Eat Right While Traveling

I can’t wait until Friday! We will be headed to Indianapolis at 6am to attend the IAHE Convention! I need to sit down and plan my curriculum agenda so I can navigate the vendor hall confidently. If I’ve learned anything over the last 12 years about conventions, is to have a plan before you get there. You can so easily become overwhelmed with all the books, videos and curriculum choices.

I thought I would share with you our meal plans while we are there so you can see that eating whole foods is still possible even though you are away from home. Read more

Out of Disk Space

I didn’t manage to get my workout in yesterday. I ran out of disk space on my webhost site and didn’t know how to increase it. I fiddled around with it too long before sending an SOS to support.

I ended up doing the Pyramid Pulse II workout today. Everyone else on this challenge is enjoying a week of easier workouts while I am playing catch up.

School has been on schedule this week. I spent the last two weeks drilling the days of the week into my little girls’ heads using the Adams Family theme song. So, we took this week off and just let them play.

They are still singing the song and moving the hungry caterpillar along the wall where I put large labels for each day. I really enjoyed this unit study.

My husband was really surprised at my grocery shopping savings yesterday. It was fun to see the look on his face. So, now I will attempt to do even better next week. I have a lot to learn about coupon stacking and such, but my competitive spirit will get me through the learning curve.

Here were the meals today:

#1: 1/2 cup cottage cheese, frozen blueberries, 12 almonds and a cup of coffee
#2: Post workout shake of 1 scoop protein powder, frozen blueberries, 1/4 cup coconut milk and 1 cup water.
#3: Leftover chicken soup from last night’s dinner.
#4: apple and almonds
#5: Teriyaki pork butt roast, steamed broccoli drizzled with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and walnuts
#6: Protein pudding

Sneaky Fitness For Kids

We had a very unusual warm day last week. I wanted to take advantage of the chance to get the kids outside and moving.

Exercise for kids should not be like ours. They need to have fun, move and play. This is how physical education is done at the Ramos house.

Get outside and play with your kids. Create some awesome memories. Read more

IAHE Homeschool Convention

I am looking forward to attending this convention.  I haven’t been to a convention in two years.  Life has been pretty hectic with my husband’s travel schedule, my boot camps and tumbling competitions.  This year put my foot down and demanded we go.  Okay, so I whined a little, but we’re going! 

There are going to be some wonderful workshops on college that my teenager wants to attend.  I will officially have all my kids homeschooling next year.  My 3 year old will be working with my 5 year old, although somewhat modified.  I will have a middle schooler and my high schooler will be completing her last year of school.  Wow!  Time sure flies!

If any of you are attending the Indy convention, please let me know.  I would love to meet you.

Hugs~~

Grocery Savings

My husband and I decided to start following Dave Ramsey’s, Total Money Makeover.  We’re already on a roll by getting our emergency fund saved and actually bit off a bit of our credit card debt.  It’s pretty exciting. 

My biggest obstacle has been the grocery bill.  I used to be rather good at spending only $60 every two weeks for groceries, but I just haven’t paid much attention to what I’m spending lately with my busy-ness and I was shocked to discover that one month our bill totalled over $700!  So, I was on a mission today to see if I could stay within a $150 budget.  Now, I know there are women out there who spend a lot less on their weekly grocery bill, but you got to start somewhere.  Read more

47 Fat Loss Tips

I was asked to particpate as a guest blogger in my friend Marci Lall’s fat loss tips post. This is a great resource for any woman looking to lose body fat. Be sure and watch Marci’s very entertaining video.

Here’s the link to the post: http://www.marcilall.com/fitness/march-madness-47-fat-loss-tips-for-women#more-946

Hugs~~

Get Tank Top Ready with Marci Lall

Marci Lall, of TheMaximumWeightLossReport.com, shares his 5 Tips for getting Tank Top Ready in this very entertaining video. Thanks Marci!! Read more

March Workout of the Month

Ladies, ready for some more action? Here’s the new workout for the month:

Grab a timer and some dumbbells: You will perform each exercise back to back without any rest until your timer goes off. Rest 1 minute between each superset.

Superset A: Go for 5 minutes

DB Squats x 10
V-ups x 10

Rest 1 Minute

Superset B: Set timer for 5 minutes
DB Russian Deadlifts x 10
Military Presses x 10

Rest 1 Minute

Superset C: Set timer for 5 minutes
Push Ups x 10
DB Swings x 10

Enjoy! Post your progress on your personal pages. I love to hear how you’re doing.

Dieting Spells Disaster - Part I

Most women believe that in order to lose weight the first thing they need to do is eat less and move more. In a way this is true, but there really is more science behind that. What typically happens is women eat maybe 1 or 2 meals a day, drastically reducing their caloric intake and then adding a walk in for exercise. They may see the scale move but what are they really losing? I bet you’ll be surprised. Read on…

Your body’s metabolism is the key to losing unwanted body fat. When working with women, I am not concerned about their weight as much as the level of body fat they are carrying around. A healthy bodyfat level to be at is between 19-25%. Most women who have dieted for years will find themselves at 30% or more. Those are dangerous levels that invite disease into their bodies. Although they may have lost 50 lbs. of body weight, they may still be at 30% body fat and at risk for heart disease, Type II diabetes and other ailments.

How can they be at risk when they wear a size 8 dress pant? Because they never lost bodyfat while dieting. They lost body water and precious lean muscle mass.

Lean muscle mass is the main manipulator of your metabolism. The more lean muscle mass you have the more calories you burn at rest. When your metabolism is humming along at a strong rate, it does not need to use bodyfat for energy. It’s alive and functioning at optimum levels. Fat that is stored on your body for energy is not needed and your body lets it go. You continue to build strong, lean muscles and your metabolism gets stronger and faster, you indeed get leaner, stronger, toned and full of energy. This is the picture of health and vitality.

Now take the woman who is dieting. She is eating 3 meals a day and not focused on the right type of exercises. She’ll go for a walk around the block. It works for about 1 month. She’s dropped 5 pounds. She’s excited!

Month 2 rolls around and the scale has stopped moving, she cuts her 3 meals into smaller portions and adds another block to her walk. The scale finally drops again. She’s excited!

Month 3 rolls around and the scale has not moved or has gone up. Yikes! She drops to 2 meals a day, adds another block to her walk and an exercise video.

Month 4 comes too quickly. She sees the scale move again so she cuts calories even more and increases her walk for a full 2 hours every day. She’s tired, frustrated and wondering why this is not working?

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The only way for her to keep the scale moving is to continue to decrease calories and increase the amount of time spent on low, steady state exercise. Is she really losing fat? No, she is losing water and precious metabolic boosting muscle that is why she has to continue decreasing calories to see change. If she continues on this path, she will lower her metabolic rate to such a level that her body will go into panic mode and begin conserving every morsel of food that enters as bodyfat so it will have the energy just to function.

The result is a cranky, tired, moody, flabby, and frustrated woman. I know, I’ve been there.

Ladies, I want you to know the truth. The scale is not your friend. You have been lied to for years. There’s even a tv show dedicated to keeping these lies alive (Biggest Loser Challenge) where your worth is determined by a number on the scale! How have we as a society allowed this to happen? Satan has been at work!

God made you in His image. You are a beautiful, strong, and vibrant woman. Don’t allow Satan to get a foothold in your mind. Oh how I wish I could give you all hugs right now!

Here is the picture of a woman on the right path:

She determines why she wants to accomplish this goal of being healthy and full of energy.

She enlists the help of her husband and children.

She puts together a plan of action including how to deal with obstacles that will be thrown her way. Her plan does include strength and interval training as the core of the program.

She also determines her caloric intake and creates meal plans for the week.

She cleans out her cupboard of all manmade, adulterated foods and buys food in their original God created package.

She gets connected with other women who are doing the same steps (this site of course!) and stays accountable no matter what happens to try and bump her off course.

All her workouts are scheduled in for each week just like math and english class. She sticks to her workouts because she is full of determination.

Each week she discovers how much better she feels. Her clothes are getting loser, she is getting more flexible and full of energy. She finds herself hungry more often because her metabolism is on fire. She has more lean mass so she can eat more food, quite the opposite of the dieting woman. She does not suffer from mood swings, turbulent hormone levels or bloating due to eating whole foods.

Does she know how much she weighs? Does it really matter if she is feeling this strong and vibrant?

This is what I want for you. I will elaborate more on how to stop dieting for life in another post. This one ended up way longer than I intended.

Hugs~~

A 12 Week Challenge

I have agreed to become a guinea pig in Jon Le Tocq’s newest 12 week fitness program. Jon is the founder of www.StormForceFitness.com. Although I cannot divulge the specifics of the program, I will be giving updates on my progress or pain, whichever is most appropriate for the day.

As part of a cardio test, today included a 5K which was absolutely awful for me. I am hardly an endurance athlete as most of my training has been sprinting over the last two years. I’m embarrased to say it took me 35:20 minutes to complete the endurance portion of the workout. Ugh! Read more