IDK about everyone else, but it seems like literally EVERYONE I know is sick. I’ve been trying my best to stay healthy this holiday season, which means ensuring I have high amounts of vitamin C and maintain a healthy diet. Believe it or not, getting enough sleep and eating the right foods can be extremely helpful to overall weight loss.  Oh and p.s. I still got sick anyway.

One thing I hear a lot of women say are, “Oh well, I’m starting smoothies.” First off, why? I mean, I can get behind of clean eating post-binge or a day of juice, but SMOOTHIES ALL THE TIME? Second of all, just because something is good for you, doesn’t mean it’s something you should eat or drink it all of the time or should make up ALL of your diet. This is my plea to you New Years Resolutioners, please avoid crash dieting. Did you know that according to an independent study, only 5% of people who lost weight on a crash diet actually kept it off?

Here’s my point:

Fruits and veggies are great to have, but they (especially fruits) ARE NOT VOID of carbs and sugar. For example, one banana has 27 grams of carbohydrates and orange juice has about 12g per 8 oz. That’s 39 grams of carbs with just two ingredients.  You know what? 1 Poptart has 38 grams of carbs. Not to say it’s more nutritionally sound, but think about it. If you’re daily intake of carbs should be  188, then you just jacked a significant portion of your carbs with a smoothie that is HIGH  in carbs and also LOADED with sugar. Now, don’t get me wrong here, veggies and fruits should make up a large portion of your diet, but please don’t think that binging on fruit is the way to be lean!   WATCH THOSE MACROS YO! Another issue with these smoothies, is that often people don’t add protein, and having significant amounts of protein aids in building lean muscle.

You may be thinking “Well that’s great, I’ll just buy a pre-packaged protein drink or juice.” Oh hell nah. Check the sugar on those bad boys. Granted while some of these are OK, be sure you are checking labels for sugar and fat.

Now that I’ve crushed your dreams, I’m going to bring you back.  Smoothies are great to supplement a good diet and when used in moderation.  If you’ve fallen off track, a veggie and fruit loaded smoothie is a great addition to a healthy balanced diet! I like to drink smoothies to get my veggies in because I just hate vegetables. I’m sorry. Fruits also function as immunity boosters and should be part of a healthy diet.

After doing some research, I decided to whip up this little creation to give me some Vitamin C and deliciousness.

Immunity Boosting Protein Smoothie: 

1/2-1 cup spinach (I like mine frozen): benefits include immunity support (Vitamins A and C) and is extremely low in calories. It also contains 4g of fiber per cup.

1/2 c blueberries: One of the highest antioxidant foods in the world, providing immunity support. Also extremely low in sugar and carbs

A few mandarin oranges:  great for vitamin C and E which are great for immunities as well as skin health. (Use sparingly due to sugar)

Orange juice (under 8oz): Vitamin C and covering the taste of spinach. If you don’t have enough liquid, cut with water.

1 scoop Vanilla Whey: Because GAINZ.

Most of these fruits are relatively low in sugar, but serve the function of providing fiber and immunity support. Just add in a blender and blend that bad boy up!!! Use this drink sparingly in your diet. (I do about once a week).

Do you have any great smoothie recipes? Drop them in below!

 

 

I’m not going to lie, this season has left me awfully uninspired.  If you haven’t heard from me, I’ve been a bit off lately. I’m like those last few seasons of LOST, just going through the motions with the occasional WTF moment. I haven’t really wanted to workout and really haven’t felt like eating clean. The holidays are here, and I often find myself being a grinch about the fact that I can’t have EVERYTHING I want, aka….alcohol and food.

I spent most of the afternoon reflecting on why I’m so pissed off. I put on my workout pants that I bought during contest prep, and it looked like a  “People of Walmart meme.” Too tight. Eek. Every time I wear a pair of tight pants it feels like a fucking failure. I’m tough on myself, but then I got to thinking that a lot of people probably feel this way.

Most of you follow this blog because you are hoping to find balance between fitness, food, and family. I get it. I was there. I used to have a trainer who would make me feel like shit every time I ate a cookie.  I eventually felt like such a failure that I just stopped trying. And when I say I stopped trying, I just mean in general. I let my appearance go, ate what I wanted, and embraced that crappy feeling. I drank wine at night. I searched job opportunities and didn’t go after them because I felt so crappy.  I’d occasionally get on the elliptical, but I’d watch someone super fit go by and think to myself,

“I’m not going to have that. I don’t look like her.” I wasn’t born with those genetics; that life is just not meant FOR ME. “

It was at the height of my negative self talk phase that I overheard a friend talking to a stranger. We were all swimming, and the woman asked her why I was wearing a one piece bathing suit. This friend replied, “Oh, she just got married and kind of let herself go.” Number one, that person’s role in my life has been changed. Number two, that was not going to be my story.

I’m telling you this incredibly painful story because I know there are some of you sitting there thinking that the life I have is not for you. You might be feeling like you let yourself go.  You are going to get on that elliptical, and think that there is no way you will ever accomplish what you want. I am telling you, you can.  For me, it was all about finding the right program. I found that Sleek Body Method was right for me because it was mainly women and it was a safe space for me to try things that I felt stupid doing. I was not surrounded by haters who told me I “let myself go.”  Understand this, we never let ourselves go, we just get lost sometimes. 

Fitness for me was a domino effect. The more you conquer things you didn’t think you could do, the better you feel. Maybe for you, it’s just getting to the gym. Or maybe it’s hitting that PR on a deadlift. You are going to have to get comfortable being uncomfortable.  Make some goals. Do something scary. I promise you won’t die. You are going to have to invest in learning about dieting, but once you learn it, you’ll be able to have everything you want (in moderation.) When I finally felt better, I went after the job I wanted and it’s literally my dream job. I love what I do and the people I work with. I have a body that I NEVER THOUGHT I would get.  If no one tells you this today, you can totally do this, and if you need help, I can get you to the right people. Set goals and…

CRUSH THEM.

-C

Picture on the left: Doing weight watchers online, counting cheez-its, sneaking pillsbury cookies our of shame. **CRIES INSIDE**

Picture on the right: Doing IIFYM, still eating cheez-its. Eats cookies and owns that sh*t.

When I first decided to lose weight, I signed up for Weight Watchers online. What a cool program. The basis of weight watchers was to assign certain foods “points,” and your only job was to meet your points requirement for the day. Easy.  Not so much. It was easy at first, but I never knew what foods got how many points and so on and so forth. I never really learned why an apple is one point and why a pear is four.  Hello co-dependent dieting? Now I can never quit weight watchers.

I went on other diets, like having trainers write plans for me. 6 chicken breast a day, 5 cups of spinach, and sweet potatoes. Barf. Not sustainable.  This is about the time I learned about IIFYM. If it fits your macros is an awesome program that allows you to eat the foods you want, as long as they meet your “macros,” or macronutrient nutritional goals.  It’s like weight watchers, but rather than logging “points,” you are logging calories. This may seem overwhelming at first, but I promise you, this will not shackle you to an app or make you eat chicken until you die.

So let’s start.

What are macros?

Macros stand for macronutrients. IIFYM is similar to caloric dieting. You know those apps that tell you how many calories to eat per day? Well say I need to eat 1000 calories a day. That means I can eat two pieces of pizza and be done, right? No no no. You need to eat a certain amount of carbs, protein, and fat in order to properly lose weight. IIFYM believes that if you maintain these goals, you will lose weight at slow and predictable pace. Many people believe that IIFYM is “free for all” dieting, but you should remember that 80% of your food should come from clean sources (think the food pyramid, lean protein, veggies, fruit), and 20% is discretionary, meaning whatev.

 How does one begin this process?

It’s A LOT of trial and error my friends. Download an app like mymacros+ (in the app store) and start plugging in the foods you normally eat. My recommendation is to just eat normally and then see where you are falling. Are you eating a ton of carbs and not enough protein? (I was). You may find out you aren’t eating enough at all! Here’s a day when I was eating not quite right.

I went over on fats, likely because I added too much peanut butter to my pad thai. Whoops. I will make an adjustment and try again tomorrow. It’s as easy as that.

I want to splurge. How do I plan?

Ah, cheat day. I was just thinking all week about how I practically want to drink my Uncle Lloyd’s chili cheese dip. The good news is, IIFYM allows you to have the foods you want. Although you have a daily goal, you also have a weekly goal. say you accidentally go over one day, just subtract how much you went over from the next day. Think about it like money, if you had a daily budget of $10 and a weekly budget of $70.00, and you accidentally spend $12.00 one day, you just need to use $8.00 the following day to keep you within your weekly budget. I suggest knowing what you want to cheat with in advance and planning around that.

But I love drinking, can I do that?

Yup, you can, but just remember that alcohol does slow progress in any diet. In some cases, I need the wine to deal, so you can calculate it from fat or carbs.  Check out my girl Tracy’s blog post to learn more about how to do this.

This seems like more food than I’ve been eating. Why?

Well, here’s why, although you may be eating a certain amount of calories, you may not be eating the correct macro-nutrients for your lifestyle. Some people slash carbs and are very successful in the short term, but this is not a healthy or optimal long term solution to weight loss. When your body is in starvation mode, your body will begin to eat lean muscle and hold onto fat. Not to mention too few calories can lead to devastating effects like low testosterone levels, decreased energy, and most of all, weight loss plateaus.  Lastly, if you are working out hard, you are likely burning a ton more than you put in.

I want you to know that I certainly am aware of how much work this is. Again, I’ll always direct you to my studio’s online training classes, as I think they are very helpful and can be done from your home.  I want to leave you with some final thoughts though, I want you to understand that changing your life isn’t easy. It is going to be a long road. I didn’t wake up one day and then get in a bikini competition. My success was made up of tiny decisions, day by day, that lead to success.

There will be days that are hard; you will fuck up; you will beat yourself up. But you must love yourself and your body enough to forgive any mistakes, find balance, and get back on track. Our bodies are incredible and the fact that every single part is working the way it is supposed to is a miracle in itself.  Treat yourself well, respect your body, invest in creating a lifestyle, and remember; nothing worth having ever comes easy.