A Little Change Can Go A Long Way

This week was good and not so good. Good because I had another little epiphany about dieting and because I lost a pound and a half. Not so good because even though I lost a pound and a half and had a little epiphany, it took me an entire week to reach that epiphany. Like, literally, this epiphany occurred this morning. 

Last week I became a BeachBody Coach. I'm super excited to get started with using Shakeology and the corresponding PiYo workouts. I've been doing great with the Shakeology! I am drinking the tropical strawberry vegan. It's all that they claim it to be: it is tasty, it's easy to make, and it really does satiate my cravings. I mix in a banana, a cup of light almond milk, and a few ice cubes. It's a great post-workout drink/snack/meal (I say meal because it really fills me up. If I workout in the evening, it keeps me full until bedtime, so I will usually skip dinner.)

The workouts.... I haven't tried them yet. My BeachBody Coach, Heather, lives by all of Chalene Johnson's workout videos. Heather's progress has been extraordinary!! She's nine months post-baby and she's the smallest, fittest, and healthiest she's ever been! She teaches a wicked boot camp class on Monday nights and they are intense! My goal for this week is to do the PiYo workouts daily along with my regular walks and runs. 

That brings me to my little epiphany. The BeachBody plans really give you a thorough no-brainer approach to food, diet, and exercise. This whole time I've been preaching to myself "less is more." That's not the case: More is MORE!! More food, more calories, more exercise, more sleep. It seems impossible, but it's not. I'm not saying you need to workout for hours a day; quite the opposite. Just do something every day. Even if it's a little walk with your girlfriends on your active rest day: do something. 

The PiYo diet gives you a no-brain approach to food. You figure your caloric range based upon an equation (your weight x 11 - 200 = your calories) and gives you the food "limits" for those calories. I put limits in quotation marks because it's so much food. For example, I was 168.5 pounds. My caloric range is 1653. I had been limiting myself to 1200 calories, 1400 when I worked out. Oh my goodness, was I hungry! Not anymore! The PiYo diet plan gives me what I need to eat. In my case, it's 6 servings of primary veggies, 2 servings of secondary veggies/grains (I typically choose the grains), 3 servings of fresh fruit, 4 servings of healthy fats, and 6 servings of protein. The take-along booklet tells you exactly what is what and the measurements for the servings. NO. BRAINER. I find it hard most days to get all of my servings in because it's all so satisfying and filling. Best of all, I'm eating cleaner than I've ever been eating. 

Want to learn more about BeachBody and all of the fantastic programs that we offer? Visit me at www.teambeachbody.com/summerbuis. You won't be disappointed. 

At any rate, the hiccups of the week have led me to a 1.5 pound weight loss. I have a pretty ambitious goal of losing 2-5 pounds a week until I reach my goal. I used to think that it would be nearly impossible because I was always so hungry and it would just destroy my progress. By evening I'd usually cave and polish off a box of Girl Scout cookies (yes, we still have those in out house. Ack!!). I still will reward myself, but with a sweet and tasty Shakeology drink or with a banana with peanut butter or Nutella. Better choices, better results. 

If I stay on task and focus on my goals, this upcoming week should prove nothing but successful. I'll keep you all updated and posted on my progress! 

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend. I've already done my 2.5 mile run for the day and plan on doing day one of my PiYo workout this afternoon. Remember that it's about balance. Workout, eat right, and sleep! 

Good Pain?

As I said earlier, our word for the week is "accountability." This accountability comes in several forms for me this week: counting every calorie that I consume, not overextending myself, maintaining my workout schedule, and making sure I am getting enough sleep. 

Well, it's Thursday. How am I doing so far? Pretty good but I could do better. My biggest obstacle right now is sleep. Working at 3:00AM makes it very hard to get quality sleep. I laid down at 8:30 last night but woke up for about 90 minutes and couldn't get back to sleep. I'm rocking a solid four hours of sleep. Everything else is smooth sailing. I missed my Pilates "active recovery" and replaced it with a five mile walk. This was also because I missed my two mile run before boot camp on Monday (which wasn't necessarily a bad thing because boot camp kicked my butt!). 

Yesterday was my 2-mile run and kettlebell workout with my workout buddy, Amber. We felt ballsy and did a tour de (very small high school) stadium. They say big things come in small packages, and it does!! After doing a few rounds of the stands and the kettlebells, I could only muster a mile and a half. I'm not upset though because the overall workout was fantastic! We had fun working those stairs up, down, and up again. The kettlebells were killer, as usual! It was all-around a awesome. 

It's Thursday, friends. It's time to finish the week strong and to maintain that accountability! Keep up the great work and I'll check in on Sunday! 

My workout:

-half mile warmup walk

-round of kettlebells

-half mile run

-round of kettlebells

-half mile run

-round of kettlebells

-half mile cool down walk 

Tips and Tricks To Start A Healthier Lifestyle

After yesterday's epiphany, I started fresh. Yesterday was pretty incredible. I had a new outlook which may have been the same outlook I had two and a half years ago when I began losing my weight and before I became complacent and gained it all back. Thinking about my meals and planning them and planning my workouts for the week got me thinking about what I had done in the past that had made me successful. Thinking on that, I have some ideas that I'd like to share that I know everyone would benefit from. Everyone from a seasoned health nut to someone just beginning.

Move Every Day. My doctor actually told me "work out every single day" and there's some stock to that. I was moving every single day. That doesn't mean a grueling workout every single day though; you have to have an active recovery day that gives you a light workout and still gives you the calorie burn that you need for continued success. My favorite active recoveries are Yoga and Pilates.

If you run or walk, take a gorgeous path. Taking a beautiful walking or running path will help you appreciate what is around you and will inspire you to move more and could even help your pace! The anticipation of seeing that view that you love or knowing that you will be back to your starting point soon will motivate you that much more to move.

Plan your meals. I cannot say this enough: Meal planning is crucial to successful and sustainable weight loss! Count your calories and make sure you are not "eyeballing" your portions. Instead, grab a food scale so you can weigh out your portions. Using a food and exercise tracker app (such as Lose It!, my favorite with my Jawbone UP) keeps track of what you eat and your calories burned, which can aid your success.

With that said, make sure you're eating enough calories. My friend, Heather, who is a BeachBody coach and a personal trainer has beat into my head time and time again that the magic caloric number for weight loss is 1200 calories NET for most women. This means that if you burn 300 calories working out, you need to consume 1500 calories. Eating less than a net total of 1200 calories can cause your body to go into survival mode and to hold onto what little calories you're consuming. Not to mention people who consume less than 1200 are typically moodier because they're hungry (or, as Tina Fey said in her American Express commercial: "hangry"). You also need to ensure that you're treating yourself reasonably. That doesn't necessarily mean to eat that slice of cake. My favorite snack right now are French Macarons. They are small and low-calorie so there is no guilt if I eat one or - gasp! - two! You can also treat yourself with a cute outfit or a mani/pedi! Rewards don't have to be consumable.

Don't stretch yourself too thin. This is something that I've had issues with recently. Taking on a full time school work load, working 40+ hours a week, and still being a wife and mom, I gave myself excuses to not fit in fitness and health. Paring back on some things that can take a backseat will help you stress less and give you more time to focus on yourself, which is totally okay.

Hold yourself accountable. This is something that I wasn't doing recently, either. Accountability is HUGE. Accountability means scheduling your workouts in, planning your meals, eating at certain times, drinking your water, and tracking your weight loss. All of these accountability strategies go a long way into living a healthier lifestyle.

Finally, DO THIS FOR YOU AND NOBODY ELSE! Say it with me: I am worth it! You are worth it. Making healthy choices in your life has far-reaching effects. For me, it was anxiety and sleep. When I was working out and eating right, my anxiety went to ZERO and I slept like a baby and rarely woke up at night. There may be some stressors in your life that you will see vanish or decrease with integrating into a healthier lifestyle. When you actually take time to do something for yourself, that's when you will see the changes and the success!

This seems like a lot, but I ensure you that it's not. These are steps and small changes that we can all afford to make every day in our lives. These are changes that we should make. We only get one chance at life (unless you believe in reincarnation, for which you can't remember your past life anyway) so why not live it as long and as healthy as possible?

Why I (Irrationally) Never Want Summer to End

With August comes many changes, the most notable being children and adults alike heading back to school and cooler weather. In my house, not only does my daughter go back to school, but I do as well.  I also work part time at a youth center as a tutor to gain experience in the education field. With school and a part time job on top of my full time job, as well as Chloe's activities (acro, cheer, volleyball, and Girl Scouts.... Thank goodness for my amazing husband for his help with towing her everywhere!), August through May is very busy in my household! For this reason, I was feeling some start-of-fall stress today. I was thinking of the things that I wouldn't be able to do and quickly came up with reasons why it was OK that this is happening.

My first irrational thought was "oh no! I can't workout outside as much anymore!" Wrong. If anything, the mild fall weather is more inviting for outdoor workouts. I have been in the gym non-stop for the better part of my summer. Only recently did I begin running again. The main reason being that I prefer running outside versus on a treadmill and it was just too hot outside for me to consider running (I'm a wuss, I know). The cooler weather means less humidity here in Kansas, less heat beating down on me, and more outside running time. I also LOVE hiking and biking the trails near here and it seems that I just don't do that at all during the summer months. I know I haven't yet this summer.

The next irrational thought I had was "we are going to have fewer daylight hours once summer's over." That's only kind of true. The summer solstice usually begins somewhere between the 20th and 23rd of June. The solstice brings the longest daylight hours of the year for us. So, *technically* the daylight hours have been getting shorter and shorter since the solstice this last June. And at any rate, I'm in bed and asleep by eight o'clock most nights, so even though I'll miss the extra sun, I'm really not missing those extra hours. If anything, they're kind of annoying to me since I'm trying to sleep with some light in my room (thank goodness for blackout shades!).

Then I thought about an outside activity that I love: Swimming. Namely, splashing in my in-laws' pool or sitting poolside, soaking up that sun that I love so much. Now I truly will miss that part of the summertime. I love being poolside or in the pool. There's something about the easiness of having a good book, a cocktail, and my kiddo laughing and having a blast that screams "lazy summer fun." In all honesty though, when I want to swim laps, I do it in the gym's pool. My in-laws' pool, albeit awesome, is round and doesn't have much room to swim productive laps.

My last irrational thought was out of pure vanity: Wearing dresses. I love dresses. Once it's warm enough, I throw on a dress and flip flops and I wear them until the weather forces me otherwise. I'm not a big dress person in the fall. It may have something to do with the cool chill up my skirt at any given time. Even with tights and boots, it doesn't have the same breezy appeal as a thin summertime dress. The funny thing though is I equally love fall fashion: scarves, jackets, boots, and skinny jeans. Writing this down actually makes me want the cooler weather so I can put on my new scarf that I bought on Tuesday.

While I reasoned with myself, I came up with reasons that fall is awesome. Fall is actually my second-favorite season, next to summer, of course. The turning of the leaves, the cool breezes, the fact that my birthday is technically in the fall.... Fall is pretty darn awesome. So while summer is great, I'm okay with it coming to a close... eventually. I would love maybe one more week of summertime weather. Then, when school and fall activities begin, the season can change and I'll be okay with that.

      Fall in Kansas is always gorgeous. 

    But the summer is so much more fun!