Stretches for Tight Hips

Oh my legs and hips are super sore and tired from my workouts I have been doing this week. Tonight I am taking the time to stretch them out and help them out a little! Thankfully I have Pilates on the schedule for tomorrows workout and not strength training but I still need to stretch them tonight. I'm following this exercise routine to help me out! 

All of you doing the squat challenge. Takes some time during the week to stretch out your legs and hips! 

Old Me vs New Me

Transformation Tuesday! MY OWN! The old me and the new me. The me on the left. She was suffering from depression, but still trying to be better every day. Shy, nervous and suffered from low self confidence and esteem. Determined though to never give up. Worked on eating better, giving up the processed foods, and making meals that were healthy and helped make her happy. Motivated to change while motivating and supporting others just like her.

Well, the old me, the one on the left, blossomed into the girl on the right! Confident, glowing, happy, inspiring others and 18.5 pounds lighter. All because I decided that I was worth it and that I was tired of being sad, tied of my body hurting, or out of breath when climbing the stairs. I was through with making excuses. I had enough and I was ready to change.

And I have.

It is so amazing to see that in just a few short months I have literally transformed into this girl on the right. No make up and all and still beautiful!
Be you. Take care of you. You are worth fighting for. You are worth starting today and trying. This is your chance. Are you ready? You can join me and my group. Send me a message and we can talk about how you can change too! Connect the dots for your fitness, health and life with this Ginger! 

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

Killer Thigh Workout!

Want to add more to your Squat Challenge this month? Add these to the mix to work your thighs more! 

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

Sneak Peek Into My Challenge Group

Hey guys! You see me post all the time about challenge groups, or health and support fitness groups, or my clean eating groups. You ever wonder what they are? A challenge group/health and support fitness group, is a small micro-community of people that are all going through a journey of health and fitness. I have various types of groups held during the month. A Month long group for those that are doing a specific workout program or regime and need that daily motivation, and more constant interaction to help them stay on track. I also hold a 5 day clean eating challenge which is actually an introduction to clean eating. You get to try out clean eating for 5 days, learning how to adapt that kind of lifestyle into your daily life. And also a 5 day sneak peek into what I do as a health and fitness motivator.

In each of the challenge groups, I post multiple times during the day to engage with the challengers, ask questions, help to motivate them and also post motivational videos in there so that they get to know me as a person and know that I am really there for them and care about them. Yes I am a Beachbody coach and I love the products, but what I love more than that is actually working one on one with each of my challengers. Getting to know them. Educating them. Inspiring them. Being there for them. Motivating them. That is my favorite part and I think I have that part down pretty well.

We just wrapped up our 5 day clean eating challenge- Halloween Edition and it was AMZING! Everyday I posted a new recipe for them to add to their list to try, we had a competition going on for the highest point earners with a grand prize of a Hydra Trak water bottle to help them get the water they need during the day and have a fun way to track it. There was so much interaction.

Anyways. I wanted to share with you one of my videos that I made for the group. Since it was Halloween week, I wore a different wig everyday for the 5 videos I made. It was tons of fun. Check out the video and let me know what you think,

Have any other questions or are interested in joining any of my challenge groups? Let me know. Send me an email! I would love to have you join us!

30 Days Of Thanks-November Support Group

I am so excited! I am setting up my next challenge group that begins THIS WEEK! 30 Days Of Thanks! Why not have a whole month to be thankful for our friends, family, health, strong bodies, and clean healthy foods!

I still have available spots to help more people stay on track, avoid the holiday bulge and food comas and feel their best EVER this holiday season!

Now that Halloween is behind us, more and more sweets and treats are going to be around and tempt us. Let this be the first year that you say "NO" to excess sweets this season. We will work together to find a workout program that fits your life. So you can Connect The Dots with your Fitness, Health and Life!

Are you ready?

By joining our group you receive:
~a workout program that works for YOU
~a months supply of superfoods nutrition
~meal plans/ prepping and planning help
~support/accountability and a community that helps motivate you daily and allows you to DREAM BIG!

You are worth it! Why not start today?

Fill out this application to let me know YOU WANT TO JOIN! 

Healthy Halloween Game: 2015

I did this last year with Anna and Elsa costumes that came a knocking and ended up doing 60 squats for the night. I wanted to up the anti this year. Adding more categories of costumes and a variation of exercises to do per costume.

So the rules: Whenever one of these little costumes make an appearance at your door keep a tally and do the exercise associated with it either right then and there or after the little monsters have gone to bed. Think of this as your way to eat a candy bar or 2 for the night. Fun way to help keep you healthy and happy this holiday season!

Also check out my trick to keep the candy in the house at a minimum! Big bucket, lots of stuffing!

Halloween Candy Workouts

Here we go! CANDY-PALOOZA! Saturday is Halloween. How many of you are excited to get dressed up and go trick-or-treating...with your kids I mean! Come on with your kids! I love Halloween. I love dressing up. It is the one day I can be whatever I want to be. And now I get to see Mason's face full of excitement as he goes and knocks on a stranger's door asking/begging for candy from said complete stranger! (How is this legal!)

But still creepy stranger factor allowed, it is still fun! It is still magical for kids, and I want it to be that way for as long as possible. With that being said, how many of us eat our kids Halloween candy??? Cue Jimmy Kimmel!

Well, if you want to avoid the temper tantrums from the kids the next day and not gorge on their sacred candy, check out these charts on what and how many exercises you need to do to negate all those sticky sweets!

So Snickers is my favorite candy and you better believe that in the past I would dig those out of Mason's bag and claim them for myself but not anymore. I WILL NOT BE DOING 50 BURPEES to burn off 1 tiny little fun size bar! 50 BURPEES! What is your favorite candy and how many exercises will you be doing? Comment below. I wanna hear what your favorite Halloween Candy is! 

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

November 30 Day Squat Challenge

New month means a whole new monthly challenge! Here we go 30 days to a sexy, lifted, slimmer, rounded butt!

You do not need to do these all in one sitting (squatting) Break it up throughout the day. That's ok. Your goal is just to follow the amount of squats per day! Let me know if you are doing this! Comment below or send me an email. Need daily support and motivation? Follow me on FACEBOOK or join my monthly challenge group! Hope to see you there and GOOD LUCK!

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

Motivation To Habit!

If you want to succeed with making the shift to a PERMANENT healthy lifestyle, you have to STOP THE EXCUSES every day and JUST DO IT! I know, Nike logo, but it's the truth. Whenever you don't feel like working out, just do it. Whenever you don't feel like eating healthy, just do it!

People make excuses as a way to make themselves feel better for not completing something. For example, "I don't have time" is a common one, but you do have the time, you just have to create it. Before you make an excuse, take some time to think about it and instead of saying to yourself “I can’t” or “I don’t have the time” say “I’m choosing not to”. That will make you realize that you have the control and power to either do it, or not do it. It’s your CHOICE. Eliminate excuses, find success!

Sit down with your calendar and look at your whole day. Can you find 30 minutes in that day? You might have to sacrifice something, sleeping in, watching your favorite TV show live, or even some alone time just chillin'. But don't you think your health and wellbeing are worth it? Do you think it is important to your family, your children, for you to be healthy and around as long as possible? I want to be here for my grandkids. I want to be able to play on the ground, take them to the park and run after them. I want to be healthy now so that I can be healthy when I am older! Stop making excuses and just do it! You can do this! 

So with your calendar I want you to schedule in a time everyday that you can exercise and take care of you. Make it with an alarm. Make it important. Just like you would a doc appointment. Commit to yourself that you are going to do it. When it is time for your work out, like early in the morning. And your alarm goes off 30 minutes earlier than it has in the past, put your alarm across the room. and as you make your way to the alarm in the morning repeat to yourself, "AWAKE! I'M AWAKE" The whole way there. You will be awake and alert! Then get dressed, best to set your clothing out the night before, and get downstairs and do your workout! 

It really is that simple! Comment below with what time you scheduled your workout for!

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

Youtube

Did you know I have a You Tube channel! Yep, I sure do! I am adding to it every week with motivational messages and such so make sure you check it out and subscribe to it so that you can keep coming back. But first check out what was announced last Friday. The newest workout to be released by Beachbody by Tony Horton. I am so excited! SO EXCITED! Matt is excited and this is going to be great. What a great way to support our military! 22 Minute Hard Corps!

Wanna get your hands on the beauty when it comes out early next year? Send me an email to let me know!

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

28 Day Push Up Challenge Check in!

Hey Guys! So we are more than half way in to our 28 day push up challenge. Just 13 days left! How are you all doing. Um me, I am up to 5 without knees for regular style YEA! but I am not able to get down to as low as I want and I am shaking like a leaf trying to get up on the 5th one. I want to be further along but I am working it! How are you doing on it??? Let me know, comment below!

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

I'm Too Fat???

I hear this all the time from people that they think that they are too heavy or too out of shape, or too much out of practice. Or this or that. I promise you NO YOU ARE NOT!  You can do anything you really want to do. If I had waited until I was thinner to start running then I still would be waiting. There are times when I do a stretch that I can't reach it because my belly fat gets in the way. Does it stop me from doing what I need to be doing? NOPE. I just do as much as I can and someday I won't have that belly fat stopping me.

I saw this article the other day about this young lady who calls herself the "Fat Femme" found on Instagram. She is a kick butt yoga lover. I have no idea what her size it, but for me I was too scared to do yoga because I thought I wasn't thin enough or fit enough. But check her out! She is killing it! She didn't let her size get in her way. Seriously go look at her Instagram and see how amazing she is! Inspiration right there.

Here we have another girl that calls herself the Fat Girl Runner. And she was on NBC Nightly News about her story.

The moral of the story is, YOU have to decide when you are ready and you don't let anything stand in your way. Nothing stopping you. You just go for it. As safely as possible of course. But you do it. As always before you start a new exercise routine get the a-okay from your doc so that they are on board with what you are doing. They can run a blood panel too on you to see what hormones are in balance and what not and give you starting numbers with your cholesterol and such. And that way you can get checked up again after some time of changing your life and see what the change has done for you.

It is worth it to start now. Don't put it off until you are more comfortable with yourself. Because you might not start if you do that. And I always hated this saying but it really is true you guys! "If I can do it, so can you!" You just have to find that drive. That passion. Support and motivation. And once you do, you will be unstoppable!

Check out this article about plus sized running models used recently in Woman's Running. And guys this isn't about running, this is about lifting weights, workout classes, cycling, yoga, pilates, ultimate frisbee. ANYTHING! You can do ANYTHING!


And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

After Arms Workout Stretches

So you just finished doing your 28 day push up challenge workout for the day. MAKE SURE that you stretch out those muscles or you are going to be sore, sore, SORE! Sometimes I catch myself at the end of a workout and just walk off without doing my stretches but that is not the safe thing to do. The muscles get tight when we work them and we want them to be lengthened and lose when we are done. Hold each stretch for at least 30 seconds. I like to hold stretches for a long time because they feel sooooo good! So go on take a few minutes to stretch out your body! Check out my 3 faves below!

The stretches you want to do after an arm workout are just like the ones you did in PE back in the days!

The tricep pull pictured at the top is great!

The cross body arm stretch is another oldie but goodie!

 And my 3rd favorite is the Chest and Bicep Doorway stretch.

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

PCOS Awareness Month

I have been so hesitant to share what the actual cause of my infertility really is. I don't know why, considering I know so many women that are plagued with this syndrome and honestly I am just kicking myself right now. September was PCOS awareness month. That is the whole reason why I suffer from infertility. And it sucks. There are different types of PCOS infertility because trust me, talking with my friends we only one or two things in common with our infertility problems.

So my specific problem is that I do have polycystic ovaries. The docs call it a "ring of pearls" around both ovaries. Which make it difficult for me to get pregnant. I basically don't ovulate. At least I never did before I got pregnant with Mason. Hence why it took 8 years to get pregnant with him. Through fertility drugs. I also don't produce the hormones to tell my body, "HEY IT IS TIME TO MAKE AN EGG!" and "Hey it is time to release an egg!" Again this was all before Mason came around. What is interesting about pregnancies and PCOS is that pregnancies can jump start the system to functioning properly again. Which is what it did for me. But I have still had problems along the way with 3 miscarriages now.

Some facts I know about PCOS:

~Women with PCOS often have excess facial hair. Only because we have a hormone imbalance. Oh yeah, I have that too! I produce too much testosterone. Hence why I can squat my husband's weight easily! I am one strong cookie! and why I can build muscle easier than women without the syndrome.

~Worldwide, PCOS affects 6% to 10% of women, making it the most common eddocrinopathy in women of childbearing age.

~PCOS is the most common cause of ovulatory infertility.

~There is a lack of evidence that supports a very low carb or gluten free diet as an effective eating plan over other diets for women with PCOS.

~Regular exercise is an effective way to improve insulin levels in PCOS. Also docs have told me that if I just lose 10% of my body weight it will help increase the chances of getting pregnant naturally.

~Women with PCOS have a higher incidence of gestational diabetes, miscarriages, preterm deliveries, and stillbirths.

~It is estimated that 50-70% of women with PCOS have insulin resistance.

~The optimal treatment for PCOS is a multifactorial approach involving diet and lifestyle modifications and medications. ( I am not on any meds, and I won't go back on them cause they didn't help me one bit.)

These are just a few of the reason why I am doing what I am doing now to get healthy. Why I work so darn hard at trying to lose weight. Because I am already pre-disposed to being overweight, and PCOS makes it more difficult to lose weight because of the insulin resistance. I have how many of my friends are struggling with this same issue. It breaks my heart how common this syndrome is and left untreated it can get worse and lead to other diseases. I will not let that happen to me. I am fighting every day to win this battle. But it is a fight that I must take every single day of my life. Especially if we are to get our little girl here..

The news about this should get out! I wanted to share this with you and should have done more during the month of September. But I didn't. But I am asking now that you show your support of PCOS by commenting and sharing this post with your friends and family. Help other females know that they are not alone in this battle. That there are others just like them. And together we can kick some PCOS ASS! Help spread the word!

More information about PCOS can be found here. Show your support! Thanks!


And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

Upper Body Lovin'!

(Last weekend we got to visit my Grandpa in DC who was flown out by the Honor Flight in UT honoring WWII vets!)

I don't really believe in spot training. It just doesn't really work. You want to workout your whole body out evenly and honestly you are going to lose weight evenly anyways. But I want my upper body to be stronger. Better. LESS FLABBY! You know, that wobble from the backside of your arms. I WANT THAT GONE! Looking at pictures of me I see my arms and I want them smaller. And the only way I can think of besides losing fat is to increase the muscle. Look at the picture above. I was really happy with it because you can totally tell that my stomach is getting smaller, YEA! but I don't know if it is just cause my arms are so WHITE but that is what jumps out at me is how big my arms are. They are 14.75 inches around. Not happy with that at all!

My arms and shoulders are sooooo weak too! My shoulders pop and crack whenever I am doing arm exercises (same with my hip flexers!) I have a hard time lifting anything more than 5 pounds when it involves my shoulders. But no more. I am adding in some extra upper body workout to help me out. Can't wait to try these workouts by Sia Cooper from Diary Of A Fit Mommy! Have you seen her arms! Girl has been working hard on her guns! So along with my 21 Day Fix I will be doing her upper, lower and core workouts to just get more awesome! And with cleaning up my diet this week...I will get the body that I want! you can count on that!

Need more help and want a challenge? Check out this upper body 28 day challenge! Who wants to do a monthly challenge together??

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

October 28 Day Push Up Challenge

Say bye-bye to that arm jiggle! Seriously! Wanna try a 28 day push up challenge? Great way to help build up your upper body strength! My goal is to be able to do more than 20 pushups in 2 minutes. I did that so many years ago in a ROTC class. I want to beat it. Who's with me? Check out the calendar below!

Want more workouts ideas? Click HERE!

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

My Journey

It has taken me a while to finally finish and get the courage up to post this video, but I AM DOING IT! I'm not trying to brag about what I have accomplished. I am not trying to make anyone feel badly. I am doing it to show you that you can start at any time to take back your life. You don't have to wait until you are at the lowest of the lows. If you feel that little urge telling you, that you need to change something. Just do it. Your body knows when it is ready. Your heart knows too. Sometimes your head will agree with it too, but often our own insecurities about past performances is what holds us back.

Done a diet and weight loss plan before but it didn't work? That's ok. I bet you learned something from that experience. Try changing your routine, but quickly fell into the same habits from before? That's ok, all you need is someone to help support you and give you motivation. I have been there. Felt like I have done it all but the one thing that changed it all, was support and motivation and finally believing in me that I could do it! Send me an email and we can talk about your goals and what has worked before and what hasn't! You don't have to go through this alone! We can do it together, and before you know it you are going to have a pretty amazing journey too!

Check out my video below to watch my journey!

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

Active Recovery Yoga

Oh I love my Sundays because after church we come home and the kids go down for a late afternoon nap, I usually catch an hour or two of a good nap and that evening I choose to do my yoga.  I used to not workout on Sundays at all as a true day of rest, but since I started to incorporate yoga on Sunday I have felt more rested and relaxed on Monday for the start of my working out for the week, and overall I am so much more limber. So now I use Sundays and Wednesday as an active rest day. (Pilates on Wednesday)

Why are rest days so important? The entire purpose of recovery is to allow the muscle to repair itself and to engage muscles that are tired and sore from previous days of exercise. To keep your body working at it's peak, you can choose to do an active rest day which is just remain active without pushing yourself as hard as you were a day or two before. Low intensity is what you want to aim for. Running at a slower speed, or doing less amount of exercise or a more slow paced exercise like yoga or pilates!

These are not easy routines I do for my yoga or pilates, they still require me to work, but I focus my mind and breathing to help clean me mentally and also using deep cleansing breaths. It really does work!

Yoga can be done by all shapes and sizes. If you are a more curvy girl, like me, you will have to modify some moves and that is ok! Listen to your instructor and do what you can and over time you will be able to do more and more! The stretching though is so good and feels amazing! For years I felt so scared to do yoga. I didn't think I could because I wasn't a skinny twig of a girl! I started yoga when I was pregnant with Collin and loved it every week that I went, all the way through 39 weeks pregnant. It was amazing. And helped so much, especially since I was running during most of my pregnancy. Even in the last few months I have struggled with Bow Pose. I couldn't not get it. But I kept trying, often just holding one leg at a time and switching halfway through. Then one day, I did it. It just worked! So keep going at it and you will be amazing at what you can accomplish!

This Sunday I challenge you to try out some of these poses. Or Hulu, Amazon they have FREE yoga workouts you can watch. Follow along. Focus on your breathing and allowing your body to release tension. Comment below if you are going to try this, this weekend! I would love to hear from you!

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.

No Room For Excuses

In March and April I had a hard time just climbing the stairs without feeling dizzy or winded during my recovery from the miscarriage. Making new blood and filling my body back up with blood was HARD WORK! For months after I have had a hard time with pushing myself to where my heart rate accelerated too much. I have been afraid that I am going to pass out, because I was getting just as winded as I was during my recovery. (thanks to PTSD!) 

Now I can finally run up and down my stairs without being winded, just dizzy cause they turn a lot! But I am working on me everyday. Pushing myself as hard as I can because it is important to me. Eating clean, and just spending 30 minutes working on my body making it as fit as possible. I have decided that I am worth it and I can not stop what I enjoy doing just because I have a little bit of fear creeping inside of me anytime I try to better myself! I am worth more and so are you! 

I have seen too many excuses. Too many times. Heck, I made those excuses too! I am too fat. I haven't exercised in forever. I can't do it because it is hard. I can't breath. I'm too sore. I'm too slow. I'm too this and I'm too that. I love chocolate too much. I can't do that. I want to but... Enough with excuses. You want to change. You have to decide that you want to and DO IT! That is all it takes. You want to lose 20 pounds so you can get pregnant, then decide why you want to do it and think about that why when you have one of those pesky excuses enter into your head.

Here is the thing. EVERYONE has excuses. Arnold Schwarzenegger probably had an excuse as to why he didn't want to lift that day, but he didn't listen to those excuses. He did what he had to. Even moms. You can make an excuse as to why you aren't going to make lunch for your child that day, but you want your kids to eat healthy foods and they need a lunch so your motivation to make the lunch is greater than your excuse. Don't be ruled by your excuses. Stomp them down and stick with what you know you need to do! It really is that easy!

If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not, you will have excuse after excuse as to why you can't do something! Fight those excuses and show them who is boss! You have it in you! You can do it!

Morning Workout

Wanna start your morning out right! Just as you get out of bed and before that first cup of joe bust out this little morning workout to help you feel awake, energized and ready to take on the day! 

And, of course, be sure to like our FACEBOOK page and follow us on PINTEREST for motivation, clean eating tips, and healthy lifestyle resources.