EAT CLEAN

Today I’m gonna blab about “cleanses”. I am guilty of doing cleanses as a weight loss solution so don’t think that I’m saying this from my high horse, ‘cause I’m not. BUT- please, I’m begging you, DO NOT do a cleanse as a way to drop weight quickly. It is NOT healthy and it will not give you long lasting results. The times that I have done them I have dropped weight…but threw it right back on as soon as I started eating solids again. Now I do, however, think that it is a good way to kick start a whole new healthy way of eating. Done properly, it can clean out your body of things like sugar and caffeine (which will give you a killer headache from withdrawals, just an FYI) and allow your body to feel fresh and clean and ready to EAT HEALTHY!

People like Naomi Campbell and Beyonce have been known to do The Master Cleanse for up to 15 days…that’s stupid. AND- you are not a super model or a triple threat diva, so don’t diet like one. Do it for about 5 days, and then start introducing healthy solids back into your system. If a liquid cleanse is something you want to try, make sure you let up on your workouts by quite a bit. Go on walks, light bike rides or regular yoga. Anything too intense will result in you passing out and looking kinda silly. 

Another healthy way to, dare I say, clean your pipes, is to just eat veggies and fruits for 2 weeks. That way you don’t feel like you are starving to death but you are still getting rid of everything icky inside you. As long as you are eating fruits and veggies, you can probably still tolerate regular work outs.

At the beginning of January I did The Master Cleanse for 5 days. Day 1 was ok. Day 2 I was getting hungry. After day 3, I had the worst head ache, ever. Day 4 was hell, I was famished. And day 5 was pure torture. I was so friggin hungry, and you will be too. BUT, you aren’t going to go through all this just to stuff your face with garbage. It will (or should) give you the motivation to eat clean and get on the right track!

The Master Cleanse:

8 cups of water

Fresh Lemon Juice From 2 Lemons

2 Tablespoons of Organic (check the label) Maple Syrup

&

As Much Cayenne Pepper As You Can Handle

"While popular diets and fasts come and go, master cleanse remains a perennial favorite, a kind of folk regimen that owes its popularity to word of mouth and the Internet. Created in the 1940’s by a nutrition guru, Stanley Burroughs, to treat ulcers and other internal ailments, the fast enjoyed a vogue in the late ’70s after the publication of his book “The Master Cleanser.” Its fans then were health-conscious types, interested in purging their bodies of impurities and toxins like pesticides and food additives."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/fashion/10cleanse.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Don't Be Afraid To Try Something New

Don’t be scared to try new things. Whether it be a group exercise class, a certain machine or something you might think is too hard. These three things LOOK scary (or at least I think so) but they are some of my favourite machines to utilize in my work outs. 

-The one on the left is called the AbCore. I think it looks like a giant spider, but it works. It triggers all your abdomen muscles, high & low. You can throw weights on the back to increase the intensity. I use 25lb weights and do 5 sets of 10, and I want to cry after.

-The middle one is the CrossArc. It’s like the bad ass version of the elliptical. Regular ellipticals make my toes go numb and it just doesn’t feel like a fulfilling workout. This little contraption takes ellipticals to a whole new level. You can increase the incline and the resistance so that it feels like you are trenching up a mountain of mud, resulting in a kick butt cardio workout. One hour on this baby and I can burn about 800 calories.

-The one on the right is my new favourite discovery J I don’t know what its official name is but I call it the Rope Climber. It’s a stationary version of climbing a rope. You can crank the resistance to a high level to get it as close to the real thing as possible. I do 5, 1 minute intervals and it has really helped with my upper body strength. 

Benefits of Muscle Confusion

Proponents of the method claim that muscle confusion promotes slow, steady muscle growth. The system allows you to continually overload the muscles and defeat the plateau effect. Furthermore, muscle confusion prevents boredom, which in turn increases the likelihood that participants will stick with their fitness program.

http://women.cancerconnect.com/muscle-confusion/

Another new thing I tried today was our Body Combat class. I never get to take it because of my work schedule but today it worked out. It was a 30 minute class, which was good ‘cause I dragged my Mum along. Don’t let the shorter-than-normal time frame lower your opinion of this class. It was still brutal and I will, without a doubt, feel it tomorrow and many more days to come. I love working out new muscles group and challenging my body. After Body Combat, I did CXWORX, which is a 30 minute core class. My core muscles were so fatigued from Body Combat that this class was ridiculously painful. Again, I will feel it tomorrow.

Make me laugh, I dare you -_-

Know What You're Eating

These days, food companies will label ANYTHING as healthy, low fat, no sugar added and/or organic. By doing so, they can jack up the price and come out on top while you, the consumer, are tricked into thinking that you are eating healthy and right. My dear readers, you are being fooled.

Exhibit ‘A’-

A certain cereal brand advertises all of their products as healthy, low fat, low cal. Here is their nutritional information for their granola bars…

10 freakin’ grams of sugar! That is insane, especially considering how small these things are. Not only are they NOT HEALTHY AT ALL, they are about $8 for a box of six.  Stop letting these companies fool you! Know what you are eating…If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.

To solve this granola bar dilemma, I have resorted to making my own, homemade, simple ingredient granola bars. I made three different kinds, 24 bars in total and it cost me about $15. 

The one on the left is a craisin & almond bar. It has chopped plain almonds (1 cup), all natural dried cranberries(1/2 cup), oatmeal(2 cups), ground flax(1/2 cup) and raw honey(3/4 cup, give or take). That’s it. Simple, clean ingredients. I mixed it all together, lined a glass casserole dish with some wax paper and pressed it in. Once it was stiff, I cut it up into 8 bars and wrapped ‘em plastic wrap.

The middle ones are dark chocolate and coconut.  Unsweetened shredded coconut (1 cup), oatmeal(2 cups), ground flax(1/2 cup) and raw honey(3/4 cup, give or take). Once I pressed it into the pan, I melted ½ cup of dark chocolate and spread it over the bars. Let it cool/harden in the fridge before cutting. Also, because these ones have dark chocolate, I cut them a lot smaller to keep them in the same calorie range as the others.

The ones on the right are peanut butter.  Coarsely chopped salted peanuts (1 cup), oatmeal(2 cups), ground flax(1/2 cup) and raw honey(1/2 cup, give or take) and natural creamy peanut butter(1/2cup). Same drill as the others.

I can’t seem to pick my favorite… J

Last but not least, we need to talk about yesterday’s workout. I felt great doing it and I felt fine right after but I had a seriously hard time getting out of bed this morning. My calves and ankles are KILLING me and my deltoids feel less then great. I could have easily used this pain as an excuse to sit around all day and do nothing, and I almost did. It was a holiday here today so my gym was closed at 6pm and my gym shoes were in my office at work. (2 more excuses to not work out)

At 9:15pm I forced myself to get up and go for a bike ride. No gym needed, no gym shoes needed and I was pretty certain it wouldn’t make my calves scream. So I did it. It was just a 10k and I was only gone for 30 minutes but it was better than nothing. I feel better after getting out, getting some fresh air and getting my heart rate up a bit. Much better than I would have felt had I stayed on the couch all night. No matter how crappy you feel, you will always feel better after exercising, promise. 

Sometimes when I need that extra boost to get me up and going (I’m human after all) music usually does the trick. I have a huge playlist with work out songs on it, one of my new favorites being, “Nothing I Wouldn’t Do” by Serena Ryder J Enjoy!

SUNDAY FUNDAY! (depending on how you look @ it)

One of the fitness people I follow on Instagram posted this workout today. At first glance I thought, NO FREAKIN' WAY. But then I thought, I'll try it and go as far as I can. Turns out, I CAN DO IT. Guess I'm more bad ass than I give myself credit for. 

Here it is: 

99 jumping jacks	99 crunches	99 sec wall sit	99 knee highs	9 push ups
88 jumping jacks	88 crunches	88 sec wall sit	88 knee highs	8 push ups
77 jumping jacks	77 crunches	77 sec wall sit	77 knee highs	7 push ups
66 jumping jacks	66 crunches	66 sec wall sit	66 knee highs	6 push ups
55 jumping jacks	55 crunches	55 sec wall sit	55 knee highs	5 push ups
44 jumping jacks	44 crunches	44 sec wall sit	44 knee highs	4 push ups
33 jumping jacks	33 crunches	33 sec wall sit	33 knee highs	3 push ups
22 jumping jacks	22 crunches	22 sec wall sit	22 knee highs	2 push ups

 TOTALS

484 jj's

484 crunches

8 minute wall sit

484 knee highs

44 push ups

To finish is off, I ran for 11 minutes @ 5.5 resulting in a one mile run. The entire work out took me 50 minutes and I burned just under 600 calories. With this workout and riding my bike to/from work, I burned a total of 830 calories today. 

Point is, DON'T UNDER ESTIMATE YOURSELF. It was definitely a good work out but I had no problem doing it. I only rested for 30 seconds after the push ups/before the next set of jumping jacks. Which tells me, I NEED TO GO HARDER next time :) AND, I did all the push ups the REAL way, not on my knees. Which I didn't think I would be able to do. 

For dinner afterwards (I was famished) I had 1/4 of couscous that I cooked with veggie broth, shredded carrots, peas, onion and fish all mixed together with a little bitta butter and s&p. DELISH and SATISFYING. In total, I consumed 1,565 calories for the day. 

How to eat when you eat out

This DELICIOUSNESS is what I had for lunch today. At a restaurant known for their BURGERS...Here's what I did...

 

I ordered the "Mediterranean Burger" (with a veggie burger, of course) but instead of having it on a bun, I had it with a bed of lettuce. This particular restaurant has this as an option (which is one of the reason's I love going there so much) But if where you are doesn't have that option, you can do one of a few things: 

1.     Your numero uno option would be to just ditch the bun all together. Doesn’t suit your fancy?

2.     Ask for a whole wheat bun…OR

3.     Ditch half the bun.

By not eating your burger with a bun, you are saving yourself about 250 (pretty much) empty calories. When I quit eating bread, I thought I would CRAVE it, but I didn’t, and don’t.

Next, I ALWAYS pick a salad as my side, ask for their low calorie dressing and ask to have it on the side. I know you’ve probably heard that getting your dressing on the side is a good thing, but until you actually do it, you don’t realize how little you actually need. I only ever use half, at the most.

Once it all comes, I take my fork and knife and go to town. I chop it all up (veggie burger too) and mix it all together. Add a little of my (usually) balsamic dressing and it is TO DIE FOR. I’ve done this at several restaurants and it’s delicious every time. You know how usually when you go out to eat you feel bloated and SUPER STUFFED after? Well, eating this way you will feel satisfied (not stuffed), clean (not bloated) and best of all…YOU WON’T FEEL GUILTY J

The best part of the meal? My mom and I basically ordered the same thing, no bun, side salad, water, dressings on the side…ect. And the stinkin’ waitress STILL offered us dessert. 

LOL-AS IF.    

This 'N That

I started off the day with a bike ride to the gym. It only takes me about 10 minutes but it’s a good warm up to get my heart pumping and my blood flowing. When I got there I did (what I thought was going be) regular Hot Yoga. I try and practice Hot Yoga a few times a month just to really stretch out my muscles and I just flat out feel good afterwards. Well, today was Power Hot Yoga….I think the name speaks for itself. Rather than going at the regular pace my body is so used to, it was pretty fast movements and some of the poses were ones I had never done before. I’m usually tired after regular Hot Yoga but this class straight up KICKED MY ASS. I just wanted to melt into a big puddle of goop on the floor and never get up. So if you are someone (like many) who thinks that Yoga is a “sissy class” or “easy” or “not a real workout”-YOU ARE SORELY MISTAKEN. Yoga is all about pushing your body to its limits, improving your flexibility and training your mind to take control over your body. If you’ve done Yoga, then you don’t need to be told; but if you haven’t, I HIGHLY recommend trying it. I don’t know anyone who has given Yoga a fair chance and not fallen IN LOVE.

Today was a day off (work) for me and on my days off I like to get in an extra workout J I’m just weird like that. Like I’ve mentioned before, I work at a gym and my schedule doesn’t always allow me to take classes that I want to take. So when I have the whole day to myself, I like to do as much as possible. My favourite class that we offer at Good Life is called Body Pump. It’s an hour long, full body, high reps work out. We do over 700 repetitions and burn about 550 calories (on average). I LOVE this class and starting noticing results after only 4 classes. I take it as much as I can and I wish I could do it more. Tonight I decided to drag my Mom along J.  Considering it was her first time really going that hard for that long, she did pretty darn good. I’m thinking that she’ll be hurting for the next few days but like I always say, NO PAIN NO GAIN. I’m doing the SPARTAN RACE in about six weeks so I’ve really been focusing on strength training, therefor upping my weights by quite a bit. So even though I’ve taken the class multiple times, I can pretty much guarantee that I’m not going to want to move in the morning.

I exercised for a total of 2.5 hours today, burning just over 1,300 calories.

I had 3 protein drinks (not all at once), yogurt, granola, a pear, quinoa salad, a green salad & fruit salad bringing my calorie intake to 1,900.

Now, do I normally eat 1,900 calories in a day? HECK NO. But I do eat that much when I burn almost all of it. If you don’t fuel your body to keep up with what you’re putting it through, you will go in to starvation mode and it will be a lot harder for you to cut the fat. You need to give your body good things that are going to satisfy and nurture your muscles (including your stomach).

That’s all for today, I’m gonna go sit on my butt and watch the American Idol finale. ‘Cus I deserve some lazy time J  

-I CHALLENGE YOU TO CHALLENGE YOU-

Midweek Motivation

You know when you are scrolling on PINTEREST & you see a PIN that says “Do this work out for 20 minutes & see instant results”? Yeah...I hate to *BURST YOUR BUBBLE* but those so called “work-outs” WON’T give you instant results. INFACT, there is no such thing as a work out that gives you instant results. Everyone these days is looking for a QUICK FIX or an EASY WAY OUT. For some things in life, there are QUICK FIXES & EASY WAYS OUT, but when it comes to GETTING FIT &/or LOSING WEIGHT, it’s an ongoing challenge. It’s something that you have to dedicate yourself to 100%. LOSING WEIGHT is NOT EASY and your BODY will not change OVER NIGHT. Don’t let this be a DISCOURAGING to you…I PROMISE *GARUNTEE* that you WILL see AMAZING results if you put the time & work into it. You need to SWEAT…BURN…& MAYBE even cry a little…

I am a Fitness Advisor at a gym & spend all day/everyday talking to people about the BENEFITS of leading a healthy lifestyle & how GOING TO THE GYM is an ESSENTIAL part of that lifestyle change. I always tell them, “there is no one in this world that wouldn’t benefit from working out”. Even if you are in the *BEST SHAPE OF YOUR LIFE,* you’ve still got to maintain that shape, right? TAKE ME for example…Yes I’ve lost weight…Yes I’m in much better shape then I used to be BUT-if I were to stop going to the gym just because I’ve reached my goal weight, I would SWELL like a marshmellow && gain allll that weight back that I WORKED SO HARD to get off. So the bottom line is, KEEP IT UP. Keep pushing yourself & *NEVER, EVER QUIT.*

“Wraps”, pills, cleanses & anything that is UNNATURAL, isn’t going to give you long term OR healthy results. Please don’t fall for these FADS, they are a waste of your time and HARD EARNED $$$. INVEST your money in a gym membership & healthy foods. Your results will be so much more REWARDING & LONG LASTING. Wouldn’t you rather be able to CLAIM your body as something you WORKED HARD FOR & better yet, EARNED?! I know I would/do. Take pride in yourself & take care of your BODY. I *PROMISE* you, all your hard work WILL pay off & all the PAIN will be worth it. 

Go ahead && tell yourself.....

"IM GOING TO MAKE THE REST OF MY LIFE, THE BEST OF MY LIFE"

                                        

Thunder Thighs And Such

Today was LEG day…

I don’t know about you, but I was cursed with thunder thighs and larger than normal calves. My calves are solid as a rock so they don’t bother me, but my thighs could definitely use some toning. I am forever looking for new, awesome leg work outs so please comment if you have any good ones J Today I did a million squats and lunges. Okay, okay, it FELT like a million and my legs are still shaking as I’m sitting here typing this. Really though, I did fifty squats with a 50lb bar on my shoulders. It sounds like a lot but I have an ass that won’t quit and it can handle a lot of weight/pressure. For me, if I can’t feel the burn the next day, then I feel like my work out was a waste. I love to push myself PAST my limits. Here are some tips I have picked up on to maximise my squat results :

• Make sure when you are squatting you are checking yourself out in the mirror… No seriously though, if you are watching yourself, you are more likely to have proper form . Make sure your back doesn't bend and your knees don’t go over your toes.
• Focus on your ASS. For a long time I was feeling most of the burn in my quads, this is not what you’re looking for. Try doing a squat and using ONLY your glutes to push your body back up. If you aren’t making a funny/awkward face, you aren’t doing it right.
• Try to squat low enough that your thighs are parallel to the floor. If you can’t squat that low, your weight is too heavy. If you can do it with no effort, you either need to up your weight or you already have the ass that I am working so hard to get-congrats to you.

Wait…Rewind…My warm up! Never forget or skip your warm up. You need to get your muscles warm for them to work efficiently. Today I cycled for 30 minutes, burning about 450 calories.

Okay, now we can move on… J

I loathe my inner thighs. They have improved since losing weight but there is still more jiggle then I care to admit. Also, my “saddlebags” (you know, that useless fat that plants itself right on the outside of your hips?) are extremely stubborn. For these, I use the hip adductors and the hip abductors. I set each one at about 130 and do 3 sets of 16. It’s a pretty high weight but that’s how I seem to get the best results.

Now my alllll time favourite machine (because it has given me amaZING results) is the leg curl machine. It works your hamstrings and has almost eliminated all of my icky cellulite. I used to be pretty self-conscious about the backs of my legs because of the cellulite situation. Now, I wear short shorts as much as I can. They are (almost) completely smooth and I have the leg curl machine to thank for it. Again, CRANK UP THAT WEIGHT.

***A common misconception is that high weights cause you to bulk up. FALSE! High weights maximise your results and make you STRONGER. As long as you aren’t a juice monkey, you won’t bulk up.

Today I ate 1,291 calories and burned 729.

“I’m Tired Of Magazines, Saying Flat Butts Are The Scene”-Sir Mix-A-Lot

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