For high school teachers and other educators needing a healthy, energetic body to keep up with the demands of a hectic career that doesn’t end at 5:00 pm, creating an imbalance in their health, family relationships, and recreational time: Julia McIntyre - Fierce Mind and Body promises to help you focus not only on your health and fitness, but to realign your priorities and achieve balance.
Imagine this: You are in your hotel room on your business trip or vacation. You want to make sure you are staying on track with your fitness. You open your laptop, log-in to a website, and you have dozens of world-class home workout videos at your fingertips...
Or…
You have ADD, and that extends to your workouts. Your attention span isn’t long enough to watch an entire season of Sons of Anarchy, much less spend ninety days finishing P90X. So for one low quarterly price, you have dozens of world-class home workout videos STREAMING at your fingertips…
Or…
Despite your Beachbody coach’s direction and advice, you just can’t decide… Brazil Butt Lift? Or Insanity? Or maybe you’re like me and you just want everything! And now you can have any of dozens of world-class home workout videos STREAMING at your fingertips on any device with an Internet connection…
Introducing Beachbody On Demand.
Think Beachbody meets Netflix. Beginning in March, you will be able to STREAM select Beachbody workouts from all your personal devices.
Workouts will include:
P90X
P90X2
P90X3
Insanity
TurboFire
Brazil Butt Lift
Ten Minute Trainer
ChaLEAN Extreme
Asylum Vol 1
Tony One-on-One (vol 1)
Hip Hop Abs
You’ll be able to access your favorite workouts anywhere you get an Internet connection for one low, quarterly price of $38.87. In additiom to Beachbody On Demand, you also get the Team Beachbody Club Membership, where you’ll get 10% off all Beachbody Products, a meal planner, VIP access to top trainers and the Beachbody Message Boards.
Even better, Beachbody On Demand is going to be offered as a Challenge Pack! So you’ll get three months of Beachbody on Demand, 30 meals of Shakeology, my 60 day online challenge group for support, motivation and accountability, plus ME as your personal coach, all for one discounted price. It’s an amazing deal!
One of the things I love about being a coach is the perks the company offers it’s coaches; since I hit Success Club in my business last month, I was granted FREE special access to Beachbody On Demand Beta - so before it has even been released to the public!
I tried the sample workout of the 21 Day Fix Extreme - Plyo Fix Extreme (since the post office STILL has not been able to locate mine… jerks). Wowza! I thought I was going to die… which means I need this program, STAT!
But it allowed me to see how cool BBOD is going to be! This is perfect for people who travel or can’t make up their minds.
What do you think? Are you interested? Let me know!
This past week was just nuts. Monday was a holiday, but we got a boat load of snow. Tuesday was a snow day because the district I work in has a lot of rural back roads that were not safe for travel. So you would think that a three-day work week would be pretty sweet, right? Nope. The kids were bouncing off the walls, hopeful for another snow day later in the week. Both of my preps turned in essays, and I’ve been feverishly trying to get them graded before the other assignments come in; I just hate to be backlogged! But if you’ve ever graded copious amounts of writing, there is only so much you can grade before your eyes begin to cross. I usually pull ten a day to grade because beyond that, I either get frustrated because some of them are pretty awful and I start grading too hard, or I start to get tired and I grade too easy. So I look for balance and to actually be consistent.
On top of that, I had appointments two days after work this week (I cannot wait for my root canal in two weeks! Where is the sarcasm font?!) which led to late dinners and not getting all of my workouts in this week. Hey, it happens. I have a choice here: I can let it defeat me, give up because I had a crazy week, and put the 25 pounds back on that I have kept off for a year now; or, I can dig in, recommit, make my meal plan, schedule my workouts, and vow to make this week better than last week.
Guess which one I picked?
This week is a little more “normal” for me; I don’t have a whole lot of obligations on top of the usual this week, so it should be easy to stay on track (famous last words).
I’ve spent at least forty minutes this week on hold with the United States Postal Service because they STILL cannot locate my 21 Day Fix Extreme. They swear it was delivered to me. Unless someone stole it from my porch (which is not entirely impossible), it was not delivered. I can be frustrated (well, I am) because if I had received it when I should have, I would almost be finished with the program right now. And yes, it is sort of killing me to see all the other coaches do their shiny new workouts with their cool new recipes and get totally shredded...but...I still get to do ChaLEAN Extreme in the meantime, and you know how I love Chalene! I’m starting the 3rd week of the push month, and this is when you start lifting REALLY heavy. Last week I upped the weights on nearly every exercise, and I made notations to increase again this week because I felt like I could have done more. I just have to say that I really love this program. I feel so STRONG and ACCOMPLISHED. I supposed just like anything else in life, there are trade-offs.
Anyway, this is the end of the month and the end of our grocery budget, so I was using up things I still had in the freezer, like the minestrone soup I made a few weeks ago and froze. I’ve decided that for my cheat meal this week, I want my mom’s fried chicken, so I will be making that on Sunday.
Sometimes, getting started is the hardest part. I can almost tell when someone is going to have issues sticking to their clean-eating plan because they will say something like,”Well, I have all this junk food in my house, but it seems like such a waste to throw it all away...I’ll just keep it until we go through it and not buy anymore.”
This is akin to a drug addict promising to get clean when he finishes his current stash; he always end ups with ANOTHER stash. The BEST way to set yourself up for weight loss and clean-eating success is to RAID your kitchen CLEAN. Here’s how to do it:
Start in your pantry. This is the place where the worst offenders are usually found. Dump white flour and sugar and anything made with those things; this also goes for white bread, white rice, and white pasta (you’ll replace these with different options later). Have brown sugar? That goes, too; brown sugar is really just white sugar with molasses added to it.
You can keep your canned goods, but check the ingredients to make sure there is no nonsense thrown in just for fun; citric acid is okay and occurs naturally in food. Watch out for ingredients like added salt or sulphites. Canned vegetables are okay, but should really only be used as a last resort when you cannot get fresh or frozen.
Also, look out for your jarred pasta sauces; many of them have added sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or other unpronounceable and nasty ingredients.
Even something as innocent as a seasoning packet can have many unwanted ingredients.
Obvious offenders that should also hit the trash should be chips, snack cakes, cookies, candy, sugary cereals, flavored instant-oatmeal packets, 100 calorie packs, dinner “kits” with bags of rice or pasta with powdered seasonings, canned soups, flavoring packets, and certain seasoning blends. If you are in doubt about ANYTHING, read the label; ALL of the ingredients should be familiar to you. Basically, when you are finished, you should have mostly herbs and spices, a few canned vegetables, and any whole grain rices, flours, or pastas that you already had on hand. Your pantry should actually look rather empty.
These are the labels from two kinds of chips; the bottom one would come across as "healthy" from the front of the bag; the back? Not so much.
This is the actual label from a bag of corn chips. While not the healthiest thing in the world, I would eat these in moderation, especially as opposed to the ones above.
Move on the the freezer. The freezer can be a glorious haven of preserved healthy foods, or a hellish chamber of filthy convenience foods. Again, you have to go to the ingredients list here. Check the labels. If it either doesn’t have a label (because it is something like chicken breasts or other meat), or if the label contains simple ingredients, such as “strawberries,” keep it. Even if it seems like a no-brainer, peruse the label anyway; you’ll be surprised at how many “wholesome” foods have added sugar, sodium, or “natural flavors” (you don’t want to know what that is; trust me on this one).
Obvious items to pitch are pre-made frozen meals (even “lean” or diet ones), or anything that doesn’t remotely resemble the whole food it comes from; frozen taquitos, pizza, chicken nuggets, processed chicken patties, this means YOU.
Scope out the fridge. Unless the food looks much the way it did the day it was harvested or slaughtered (sorry), it should probably go. You want to focus on WHOLE foods. Again, you are going to have to read labels; particularly hateful offenders are salad dressings, sauces, condiments (ketchup!), margarine, certain dairy products (even watch your sour cream and cottage cheese for added ingredients), pre-shredded cheese, processed cheese product, and jams and jellies. Get rid of any sort of flavored yogurts, sugar-free or otherwise; henceforth, you will be flavoring your own with REAL, whole fruit and honey. Also going is processed lunch meat with nitrates; Boar’s Head is a clean brand that I know of; here is St. Louis, about the only place to get it is select Schnuck’s stores. Keep eggs, real butter, mustards, fresh produce and meat, and any leftovers from clean recipes.
Go ahead; GOOGLE "natural flavor". I dare you.
Take out the trash. I know it seems elementary, but once you throw it all away, throw it away for good. Get it OUT of the house. Throw it in the trash can outside. Take it to the curb! Kiss it goodbye.
Get your family on board. So, what if your husband starts having a panic attack because you are tossing the Krunchers? The kids are throwing full-blown hissy-fits because they see the box of Swiss cake rolls in the garbage? Take some time to explain to them WHY you are doing this. How will being a healthier person make your life better? How will FINALLY shedding the weight change your life? What will that life look like for you and your family? Explain to them how important it is to you. Tell them that you are working on finding ways that EVERYONE in the family can be healthier.
If certain members of your family are still resistant, make a compromise. Ask that they
keep their junk food in a secret spot - a cabinet in the garage, a drawer in the bedroom - somewhere you won’t be tempted to look.
I’ve had to do this with my husband and candy. Let’s be honest; I know there are Starburst is in the console compartment of the sectional sofa in the living room, but they are out of sight, out of mind. I also have a meal plan, so if I am really hungry or craving something sweet, I already have a go-to.
Hopefully, over time, your family will begin to support your choices. Until then, hope that their love for you will help them to hide the snack cakes from you.
Yes, they are delicious, and remind us of our poverty-stricken youth, but the ingredients in both the noodles and the soup base DO NOT belong in a healthy diet.
Re-stock with healthy options. If you’ve done all this, your kitchen looks pretty naked. This can be depressing. What the heck are you going to eat?
This is where meal planning comes in. Make a meal plan, and from that, a shopping list, and re-stock the cupboards with healthy foods. Have every single meal and snack for the week planned. Magnet your meal plan to your fridge. On Sunday, prep your snacks so that you can just grab them and go. DO NOT buy junk at the store. If your husband wants pizza rolls, he can buy them himself. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. It does become second nature, I swear.
The idea, especially in the beginning, is to remove temptation. Set yourself up for success, not failure. I know you might feel like you are wasting a lot of food or money; if that REALLY bothers you, give it away to someone who needs it more than you do.
This journey is about YOU, and what you can do for yourself so that you can be there for your family. You have to take care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else. You are BUSY. You need to fuel your body to give it the energy it needs to keep up with the demands of your life.
Some people LOVE the gym; they love the atmosphere, the
smoothie bar, the overpriced workout clothes in the retail shop… everything. I say good for those people; I think it is
super important to incorporate fitness into your life in a way you love.
Not me. I used to go
to the gym…until I didn’t. I would start
back again only to find any excuse not to make it there. The whole time, I was paying gym membership
fees for a gym I WASN”T EVEN USING. I
paid gym fees for THREE YEARS. I figured
the monthly payment was cheap, but since I never went, I was wasting my money. Lots of money. In hindsight, there are probably several
reasons why I quit using a gym and started working out at home… here are just
some of them:
1. What am I supposed to do with THIS? What am I doing? Unless you are a personal trainer or a
competitive weight lifter, the average person looking to shed a few pounds and
tone up has no idea what to do with the sophisticated mechanisms staggered
throughout the gym. The gyms I have been
to usually offer a complimentary lesson on the equipment with a trainer, but it
is usually pretty cursory. They show
you how all of them work, but not how or when or how often to use them. Unless you are shelling out extra cash for a
trainer, you are pretty much on your own.
And you might end up looking like this:
Or you just end up on the elliptical
machine for 45 minutes while reading a book with nothing to show for it but
numb feet. Yeah, that’s effective.
With my home workout programs, I have
trainers pushing me, cueing me, and instructing me, using methods and programs
that are PROVEN to work. These programs
have lots of variety, so I don’t get bored.
They are the perfect balance, of strength, cardio, and flexibility – all
three components of a good fitness regime.
2. It’s an ordeal: driving there, changing clothes,
waiting for equipment, getting a locker, forgetting your lock, renting a lock,
working out, getting your stuff, and driving back home to shower. At MINIMUM, this adds thirty minutes to my
workout routine, and I’m not even burning calories! When I’m working out at home, I put on
workout clothes, press PLAY, workout, shower, DONE. BOOM.
3. Someone else’s schedule. The gym has HOURS. Want to get up at 4:30 AM to work out? Too bad; the gym doesn’t open until 5. Late getting off work? You might as well go home; the gym closes in
30 minutes and it isn’t even worth your time. What if you want to take a cardio
kickboxing class? Sorry, they only offer
it at 7:00 pm on Mondays… and you’d like to be finished working out by then and
in your PJs. But if you are working out
at home, you aren’t a slave to someone else’s schedule; you can work out on
YOUR TIME, no matter how early, late, or what sort of workout you want to
do. Just find a program you love and
press PLAY.
4. Supplements… hmmm… Shelves of bottles, jugs, pills, tablets, and
supplements line the walls of the gym retail store… you ask someone for help
choosing the best one for you, but instead of asking you what kind of results
you are looking for, they have a jumbo bottle of vitamins, protein shakes,
recovery drinks, and fat burning tablets stacked on the counter and charged to
your credit card. What?
Look, let’s face it: it is nearly
impossible to get all the nutrition our bodies need from the food we eat. You need a supplement. Why not something that will replace your
vitamins? Will provide pre- and
pro-biotics, protect your immune system, give you energy, and is PROVEN to help
you lose weight? It’s ONE meal a day;
Shakeology is the real deal! If you are
looking for other supplements, Beachbody has those, too; just tell your coach
what your needs are and he or she can point you in the right direction without
the need to take out a second mortgage.
5. People staring at you. This is creepy, right? And you aren’t sure if they are staring at
you because you are cute, you are doing the exercises incorrectly, they are
your future stalker, or you are sweating in unsightly places… This DOES NOT happen if you work out at home
(unless you count the dog, but then you at least know he loves you).
6. Who is keeping you accountable? Does the front desk guy at the gym call you
if you missed your workout today? Does
he notice that you lost two pounds or that you managed to NOT eat your
husband’s frozen pizza? Does that guy
even know what a big deal that is? What
about the fact that you just rocked out your FIRST boy push-ups? Or the fact that your boss yelled at you and
all you want to do is drown your sorrows in hot wings and ice cream… is that
front desk guy at the gym going to tell you that it is okay and to PUT DOWN the
delivery menu? Probably not. You need SUPPORT from people just like you,
people who have gone through what you are going through, people who are going
through it WITH YOU. Weight loss is a
battle field, people, and the soldiers fighting the good fight beside you are
your biggest allies. The relationships
developed in accountability groups are different from any other. You root for each other; you rally when times
get tough (and they do!) and you celebrate each other’s successes in ways that
people who aren’t in the trenches don’t understand. You don’t get that support at the gym… you
just keep getting the bill.
7. Out-exercising your diet… or not. Myth:
as long as you work out, you can eat whatever you want. Um, no.
It doesn’t work that way! I don’t
care if you spend an hour on the treadmill; if you are eating junk all day,
your body will show it. If you have
sprung for some personal training sessions, the trainer may give you some food
guidelines, but after that, you are on your own. Most trainers don’t teach you how to plan
meals, handle temptations, or navigate the food situations at parties. The trainer is definitely not going to check
in with you to see if everything is going well for you, or try to help you
trouble-shoot when you feel like you are backsliding.
8. Other people’s sweat and germs. I have three words for you: Staph infection. Eew.
9. Cost. One of the best-known nation-wide gyms charges
$400 per year for membership; that is the most all-encompassing option. That includes a fitness assessment and
classes. There are cheaper options, but
those gyms don’t offer classes and only have limited equipment – and they have
Pizza Mondays, which seems counter-intuitive.
In both cases, you pay whether you go to the gym or not. Most of the time, you are locked into a
contract. There is limited contact with
a trainer or nutritionist. They will
probably say “Hi” and “Bye” as you are leaving, but that’s about it. You are pretty much on your own, unless you
want to talk to someone about buying supplements.
For me, it’s a no-brainer.
Challenge Packs are priced from $140 - $205; you get a world-class
fitness program that is RIGHT for YOU, that is PROVEN to WORK, and that is
YOURS FOREVER. You can work out wherever
and whenever you choose; you are not a slave to someone else’s schedule. There are tons of programs, so there is one
that is PERFECT for YOU. In addition,
this price INCLUDES 30 meals of your all-in-one nutrition supplement,
Shakeology. It is one meal a day that
you don’t even have to think about. If
after 30 days, you don’t LOVE your program or your Shakeology,
you can return one or both for a full refund – no questions asked. I don’t think the gym will return your
membership dues if you are unsatisfied.
The most important aspect of the Challenge Packs isn’t even
what comes in the box that is shipped to you; it is the support and
accountability groups that I run, and the only way to get UNLIMITED ACCESS to
those groups is through a Challenge Pack.
There you will get a TOTAL FOOD EDUCATION, tips, recipes, motivation,
support, accountability, and more! It is
my absolute favorite part of being a coach.
The things that happen in those groups are unbelievable! I love watching people CRUSH their goals!
If you would like more information about my groups or
Beachbody programs, just fill out the application at this link:
