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Exercise Is A Lot Like Dating

10/6/2017

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Exercise can be a lot like dating.  

You try a few different versions out.  Some are pretty good and you and stick with them for a while but you maybe get bored or you just stop clicking.  Others are just ok but don't get you too excited.  A few are just terrible and you would be ok if you never tried them again. 

Then... then you find that perfect match.  You are committed!  You enjoy your time when you are doing that exercise or with that special person.  Yeah it is still work and you have to put effort into it daily but it is something you usually look forward to coming back to the next day.  Not always.  Let's be honest, we all have days don't want to workout or you don't want to put effort into your relationship.  When you are with the right person, or doing your soulmate workout those periods pass quickly.  

We just celebrated our 9 year anniversary this week.  What a blessing the past 9 years have been for both of us.   It was almost 11 years ago that we found each other and haven't looked back!  
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Nine Years in the Books
All of those 11 years we've been active, playing volleyball, running, going to the gym.  It's was about 6 years ago though that Laura found her soulmate workout, Insanity!  For me it was Focus T25 and later P90X3.  Pretty much the perfect workout for us was one that we could do in the comfort of our own home or just outside our RV!   We have been able to stay consistent and show up nearly everyday for our workouts.  
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All from working out at home
That just didn't happen for us elsewhere...

For us the gym was like that person that you are attracted to physically but just don't connect with emotionally or mentally.   We tried going and had gym memberships for years but never really accomplished anything.  

We also both dabbled with running!  I was a former cross country runner and Laura ran track.  After we graduated from college running became like that blind date that your friend set you up on.  You know it's going to be awkward and painful.  No thank you!!!

We never did try Crossfit but I could imagine that would be like taking your date out to the most expensive restaurant in town.  Then after dinner your date takes you to a big orgy where limbs and sweat are flying everywhere.  People are comparing themselves to others and walking around slapping each other on the butt!  Sorry crossfitters it's the best comparison I could come up with, I think I would actually join a crossfit gym if it was right next to my house and I had some more cash!  ​
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with those kinds of workouts.  We know a lot of people that have had a lot of success at the gym or running!  They have stayed consistent and continue to put the work in and show up everyday.  They've seen results and that's what it is all about.  
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​Fitness for us looked a little different and that has worked incredibly well for us.  I believe there is a soulmate workout and form of exercise out there for everyone.  Maybe it's dancing, maybe it's powerlifting, or maybe it's running.  If you've tried a bunch of workouts that just don't click, don't give up, just keep trying! 

I will say one other thing though that the environment (people and place) plays a big role. 
  • Maybe you like going to the gym but the one you go to has a bunch of douchey bodybuilders that are grunting all the time flexing in the mirror more than they are working out.  Don't give up on gym, just find another one with different people. 
  • Maybe you like yoga but hate doing it around other people for fear of letting out a loud fart, maybe you need to try doing it at home. 
  • Maybe you love the community of your crossfit gym but hate having to drive to workout, maybe you need to find a way to have a community around you yet can still workout from home.  
​We would love to know what you've found to be your soulmate workout!  If you haven't found one, let us know if we can help you find it!  
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Is Obesity Contagious?

6/13/2017

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I've been smacked in the face with this concept a few times in the past month so I took it as a sign that I needed to write and share my thoughts. 

Is Obesity Contagious?

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(C) Tobyotter
We think of a lot of diseases to be contagious, the flu, a cold, but what about obesity?  The American Medical Association back in 2013 actually changed it's stance on obesity and it is now classified as a disease.  If you go to the CDC website it actually states that 36.5% of Americans "have" obesity.  That word "have" struck me when I read it. 

​Philosophically that is a whole new ball game.  Now a person isn't defined by being obese, they "aren't" obese they just "have" it.  If you have something you can get rid of it, right???  That's good news!  If you have it, does that also mean that you can give it to someone?  

In 2007 researchers from Harvard published an article in The New England Journal for Medicine, The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years, that explains these concepts.  Some things that stood out were, if you have a friend that is obese that you would be 57% more likely to obese yourself.  The study didn't show that obesity was connected to geographical location.  For example if you have a neighbor or coworker that is obese they won't rub off on you as much as someone which you actually have a close relationship.
"Obesity is a social disease. And it needs a social cure." - Dr. Mark Hyman
I love this line from Mark Hyman, "Obesity is a social disease and it needs a social cure."  Unfortunately the population of the United States is heading in the wrong direction. 

As of 2015 70.7% of Americans over the age of 20 are considered overweight or obese.  If 71% of the population had a virus that was slowly killing you every government agency and medical professional would be hysterical in finding a cure.   What gives?  Why are people complacent about the disease of obesity? 

​I think it comes back to this being a social disease.  If you walk down the street or through your office building and 7 in 10 people you walk past are overweight, doesn't that skew your perception of what is normal?  Now instead of comparing yourself to the cover model on the magazine, I think people are comparing themselves to the people that are overweight or obese.  The thought likely goes through their head either consciously or subconsciously, "Well at least I'm not as fat as that person, so I must not be that bad." 

​Then you have the people that use the genetic excuse as a crutch.  The same study mentioned above found out that if a sibling became obese it raised your chances of becoming obese by 40%.  So if your friend, that you have no similar genetic information as becomes obese it increases your chances by 57% but a family member only 40%.  Wouldn't that suggest that obesity is more of a nurture disease rather than a nature disease? 

Why does this matter?

Being overweight and obese can have serious health consequences.  It can lead to things like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, gallstones, cancer and increased joint pain.  Not all overweight people will develop these diseases or will report negative biomarkers but it does raise your risk. 

​There is also a direct correlation to how overweight a person is and their activity level.  So once you get trapped in the cycle of being overweight it becomes more and more difficult to lose weight.  Your activity goes down, you burn fewer calories, you pack on more weight.  

What do we do?

First thing I think we need to start treating being overweight or obese as a disease that needs treatment.  It can't just be the way a person is...  It can't be something we ignore thinking it is just a benign condition without consequences.  

What actions do we need to take?  

I believe as individuals we need to support people where they are at!  Whether they are fit and lean or morbidly obese, we need to be there for a friends, family, and neighbors.  We need to be encouragers!  We can't wait for someone else to take action, you need to be the one!  The one that gets moving!  The one that cuts out a lot of the junk food!  The one that eats more veggies!  Do it with joy!  Be contagious with your healthy behaviors!  

That's why I love so much what we do!  We get to be those influencers!  More importantly we try to encourage others to pay it forward, to pass along what they learn and share with the people they care about.  

We need to be interjectors of positivity and health into the cycle that people get stuck in.  If you feel like you are stuck, find people that are going to lift you up and believe in you.  Find someone that won't let you fail, aka stop!  
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Lastly, as a society we have become overweight and obese!  It will only be as a society that we can solve this problem.  We need to reset that trajectory that our country's health is on currently.   Health can and needs to become more contagious than obesity!   If you are ready to help be part of the change, share this post, reach out to a friend in need, or reach out to a friend that can help you!  
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21 Day Fix Extreme RESULTS

4/11/2017

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Two rounds of 21dfx (roughly 2 months) and I feel like a new person (even though I don't look a ton different on the outside). This program is probably my soul workout...I've done so many rounds of it and every time I see changes in my body...and it's ONLY 30 min a day!

The COOLEST part: I weigh the same in both pictures!! 😳 Don't base your results solely on the scale...please please please take pictures. Take measurements of your hips, thighs, waist, bust and biceps! My goal wasn't to lose inches...so I didn't track those this time around. 

Every workout uses dumbbells or a resistance band in some way. I used heavier weights: 20's for lunges, squats, squat jumps and even got up to the 25's at one point...and 8's - 15's for upper body (There's this one shoulder move with a curtsy I could never do more than 8 with 😳) and PUSHED myself every day to do more and get stronger!!

Without the burn, it don't mean nothin!! (As Shaun T would say 😂)

Jan 7th was the day I took the "before" pictures and the "progress" were taken Mar 1st and I'm so glad I stuck it out for 2 rounds!! My nutrition didn't change a ton...I still ate clean about 90% of the time and treated myself 10% of the time. I maybe drank a little less wine 🍷 and added a bit more protein (try to get some at every meal)...I eat probably between 1800 cal and 2000 cal every day.

PLEASE REMEMBER: you can do anything you set your mind to. Your mind is POWERFUL! Commit to something FIRST and then figure out how to make it happen. Commit first. Then take ACTION! Then be patient! 

Email us if you need help!!
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What Weighs More... 1 LB of Broccoli or 1 LB of Nachos?

3/15/2017

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If you've followed us for a while you know we aren't big fans of counting calories.  It's not that we don't think they matter because they do 100% when it comes to weight loss.  The thing that people get confused about though is just doing straight up math with calories in versus calories out and if those numbers tip a certain direction your weight will also change.  Your metabolism is a bit more complicated than what your fitbit tells you that you burned during your exercise session that day and what My Fitness Pal tells you that you consumed.  

What's our approach then to help people lose weight!  It comes down to nutrient density and calorie density.  Our bodies are pretty intelligent and for most people they know when to stop eating in order to maintain our weight.  The thing that happens when people eat processed foods, the triggers that tell us to stop eating don't get tripped.  The other way that these triggers don't go off is when we consume food at a fast pace!  

So our approach is to consume high quality, whole foods at a slow pace and stop when you are close to being full and you will likely lose weight.  If you are trying to maintain, then you eat to being full.  Yeah there is certainly some nuance that can come into play around macronutrients and timing but for the most part this strategy works.  

This is where the question of, what weighs more... a pound of broccoli or a pound of nachos?  Let's breakdown this comparison:  
Nutrition Facts - Broccoli
Serving Size: 1 Pound
Calories: 150 
Fat: 1.5 g
Sodium: 147 mg
Potassium: 1404 mg
Carbohydrate: 30 g
Fiber: 11.4 g
Protein: 12.6 g
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Nutrition Facts - Beef Nachos
​Serving Size: 1 Pound
Calories: 861
Fat: 44.1 g
Sodium: 710 mg
Potassium: 439 mg
Carbohydrate: 76 g
Fiber: 8 g
Protein: 47 g
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I took the challenge myself of eating both a pound of nachos and pound of broccoli in one sitting.  Let's just say it was an interesting experience.  Overall both "meals" filled me up equally and the rate at which I ate definitely slowed down towards the end of both.  

I mentioned it was an interesting experience... what that means is I actually became physically ill by consuming one whole pound of broccoli.  My stomach and GI tract just couldn't handle processing that amount of broccoli.  The nachos, no problem... I was eating again in a few hours.  Why this happened I don't know the exact answer.  Fiber content maybe, but I've consumed 11 grams of fiber in one sitting before this.  Vitamin or mineral overdose, possible but not probable.  If you have an answer let me know, I'm curious.  

To put things in perspective a bit on whether or not this is a lot of food.  The average American eats between 3 and 5 pounds of food per day, we will call it 4 on average.  So, a one pound meal probably isn't that unusual.  To break things down a bit further, the average American consumes around 2,700 calories per day.  So doing a little math the average pound of food that an American consumes is around 675 calories (2,700 calories divided by 4 pounds of food).  Based on the nutrition facts, you can see that broccoli falls WELL below that average and the nachos a fair amount above that number.  Can you see how eating whole foods and especially non starchy veggies can help a person consume fewer calories?  

The reason a lot of diets fail I believe is because our body is naturally satiated by a certain poundage of food.  If all you are doing is eating smaller portions of your current foods your body is going to crave more food to fill itself up.  I wrote up a whole other post on this topic, Are You Smoking Shorter Cigarettes to Get Healthy?  If you aren't filling your body with a certain poundage of food you either need to resort to some incredible willpower or you will likely binge a time or two.  

If your goal is weight loss and you don't want to micromanage every gram of food that goes into your body here's what we would recommend:
  • Fill half your plate with nutrient dense, non-starchy vegetables at each meal
  • Eat a palm size portion of protein with each meal
  • The remainder of your plate can either be a starch like potatoes or rice or it can be a fat like avocado or cheese
  • Sit at a table and slow down when you eat and don't forget to chew your food
  • Stop eating when you feel that first sign of being full
  • DO NOT eat a pound of broccoli by itself!  
If our approach to losing weight seems like something you would like to try, we are constantly running online support groups where we teach people about how they can have a healthy relationship with food and use it to support your weight loss and not as the enemy.  
I'm interested in your next Support Group
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What Happens to Your Body When You Are In A Calorie Deficit

2/23/2017

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Believe it or not, this is actually a problem for some people out there.  For others, they approach cutting calories the right way.  I wanted to share what happens to a person when they subject themselves to a calorie deficit!  It can be a good thing or it can lead to some long term issues.  
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So How Do You Avoid the Pitfalls of Being In a Calorie Deficit?

First thing would be to make sure you are getting an abundance of nutrients!  This will happen through eating nutrient dense foods, mainly vegetables!  Calorie for calorie veggies rank at the top of almost all the nutrient density scales.  We also love Shakeology for this fact too.  It is loaded with nutrition but not a lot of calories!  

Second, make sure you are doing some resistance training!  In a study published in the Journal of American College of Nutrition two groups were put on calorie deficit diets.  One group strictly did aerobic style exercise 4 times per week and one group did resistance training 3 times per week.  The aerobic group lost a total of 37 pounds of which 27 pounds was from fat and 10 pounds of muscle.  The resistance training group lost a total of 32 pounds but lost ZERO pounds of muscle.  The aerobic group's Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) decreased by 210 calories daily whereas the resistance training group increaesed their BMR by 63 calories.  Even though weight loss seemed to be more effective by doing aerobic exercise strictly by total weight loss, long term weight loss will be more difficult for that group due to their lower BMR and body composition.  LIFT WEIGHTS!!!

Lastly, manage your stress and energy!  If you have low energy levels, don't just drive through Starbucks, eat something!  This is also another reason why we love whole foods!  Quality proteins, fats and carbs will sustain your energy longer with less energy crashes than highly processed foods.  Stress Less!!!  Get adequate sleep is a great place to start here.  Also work smarter not harder when it comes to exercise.  Doing an hour plus of exercise daily causes a lot of stress, science has shown that 30 minutes 4-5 times per week is enough see substantial results.  Meditation and finding some quiet time is also a great way to recenter and slow down.  On top of cutting out stressful things, find some activities that bring you joy!  Time with family, hikes in nature, playing a sport.  Whatever it is build up your good vibes bank account to help you push through those stressful times.  

Hope those tips help!!!
​If you want to chat about how you can specifically approach losing weight in a healthy and long term way, reach out, we would love to chat.  
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Are You Living a SuperLife?

1/31/2017

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I know we haven't done many book reviews on our blog in the past.  Recently we were approached by a "book tour" company and they asked if we would read and review Darin Olien's book Superlife.  I first read this book back when it came out back in 2015!  I was even fortunate to get to meet Darin and hear some stories behind the book.  Turns out he grew up about an hour from where I did.  Apparently kids from small farm towns in rural Minnesota can have a career in nutrition!  
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When I was approached to share Darin's message I was all for it.  The principles he teaches in the book are also some of the fundamentals of living a healthy life and always good to revisit myself.  Darin breaks out these fundamentals into what he refers to the 5 Life Forces. 

Life Force 1: Nutrition
This is at the core of being healthy.  His basic approach revolves around eating whole foods in abundance and variety.  Eating this way will ensure that you are satiated with micronutrients that all too often we lack.  Being a vegan himself he isn't a huge proponent of eating animal products but is ok if people chose to eat animal products as long as they are high quality and occasionally eaten.  

With nutrition he also stresses the importance of keeping your gut healthy!  This is something I strongly advocate for as well and think can be a real game changer for a lot of people.  For most people that looks like... cutting out processed foods, adding foods/supplements rich in probiotics and prebiotics, and probably supplementing with some digestive enzymes.  

Life Force 2: Hydration
Water... something so basic but something that so many people fail to consume.  As humans, we are water!  Roughly 2/3 of our bodyweight is water.  It does everything from provide pathways to carry raw materials around our body to insulate us and keep us warm or cool.  Let's just say it's super important!  Darin provides some great tips to upgrade the quality of your water also in the book.  

Life Force 3: Oxygenation
Oxygen - it's critical to life and something that gets overlooked in regards to health.  Darin quotes a couple of studies that talk about how cancer thrives in low oxygen situations and dies off in oxygen rich environments.  Pretty amazing stuff!   Increasing oxygen ties back into life forces 1 and 2.  Whole food plants contain more oxygen than processed, packaged foods.  Getting adequate water also increases the amount oxygen that enters our bodies.  Combine that with some intentional deep belly breathing and you are really improving your oxygenation.  

Life Force 4: Alkalization
This life force is one that is definitely overlooked and understudied.  Darin and I maybe differ slightly on this point.  Some of the research that I've done and read suggests that it is highly unlikely your body will become more acidic based on what we eat.  The pro-alkaline movement tends to look at the acid levels of a person's urine which looks at what is excreted versus the pH of a person's blood and cellular fluid.  

My opinion here is the jury is still out, but I would agree with Darin in that a diet high in plant based foods will improve your overall health.  

Life Force 5: Detoxification
Darin is a big believer in the process of detoxing the body.  He points out the constant stress that our bodies are under from everything in our environment to what we consume.  Our bodies have normal detox pathways but they get backlogged when we consume low quality foods and are exposed to chemicals in our environment.  

His advice to handle all of this, focus on the first 4 life forces and your detox system will be able to handle the workload.  
Darin, finishes the book with some recipes and final thoughts on how you can implement the 5 Life Forces into your current life.  

I'm a big fan of Darin's approach to health and this book does an excellent job in getting people to think a little differently about their health.  It's not all about being reactionary and trying to take care of yourself after you get sick.  It's about doing things that produce vitality in your life and keep disease at bay.  If you are looking to up your health game I highly recommend this book to give you a solid baseline of information.  
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Let's Talk Chocolate!!!

12/20/2016

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It's hard to find someone that doesn't like chocolate.  In our online accountability groups that we run we are always talking to people about how and what kinds of chocolate can be a part of a healthy diet. Yeah there is a way and we will get to that.

When the candy industry got their hands on the delicious cocoa bean they figured out a way to take a superfood and turn it into something super dangerous.  They stretch the cocoa powder so far and add so much milk and sugar to their concoctions that chocolate as most people know it becomes a sweet treat.  That is where the danger comes in to play.  Sugar is addictive. (1)   Consuming it leads to consuming more of it and your tastes begin to become altered.  The amount of sugar it takes to sense "sweet" increases. (2)  

This all equates to you needing tremendous amounts of willpower to control the quantity of eating these types of food.  Guess what... that's a losing battle!  

I mentioned above that the cocoa bean is a superfood!  Let's talk about that and how you can choose chocolate that improves your health and doesn't lead to the damaging effects of consuming the candy industry's version of chocolate.  

7 Health Benefits of Consuming Chocolate

1. Nutrient Dense - Chocolate from a micronutrient standpoint is very dense.  It provides a large amount of iron, magnesium, manganese, and copper.  It also provides potassium, zinc and selenium.  The fiber content of dark chocolate is one of the best benefits of consuming it.  Fiber is a missing piece is a lot of people's diets and important for the health of your gut and blood sugar.  

2. Controls Blood Sugar - One of the secret ingredients in chocolate that doesn't show up on a nutrition label is a phytonutrient called flavanol, particularly epicatechin.  This compound has been shown to improve a person's insulin sensitivity.  Therefore making your insulin work more effeciently and regulate blood sugar better.  

3. Lowers Blood Pressure - Staying on the flavanol theme, this amazing little phytonutrient also increases the levels of nitric oxide in the blood which relaxes your blood vessels and therefore lowers blood pressure.  (3)

4. Source of Antioxidants - You've maybe heard of the ORAC rating, it is a way to measure the antioxidant power of different compounds.  Guess where chocolate lands when measured... yup you guessed it is right at the top of the list with some other amazing foods.  Antioxidants are important, especially in whole food form, to regulate the levels of free radicals in our bodies.  The less free radical damage that occurs in our bodies the lower overall inflammation throughout our body and increased health. (4)

5. Improves Cholesterol - Dark chocolate has been shown to increase the amount of "good" HDL cholesterol.  It has also been shown to limit the amount of LDL cholesterol that oxidizes.  This is due to the previous point about it being a powerful antioxidant.  LDL cholesterol isn't inherently bad, our bodies actually need more of it than HDL.  The problems with cholesterol arise when the ratio of HDL/LDL gets out of whack and/or it becomes oxidized and therefore inflamatory. (5) 

6. Improve Brain Function - Better brain??? Yes please!  Dark chocolate can improve brain function from a couple different aspects.  First, blood flow, as mentioned above dark chocolate and it's powerful flavanols help with overall cardiovascular health and therefore better blood flow.  A couple other powerful components in dark chocolate include theobromine and caffiene.  These compounds are stimiulants that have both been shown to improve brain function.  (6)

7. Improved Skin - Those same flavanols that we've talked about also help with protecting your skin from UV rays.  This doesn't mean you should just lather up with melted dark chocolate instead of sunscreen, but it's fun to know that that treat you have can help in this area too.  (7)

Hopefully I've made a case for why and how chocolate can be can considered a health food.  Don't stop here though and go grab the nearest Hershey bar thinking you are improving your health.  Let's talk about how you can select chocolate that actually improves your health and doesn't harm you.  

Selecting the Right Kind of Chocolate

The candy industry has a pretty good hold on chocolate production.  This past summer we made a stop in Hershey, PA to check out Chocolate World!  
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Chocolate World should probably be renamed Sugar World.  By weight I'm guessing a standard Hershey bar contains more sugar than cocoa.  We had to search pretty hard to find some true dark chocolate in the big Hershey store.  Even the dark chocolate we found was less than desirable according to what I consider healthy.  

Here is a simple equation that I created that you can use determine whether or not the chocolate you are eating is health food and will provide all the benefits listed above, somewhere in the middle, or straight up candy and the negative effects outweigh the benefits.  
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In general the higher the percentage of cacao the healthier the chocolate.  In order to get into that moderately healthy category you should be looking for at least 60% cacao but most likely you will need 70%.  Once you start getting over 80% that is typically when your chocolate starts becoming health food.  

One thing to close with is that consuming chocolate can improve your health if you choose the right kind but it is also a calorie dense food since most of it's calories come from fat.  Don't take this information as an opportunity to go hog wild on dark chocolate thinking that because it is healthy it can't affect your weight.  A typical chocolate treat for us is usually 2 squares from a dark chocolate bar or about 1/2 of what a serving size is supposed to be according to the packaging.  This is enough to give us the health benefits along with our chocolate fix without consuming a huge amount of calories.  

We hope this information helps you understand chocolate a bit more and how it can and should be part of a healthy diet.  We encourage you to share it if you think it is something your friends need to hear.  
1. Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake​
2. Reduced dietary intake of simple sugars alters perceived sweet taste intensity but not perceived pleasantness.
3. How do dietary flavanols improve vascular function? A position paper.
4. The total antioxidant content of more than 3100 foods, beverages, spices, herbs and supplements used worldwide
5. Plasma LDL and HDL cholesterol and oxidized LDL concentrations are altered in normo- and hypercholesterolemic humans after intake of different levels of cocoa powder.
6. The effect of flavanol-rich cocoa on the fMRI response to a cognitive task in healthy young people.
7. Long-term ingestion of high flavanol cocoa provides photoprotection against UV-induced erythema and improves skin condition in women.
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Make A Life That Means Something

9/7/2016

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✔️ What does success look like to you right now? 
✔ What numbers are you trying increase?
✔️ Why are you trying to increase them?
✔️ How is all of this making you FEEL?

God designed good work coupled with good rest. But we take it to extremes....being busy stems from the fear of never being enough. Busy covers our emptiness and says I am in control. 

If we stay busy, how can our lives feel meaningless, RIGHT? 

Don't edge out INTENTIONAL LIVING with your striving and "busy".  Life is too short to spend an entire season working hard, thinking you'll live later!! God wants us to live NOW. 

(Honesty moment: I'm a work in progress and struggle with this as much as the next person!!)
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Beachbody Health Bet

8/5/2016

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One of the coolest things on the horizon for us is a new incentive that was announced last week at our Coach Summit in Nashville.  It is called the Beachbody Health Bet.  The concept is Beachbody the company and partially us as coaches are challenging you to commit to 2 simple behaviors for 4 weeks starting September 5th, 2016 with a prep week starting on August 29th! 

What are those 2 behaviors?
  1. Workout 3 times per week.
  2. Drink Shakeology 5 times per week.
Pretty simple, right???  These two things have been at the cornerstone of our own health and we know that if people can commit to them on a regular basis they will get healthier!  The cool thing about this incentive is if you do them Beachbody is going to pay you top of it.  

You've maybe heard for the website, www.dietbet.com, where you can wager a certain amount of money and if you lose "x" percentage of weight by the end of the challenge you get a portion of the pot.  Part of this is great in that people put a little skin in the game to give you that extra push to get results.  The downside is that people can lose weight in some very unhealthy ways.  That is why I absolutely love the approach that Beachbody has laid out for this challenge.  It's all about creating healthy behaviors, and yeah weight loss might be a side effect of that but you don't have to feel pressure to starve yourself in order to get a piece of this pie.  

So what's in the "pie"?  
  • Beachbody is kicking in $1 MILLION up front.
  • They will ad an additional $5 to the pot for every Challenge Pack sold between July 27th - August 31st with a maximum amount of $3,000,000 in the pot!  
How do you get a piece of that pie?
  • Commit to the 2 behaviors mentioned above
  • Join our challenge group that will start on September 5th (prep week to start on Aug 29th)
  • Log those behaviors daily in Beachbody's My Challenge Tracker App
That's free money for just doing stuff that is going to help you get closer to your goals.  You don't have to put any of your own money on the line and it isn't contingent on you losing weight.  If you are interested in joining our group that starts on September 5th taking and taking part in the Beachbody Health Bet click on the link below.
I WANT TO GET HEALTHY AND MAKE MONEY!
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Healthy Home = Healthy Life

7/22/2016

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I want to share some stats and awesome info that I recently read in the book Eat Move Sleep. First off let me give a plug for the book...it's been a great read that goes super fast and has tons of practical tips to help you start making changes in your life.  It's not loaded down with science but provides enough to let you know that the stuff he is saying isn't some nonsense he pulled out of thin air.  

There is a chapter in the book where he refers to a study of more than 6,000 people that all tried to lose weight and what the common characteristics were of the most successful.  A common theme among the successful was being healthy at home.  Seems like common sense right??? You spend most of your time there but so many people live in a toxic home that doesn't promote health!  

Here were just a few of the interesting stats that the study showed:
  • 92% of the participants found a way to workout from home
  • 78% ate breakfast every day
  • 75% weighed themselves once a week
  • 66% watched less 10 hours of TV per week

I love that first stat and I wish I could say that I knew that before I started working out at home but that was just a complete accident.  It makes a ton of sense though!  Whether you are doing a Beachbody program, going for a run, or following some fitness app program being active is key.  The thing with home workouts that we love is that the convenience and the time we save.  Let's be honest most people are busy these days so finding 60-90 minutes to get to a gym, workout, shower, and get home is tough.  So if you can roll out of bed lace up your shoes and be done working out in 30 minutes that's a huge plus and I think that is why 92% of the people that were successful found a way to make that happen at home.  

Eating breakfast... If you've followed us for a bit you know I've dabbled with Intermittent Fasting.  There is a great science behind it and can lead some amazing results.  It's a hard thing though for a novice to jump right in to and be successful.  I think that is why the breakfast stat is an important one.  Eating breakfast is a great way to set the stage for the rest of the day.  If you start your day with a quality breakfast you will be a lot less likely to jump at the office donuts or the french fries at lunch.  Your cravings will stay in check!  

Weighing yourself once a week, this one was a little interesting to me.  I get that tracking your progress is a good way to determine if you need to make changes but for the average person they really don't know what changes to make.  Other than maybe eat less and exercise more, which we know isn't always a great solution.  Plus weight isn't the sole determiner of progress.  So we will just let this one go...and agree to disagree.

I love this last stat about TV watching.  Frankly because I used to be a 10+ hour a week TV watcher.  Let's be honest even the most riveting show gets boring at times so I turned to ice cream to help with that boredom.  Mindless TV watching often times leads to mindless eating.  On top of that TV watching also means sitting which is terrible for your health.  The amount of activity went up substantially when we ditched the cable and we would encourage you to do the same.  

Other Ways to "Healthify" Your Home

  1. Clean out your pantry and fridge!  If you have junk in the house you will eat it.  
  2. Get some quality sleep!  Sleep is one of the most underrated things people focus on when it comes to their health.  It is vital to get some quality sleep every night and let your body reset.  If you want a great book to read on the subject check out Shawn Stevenson's Sleep Smarter. 
  3. Eat as a family.  Kind of a weird one coming from a nutritional geek but our relationships are key to our health.  Slowing down enough to sit around a dinner table and have a conversation with your loved ones will not only help your relationships with your family, it will also set the stage for your kids' kids in their homes.  
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Dan and Laura Suedbeck have embraced an entrepreneurial lifestyle.  They are constantly challenging the status quo and challenge others to do so too.  They believe that you don't always have to change your situation, sometimes you just need to change the lens you view the world through.  Their focus is helping people  find purpose and passion with their lives all while getting healthy.   Click here to find out more about them.  

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