Ice cream is my weakness… I don’t care much for any other type of treats, candy or dessert. So this recipe for Clean Strawberry-Banana Soft Serve is perfect for me… the best part is that it’s made with Shakeology, and all natural ingredients, making it super healthy and nutritious.

Total Time: 4 hr., 10 min.
Prep Time: 10 min.
Cooking Time: None
Yield: 2 servings, 1/3 cup each

Ingredients:
1 large banana, chopped
½ cup frozen strawberries
6 Tbsp. unsweetened almond milk
1 scoop Tropical Strawberry or Chocolate Vegan Shakeology

Preparation:
1. Place banana in plastic bag and freeze for 4 hours or until completely frozen.
2. Place frozen banana, frozen strawberries, almond milk and Shakeology in food processor or blender; cover. Blend until smooth. Serve immediately.

Nutritional Information (per serving):

P90X/P90X2 Portions (per serving)

Body Beast Portions (per serving)

This right here, is one of the ladies I worked with, her name is Xhiomara, we call her “Xhio” for short (pronounced See-O). It’s so interesting but we never realize how much of a progress we’ve made until we look at our old pictures… in the same way that we don’t know how far from our goal we are, until we see our pictures.

If I ask you to compare your pictures from today, to the pictures from last year’s holidays, where are you as far as your goals? How close are you to reaching them? Would you like to be closer to your goal and feeling much better about yourself around this time next year? If the answer is yes, I have GREAT news for you. I have 10 spaces for a brand new challenge opening November 26, right after Thanksgiving. That way you’ll be able to enjoy your family holiday and be ready to take charge of your health and fitness starting Monday. Are you ready?

The challenge will include a Beachbody workout of your choice, Shakeology the delicious meal replacement that will help you reduce cravings and lose weight and me as your personal one on one coach and look… here are MY personal weight loss results and guess what? If I could do it… I can certainly show you how to do it as well!

There is fun to be had and prizes to be won Seriously, you can win up to $100,000 just for entering your results, just like Kathy M. and Richard N. who won $100,000 each in this year’s Beachbody Challenge, plus we also have the daily, monthly and quarterly prizes as well. Seriously, you have nothing to lose except weight!

There are hundreds of weight loss success stories that Beachbody has made possible.. yes, I’m one of them as well. Join me and become one more success story! Message me below and I’ll get in touch with you and get you started! Let’s greet 2013 with a boom!  and a VA-VA-BOOM!

It’s been almost 3 months since my competition and today for the first time in several weeks, I measured and weighed myself. I had asked my hubby to hide the scale several weeks ago because I was concerned about obsessing over it post-competition.

I had expected to gain SOME weight, but everything I have heard about women who compete gaining a lot of weight post-competition from binging concerned me. I wanted to keep a good balance. I thought to myself, BALANCE IS THE KEY! It has to be! It’s funny how this little square thing of metal can have so much power over my mood! As he took it out from the hiding place… I heard the music from Jaws clearly playing in my head. Then I stepped on it, breathed in deeply and to my surprise… I have only gained 3.5 Lbs. WOW. I’m at my perfect weight, happy, no need to lose any more weight. I do however want to be more toned and have a bit more definition for my next competition.

What I have learned through this weight loss process is that it DOES get easier. I am much more conscious about what I put in my mouth. I am consistently working out and continue to eat non-processed, natural foods and of course, I also have my daily Shakeology. It’s so darn good! Amazing as it sounds, I don’t count calories as much as I used to! Healthy, raw or lightly steamed vegetables never caused me to gain weight, it was all the processed food that did it!

It gets easier, it really does!

In regards to my training, I have exactly 8 more weeks to train/eat and prepare and now fear has started to set in… what if I’m not prepared? What if my physique has not changed as much to the point that I’ll be able to stand up on that stage and be proud for my accomplishment and actually FEEL like I belong there? Oh boy! I suggested to Joseph that maybe I should wait an extra month to prepare and got a redundant NO. He’s been generous enough to sacrifice our quality time for my training and I just can’t put the training above my marriage, there is just no way I could ever do that to him, or to us. So waiting another month just because I’m being overcome with fear is just not an option for me at this point.

I had contacted my trainer about my fears a couple of weeks ago, she said “it looks like you’re on track,” followed by some tips which I’ve been following so I just need to really stick to what I’ve been doing without excuses, continue to train hard, eat clean and keep my word about having cheat meals only one time per week. Doable, yes, I have mastered this already. I turn down cupcakes, brownies and even my weakness… frozen yogurt. The nice thing about it is that i can STILL have a Shakeology which just rocks.

I know that I may never conquer my fear of failure… but I also know that the only thing for me to do is be courageous, which only means (as I mentioned in an earlier post) that a courageous person is not someone who is fearless, but someone who in spite of his or her fear, takes action. So here I am, I know what there is to do: tackle that English homework and do my very, very best; eat clean and do my very, very best and train my very best. When I can be honest with myself about putting my 110% in whatever it is that I’m doing, I will see the results I want. That’s all there is to it, that’s all I have to do. It’s not like I’m skydiving (been there, done that). I’m not risking my life, it’s just risking looking bad… funny how that scares me more than jumping out a plane attached to another human being with a parachute on. Ha! Quite hilarious to be honest!

And while writing this, I realized that what REALLY scares me, is not failure itself but looking bad. Now on to tackle the homework and not quitting which will give me access to succeeding.

I must be weird, I mean seriously! I have no issues with the workouts or with eating healthy. I now can turn down ice cream or frozen yogurt very easily. I don’t mind saying “no thank you” to the cookies, brownies or cupcakes that they offer at work. The evil $0.25 snack machine has no grab on me. I simply ignore it. But the water??? Which is good for me, I completely dismiss… and the funny thing is that I LOVE how good it feels to drink it! Maybe there is more to it, maybe it’s this idea that I “HAVE” to drink water. Maybe I’m resisting this part of the coaching like my 3 year old when I tell her that she has to go to bed “but I don’t want to, it’s not dark outside” she tells me. Regardless of the reasons, I had to find something that would work for me in order to drink the water I need. So I got myself two water drinking buddies, a friend who is training with me and my hubby. My hubby knows how competitive I am so throughout the day he’d send me text messages: 12 he’d say, my response was 48 at one point his message “I’m winning 90 ounces HAHAHAHAHA!” I had already finished my 72 ounce Bubba and had filled it up, I was so focused on drinking that I hadn’t realized that I was almost done with it… by the time I replied, I had finished my second Bubba, a whopping 144 ounces of water and I was done with my water intake for the day at around 4:10 PM.

I may not find the reason for which I sabotage myself, but I do know two things: I know that getting an accountability partner works and I also know that when changing a habit or creating a new one, it takes 21 days of doing it consistently for it to become permanent. So all I need to do, is continue to drink water consistently throughout the day for 21 days with the help of my two accountability partners. it will be easy after that. So my lesson for today is find something that works so you can reach your goal. You know yourself well enough to know what that is.

Then I decided to do something, after one of my Facebook friends mentioned that he was doing P90X. (I had heard of the product from my husband and had recently seen an infomercial for it.) I asked if it worked and then ordered the program. I remember the first month of doing P90X, my eating habits were horrible and I desperately needed something to help me with my nutrition on top of the exercise. And so it was that Shakeology came into my life, another Beachbody product. By the end of my 90 days of using P90X and using Shakeology, I had successfully lost weight to the point that I was able to fit into a size 6 again.

This month, O Magazine featured a 10 page article on Shakeology (see page 215).

I love this product and use it on a daily basis. It gives me energy, it has over 70 super foods and it’s yummy. The nice thing about it is that you can order it risk free for 30 days and not pay for shipping and handling when you sign up for Home Direct. by clicking here

If you’d like to hear how to get a 25% discount on Shakeology as well as any other workout programs and nutritional products, ask me how. It’s easy

As a mom, I have to say that my biggest reward for getting in shape has been having the additional energy to play with my daughter and feeling attractive once again.

I discovered this week how much of an emotional eater I am. With the news in Japan, my daughter being sick and some other news I received, it has been very difficult for me to stay on track so it has taken more of a commitment on my part and stay accountable to my word about what it is I’m eating. I have tricks to do that and they’re working. There is nothing like a little shake in our daily lives to remind us what is really important or to challenge us, right? I know that some people will frown upon the fact that I’m blogging about fitness and exercise while there are so many important things happening around the world. The way I see it is that I have no control over these events but I do have control over my health and fitness… so instead of focusing on something I have no control over, I focus on what I can take control of. I have one day a week when I can have two cheat meals. I can choose which cheat meals I will have. The first week I did this, I went crazy, I had pizza for lunch and a hamburger with fries for dinner and then I got sick. I realized my body wasn’t used to eating that way anymore. So now my cheat meals are a stuffed bell pepper cooked very healthy with my very little sodium marinara sauce, a salad with a bit of lemon juice and olive oil, and maybe 1 small glass of red wine if I feel like it. This is around 400 calories max. I eat this way and remain within my calories allowed for the day. Sometimes my daughter and I, will have a serving of frozen yogurt, that counts as quality time with my little girl, a treat and a cheat meal. Things are a bit different this time around with my nutrition, I am eating very frequently and I am packing my meals ahead of time which sometimes is a pain in the butt because it takes a lot of time to prepare, but then I realize how much of a time saver it is to do that. During the week I don’t have to think about what I will eat, the food has been prepared ahead of time and all I have to do is take my trays with me and heat them at work, sit down and eat. Brilliant! I have also learned to bring extra food for when I’m hungry and today I have found that to be extremely helpful and necessary. Oh, and one more thing… at my workplace, the vending machine sells snacks for only $0.25 (yes, all of them, chips, chocolate, everything) It’s a very inexpensive way to cheat on my meals! Now I don’t even keep cash with me. If I want to buy something, it means I have to go to the bank to get cash during my lunch hour and it’s just so inconvenient, I don’t even bother.

People have asked me if I am trying to lose more weight. No, I am not. I am building muscle. I have inches to lose but I will probably gain muscle weight as my body fat decreases. For the record, I haven’t lost much weight in the last 3 weeks. However, my waistline has decreased a good 2 – 3 inches and today I am wearing a pair of pants I haven’t been able to wear in about 8 years. Yes, it feels GREAT. My biggest challenge has been losing the belly, my upper abs are there, I can see them and finally I am seeing my lower belly decrease and that’s exciting to me. Food will always be a challenge, sugar is addictive, highly processed foods with lots of sodium and fat are also addictive. It’s difficult to beat these addictions. We don’t realize how much the food industry has us hooked on these foods and bad nutrients. We are so busy that we hardly read labels, we think about “convenience” instead of thinking about nutrition.  We prefer to press a couple of buttons on the microwave than to wait for 40 minutes for a very nutritious, natural, and well made dinner with fresh produce. Some of us don’t even know how to cook. I will never forget a friend of mine tell me with spite after she learned that I make my marinara sauce from scratch, “it seems ridiculous to me that you’d spend so much time in the kitchen cooking… my priorities are different, I prefer to spend quality time with my son.” I had no children back then and didn’t know what or how to respond. But what is true for me now is that I still take the time to cook. I still cook things from scratch AND I spend quality time with my daughter. We think that if we spend an hour in the kitchen, it means that we somehow are “sacrificing” our time. We are not. When we don’t spend the time in the kitchen, we are sacrificing our good health and our life, and with our health and fitness, we are also jeopardizing our family’s health and fitness… yes, the ones we care so much about. Wouldn’t you prefer to spend more quality time with your kids if you cooked healthier and ensured that they won’t be another health statistic and you won’t either? I think our perspective has become blurred. By the way, my daughter now helps me with simple tasks in the kitchen and loves it… so yes, I get my quality time with her… even in the kitchen.

While my priorities seem a little bit weird right now from the title of my blog post “Chocolate or competition… choose” I end this blog post with a thought and a challenge: whenever you are about to reach out for the junk food, just stop a moment and think to yourself: “Junk food or a healthy life? Choose.” The choice is yours, it will always be. If you have children, think about how difficult it is to unlearn bad nutritional behavior before feeding them the next TV dinner or happy meal. The convenient meal that we feed them today will cost our children their health tomorrow, while the good, fresh, healthy home cooked meal we feed them today will benefit their health tomorrow. By the way, this is one of the things that I love about Shakeology, it is such a great, nutrition rich product that I never once have to question, have second thoughts or even feel guilty about having one. It tastes so good that my daughter even asks me to share some with her.

Lucky for me, I brought a nice Granny Smith apple and I keep some powdered cinnamon by my desk just in case my sweet tooth attacks me again. Just close your eyes and imagine a huge sweet tooth shoving food down my throat… yeah that’s what it feels like sometimes.  

By lunch time, I decided I would have a Shakeology; the problem is that I had to walk by those pesky pieces of chocolate goodness… darn it! So I looked down and walked REALLY fast. Whew! I made it to the kitchen in one piece even though that darn tooth tried to grab me by the leg but I was able to get away.

My Shakeology drink this time was the greenberry with vanilla almond milk and cinnamon. I have to say it was pretty satisfying. I went back to my desk to continue to work.  You’d think that would be the end of it right? Nope, my coworker was eating a hamburger at her desk and offered French fries (which I politely turned down) YES! I am entitled to a Snoopy dance for that one WOOHOO! That’s two strikes in my favor!!

Now seriously, it was difficult for me to turn down those fries I had been sniffing them for about an hour. But at the same time, Shaun T. kicked my happy butt into shape this morning with Fast and Furious (more on that later) and my core is sore (wow that totally rhymes!)

So where am I with my program? Well, as I promised I’d be completely straight with you: I am one week behind. I worked out only 3 out of the 6 days last week. These holidays were dedicated to catching up on my sleep, household chores, going through the last items from storage, choosing more items to donate, my family and of course updating (and upgrading) my blog. It was much easier to stay away from temptation at home since I don’t keep any sweets and, my daughter and I made some yummy chocolate Shakeology cookies which are much healthier.

At work however, it’s difficult to keep the consistency I need with all this sugar around. My secret to resisting temptation is to have one bite-size piece of whatever it is. If you still feel the urge of eating some more, have some unsweetened green tea. Green tea is full of antioxidants and has slimming properties. Another hint is: Take some fruit with you to work or some veggies. If you feel you must have something sweet or else you’ll bite someone’s head off… well before you turn gory on us, let me give you my favorite pretend apple crisp recipe:  dice a Granny Smith apple – skin on, sprinkle cinnamon on it and put it in the microwave for 1 minute, when ready, I mix in 1 teaspoon of almond butter.  Don’t use sugar, oil, butter or any other stuff that you should stay away from. This totally hits the spot and makes me happy by getting rid of the Tasmanian devil with boots and lipstick (I’d normally say with high heels but I’ve been wearing boots lately because of the rain.)

Yep, what can I say…? I may never get to a point where I will turn chocolate down. But hopefully I will have the will to just have a bite-size piece every time and not the whole chocolate. Today I did well but it’s not easy, as you can see, I’m not perfect, I’m not trying to be perfect either. It’s been easier at other times of the year but right now it’s been extremely difficult to stay away from cookies, bread, chocolate, etc. Maybe it’s a comfort thing, I don’t know quite honestly but whatever the reason, it has been challenging.

So no, I am not there yet… I haven’t figured it all out. I haven’t figured out for example, how to ignore chocolate or French fries. I have figured out however, that I feel bloated after I eat junk food. Eating a slice of pizza every now and then won’t kill you, it’s the excess that does it. I prefer to live a full life than to eat 4 or 5 slices of pizza everyday… don’t you?

I am in college right now and I am an English Literature major, so of course a lot of my homework is based on Shakespeare. As a matter of fact, my class this semester is ONLY about Shakespeare and as such I have had to read his plays. The one we are reading this week is I Henry IV. I have found all of Shakespeare’s literature very interesting and he is one of my favorite authors and playwrights and although I enjoy reading “everything Shakespeare”, I have to say that something about this particular play caught my attention and got me thinking… one of his main characters in this play is Fallstaff, who is portrayed as a jolly and fat (that’s what the play says) man. He is supposed to be a knight to Henry IV, but he does not act like one. He likes well… how can I say it, “the good and ‘bad’ pleasures of life” (alcohol, womanizing and of course food, lots of food). As you know it’s not that any of these things are bad, but in excess they are. The play clearly states that he “is merry”. That got me thinking about this whole idea of being overweight and “merry” or “jolly”. I am not saying that there are not people out there with an overweight problem who are not happy because I know that there are, but what I AM saying is that from personal experience, I was NOT happy, nor jolly, nor merry when I was overweight.

I wasn’t happy about the fact that I lacked energy to play with my daughter, or the fact that I would sometimes have to take naps in the afternoon because I was so darn tired that I just couldn’t help it. I wasn’t happy about taking my daughter to the playground and wanting to leave 15 minutes after we had arrived because I just had no energy to run around with her. I wasn’t happy about all the limitations that I had because I was getting heavier, and heavier, and heavier. I had trouble sleeping, I had trouble moving, I couldn’t run because I had trouble catching my breath. Jolly? Nope, Merry? Heck no! I was miserable and I NEEDED to do something not only for my sake, but for my daughter’s sake and I did.

My overweight problem was actually not a matter of being jolly or merry, it was a symptom of not being happy. I wasn’t happy about moving away from my friends (don’t get me wrong I love where we live, but my closest friends live far away), and I definitely was not happy about my finances or the fact that I had to work so many hours just so we could manage to make ends meet at the end of the month.

However, I knew that I NEEDED to do something about my situation, my weight, my happiness, my finances. Heck something was going to give if I didn’t get off my butt and DO something about it. So I did and I succeeded. I saved up, I bought P90X, I bought Shakeology and I was sponsored as a coach for Beachbody. Here I am 6 months later, my weight is in check, I am in the best shape of my life and my finances are improving drastically. Coincidence? I don’t think so. When you take control of one area of your life, the other areas follow. If you want to find out more just ask

Well truth be told, I had to figure it all out, I am not the first working mom and I won’t be the last and in all of that, of course I have to think about my own ideas of what a “perfect mom and wife” should look like, but truth be told, I am not even close to being perfect, and within all my imperfections I had to work something out, because truthfully, that’s all there is to do..

My hubby and I decided to work out in the mornings because it’s easier for me, I feel a lot more energized, focused and happy during the day when I work out. That implied that I MUST be in bed by a certain time and that we need to schedule everything else around that (yes even sex) and don’t look at this funny because it’s the truth.

(Note to self: don’t read half posts to hubby and leave him hanging)

OK, so now that we’ve figured out that we have to work out in the mornings then I forgot something else, oh yes… life happens! You know, that thing called life? When your 3 year old has a nightmare in the middle of the night and yeah, you just hear her little voice saying “mommy I’m scared, my bed is scary, please…” followed by me trying hard to not trip over the tennis shoes I left by my bed while I try to take her back to bed, tuck her in, sing to her and tiredly stumble in a half-daze back to bed hoping that it won’t be too difficult to go back to sleep (yeah that actually happened last night). Waking up this morning was a drag, realizing that today was the day for one of the “long” workouts… 45 minutes. Well, when life shows up, you do your best, and no, I didn’t work out. I woke up too late and ended up having a healthy breakfast and then going to work.

All in all, I have been enjoying taking my Shakeology to work for lunch. I normally will take a chocolate one, sit with a good book and take some much needed “me” time reading and enjoying my yummy lunch and an apple.

On another note, I am close to my goal. I only have about 7 more pounds to lose and I will be where I want to be. By the way, my tummy is looking firm and I have a 4 pack (not quite a six pack yet), but my muscles are showing so even if I don’t reach my weight goal, heck being 42 and having a flat belly is freaking awesome.