Our Foreward

A "Foreward" is often something that precedes the first chapter of a book. If you're 100% committed to this challenge and to making a change in your life, then this truly is the "Foreward" to your next book. It's not just a Chapter. If it were a Chapter, then it implies short term. This is ongoing. This is a long-term commitment. This is the rest of your life.

Also, let's play on the word and make it FORWARD. That's the direction you're heading. Monday you will leave behind the decisions that have made you enter on this path. You will leave behind the crap food, the excuses, the I Can'ts, the I Quits. There's no room for those in your new novel. The only person you quit on, is yourself. You deserve better.

So over the weekend, take the time to eliminate all the things that can trip you up. Empty the pantry of temptation. Take all the soda, chips, and processed crap to that graduation BBQ or birthday party you might be heading to. Get rid of it. Don't tell yourself that the kids need their Goldfish crackers. They don't. There are much better things you could be giving your kids for snack. If you need ideas, let me know.

The biggest thing to remember is that you don't want to set yourself up to fail. By getting rid of the crap now, it will make it a lot easier when you get hungry to make a better choice.

As your coach, there is only so much I can do. I can show you the results when you stick to this program. I can send you the shopping lists and recipes. Do we live near each other? I can work out with you! If not, I can still cheer you on, and pick you up when you trip: which you will. We all do. What I can't do, is do it for you. I can't do your meal prep. I can't pack your lunch. I can't do your shopping. I can't stop your husband from saying, "Let's just get a pizza tonight".  I can't stop you from getting a 600 calorie Starbucks drink. There's a lot that I CAN do, but there's also a lot that's on you. The commitment is yours. The Beachbody slogan: Decide. Commit. Succeed. Without the first two, you can't get to the last.

Let's write our Forewards together. It starts with the decision to move forward. Are you ready?

21 Day Fix Kitchen Hacks

When you first receive your 21 Day Fix Meal Plan Guide in the mail, it's so easy to freak out. I did it. I almost quit before I started! But this is why you have a Coach (hi!) and this is why you're part of a Challenge Group on Facebook! In that group, there are currently FOUR other coaches! If you ever have a question or need a venting session, that's the place to do it. Judgement free zone. Use us! We want to help and we want nothing more than for you to succeed.

Part of that success will be knowing just a few hacks and a few staples that can get you over a hump or get you through a particularly busy day when you might not have access to your kitchen.


Red/Protein:
Shakeology (because Duh. Shakeology is the best way to not have to think!)
tuna in packets or can
pre-cooked grilled chicken
pre-cooked shrimp
Greek yogurt
Cottage Cheese
Pre made hard boiled eggs (2 whole eggs or 8 egg whites equal 1 red)
frozen turkey, grass-fed beef of fish burgers, they cook in under 8-minutes.

Green/Veggies:
pre cut veggies
bag salad - I do this all the time and I don't count it
frozen broccoli to pop in microwave - daily for me

Yellow/Starch
canned beans
pre-cut sweet potato
Trader Joes frozen, cooked quinoa or brown rice (one packet equals two yellows)
frozen waffle
Ezekiel bread

Blue/Healthy Fat
Nuts
Hummus
1/4 avocado

Orange/Seeds
pumpkin/hemp/chia/flax/sunflower seed
and if you don't like these, just use 2 blues, I won't tell and do this myself often!

This is My Quest

Today's post was written by Michelle A., a Beachbody Coach and member of Team FitU. Michelle's story is amazing. Read on. You won't want to miss it. ~A


My weight has been an issue for as long as I can remember. While I was never an obese kid, I can’t say that I was really ever thin, either. Sure, I was moderately active, but I wasn’t a sports player. I was not athletic. I just was who I was, and for me that was always feeling awkward.

I remember not being able to find a well-fitting communion dress when I was in 2nd grade. I remember crying that I couldn’t find a decent Easter outfit in 5th grade. Again, I was not obese, but the sizing standards didn’t quite work with the body I was given, so it’s no wonder I had a body image complex at an early age.

In high school, I had joined Weight Watchers with my mother and lost a decent amount of weight and, for my height at the time, I was at the lowest weight I would ever see in my adult life (130lbs). I remember feeling confident and amazing. All of my confidence was completely cosmetic-based, however. It was never about health. It was always about how I looked.

Cut to the college years, and it was my second year away that I hit a depression that had me eating my feelings away and the scales tipped 190, the highest weight I had ever been in my life (at least, so I thought, but more on that later in this post). Realizing that I was once again miserable about how I looked, I tried Weight Watchers for the second time in my life and shed 30+lbs rather easily. I got my weight down to 155lbs. I met a guy. I had a great job. I was comfortable in my clothes and my physical appearance. I never exercised, save for the walking I did daily to commute to my job.

A few years and a breakup later, I found myself living in my home state, single, without my kickass city job. But I was okay. I maintained my healthy eating habits, but again, for cosmetic reasons, and I still didn’t exercise. A few months later I would meet my now-husband, and over the course of dating and getting engaged, I would see the scale slowly creep up.

I never let it hit 190, but it sure got close. I kept my weight around 170 during our wedding. I hovered there through buying a house, getting new jobs, and being a newlywed. Life, of course, led me to another challenging time in my life and lo and behold, the scale went above 190. Sure, I was upset about it, but I was also more active at this point in my life, and while the number on the scale wasn’t where I wanted it to be, I did join a local roller derby league as a referee and started to enjoy being active versus obsessing over the scale.

A few years later, I was pregnant with our first child, and while I wasn’t exactly the healthiest person nor at the healthiest weight, I had a healthy pregnancy. I delivered healthy baby boy. And then post partum depression hit, and I found myself at the second highest weight I would ever see in my life: 215lbs.

It wasn’t until my son was about 9 months old that the depression started to fade, and instead of joining yet another weight loss program, I decided to cut out sugar and carbs for good. Within weeks, 21lbs melted off and I started to exercise regularly. I wasn’t as obsessed with the scale, but rather how healthy I wanted to feel and exercise combined with cutting out the bad stuff put me in a fantastic place mentally and physically.

And that is when we found out I was pregnant with our daughter.

I was petrified. Petrified because this was a rather big surprise, but I remember fearing the weight gain, feeling unhealthy, and enduring two kids under the age of two while battling the postpartum hormones. I had a very stressful pregnancy, but I delivered our daughter rather seamlessly. A few weeks after I had her, I suffered yet another bout of postpartum depression, this time it was worse than before. I once again ate my feelings away, and the scale hit what would be the highest weight I would hit in my adult life: 225lbs

 
(me at my all-time high of 225lbs.)

 I was miserable. In fact, miserable doesn’t even encompass what I was feeling. It was physically evident on my face, the way I held myself, that I didn’t even feel like I belonged in my own body. Even though I knew I was capable of getting healthy, and even though I was aware of how to do it, I couldn’t muster the energy to do it. My depression hung onto me, and I physically wore it daily with the weight I had gained.

Thankfully, I knew that therapy was absolutely needed, and so I found someone to work with me to give me the tools I mentally needed to make myself better. Once I was able to get my mental state in check, I knew it was time to focus on my physical self, but it would still be just over 2 years before I even attempted it.

Cut to present day, and I can say I’ve successfully lost 31lbs. How did I do it? Well, first I started with just exercising and cutting out the carbs. That was working well for me, but I still felt I was missing something.

I was out shopping with Allyson and was talking how a friend of mine was a Beachbody Coach and piqued my interest in doing a 21 Day Fix with Shakeology. As luck would have it, Allyson was also starting her 21DF quest, so we sort of banded together and had that common denominator. We rooted for each other and for me, I was kind of liking the program.

While my 31lb journey hasn’t all been about Beachbody, the majority of it has. I managed to get the last 19lbs off with Beachbody products; 21DF, the workout programs, specifically Brazilian Butt Lift, and of course, Shakeology. The difference with Beachbody is that it isn’t about a cosmetic change for me the way it was in the past. This program has allowed me to feel good about myself, sure, but more importantly, feel healthy.

I can honestly say that I am in a better place because I started this quest and I am really happy that Allyson not only became a coach, but convinced me to do the same. I more than kind of like this program, I LOVE it.

This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t starvation. This isn’t just about looking good. This isn’t a fad. This is honestly and truly a way of life. I finally get it now. All those years of trying to achieve a certain look failed because I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. Now? I am doing it to feel good. Sure, I don’t mind that I just happen to be wearing smaller clothes and feel more like myself in my own skin, but because my reasons have grown, so, too has my desire to adopt this as a permanent lifestyle.

Join us on this quest! You won’t be disappointed.

(225lbs then, 31lbs lighter now!)

The Beachbody Difference

When I think about what I've been through with my quest to personal health and fitness, it's exhausting. EXHAUSTING. The "I can'ts", the "No time", the "Whatever, I'll just be fat" -- those quotes echoed over and over and over in my head for YEARS.

There are so many diets out there. Hundreds of books on how to live without sugar and eat all the bacon and grapefruit you want (but no dairy!). There are fitness programs that will have you in a wheelchair by the time your 4-year-old graduates from High School. But you know what? As ridiculous as they sound, they'll all work. They'll all work for the short term. And why do they work? They work because they're extreme. Anything extreme will work. And then when you're done with the extreme and realize you can't drink your meals for the next 40 years and you can barely bend over to tie you shoes let alone dead lift a small Volkswagon, they stop working.

Here it comes.

What if I told you that it doesn't have to be extreme. What if I told you that you can eat food. All the time. Eat. Food. Constantly. Multiple times a day. EVERY DAY. No juicing or blending or choking down green smoothies. What if I told you that you can workout 30-minutes a day, maybe 5x a week if you want (but you don't have to), and you can still lose weight, feel fantastic, and gain all kinds of health benefits.

I'll take it up a notch. What if I told you that you could still eat carbs, drink wine, not have to give up your coffee. What if I told you that you can have peanut butter and chocolate chips and CHEESE. FTLOG, CHEESE! You can have ALL of these things. And you're not going to die. You're not poisoning your body. You're actually eating real food. Food that is perfectly fine and safe to eat.

While I'm extremely cautious of body building and just general body image talk, I have to say this. Do you honestly think that bikini competitors starve themselves for days before they get on that stage? Do you think that they never eat a potato? Refuse every dessert? I PROMISE you that they don't. For a period of time before they compete, they cut back a lot of calories and eat lean, green, and clean - absolutely. But I promise you that every bikini model in this world has tasted the wonderful blended flavors of a Reeces Peanut Butter Cup. Probably more than once in their life. It doesn't have to be so extreme.

Being a Beachbody Coach has given me the platform to share what worked for me. It's given me the ability to talk about my story - how I lost 30-lbs, have kept it off, changed my mental state, toned and sculpted my body and have kept moving forward for almost a year without going back. Being a Coach keeps me accountable to myself and to the people I coach.  Finding the thing that stopped all the "I can't's" and "whatevers" and "I give ups" in my head has been life changing. The thing that lets me have the things I want to eat without making me feel like a failure. The thing that has provided me with workouts I can actually do instead of laying on the floor watching the DVD thinking, "Well, those people are nuts". The thing that makes me look forward to getting dressed every day and feeling good in my clothes instead of squeezing myself into them and counting the minutes until Yoga Pants. I found it. And I want to share it with everyone!

Before, May 2014          After, May 2015

June 22, 2015 I'll be starting another Challenge Group and I want it to be bigger and better than the first, which, well, these people have set the bar HIGH. Check out what some of them are saying:

I have loved this! Completely has changed my eating and way of thinking about diet and food. Eating clean and feel awesome! I've lost a little over five pounds but definitely feel a hell of a lot skinnier and way more healthy and energized. ~AH

I've learned so much and I'm in a great exercise groove, and it doesn't have to be PERFECT to be WORKING. Picking up some heavier weights today - not for everything, but for some exercises I'm ready. And that feels AWESOME! ~BB

I hated working out at home until I purchased some Beachbody workouts. The programs are fun! I love the eating plan because it's not a gimmick. It provides a healthy relationship with food, not starvation. I tend to fall flat on other fad programs. This? Makes me want to keep going. ~MA 

Is it easy? Not out of the gate. Nothing is. There's an adjustment period. It's like switching from a PC to a Mac. Takes a few days to get used to it. But once you do, you hit a point where it becomes easy. And you can't ever see yourself going back.

There are tons of great workout programs available as part of a Challenge Pack and you can choose one that will work best for you with your schedule and fitness level. They all come with a nutrition plan and meal ideas as well. Talk to me about these options and lets get you started on your Quest! Beachbody Challenge, Group 2, June 22nd. LET'S ROCK.