Fab Fit Squad

Admit we all look down at our tummy’s and wish they are a little flatter, more

define or hell just wasn’t a muffin top! Here a four ways to lose that muffin top.

1. Add protein to every meal. I always ask my clients to write their food journals and the one element that is missing from most meals is protein. This is help you repair your muscles after working out and helps you to feel full longer.
2. Log your meals. This helps you really visualize what your are putting in your mouth. I mean you log EVERYTHING the Peppermint Patty  you grabbed from the receptionist desk. Want me to review? Just send 3 days and I’ll give you feedback.
3. Avoid artificial sweeteners.Because they are “artificial” it’s sometimes hard for our bodies to process them. When your body can’t process it causes inflammation. Unfortunately you typically can’t control where the inflammation occurs, most times it will occur in your tummy. So its best to avoid foods high in sodium, carbonated beverages, and gum.
4. Fill up on veggies.  Veggies are low in calories and high in fiber. This combination helps you feel full longer. Be careful with broccoli it does cause a little bloating.

Here is a bonus — interval training — instead of just hoping on a piece of equipment and doing the same pace, try mixing it up with intervals.  Try this one.  Go hard for 30 sec and then rest for 30 sec try this for 30 minutes. After you try it leave me a comment about how you did.

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The first week of the new year is almost over. How are you doing with your resolutions? Are you still making them? If your resolution this year is to lose those last 10 pounds or to get into or back into shape I have a few tips that may help you get there this year.

1. You need a strategy — just hoping and praying isn’t a strategy. Think of your fitness plan as planning a trip. Would you just hop in the car and hope you end up a destination. No.. you would punch it into your GPS and follow the route. Getting back into shape and losing weight is the same thing! Your action for right now is to say — I am going to ________. I’m looking for an exact number, if its not exact you can’t measure how you are doing.  For example, by February 17 I will lose 10 pounds or I will run/walk 1 mile each day for the next 30 days.  So.. what’s your action item to get you toward your end goal?
2. Yes, write it down — you have you strategy, it’s not good enough to have it in your head, you need to write it down and put it someplace where you can see it each and every day! I recommend you tape it in multiple locations — your bathroom mirror, your nightstand, your refrigerator, your car’s sun visor, your cube at work. The more you see it the more you will be reminded of your goal and your actions will start to reflect where you want to go. Your action item — write your goal for the next 30 days and put it in multiple locations.
3. Don’t go hungry — when people start to diet the first thing I hear is I’m going to skip meals. Nothing makes me more crazy than when I hear that. Okay the other thing that makes me crazier is when I see people walking/running on a treadmill and holding on for dear life. Unless you came in using a walker or a cane there is no need to hold on. Pump your arms and use your core! Off my soap box, now back to meals. You must fuel your body every 2-3 hours.  You must keep blood sugar levels even, this is what signals the brain for food. The more even your blood sugars levels the less likely you are to go on a bender. Think about this.  How many times have you skipped lunch and then headed home after work and just ate everything sight or you planned on eating the right things and your hungry mind took over.  I know that never happens to you guys. =) If you are reading this and its been a few hours –EAT SOMETHING! Your action item — what snacks can you put in your desk drawer or in the car that you can eat?
4. Get support — You can’t do this alone! There will be times when you need a shoulder to lean on, a kick in the pants or just an ear when you need to vent. Ask someone to be your accountability partner. When you have this person you are less likely to fall off the wagon. I highly recommend you find that friend, co-worker or whomever that isn’t afraid to be hard on you.  Your action item — find and ask someone to be your support person?
5. Share your goals with the world — The more people who know what you are doing you are more likely to do it. No one wants to look like a fool. In this new world of social media — post your goal(s) on your Facebook wall, tweet about them on Twitter.  You’d be surprised how much support and encouragement you’ll get from others who maybe trying to reach the same goal or this is where you may find your accountability partner. Your action item –post your 30 day goal on your Facebook wall, tweet about or tell someone in person.  You can even leave your comments on my blog! I have no problem being that kick in the rump!
6. Pick one thing to change — Many of you feel you need to change EVERYTHING right away. I’m all for that BUT… if you aren’t that kind of person. Don’t do it!  I recommend you pick 1 habit this week and work on changing that. If you are addicted to diet soda — work on reducing the number that you have in a day or go cold turkey.  Action item — What is the one thing you will change this week?

With these 6 tips in hand do you feel like you have a nice blueprint to help you forward towards reaching your fitness goals this year? If you would some formalized help. I still have a few spots open for my F.R.E.E 30 day wellness coaching program. Just shoot me an email to learn more.  I really want to know how you are doing. Leave me your fitness goal in the comments below.

These past few weeks, we may have been eating more than we typically do during the rest of the year. Come January 1st, many of will list losing weight as your primary New Year’s Resolution. So what do you do? You head to the gym and hit the cardio machines, take a few group exercise classes and maybe lift a few weights. The question that remains is what are you eating? Jack Lalanne is the godfather of fitness and his famous quote is~ Exercise is King, nutrition is Queen, put them together and you’ve got a kingdom. Most people forget to think about the food.  Once you get your nutrition in alignment you will find that workouts come a little easier and you fit into those skinny jeans just a little faster.

Over the next 5 weeks I going to give a number of challenges to help you kick off the new year with a bang!

This week I challenge you to keep a food journal! This food journal doesn’t have to be anything fancy. I use Fitday to track my food. They have a free online version as well as a paid version. You can also just write it down on a piece of paper. Why do you need to write down what you eat? When you write down what you eat, you get an up close and personal view what you are putting into your body. This exercise will be very eye opening. Care to share your journal with me? I’ll do FREE 15 min nutrition review.

PS — Feel like you need a little more help and want to do a cleanse to detox the holidays? Let me know my client Kjerstan did and lost 7  pounds in one week! Shoot me an email for me details.

This is the time of year when many of you make “resolutions” you decide that this is the year that you will….. Now I ask you a question – WHY??? Why do you want to keep the resolution?  What is your motivation?  Why do you want to achieve that goal(s)?

Your why should be so powerful that it should keep you up at night with excitement, your why should be so motivating that it will drag your tushy out of bed on a minus 3 degree snowy morning to hit the gym to get your lift on. (more…)

This year instead of making a resolution I’m make a themes for 2012. My first theme for 2012 is EXPRESSION!!! This year I will be stepping in front of the camera and doing more video blogs so that I can demonstrate exercises that you should incorporate into your fitness routines, show you some of my favorite recipes and I want go my readers a more of an one on one experience.  I’ve been writing this blog for almost 3 years and it’s time for me to get a little more personal.  The best thing about my theme is it has a THEME SONG!!! I know it’s old school, but it works!!! What are your theme’s for 2012?  Do you need some help setting those themes? The week after Christmas I’m having 15 min goal setting appointments. If you are interested, please shoot me an email.

Over the past 3 years I have shared a nutrition, workout and motivational tips, but this past week I was speaking with some of the readers of my blog and they asked for me to share more about me.

So.. here it is. I’m not perfect I too struggle with this time of the year! Last week I attended a conference that was serving lunch. I started out the day with my oatmeal, egg whites and berries for breakfast I packed 2 snacks (AM and PM). They were serving lunch so I didn’t bring my lunch. Well.. let’s say that was a mistake while it was an EXCELLENT chopped salad, it lacked PROTEIN! 20 minutes after I ate I was STARVING!!!! We were in a part of the convention center where they didn’t have store to purchase water and my 1/2 gallon water bottle only made it to lunch.  Let’s say by the time I got home that night I was ready to eat my leg off!!! Because I didn’t eat enough all day I came home and started GRAZING until I finished preparing dinner. Lesson learned — bring more protein and carry more water. The next day I went back to the event and was much more prepared and didn’t come home to eat 1/2 of my kitchen cupboards.

As for workouts — the past few weeks I have been flat out finishing up some projects before the end of the year. Typically I like to workout 4-5 days/week. Let’s just say it’s been difficult! Just this past Monday I had a plan to hit the gym at 5:30am — I like to workout in the AM because I less likely to get interrupted or have the day get away from me. Unfortunately my body had a different plan. I woke up at 1:30 AM and didn’t fall back to sleep until 4am, let’s say when the alarm went off at 5:15am I wasn’t feeling it. I gave myself the out. That doesn’t make the whole week is ruined it means I missed ONE workout and I need to brainstorm to see if there were other ways to make it up. Before I got out of bed I went through my mental calendar and decided that I could make up this workout on Thursday because that is typically my rest day.

How do I stay motivated? I started competing in 2004 because I needed a goal! I lost 30 pounds and I was like now what! Competing gives me a goal to strive for. When I first started competing I did about 5 shows/year now I do 1. That’s really hard for me to stay on track and last year I went 14 months without competing! I packed on the weight for me. I had put on 12 pounds during that time. Why do you ask, because I didn’t have a motivating goal and for the most part sleepwalked through my workouts. NOT THIS YEAR!!! I vowed that would not happen taking off those 12 pounds SUCKED OUT LOUD. My next show is May 2012 and will stay within 5-7 pounds of my show weight.

What’s a good goal? I’m always asked what is a good goal. My response is typically what will motivate you  to get out of bed on a 3 degree snowy morning. That’s a motivating goal. Goals are very personal. Your goal could be something really simple such as fitting into your pants or training for a marathon. Finding your motivation is truly personal and if you want to do some brainstorming, shoot me an email.

I hope this gives you a little insight to me. I will be offering 15 min goal setting appointments the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Please send me an email with some days and times that will work for me.

This year you will set resolutions, you know that you will even though you VOWED never again.  You know deep

down you are setting a few.  Ok let’s call them goals instead of resolutions, I think everyone needs goals. (more…)

On my Facebook page, I have been doing the 12 days of Fitness, become a Fan so you can check out the first 9 days.

Day 10 — I  recently read a great book called “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There“  the author laid out 4 commitments that I am going to apply to fitness.

1. Let go of the past – forget what you tried in thast past, learn from them and then move on. The next step is to determine what are you going to do NOW to acheive your goals.
2. Tell the truth — look at yourself in the mirror every day and ask yourself, am I doing everthing I can do acheive my goals? If you can honestly say that you are then you are on track, if you feel like there are a few more things you can do, then step it up! (more…)

Yes, it’s that time of year. In just 30 days, we’ll start thinking about New Years Resolutions. Did you know that 71% of all resolutions makers fail make their resolutions?.  Here are the top 6 reasons why we fail to stick with our New Years Resolutions.

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Fat Tuesday is the celebration that occurs 40 days before Easter.  During this time Christians give up something they enjoy until Easter.  So on Fat Tuesday they indulgence or over indulgence on things they

enjoys before they give them up for lent.  So before you panic and think this  this this blog is religious.  There are 2 things I celebrate at this time of year.

1. I look at this as a 2nd new year’s now’s the time that we can reflect our new year’s resolutions, and I ask myself, how are you doing against them.
2. Then I ask myself if you have to give up something you enjoyed for 40 days what would it be? Would it be your afternoon Rice Krispy treat, or trip to Starbucks? Or would there be something that I can add?

If you hadn’t started on your resolution what can you start now?