First of all, you must know that I am going crazy without sweat in my life.  I MISS it!  I miss Insanity!  I miss not being able to catch my breath, working out so hard I feel like I’m going to fall over and never get up… muscles aching… sweat pouring… I’m dying!  I’m tring to be so careful, and I’m still hurting   I caved– here’s how stupid I am:  I was having a pretty rough afternoon yesterday, and even though my brain knew I was headed for trouble, I did a Turbo Fire HIIT workout (the 20 minute one).  I’m telling you, I was so desperate!  I had so much emotion and anxious energy to burn and just had to do something.  Needless to say, my right buttock (or is it buttocks?  is the right side just one buttock?  I’ll have to research this) anyway, my right glute hurts, and now I’ve got radiating pain down the side of my leg.  My stupid sacrum.  Stupid getting old body.  I hate you!  I  hate you!  Why can’t you just cooperate!?

On a sad note:  my dear friend threw out her back doing Chalene Extreme.  Yes, the one I encouraged her to borrow (after it threw my back out, and my sisters).  Sounds like negligence?  Well, I just had no idea. I feel so terrible for her!

What’s up, Chalene?!  Why is your video ruining people’s backs!

I’m betting she doesn’t want to talk about it.

If you or someone you know has thrown out your back doing Chalene Extreme, call me.

I’m still battling back pain.  It’s mild now, but all my attempts to exercise result in lots of tightness and increased pain. I have SI joint instability, and given that my SI joint is a little ligament in the middle of my sacrum, it’s not like I can tighten that baby up.  When my SI joint gets out of wack, my muscles get all spazzy.  But, then again, maybe my muscles get all spazzy from exercise or moving wrong, and it pulls my ligaments out of wack. Who knows…  I KNOW I have to tighten up my core… but I have to find ways to do that without making my muscles freak out.  It’s a balancing act… and I’m going to be super patient, and go real slow.

I’m currently doing restorative yoga workouts, and low back yoga videos.  I cannot tell you how incredible it feels to fully relax and let go for a half hour or so.  Being a mom of 4 kids, working all week long, trying to keep it all together takes its toll on me mentally, and the total relaxation of my brain is SOOO helpful.  I highly encourage taking time to de-stress with some yoga.  I signed up for www.myyogaonline.com and for 9.95 a month you get unlimited video access.  It’s totally worth the money.

My mind wants my body to go back to insanity, but my back needs care right now.  It’s humbling.  I just won’t give up.

Namaste

I am suffering from an acute attack of low back pain.  I bought Chalene Extreme and was a little too excited when doing my oblique work.  My back was so not ready for that.  I’m in what I’d consider severe pain, so I’m icing, resting, doing a wee bit of stretching, and going to my favorite chiropractor 3x’s a week.  I have been out of work because I cannot sit without pain.  Walking is problematic too, but I’m forcing myself to get up and move every hour.

I’m throwing some recovery formula into my water, hoping some of those muscle healing/repairing elements will actually do something in a good way.  I was severely depressed yesterday, and all I wanted to do was numb the pain with meds that would conk me out. I’m feeling a lot more positive today, knowing that within 4-6 weeks I’ll be feeling just fine.

I thank God I do not have a chronic, life-long, debilitating disease or condition.  This is only temporary.  I think about people who suffer spinal cord injuries, or have degenerative diseases and I just want to weep for them.  I can’t imagine having a brain that wants to make your body get up and run, jump, play, and work… with a body that cannot cooperate.  What would it be like to need someone to turn pages in a book for you, carry you to the living room, drive you from place to place?  How could you maintain a sense of self-worth or dignity?  It just shows me that the real key to enjoyment does not lie in what our bodies are capable of, what we’re able to do, or how much we accomplish.  It’s something internal and spiritual.  I always think about what type of person I would be if I were stripped of EVERYthing I hold so dear to me.  Would I be able to love, laugh, or experience joy again?  I believe I could… but not without a lot of tears and anger first.

I know this is depressing, but I think it’s important that we take a good hard look at where and what we’re drawing our self-worth from.  Part of exercise and diet is about those key elements.  Why do we do what we do?  To feel and look good, right?  For health… longevity…sanity… if we couldn’t exercise, how would we develop these?  Can we learn the art of contentment without gaining what we consider to be “perfection”?

“Lord, strip me of everything that is not of you, and mold the rest into something You find beautiful.  Then teach me to see it as such.”

One HUGE benefit of eating well and getting lots of exercise is that PMS symptoms can be almost eliminated altogether.  I have horrible pms in the January-March months of the year… which is entirely due to those being the months that I eat the worst and exercise the least all year.

Here are some symptoms I’ve noticed all but go away:

cramps, irritability, mood-swings, fatigue, cravings for salty, sweet and fatty foods, … anyone want to add to the list?

I’m asking some women to join me in combating their PMS by taking a 30 day challenge to eating well and getting plenty of exercise.

I just ordered Chalene Extreme for my personal collection of workout programs from Team Beachbody because my sister Amy keeps going on and on about how much she LOVES it.  Also, it’s on sale this month, so I couldn’t resist.  30-minutes a day.  Lots of muscle building and fat-burning workouts.  I can definitely do 30 minutes each morning.  I could get an extra half hour to 45 minutes of sleep!

So the challenge is to eliminate junk food (let yourself eat a LITTLE bit so you’re not completely denying yourself— that’s how you end up binging and quitting!) and get plenty of exercise.  Aim for 30-minutes a day.  Do this for a month and see how much of a difference you see in your mood, energy levels, and quality of sleep.  I am dying to hear if your PMS symptoms are alleviated.  (for those of you who are pushing 40 like me, I hear pms gets a lot worse before menopause)

And if I were you I’d add Shakeology to my daily diet.  It is AWESOME stuff!  You will LOVE it.  And if you don’t like it, there’s a money back guarantee.  Just go to my teambeachbody website, or Amy’s to order some.  We can even give you a discount if you’re really nice to us.

I use Results and Recovery drink to get through my morning workouts.  It is the ONLY way I get through my workouts at 530 in the morning.  It gives me SO much energy to get through an hour of Insanity, or even an hour and a half of P90x.  I could NEVER workout in the morning without it.  I HIGHLY recommend it!

The other thing I completely rely on is the p90x protein bars.  I LOVE the wildberry yogurt.  I drink Shakeology for bfast, eat half a bar for my mid-morning snack, then I eat the other half for my snack at around 3 or 4.

Comment and let me know if you’re with me this month!  Get happy!  Get energized!  Join me!

FOCUS.  FOCUS. FOCUS.

What’s your goal?

How are you going to reach your goal?

What sacrifices are you willing to make?  How’re you going to find that time each day?

Go to bed earlier so you can get up before work?   Sacrifice that time you spend sitting on the couch in the evening, flipping channels, browsing facebook?

NO MORE excuses!  Set your goal, focus on your goal, and DO IT!

Take a few minutes once a day to chill out, give yourself some deep breaths, and set your mind on what you want to achieve.  You can DO THIS!

If Bill can get up at 4:30 every morning to work out, ANYONE can do it!

BRING IT!!!

Its here! The holidays are officially over. Do you feel gross and lazy? Are all your pants too tight? That is what most of America is feeling today! I didn’t eat well, but I didn’t go crazy and most importantly I didn’t really gain. Shakeology really kept me from doing that I think – and I hear they might be doing a vanilla version which I am SO excited about!

So whats your plan? Your goals? Start exercising every day, eating better? Sure that’s everyones plan – but be specific. Setup what you *can* acheive and slowly build on it over time. Here are my workouts and what I think:

Chalean Extreme – my absolute FAVORITE workout. It works the whole body and has 3 phases. Her diet isn’t nearly as hard as the p90x diet.

Turbo Fire – lots of cardio, not much strength training – but if you need to burn calories, this is the one for you

P90X – really great strength workout – the legs dont get focused on as much and cardio isn’t as good as Chalean IMO. Your arms and abs will be in great shape!

Nikki has done insanity and loves it, looks too hard on my knees to be honest! I would definitely start shakeology if you haven’t! Signup to be a coach and save 25% or earn money from others buying it.

Good luck and GET MOVING!