Phit-N-Phat...Making Fitness and Weightloss a Lifestyle

Losing Weight Means Doing Things Outside the Norm

Over the years I've written all kinds of blogs about things I had to start doing to lose the weight. A lot of it was stuff a (former) fat girl would never do. 

• It got funny looks and we don't want to be looked at.
• It got remarks from people and I didn't need anyone peer pressuring me.

The last few days I've been reminded of a few KEY changes for me. And I also started thinking about how I need to get back to a few basics consistently to have the structure I love.

The first is from an OLD blog of mine...Igloo Your New Purse. In fact this blog made me smie because it reminded me of some of the things I used to eat, my olders workouts, and such. I should blog more like that...if you girls ask for it. If not, then you don't care how I workout. LOL

The blog is about being prepared when you leave your house. Don't go places without snacks! When I leave my house I always take a meal or two with me. It just depends on how long I plan to be gone.

For those of you who always are  "gone so much longer than you planned", keep a bag or small box of food in your car. Baggies of almonds, beef jerky, tuna packets, plastic spoons, a few bowls, etc., all keep. They are built to last and it keeps you out of trouble ladies.

This is some advice I gave in one of my many weightloss challenge groups this month. If you belong to PNP or buy Beachbody products from me, YOU TOO can get such great advice! Her aunt died and she has to go to her parents for the funeral. She asked if it's OK to bring your own food to avoid eating a bunch of stuff you don't want.

I think brining your own food is fine for your weekend away is fine. I do it all the time to this day. You might get funny looks and such but just tell them you are working to improve your health and it all starts with what goes in your mouth. If they say live a little, tell them you’ve been living a lot lately and now it’s time to live a new way that you can enjoy just as much.

Another huge change in my BODY was when I got over myself with my workouts. It took me a long time to realize no one in the gym was worried what the "fat girl" was doing in her workout. I can't tell you how often I casually rode the elliptical not getting a quality workout, not changing my body, all because I was worried what some person thought. 

You, me, and everyone else who walks in the gym or decides to get off their butt deserves the BEST workout to change. I know it's mentally hard, but at some point if you don't want to look the way you do you have to do things that will make a change. Being an elliptical jockey isn't it. 

My PNP member and friend, Angela, wrote her own blog on the famous Hood Workout. When you workout I want you doing things you normally don't do, challenging yourself, breathing hard, and not being ashamed to get a workout in that shoves you straight out of your comfort zone. 

In this old blog I have a motivating video and a Hood Treadmill routine you can do. And if you are one of my private PNP members you have the new camp routines available to you. After testing them out on my local bootcamp ladies I know they are challenging and that all fitness levels can make it happen IF THEY WANT TO!

Just typing all this motivates me to tighten up on making sure I have the cooler ready to go. Every now and then I walk out without one and, even though I don't stop and eat out, I do come home TOO HUNGRY. 

And for the workouts, I do tons of mixing it up. I got vidoes, machines, and such all around me. I think it's time to teach my local ladies all about the famous hood workout so at any time they can kick up their own training when I'm not there!

Energy and Endurance Pre-Workout Formula Review

Since a lot of you are interested in the Energy and Endurance Pre-Workout drink, I wanted to review it here!

You drink it prior to your workout. I typically drink any pre-workout before starting my workout. If I drink it, hit the treadmill for a 10 min. warm-up it's starting to kick-in during the good part of the workout. You need a 20-min. lead time for the juices to be flowing.

What I Noticed...

I didn't get jittery! That's a huge plus. I've used Jack3d, BSN's products, and a host of others and most get me sort of wired rather than focused. This didn't. I just noticed in the workout I started to feel really into it. The only other product I've drank that was an amazing pre-workout was Evogen but it tastes like medicine. Great effect but expensive ($50 a jar) and a whooping bad taste.

I also noticed I was doing more in the workout. My body is still recovering this week from my Tough Mudder and Half Marathon, but I ran three miles today each mile getting faster. Then I did Les Mills Pump and Burn to work with clients. I used the weight the guys were using in the video but I am pretty strong. (Just know the chest is still weak and it about killed me! LOL). Then I hit shoulders with Tony Horton's One on One Diamond Delts. I made myself stop because I was sort of just into my workouts.

Now, I can't say it was all the EE stuff, but I did notice I was just giddy up to workout.

The other effect is it killed my appetite. Now, this might sound great but I'm a big believer in proper eating post-workout. I had to make myself drink my Shakeology and eat my toast and that's a FIRST. I adore my shakes!!!

A few hours later my appetite came back and, true to form, once it came back it I was really hungry because I ended up underfueld. My advice is to just schedule your post-workout shake and meal an hour or two later if you run into the hungries later because you weren't ready to eat.

What I didn't like...

It isn't a fabulous taste but I have honestly never had one that was. This didn't disappoint me. It was more of an FYI - just drink it because you want a great workout and not a devine liquid experience. It's a lemon-lime flavor. It reminded me of lemonade.

That's my review. I think it's a winner! Ask questions if you got them!

At Least I'm Doing Something

We had a PNP girl call herself out today in the forums today because she's tired of avoiding her Insanity workouts for Wii Biggest Loser. Is there anything wrong with those workouts? No. But if you know in your heart you CAN do Insanity and are just plugging in a workout that's not challenging you to do something then YEP...we got a problem.

Often I hear people under workout all the time. It's most common with people who had to find their fitness. They were once really overweight or never really worked out hard. In the early stages ANY workout is an accomplishment because you weren't doing jack to begin with. 

Then you get fitter, lose some weight, and put in some half-assed workouts that don't get you where you want to go but you are STILL THINKING ANYTHING is better than nothing. 

There are aspects to losing weight that can be easy and others that are hard. If you don't feel like you are working hard to lose weight you AREN'T. It's not just workouts but all the other areas, too. Most people think the hard part of dieting is being HUNGRY. I'm just telling everyone that's the least of your worries. If you are that hungry you are probably dieting wrong and need to comment here for some help.

What's hard is the LIFESTYLE and WORK involved. Yes, you need to do these things most of your life to lose weight and KEEP IT OFF:

1. Sweat a lot, breathe hard, and lift heavy stuff when you exercise. If you are on the phone, chatting with pals, or wearing a smile in MOST of your workouts then quit bitching you aren't losing weight.

2. Fix your own food. I'd love to put everyone on a fun-food diet with shiny wrappers, waitresses and boxes but you're going to be hungry, have low energy, probably catch "food poisoning" more than the average person, and feel as if all you do is work hard for no resutls. The people I know who eat real food and have it prepped on Sunday LOSE WEIGHT!

3. Say NO to the crap you know you are signing up for to avoid steps 1 and 2. Don't tell me you don't have time to do 1 and 2 but you sit on your butt during your kids practices (last I looked you parked your car somewhere and could walk the parking lot or something), go to movies, watch TV, go out to dinner with friends, etc. There's nothing wrong with having a life if you have one to live! Until 1 and 2 is done you haven't taken care of your business to afford luxuries.

And yes, socializing and such is a luxury. When you skip exercise and don't make time to eat right you are bouncing a check! You are over-drawing yourself. That's time you don't have right now. 

No more half-assed efforts, ladies. YOU deserve better. Doing something is what every single person in the world should do to live...not to lose weight.

Oh and I have a good rule of thumb for when it's time to "just do something."

• You better be in the new stages of getting started.
• You only "do soemthing" 1-2 x's a month to avoid skipping a workout (notice not weekly)
• OR, you are coming off a major life upheaval. 

 

The New Standard In Your Eating and Workouts

Myself and clients have a hard habit to break. It's the idea that we will always hold our (often) morbidly obese selves as the standard comparison. When you live most of your life overweight and then start doing better with choices, habits, exercise, etc., you can easily fall into an ugly pattern.

This pattern is easily identified with the following words, "but I USED TO do XYZ," or "but it's better than what I USED TO DO."

You know there is a time in your journey where that certainly counts. It's called the beginning. In the beginning you DO HAVE to do things better. You DON'T have to be perfect to get it right, completely on plan all the time to still see losses, or always be 100%.

There does come a time when you truly are living a pretty healthy lifestyle. You are used to telling people you don't want cake, you plan what you'll eat when you go to a restaurant, you show up to the gym when you don't want to, you bring snacks to play dates, and your house isn't filled with crap anymore.

But here is the rub: you aren't at your goal weight and you could be far away.

This part of the journey is a little tough because losing weight becomes harder. You can't just give up ice cream and sweet tea then bam! You lose 10lbs in three weeks. That's been done. You now have to give up stuff you didn't think was that bad months ago, or you have to realize how often you are sabotaging yourself.

Some people will eat a handful or two of Goldfish a day, BUT that's better than the half box of crackers they used to eat when the kids were hungry.

You might have a tough day and hit the drive-thru but JUST get a small burger and fry. That's A LOT better than the Whopper you used to get.

See, 20-30lbs ago that was a huge deal. But now you usually eat healthy and hitting the junk crack pipe just sometimes is sabotage or plain ole eating crappy.

I do the same thing at times. My treat meals aren't binges anymore, but they haven't been binges for two years! I know when I diet for my figure competitions this year I may have to tighten up more than ever before. It's a tough pill when you feel you already live better than most of your peers. But, most of my peers don't have the same physique goals so what they eat or do has NOTHING to do with my body. Wish it did, but it don't and I'll take my pill with extra water to get'er down.

In closing, I posted info on this topic in our forums. If you haven't checked out my PNP forums you are missing out on discussions just like this EVERY DAY! And, if you become a member you get my programs, my help, my workshops, and privacy to talk about more stuff just like this!

NEAT: Non-Essential Activity Thermogenesis

http://www.kcby.com/news/health/13565082.html

This article explains what NEAT is and ways to do it.

In any given day most of us are very sedentary. I have a good client (and friend) using a BodyBugg right now and one of her first comments was...

"I can't believe how few calories I burned during the day until I exercised. Starting tomorrow I am going to walk a few places in the office and try to take the stairs some."

Excellent. I am not a big believer in the BB and basing how much you eat on it because it doesn't understand the type of calories you burned and how. For example, when I lift chest each week I don't burn many calories. I do my cardio and I'm happy if I get to 400 calories for that hour.

Why? I spent 35 min. laying on my back and stretching. You just aren't going to burn tons of calories that way BUT you do a great workout that needs lots of fuel to build muscle and keep fat levels low.

What I DO LOVE about the BB is that it shows you how active you are and ENCOURAGES more movement. There is just something highly motivating about seeing the numbers go up.

It's like HRM's, pedometers, and all other gadgets; they can motivate you to simply be more active each day.

Doing a little extra housework each night, parking further from the store, not letting the bag person "help" you with your groceries, and doing a little walking around during your workday, you slowly burn more calories thus getting fitter.

For me it's been tough, lately. I work at home, on a laptop, in chair most of the day. Sure I do a great workout then blah. The last few weeks I've been trying to get more activity in my own day. Some days I walk and work on my homemade trek desk.  Other days I try to do some extra cleaning.

But, I am actively trying to gain some weight and build muscle. It's such a mental grind and honestly it makes me feel lazy. Regardless of the goal...who in the hell likes the scale going up? Even my pregnant clients who are building babies, not muscles, don't love seeing that scale move.

NEAT is a good way to help your body stay in a state of burning calories, keeping fat off, while eating healthy, getting in some exercise, etc.

It also just makes you feel better. Don't you just seem to have a better mood when you are more physically involved in life? There is a reason they call it couch potato and not couch athlete. I don't want to look or feel like a root vegetable!

So, I'm going to set some NEAT goals for myself over the next month.

1. Clean up the "dungeon" every day I workout. Put my weights back! Treat it like I would treat the gym.

2. Cut the maid back to every other week. We'll save money and I'll bank some extra calories.

3. Make the bed and wash a load of clothes every morning while the coffee brews.

4. Walk and work 30-60 min. Monday through Friday.

I would just bet these small goals will make me feel better, look better, and keep me encouraged to continue the long, hard process of adding weight.

Weekend Warrior

My PNP FREE members and PRIVATE all got a little shout out in the mail today and I thought I would give you a taste of what you are missing if you haven't at least signed up for the free information site I run. Of course you can also become a member to gain access to all books, menus, schedules, private journals, and chats with me, BUT there is still a lot left for you to see and hear from me.

Check it out and sign up! Don't miss out on changing your life the PNP style.

Here's my Friday motivational message to the girls.

Who's with me?Are you ready to ROCK THE WEEKEND and come in here Monday proud and loud? If so, YOU need to get on here, go to your PNP "My Page" and update your status.

If you are really brave and ready to kill it, hit the WEAKend to WEEKend thread and either PLAN your weekend or just check-in and say you will not let food and food pushers define YOUR goals.

Every Monday I read tons of boo-hoo stories about the weekend not going the way you want. Well, stop freaking doing it. It's as simple as that. Make a plan and be strong.

If you stub your toe every night on a piece of furniture do you just keep doing it or do ya' MOVE THE FREAKING OBSTACLE??? It hurts, it sucks, and you learn quick you don't like how it feels.

Same with weekends. If a weekend is your obstacle, remove the objects that keep stubbing your food plans.

And, remember...

Medals and finish lines are not given...THEY ARE EARNED!

I want some NOISE!!!!

If you aren't a member yet, and you still want to shout out what you can do better this weekend you can do it right here in the comments!!!!

Love y'all! Oh and this is me and my friends Lisa and Jennie at the Women's Half a month ago. Jennie is doing the 3-day Cancer Walk in Atlanta this weekend as I type. Go Jennie....we love you!

Three Weeks Makes a Huge Difference for a PNP Girl

Man...I can't hardly write it much better than a new girl to PNP put it...Meadow. Today she posted how the lifestyle is taking over in her team thread for Working Moms. We've got girls who signed up for an 8-week challenge and then I put them on support teams. Well, it's been great to say the least with over 75lbs LOST in the first two weeks for our girls putting forth the changes and effort!!!!

Here's her post and it sums up what I love about my PNP site AND how it doesn't take long to make some good changes without a lot of PAIN! LOL.

Start of week three...and what a journey! I wasn't perfect at the start, but each day brings milestones and progress. Today it all aligned. It's the first day that I've drank all my water, ate perfectly, tracked it, ran and did strength training...and I'm on schedule to get 7.5 hours of sleep! That's a lot to bring to the table!<br />

I'm a firm believer in the weekend prep, and I've come to enjoy it. My family is also benefiting, I now pack healthy lunches for my two girls and my husband.

My workouts are scheduled.

I dig the morning texts, it's a little cheerleader telling me to go!

Through the past three weeks I'm most amazed at what I've learned.

I think differently about food, it's just a subtle shift; more fruits &amp; veggies, more water, no soda, less processed crap.

I think differently about prepping; it's not just food, I'm prepping for work the night before, I'm getting kids stuff ready the night before, I'm planning these days! In the big picture, I'm working on eliminating the emotional crisis that have derailed my progress in the past.

I think differently about work. Get this. My e-mail girls challenged me to 25 squats every time I made a trip to the restroom during the day. When I started doing squats at work I felt empowered. I'm an employee who usually spends lunch time working at my desk. Squats, and those five minutes to myself, were an epiphany!

The biggest thing I've learned is to push myself. I started walking in April. I got up at 5:45am and walked EVERY morning. I didn't lose a pound. Nothing. Then I stumbled upon this blog and read an entry from Corinne where she described how hard she worked herself. It made me start thinking about my little strolls around the 'hood. Not long after that the FIMB challenge started. I had surgery the week before the challenge started so I didn't work out that first week. The second week I had my doctors OK to exercise and the first morning I got on the treadmill in my garage there was this light that went off. I cranked up my incline, started singing dirty rap songs out loud and I pushed myself. I was sweating and euphoric! I sent my husband a text that said "I am a force!" Each day since then I've pushed myself to run just a little longer and just a little faster.

Ladies, thanks for letting me share. Please keep posting. I learn so much from you all and it's so inspiring!

 

Aren't you so inspired and motivated by her thoughts? Dudes, I was when I read it. This is why I do what I do. When I have girls feeling like this and changing how they think and act it makes everything sooooo worth it.

I hope you all change a little something today!

Rest Days

I got this quote today from Runner's World...

The most important day in any running program is rest. Rest days give your muscles time to recover so you can run again. Your muscles build in strength as you rest. - Hal Higdon

This is true not only in running but especially true in strength training and fatloss. Many people are in such a hurry to improve their physique or have lost so much weight they forget how important REST is to the body.

I am guilty of this myself. Honestly, this year I've made some of the best improvements in how I look and one factor is that I've focused more on ensuring good rest. This includes taking days off, having a week every now and then where I don't lift or lift with less intensity, and working on my sleep habits.

Your body burns fat, repairs joint damage, and builds muscle WHILE YOU REST. When you run, do plyo work, strength train, or any kind of workout that is difficult for you it is TEARING up your body to rebuild it and make it stronger. You keep pushing, pushing, doubling down on workouts, and essentially over training you won't get results. You'll get a stall, sick, injuries, and general feeling of exhaustion.

Schedule rest. The less conditioned you are the more you need to have days where you simply walk. Walking is what I recommend people do every day. A good, fairly brisk walk of 20+ minutes a day is fine and not pushing your envelope. Build your other workouts around that.

Let's say you are 80lbs or more overweight. Start with walking daily for 10-20 min. and a basic strength program building up to 20-30 min. two to three times a week. This combined with you eating better (not the best) will get you results. Trust me, something you have going for you when you are really out of shape is that you can do just about anything and get results. Use that to your advantage to start off slow and the right way. I did it with walking and do did my mom. We're both 100+lb losers so we know what we are talking about.

If you are very conditioned to working out, then you REALLY need some rest days. I shoot for one full day off - at most I take a stroll with my 7 year old. Then I have one other day of the week where I only walk for fitness.

Remember, it's easy to get caught up in wanting to change so bad that you forget that next to what you eat and how you train that REST is probably the next big key in making progress. 

We Must Protect This House

I love this commercial and this is the kind of intensity you have to bring every day to the gym, to the kitchen, to the restaurant, the drive thru, the stressful situations, and YOUR MOUTH.

Your house is your body and that body you WANT. I promise you let some "cheese" into the house and you will not be at the top your game.

I don't care if you are 100lbs overweight or some Crossfitting maniac, this commercial and spirit applies to YOU. It doesn't matter your shape because as women fighting to have a healthy body we face the same issues.

Our CHEESE is...

• Ill fitting fat clothes that make us feel bad rather than comfortable enough to walk in the gym.
• Boneheaded co-workers who have candy dishes in your face, the "oh just one won't hurt ya" attitude, or let's all go out to eat EVERYDAY!
• Kids who must fight in the car and then scream in unison we want ice cream.
• So much housework, laundry, dinners to cook, and crap that we don't "feel" like rolling out of bed at 4:30 am to crack our own whip.
• Friends that think every weekend is a right to party and you are the poop for not wanting to get donkey with them at the drop of every hat.

Ladies! If you don't protect your house, our PNP house, who will?

Here's the Off the Wall Treadmill Routine you can add to your 12 week PNP workshop. Watch the video and then figure out how many ways you can be who you want to be...not who everyone one else thinks you are!

45 min. Off the Wall Treadmill
Set your treadmill for 45 min. on a 0-3% incline. The less incline you have the faster your walk. Each of the following Body Part Segments you will do three times then move to the next group of exercises.

3 min. of fast walking with 5lb DB's in your hands.

Apprx 2 min. for each of the following Lower Body exercises:

• 10-20  Regular or Jump Squats
• 10-20 Alternating Lunge or Forward Lunge on Step
• 10-20 Ball Rollouts

Back on Treadmill for 3 min. of fast walking and then go through above segment two more times. Now, move to Upper Body.

• 10-20 Straddle Push Ups on Bench or Regular Pushups
• 10-20 Single DB Deadlifts
• 10-20 Iron Crosses with or without squat

Back on Treadmill for 3 min. of fast walking with DB's and then go through above segment two more times. Now move to Core.

• 20-40 total Forward Reach Lunges
• 10-20 per arm Lawnmowers
• 10-20 Sammy Switches or Jumping Jacks

Cool down good for 3-5 min. and stretch ladies.

YouTube - PrOtEcT ThIs HoUsE

Keep the Basics Going

In the workshop this week I concluded the email with a quote...

"Keep it simple. Get strong. Add more weight when you train, as often as you can. Eat clean and eat often. Get good sleep, and you'll make progress."

 

There are several basics to good health. These basics also have a huge impact on how well your body adapts to losing fat, building lean muscle, and looking awesome in time for spring and summer.

Lift Heavy
I tell you all the time: you can lift heavier than you think you can. Each week get out the journal and shoot for another rep, 5 more pounds, or a new position (like going from standing curls to seated curls). If you want your body to look good it has to be truly challenged.

Just lifting a couple of times a week doesn't cut it. You gotta LIFT some HEAVY weight. You ain't ever going to blow up and add tons of muscle. Trust me. I go nuts to add what little I got!

Keep it Simple
If you don't like counting calories, don't do it. Eat stuff that ain't wrapped in plastic.

If you don't have time to prep, then eat frozen dinners paired with a piece of fruit and bagged green salad with light dressing. Still get in some fresh.

If you don't like to eat six meals a day, eat four bigger ones. You will still keep your metabolism going.

The food is not complicated. It's common sense. Bottom line, do stuff you WILL DO all the time so you don't BINGE once, twice, or every day after Wednesday. It's not the macros, the cals, how clean it is, etc. that drop your weight. It's avoiding your free-for-all and I deserve it meals. Those kill your scale results.

Sleep
Turn off your TV, turn off your computer, and put the Iphone away at 9pm. Most of your kids should be in bed by then (or they ain't getting enough sleep for school) and go to bed.

Amazing to me how many people don't have time to exercise, prep food, or have their bags packed for the next day but they can update their Facebook status 10 times a day, tell you all about the latest Housewives on Bravo, and have a permanent indention of their rump on the couch.

You need 8-10 hours sleep. Some can get away with less. Whatever, though, without enough sleep you will be too tired to workout, too tired to play with your kids, too tired to eat right, and complaining in six months you haven't lost any weight.

Water
Drink a gallon a day. It burns fat, flushes out your body, keeps you looking young, and we shouldn't have to talk about why water is important. Just drink it and, yes, you are going to pee a lot. Guess what? That's what NORMAL people do. They hydrate and pee a lot.

Summary
What are you doing today you SHOULD BE DOING?

Me, I'm knocking out this blog so I can do my cardio with intensity, a clear head, and then hitting my work day hard. I like to focus on me while I exercise. That's MY TIME to think and feel good about me. :)