here's what happened...

I POOP! Seriously, I now go 4-5 times per week without worrying that I'm going to injure myself in the process. Gone is the bloating, gone is the feeling of heaviness in my mid-section, gone is the constipation, gone are the stomachaches...gone, gone, gone. I'm regular, I'm efficient,, I'm like a puppy with the most incredible digestive tract in the universe, I'm a good pooper! Woo hooo!

I'm a Shakeology convert. Plus, I also get the other benefits...I have noticed an increase in energy without caffeine, I don't have cravings even though I'm still working on my own weightloss and maintain a calorie deficit most days, but clearly, to me, the greatest thing is that my digestive tract is a lean, mean, pooing machine. So now you know why I think the old 'number 2' is truly number 1.

If you, too, would like optimal digestive health (and all the other great benefits that go alongside being a Shakeology drinker), send me a message and we can chat. Also, here's a little information video about the product as well. Thank you Beachbody for creating such a fantastic product...you've truly saved my life!

Spring Cleaning--For your insides!

Greetings and salutations everyone! I hope this finds each and every single one of you enjoying some springlike weather. The temperatures here are fantastic (80s today), but we're enjoying our annual pine pollen epidemic, so everything is covered in a fine yellow powder. Heck, even the dogs came in from the walks this morning with blonde hair!

Now that I'm finally injury free, I've started a new 90 day program (new to me, anyhow) called ChaLean Extreme. I'm really enjoying the new challenge, the creativity of moves, and the opportunity to lift weights again. I feel great and look forward to what I can do in 90 days.

In addition, with my new 'start' after my almost 2 month hiatus from working out, I decided to do a little spring cleaning for my insides by participating in a Shakeology Cleanse. It was created by Steve Edwards (a fitness and nutrition expert who works for and helps develop products for Beachbody) and then tweaked by Mike Karpenko (a Beachbody Coach who once worked for Steve) and involves three days. As Steve says in his blog, "It's not the Master Cleanse. The goal is to promote flushing junk from your system and regulating hydration levels." In addition, try not to workout extraordinarily hard during the cleanse...for most people, the calorie levels of the cleanse won't support a really hard workout.

In a nutshell, in consists of three days of:

Three servings of Shakeology each day (made with water)

Two-three servings of fruit (or you can mix them in with your Shakeology shake)

For dinner, a salad, unrestricted with regards to veggies, with 4 oz. of lean protein (white meat or fish), and olive oil/balsamic dressing.

If you feel you need more calories (as some may), add chia seeds, nuts, flax seeds and the like to your salad.

Drink all the water you can and if you'd like to add green tea or coffee, you may as long as there are NO additives. No dairy, no sugar, no flavorings, no nothing!

So there you have it...the Shakeology cleanse. I started yesterday and was pretty ragged by the end of the day (the workout of choice for the day was too tough for the calories I took in), but I woke up this morning two pounds lighter than I was yesterday, retaining less water than normal, and with plenty of energy to tackle today's 'lightish' workout.

If you've got questions, or would like information about Shakeology, let me know!

Your Personal "Why?"

Greetings and Salutations my friends! I was chatting with an acquaitance on Facebook the other day about why I started my fitness journey. It was a good conversation...one that reminded me of where I was, where I am now, and where I want to be in the future. In reflecting upon her question, I was reminded of how I became the person that I was just under a year ago...fat, unhappy, no self-esteem...and the person that I am today...fit, healthy, positive, and ready to take on the world. It's amazing what a mere 300+ days can do to a person.

The most miserable I ever remember being was when I was in high school in the late 1980s. I was the 'behemoth' of my peer group at 5'9" and weighing in at a 'hefty' 142 pounds. I remember recording my weight in a journal every night, knowing that my friends were topping the scales at 100-110, and there I was, the rotund one, knocking on the door of 150 lbs. Sure, I was a good eight inches taller than they were, and when I look back on those days now, I don't know what I was thinking. But the funny thing is (funny, sad, not funny, ha-ha), some of those 'friends' of mine told me I was fat because I didn't weight 105 pounds and I couldn't wear a size 1 or 3 in Guess jeans (yep, I'm going 'old school' on ya'!). In fact, some of those same 'friends' would head out into the school parking lot during school hours and throw cookie containers and other junk food trash on top of my car to make me feel even better about the fact that I weighed 40 pounds more than they did. Another of their favorite ways to empower themselves was to follow me down the hallway, oinking like a piglet and mooing like a cow. And you know what? Their cruelty was really effective. I allowed them to take away my power...I allowed them to take away my self-esteem...I allowed them to have their dreams and to take away mine. I became a shadow of what I could have been.

I went through a major part of my life with very little self-esteem. I did a pretty good job, for the most part, hiding that fact, but I truly thought pretty little of myself until the time I was well into my 30s. But in typical fashion, I started to spiral into a rut where I didn't like myself much, and that took over every aspect of my life...my marriage, my career, my outlook, everything. I was down in the dumps, I wanted to feel good about myself, and I didn't know what to do.

On April 2, 2009, I took the initiative to take one small step to get my life back. That was the day that I decided that I was in this for me, me, me. I simply HAD to love myself for the person I was, but I knew I had to make some improvements to truly feel that love. I started pushing play that day, immersed myself in learning everything that I could about fitness and nutrition, lost weight, empowered myself with strong muscles, and learned to love me. Instead of worrying incessantly about things that I couldn't control, I learned to manage the things that I knew, without a doubt, were 100% within my own control. Funny how that makes EVERYTHING in your life better. With my improved fitness was better health, a better marriage, a better career, simply a better outlook on life. Just because I made the decision to empower myself with good exercise and nutrition.

I had to ask myself a very important question, "Whose dream did you build today--yours or someone else's?" (Jeff Olson. 2005). If you spend your whole week, month, year, or life, trying, or even allowing someone else's dream to build, rather than your own, you're doing yourself a tremendous disservice. Sure, great things do come out of doing for others. I'm not going to deny that, but what about you? What about what YOU want? Where is the time you deserve to achieve all of those fantastic things you desire?

So here I am...almost a year later still continuing on my journey to be the best me that I can be. And yes, those are my pictures there on the top of the page. I figure there's no better way of being accountable to goals than putting that first picture out there!! There you have it, there's my 'Why?' What's yours?

If you'd like some help on your own fitness journey, I'd LOVE to help...send me a message from my coaching page.

Injury! WHAT do I do now?

Greetings and salutations my friends! Well, as the title of this post states, I'm struggling with my fitness goals due to injury and my lack of patience. It started about 10 days ago with a tightness near my ribs, got worse, got better, got even better, and even though I knew it was still there, I went ahead and tried to work out today. Of course, I'm now worse off than I was. Imagine one of those side stitches you sometimes get when you're running, and then multiply it by 5. I was in so much agony that I truly couldn't get myself up off the floor. To compound the situation, EVERY muscle in your body seems to be tied, somehow, to your abs and ribs. Ugh! I truly despise injuries.

So, clearly the point of this post is about patience. I knew I needed to continue resting my body...it was telling me LOUD AND CLEAR, but in typical fashion, I chose to ignore it. This happens a lot, though, with individuals who are so focused on goals. In fact, the Olympic games was a great example of athletes who fought through pain in order to compete. But sometimes you have to wonder, would they have been better off being patient, and waiting another four years? Was their performance what it could have been? Is it worth the risk? While I wasn't trying to win a medal, my fitness goals are in the front of my mind every single day. It's tough for me to miss a workout, especially considering what I've accomplished so far. But now, I can't work out. It just hurts too badly, so you've got to wonder what I was thinking at the time.

There's nothing now for me to do except to truly rest. I'm allowed to walk my dogs casually (NO power walking), and that is it. It'll be hard for me because I truly have spent every week since April 3, 2009 pushing myself as hard as I possibly could to make myself physically better. However, what comes to mind is that even elite athletes don't push that hard every single day. They choose to workout in a way so that they peak at a certain times, like the Olympic games. At other times, they are able to back off, allow their fitness to drop a smidge, and then build towards another peak. It's a good lesson to be forced to learn because I know when I do come back, my body will respond well after this rest.

That said, there are still ways I can work towards goals. Nutrition. What a perfect opportunity to REALLY work on eating as clean as I possibly can. I can still work on dropping pounds, I can still work on a slimmer physique, and I can really improve my health by making sure that what I put into my body is there to fuel it for the activity required of it. A great resource that I ran across recently is Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet Recharged. It's a nutrition guide that really makes sense to me. It's not about eliminating food groups from your diet, but about utilizing REAL foods to fuel your body. It's as simple as that.

So, my focus until I'm well enough to really push my workouts again is to finally ditch the sugar lurking in the small amount of processed foods I eat, eat 5-6 small, nutritionally balanced meals throughout the day, and to eat as cleanly as I possibly can. My journey continues.

If you're ready to start working on your own fitness and nutrition goals, and would like some help, I would love to offer you my help along the way. Just go to my Beachbody Coaching Site and send me a message. I'm sure that together, we can work towards your own transformation as well.