October Challenge

Happy October!!  One of my favorite months of the year!!  The weather turns, the leaves change, and the air smells crisp.  I love FALL!!  I’m going to make October my healthiest month yet!  I LOVED my 21 day challenge of healthy eating, so for OCTOBER, I’m back at the challenge.  This one will be for 31 days!!  I have a few additional rules and goals attached to this one.  My diet will include everything from the 21 day challenge.  I will only be adding 2 servings of fruit a day and 2-3 servings of starches.  Starches include: sweet potatoes, oats, legumes, brown rice, quinoa etc…  Bread will be out for the month and most dairy.  I’m not a dairy fan anyway(besides ice cream)!  No white sugar or white flour.  My favorite saying!  AND…I’m going to be following Jamie Eason’s Live Fit weight lifting plan phase 2 and 3.  I’m only taking TWO days off!!  One will be when I go to St. George and the other is on a friend’s birthday!  WISH ME LUCK!!!  I love seeing the results of eating healthy and lifting weights, but more than that, I love how much better I feel!

I have a race recap to share from this last weekend.  Me and a few friends ran the Huntsville half marathon.  Our friends have a home up there.  It is such a beautiful place.  I love being there.  The run was perfect.  Can I tell you how much I love HALFS??  The day was rainy which turned out being a fun twist to the day.  It was still beautiful.  I loved the views, especially at the finish line.  I felt strong and happy!  My kids like to lay out all my medals over the years.  I need to take a snap shot of them.  I’m sure I have over a dozen.  I’m grateful for a healthy body that can RUN!!  Here we are at the start line!

After the race I immediately wanted to get back home to shower and warm up!!  Of course AFTER a 13 mile run through the beautiful mountains I would LOVE to add a warm bath, snickerdoodles by the fire, and a crisp walk through the FALL leaves.  Heavenly day!!  Look for the good and the happy around you.  My sweet friend has already got me excited about another FALL race at the end of October that I’m contemplating doing.  Crazy me!  Another half marathon down another favorite place of mine.  Provo Canyon.  We’ll see about that!  WORK HARD, PLAY HARD!

I also need to add a little music in here.  I love love my new ipod and have added a few new songs on it.  I was having a hard time keeping my ear buds in during the race with all the rain.  My son showed me some new ear phones he bought called Beats.  I didn’t know they were that big a deal until I listened to them.  Oh my!!  Incredible sound.  We listened to a few One Republic songs.  Listen to this one on some Beats if you have them.  Geez!  Do people run in these??

 

Why am I not losing weight?

Happy summer rain day!  I’m kind of a weather fanatic.  If I watch the news, the only thing I want to see is the weather.  Weird.  With summer coming to an end, I LOVE LOVE to look at the next five days and still see the highs in the 90’s and lows in the high 60’s.  I need to take advantage of my running days!  They are numbered as Fall starts to sneak up.  WELL!  I can’t say when I’ll be writing on this blog.  Some days and most days I haven’t felt like saying much.  Today, I’ll combine all things health and all things me!!

FIRST, to address my title and question, Why am I not losing weight?  I read a couple articles lately about losing weight (surprise surprise) and this is what I read (another surprise surprise)!  Two things: Which is more effective at losing weight: Eating healthy or exercising?  Number one important way to lose weight is to eat less and eat healthy.  People WAY under estimate the number of calories they eat and over estimate the number of calories burned during exercise.  Eat less and load up on fruits, veggies, and protein.  Nothing new from me!  NEXT, Cardio versus weights?  Again, by a HUGE percentage, lifting weights will help you lose weight easier and faster.  Cardio burns a lot of calories, but lifting weights helps you keep burning weights for hours after your workout, giving you a higher metabolism!  Again, nothing new.  LIFT WEIGHTS!!

This leads me to my WORKOUT of the week!!!  This week I’ve decided to try a few of my favorite workouts.  I think I’ll be doing these workouts for the next few weeks.  I love them!!!  I’ve posted them before.  They are Jen Jewell’s workouts.  There are 4 of them:  Back, Upper body blast, Lower body blast, and Chest/Triceps/Abs. If you love working chest, give this one a whirl.  I died.

 Workout 4:Chest/Triceps/Abs

SUPERSET: 4 SETS

Bench Press-12 reps

Russian Twist with weight-15 reps per side

SUPERSET: 4 SETS

Incline dumbbell Press- 12 reps

Side Bridge holding a weight above your head-15 reps per side

SUPERSET: 4 SETS

Dumbbell Chest Flys-12 reps

Plank- 1 minute

SUPERSET- 4 SETS

Side to side push up- 12 reps

Weighted full sit-up- 20 reps

Decline push up- 12 reps

SUPERSET: 3 SETS

Tricep dumbbell kickback- 12 reps per side

Tricep pushdown or close grip bench press- 12 reps

Seated tricep press with dumbbell- 12 reps

Tomorrow will be a good day too!  7 mile run and back day.    

What else??  Eating has been good.  I find that I give in a little to treats on the weekend, but I get right back on track every Monday (:  Here are a few of my weaknesses that make me cave!

 #1 The weekend (especially Sunday)

#2 Homemade breads

#3 Homemade cookies, brownies, or almost any treat

#4 Peer pressure (At a party and everyone is eating and you feel weird if you don’t eat too)

#5 Tired and overly hungry

Keep me away from these and I’d be 100% clean eating girl.  My biggest problem is the weekend.  So, this week I made a goal to have no treats until 5 pm on Sunday night!  BUT…I might have one treat on Saturday night if we end up going out (:

Next on my list is new pics!  I’ve been doing a little shopping lately and my good friend gave me bags of her old clothes so I’ll be posting cute clothes more often!

Top-Express
Skirt-Boden
Shoes-Dillards

Top-Ann Taylor Loft
Skirt-Boden
Shoes-Greece

As I type, my kids are watching Robots in the other room and I recognize the voice of Robin Williams.  A little sad to hear of his passing.  One of my favorites and definitely one of the most talented actors of all time.  You never know what’s going on in people’s lives.  Be kind.  I’ll be watching Dead Poet’s Society this weekend.  A favorite of mine!

I’ll end with another favorite of mine: music!!  Enjoy!  Be happy!

My copy and paste button is not working.  You’ll have to work a little and look these songs up!!

SHE’S SO MEAN-MATCHBOX 20

I WON’T LET YOU GO-SNOW PATROL

I LIVED-ONE REPUBLIC

“I, I did it all.  I, I did it all.  I owned every second, that this world could give.  I saw so many places.  And things that I did.  Of every broken bone I swear I lived.”

Happy Birthday! New music and personal training goal

Well hello there!  Today is a big day for me and my oldest son.  He is 16!!  I’ve loved every minute of planning fun surprises for him!  Last night a friend of his organized a surprise party.  I thought he knew, but really he didn’t!  We went to dinner with family while everyone showed up and then they all surprised him when we came home.  He has great friends!  THEN, this morning on his REAL birthday a few friends in our neighborhood came by in the morning to wake him up and take him to breakfast!  Hee hee!  Another surprise!  We went and made him an official driver too!  My heart is full of the greatest love when I think of becoming a mother for the first time.  I love all my kids equally, but that time with the first will always be dear to my heart.  My world revolved around him.  Here are a few pics. from the past and TODAY!!  Happy Birthday my sweet boy!!

I’m tired today from staying up till midnight last night and then waking up to workout at the track at 6 a.m.  Our numbers were tiny today but I still loved working out outside in the morning hours.  I’m super sore from my leg workout yesterday!  I need to work legs more!  This weekend will be a leg burner as well since I’m running RAGNAR Friday and Saturday!!  We each have 3 legs and my total mileage is about 19 miles.  We’ll see how I do.  I haven’t really trained, but do I ever really stop??

Lately, several people have been wanting some nutrition and exercise advice.  I’ve told them I’m off duty till August!  Mostly because I want to organize my training.  I want to create a training manual for beginners, intermediate, and advanced programs.  I also want to put together a recipe book.  New goal!  Finish these projects in JULY!!!  I love what I do and helping people see results and I think this will make it even easier for them to lose weight.  Now I just need to set aside an hour or two every day to accomplish it!!

I’m going to end with a few favorite songs for the day!!  The first one is my son’s favorite song right now.  He plays it multiple times every day.  The second one is a band I learned about from the teenage girls at church!  And the third is a new Maroon 5 song that I love.  Have a wonderful day!  Lift heavy and SMILE always!!  (: (: (:

 

 

What to eat before a run

Happy Memorial Day and Happy Birthday to my cutie pie girl!

We had plenty of time to celebrate all weekend.  The kids have loved the tramp, we had a fun BBQ with family, enjoyed the sweetest cake ever made, shopped, made pizzas, played in the sprinklers, had cousins over.  I’m ready for bed.  5 am comes quick!  My workout will be fun tomorrow.  I’m thinking we need to run up my basement stairs and down my steep driveway for part of the workout (:  They’re going to love it!

Alrighty!  I’m committed to serious goals this week.  Exercise and eating will be ABOVE ON!  This morning’s workout was just what I needed.  I have to admit I made myself sick and ate too much birthday cake.  I got up and went to the gym and did a back and ab workout and then met a few friends for a run!  I have to laugh!  We ran a little later than usual, it was hot, I didn’t eat because I was burning off birthday cake, and who do I wind up running with?  My friend that is 12 years younger than me and my 3:00 hour marathon speedy pants friend.  I was singing the song “Which one of these things doesn’t belong” in my head!  Yes, the run was hard for me today!  I did talk to my speedy friend about what she eats before a run!  If she goes out for an average length normal run she drinks a muscle milk.  She’ll also have toast or a banana.  She loves POWERBAR products.  She specifically mentioned this applesauce.

I’m going to experiment with a few of them.  I need to be faster!  I’ll let you know how this week goes on Saturday and if I reach my goals that are in my head (: I’m excited to RUN with the weather so nice.  We got our patio furniture out and my husband brought home several flower baskets.  I love it!  Keep working hard every day!!

Workout song of the day!

The Phoenix-Fall Out Boy

Inspiration Monday

Good Morning Monday!  A new week, new goals, and new perspective.  Lately and most often in my life I feel the need to SIMPLIFY (:  It’s as if I’m always saying we’re only busy for this one short time, it will be over soon, or life will calm down…I’ve come to the reality that it never does.  That’s o.k. as long as perspective and priorities are in check.  Sometimes in the early morning hours random thoughts and ideas come to mind.  My lucky husband gets to listen to me think through my half sleepy 4 a.m. inspirations!  Right now my brain is focused on training for Boston, helping with the school’s musical, and personal training.  After the marathon I really want to change my schedule.

I look at my kids and my friend’s kids and we’re starting to send off our oldest and most of our kids are all in school.  I’m not one to dwell on the past or wish my kids would stay young forever, but I want to look back and know that I was there for them and that they knew and felt how much I loved them!  My oldest will be out of the house in just a little over two years and though it brings tears to my eyes, they are happy tears of wonderful memories.  I want to have more remembrances of going on walks, playing outside, and reading books rather than times of rushing from place to place.  I want to be healthy and teach my kids the importance of eating well and exercising but I don’t want to be remembered as the crazy Mom who was always exercising and making them eat weird food (:  That makes me laugh because I might need to claim that one!

Here’s to TODAY!  Another new day and week to work hard, accomplish more, and LOVE every minute of it!  I need to put some quotes and pictures in my weight room and here are a few of my favorites that I might be using!  Never forget (:

I’ll add a couple songs for Music Monday too.  Wednesday I’ll be ALL talk about my fitness and health challenges for the next MONTH!!  Florida is coming up and I’m trying to be a bit of a perfectionist with how I want to look (:  Can’t wait!!!

8 Tried and true weight loss supplements

Well hello there!!!  I’m a little bit slow today!  I tried to run this morning and woke up to a rain storm.  I should have ran anyway because now I don’t feel like exercising…I know that is VERY rare for me.  This might be a BYE day.  I have two kids that say they’re sick and one other wanting me to pick him up in 20 minutes…looks like a BYE day for everyone!

Food and supplement talk today!  I bought these at bodybuilding.com, Max Muscle, Costco, and local nutrition stores.  Here you go!  The BEST!

Sounds like the perfect miracle remedies!  Of course, real food is what is most important but I do believe all of these help too!!

I struggled this weekend with stickin’ to my nutrition challenge.  We went to a Jazz game, saw a movie, had dinner at a friends, and my Mom made my favorite sugar cookies.  Difficulty in all directions.  I survived and did not cave!  I took a couple pictures of some crazy combinations that I’ve been eating lately.  It’s weird when this looks sooo good to me!

The top picture is sweet potato, hard boiled egg, veggies, and the inside of an enchilada!  The bottom picture is veggies with a yogurt artichoke dip, celery with PB and laughing cow cheese, and my favorite apple!  I’m hungry and need to go make lunch!

Don’t lose it over the holidays!

OK!  I always love this time of year when I flip the calendar over and see DECEMBER!  Every time I wonder where the year went!  I am very goal driven and I start thinking about New Year Resolutions.  I’m going to be very careful what I choose this year so I can actually achieve them!  (: That leads me to a new 3 week goal or countdown to birthday goal.  I’ve mentioned this more than once over the last few months, but this year marks my 40th!  I don’t know why that’s a big deal other than the fact that 40 sounds so much older than 30!  I looked around at the kids the other day at breakfast and told them how much I love this stage in our lives.  I would NOT want to go back to 30 and relive the baby years as much as I LOVED caring for my little ones round the clock!

  This is what I’ll be doing over the next 3 weeks!  I know I’m NOT normal!

• 6 days a week of Jamie Eason weight workouts.  I’ll probably add a few runs and Zumba too!
• Weigh myself everyday.  I know that’s lame but I’m back to wanting a number by my birthday.  I’m thinking between 128-130!
• South Beach Phase 1 for 2 weeks (no grains or fruit).  Maybe I’ll have 1 apple a day (:

That should be all that I hold myself accountable to!  I KNOW I can do this.  I have to remind myself how great I feel when I’m working out hard and eating clean.  I felt so healthy Thanksgiving morning and I slowly declined feeling that way for the duration of the weekend due to crappy eating!  I have lots of projects to keep me busy!  Our carpet is finally in and now I want to go through each room and storage room and clean and dejunk.  I also should do a little Christmas shopping since I have a bit of procrastination tendencies (: For Monday Menu, here are a few things I ate last week!

Breakfast: Egg white omelet, 1/2 sweet potato, 1/2 apple

Lunch- SALAD

Dinner- 2 turkey burgers, broccoli, sweet potato fries

Over the weekend my daughter showed me a new song I love!  This is One Direction.  Very cute video!

Happy happy Monday!!  Work Hard and Smile (:

My next workout

4 things today:

1. My middle child’s birthday!!!!  What a great time of year to be born!  He was a dream baby and probably my cutest too (:  Here are a  couple pics!!!  The first one is straight from the scrap book!  I look a little scary as a new MOM and I love the sleepy second one.  He takes after me in that he falls asleep anywhere!!  Happy Birthday to my SWEET boy whose growing up so fast!!!  11 today!

 2. A little talk about the CLEANSE diet from GPPfitness.  Why should you do one?  I do them when I’ve been eating too much for too long and I want to lose weight fast and feel healthy quick!!  When I go super strict for a short time, it reprograms my brain to get back on track.  This is tough, but it’s worth it!!  I did it a week ago and I still feel thinner and I want to eat less and be healthier.  So, that’s my 2 cents.  BTW!!!!  This leads me to my next topic!

3. As I was reading about the diet at GPP, I read the workout of the day and I SOOOOOO want to do it.  Here is my next workout!!  I need a kettle bell for home.  I’ll have to do this at the gym.  I love kettle bells!  The 25/35 means 25# kettle bell for women and 35# kettle bell for men!  Give it a try!

10 KB swings 25/35 on min 1
15 KB swings 25/35 on min 2 
20 KB swings 25/35 on min 3
25 KB swings 25/35 on min 4
30 KB swings 25/35 on min 5
30 KB swings 25/35 on min 6
25 KB swings 25/35 on min 7
20 KB swings 25/35 on min 8
15 KB swings 25/35 on min 9
10 KB swings 25/35 on min 10 

Rest 2 min, then repeat entire sequence subbing situps for KB swings.

Holy muscles!

4. Lastly, I found a new song I like.  I’m running a relay race this weekend so I’ll be adding this song to my playlist.  Beautiful time of year to run!!  I’ll post again FRIDAY about some seriously awesome recipes I’ve tried recently and give an update on my weight status!  Until then…

Imagine Dragons-Demons

 

 

4 day cleanse

Happy Monday!  What an excellent and perfectly relaxing weekend.  Last week from Tuesday-Friday I did a short 4 day cleanse.  I don’t think of it as a cleanse really.  It’s more of a reset diet button.  Sometimes I get tired of myself giving in to eating too much and this 4 day diet reminds me to take control and get back to eating healthy.  Here it is.  I found this diet from gppfitness.com:

The GPP 4 Day Cleanse (the “Reset”).  Each day adds to the next.  So, on day 3 you can have your fruits and veggies, PLUS your 24 grams of CHO, Plus your water – get how it works?  Here it is:

Day 1 – Drink half your body weight in ounces of water.
Day 2 – 24 g of CHO drink (we suggest within 15 mins of your workout).
Day 3 – 5 servings of fruits & 5 servings of vegetables (Google it). + 24g CHO drink + H20
Day 4 – Add 24 g of protein + fruits & veggies + CHO drink + H2O

It’s pretty intense.  I’m used to crazy diets so it wasn’t too bad.  Yes, the first two days are liquids, mostly water!  Keep busy (:  Day 3 and 4 were pretty easy.  For breakfast I had a cup of broccoli with salsa and a banana!  Lunch was a big salad.  I made several green smoothies and threw together a vegetable soup with whatever veges I had around the house.  I used green onions, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, and zucchini.  I cooked them in a pot with chicken broth.  On Day 4 we went to lunch and I had one of my favoritest yummiest soups from Rumbi and a small salad.  The chicken in the soup was my protein.  I need to make this soup at home!!  It’s a chicken tortilla coconut soup.  YUM!  

Anyway, after all was said and done, I felt pretty skinny.  I think you lose mostly water.  I still exercised through the 4 days, but not at such a crazy intensity.  On Saturday, I weighed 132 and that was before any working out.  I usually like to weigh myself after a hard workout.  I’m hoping for 130 or 129 by this Saturday.  This week I want to continue eating well.  No sugar or white flour and no eating after 7:30 p.m.  I’m going to up my workouts for the week too.  More cardio and weights.

Best of luck!!!  Try not to go crazy after the diet.  You’ll want to eat everything in site!  Remember how tough it was to get through and you don’t want to reverse that by over eating.  The worst things I ate after the cleanse this weekend were kettle corn, rice krispy treats, and pizza.  The pizza was a super healthy thin crust pizza so I felt better about myself.  That is a HUGE improvement for me!  I’ll be even better this weekend!

O.K!!  My house is in dire need of a major cleaning job.  I better hop to it!!  Here is a quick picture we took on Saturday with my handsome boys.  It was General Conference weekend.  I took my 2 sons and a friend to hear the speakers in person at the conference center.  One time during the session I looked over and all 3 boys were leaning back sleeping (:  Super comfy!  Lots of great inspiring music, words, and counsel.  Wonderful!

I have to include a song of course for Monday music.  Katy Perry has a new album out in a couple weeks!  Here is a sneak preview of one of the songs on that album.  I love all her music!!  Go for many runs through the beautiful fall leaves this week!!  Be happy (:

How to fit into white pants

Happy MONDAY!!  Today started off awesome with a 7 mile trail run!  I’ve been a little worried about my narcolepsy.  If you don’t know what that is, look it up (:  I don’t think one can live a vacation lifestyle, stay at home Mom of 5 kids lifestyle, and a running like crazy exercise lifestyle at the same time without symptoms of narcolepsy!  Lately, this is me on most days!

We’ve taken our kids everywhere, been to concerts, out to lunch, up mountains, and down rivers.  Here we are at a few outings this past week!

My favorite day trip was a visit to my Aunt and Uncle’s cabin in Provo canyon.  A childhood favorite filled with memories.  We hiked up a mountain that was falling apart!  We floated down the Provo river on tubes with my 80 year old uncle and cousins.  I was proud that I got all 5 of my children down the river safely!  I can’t say my diet has been totally clean these days!  It’s been too much fun to snack and enjoy yummy summer food.  I think that’s fine if you don’t stay off the wagon for long.  I’m going to try and keep it in check this week so I can fit into my favorite white pants for my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary party on Saturday!  You’ll have to see if I made my goal by what I’m wearing!  I am lucky that I’ll be running 16 miles that day!

After my 15 miler last week, I realized this is the ultimate post workout stretch!!

It was a great run!  I didn’t feel super strong, but at one time during the run, my fastie friend told me to slow down!  What a compliment!

Onto my advice for how to fit into a favorite pair on pants!  Besides running and lifting, which you should do EVERY day as effective and strong as possible, you should fill your body with good fuel!  I follow a fitness enthusiast that helps keep me motivated.  She’s real close to my height and build.  Her name is Erin Simmons.

When I get in a non healthy eating rut, I pull out inspirational people’s eating plans.  She also has amazing abs!  Here is a great video for abs that I want to try too!

Click HERE to see here daily eating plan!  For the most part I need to fill up on protein, fiber, fruits, and vegetables.  This will help!!

Next adventure on the list is a 2 day trip to Bear Lake.  This one will be relaxing, read a book condo style trip.  I still want to run or do a killer workout such as 10 sets of 30 burpees and 30 situps!!  I read that workout on Erin Simmons’ blog!  GEEZ!!  I just might try it.  Scary (: