a quickie for your arms

Have ten minutes before the kids wake up? Before you have to start getting ready before work or school? How about a few minutes in your office before your next meeting? You can do this any time!

challenge accepted, nay sayers.

After my last post about not eating all the disgusting crap the food industry has been trying to pass off as nutritious, I received a lot of positive feedback and also some seriously deluded folks telling me it isn't possible to eat that way while busy with work and kids. Well ye of little faith, challenge accepted. For the month of March, my family and I will be going as close to completely unprocessed as possible. There will be no boxes of pasta, store bought bread, crackers, cookies, etc. I will be making all snacks, sweets, and meals. No more convenience food for the toddler. No more passing off half a box of crackers as lunch for myself. It's go time.

Over the course of the next month, I will post recipes, complete with pictures (woot, woot!) as well as tips and tricks I have learned along the way to make this process a bit easier. I will be shattering the theory that it can't be done while busy with a family. I have a two year old and a five month old. Game on. Granted, I am a stay at home mom with a side personal training venture, however, I don't find myself with excess time while sitting on the couch channel surfing and eating chocolate. I'm busy, too. So...I will be making it work. I don't think it will be super easy, but it will be possible.

My goal is to cleanse the family in March and then continue with a less strict, feasible way of living for the years to come. I will write down if I notice behavior improvements in myself, the husband, and toddler. I will write down things that work, things that don't, and things that are just plain ridiculous and should be left to buy at the store or Farmer's Market.

Just for fun...here is the family that will start down the road to unprocessed in mere days.

eat food, not crap.

Some people, I used to be one of them, will look at packaged foods with a "fat free," "low fat," and "sugar free" label as good for them and make the purchase. I would hope that with the vast research and findings on the horrors of artificial sweeteners, anything labeled as "sugar free" or "diet" should be avoided like a diseased wiener (unless you have some medical condition that requires consumption of these types of foods as diagnosed by a licensed physician, not your well to do friend). Fat free and low fat options should, in my opinion, also be avoided whenever possible. The process used to make foods fat free and low fat involves chemically leaching the fat out of a whole food. Any time you need modern science to "fix" a food, there is a problem. Our bodies are pretty amazing and were made (by whomever or whatever you chose to believe created them) to process food. Not diet soda and GMOs, but food. Why not give your body what it was made to have? You aren't going to fill the gas tank in your car with water, right?

I have noticed many articles making appearances on Facebook in the recent months trying to scare people into eating healthy. I like scare tactics, they're fun, but they don't seem to be effective. If they were, nobody would smoke cigarettes. So, I urge you to do your research about what you are putting into your body, before you do. If you wouldn't feed it to your small child, chances are, you shouldn't be eating it.

Below are some articles I find interesting and potentially helpful to read before your next trip to the grocery store. While I'm thinking of grocery stores, a good rule of thumb is to buy most of, if not all, your groceries from the outside aisles of the store. This will include the "fresh" stuff: produce, dairy, eggs, bakery bread, etc. The inner aisles carry the highly processed, overly sugared, boxed 'food' that more often than not contains ingredients only scientists can pronounce. I don't know about you, but I don't want a scientist making my food.

For your reading pleasure:

things Americans can eat, but other countries ban

some scary stuff in common foods

**I was going to post a link for how horrible artificial dyes are, but there are too many! It will require it's own post. Stay tuned.

engage your core

Today I was in a fitness class and we were talking about the midsection and abs and how to keep things nice and tight, especially after babies. Everyone has tried countless sit ups, crunches, etc. to get a flat stomach, but there are only so many back bending, floor laying exercises one can do before deciding it's boring and giving up.

A common phrase shouted out during fitness classes, is "engage your core!" this means to essentially flex your stomach. Suck it in like you're in a bikini (speedo?) and the most attractive person you've ever seen is looking your way. Now, stay like this throughout your workout, but remember to breathe. This is going to help move the toning process along. Another way to think of it is to draw your belly button back towards your spine. Give it a try.

The beautiful thing about engaging your core is that you can do it all the time. Stuck in traffic? Engage your core. Walking the dog? Engage your core. Sitting at your computer at work? Engage your core. You get the point, you can always be doing something to enhance your level of fitness. In fact, if you are stuck sitting at a desk job, or just a desk, or in a chair, give this exercise a try: engage your core and lift your right foot (keep knee bend ninety degrees) off the ground for a count of three, and lower it back down for a count of three. Repeat with your left foot. Do this ten times with each foot. Do this several times a day if you fancy...happy core engaging!

crossfit--not for everyone

Like most people interested in fitness, I have been hearing, seeing, and reading about Crossfit in vast abundance over the last few years. I've stumbled upon the Crossfit Games on TV, seen the crossfitters running short distances down the street just to go back into the gym to perform some seemingly crazy maneuvers, and I've clicked on links posted on Facebook warning people of the dangers of Crossfit and how it will most definitely ultimately end in serious injury or death. So, what's a girl to do? Try it out, of course!

This past Saturday I joined my new pal Lindsay at her gym for "Share the Pain."  Crossfit North Marin welcomed newbies with open arms to sweat and grunt and Burpee their way to a healthier place. I thought about coming home straight after the experience and writing about it, but decided I needed to let the workout settle in and give myself time to digest it all before judging it. 

I had a blast during the workout and the coach (I want to say Travis) was wonderful! All of the people at CFNM were welcoming and super helpful, eager to show the new weakling how to decipher the code on the white board. I gathered that people are encouraged to test and push themselves to reach new personal records, but do so safely. It was a far cry from all of the preconceived notions I went in to the class with. I wanted to lift heavier like the other ladies (who, by the way, are phenomenal she-women who manage to look incredibly beautiful while lifting weights that would make the average man look like a total pussy), but because my heavy weight-lifting days have long passed, I was the small girl in the back using a bar with no weight plates. I felt like an idiot. Nobody else noticed, so I eventually got over it \and got a killer workout in. 

I guess the point to all my rambling is to go ahead and give it a try! Don't go in expecting to keep up with the rest of them, go in with an open mind, and bring water, a lot of it!  

yoga--give it a try

I was introduced to yoga in college and fell in love. It was a brief affair that ended rather abruptly when I decided it was boring and all the spandex was uncomfortable. This was before the days of LuLu Lemon and cute yoga pants that you can see in mass quantities everywhere from the school drop off line to the grocery store. It was sweats and gaucho pants. It was camel toe and stinky feet. You get the point. It wasn't hip yet. Pilates was, so I dropped yoga and switched my mat in for a thicker one.

Anyhow, in the last few years I've began picking up my practice again. Sidebar: it has always irritated me how yoga is referred to as practice--I have no idea why, but it does. I revisited yoga in 2011 when I was pregnant with Norah, the little darling was breech and laying right on my sciatic nerve. It sucked. I started with YouTube videos and a DVD I bought back in college when yoga studios weren't conveniently located next door to every Starbucks on every street corner. I filled the third trimester days with yoga, then quite once the baby came. I picked it up once again this past pregnancy and have stuck with it. It has been almost a year of several times a week sessions and I really do feel great!

This article lays out five health benefits of yoga that you may not know about. You don't need to go to a fancy yoga studio or pay for classes in the park, you can check out DVDs from the library, watch for free on YouTube, even check out on demand. I haven't seen any on Netflix, but Amazon Prime has some decent ones. You will be able to see what movements and poses work for you and which ones cause pain. You will begin to see a change in your strength and flexibility along with many other things.

Give it a try, it may be boring at first, but it will bring some positivity and balance to your life and fitness regime. Just because you aren't dripping buckets of sweat doesn't mean it isn't benefiting your body.

it's not as expensive as you think

People so often complain about the high cost of healthy foods and blame the obesity problem on that, well, there was a nice comprehensive study done that blows that right out of the water! Here is a nice morning read for you all.

Yes, eating "healthy" will cost you a small bit more, but it isn't going to break the bank in most cases. This isn't to say that there may be the person who legitimately cannot afford to spend an extra two dollars a day, but when you consider the health benefits that those two dollars will give you and all the money on medical bills and expenses it will save you, it seems totally worth it to me! 

healthy habits cheat sheet

Working out three to five days a week for at least an hour is not a realistic thing for many people for varying reasons. Maybe they don't have time, perhaps they lack the desire, whatever the reason may be, that is still no excuse to not get healthy. Below are some simple changes one can make to stay on the road to healthy.

eat within an hour of waking up--even if it is something small, like a handful of nuts, put something healthy in your body to get your metabolism awake and working. You have been fasting overnight (hence break-fast) and your body needs that kick start to get going again. 

drink more water--think you drink enough water? Probably not. Drink more. Do you drink coffee, soda, juice and other non water beverages? You want to counter each sugary or caffeinated beverage with the same volume of water (ex: 16oz coffee means you need an additional 16oz of water) in addition to your normal recommended intake. The more water you drink, the more water your body will get rid of as waste and will aid in weight loss. "Water Weight" stays on when you are dehydrated and your body is literally hanging on to all the water you put in because it doesn't know when you will be getting more. The more you put in, the more you will put out. The color of your urine is an excellent indicator of hydration--the darker it is, the more water you should drink.

get moving--invest in a pedometer, be it an app on your phone, a cheap one that clips to your belt or a fancy pants FitBit or BodyMedia monitor (more on this in another post to come). Set goals for yourself with number of steps you would like to take each day, wear the pedometer for a normal day and check the steps at the end. Try to do better the next day. Then even better the following. You'll be surprised at how quickly those steps add up!

portion awareness--I've decided that portion control is an art form and I am not the world's best artist. To help myself, I started putting snacks in a small bowl from Ikea and eating slowly. In an ideal world, you'd just stop eating potato chips and fried, fatty snacks, but I understand that isn't a reality for everyone, so let's compromise. Look at the nutrition label and pick out the number of items allowed for one serving. Put it in a bowl. After asking yourself if those seven chips are worth the 150 calories, eat just the serving size. Want more? Go back to the bag and repeat. The key thing here is to stop snacking directly out of the bag, especially in front of the TV or computer.

Start with the four tips above and you'll be on the road to healthy! Are all four too zealous? Pick one and stick with it for a week, then add one more, etc. you'll be a much healthier person in about a month! 

Stay tuned for more simple ways to improve your health and happiness! Contact me at brittanydevitatraining@gmail.com with any questions or topics you'd like to see covered.

get a little more junk in your trunk

The following workout is designed for my fellow ass-less sisters. It will take some time, and it will hurt at first, but you will see results, and you your butt will look wonderful in your jeans and bikini this summer! 

This workout is meant to do anywhere, without any equipment. If you do have dumbbells handy, hold them while performing the squats and lunges. For the squats, you're going to hold the weight in your hands with your hands between your legs and arms straight. For the lunges, you're going to hold one weight in each hand with your arms straight down on either side of your body. 

Enjoy!

running, continued.

In case you missed my awesome running schedule, here it is again, in a much more pinner-friendly form.

Now that you are confident in your ability to begin running and make it a welcomed part of your weekly workout routine, we need to talk about stretching.

Stretching, be it super annoying and kind of time consuming, is extremely important to your body when you do all forms of exercise, but it is exceptionally detrimental to the runner's body. Static (still, not moving) stretches should be held for 30 seconds to 2 minutes depending on the stretch and how you feel in it, and static (moving) stretches should be counted in repetitions (reps) and can be anywhere from 2-10 reps depending on your level of activity and soreness. 

I have found that the verdict is still out on whether one should stretch before or after a workout. Google it. Some people feel you should not work out on cold muscles while others say you definitely should not stretch a cold muscle. I stretch after I run, but I use my first half mile to one mile to build up to the pace I will carry the remainder of the run. I'm not sure the level of truth here, or if my reasoning makes sense to any one other than yours truly, but I feel like gradually warming up the muscles will let me run further and longer than I would be able to had I gone balls to the wall straight out of the gate. 

Some people chose to stretch the entire body beforehand, run how they chose, and stretch again. I call these people over achievers. Who has that kind of time? The following is a chart of some simple stretches that will have you ready to go after your run and help relieve soreness in the beginning. You'll still be sore, it's part of the running thing, but this will help. 

Enjoy, friends!