Tag: health

Go ahead, have that cake…and that pie…and that chocolate…

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So as the title suggests these past two days were quite…”challenging” to say the least.  My first celebration since getting serious about getting this body in shape was this Sunday, my Dad’s 70th Birthday.

The day started out great with a workout at a new gym!  Well, not new….as a matter of fact it’s 15 years old.  But it was new to me.  I decided to try it out because I’m trying to get out of my contract with a gym that’s about 35 minutes away from me.  I joined when I worked closer to it and paid for a year in full.   In any case, I found a bare bones no-frills gym about 10 minutes from my house.  Jackpot!  I promptly signed up for a free 7 day pass.

As I entered, I realized No Frills should be their slogan.  No shower, one little bathroom in the locker room…a few lockers.  But hey, I don’t need much.  Just give me some weights and cables and pulleys and I’m happy.  I was the only female there on Sunday morning but didn’t matter.  Sometimes I get a little creeped out if I’m the only chick in a gym…like at some point some random dude is going to come up to me and tell me what I’m doing wrong or ask me why the hell I’m lifting weights and not on the elliptical.  I got some looks that told me I’m one of the few women that actually ATTENDS this little gym.  But no worries, I held my own.

I came back from the gym and went to the store to spend money I don’t have on food I really need.   I went to a bigger grocery store with better selections…I actually researched how to find http://www.navitasnaturals.com/ snacks and saw that they sell them at this grocery store not far from my house.  I even went so far as to ask someone where to find them but when I went to the aisle, they were not there! BOOOOO.   No worries, I got plenty of stuff.  $148 worth of food to be exact.  Yikes.  But I am determined to make it last as long as possible.

Enter Birthday Celebration:  Okay I can handle this I thought.  Here’s what was offered: Pizza, KFC chicken, biscuits, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, birthday cake and ice cream.

Here’s what I ate: 1 piece of pizza (plain), 1 piece of chicken, 1 piece of cake, 1 slice of pumpkin pie.

I refuse to put in pictures of this food because I think you all know what these things look like right? Great…Read on.

Not terrible right?  I survived!  It wasn’t the best but one bad meal will not undo all the hard work I’ve done this month.

Enter Hurricane Sandy:   So I’m not going to pretend this storm devastated us here in Cleveland compared to all the lives lost and damages done in NYC and NJ.  But it did have a small contribution to my food failure today:  Power outage.

So when you just purchased a ton of healthy food, and the power goes out, you tend to panic and want to EAT all the food you bought before it goes bad.  No I didn’t eat everything in sight, but I definitely got off track a little bit.

The biggest downfall which seems silly to even mention? I couldn’t use my Vitamix.   Anyone who knows me knows I’m in love with my Vitamix.

Beautiful isn’t it? What’s the commandment about worshiping false gods? Yeah I’m breaking that one right now.

I use it at least 2 times a day.  I almost considered bringing it to my work so I could make my smoothie there.  I work at a small personal training and fitness studio so it actually wouldn’t have been TOO odd.  But I made do with my new favorite drink http://www.sambazon.com/ and a banana and a little Fage yogurt with blueberry before my cardio workout at work.  I mainly went to get warm but figured, I’m due for a workout anyways.

Lunch was fine, tuna sandwich with Olive Oil based Mayo and another Fage yogurt. (see what I mean about eating all this stuff before it goes bad?).

I snacked on some of my mini sweet peppers and came home to have baked chicken and sauteed veggies.

But guess what was sitting in the fridge just asking to be eaten??? One last piece of birthday cake and one last piece of pumpkin pie.  UGH! Had to have it!! HAD TO!!! (I’m sure none of the other 3 people in my house was going to eat it…)

The Aftermath:  Feeling a little crappy.  A little upset I let myself fail not once but twice.  But again, when you think about the bigger picture, it’s really not anything to lose sleep over.  I’m almost glad it happened because this was almost like a little test-drive before the real holidays hit.  I have no idea how that’s going to go with me and this whole plan because it’s impossible to assume I will skip all sweets altogether.  We’ll have to wait and see.

The Plan: In addition to the bootcamp class I was going to take tomorrow morning, I will be hitting the weights as planned but also going to try to fit in a second boxing class at night.  Just going for a big calorie burn without overdoing it.  And I’ll probably take Thursday off or just do abs.  Back to weights Friday.

Move on people, nothing more to see (or eat) here for the night.

On the press for Thursday/Fridays blog post:  Fitness professionals promoting questionable products.  Already got alot of ideas on what I want to write about for this…gonna be a good one.

-Michelle

 

Random iTunes song:  Your Fractured Life by Air Traffic

Random Tweet of the day: My Dad’s car this morning (no it’s not destroyed although we haven’t taken the tree off of it yet..)

Best response we got on Facebook was to cut off the top and make it our little Christmas Tree.

Improving The Fitness Industry / Dinner Dilemma Avoided (Yes that’s how you spell Dilemma)

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Improving The Fitness Industry – Born Fitness

Once in awhile I would like to share a great website/blog/person to follow for those who are interested.  Tonight I share a blog from Adam Bornstein.  Adam is what I would call THE leader in fitness as far as knowledge, research, advice, training, etc.  He just revamped his new website and it’s fantastic!  He even does online coaching if you’re in need.  I haven’t used him myself personally but you can rest assured he’s one of the experts in the field.

The blog I refer to above is somewhat similar to the rant I made yesterday on Being Healthy is a Revolutionary Act (which, by the way, got Re-tweeted by Pilar Gerasimo herself as well as Experience Life Magazine, my first KUDOS).

Adam speaks about the Fitness Industry itself in this post and ways in which to make it a more positive experience.  Here’s one of my favorite lines: “If it were up to me, we’d all spend less time trying to fix the fitness industry, and more time trying to fix ourselves as individuals.”

Love it.

Sidenote:  I managed to avoid going through the drive-thru tonight as tempting as it was.  I want to make it clear I don’t feel like I’m depriving myself of anything here…I’m PREVENTING myself from eating a terrible meal of a burger and fries. (Sweet potato fries…they are still fries no matter how much I want to convince myself that they are “not THAT bad.”)

It was tempting only because of the CHEAPNESS and QUICKNESS factor (Payday is tomorrow thank you Jesus!)

I quickly resorted to my iPhone.  Why? Because on it I have a picture of my idol Nicole Wilkins as my screensaver.  It’s a nice constant reminder my long-term goal.  And this is one of the many times it has helped me avoid a sticky situation such as this.  And it worked again this time…I thought “I don’t think she got that bod by eating garbage fast food.”

I drove right to the grocery store (conveniently located right NEXT to BK)  and stocked up on veggies and chicken and dark chocolate. And yes I am happy about that.  If I would have eaten something that really isn’t good for me, I’d confess it on here and move on.  The world would not end.  But I feel 10x better for eating something GOOD tonight and not thinking “Oh I’ll just burn it off tomorrow by working EXTRA hard.”

Screw that!  I’m making it easy on myself. 🙂

G’night!

Being Healthy Is a Revolutionary Act…

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Today I’m sharing a website that I believe everyone should bookmark, read, instapaper, tweet, like, share…whatever you prefer.  But instead of just skimming over it, really read it.  Read it and don’t even tell me you don’t get pumped up a little bit and WANT to actually live a healthier lifestyle just by reading it.

Being Healthy Is a Revolutionary Act: Renegade Perspectives for Thriving in a Mixed-Up World.

I came across Pilar Gerasimo’s article in Experience Life Magazine in February of 2011.  As an employee (Personal Trainer) at Life Time Fitness, I was able to receive this great wealth of information in my mailbox for free.  (Members received it too, for just a dollar or two extra a month).  I encouraged all of my clients and any member I came across to read it and take the information it provided as bible.  The authors that contributed to the articles were top-notch.  Plus I pretty much adhered and agreed with everything they preached – the workouts, the recipes, the training advice, the “real-world” pieces.  All great stuff.  Plus there’s something to be said for the written word on paper (or magazine form) that seems to be lost these days.  Sometimes don’t you just want to pick up a book or a magazine instead of a Kindle, or an iPhone or another electronic device??

Fast forward to the February 2011 edition.  The cover photo alone was enough to get me to begin reading Pilar’s article immediately.  It pretty much beckons to it’s readers “Come on, BE HEALTHY!”  But it was actually the title that intrigued me:  “Being Healthy is a Revolutionary Act.” 

Wow.

I mean, it speaks volumes doesn’t it?  It’s so true!

As I continued to read this article, I felt like I was getting pumped up to fight a battle or something, ha!  I mean, she really engages the reader to look at the world in a different way.  By the end of it, you really do want to put some armor on and suit up and fight the war on Health!  At least… for me.

As someone in the health and fitness field, it becomes almost like an order…like a frustrating and redundant order, telling people “This is what I want you to do to improve your health.  This is what you MUST do to improve your health.”  The resistance I am met with is almost like a war in a itself.

It’s almost as if many people don’t want to be healthy.  Maybe they don’t come out and say it, but so many times  I hear people say “No thanks” when offered something for FREE.  If it’s FREE and it’s for their HEALTH, they don’t want it.

The most recent example was just a month ago at our Free (YES FREE) Health Fair.  Our free services consisted of getting your glucose and cholesterol checked, blood pressure, body fat, weight, chiropractor screening, balance test, massage therapist and a sleep apnea questionnaire.  Everything you need to know right? All in one place.  All free, no strings attached.  We even gave all participants a free week of fitness classes.  Again, no catch.

We got a good turnout but what was so discouraging and  disheartening were the amount of people who passed by and said self-degrading or just plain negative things like

“I already know I’m fat.”

“Oh I’m a diabetic, my doc has me on meds.”

“No thanks I don’t want to know my numbers.”

“Why would I want to know how unhealthy I am?”

It was extremely discouraging.  My friend and I who were standing at the front trying to entice people to come in discussed this somewhat surprising reaction:

Does no one really care about their health? Is it really that unpopular to take try and prolong your life?

Of course this is a general statement and I know there are people out there who DO care.  Unfortunately a lot of people care too late.  They wait until they are on meds or until something unfortunate happens and then all of a sudden, they care.

As a trainer for 4 years I should be used to this type of mentality.  But it still irks me.

This is why I’m so glad the Revolutionary Act was created.  Being healthy shouldn’t HAVE to be a revolutionary act, but it is.  And it’s time people started caring.

For those that don’t, I try not to let it bother me.  I can only worry about myself.

I can only be the healthiest ME regardless of how unpopular it is.