Sleep is the most underrated part of the fitness equation. Your body needs sleep every bit as much as it needs nutritious food and exercise. Yet most of us deprive ourselves of that necessary sleep on a daily basis. We create lives that don’t allow for 8 hours of sleep a night, there just isn’t enough time in the day. That is the biggest disservice you can do to yourself.

I’m not being judgemental because I am guilty of this myself. This week was terrible for my sleep. I didn’t get more than 5-6 hours on any given night. So by Friday night I was a zombie and really didn’t enjoy myself at all. I hibernated! I went to bed, read for a short time and fell into a 12.5 hour sleep that my body demanded! I did wake up at my “normal” wakeup time of 5am when I usually exercise, but forced myself back to bed.

When I finally woke up I felt amazing!!! That is the sleep I needed all week. Now my head is clear, I have energy and I am ready to have a fantastic weekend! I’m behind on everything, emails, posts, cleaning, workouts, but I will catch up on that later. Priorities.

I’m reading The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy and it is a phenomenal book for anyone who wants to understand how to change their lives in any way. I’m not just talking fitness and health, money, relationships, career, it can be applied to your life in any way you choose. Here is an excerpt that really stuck out to me:

“Forget about will power. It’s time for why power. Your choices are only meaningful when you connect them to your desires and dreams. The wisest and most motivating choices are the ones aligned with that which you identify as your purpose, your core self, and your highest values. You’ve got to want something, and know why you want it, or you’ll end up giving up too easily.

So what is your why? you’ve got to have a reason if you want to make significant improvements to your life. And to make you want to make the necessary changes, your why must be something that is fantastically motivating-to you. You’ve got to want to get up and go, go, go, go, go–for years! So, what is it that moves you the most? Identifying your why is critical. What motivates you is the ignition to your passion, the source for your enthusiasm, and the fuel of your persistence.
The power of your why is what gets you to stick through the grueling, mundane, and laborious. All of the hows will be meaningless until your whys are powerful enough. Until you’ve set your desire and motivation in place, you’ll abandon any new path you seek to better your life. If your why power, your desire, isn’t great enough, if the fortitude of your commitment isn’t powerful enough, you’ll end up like every other person who makes a New Year’s resolution and gives up too quickly and reverts to sleepwalking through poor choices.

If I were to put a ten inch wide, thirty foot long plank on the ground and say, “If you walk the length of the plank, I’ll give you $20. Would you do it? Of course, it’s an easy twenty bucks. But what if I took that same plank and made a roof top bridge between two 100 story buildings? That same twenty dollars for walking the thirty foot plank no longer looks desirable or even possible, does it? you’d look at me and say “not on your life.”
However, if your child was on the opposite building, and that building was on fire, would you walk the length of the plank to save him? Without question and immediately, you’d do it, twenty dollars or not. Why is it that the first time I asked you to cross that sky high plank you said no way, yet the second time you wouldn’t hesitate? The risks and dangers are the same. What changed? Your why changed. Your reason for wanting to do it. you see, when the reason is big enough ,you will be willing to perform almost any how.”

This thing makes me want to make my own salad dressing! It is so cool, love the measured lines on the sides and it never leaks! Absolutely love this find.

It was relatively cheap, especially if you compare it to the endless bottles of salad dressing you won’t have to buy!

Citrus Vinaigrette per T25 nutrition plan. This is my FAVORITE dressing recipe ever! It is so good and keeps in the fridge for several days. It’s easy enough to make that I just make a small batch every few days.

3 Tbsp fresh 100% Orange Juice
2Tbsp. Fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp raw honey
2 tsp Dijon mustard
3Tbsp extra virgin Olive Oil

Combine orange juice, lemon juice and honey in a medium bowl, whisk to blend
Stir in mustard, mix well
Slowly add oil while whisking, mix well

* I just toss it all in this really cool shaker thingy at once but I figured I’d give you the “proper” recipe.

Makes 4 servings, 2 Tbsp each

Nutritional Info per 2 Tbsp
72 calories
7g fat
0 cholesterol
60mg sodium
3g carbs
0g fiber
2g sugar
0g protein

Fresh salsa is my favorite indulgence. Forget the chips and dip some celery sticks in it for the same crunch without wasting calories.

1 28 oz can of Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes (I’ve tried others, trust me these are worth it)
1 7.5oz can of fire roasted green diced chilies
1Tbsp of minced garlic
2 green onions chopped
1Tbsp olive oil
2tsp red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp dried oregano (or fresh)
1/4 c chopped cilantro
Pink Himalayan salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 tsp chili powder
2 tsp lime juice

Just mix it all up and refrigerate. It’s always better the next day and this makes a big batch that will keep in the fridge about 3-4 days.
Photo: Fresh salsa is my favorite indulgence. Forget the chips and dip some celery sticks in it for the same crunch without wasting calories. 1 28 oz can of Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes (I’ve tried others, trust me these are worth it) 1 7.5oz can of fire roasted green diced chilies 1Tbsp of minced garlic 2 green onions chopped 1Tbsp olive oil 2tsp red wine vinegar 1/4 tsp dried oregano (or fresh) 1/4 c chopped cilantro Pink Himalayan salt to taste Freshly ground black pepper to taste 1 tsp chili powder 2 tsp lime juice Just mix it all up and refrigerate. It’s always better the next day and this makes a big batch that will keep in the fridge about 3-4 days.

Back to school time! I know for all you moms out there it’s both a sigh of relief to get your sanity back and yet the whole array of homework for moms kicks in too. Enter, the dreaded lunch box. That box packed full of hopes for a nutritious lunch so carefully packed and sent off with love. Full of veggies and dips and even cute smiley faced sandwiches just begging to be enjoyed. Then the reality when those same lunch boxes come home (maybe!) all trashed with dip dripping through the zipper and only the cookies have been eaten. Sigh…..what is a well meaning mother to do?

Get them to pack their own lunches, yes!! That is a brilliant idea. About the time my kids entered fourth grade I figured they could handle packing their own lunches, make their own choices and thus they would actually be more inclined to eat them right? Well not really. Ya see it turns out all they really want to pack are cookies and candy and carb laden crackers and other various sugar laden garbage. So I’ve made it my rule that there has to be at least one fruit and/or vegetable in there. Even if they don’t eat it, it just makes me feel better. I will stand there and supervise. Surely that is better than taking full responsibility for the lunch boxes every night right? I’ve gone to great lengths to assure that they always have choices they like in the house, like fruit leather, or carrots w/ranch dip. My 10 year old happens to love raw spinach so those are the types of food I always have. But that isn’t enough for a lunch, and when they pack their own lunches it often ends up being less than what I consider a healthy lunch. So I go back to packing them for them again!

Shame on me!

So when I pack them I really do try to put things in there I know they will eat, chicken chunks, yogurt, protein bars, apple slices, nuts, these are staples. Then there’s always some kind of a treat that I hope they don’t eat until they eat everything else in there, yeah right! My kids have never been sandwich eaters so that’s out of the question. But they will eat a mini bagel with cream cheese, or turkey slices held together with toothpicks. It takes endless amounts of creativity to keep these lunches coming.

By the end of the first week of school that new found allure of back to school has worn off. Right about the time I notice things growing on the outside of those lunch boxes, so into the wash they go. Which reminds me, I need to buy a backup so I can rotate them out in the wash every week. So to all you moms out there who are in the same boat, do your best, but in the end pace yourselves, remember you still have a whole year to go!

Why You Got Fat

That title almost insults me lol. I know I got fat because I didn’t care what I ate, and I certainly didn’t exercise. That compounded day after day, year after year…..it was a recipe for disaster.

I want to share with you the video that brought it all home for me. It truly was a game changer. Once I understood this, I better understood how my body reacts to sugar, and how important a role insulin plays in things running smoothly. I absolutely loved this whole movie Fathead, but here is a clip that I think everyone should take the time to watch.

I want to share with all of you my T25 Alpha and Beta calendars. Today I began my second phase of T25: Beta. Here you see the calendar all laid out for you to follow, to check off as you go. It is hugely inspiring to check off those little boxes every single day. I have a plan. There is no deviating from this plan. Look at the Alpha pic, the yellow one. See in the beginning where I checked off the “barely made it” box? That sucked, but I did it. But notice as the program progressed I got to the point where I “nailed it” every day. That felt amazing!! The only box on that calendar that didn’t get checked off was the second workout on the last day . I feel really bad about that, but then I look at all the success and I forgive myself. I am so incredibly ready to take on Beta! I want to learn some new dance errr workout moves lol.

Oh. My. God. This is so absurd! This reminds me of the whole high fructose corn syrup nonsense. Just by the time society finally starts to wake up and make better choices they catch on and switch up the name. That’s ridiculous, and the FDA approves this? That doesn’t surprise me, it just disappoints me a lot.

http://farmwars.info/?p=4897

Why am I not shocked by this at all? I’m deeply saddened that another generation of our children are going to be subjected to this poison in their food supply. At what cost do these companies keep creating this crap and passing it on to our families??? I am angry.
Photo: Oh. My. God. This is so absurd! This reminds me of the whole high fructose corn syrup nonsense. Just by the time society finally starts to wake up and make better choices they catch on and switch up the name. That’s ridiculous, and the FDA approves this? That doesn’t surprise me, it just disappoints me a lot. http://farmwars.info/?p=4897 Why am I not shocked by this at all? I’m deeply saddened that another generation of our children are going to be subjected to this poison in their food supply. At what cost do these companies keep creating this crap and passing it on to our families??? I am angry. It is pretty scary to eat anything packaged these days. We MUST read the labels! But what happens when they don’t have to put things like this on the label? The FDA trials are financed by the corporation that produce the products. The whole system needs an overhaul! But I really do feel like it is our responsibility to know what we are putting into our bodies and feeding our families.

This message is profound, and I hope that each of you takes the five minutes to stop, listen, and watch this video. It made a huge impact on me about six months ago and has changed the way I go after what I want. I want to share it with you so that maybe one of you might have the same reaction.

How Bad Do You Want It?