Asylum Day 1

I can feel my shoulders tightening up as I type this (wow...nice alliteration, eh?). So, Day 1--in the books. All i can say is: HOLY COW. That was freakin' tough! I made it through every exercise, but i think it's because I was going slower than i normally would--i was concentrating on what Shaun T. was doing, and how he was doing it. Next time, i'll be able to push harder. There were tons of plank exercises--walking planks (through the agility ladder), shoulder tap planks, plank runs...ouch. And those plank runs on the ladder--CRAZY!!!

Here's my Asylum Day 1 pic:

Can't wait to see what Day 30 looks like!!

Holy goat balls

Of all things sweet and holy. I did the Asylum Fit Test. If that is any indication of my next 30 days, i'm in for a world of hurt. Shaun T, if i ever have the chance to meet you, i will first hug you, then punch you in the guts. You are evil.

Fit Test results
Day 1
Agility heisman: 11
In&out ab prog: 44
push ups 18
Mtn climb. switch kicks: 67
Agility shoulder taps: 5
X jumps: 29
moving push ups: 3.5
Agility lateral shuff: 17
Agility bear crawl: 13.5

I felt like a fool. A sweaty fool.

Fitness depression

A very dear friend of mine admitted to feeling depressed today. And, of course, I got to thinking....which is quite scary.

To be honest, most days, I am a pretty positive person. I annoy the crap out of my husband, because I'm so positive. But, my positivity comes from a time when I wasn't so positive. It's a "learned" positive, if you will. And, when I say 'I'm positive,' I don't mean that I'm always happy-go-lucky, because i'm certainly not. Just like most parents, I get frustrated with my kids, I often feel overwhelmed, and sometimes i feel like i'm just not doing a good enough job. Don't we all? And, sometimes, I feel like i'm not doing a good enough job with my health and fitness.

Example: Today (yes, TODAY), I didn't want to work out. I wasn't feeling motivated to do it, and honestly, I would have rather sat here and tweeted about cloud computing or integrated lights-out (fun stuff). But I KNEW that if i didn't work out, i'd 1) be in a crappy mood 2) be extra cranky with my kids 3) feel depressed about it 4) feel squishy. So, i MADE myself workout. And did Insanity Max Interval Training, for crying out loud. The entire warmup, i was bitching to myself in my head. "I don't want to do this," "UGH, this is awful!" etc. etc. But I DID it. No, it wasn't my best workout ever, and after I finished, I felt like I was going to die, but I feel proud of myself that i did it. But see numbers 1-4 above? Those things won't happen now. I guess the whole point of my story is, that sometimes, the 'depression' that we allow to creep up on us can be wiped out by MAKING ourselves take action.

90% of the depression that people face can most likely be fixed. Maybe not immediately, but it CAN be fixed. Example no. 2: We're on the Dave Ramsey plan to wipe out our debt. Anyone else? It's not overnight. But last April, I got sick and freakin' tired of working so hard and not having any money, so we got on the plan. Are we debt-free? No. Are we on our way? YEP. Is that "money depression" gone? Absolutely. Because i know we're on our way to beating that monster down!

Back to fitness: If you feel depressed about how you look or how you feel, then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!! If you're saying, "Well, i'm too out of shape to do P90X/Insanity/fill in the blank," you're making excuses. Can you walk? Get out there and do it. Did you know that one of Beachbody's BEST coaches was (and often still is) confined to a wheelchair? She was depressed and feeling bad about her multiple sclerosis. She did P90X! FROM A WHEELCHAIR. There's another guy in the P90X dvds that has a prostethic leg. He did the program with one leg, people. All the excuses I ever had for my fitness depression seem so paltry now.

But, here's the key to it all: the way you look doesn't define you. Heck, your general health doesn't define you. BUT..the way you feel about yourself shows. If you feel depressed, people will notice it. You can only put on a happy face for so long. Give yourself the gift of health. Just get mad at yourself, and let yourself know that YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DEAL WITH FITNESS DEPRESSION any longer. YOU are an amazing person. YOU are worth it. YOUR body deserves to be treated right.

<3

Asylum...it's almost here!

Read Steve Edwards' review. I think it's supposed to scare me; instead, i'm flipping excited.

New workout & what's up

February already. I'm just hoping THIS year doesn't go by as quickly as last year. Time really is flying by.

Here's the health update on me:
2 weeks ago, I started a new program: Insanity/Brazil Butt Lift hybrid. I was doing the P90X/Insanity hybrid, but I didn't feel like i was getting enough from it, so i switched it up a bit. Plus, bathing suit season is around the corner, and my butt needs a lift. I'm pretty sure I can vouch for 90% of the mom population when I say my butt's a bit lower than it used to be. Yikes. I'm hoping BBL can give me a nice little bit of oomph to my booty. I checked out tons of success stories before I ordered it, and i'm feeling confident. If pain is any indication of it working, then by all means, IT.IS.WORKING. Holy cow...is it EVER working!!

I am still loving the heck out of Insanity. Best and toughest cardio i've ever done! If you're looking for something to blast off the fat, this my friends, is it. It will beat the crap out of you!! I can't wait for Asylum, the next installation of Insanity, coming out in summer 2011!! Yee hee!! I'm a glutton for punishment, but i am SO happy with how my body looks, that there is NO WAY i'm going back to what it was in October of 2009. This is my new lifestyle, and i'm going to continue to rock it.

Eating-wise, I'm practically vegetarian at this point. Because of Clairey's (my youngest daughters) gymnastics schedule, plus my oldest daughter's (Jenna) piano and Brownie schedule, we're rarely home for dinner. Both myself and my girls are heavily fortified through Shakeology, GrapeNuts cereal, and oatmeal. I generally cook on Sundays, and THAT usually involves meat. Since i've stopped eating so much meat though, when I do eat it (particularly red meat), i end up with a tummy ache. I'm still doing a rendition of Tony's Rant Diet, which now is just a part of my daily life. Cutting white/enriched flour from my diet is one of the best things i've ever done. After the first week of no white flour, I felt such a huge difference (and SAW a huge difference in my belly). I don't think i could go back to it--like red meat, when I eat it, my tummy hurts.

I can say with 100% confidence that this is the HEALTHIEST i've ever been. I know that I'm a Beachbody coach, but I couldn't have gotten this far without the encouragement and motivation from all my buddies and friends i've met on beachbody.com. I hope the people I coach feel the same way about me! :)

More Shakeology goodness...

(Borrowed from my lovely social media friend, Michelle Meyers.)

It’s no secret that I love Shake­ol­ogy. I’m usu­ally very resis­tant to meal replace­ments because until Shake­ol­ogy, I’ve never found one I like. And by like…I mean CRAVE! While I may be extremely health con­scious, there are way too many healthy foods that are enjoy­able to waste my calo­ries eat­ing foods that taste like chalk just because they’re good for me.


But Shake­ol­ogy doesn’t taste like chalk. It doesn’t have a bit­ter after­taste. It doesn’t sit like a rock in my stom­ach. And I’m not hun­gry two hours after I drink it. It’s in a meal replace­ment cat­e­gory all on it’s own. (To learn more about the many ben­e­fits of Shake­ol­ogy, click here.)

First of all, you’ve got to decide what kind of tex­ture you like. I want it to be more like a shake than a drink and have mod­er­ate thick­ness, mean­ing I like to be able to sip it slowly through a straw, but I don’t want to eat it with a spoon, so I always rec­om­mend using the blender instead of a shaker cup. Exper­i­ment with the amounts of liq­uid and ice in each recipe until you find the con­sis­tency that works for you. I gen­er­ally take a 32 oz. cup, fill it up 3/4 of the way with ice and use 2 cups of liq­uid (almond milk, skim milk, water).

As far as taste goes, I com­pare Shake­ol­ogy to a piece of grilled chicken. By itself, grilled chicken is good. But if you add a lit­tle mari­nade or some sea­son­ing, it turns into a del­i­cacy. Shake­ol­ogy works the very same way — add a lit­tle extra some­thing to it, and you can take some­thing that’s good and turn it into some­thing amazing.


Here are a few of my favorite “mar­i­nated” Shake­ol­ogy recipes:



Choco­late

Go Nuts! (245 calories)



Ice

1 scoop Choco­late Shake­ol­ogy

1 TBSP dry sugar free fat free pis­ta­chio pud­ding mix

1 TBSP plain PB2

1 cup Almond Milk

1 cup water



Choco­late Oat­meal Cookie (350 calories)



Ice

1 scoop Choco­late Shake­ol­ogy

1 pack­age lower sugar maple & brown sugar oat­meal

1/2 cup almond milk

1.5 cups water



But­terfin­ger Bliz­zard (300 calories)



Ice

1 scoop Choco­late Shake­ol­ogy

1 TBSP dry sugar free fat free but­ter­scotch pud­ding mix

1 TBSP nat­ural peanut but­ter

1/2 cup skim milk

1.5 cups water



Christ­mas Cookie (190 calories)



Ice

1 scoop Choco­late Shake­ol­ogy

1 cup unsweet­ened vanilla almond milk

1 cup water

1 tsp cin­na­mon

1 tsp vanilla extract



Choco­late Cov­ered Straw­ber­ries (240 calories)



Ice

1 scoop Choco­late Shake­ol­ogy

1 cup unsweet­ened vanilla almond milk

1 cup water

3/4 cup sliced straw­ber­ries (fresh or frozen)



Green­berry



Tarty Twist (180 calories)



Ice

1 scoop Green­berry Shake­ol­ogy

2 cups unsweet­ened green tea

1 lemon, squeezed

1 lime, squeezed



Orange Mango Splash (285 calories)



Ice

1 scoop Green­berry Shake­ol­ogy

1 cup Sim­ply Orange with Mango

1 TBSP PB2

1 cup water



Trail Mix (210 calories)



Ice

1 scoop Green­berry Shake­ol­ogy

1 cup unsweet­ened cran-apple juice

1 TBSP dry sugar free fat free pis­ta­chio pud­ding mix

1 cup water



Honey Almond Par­adise (340 calories)



Ice

1 scoop Green­berry Shake­ol­ogy

1 cup unsweet­ened vanilla almond milk

1 tsp honey

1 TBSP nat­ural peanut butter



Straw­berry Peach Sun­dae (300 calories)



Ice

1 scoop Green­berry Shake­ol­ogy

1/2 cup straw­ber­ries

1/2 cup peaches

1 cup skim milk

1 cup water



To order your bag of Shake­ol­ogy, visit http://bit.ly/shakeItup. If you’re inter­ested in how you could save up to 25% off on your pur­chase, con­tact me for more information.

"Shakeology is so expensive!"

People often ask me how I stay fit. I tell them that it's by using Beachbody workouts and by drinking Shakeology. They'll ask what Shakeology is, and I tell them. Everyone wants to try it, but always halts when they find out how much it is: around $130 a month--that includes tax/shipping/handling. And then they balk--"WHAT?!!!" "That's so expensive!!" "I can't afford that!" And here's where i tell you, "Of COURSE you can," and here's why...

Shakeology is a meal replacement. In one shake, it offers you an ENTIRE day's worth of fruits and vegetables, plus a multitude of other good things for your body. Unlike other meal replacement drinks, Shakeology is 100% natural--no made-up chemical crap in it--just 100% good nutrition. Think about it--when is the last time YOU nourished your body with a full day's serving of fruits and vegetables?? Before I started Shakeology, I can't think of one.

Here's an exercise for you (a checkbook exercise): Since Shakeology is a meal replacement, let's say you're going to have a shake instead of lunch each day for a month. Look through your bank statement/checkbook/receipts..whatever...add up how much you've spent at LUNCH for the past 30 days. If you brown-bagged it, or are a stay-at-home-mom, for those days you didn't eat out, add $1 (because you used what you had at home). How much did that add up to? I KNOW you went out to eat at least a couple of times. If you work at an office and went out with your coworkers, your lunch was probably around $10--and that's if it was CHEAP. $15 bucks a pop is closer to what you spend, right? If you're a SAHM, you can easily drop $6 on fast food for YOURSELF. ICK. It adds up.

And, in those meals--in all that money that you 'pooped' out--how much nutrition did you provide to your body?? Did any of those meals give your body amazing nutrition? Provide a day's worth of fruits and vegetables? Help prevent colon cancer? Reverse the symptoms of colitis? What about reversing symptoms of diabetes? No? Weird. Shakeology does all that, and more. One daily scoop of Shakeology has amazing affects on your body.

So, here's the scoop: I felt the SAME way about purchasing Shakeology. In fact, I had been using Beachbody programs for nearly a year, and still wasn't doing it--because i felt like it was too expensive. But, the more I read, the more i learned about Shakeology, the more i wanted to do it. I was working SO HARD to get my body in shape--the OUTSIDE of my body--but what was i doing to the inside? I was working hard to eat right, but i STILL wasn't fortifying my working body with the proper nutrition. I was taking some protein shake that i got at VitaminShoppe, and I thought that was good enough. So, in order to "prevent" myself from spending that $130 a month on Shakeology, I walked to my pantry, armed with an ingredient list from Shakeology to PROVE to myself that my $50 a month protein drink was just as good as Shakeology....

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. 90% of the stuff in my protein drink was unpronounceable (did i just make that word up??). "All-Natural"??? Not quite. That "healthy" protein drink I had been taking to "save money" on, was created in a lab. It was/is practically a container full of toxins. Why would i, after busting my ass to get in this shape, want to drink stuff that i can't even pronounce? I wanted to be fit and healthy on the outside AND the inside. At that point, I made the decision to take the Beachbody challenge: try Shakeology for 30 days. If you don't like it, and it doesn't deliver all that Beachbody promises, then you get your money back. 100%, no questions asked.

I also decided, at that point, to become a BeachBody coach. So, when i purchased my first 30 days of Shakeology, I immediately got a 25% discount--making my total $89--for a 30-day supply of Shakeology! And really...that's all it took--30 days. I started with one shake a day. After 1 week (yes, ONE week), I could tell a difference. My energy level was UP, my tummy was flatter (Shakeology helps to flush out all those 'bloating' toxins), and overall, i just felt GREAT. That was back in July of 2010.

Most days, I have two shakes a day--one for breakfast, and one for a late-afternoon snack. I crave the nutrients; well, my BODY craves the nutrients. I feel absolutely amazing! My kids LOVE the chocolate Shakeology, and I can feel good about giving it to them. How many kids do YOU know that get a full day's serving of vegetables? Mine do! I often make one shake, and split it--putting 1/2 into a thermos for each of them at lunch, along with their regular sandwich and piece of fruit. With that, i know that my babies are getting the proper nourishment--with no fillers, with nothing I can't pronounce--just 100% clean and healthy! LOVE IT.

And YOU will love it too! Is it worth the price? I can tell you with great confidence, YES. It 100%, absolutely is. Out of all the thousands of meal replacement drinks out there, Shakeology is the most effective for the price--I PROMISE you that. Learn more by viewing the videos below:

100 Doctors Don't Lie

Shakeology and the Glycemic Index

The Breakthrough

Then visit my site at http://bit.ly/shakeItup

If you'd like a free sample, email me at fitwisdom@beachbodycoach.com