Now THAT is something worth fighting for!!! My health is something that I do not take for granted any longer! No way!
I spent too many years out of shape, in pain, digestion not working worth a crap (literally), painful knees, fatigue, poor sleep, constant lower back issues and miserable in the head too! That’s no way to live!! I am so happy that I made the decision 2 years ago that I was going to change this!
The decision was made after going through every medical test known to man including colonoscopy and finding out that there was nothing medically wrong with me!!! Ultimately I was just unhealthy, fat and out of shape! What an epiphany that was!!!
I said NO MORE and started working my ass off, superfood and professional fitness every day and clean eating and my body totally transformed. …and guess what? My whole mental health and mood transformed with it since my body was now running efficiently and my hormones were better balanced too! And you know what happens when you become a happier and more fun person? Your whole life changes!
Oh yes, believe me, the decision I made 2 years ago was the best decision of my life and I will NEVER EVER go back to how I was.
To transform your body and your health, be sure to join me for my next accountability and support group for superfood and fitness. There are programs for everyone from beginners to even the most conditioned athlete! CONTACT ME NOW to get started!
Lots of grunting, groaning and heavy breathing with the challenging strength workout this morning! Started a new 91 day fitness challenge today and I am determined to get ‘er done no matter what!
I remember what my last trainer told me…If it was easy, there would be nothing achieved! Working out to achieve fitness goals is supposed to be hard! ?. As a result of what she said, even though it is HARD, I push myself harder all the time…after all this work, I at least want to see and feel progress!
Lets do this!
Day 1 of 91 day program completed and feeling fired up for my Monday today!? Now to have an Icy and delicious superfood shake for recovery and then time to hit the shower! Hope you have an awesome Monday!
REMEMBER THIS…. “Choose Your Hard”… Working out and being dedicated to a program is HARD, but looking in the mirror and being unhappy with how you look and feel is also HARD. Which HARD do you pick?
Beware….exercise and healthy nutrition can lead to strength, flexibility, happiness, improved relationships, prevent disease, a longer and healthier life, better quality of life, a healthy weight, solid balance, reduced chance for injury and so much more! Who wouldn’t want all of these things in their life? Make the DECISION to choose the fitness and health “HARD” today and transform your life for the better!
Seriously! When I started on my health and fitness journey 2 years ago, I could not even do more than a couple push-ups on my knees or more than a few minutes of jumping jacks before being out of breath! It’s amazing what our body can achieve if we push it to do more each day. I guess that is the power of the compound effect. You may not think that each and every workout makes a difference in the long run, but in fact they DO! Every snack choice (an apple instead of a Hershey bar) and every decision we make towards a healthier choice (no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it is) every single day does matter!
Choose to be active instead of sitting on the couch. Choose to do a workout instead of wasting time scrolling social media. Choose a garden salad with roasted chicken instead of a burger at the restaurant. Just by making these better choices each and every day and adding superfoods to my diet, I have dropped 42 pounds and am feeling the strongest and healthiest that I have in my life! Now as a grandmother, I can call myself the MMA Granny and I have earned it! ?
The compound effect of each and every choice we make each and every day really does matter. Keep that in mind for today and as you think about what you will do to be healthier in the next month! We all mess up once in awhile since we are human after all, but if we mess up too often, that has a compound effect in the wrong direction!
To download 7 tips on ways to increase self-discipline power, be sure to get your FREE DOWNLOAD HERE.
Literally jumpstarting your morning with a workout really boosts energy and positivity for the whole day
There are so many good things about having a morning routine! It is a great jumpstart to your day! Plyometrics, 1.5 L of water, superfood and a day planning session this morning definitely gave me a jump start today?
From what I have read… When it comes to looking at what things make people successful in life, it is apparent that if you snooze, you lose…literally! Hitting the snooze button too many times leaving yourself with limited time in the morning or with then-rushed routine, is just not a good way to start the day. Ignoring the snooze button and kicking off your day right seems to make a big difference.
What are some key things we can do to start our day right?
Hydration
After going all night without water, we typically need to boost our hydration in the morning. Having 500 mL to 1 L with lemon can really get you going, and give a good kickstart to the day.
Exercise
By sweating it out before breakfast, it gets your blood pumping (endorphins!) and helps you to feel on top of your game all day (better focus) plus it makes your body burn more calories all day. Its a great outlet to burn off stress. Making good use of this time by adding some good stretching and thinking about strategies to make it a good day (inspire yourself!) while sitting in those stretch poses can really get you feeling more organized. The bonus is, an early morning workout typically doesn’t get interrupted since everyone is still sleeping!
Read or Listen
Take 15 min to read or listen to books that get your fired up for your day. Good personal development books, tips for success and ideas for strategizing your business or workday can really get you feeling excited and positive for your day. During this time, think about things you are thankful for and happy about to really get the positive juices flowing.
Strategic Planning
Spending even 10 minutes setting up a plan for your day can really make things flow more smoothly. What are the “musts” for today? Who are the key contacts or duties? Anything critical that needs to be done for the household to run smoothly? Anything that needs to be done or dropped off before or after work? What can I do on my lunch break at work that will be productive? Anticipating issues and having plan B already on your mind can really help you to control your day instead of having the day control you.
Can this Work Even if you are not a morning person?
Yes! I was never a morning person, but being determined to establish a new routine of “my time”, I kept using tricks to make myself get up. One trick was having my alarm clock out of reach so that I had to get up to turn it off. It was annoying, but it definitely worked! LOL.. Some days it is still not easy, but I see so many benefits in my life as a result of a morning routine that it is motivating to keep doing it each day
If I think back to how my life was before I implemented a morning routine… hitting snooze button, barely having enough time to get ready for work, missing breakfast, starting off without a plan, in a rush and in a grouchy mood…it just was not a good scenario and I never EVER want to go back to that again!
Many of the most successful people in the world, have at least some kind of early morning routine that allows them to be the most happy, productive and effective people. It will be worth it to implement some kind of morning routine into your life. I know it has made a big difference in my life.
Be extra careful with this move to have your abs held tight and your back straight before starting the swing
Ouch!! Yup, I made the critical mistake this morning during my weighted cardio workout! When it came time to do the second round of ‘kettle bell’ swings, I didn’t take the time to get my form right before starting the move. Well, as a result, I felt a sudden sharp pain in my right lower back and had to stop the move and lie on the floor. I am so mad at myself now as I definitely know better than to perform a lifting move without checking my form first! ?. No matter how strong, flexible or fit we are, watching our form is a very important part of lifting to prevent injury.
Now, as I write this, I am spending extra time on the foam roller trying to get the sharp knots out…ouch!! Dang it!! Too bad I had to get this reminder the hard way…
This was not exactly the topic I had planned to write about today, but decided to shift gears to serve as a reminder to you to be sure to check your form before lifting. Don’t mess up like I did today…its going to take me a few days to get functionally back to normal now…Grrr
As important as muscle building is for our balance, strength, hormone balance, and body shape…its so important to remember to have proper form and follow the instructions of the professional trainer… Lesson learned!
Push just a little outside the comfort zone to make progress. Make changes in your life too for personal growth. So many parallels to draw with fitness and life!!
Was a tough challenge for myself on an early Monday morning today. I pushed just a little more weight than usual and was barely finishing the sets. By pushing myself just a little beyond what I had been comfortable with is the way to make just a bit of progress so that I will be even stronger for the next workout. If I keep lifting the same weights and doing the same exercises, there would be a plateau and no further progress made.
The same can be said with our life in general. If we do the same things, the same way every single day, we will never grow as a person, or achieve something new or better. Some people may call this a “rut”.
A mentor of mine once said. “The definition of insanity is when you keep doing the same thing day in and day out, over and over again …and yet expecting there to be different results.” How true is that? Don’t stay in your safe and comfortable little corner (rut) or your life will be rather boring and all of the people who are exciting, fun and progressive will be leaving you in the dust!
I am going to take a hard look at my life today and see what I can change to bring me closer to the goals that I want. I know that if I keep doing things the same that I truly will not get anywhere! Time to march forward and do a few things I am scared of today! 🙂
What are you going to do today that scares the crap out of you…just so you can grow as a person? …REPLY to this post and tell me!
Eating a diet rich in some vegetables and fruits as part of an overall healthy diet may protect against certain types of cancers. Diets rich in foods containing fibre, such as some vegetables and fruits, may reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. The nutrients in veggies are critical for the health and maintenance of your body. Now having less chance of a chronic disease or cancer sounds like a very good reason to get those veggies, don’t you think?
The Nutrient side of the story…
Most vegetables are naturally low in fat and calories. None have cholesterol. Avoid adding dip and sauces to your veggies…this will add unwanted fat or sat and calories!
Vegetables are important sources of many nutrients, including potassium, dietary fibre, folic acid, vitamin A, and vitamin C.
Diets rich in potassium may help to maintain healthy blood pressure. Vegetable sources of potassium include sweet potatoes, white potatoes, white beans, tomato products (paste, sauce, and juice), beet greens, soybeans, lima beans, spinach, lentils, and kidney beans.
Dietary fibre from vegetables, as part of an overall healthy diet, helps reduce blood cholesterol levels and may lower risk of heart disease. Fibre is important for proper bowel function. It helps reduce constipation and diverticulosis. Fibre-containing foods such as vegetables help provide a feeling of fullness with fewer calories.
Folic acid helps the body form red blood cells. Women who have a chance of becoming pregnant should consume adequate folic acid from foods. This reduces the risk of neural tube defects, spina bifida, and other complications during fetal development.
Vitamin A keeps eyes and skin healthy and helps to protect against infections.
Vitamin C helps heal cuts and wounds, strengthens immune system, is part of the structure of bones and keeps teeth and gums healthy. Vitamin C also helps iron to absorb in our digestive system.
What are the Health benefits?
Eating a diet rich in vegetables and fruits as part of an overall healthy diet may reduce risk for heart disease, including heart attack and stroke.
Eating a diet rich in some vegetables and fruits as part of an overall healthy diet may protect against certain types of cancers.
Diets rich in foods containing fibre, such as some vegetables and fruits, may reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.
Eating vegetables and fruits rich in potassium as part of an overall healthy diet may lower blood pressure, and may also reduce the risk of developing kidney stones and help to decrease bone loss.
Eating foods such as vegetables that are lower in calories per cup instead of some other higher-calorie food may be useful in helping to lower calorie intake
What do I need to do to get the Benefits if I Hate Veggies?
One very challenging way to get the nutrients and fibre you need from veggies if you won’t eat them…is that you could try to use multiple supplements …but this becomes challenging to sort out how much, in what proportion and how often it is needed… (You could also choose to eat veggies, but even our food quality these days is rather poor).
A much easier way to get exactly what you need is to have a superfood shake once per day that incorporates more than 9 servings of your veggie nutrition in just one scoop. Now THIS is much easier…and is delicious too! The other ingredients this once-per-day shake offers is antioxidants, superfood nutrients, adaptogens, herbs that help promote hormone balance, pre and pro-biotics, digestive enzymes and the perfect blend of proteins, vitamins and minerals for optimal energy and health. ..The side benefits are beautiful hair, nails and skin, good digestion, amazing energy, look younger, and it also helps lose stubborn fat by feeding our body dense nutrition and cutting cravings as well! (BONUS!). (and contains ZERO artificial ingredients too!) … Take a few minutes to check out the video below!
There is something about working those muscles hard and having that feeling of being totally pumped up afterwards!! I just love that feeling!
The muscles feel swollen and full as the blood surges through them after the heavy burn wears off.. if you have never felt it, you may not know what I mean.. but if you have done a good lifting routine…you will know exactly what I am talking about here…???
This morning, I feel compelled to talk about what goes on inside the muscle to make it feel this way and how that gives us benefit, conditioning and a sense of well-being. Its totally changed my life to do resistance training and I am certain it would change yours as well.
It may sound weird, but the action of lifting weights actually depletes muscle building nutrients in the body and causes microscopic tears in our muscle fibres. Its only after the workout is over that our bodies work to repair the damage we inflicted on it and then the muscle growth starts to happen. Immediately after a workout, the body gets to work by increasing blood flow to those muscles causing them to feel bigger and more full. This increase blood flow and high rate of repair happens for up to several hours after a workout.
How to make sure our muscles repair and stay with us…
Its important to regularly have small meals with carbs and proteins after the workout to help keep the growth and repair process moving forward. During our sleep time at night, our body runs out of repair nutrients while we are sleeping (fasting) and this is why having a bit of extra protein at bedtime can be helpful to keep this repair process working well while sleeping. If we have prolonged periods of fasting, our body goes into what is called a catabolic state where muscle breakdown occurs. We definitely do not want to get into this state as it will reduce our muscle mass…so be sure that muscle is well fed and don’t allow your body to go into prolonged fasting periods.
WHY build muscle anyways?
Lifting weights (resistance training) is important to build muscle strength, but it also strengthens the surrounding connective tissue as well (tendon, ligament). The stronger the structures are, the less likely it will be that you will experience a strain, dislocation or tear around a joint or a muscle injury while in motion!!
The health benefits to having conditioned muscles are so amazing, that it is an important activity to incorporate into your life ASAP! Having muscles improves our physical appearance (more toned, nice shape, less fat), gives us more energy, increases bone density, increases power and strength, reduced injury, makes recovery from injuries faster, slows down aging and improves hormone balance, increases HDL (good cholesterol), improves our balance, lowers blood pressure and resting heart rate. The list goes on and on… so many benefits!
Oh and one more thing! Conditioned muscles typically do not cause us chronic pain! Yes, we will have some sore muscles from lifting at times especially when increasing weight or intensity, but in general, conditioned muscles at rest do not cause us pain! HUGE BENEFIT that improves quality of life! I suffered from chronic body, muscle, neck and knee pains for years and getting into shape completely transformed my quality of life and I am not in pain any longer! Its so worth the work!
If you would like to find a professionally designed resistance training program to get started with, please contact me and I will help you out.
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The only thing between you and your goals is that BS story you keep feeling yourself as to why you can’t do it!! This is what my personal trainer told me this morning during my weighted cardio workout and she is totally right!! How many times did we make excuses and even what we believe is “good reasons” as to why we didn’t achieve our goals! Far too many! …and in fact we tell ourselves these things do many times that we actually start truly believing they are facts! Scary if you really think about it!
I have learned to recognize it when I have come up with a story… such as being too tired, having no money, not enough sleep, not enough time, telling myself I am just an emotional eater (which then somehow made it OK?), sore muscles, feet aching, sore back from a busy day at work, stress from having a 2-year old, lack of sleep, too young, too old, no good at it, not capable, can’t trust the opposite sex, don’t know how…and the story list just goes on and on and on…!! The sad part is that we believe these things, identify with them and let them rule our lives!
I have been through all of these excuses and stories myself! Sometimes when you come from a background of abuse, the stories can get pretty bad. For example, you may believe you are worth nothing, are useless, not loved, not important, not worthy of love and so many more horrible things! You can imagine, that if a person lived with those beliefs (stories) that their life would not be very good, successful or full of happiness! I have had to work hard to overcome many of these stories. It was not easy, but I am proof that it is totally possible to change your perception of yourself and to change how you perceive your past experiences too!
How do I work on overcoming these stories? Keep in mind, this is always a work in progress. My mentor (the late Jim Rohn) speaks about those stories, beliefs and thoughts and uses them as a metaphor like “weeds” growing in a garden. This is a great metaphor because if you think about it….you cannot ignore those weeds because they will totally overtake the whole garden (weeds of the mind). Those weeds need to be removed and even once you get the whole garden cleared out of those weeds…what happens? YES!…those weeds keep trying to come back, so you have to continuously keep pulling out the ones that come up.
This is the same way with those stories…
Once you realize (finally gain insight into yourself) the numerous stories (lies) you have been telling yourself about why you cannot do things or achieve things…its like suddenly noticing your beautiful garden (mind) is packed solid with weeds!! AHA! This was definitely an AHA moment for me. I got myself a coach and started working at getting those weeds pulled out. It took months of work, emotional turmoil and challenging times…but, believe me, I got that darn garden mostly cleared out …out of pure determination. However, I realized that a person has to be well-aware that those weeds (stories, lies) will keep trying to come back and keep an eye on the garden at all times to remove them once they pop up! The lesson here was for me NOT to ignore those feelings, but rather allow them to happen, recognize them, and realize where they are coming from and correct them immediately.
Having this kind of awareness can totally change your life. Often, to develop this awareness and clean out the garden takes extra help. Don’t hesitate to get help with this (remember, asking for help is a sign of strength). Once you take the time to learn this, then you will start to recognize the stories (lies) once they happen. Once they are recognized, you can stop, identify the lie and replace it with the truth that you know is there. Its a magical process and is definitely worth learning about! Once you get to work on this, you will be blown away at what you are capable of achieving in your life!
There is no feeling like the sense of accomplishment! This morning I officially completed a 30-day challenge that I set up for myself with an awesome core/MMA fighting program! This is just the way I LOVE fitness. Short challenges that push me and keep it totally interesting…and in the comfort of my own home… plus they are professionally developed to give an amazing full body fitness like I never imagined!
This type of core/fighting workout is a great cross-trainer for other types of fitness activities as well… especially court sports, running, horseback riding, hockey, football and so many more… the agility, core strength, leg and upper body strength that you can build without any equipment is astounding!
The beauty of the workout lineup I have available to me through this annual digital access program is that I never get bored, I can keep picking new challenges for myself with different professional programs and trainers as I go! When it is fun and interesting like this…with short term rewards…a person is far more likely to keep it up! I also keep a paper copy of the workout calendar beside my workout area, so that I check off each workout as I complete them… as you see here….
TRACKING workout completion every day builds motivation as you see what you are accomplishing!
As I am sitting here having my superfood shake post-workout this morning, I am thinking that a trip to the spa as a reward for completing this program is totally in order! (Ten Spa in Winnipeg is an amazing place!!) A spa treatment and a day of relaxation! Doesn’t that sound awesome? It feels great to have earned a reward like this… Now just have to decide what program to challenge myself with next! .. Hmmm 🙂
