Getting my eating in check.

Summer time is here and I am slowly falling off the healthy wagon. It happens every summer doesn't it? I am ready to get back on the train though so that I can feel better about myself. Of course I am going to make the best choices that I can but IT IS the 4th of July holiday weekend and that calls for a few drinks! I have been working like crazy 2 overnight days this week which is really stressing me out because my son is here on vacation and has been since Sunday but I feel almost as if I have not been home at all. Not to mention he plays with his brother all the time so it makes it a bit like we are never in the same place at the same time. I am READY to be home.

We have plans to go to the beach and to watch fireworks here in town (traffic permitting) I can so anxious to be able to get out of work and to actually spend some quality time with my family as I feel like I have been working non stop. I think I have seriously been at work more than I have been home this week.

So needless to say I have a little bit of time on my hands so I have made a meal plan for myself for the next two weeks. Keep in mind that I don't mind eating the same thing every day and I am probably going to change things around in the dinner department because my mother is home and she cooks dinner so I will be more than happy to accept the break and REALLY jump on the train when she leaves.

Without further ado here is my meal plan.

I plan on attempting to take pictures of what all I am eating so that you can see but I am not that great at remembering stuff like that ha ha. I just am so hungry and ready to eat that well........I just eat it.

Soon I will be updating you all on what workouts I am doing. I am really excited to share and to be doing something different even though it makes me rather nervous to do something out of my comfort zone that I know works.

How to: Reading nutrition labels

I know that not everyone eats so fresh and clean and some people rely on nutrition labels to buy their food products.

I personally advocate eating less things in a box with a nutrition label but no one is perfect, not even me so let's get to your little lesson on nutrition labels.


Serving size: This is the serving size for 1 SERVING and lists how many servings there are in the package of whatever you buy. When you are eating overly processed or higher calorie no good for you foods, the serving sizes are going to be ridiculous. I mean have you seen how many chips are in a serving size for Lay's. let's get real people NO ONE eats an ounce or has a king size bag and saves the rest for later. PUHLEASE not even I do that! NOM NOM get in my face!

Calories: This one is pretty obvious. It tells you how many calories are in each SERVING of the food that you are eating. So is 200 calories for 12 chips worth it to you? I mean it may be. Maybe it won't that day. Who knows but that is the calorie count for ONE SERVING.

Fats/Sodium: This is where you want to be careful. Anything over 200 mg of sodium is TOO HIGH and is going to cause some serious bloat factor. It will cause water retention and all sorts of things. Be careful even when buying vegetables in a can, beans in a can or tomato sauces and such because the preservatives that they put in these things can be EXTREMELY high. Also beware of soups and stocks, these usually carry about 600+ milligrams of sodium and if you are trying to watch your weight you can be assured that if you aren't drinking a gallon of water a day you will probably gain a pound or two and wonder why the next morning.

Fat is just that, fat. Most things always have fat in them but the higher the percentage of fat in your foods the more calories it has and the more calories from fat it has as well. Fat isn't always a bad thing, if we are talking about avocados and peanut butter or olive oil these are good for you fats BUT should be used in moderation because it WILL make you FAT.

Fiber: You want to have fiber in your food. It helps in the digestive process. It creates somewhat of a ball and rolls through your intestines getting rid of all the gunk that is in there out. Fiber also helps to make you regular. 

Nutrients: This is where your vitamins and minerals are and you should be getting enough of those as well. If you are eating raisins per say your nutrients are going to be higher in this area than if you were eating chips. (I swear I am not a chip hater ha ha)

If you want to figure out where all of your calories are coming from in your meals you can take the grams of each component carbohydrates, fats, and protein and use this equation to see where your calories are going


FAT - 9 calories per gram
CARBOHYDRATE: 4 calories per gram
PROTEIN: 4 Calories per gram

This way you can see where your calories are going and you can judge your food from there. I always say that the best policy is to eat food without a nutrition label that way you are the safest you can be. We all know that we aren't all perfect so I hope you take this information and absorb it :)


Until next time!!!!

Jeannette

Janurary 21 Day Challenge Group

I have done challenge groups before and I have noticed a trend in the participation and excitement happening in about the first 30 days of the challenge. It happens, life gets in the way and it challenges you and either you push through or you don't and sometimes having a 60 or 90 day challenge is HARD to commit to. I mean who knows where you are going to be in 90 days or what is going to be happening. SO I am going to start monthly 21 day challenge groups to help people who want to start their health and fitness lifestyle and stick with you long enough to make this a habit for you!

The challenge starts on January 20


So what do you get?


21 day meal plan
Grocery list
Recipes
Tips/tricks
Motivation
Support Group 
Free coaching by me
Private group to voice all your concerns, ask questions, and communicate with others with the same goals as you.

Here are some pictures of people that have participated in challenge groups 

If you are interested in joining a challenge group please email me at jeannettealverio@yahoo(dot)com and I will email you with more information! I only have 5 spots available and they fill up fast so don't wait!! 

Ultimate Reset D3

Ultimate Reset day 3

Today was pretty uneventful. I wasn't able to sleep well, my son came in our room and he as a cold so that set off the evening cough attack which kept scaring me awake so I was groggy when I woke up this morning, everything was good, I ate my coconut quinoa again because I didn't have the time for the kale to cook and I am not really a veggie in the morning person unless it is to put peppers and onions in my eggs. For lunch I had a microgreen salad with a lentil lime salad and pumpkin seeds which was eh ok......the dressing is what is killing me lol and I had the southwestern tacos again tonight for dinner because I had a double batch of rice and needed to use it. Today was "sushi" day and I am NOT a fan of sushi so I just skipped the meal. You can skip the meal and replace it with another dinner in the week. This is the only one I will be changing up and tomorrows lunch has the sushi in it too so I am having a Greek salad minus the chicken this time with the rest of the lentil lime salad that I had left over.

The supplements are easy to take and really easy to remember so it's not rocket science like some other cleanses that I have seen that have so much going on you just don't know what to do with yourself lol. Here is a picture of what it looks like.

I went out after work to run errands and I felt really tired today. I could barley carry my bag or my son to get out of the rain. He is very old enough to walk but to "hurry" I tried to carry him and it was NOT working. Even though I feel fine at a rested state doing too much makes me feel really fatigued. I guess that was the side effect for the day. The same thing happened when I carried him to school this morning it was the weirdest thing. I was also pretty cranky this afternoon but it was more of my hubbies attitude with me that rubbed me the wrong way more than me feeling cranky. I am just leaving that one alone....not worth it. LOL

Well if you are interested in the reset and need some more information on it you can email me at jeannettealverio(at)yahoo(dot)com and I will be more than willing to answer any of your questions.  I figured I would give you (and myself) some motivational pictures so that you can also see where people ended up at their 21 day mark!

How awesome are those results! Love them!

Why it has to come to an end

Being at my challenge group training this weekend really opened my eyes to a lot of things. Since I have started training for a competition a number of things have happened.

I started training in December and it was really on a whim, I am a girl that totally does these things. Act now deal with the consequences later, yup that would be me. Ever since I have started in December the Money Monster has come and bit me in the rear end. With competiting I knew that there was money involved I just didn't realize how much! Long story short I have been dead broke and giving my money away to competition. My grocery bill also went up to about double because I have been eating out my fridge every week which is a good thing but one thing at a time you know?

I have been praying for God to give me direction on where I wanted to go with my life. I wanted to know if Beachbody, Photography, or just the Guard was my answer I was ready and willing to take whatever he gave me. So in the past thirty days my business has been booming and I can't be any happier. I am a true beliver that God will work in a way that he sends you signs and you just have to be willing to see them. My sign was this YOUARE BROKE AND YOUR BUSINESS IS STARTING TO TAKE OFF. I made it to Pittsburg in the midst of a blizzard and made it back home in time for work. It dawned on me the morning after I got to Pittsburg. The reason I am there is the way that I need to go. Some of you may think it's crazy but here's the thing I believe it and that is all that matters.

In December I also made a vision board and as you can see a fitness competition was NOT even on my vision board.....it's not something that I REALLY wanted to do. I wanted to take this year to travel with my husband and to see family and to save the money to do that.

So where am I going with this? Well, I am going to quit the competition because it doesn't align with my goals or my wallet. Competing has a heft price tag that I am not willing to give away. I have other things that I want to do with my time and money. In addition to that while the CSF meal plan is AMAZING I found myself getting overly obsessive about the food I ate and felt bad if I ate some popcorn in the evening and was always left with guilt. It was not something that was worth me worrying over. I am truly happy with my size and my weight and love being in "maintenence" mode. NOW wanna hear something crazy and which is another SIGN that was shown to me;

While I was at Kati's house this weekend she told me that Body Beast (a Beachbody workout) was hosting a fitness competition in Las Vegas and it is 1.) Free and 2.) I don't have to buy an expensive $200 bathing suit to participate. All I have to do is pay for airfare and a hotel room for the evening. If that isn't a sign.......wait a minute Jesus you are telling me that I can prosper in my business, use own of my products that cost me $68 for three months versus $79/ month plus $1500-$2000 to compete and do it for about $400 total......I think I am going to think about this. In the mean time I am going to order Body Beast and keep competition on the side burner and see what happens, if I don't compete at least I can look like a competition girl for less money and on my terms.......

Why it works!

I have been drinking this stuff called Shakeology for over a year now and I can say nothing bad about it! I love it so much and so glad that it is part of my daily life! I don't have cravings anymore, I have been able to maintain my weight, I don't get bloated and best of all I know that I am giving my body all natrual ingredients to keep it running at top performance. Another great thing is that I HAVE NOT BEEN SICK this winter or the one prior to that! I know that with out it I would have to supplement my body with so much more. I don't have to worry about OMEGA-3's fish oil and a multi-vitamin it's all in there! Can't beat that! :) See for yourself.

Tips on healthy eating

I am currently running a 30 day eat clean challenge on Facebook for friends of mine that currently want to learn how to better eat healthy and how to decrease their grocery budget. So far it has been a HIT and there are so many people that are gaining clarity on what a healthy lifestyle is. It truly warms my heart when people tell me about their changes toward a healthier lifestyle! I digress, I apologize I am just SO happy for my challengers!

I know that there are many people that don't understand this "lifestyle" and I wanted to share my 2 cents on what it really is and how it is not a diet. So I created a little tip list that I have used to help me out and now I pass it along to you :)

Start building every meal with a lean protein- eggs, turkey breast, chicken breast, lean red meat, bison, game meats, fish, shellfish. You can have protein drinks and I would limit them to no more than 2 times per day.

Eat your veggies - Eat at least 5-6 servings of vegetables (non-starchy carbs). One for every meal or snack or two different vegetables for each meal. Refer to the food list in the tabbed section of the blog. 

Eat at least 2 fruits per day

Eat whole grain carbohydrates but keep them at a minimum. If you work out a lot than you can have more but keeping them at a minimum in your daily diet is ideal.

Eat mostly foods that are natural. Did this food come from a tree, farm, plant, ground, did it walk fly or swim? Then you can have it, if not then you shouldn't. Same goes with labels if you cannot pronounce the name of the foods than it is PROCESSED.

Eat 5-6 times a day with a meal or snack every two to four hours.

Follow the 90/10 rule. Keep your good nutrition 90% of the time while the other 10 gives you room to indulge and keep this lifestyle

Hurricane Sandy and my 5K pictures

Well since I live in he Cape Cod/Boston area we were advised to take today off. Well work gave us the day off but my husband had to go into work and it is pretty boring. I am not going to run today since it is disgusting out, but I did my Pump and it was great to get some muscle failure work in there. I really like the program but I am bummed that I am starting Week 3 over again but it's all good they are 20 and 30 minute workouts :) 

So my day was pretty un-eventful. I have been home all day, I danced with my kiddo to some Adele. I edited some pictures for a friend of mine. She got not so great newborn shots so I wanted to take a stab at editing some of them so that killed some time. I read the Bible, listened to some Joyce Meyer and studied the references that she made in her speaking. I also did flash cards with my kiddo we made a game out of it and I found some of my running pictures online. I have to say that I look like utter doggy poo running but for my sake I am going to keep it as I didn't sleep well the night before and truthfully I didn't. So here you go some pictures of my run yesterday. :) Next time I will throw on some make up ha ha ha ha! 

I hope you all have a wonderful day! I think I am going to go watch Hart of Dixie. Anyone else watch that show? It is slowly turning into my guilty pleasure :D 

Running!!!!

I ran yesterday, it was a no Les Mills Pump Day. There are a few rest days through out the program and you literally are not doing PUMP every day. They have the FLOW and Hard Core Abs workout included in there too. SO all in all you have three days of real pump and then three days of either walking ab work or flow. It is pretty balanced. Since the girls at work like running and I needed some form of cardio and was not in the mood to add some Insanity I opted for running as well.

My love for running started pretty much when I got in the Army where running and I had a WTF relationship. WTF am I doing up at 6:30 AM to run 6 flippin miles kind of relationship! Ha ha! It was not FUN. Over time I made it into a competition and I LOVE me some competition I love to win and if I can beat one person and be faster than them than I won! SO that's how it all started by some friendly EFF this crap competition! Then I let that go because I got out of the Army and then I fell back into it when I had B and then when my marriage failed. Running was always there for me when I needed it. The last time I ran I was inspired by a Chief that worked with us. She ran and ran and ran and she got really tiny. I wanted to so the same thing minus the tiny part. What caught me with her is that she ran races. I had never run a 5K or a 10K before and I wanted to try it. So that is exactly what I did. I ran my first 5K in Kodiak in 27 minutes and then I ran a 10K and finished in 56 or 57 minutes?? and then another for the 4th of July and I did that one in 56 minutes. I didn't really TRAIN for them I just threw myself out there and ran! Well......I didn't know anything about shoes and what not and I got really bad shin splints and couldn't run for months and then winter came and didn't end until May, so here I am with an opportunity to run and I am taking it!

Now that I am into fitness I sincerely love all things fitness and my programs were starting to bore me and with everything that I had in me from being in AK all I wanted to do was run. I had read about races that I wanted to do and I even made a scrapbook goal page to go with the runs that I wanted to do. I wanted to run the Diva Half Marathon and the Disney Half Marathon. SOOOOO I am going to run both of them next year! I also found a running store that I am going to join up and do pub runs with I think it would be super fun and I would meet some friends that have the same interest as myself so I think that would be cool too!

Here are the runs that I was able to track on my runkeeper! That way I can be accountable to what I do :) and you can see what I am doing as well!

Les Mills day 3 and moody me

Yesterday was my rest day from Pump, I ran four miles on the treadmill and I have to say that it was the most boring freaking run ever! I ran on the treadmill because one of the girls that I am training is a pansy and complains all the time so it was TOOOO windy for her and TOOOO cold for her so we ran inside. That may have been my reason for such a sucky run. By the way I am a certified personal trainer and I train with my "clients" if you call it that and I don't charge them because I couldn't do that.......Yes I do think that I am selling myself short and maybe one day I will stop being so nice anyway ( I am moody today if you already can't tell). So back to the running, yes it was torture and I wanted to get off and I run faster off the treadmill than I do on the treadmill which was really weird.....I run 8.30 - 8.36 by my house and I can't get over a 6.7 on the treadmill which is about a 9:30 mile.....it is the strangest thing. Anyway something isn't calibrated and I am going to say that it is the treadmill LOL.

I was totally craving and I still am CHICKEN WINGS ( I think Bloody Mary is about to visit). One of my co-workers had some buffalo wing pretzels in her desk and shared which I thought was really nice! I totally enjoyed the handful that I ate :D and it saved me from the devil chips! They are these Rice Works chips and I can't eat one serving of them it's more like the WHOLE BAG! They are so good and thankfully they are made with brown rice and they are low in fat so that helps a bit right?!?!?!?

So today was a good day of course I am moody but the more I type the happier I am getting so maybe I need to vent right? I went to work and got off at noon which is FANTASTICAL, I got rid of some of my eBay stuff ($145!!) and I did my day two of Pump. It was the same workout that I did on day one I put more weight on there with the exception of the shoulders and the chest and tricep part where I stayed at 10 pounds like I did last week and for everything else I was comfortable at 15 pounds! I am super excited that I am stronger than I thought I was but at the same time I was working larger muscle groups so there is a huge difference there :)  I really was looking forward to my workout and was pleased that I felt everything burning which I think is an awesome thing right? I mean who wouldn't want to feel a workout in 20 minutes. Here is my before picture that I took on Wednesday and me working out :) Enjoy!!!! I think I may go out on a run to cure this mood!

What a wonderful day!!!!!!

What a wonderful day today was! Especially for today being my Monday. I went to work and I had nothing to do, so that's always nice except for the fact that I had nothing to do ALLLLL DAY LONG so that made the day drag a bit. 

I went to the gym and I had the girl that I am training to get on the scale and she told me that she lost 5 pounds!!!!!!! In a WEEK! Now on a "normal" week (every week past the first 1-2 weeks) that would be TOO much but for the beginning phases oh man that is AMAZING! I couldn't be more proud!!! I was just amazed that this girl has it in her and I certainly hope that it stays that way because she is going to look DELICIOUS when she is done!!!! I can totally say that with confidence!!!!!

Well when I got home I had THIS placed ever so nicely at the door! WOO HOO LES MILLS PUMP! I have heard a lot of great things about this workout but not so many testimonials or before and after pictures SO I HAVE a **NEW** goal! I am going to be a success story damn it so tomorrow will be "pre-season" and I am going to test out the workouts make a meal plan and get started and take this workout serious and do my runs on M-W-F I think I will totally GOOD!!!! I am excited to see what is in store for my body! I am also going to make the videos for YouTube of me working out for now I am going to commit to 3 one on the beginning, middle, and end! So we will see. This will be the third workout that I have completed with Beachbody and I am sure it won't be the last but this is going to be my workout until Jan! I will post my before photos and then I will try and blog at least once a week about my workout experience and try to add some pictures to so that way I can stay accountable to myself :D

My third bit of great news came in the mail today too! Ha ha I got my Baptism Certificate along with some pictures! How great is that? I didn't even think that I would get a certificate! It is going to go up right by my diplomas once I get them up whenever that may be! It is definitely an achievement for me. My life has seriously changed so much since I have allowed God to work in my life!I thought it was really nice for them to think of each and every one of us and totally go out of their way to do this! It was really nice and put a huge smile on my face! I am really excited!

Well the hubbs is now pumpkin carving and I totally ditched him to write this post so I am going to go ahead and wrap this up give my kiddo a bath and get ready for some Sons of Anarchy! LOVE LOVE LOVE that show.......it's getting a bit off track so I am hoping it comes back around. I like it either way :D Who am I kidding!

Instagram!

I have totally 100% have fallen in love with Instagram! I love taking pictures as it is so this was the best way to document my day through pictures. Sometimes with Facebook I think too much into a post and either don't post it or ask myself why am I posting this......? Do you ever find yourself doing that? I don't know. Anyway here are some of the things that I have been into the past few days! You can also follow me on Instagram my name is prettynena  

Cooking Cajun Chicken Pasta. YUM!

DIY Canvas painting totally inspired by my buddy Kati.

That's a lot of sweat for a bum bum workout!

I made my own headband! YAY! I should go on Etsy! :D