Back At It

Hello and happy Saturday September 5th!!  I think this has been my longest break from my blog.  I didn’t even do it on purpose either!  What have I been doing?  What have I not been doing!?  Here are a few bullet points of the last 2 months!

• Family family family.  July and August we had family in town and we were going going!
• Injuries!  Probably my most major set back ever!  Stress fracture.  For some reason this one threw me back big time.  I started biking which helped A TON, but I wasn’t myself without my crazy cardio sessions and lifting and then of course I went WAY downhill in the food department.
• First Bike Race!  Loved loved biking through the beautiful mountains where I live.  Absolutely breath taking.
• Climbing back from my stress fracture and I strain my calf muscle!  Luckily it wasn’t major and I’ve been trying to stretch more!
• Started running and training for a 1/2 marathon at the end of this month.  Never been more slow in my life except after pregnancies!  It’s killing me!!  I’ll get there.
• Finally figured out a good eating plan for me!!  I’ve been trying to follow the Oxygen Challenge and I’ve had a hard time following the DIET of course.  I’ve started over many times and binged too many times.  My NEW challenge is 1 in 10 days.  Every 10 days I take 1 day off!!  So far, this has been a miracle for me.  I only struggle the first 3 days after eating crazy and then I’m fine with my healthy eating.  I’ve been loving cooking healthy meals and snacks lately and I feel much happier.  I crave healthy sugars like oranges, watermelon, and PEACHES (:  My body changes so quickly when I CUT out the sugar.  Eating healthy motivates me to EXERCISE.
• Speaking of exercise…I’m addicted if you haven’t noticed.  Right now I’m following a Jamie Eason program that I love.  I’m lifting 5-6 days a week, running 3 days a week, and teaching my wonderful HIGH class!

Here are a FEW pics. of my latest and greatest events!

HIGH FITNESS crazy workout party! How fun to be a part of a teaching crew for 300+ people!

Summer dates with my kids!

Bike racing with my besties!

Working the T25 on vacation with my sis!

My family !!

Summer family reunion! Love them!

School is in full swing now and my life is hopping and hopping!  We keep busy!  Now that I’ve caught everyone up with my life, I’ll share my FITNESS TIDBIT of the day!!!

DO NOT DEPRIVE YOURSELF!!  Whenever I go too strict with my diet, I get in a big mess with my head!  Keep challenging yourself, make goals, fall off the wagon, and rethink your plan.  Work Hard, Lift Weights, Get Sleep, Eat Healthy, and SMILE!

I’ll share some meal plans next week!!  Hopefully, I can blog twice a week!  Meals on Monday and Workouts on Wednesday with pictures of life on both days!  Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

Preview to 3 month GET BUFF program

Hi!  Today I’ve been thinking about my 3 month program that I will be starting in August.  I’m always trying to improve my personal training business and I’ve decided to give everyone the 3 month schedule I’ll be following.  Here are a few thoughts about what will be included in my program:

• Exercise 6 days a week.  Weights everyday, running 3-4 days a week, and a few extra classes I love.
• No white flour or white sugar
• 1 T flaxseed everyday
• 3-4 days a week vegan
• 25 grams of fiber every day
• Increase in protein
• 5 servings of fruits and veggies every day
• No eating after 8:00 p.m.
• 70-90 ounces of water every day
• Huge salad every day

I’m excited!  August, September, and October will be my months.  I’ve been eating really well for 3 weeks now.  My cravings are gone.  Lately, my cute oldest son has been wanting to exercise A LOT!  He’s going to the gym every day and asking me for workouts.  Today he even went through a workout with me and my friends and one of his friends!  WOW!  He took a few snaps of our little posse!  We pretty much take over the gym and talk too much and too loud!  Here is the workout we did today:

He told me the other day how he likes seeing results (duh?! 16 year old boy!) and how much he loves muscles!  Ha Ha (:

We are loving summer!  I was outside last week planting a little garden.  I love to walk around the front and back yard at night and water all the flowers.  The summer night air is relaxing.  These little guys have already started blooming this week!

Well, my house is full of too many kids to count tonight.  My sister is in town and my brother is coming tomorrow!  I need to go clean the whole house…AGAIN!  This morning we had my family over for breakfast.  I love my kitchen so much and having people over to eat!!  One of my favorite things.  We have fun times ahead for the next week or so!

 I’m going to end with several GREAT sayings I like right now.  Be happy and work hard always…

Kill it Monday workout and RAGNAR

Hello!  I have survived another sleepless weekend!!  I ran my first Ragnar race.  We ran the Wasatch Back from Logan to Park City.  It was an experience!  We were pretty lucky being in Van 1.  Crazy huge event!!  I was super lucky to run one of my legs during sunrise and the other during sunset.  Favorite times of the day!!  Overall, we had a great time.  Loved my friends and the laughs and fun.  Some of us felt very and slightly sick, but for the most part we stayed strong.  Everyone loved our RAGDOLL team and cute sparkly skirts.  Here is a collection of pictures from the event!

I was SUPER tired Saturday night and most of Sunday.  I felt great this morning and ended up following a HARD workout.  Just what I love for Monday!!  This is what I did at the gym!  It was hard and I was sweating.  I had to cruise to get this in under an hour!  And then, I wanted to get a 4 mile run in while my kids went to piano.  I’ve been using my Garmin lately and it’s been a fun added challenge to try and keep under a certain pace or run a distance faster than normal.  I felt worked after all that!

3×12

Tricep Pullovers

Decline Pushups

Smith Machine Squats

Hamstring Leg Curl

Bent Over Barbell Row

3X12

Bench Press

Pull Ups

Step Ups With Weights

One Legged Squats

3×12

Pushups to Side Plank

Kettlebell Swing

Dips

Dumbbell Flys

3X12

Reverse Grip Lat Pulldown

Renegade Dumbbell Rows

During my run, something must have been in the air because I was sneezing and runny nosing for most of the day!  Later in the evening my daughter and I had a date and went to see A Fault In Our Stars.  My allergies went along well with the movie.  Puffy and crying eyes and a runny nose.  We had a fun time!

I’ll end with two beautiful songs from the movie.  So pretty!  (:

Upper Body HIIT and I heart LEGS workout!

Hello!!  It’s a beautiful MAY day!!  I have a great workout that I just put together for tomorrow’s early morning class.  This week we killed the legs on Tuesday and tomorrow is kill the arms day!  OH!!  And by the way, today is DAY 19!  I’ve lost 8 lbs.  Yay me!

This time of year is all about the kid’s lives and wrapping up the school year.  Normally, I’m not much of a mushy so sad my kids are growing up Mom, but this week was my youngest child’s last preschool class.  My eyes got a little teary as I watched his little class skip down the driveway holding hands with their teacher.  Geez…I didn’t think the end of my preschool years would get to me.  I’ve loved his teacher and he has loved preschool.  Today he graduated.  He’s been saying all day how proud he is of himself (:

I found another picture I wanted to throw in here from 2007.  My daughter’s birthday is coming up and I was looking for pictures of her.  This is from my first marathon!  I honestly thought I’d only run a marathon once!!  My friends are trying to talk me into running a Fall marathon and then running Boston again.  As much “FUN” as that sounds, I’m stickin’ to halfs for now.  I have a FALL half I want to do and I’m going to work on speed this go around.

Well, it’s almost time for the onslaught of children.  I think we’ll go to Orange Leaf to celebrate my cutie boy’s graduation!  Have a wonderful sunny day!  Get outside!

 

 

 

Just keep running

Well!  I’m home from race weekend.  We were in St. George for a half marathon!  This was my first race as a 40 year old.  Oh….so old…I did pretty well.  My time was 1:47.  17th in my age group.  Looking back I always wish I ran harder.  It was a pretty hilly course.  I ran with my fastie friends who I’m sure could of ran faster than me but we decided to stick together.  The time whizzed by.  I felt like I pushed it and wasn’t too sore afterwards.  The weather was fantastic!!  Slightly chilly in the AM but it kept getting warmer as the day progressed.  Afterwards, we showered up and went and had facials and pedicures.  Then we shopped around a little and ate lunch at a yummy Thai restaurant.  We rented the movie 42, hot tubbed, and lounged around watching the movie.  I dozed mostly by the fire.  Soooooo fun!  The next morning we went for a long walk through the red rocks and then headed for home.  Here are some pics!

I’m starting another crazy challenge with my competitive bestie (:  We are so funny.  I want to get ripped, lean, and drop a few pounds.  We got talking and conspiring up a plan.  Here it is:  No grains.  Simple enough huh?  Of course, I’m not having any sugar either.  We are going to see who can go the longest and then the one who wins, buys the other something from Lululemon.  I know cutting out grains is a little extreme.  I don’t care.  We do have one small grain option we can have once a day.  We can either have 1/2 c oatmeal, protein bar, or 2 protein balls.  I’ll be eating eggs, protein shakes, soups, veggies, fruit, lean meats, and a little dairy.  I’ll weigh daily and celebrate of course when I reach my 130.

I’m going to go make some soup, take the kids ice skating, finish up laundry, and sigh a little that I’m not at the PINK concert…SMILE and Work Hard!!!

 

7 daily health habits

Monday!  The day started off perfect with a beautiful run and a light snowfall.  We have a half marathon this weekend.  I don’t feel ready, but I’ll just keep running!!  It will be a fun girl’s weekend and I saw that the high will be 61 degrees.  Oh heavenly!  I can’t wait!

We had a wonderful weekend!  I wish I had more pictures to share.  Friday night we went to a yummy sushi restaurant.  It was so good.  I tasted every single kind and loved them all.  The only ones I don’t do are the super spicy!   Saturday morning our family had an amazing opportunity to help serve breakfast to the homeless.  We manned a line with even my youngest putting the fork on the tray.  When the doors opened it was nonstop.  We had to move fast!  There were two lines and each one served 300 people.  I felt so humbled and grateful to be able to serve.  The sweetest was watching my 15 year old son smiling and talking to them.  His job was to walk around the tables offering ketchup or salt and pepper and taking trays.  How grateful they were and what a blessing to us.  This will be a once a month tradition!

Sunday, we had our friends over for dinner.  We had the best time!  We’ve got the grilled pizzas down!  Here we are chillin’ after dinner.

 I need to get going on dinner tonight but I need to give an update on the FIT LIFE challenge.  I’m going to have our group of 10 keep track of daily points for 6 weeks. The highest number at the end will win the grand CASH prize (: Here is my list of 7 DAILY HABITS!!!

1-Daily food journal

2-Don’t eat anything with 6 grams of sugar or more per serving.

3-No eating after 8:00 p.m.

4-Five fruits and vegetables every day!

5-Exercise 60 minutes 5 days a week.

6-64-80 ounces of water every day.

7-No more than 2 carbs a day. (1 slice wheat bread, 1/2 sweet potato, 1/2 c. brown rice, 1/2 c. quinoa, or 1/2 c. oatmeal)

I’m doing well.  Down 2 pounds from last week and I wasn’t really that good.  I need to be down 5 this week (:  I’m a little over achieverish sometimes!  Keep it up!

Here is my new wallpaper for the computer.  I love pink and red.  Valentine’s day is next.  I saw the baseball registration sign up today and it made me so happy!!!  Think Warm Happy thoughts!!!

Merry Happy Birthday Christmas!

Last night as we set the last Christmas presents out and cleaned the house up I felt a huge relaxing relief lifted from me.  The past few weeks of a constant schedule and lists and lists of things to get done were finally over!!!!  Naturally on this beautiful Christmas day I took the most BLESSED nap!!!  We had a wonderful Christmas!  OH how much I love seeing the kids so happy Christmas morning!

I need to back up just a little bit.  I have a few pictures from the last several days to post!  5 days ago I celebrated my 4-0 birthday!  It was one of the best days of my life (: I’m getting over a cold and it was still buggin me on my birthday.  So, being the 40 year old that I am, I could barely stay awake that night with my friends!  We celebrated all day long.  I feel so loved and grateful to so many people in my life.  Here are a few pics starting with the early morning run in night!

A beautiful run after a snowfall!

My friend and I with the whopper cake she made me!

Best friends always!

We had lunch with lots of friends in the day and then we went out with the husbands to dinner and played games and ate cake and laughed and played till I started to fall asleep at 10:00! (:  I love my friends.

The next night my husband and I went to one of my favorite concert traditions of the season.  The Piano Guys!!!  I love every minute of it!  They are amazing and truly gifted with a talent from on High!

Piano Guys

The next night, we had a Christmas party at my parents that involved FOOD yet again, the nativity story, and cookie decorating!

Lastly, I haven’t posted a Sunday outfit for awhile!  I loved my beautiful black birthday dress and new shoes that I’d been anticipating for quite some time!!  I feel like I should be going to a dance or something in this snowy one!

Christmas eve was spent with family.  We saw my favorite movie FROZEN again and had lunch at my sister’s house.  That night I hosted dinner with my husband’s family.  We sang carols and read the Christmas stories!  No wonder I had to crash today!  And the holiday is just beginning too!  Tomorrow morning we head to Heber to snowmobile and sled with our dear dear friends.

I am blessed beyond measure.  Have a beautiful Christmas day with loved ones.  Life will get fit again.  January always comes next!

Stay warm…exercise!

Happy Winter Wonderland Monday!  A funny thing happened yesterday.  Due to my “I am eating super healthy” mode, I hid a bunch of candy that I had WAY too much of around the house.  My son wanted to bring some to church for his class and I couldn’t remember where I put it!  I checked in every hiding place I could think of!  I guess that’s one way to stay on target. I had a really good eating weekend!  YAY me!  HOWEVER, my scale is up and keeps going up!  What the?  I weighed myself Saturday, Sunday, and today and each day I went up a pound.  Hello!  No scale for me (:

There is some good news in this story!  I found some old measurements I did in June and my weight was a little lower then and higher measurements.  Now, my measurements are lower and higher weight.  Hmmm…I think I’ll take the measurements over the scale any day!!  I tried on my skinny jeans that only fit me at 132 or less and they fit fine!   I hope my clients are reading this!!!  The scale is the LEAST accurate way to track losing weight!  I’m still hittin’ it hard at the gym and in the food dept.  This is what I had for breakfast today!  Sweet potato hash browns, orange slices, and 1 egg/3 egg whites with salsa.

Well, we were snowed in this weekend and stuck in an ice burg!!  The temperature this morning was 4 degrees!  Lots and lots of snow!!!  I’ve decided exercising is the only way to stay warm now!!  No one should have a problem getting off their butts!!  My friend and I were talking about a 1/2 marathon we want to run in January.  We’ve been lifting weights so much and the weather has been so awful we realized we haven’t even been running!  We want to start running 3 days a week.  One fast 6 miler, one serious hill run, and a 10 miler.  I’m sure at least 2 of these will have to be on the treadmill this week!  Here are my kids and the neighbors enjoying our hill in the front yard!

I love “watching” them play in the snow!  All 5 of them still like to go sledding!  One of the highlights of the weekend was seeing the BEST movie that went along well with the theme of our weather.  FROZEN!!  Broadway style quality!  I even recognized one of the characters voices as Idina Menzel who played Elphaba in Wicked.  She is one of my FAVORITE singers!  Two of my kids weren’t with us so we’ll have to see it again this week!!  VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and worth the money!!  My kids were listening to and singing the songs all weekend!  Here is one of the BEST songs from the movie.  Idina Menzel.

I need the piano music and it’s even a good running song.  I’d better get on with the day.  I have a lot to do this week!!!  Happy eating and working out.  NO EXCUSES!!!

Know your triggers

O.K.  My blog posts have gone down since I’ve been training!  That’s o.k.  I LOVE what I’m doing!  Right now I have 11 clients.  The most I could take on in my life is 20, but maybe I could squeeze in a few more (:  I’m good at over booking myself!

Recap of the week!  I worked so hard Monday through Friday.  Workouts were killer, diet was super strict, and then…I felt my brain telling me to eat things I shouldn’t!  This is called a TRIGGER!  In my own non-scientific terms, our brain is programed to remember habits that we do consistently.  Sugar is known to mess up your brain and send off feel good hormones when consumed.  Your brain remembers that sugar made you feel good so when something sets you off, you want to eat it again!!  Make sense?  Everyone has different triggers.  It’s important to KNOW what they are so you can COMBAT them and KICK them to the CURB!!  Saturday started off GREAT!!!!  Early in the morning we went on a trail run.  It went pretty much downhill from there.  I had multiple triggers hit me!!!!

• Weekend
• Not enough sleep
• Too busy to eat
• 3 happy events to celebrate: kids grades, new job, and championship football game

Frustrating…so I’m going to slowly get better!  This week we have a TRIP!!  Arghhh!  Another trigger!!  This past weekend I messed up for 2 whole days!  This week, I’ll have a 24 hour treat day over the trip!  Then, the next 2 weeks I’m only going to splurge one day a week and finally, I hope to get where I can have 1 treat meal a week.  Sound good!?  This will work for me for the body I LOVE and want to MAINTAIN!  Our weather is still amazingly good and I hope to get in some FAST runs along with my weights!!

Sorry that was a lot of reading!!!  Diet tip of the day:  MORE LEAN PROTEIN AND VEGETABLES!!  I’ll be working on that after I detox myself with water and smoothies all day (:

We’ve been putting together our basement this weekend.  My husband laid the wood floor down and now I need to get the mirrors and carpet ordered and design MY gym!!  Yay yay yay!  I’m so excited.  I’ll have to post about the BEST MUST HAVE equipment for a home gym!!  Here are a few before pictures!!!

The gym is about 18×22 ft.  My daughter would like to use it as a dance room too?  We’ll see if I can get creative with how I place things and find equipment that I could move around easily.

Here is my funny quote of the day!  Sooooo many women I’ve been talking to lately think this.

Have a BeauTiful Day!!!

Take two steps forward and one step back

Well…a childhood song comes to mind after this LONG fall break weekend!  “Take two steps forward and one step back…”  You can guess what that means.  Just as I start loving my progress and I’m doing well eating, I go outta town and decide to eat whatever, whenever.  Oh well, at least it’s not one step forward and two steps back!

I am on again!!  This week is absolutely beautiful!  I’m going to make this quick so I can get in a quick run before the onslaught of children!  We had an amazing close to home vacation last weekend.  Our friends invited us to stay a few days at their home in the mountains.  I might add it is a PARTY home!  We played basketball, foosball, air hockey, kickball, sang karaoke, hiked, fished, shot guns, watched movies, played games, made smores, hot tubbed…WHEW, did I leave anything out?  I’m sure I did.  I was in a small depression on Sunday after such a high…oh oh and I did get a run in on a beautiful country road!

Here are a few pics!

Our families are trippin’ again in 3 weeks to St. George.  My friend and I vowed that we’d kick it in high gear with exercise and eating healthy until then of course (:  I really do love being healthy and once I make my mind up, I get back to my normal crazy eating healthy habits.  It’ll be GREAT!!!  I’ve been super busy since we got home.  I don’t have time to think about treats!  I do think about my reward though!

I want to share what we made for dinner one night that is now my favorite food!  Grilled pizza with delectable toppings.  My friend made a simple crust from Martha Stewart and grilled one side of each pizza, then we each loaded it up with what we wanted.  We had tomato sauce, pesto, fresh mozzarella, basil, tomatoes, canadian bacon, pepperoni, and more.  Then you grill the bottom side while everything is stacked up on the top.  I’m making it tonight!!!  The BEST!

I gotta get running!  We had a great 6 am workout this morning with about 15 of us or so!!  LOVED IT!!!  I’ll share more workouts next time!!

Take a run through the leaves!!  Love the SUN!