Attention All Parents!
First of all I give props to you that have kids…what a hard job. I do have a niece and nephew though and that is who my story is about!
I was recently visiting my nephew who is 8 and my niece who is 5. I’m never around kids for longer than a few hours so I have no idea how hard it is to feed kids this age the right things until I was with my family for a week. Wow…kids are picky and especially when it comes to getting protein in there diets.
When I travel I always take along my Designer Whey protein to go packs and this trip I took the Biggest Loser Blue Blueberry and Red Raspberry. I drank my protein every morning and one morning I put it in a clear cup (Blue Blueberry) and my nephew asked if he could have some of my Kool-Aid…Hmmmmmm I’m thinking…he has no idea what is in my cup. I go along with it and give him some of my “Kool-Aid”. HE LIKED IT!!!!! The taste was so great that he actually finished my drink! I couldn’t believe it…after 3 days of consuming hardly any protein he just got in 12grams of protein (I mix two 2-go in one cup). My niece then noticed that he was drinking it and of course she wants to do what ever big brother does and so I give her some Raspberry and sure enough she liked it too!!
So, if your having a hard time giving your children the protein they need, try this…I couldn’t believe it and neither could my sister. We were so happy and she is now giving them the Biggest Loser Protein 2go Paks to help with their diets! TRY IT, it just might work for your kids as well!
New to the growing Biggest Loser empire is the addition of whey protein powders from Designer Whey.
The 10-ounce cans are adorned with season 5 winner Ali Vincent’s fit image and come in four flavors: chocolate, vanilla, blueberry and raspberry. You also can get the fruit flavors in single-serve packets to bring with you to the gym or keep in a desk drawer.
Designer Whey has long been known for its high-quality whey protein supplements, and these are just as tasty as their other varieties. A big difference with the Biggest Loser line is that not only are they low in calories (40-50 calories a scoop) but they’re also high in protein (6 grams per scoop) and low in sugars (1 gram). If you’re lactose intolerant and shy away from dairy products, you don’t have to worry about whey protein, since the lactose has been removed. (Take it from one who knows.)
The chocolate and vanilla flavors are sweetened with stevia and don’t have any artificial ingredients. The blueberry and raspberry flavors are sweetened with a sucralose-acesulfame-K blend as well as FruitWellfruit concentrate, which adds antioxidants. I can do without the artificial colors but that’s what gives them their berry colors.
I tried the chocolate flavor in a smoothie and found that a couple scoops are needed for flavor and body. Still, two scoops are only 100 calories — the scoops are small. The sweetness isn’t as pronounced as a lot of protein powders but then again, it’s only sweetened with stevia compared to the buckets of sugar other protein powders have.
I tried the blueberry simply mixed with a cup of cold water. I didn’t use any blender or smoothie maker and found that the powder dissolved really well in a water bottle with no residue. And I was surprised at how good it was. I’ve tried other “protein waters” and they’ve been pretty disappointing. The protein-water blend is a great post-workout recovery drink and also makes a great 40-calorie appetite killer between meals.
The line is available at most grocery, drug and supplement stores. You also can click HERE to find a store near you.
In reality it’s my fault. I have been way off, weddings, graduations, eating out lots, not following my plan, not documenting what I eat, and not eating enough of the right foods… which still blows my mine…the concept of having to eat to lose weight. When I do not including my Designer Whey Protein powders every day I eat more junk…I know this yet I neglect myself. Then on the other hand I am like…do people who are a healthy weight have to do what I have to do to be healthy? I wish I could observe a week in the life of a healthy happy person. What they eat, how much do they exercise, how do they deal with stress, just to see how it’s done.
On the good side; we bought a camper this week and are heading out to Vermont for a weeks vacation. We really need some R & R…it’s been a tough, busy and stressful few months. I am so ready to just be with my family and enjoy the scenery.
Ok Friends, I will check in after we get back, hopefully I do not gain any more weight…some times I just want to give up and say screw it when it comes to weight loss but I can’t give up, I have to continue the quest.
When it comes to exercise, one thing I am not is self-motivated. You’ll never see me heading to the gym on my own or sprinting out the door for a run. And even though I have several sets of hand weights at home, they’re covered with a thick layer of dust.
And yet, I exercise almost every day. That’s because I recognized my weakness and built a support system that will help me get out and get moving, even when I don’t feel like it. Here’s how I did it, and how you can too:
1. Hire a trainer.
I’ve been training with Karen for over two years now, and she’s a miracle worker. In two half-hour sessions per week she takes me through a full resistance workout — and she makes it fun. I love being able to chat with Karen while I work out, and having a set day and time makes it less likely that I’ll bail (especially since I paid for the session!).
The best way to find a good personal trainer is to ask at your local gym. Personal trainers should be certified through a reputable certifying body such as ACE (American Council on Exercise) , ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine), or NSCA (National Strength and Conditioning Association). Trainers can be expensive, so if you can’t afford a full hour-long session, ask if they offer half-hour sessions, or give discounts if you purchase several sessions at once.
2. Take a class.
My trainer offers a fitness yoga class, which I take every week. Again, having a set date and time when I’m expected to be there (and the fact that I already paid for the class) inspires me to get out the door. It’s also motivating to know that I’ll be spending an hour with a group of fun people while getting fit.
You can find classes in aerobics, yoga, spinning, kickboxing and more at the YMCA, through your local gym, and in private studios. Health Club Directory lists fitness centers nationwide, though they don’t have them all. Also, try Googling for “exercise class” and your city, or checking your Yellow Pages or newspaper classifieds.
3. Get a buddy.
Three days per week, I get up earlier than I would like and hit the gym with my friend Shawna. We work out on the treadmill and elliptical trainer, then do free weights and the weight machines. (And sometimes we go to Starbucks afterward!) Knowing that a friend is expecting me to accompany her to the gym keeps me from hitting the Snooze button and logging in another hour of Zs.
If you don’t have a friend who would like to go to the gym or out for a power walk with you, look for people interested in getting fit with others on www.meetup.com or www.craigslist.com.
4. Get a VIRTUAL buddy.
This isn’t fitness-related for me, but it really helps up my motivation for work — and it could help YOU up your motivation for working out: Every week I have a “boot camp” session with a writer friend of mine. Each hour, I call her and we tell each other what we accomplished in the last hour, and what we plan to do in the next hour. Knowing that we’ll have to answer to one other motivates us to get done what we said we’d get done.
This can work for exercise as well. For example, you can schedule three days per week where you’ll call a friend and tell each other about the workouts you did that day. You can also set goals; for example, you both may want to lose five pounds in a month, and every week you can update each other on your progress.
5. Twittercize.
If you aren’t familiar with Twitter, it’s a micro-blogging platform where people keep in touch with their “followers” by posting tweets of 140 characters or less. If you follow someone, that person’s tweets will show up on your Twitter home page, or you can use free programs like Tweetdeck to organize the tweets of the people you’re following into convenient groups.
So why am I waxing eloquent about Twitter? Because my buddy Ron Doyle has developed something called Twittercize. If you follow him at twitter.com/twittercize, you’ll see that he tweets one-minute exercise that you can do right then and there. At any given time, you might end up doing 30 calf raises, one minute of “Twitter Feet,” or 10 “Sky Frogs.” When these tweets flash across your screen, you’ll be inspired to get fit one minute at a time!
In myfirst post , I mentioned that I lost seven pounds in one month. Well, these are some of the tactics I used. I know that I’m not naturally motivated to be active — in fact, I’m a natural born couch spud — so I developed ways to force myself to exercise. I hope that after reading this, you’ll be inspired to get moving too.
I find it very hard to find time for a good abdominal routine after or before my workouts. I am one of those people who only have a set amount of time that I can allot to working out everyday and if I use that time for ab workouts then I fall short of completing my other workouts – which for my personal goals are far more important. But I do not want to leave my abs out because they are not only a key factor in complete physical appearance but they are extremely essential to building a solid core which is one of the biggest factors in upper body strength. I always say to myself, I will just do abs when I get home from the gym, but that never has happened. So lately I have been trying something new – when I do my regular workouts and not the experimental ones. I have been doing a set of about 20-25 crunches in between every set of lifting reps that I do.
Fitness Model James Ellis
This not only has been building my abs back to where I want to see them but it has also been increasing my overall workout stamina. Putting your body in constant motion for an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half is a great workout. When doing this I am able to complete my full workout without relinquishing any amount of time to an abs workout because I am getting my ab workout in while I rest in between sets and because my rest time is spent doing abs, my endurance is getting even stronger.
This is how I have been doing my workouts. On a day where I would do biceps I would do four sets of curls with about 6-7 max reps on each of them. But in between the sets I would do a set of 25 crunches regular crunches. The when I switch to another exercise like hammer curls for instance, I would follow the same regimen but instead of doing normal crunches I would do a set of 25 side crunches and then vary on the next muscle exercise I did. I haven’t found a way to incorporate weights into the ab work out without using machines and taking up two things at once at the gym, but just working my abs by way of crunches and other non-weight involved exercises, I have been able to see a clear result. For about the first week and a half I thought this workout was too exhausting, but that was because I was trying to do too many ab reps in between sets. I was trying to do 50 crunches instead of 25. But after I lowered the amount that I was doing I was able to finish both workouts in the time it takes to do one and not feel like I had absolutely no energy left. When I am at the gym at my condos where there is never anyone there and I can use two machines at once without holding anyone up, I will also try to incorporate running for my rest time. Like I mentioned before, I only do this when I am doing my normal routine and not when I am varying from routine to routine, because it really only personally works for me when I am doing my normal lifting sets. But this can be a good thing to incorporate into cardio or leg workouts as a break that is not really a break.
Proper Crunches Thanks to YouTube ID masterblevins
As usual I have been messing with my routines at the gym. This week I tried something I had read about a little while back. I couldn’t find the name of what exactly it is called but I refer to it as the “pump and shape” workout. The main reason as to why I tried this work out this week is because I have been worried that I am not getting enough definition in my upper arms. The workout is simple, it is a normal six to seven max weight reps for four sets and then a twenty rep fifth set with a lower weight and a natural non weight exercise for a specific muscle. So for example, this week when I was doing triceps, I started my workout doing hammer extensions and I did four set of 6 reps at 70 pounds with each arm. Then I lowered the weight for the fifth set down to 40 pounds and turned out twenty reps. But the trick was to do the lower weight reps quicker and with more muscle focus, meaning that when doing the extension I never let my arm come past a parallel position to the ground and while keeping that form, I would speed up the extension. Then after I finished those off, I did a set of 25 diamond push ups for my non weight, because they have a heavy emphasis on the tricep. I followed this regimen for six more sets of tricep exercises varying the type of push up I did. I did this for when I worked biceps and then when I did back and for my natural non weight exercises for both I would do pull ups and chin extensions. I did the same for Chest and then shoulders as well but with different variations of push ups and when I was done with my week I could definitely see the results.
Although it was a really beneficial and effective workout system, it was extremely tiring, so much so that I would never do it for more than a week at a time. I think that if I did this for consecutive weeks, then I would get burned out and not want to get into the gym every week. It is really a good thing to throw into your training system when you have hit a plateau or when you are trying to build up your stamina or even when you just want to vary from the norm for a week. This work out is a painful one that isn’t very fun, but it will whip you right into shape and begin to chisel away at your muscle’s definition while increasing overall mass. It’s the type of workout that you really feel great about after doing it, but at the same time you just want to go home and die on your couch afterward. So pretty much, like with the rest of the workouts, I say give it a try. Find a way to make it work for the type of workouts you do. That is probably the best advice I can give: curve the workouts to fit your specific needs. With all of these workouts, you can vary them so that you are targeting specific goals that you set for yourself. Just keep varying your cycles until you truly find one that works and then stick with that for a month or two and then switch it up again.
For the longest time, I was a breakfast person: Every morning I would make whole wheat toast with peanut butter and berries, scrambled eggs, whole wheat French toast, or multigrain blueberry-walnut pancakes.
Then, one day, I suddenly couldn’t stomach the idea of eating in the morning. And I was also too busy for lunch, so I would get up every day, skip breakfast and lunch, and not eat until around 4 pm — and then pig out on fatty foods because I was ravenous.
You’d think my weight would go down from eating one meal per day, but if anything, it went up. That’s because when we don’t eat, our body thinks it’s fasting and slows down your metabolism, so we’re burning fewer calories than usual. In addition, we tend to make up for skipping meals by overeating later in the day (like I did).
In a National Weight Control Registry study of people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off, 78% are regular breakfast eaters — so breakfast is clearly important. But what you eat is also important: According to an article in the Washington Post, recent research found that sedentary, obese women lost almost five times as much weight when they ate a big breakfast with carbs and lean protein as they did when eating a restrictive low-carbohydrate diet. The “big breakfast” included milk, three ounces of lean meat, two slices of cheese, two whole grain servings, one fat serving and one ounce of milk chocolate or candy (to help reduce cravings for sweets later in the day).
And in a study in the International Journal of Obesity, one group noshed on a bagel every morning for eight weeks while a second group had two eggs every morning for eight weeks. At the end of the study, the egg group showed a 61% greater reduction in BMI, a 65% greater weight loss, a 34% greater reduction in waist circumference, and a 16% greater reduction in percent body fat.
It’s clear from these studies that a healthy breakfast needs to have enough lean protein, fiber, and fat to keep us full until lunchtime — but all of this information isn’t much help when the thought of food in the morning makes your stomach turn. Why do some of us just not want to eat in the morning? My life coach theorized that I might be too stressed in the morning to be hungry, and the Washington Post article states that we may not feel like eating because our levels of the brain chemical serotonin are highest in the morning, which means our craving levels are at their lowest. (When serotonin levels dip during the day, cravings start.)
But whatever the reason for not wanting to eat, it’s important to have something to start off the day. I developed this recipe for an easy-to-digest smoothie that has enough protein, fat, and fiber to get me through to lunch:
Linda’s PB&J Smoothie (Makes 2 smoothies)
Add to the blender:
1 banana
2 heaping tablespoons natural peanut butter
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons ground flax seed
1 1/4 cups frozen blueberries (frozen cherries also work well if you can find them)
3 cups 1% lowfat milk (or more depending on how thick you like your smoothie)
Blend on High for 1 – 2 minutes, pour, and drink!
Are you a breakfast person? What’s your favorite healthy breakfast? If you’re one of those can’t-eat-in-the-morning people, what do you do to keep your energy up until lunchtime? Please add your opinions and experiences to the Comments below!
For the longest time, I was a breakfast person: Every morning I would make whole wheat toast with peanut butter and berries, scrambled eggs, whole wheat French toast, or multigrain blueberry-walnut pancakes.
Then, one day, I suddenly couldn’t stomach the idea of eating in the morning. And I was also too busy for lunch, so I would get up every day, skip breakfast and lunch, and not eat until around 4 pm — and then pig out on fatty foods because I was ravenous.
You’d think my weight would go down from eating one meal per day, but if anything, it went up. That’s because when we don’t eat, our body thinks it’s fasting and slows down your metabolism, so we’re burning fewer calories than usual. In addition, we tend to make up for skipping meals by overeating later in the day (like I did).
In a National Weight Control Registry study of people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off, 78% are regular breakfast eaters — so breakfast is clearly important. But what you eat is also important: According to an article in the Washington Post, recent research found that sedentary, obese women lost almost five times as much weight when they ate a big breakfast with carbs and lean protein as they did when eating a restrictive low-carbohydrate diet. The “big breakfast” included milk, three ounces of lean meat, two slices of cheese, two whole grain servings, one fat serving and one ounce of milk chocolate or candy (to help reduce cravings for sweets later in the day).
And in a study in the International Journal of Obesity, one group noshed on a bagel every morning for eight weeks while a second group had two eggs every morning for eight weeks. At the end of the study, the egg group showed a 61% greater reduction in BMI, a 65% greater weight loss, a 34% greater reduction in waist circumference, and a 16% greater reduction in percent body fat.
It’s clear from these studies that a healthy breakfast needs to have enough lean protein, fiber, and fat to keep us full until lunchtime — but all of this information isn’t much help when the thought of food in the morning makes your stomach turn. Why do some of us just not want to eat in the morning? My life coach theorized that I might be too stressed in the morning to be hungry, and the Washington Post article states that we may not feel like eating because our levels of the brain chemical serotonin are highest in the morning, which means our craving levels are at their lowest. (When serotonin levels dip during the day, cravings start.)
But whatever the reason for not wanting to eat, it’s important to have something to start off the day. I developed this recipe for an easy-to-digest smoothie that has enough protein, fat, and fiber to get me through to lunch:
Linda’s PB&J Smoothie (Makes 2 smoothies)
Add to the blender:
1 banana
2 heaping tablespoons natural peanut butter
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons ground flax seed
1 1/4 cups frozen blueberries (frozen cherries also work well if you can find them)
3 cups 1% lowfat milk (or more depending on how thick you like your smoothie)
Blend on High for 1 – 2 minutes, pour, and drink!
Are you a breakfast person? What’s your favorite healthy breakfast? If you’re one of those can’t-eat-in-the-morning people, what do you do to keep your energy up until lunchtime? Please add your opinions and experiences to the Comments below!
Trainer Becs here reporting in!
I finally made the decision to train for another figure competition coming up in Sept. and one in Oct. This where I’ll be competing with other girls my height judged on my body’s symmetry, skin tone, muscle definition, leanness (but not too lean) and stage presentation. Doing these contests is quit difficult because 75% of my training is based on DIET! I have a weakness for sweets and have to fight through the cravings that can last for more than one day.( is this because I’m a chick? ) I get really irritable but every time I fight through a craving I know it just makes me stronger and makes me feel really good about myself. Which is one of the reasons I do this. I learn a lot about my body and what I can do! It’s also a goal and I need goals constantly or else I would be lazy and out of shape!
Since the beginning of the year I have just been training for half marathons and been drinking my Designer Whey protein to help me though my long runs and getting in my protein for the day. Now I’m switching over to do figure competitions and for the past two weeks have been focusing on dieting and for the past two weeks have been craving SWEETS. So my option has been the Designer Whey Protein Waters…WOW what I huge help this has been for me! I didn’t think that I could fight through these intense cravings. When I was running I was eating what ever I wanted but now it’s controlled. So my body is going through withdrawals right now and has been very intense for me….does anyone else feel like this I’m wondering? Is this what people feel like when they try to stop drinking caffeine? I have no idea but this week I have gotten headaches and my only SAVIOR has been my protein water!!! Now I know that I can do this and for the next 12 or so weeks I’m going to rely on my protein waters (Cranapple is really good) to get me through this and I’m very excited about it!!!
So my reason for writing is to let everyone know that if cravings are getting you…this stuff works…no joke…seriously I can’t do this without the Designer Whey Protein Waters!!!!!!!!!
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