I found this article in a past issue of Shape magazine and it struck a chord in me. Do you realize the difference between what you hear as truth and what is grounded in scientific fact? What is your fitness blueprint? I grew up believing that if you wanted to lose weight you needed to stop eating..WRONG! I have never eaten as much as I do now just to maintain my weight. Also, you will never be able to lose much weight because our family is big boned and too muscular...WRONG again! I am smaller now than I have ever been. I have gotten stronger and discovered I wasn't big boned...I was just big :) I learned to correct these mistakes that are listed by using premium Beachbody products like high quality protein powder, Shakeology meal replacement shake, Energy & Endurance Pre workout drink, protein bars and a stellar meal plan to follow while doing P90X. Let me know if I can help you as well!
5 Diet Mistakes That Prevent Workout Results
By Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD
Drinking a Protein Shake Before a Workout
Protein is digested much slower than carbs, so too much pre-workout can give you stomach cramps and prevent the carbs you need for fuel from getting absorbed and becoming available to your working muscles.
The Fix: Reach for a smaller quantity of protein, along with slow burning carbs pre-workout, and choose higher protein shakes, snacks or meals afterwards.
Exercising on an Empty Stomach
It's physiologically impossible to burn pure body fat — during aerobic exercise you burn a combo of carbs and fat. When carbs aren't readily available, your body is forced to break down its own muscle mass and convert it into blood sugar. That means by skipping a meal, you may end up eating away at your own muscle instead of building it!
The Fix: If you don’t like the feeling of food in your stomach when you exercise stick with a liquid, like a small smoothie made with unsweetened frozen fruit and organic skim or soy milk.
Overusing Energy Bars
Overusing them can cause you to "eat back" the calories you burned exercising, preventing you from seeing results. A lot of my non pro athlete clients grab a bar post workout and eat a meal a few hours later, which may be overload when you consider that many bars are the equivalent of a turkey sandwich — and most people wouldn't eat a turkey sandwich, then sit down to chicken stir fry a few hours later.
The Fix: If you’re going to eat within an hour of the end of your workout, skip the bar, or go for it and pare down the portions in your next meal.
Not Eating Enough “Good” Fat
Every cell in the human body is partially made out of fat, including muscle, so "good" fat is needed to heal and repair post workout — without it you can stay sore and fail to see an improvement in strength and muscle tone.
The Fix: Include small portions of foods like extra virgin olive oil, avocado and almonds at every meal, and be sure to include a daily source of omega 3 fatty acids
Buying Into the Afterburn Myth
While it's true that you will torch more calories in the hours after a workout, for most women it amounts to just an additional 50 calories burned, not enough to sanction a splurge.
The Fix: My general rule of thumb: the 50/50 principle — if you’re trying to trim down you can afford to add about half the calories you burn to your usual intake, preferably about 50 percent before to help fuel the activity, and half after, for recovery. For example, an hour on the elliptical burns about 500 calories (for 150 pound person), which means you can safely “spend” an extra 125 calories both before and after hitting the gym — that’s the amount in about one slice of whole grain bread spread with one tablespoon natural peanut butter before, and a half cup each nonfat Greek yogurt and sliced strawberries topped with a tablespoon of sliced almonds after.
Cynthia Sass is a registered dietitian with master's degrees in both nutrition science and public health. Frequently seen on national TV she's a SHAPE contributing editor and nutrition consultant to the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays. Her latest New York Times best seller is Cinch! Conquer Cravings, Drop Pounds and Lose Inches.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Monday, November 7, 2011
I need a snack!!!!
It is no secret that I attribute much of my fitness success to P90X, but I needed energy to do that exercise program. I found that with Shakeology. You can learn more about all the specific ingredients at www.shakeochick.com. I did not have much of an appetite because of my MS but Shakeology gave my body the nutrients it needed to begin to function correctly. It was at that point I was able to begin losing weight. I have lost over 70 lbs and have been able to keep it off for 2 years and counting! I love to drink my Shake just shaken in a shaker cup because it is quick and easy. Here is another way to have the amazing nutrients for when you are on the go and do not have a cup with you..also works for a quick sweet treat!
NoBake Energy Bites
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup peanut butter (or other nut butter)
1/3 cup honey
1 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1 scoop chocolate Shakeology
1 tsp vanilla
Mix ingredients together well then shape into bite size pieces. Store in an air tight container in a cool place.
NoBake Energy Bites
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup peanut butter (or other nut butter)
1/3 cup honey
1 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1 scoop chocolate Shakeology
1 tsp vanilla
Mix ingredients together well then shape into bite size pieces. Store in an air tight container in a cool place.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sounds Yummy!!!
I personally LOVE Sweet Potatoes so I'm excited to try this recipe from Melissa Costello, Tony Horton's personal chef!
Sweet Potato Hummus
1 lb. Sweet Potatoes
1 t Cumin Powder
1 large Lemon, juiced
1 t Sea Salt
3 T Olive Oil (more, if necessary)
1 T Agave Nectar
1-15 oz. can rinsed Chick Peas (garbanzo beans)
2-3 T Tahini
fresh Ground Pepper
dash Cayenne Pepper (use more if you like spice)
Bake or microwave sweet potatoes until fully cooked. Allow the potatoes to cool, then remove the skins and discard them, retaining the flesh.
Add sweet potato to the food processor together with lemon juice, cumin, salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper, agave, check peas and tahini. Add olive oil while blending. Blend until smooth and creamy. Add more oil if needed or a small amount of water if hummus is too thick.
This sweet & savory hummus is perfect for picnics, parties and snacks for the kids, dipped into with carrots, celery, cucumbers or multi-grain chips & crackers.
Sweet Potato Hummus
1 lb. Sweet Potatoes
1 t Cumin Powder
1 large Lemon, juiced
1 t Sea Salt
3 T Olive Oil (more, if necessary)
1 T Agave Nectar
1-15 oz. can rinsed Chick Peas (garbanzo beans)
2-3 T Tahini
fresh Ground Pepper
dash Cayenne Pepper (use more if you like spice)
Bake or microwave sweet potatoes until fully cooked. Allow the potatoes to cool, then remove the skins and discard them, retaining the flesh.
Add sweet potato to the food processor together with lemon juice, cumin, salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper, agave, check peas and tahini. Add olive oil while blending. Blend until smooth and creamy. Add more oil if needed or a small amount of water if hummus is too thick.
This sweet & savory hummus is perfect for picnics, parties and snacks for the kids, dipped into with carrots, celery, cucumbers or multi-grain chips & crackers.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Next X: What's New About P90X2™
I have people asking me what is so special about P90X2 and most of those people ask with a measure of skepticism. For this reason I am posting a wonderful in depth explanation from Steve Edwards who has been intensely involved in both P90X AND P90X2 so in his words I offer the following...
Steve Edwards
"How can you improve on the world's number one fitness program?" is a reasonable question that I'm often asked when I tell people I've been working on its successor, P90X2. As Hollywood has quite clearly shown, sequels rarely live up to the original. But once in a while something bucks the trend, and we're fairly certain we've made The Godfather: Part II and not Staying Alive. In this series of articles, we'll be giving you a rundown on what to expect from the next P90X®.
MC2
The working title of this project was MC2. That's for Muscle Confusion™ 2, and of course, there's going to be more of what made the original so special. But this time around, we're taking Muscle Confusion to a whole new level, maybe even times two. To understand why requires a little bit of history.
P90X was developed to answer customer requests for a program more challenging than Power 90® and Slim in 6®, Beachbody's original blockbusters. So we set out to make the type of training program that an athlete would use to prepare for a season, except the sport we chose was life in general. Combining the theories of cross-training, progressive overload, periodization, and the specificity of adaptation, we began a series of test groups to try and estimate the tolerance of difficulty that the general public could handle, or more appropriately, would want to.
Turns out this was more than we knew at the time—though the fact that we cast test group subjects because they outperformed professional fitness trainers should have given us a clue. The program was so advanced that many professional athletes began using P90X instead of their own team trainers. This we hadn't anticipated. We knew we had a solid program, absolutely, but we didn't count on athletes who make millions of dollars a year ignoring highly paid professionals and working out to a video. If we had, we might have done things a little differently.
Knowing that the world was watching, we began P90X2 development searching for a consultant. We traveled as high up the food chain as possible, where we found Dr. Marcus Elliott. His training facility, P3 (Peak Performance Project), is at the absolute cutting edge of sport. Using the latest in equipment and applied science, P3's client list reads like, well, the front page of the sports section. Dr. Elliott signed on as head of our Scientific Advisory Board, ensuring we had the means to raise the bar.
That's not to say we weren't already succeeding. Anyone who ordered the P90X ONE on ONE® workouts could see we'd been experimenting with many new training modalities. Tony's newfound love of training on unstable platforms, honed by his relationship with functional trainer Steve Holmson, became, literally, the foundation of P90X2.
Access to P3 and Dr. Elliott also provided challenges. Because our customers are not primarily athletes, we needed to do a lot of homework to determine how to best integrate P3's elite systems into our demographic. Research was done, numbers crunched, theories were applied and tested, and test pilots (often yours truly) were beaten into submission. In the end, the collaboration resulted in a program that we think improved on our wildest expectations.
The program
While it's still based around the periodizational principles of P90X, X2 has a broader scope. In short, it's more versatile, which is saying something, considering that P90X is by far the most versatile training program on the market today. Here are the three training phases of P90X2 and what you can expect from them.
Foundation. The first training phase is about your foundation, as in your base, or more specifically your attachment to the ground. What we mean here is not just your legs but your entire kinetic chain. There's a saying that goes, "You can't shoot a cannon from a canoe" that relates to your base, meaning that if it's not solid, you're going to wobble like the visual this saying evokes when you attempt to do anything explosive. The goal of the Foundation phase is to help you create a solid attachment to the earth so you do all other movements without compromising your form. When this happens, you'll look better, feel better, perform better, and be much more resistant to injuries.
Strength. Next, we take your strong foundation and strengthen it big time. This training phase will be most familiar to P90Xers because it's similar in structure to what you're used to. However, the individual workouts have evolved. You'll continue to work from instability or athletic positions, because this will help you integrate your strength gains more seamlessly into your real-world movements.
Performance. Finally, we take all the physiological changes we've been making with your body and focus them on pure performance. The key to this phase is something called Post-Activation Potentiation or P.A.P. (which we'll explain next time), and doing repeat series of movements called complexes. These workouts will destroy you in an oh-so-beautiful way. After a few weeks of P.A.P., your body can feel more springy, loose, and young. It almost feels as if, to borrow a phrase from King Arthur of Camelot, "You don't age. You youthen."
In conclusion, we think we've created an "Oscar winner." P90X2 is a training program anyone with a decent fitness base can succeed at. It can be done by someone who has only completed one round of Power 90 and still be challenging to the world's best athletes. It's versatile enough so anyone who sees it through to its end can achieve major increases in performance. And while it won't replace P90X (or make it feel as dated as The Godfather), it should absolutely take your results to the next level.
Steve Edwards
"How can you improve on the world's number one fitness program?" is a reasonable question that I'm often asked when I tell people I've been working on its successor, P90X2. As Hollywood has quite clearly shown, sequels rarely live up to the original. But once in a while something bucks the trend, and we're fairly certain we've made The Godfather: Part II and not Staying Alive. In this series of articles, we'll be giving you a rundown on what to expect from the next P90X®.
MC2
The working title of this project was MC2. That's for Muscle Confusion™ 2, and of course, there's going to be more of what made the original so special. But this time around, we're taking Muscle Confusion to a whole new level, maybe even times two. To understand why requires a little bit of history.
P90X was developed to answer customer requests for a program more challenging than Power 90® and Slim in 6®, Beachbody's original blockbusters. So we set out to make the type of training program that an athlete would use to prepare for a season, except the sport we chose was life in general. Combining the theories of cross-training, progressive overload, periodization, and the specificity of adaptation, we began a series of test groups to try and estimate the tolerance of difficulty that the general public could handle, or more appropriately, would want to.
Turns out this was more than we knew at the time—though the fact that we cast test group subjects because they outperformed professional fitness trainers should have given us a clue. The program was so advanced that many professional athletes began using P90X instead of their own team trainers. This we hadn't anticipated. We knew we had a solid program, absolutely, but we didn't count on athletes who make millions of dollars a year ignoring highly paid professionals and working out to a video. If we had, we might have done things a little differently.
Knowing that the world was watching, we began P90X2 development searching for a consultant. We traveled as high up the food chain as possible, where we found Dr. Marcus Elliott. His training facility, P3 (Peak Performance Project), is at the absolute cutting edge of sport. Using the latest in equipment and applied science, P3's client list reads like, well, the front page of the sports section. Dr. Elliott signed on as head of our Scientific Advisory Board, ensuring we had the means to raise the bar.
That's not to say we weren't already succeeding. Anyone who ordered the P90X ONE on ONE® workouts could see we'd been experimenting with many new training modalities. Tony's newfound love of training on unstable platforms, honed by his relationship with functional trainer Steve Holmson, became, literally, the foundation of P90X2.
Access to P3 and Dr. Elliott also provided challenges. Because our customers are not primarily athletes, we needed to do a lot of homework to determine how to best integrate P3's elite systems into our demographic. Research was done, numbers crunched, theories were applied and tested, and test pilots (often yours truly) were beaten into submission. In the end, the collaboration resulted in a program that we think improved on our wildest expectations.
The program
While it's still based around the periodizational principles of P90X, X2 has a broader scope. In short, it's more versatile, which is saying something, considering that P90X is by far the most versatile training program on the market today. Here are the three training phases of P90X2 and what you can expect from them.
Foundation. The first training phase is about your foundation, as in your base, or more specifically your attachment to the ground. What we mean here is not just your legs but your entire kinetic chain. There's a saying that goes, "You can't shoot a cannon from a canoe" that relates to your base, meaning that if it's not solid, you're going to wobble like the visual this saying evokes when you attempt to do anything explosive. The goal of the Foundation phase is to help you create a solid attachment to the earth so you do all other movements without compromising your form. When this happens, you'll look better, feel better, perform better, and be much more resistant to injuries.
Strength. Next, we take your strong foundation and strengthen it big time. This training phase will be most familiar to P90Xers because it's similar in structure to what you're used to. However, the individual workouts have evolved. You'll continue to work from instability or athletic positions, because this will help you integrate your strength gains more seamlessly into your real-world movements.
Performance. Finally, we take all the physiological changes we've been making with your body and focus them on pure performance. The key to this phase is something called Post-Activation Potentiation or P.A.P. (which we'll explain next time), and doing repeat series of movements called complexes. These workouts will destroy you in an oh-so-beautiful way. After a few weeks of P.A.P., your body can feel more springy, loose, and young. It almost feels as if, to borrow a phrase from King Arthur of Camelot, "You don't age. You youthen."
In conclusion, we think we've created an "Oscar winner." P90X2 is a training program anyone with a decent fitness base can succeed at. It can be done by someone who has only completed one round of Power 90 and still be challenging to the world's best athletes. It's versatile enough so anyone who sees it through to its end can achieve major increases in performance. And while it won't replace P90X (or make it feel as dated as The Godfather), it should absolutely take your results to the next level.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Celebrity review of Hip Hop Abs...Chris Pratt from Money Ball
About 3 minutes into this clip Chris talks to late night talk show host Conan about how he lost weight and got in shape for his role in Money Ball with Brad Pitt. I love how he even demonstrates the key moves that he used in Hip Hop Abs! He gives the most sincere, heartfelt shout out to our very own Shaun T as well.
I love Beachbody for this exact reason, we have such high quality tools within Beachbody from the workout programs,the nutritional supplements to the support we offer. Send me a message if I can help YOU in anyway!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
P90X over, now what? Enter P90X2
You all know my story, if you don't then take a moment to watch my video at the top of this post. P90X and Shakeology changed my life in so many ways. Through these two products and the amazing support and motivation from my Beachbody coach (my awesome husband Dan Lusk) I was able to lose 76 lbs, go from a size 22-24 to a size 6-8! I feel better than I have ever felt but also hungry for more. Now it is here...the next step...P90X2!
I am thrilled to announce that available TODAY, September 1st, 2011, you can officially PreOrder this program to insure Christmas delivery. If you don't preorder, the program will not be available until Jan 2012. If you want to learn more about it check out the video at the top of my blog and go to our website for more information
http://www.noxcusefitness.com/P90X2
I can wait to open MY Christmas present this year! Let me know if I can help you in anyway
I am thrilled to announce that available TODAY, September 1st, 2011, you can officially PreOrder this program to insure Christmas delivery. If you don't preorder, the program will not be available until Jan 2012. If you want to learn more about it check out the video at the top of my blog and go to our website for more information
http://www.noxcusefitness.com/P90X2
I can wait to open MY Christmas present this year! Let me know if I can help you in anyway
Sunday, July 3, 2011
My thoughts today
My 15 year old posted this on his Facebook page in my honor and it made me examine myself a bit.
YOU DON'T LOOK SICK! No, I don't. It's hard to explain to someone when they have no clue. It's a daily struggle feeling sick on the inside while you look fine on the outside. Please put this as your status if you or someone you know has an invisible illness, Anxiety, Bi-Polar, P.T.S.D., LUPUS, Fibromyalgia, Crohns, DIABETES, Arthritis, chronic back pain,Epilepsy, MS,Depression,COP
It is amazing how true that is! All of us who deal with a chronic “silent” disease deal with this issue. I would love to take this time to educate those that don’t deal with it on a daily basis with a window into the life of a chronically ill person.
We go through our days with a smile on our face because we know that something painful could be just around the corner so we are truly enjoying that moment in time. We refuse to be weak because once we give into that weakness we may never come back to a strong place again. We appreciate others around us who love us and support us because we know of others that just couldn’t handle the constant roller coaster of emotions/realities and just walked away.
We don’t feel sorry for ourselves, but we do feel the pain of our loved ones around us. We watch those same people who are our lifeline become broken, spending so much energy making our life better that they forget to take care of themselves. To top that off, our caretakers very rarely have anyone who takes care of them. The focus is usually on the person who is ill, not on those that are depleting all they have to make life bearable for the entire family. We try to help, but they don’t want to burden us with that added stress so they keep pushing on even though they have no physical or emotional energy left. Simple every day things that “normal” people take for granted are huge undertakings for people in my situation and it’s the caretaker in our life that moves mountains to make us feel like we aren’t different.
Easy things like shopping or going out to eat or shopping are easy only because the caretaker makes sure our environment is workable. Including scouting out all the sidewalks to find the cutouts so we can make it across the street. Finding a table that a wheelchair can fit under. Moving racks and making a path so we can look at whatever we want. Making sure dressing rooms are accessible so we don’t fall or have to struggle figuring out how to change. All of this is done for us so we can concentrate on just enjoying ourselves without the thought of how much work it it for the caretaker.
They do not enjoy seeing us this way and definitely don’t enjoy watching us struggle or in pain. In the case of some of us, our caretakers remember a time when things weren't that way and they ache for that time to return. If we have children it becomes even more difficult because the healthy spouse becomes the sole provider of all daily activities especially if the chronically ill person can not drive. The pressure to be everything to everyone in the family is too much to ask from one person but we all do it almost subconsciously. We do this because we have no one else and sadly neither does the caretaker.
I’m not writing this so that you can look at someone who is chronically ill and feel sorry for them, I’m writing this for those that no one supports or thanks often enough....the caretakers. Life is hard for them. They are pulled in so many directions that they are dangerously close to exploding at any given time. They are silently screaming in their heads asking for a break from all of this so I ask that you wrap your arms around them and simply ask them..How are YOU doing? Seriously listen to them when they answer. If they tell you they are fine, ask them again..No, how are you DOING? Keep them in your prayers because sometimes God is the only one that holds them together. Life is hard for the chronically ill but I truly believe it is harder for those that are the caretakers.
To my caretaker:
From the bottom of my heart I say THANK YOU to my amazing husband who makes my life better just by being with me, for loving me and being the glue that holds our family together. I know this isn’t how we imagined our life together, but you have through your strength and love kept us all lifted up and moving forward. You deserve so much but ask for so little. You are incredible and I pray that you will let me lift you up as well.
YOU DON'T LOOK SICK! No, I don't. It's hard to explain to someone when they have no clue. It's a daily struggle feeling sick on the inside while you look fine on the outside. Please put this as your status if you or someone you know has an invisible illness, Anxiety, Bi-Polar, P.T.S.D., LUPUS, Fibromyalgia, Crohns, DIABETES, Arthritis, chronic back pain,Epilepsy, MS,Depression,COP
It is amazing how true that is! All of us who deal with a chronic “silent” disease deal with this issue. I would love to take this time to educate those that don’t deal with it on a daily basis with a window into the life of a chronically ill person.
We go through our days with a smile on our face because we know that something painful could be just around the corner so we are truly enjoying that moment in time. We refuse to be weak because once we give into that weakness we may never come back to a strong place again. We appreciate others around us who love us and support us because we know of others that just couldn’t handle the constant roller coaster of emotions/realities and just walked away.
We don’t feel sorry for ourselves, but we do feel the pain of our loved ones around us. We watch those same people who are our lifeline become broken, spending so much energy making our life better that they forget to take care of themselves. To top that off, our caretakers very rarely have anyone who takes care of them. The focus is usually on the person who is ill, not on those that are depleting all they have to make life bearable for the entire family. We try to help, but they don’t want to burden us with that added stress so they keep pushing on even though they have no physical or emotional energy left. Simple every day things that “normal” people take for granted are huge undertakings for people in my situation and it’s the caretaker in our life that moves mountains to make us feel like we aren’t different.
Easy things like shopping or going out to eat or shopping are easy only because the caretaker makes sure our environment is workable. Including scouting out all the sidewalks to find the cutouts so we can make it across the street. Finding a table that a wheelchair can fit under. Moving racks and making a path so we can look at whatever we want. Making sure dressing rooms are accessible so we don’t fall or have to struggle figuring out how to change. All of this is done for us so we can concentrate on just enjoying ourselves without the thought of how much work it it for the caretaker.
They do not enjoy seeing us this way and definitely don’t enjoy watching us struggle or in pain. In the case of some of us, our caretakers remember a time when things weren't that way and they ache for that time to return. If we have children it becomes even more difficult because the healthy spouse becomes the sole provider of all daily activities especially if the chronically ill person can not drive. The pressure to be everything to everyone in the family is too much to ask from one person but we all do it almost subconsciously. We do this because we have no one else and sadly neither does the caretaker.
I’m not writing this so that you can look at someone who is chronically ill and feel sorry for them, I’m writing this for those that no one supports or thanks often enough....the caretakers. Life is hard for them. They are pulled in so many directions that they are dangerously close to exploding at any given time. They are silently screaming in their heads asking for a break from all of this so I ask that you wrap your arms around them and simply ask them..How are YOU doing? Seriously listen to them when they answer. If they tell you they are fine, ask them again..No, how are you DOING? Keep them in your prayers because sometimes God is the only one that holds them together. Life is hard for the chronically ill but I truly believe it is harder for those that are the caretakers.
To my caretaker:
From the bottom of my heart I say THANK YOU to my amazing husband who makes my life better just by being with me, for loving me and being the glue that holds our family together. I know this isn’t how we imagined our life together, but you have through your strength and love kept us all lifted up and moving forward. You deserve so much but ask for so little. You are incredible and I pray that you will let me lift you up as well.
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