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!

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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.

You Are Not Weak For Crying

Yesterday was a really powerful day for me. It started as any normal day. Getting up and getting Mason ready for preschool and breakfast made. I needed onions for my breakfast and started cutting into a nice huge onion. And then that familiar burning and stinging and crying happened from the onion. I finished chopping, washed my hands and just felt empty and hallow. And the tears kept coming and coming. I just felt drained. On the way home from dropping Mason off at school again I felt empty and hallow. I was grieving knowing that my due date was any day and it wasn't going to happen.

I knew this day was going to happen. At some point. I didn't know when or how or anything but I knew I would have a breakdown day. The tears kept coming and coming. Those hot and heavy tears full of sorrow and pain. I called Matt and told him I was having a bad day and I couldn't stop crying. 20 minutes later he walked in the door with a flower, strawberries and of course chocolate! (I have done pretty good though not eating the chocolate!)

He held me as I continued to cry. Normally when I am in pain or sad or crying I push everyone away. But not today. I let him hold me. Counseling has helped. I am letting people in! The tears didn't stop. I just kept crying. Anytime I thought I would be done I wasn't.

Matt picked Mason up from lunch and we had lunch. Kids went down for a nap and Matt sent me up for one too! Thankfully it was a Wednesday and I had my weekly counseling session. I didn't get ready. I didn't change clothes. I just went puffy swollen face and all. Talked through it. And felt lighter and so much better. I finally stopped crying uncontrollably after my session. Matt and I talked about my session and we just grieved together yesterday.

So thankful to my husband for just dropping what he was doing to take care of me. His work is so important but he still took care of me. I also realized that yesterday that I hadn't let all my feelings out. That I was still bottling them in and they just exploded yesterday. and it is okay!

Crying is not a sign of weakness. And for years I always thought it had. For me it just meant that I was holding too many things in at once and something had to give!

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!