Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
TGIF! Week 5 of T25 is DONE!!!!
I can't believe it's already been 5 weeks. I promised myself that I would post before and after pictures, so here goes. And with one week down of trying out this blog thing, I will get up the courage to make it public.
Are you ready to take your fitness to that next level? Then T25 is the plan for you. 25 minutes of intense training and I hope you love every minute as much as I do!
Day one, 117 lbs. After 5 weeks I lost 4 pounds. Not too shabby!
Are you ready to take your fitness to that next level? Then T25 is the plan for you. 25 minutes of intense training and I hope you love every minute as much as I do!
Day one, 117 lbs. After 5 weeks I lost 4 pounds. Not too shabby!
Thursday, November 21, 2013
What I'm Eating - Wednesday Edition!
Pictures speak louder than words, right? So I thought I'd put together a day's worth of healthy eats for everyone to see. And wow. I thought my phone had a pretty good camera on it. Ok, it does but maybe I'm an awful photographer. So please be kind with the horrible pictures and maybe someday I'll upgrade to a big-girl camera.
Dinner around our house is pretty chaotic. With a toddler and a 5 year old, we are rarely all eating at the same time much less even sitting down to eat! We try, we do the best we can. So this dinner was a pretty typical plate of everything thrown together and I actually did get to sit down and eat! Cooked carrots, scrambled egg, tofu and a whole mess of spaghetti squash. 1/4 of a sliced avocado on the side. A little dab of Sriracha made it's way onto my plate after I took the picture.
After dinner I had more gluc pudding and honestly was still hungry. I was really tired so I just brushed my teeth and went to bed. I should have had some more almonds or a small banana before bed. I hate being hungry!!
 |
| Pre-workout meal is coffee with unsweetened almond milk, stevia and 10 almonds. This was taken at about 5:40 am and it's really dark in our kitchen! |
Breakfast is frozen mixed berries, nuked. Plop of non-fat Greek yogurt on top with a sprinkle of stevia. Next door is a hard boiled egg. Eating this at work so hello to my lovely co-workers! Yes, for reallies I'm working back here!! :)
Lunch is a huge salad. Hidden underneath are some cooked green beans and broccoli. Lots of mixed greens, sliced chicken breast on the left and garbanzo beans on top. The red stuff on the right is Sriracha. I usually don't do any dressing but the Sriracha adds plenty of flavor.
Afternoon snack was coffee (same as pre-workout, not pictured). And then had a sliced apple with chocolate gluc pudding. I'll go into details on what this funky stuff is later!
After dinner I had more gluc pudding and honestly was still hungry. I was really tired so I just brushed my teeth and went to bed. I should have had some more almonds or a small banana before bed. I hate being hungry!!
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Clean-eating Tuesday
It's Tuesday! Let's talk about clean eating and making healthy habits that stick.
One of my favorite sayings is "if you fail to plan then you plan to fail." So true. When I get hungry, I get cranky. Cranky isn't fun. And a cranky mom really isn't fun. If I know we're going to be out on the run, I will pack myself a snack or two just as I would for the kids. Nothing to over-think, but something simple like a cut-up apple and some almonds, carrot sticks and nuts or even a small piece of cheese. We're not going on a desert sahara, folks. You don't need to pack the whole fridge in a cooler (unless you really want to!), just something to hold you over so you're not digging into the kids' PBJ or you're not dying and wondering where the closest fast food joint can be found. Make it simple, but make it work for you.
For many of us, sticking to healthy habits means making it totally routine. I don't have a lot of time to make fancy recipes and typically our family isn't eating the same foods all the time. I love salivating over all the fun recipes and ideas on Pinterest, but I know that 1. I don't have the time to be fancy shmancy and 2. Same ole, same ole works. Simple and effective. I have tried many recipes over the years of course, but have only incorporated a few of them into my daily repertroire.
Now I have to add that hubby is amazing with the grill. I am lucky enough that he is willing to grill pretty much year-round. Throw a protein source on that baby and cook up some veggies, and/or a salad and add a tater for him (sometimes, sometimes not) and we're good to go. My tastes have kind of changed recently and I'm not nearly as much a carnivore as I once was. But fish, small chicken breast and even the once in a while veggie burger are all fair game.
Here is a typical eating day for me:
Pre-workout:
Coffee with stevia and unsweetened almond milk
10 almonds (Anal? Yep. Totally)
Breakfast:
Frozen mixed berries (nuked until warm)
Greek yogurt
HB egg
Lunch:
Huge salad with leafy greens, carrots, cuke, etc.
Cooked vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, spaghetti squash, etc.
Protein source, many times a small chicken breast
1/2 cup of a complex carb like quinoa, brown rice, hummous, beans, etc.
PM Snack:
Coffee with stevia, unsweetened almond milk, cocoa powder to make it fancy.
Something like an apple with or without another HB egg, or glucc pudding (more on this later)
Dinner:
Typically looks a lot like lunch
One of my favorite sayings is "if you fail to plan then you plan to fail." So true. When I get hungry, I get cranky. Cranky isn't fun. And a cranky mom really isn't fun. If I know we're going to be out on the run, I will pack myself a snack or two just as I would for the kids. Nothing to over-think, but something simple like a cut-up apple and some almonds, carrot sticks and nuts or even a small piece of cheese. We're not going on a desert sahara, folks. You don't need to pack the whole fridge in a cooler (unless you really want to!), just something to hold you over so you're not digging into the kids' PBJ or you're not dying and wondering where the closest fast food joint can be found. Make it simple, but make it work for you.
For many of us, sticking to healthy habits means making it totally routine. I don't have a lot of time to make fancy recipes and typically our family isn't eating the same foods all the time. I love salivating over all the fun recipes and ideas on Pinterest, but I know that 1. I don't have the time to be fancy shmancy and 2. Same ole, same ole works. Simple and effective. I have tried many recipes over the years of course, but have only incorporated a few of them into my daily repertroire.
Now I have to add that hubby is amazing with the grill. I am lucky enough that he is willing to grill pretty much year-round. Throw a protein source on that baby and cook up some veggies, and/or a salad and add a tater for him (sometimes, sometimes not) and we're good to go. My tastes have kind of changed recently and I'm not nearly as much a carnivore as I once was. But fish, small chicken breast and even the once in a while veggie burger are all fair game.
Here is a typical eating day for me:
Pre-workout:
Coffee with stevia and unsweetened almond milk
10 almonds (Anal? Yep. Totally)
Breakfast:
Frozen mixed berries (nuked until warm)
Greek yogurt
HB egg
Lunch:
Huge salad with leafy greens, carrots, cuke, etc.
Cooked vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, spaghetti squash, etc.
Protein source, many times a small chicken breast
1/2 cup of a complex carb like quinoa, brown rice, hummous, beans, etc.
PM Snack:
Coffee with stevia, unsweetened almond milk, cocoa powder to make it fancy.
Something like an apple with or without another HB egg, or glucc pudding (more on this later)
Dinner:
Typically looks a lot like lunch
Very first post! And an introduction
Today marks the very first day of my journey to become a Beachbody coach. Can I do it? Will I succeed? I don't know but I'm willing to take a risk and find out. Health, fitness and clean eating are all huge passions of mine so I thought I would take the plunge and try sharing my passion with others. What many people do not know about me is that I earned my BA in Physical Education. Surprise! I very clearly remember going to all the under-grad classes being BORED off my you-know-what. Probably many people are. But I felt kind of lost. I had no idea what I wanted to do and what the remainder of my college years would look like. Again, like many other college students I gained that dreaded freshman 15. Maybe it was 10 for me, but I'm short and whatever...it was a lot of added pounds! Rice swimming in butter, late night snacks, parties...you get the picture. The last semester of my freshman year I knew I had to get things under control. All the stairs at school were killing me! I was huffing and puffing and felt really out of shape. I decided to enroll in a low-impact aerobics class. At first, I couldn't stand it! I just felt awkward and I ended up just kind of goofing around with my friends more than getting in a workout. But as the weeks went on, my friends dropped out and I stuck with it. I was really starting to feel better and I also took better control over what I was eating. I was actually enjoying the workouts! And I adored my instructor. Working out, going to fitness classes and concentrating on what foods I was eating became all that really excited me about college life - the social aspect too, of course. :) Then I found out that my school had a program through the Phys. Ed department where you could learn about entering the Corporate Fitness field. Lightbulb! So that's what I did and ended up working in that field for a few years after I graduated. I taught group exercise classes, became ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) certified and designed fitness and nutrition programs. Then this icky thing called $$$ got in the way and life changes, and I found myself at a desk job in the corporate world. If you are still here reading, thank you! Come join my journey!!
Fast forward to several years later and I cancelled a gym membership I had had forever and started working out at home. I have been doing the FIRM dvd's for years and have loved them. Many of them are 45-60 minutes long and pre-kids that was fine but after my daughter was born over 5 years ago I've had to scale down my workout time. I never quite got my body back to where I wanted it after Brynn was born but I was close enough to be in most of my clothes and happy enough. After Gavin was born in June 2012, I was really scared that I would NEVER get my body back or even close to where I wanted it. One of my best friends had told me not to worry, that I would be too busy to eat! I thought, no way! I always find time to eat!! She was right and the weight came off faster than I had expected. A year later and I was still sticking to my workouts on average 5 days a week. I was wearing jeans and clothes that I thought I would never get into again...and now they were loose! I was pretty easily maintaining a weight of about 116-118 (I'm 5'1") and I felt great.
Then back in October 2013 I realized that maybe it was time to step it up a notch. I started looking into other programs but was intimidated by workouts like Insanity or P90X because of the time commitment. But, wait! Then I came across T25 and it sounded perfect.
Purchased, received and I hit play for the first time on October 22. OMG. I thought I might vomit. Seriously the toughest workout I have ever done. Shaun T. Good Lord. Ass kicking in a major way. But I was hooked. Totally hooked!
I started at 117lbs and today I weighed 113.5. I have never, ever seen that weight in my adult life. I have abs really starting to show now. I am no longer near-vomit when I workout, but they aren't really getting easy either. Since I completed T25, I am currently doing a hybrid schedule of T25 and P90X3. Love the two combined!!
Then one early morning, I had another one of those light bulb moments. At 3am. Why didn't that light bulb come on at say, 9am?? This light bulb was glaring me in the face saying, "gee Marci. You love to workout. You love the feeling of eating healthy. You have been asked for advice and tips before. You have a degree in this, for goodness sakes! What if, just what if you took that passion and put it to work? There is this thing called a Beachbody coach. Look into it." That's pretty much the gist of my light bulb moment.
So here I am today, trying to follow my second light bulb moment.
Fast forward to several years later and I cancelled a gym membership I had had forever and started working out at home. I have been doing the FIRM dvd's for years and have loved them. Many of them are 45-60 minutes long and pre-kids that was fine but after my daughter was born over 5 years ago I've had to scale down my workout time. I never quite got my body back to where I wanted it after Brynn was born but I was close enough to be in most of my clothes and happy enough. After Gavin was born in June 2012, I was really scared that I would NEVER get my body back or even close to where I wanted it. One of my best friends had told me not to worry, that I would be too busy to eat! I thought, no way! I always find time to eat!! She was right and the weight came off faster than I had expected. A year later and I was still sticking to my workouts on average 5 days a week. I was wearing jeans and clothes that I thought I would never get into again...and now they were loose! I was pretty easily maintaining a weight of about 116-118 (I'm 5'1") and I felt great.
Then back in October 2013 I realized that maybe it was time to step it up a notch. I started looking into other programs but was intimidated by workouts like Insanity or P90X because of the time commitment. But, wait! Then I came across T25 and it sounded perfect.
Purchased, received and I hit play for the first time on October 22. OMG. I thought I might vomit. Seriously the toughest workout I have ever done. Shaun T. Good Lord. Ass kicking in a major way. But I was hooked. Totally hooked!
I started at 117lbs and today I weighed 113.5. I have never, ever seen that weight in my adult life. I have abs really starting to show now. I am no longer near-vomit when I workout, but they aren't really getting easy either. Since I completed T25, I am currently doing a hybrid schedule of T25 and P90X3. Love the two combined!!
Then one early morning, I had another one of those light bulb moments. At 3am. Why didn't that light bulb come on at say, 9am?? This light bulb was glaring me in the face saying, "gee Marci. You love to workout. You love the feeling of eating healthy. You have been asked for advice and tips before. You have a degree in this, for goodness sakes! What if, just what if you took that passion and put it to work? There is this thing called a Beachbody coach. Look into it." That's pretty much the gist of my light bulb moment.
So here I am today, trying to follow my second light bulb moment.
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