My Beachbody Showcase Pack!!

I got my showcase pack last week and I've had an absolute blast going over all of the different programs and trying the new workouts. Six of Beachbody's most popular programs are included in the showcase pack, along with three super bands and a squishy ball. Hip Hop Abs, Turbo Jam, P90X, Power 90, Slim in 6, and Yoga Booty Ballet...over 35 workouts!!! I can do a different workout for each day of the month and still not repeat any...which for me and my easily burned out, easily bored self...is just what I needed to get me up and going.

Tip of the Day: Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

One night while I was up at 3 o'clock in the morning with my dear sweet non-sleeping baby, I was watching this amazing program on PBS called Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. It changed the way I think about health! Everything I do, what I eat, how I interact with my family, and what I think affects the way I think and feel. Dr. Amen has some tips on his web site http://www.amenclinics.com/my-brain-health/brain-health-club/50-brain-dos-and-brain-donts/. These are all great reminders for me and things I'm going to start working on and incorporate with my family:

50 Brain Dos and Don'ts:

Brain Dos:
Wear a helmet in high risk situations
Drink lots of water
Eat healthy
Take gingko biloba, Vitamin E and ibuprofen everyday
Think positive healthy thoughts
Love, feed and exercise your internal anteater to rid yourself of ANTs (automatic negative thoughts)
Everyday focus on the things you are grateful for in your life
Watch the Disney movie Pollyanna
Spend time with positive, uplifting people
Spend time with people you want to be like (you are more likely to become like them)
Work on your people skills to become more connected to enhance limbic bonds
Talk to others in loving, helpful ways
Surround yourself with great smells
Build a library of wonderful experiences
Be nice to others
Exercise
Eat in ways specifically tailored to your brain
Learn diaphragmatic breathing
Learn and use self-hypnosis and meditation on a daily basis
Remember the 18/40/60 rule
Effectively confront and deal with conflictual situations
Develop clear goals for your life (relationships, work, money and self) and look at them everyday.
Focus on what you like a lot more than what you don’t like
Collect penguins, or at least send them to me
Have meaning, purpose, excitement and stimulation in your life
Do not be another person’s stimulant
Use brainwave biofeedback or audio-visual stimulation when needed
Notice when you’re stuck, distract yourself and come back to the problem later
Think through answers before automatically saying no
Write out options and solutions when you feel stuck
Seek the counsel of others when you feel stuck (often just talking about feeling stuck will open new options)
Memorize and recite the Serenity Prayer daily and whenever bothered by repetitive thoughts (God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.)
Don’t try to convince someone else who is stuck, take a break and come back to them later
Use paradoxical requests in dealing with cingulate people
Make naturally oppositional children mind you the first time (through a firm, kind, authoritative stance)
Strive for wonderful experiences
Enhance your memory skills
Sing and hum whenever you can
Make beautiful music a part of your life
Make beautiful smells a part of your life
Touch others often (appropriately)
Make love with your partner
Move in rhythms
Use a skilled psychotherapist when needed
Use an EMDR therapist to deal with trauma
Take head injuries seriously, even minor ones
Take medications when needed
Take herbal remedies when needed to optimize brain function
Look for underlying brain problems in substance abusers
Do full brain evaluations for people who do terrible things

Brain Don’ts

Isolate a developing baby
Use alcohol, tobacco or drugs or much caffeine when pregnant
Ignore erratic behavior
Lie around the house and never exercise
Ignore concussions
Smoke
Drink much caffeine
Drink much alcohol
Do drugs (NO heroin, inhalants, mushrooms, PCP, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines (unless in prescribed doses for ADD)
Eat without forethought on what foods are best for your brain
Drive without wearing a seatbelt
Ride a motorcycle without a helmet
Ride a bicycle, skateboard, roller blade, snowboard, etc. without a helmet
Hit a soccer ball with your head
Bang your head when you’re frustrated (protect the head of children who are head bangers)
Bunje jump
Hang out with people who do drugs, fight, or are involved in other dangerous activities (unless you are looking for brain damage)
Allow your breathing to get out of control
Think in black-or-white terms
Think in words like always, never, every time, every one
Focus on the negative things in your life
Predict the worst
Think only with your feelings
Read other people’s minds
Blame other people for your problems
Label yourself or others with negative terms
Beat yourself or others with guilt (very ineffective)
Personalize situations that have little to do with you
Feed your ANTs
Use sex as a weapon with your partner
Talk to others in a hateful way
Push people away
Be around toxic smells
Be around toxic people
Focus too much on what other people think of you (odds are they aren’t thinking about you at all)
Allow your life to just happen without you directing and planning it
Take the “stimulant bait” from other people
Allow thoughts to go over and over in your head
Automatically say no to others, think first if what they want fits with your goals
Automatically say yes to others, think first if what they want fits with your goals
Argue with someone who is stuck
Isolate yourself when you feel worried, depressed or panicky
Allow naturally oppositional children to be oppositional
Listen to toxic music
Blame substance abusers as morally defective
Refuse to take medications when needed
Self-medicate, when there are problems get help from professionals
Deny you have problems
Refuse to listen to the people you love who are trying to tell you to get help
Withhold love, touch and companionship to those you love as a way to express anger

Tip of the Day: Keeping Those Cavities Away

Because getting healthy isn't just about exercise and eating, I have a dental story! A few months ago I went to the dentist. I found a coupon and thought, "this is a good deal." So, I packed up the kids, and away we went. Upon a quick examination, the dentist declared that I had FIVE cavities. I'd never had a cavity before and now I had FIVE! "No Way!" I thought. I waited a few months and finally decided that I'd better get a second opinion. Well...guess what! I didn't have any cavities! Zip! Zero!
Moral of the story: buyer beware out there and if something seems out of sorts, get a second opinion. I saved hundreds of dollars by getting that second opinion and now I'm more determined than ever to have good dental hygiene! The dentist that I now go to recommends a few things to help keep those cavities at bay. Here's his suggestions:
* Floss at night with Glide Floss:
* Rinse in the morning and at night with Act Restoring Mouthwash:
* Brush at least morning and night with Colgate Total Toothpaste:

Tip of the Day: A Journey of 1000 Miles Begins With One Step

My mother-in-law has raised six boys and has always looked great. Here's her words of wisdom to get healthy and stay in shape:

"If you take it off slowly, you won’t gain it back immediately as you do with crash diets. A loss of 2 – 4 pounds a month doesn’t sound like much, but 3 pounds a month for a year is 36 pounds. I don’t think any of you young women have that much to lose! A journey of 1000 miles begins with one step at a time. ;)

The way I lost the weight that year was by writing down everything I ate so I could count the calories. I don’t do starvation diets. I ate my usual 3 meals a day, but for between meal snacks I ate only fruit…no processed fruit snacks…only real fruit. I stopped eating fattening sauces and dressings, butter, potato chips, and soda. If I felt a craving for chocolate, I ate a chocolate kiss or I stopped at Mrs. Cavanaugh’s and got a couple of the good chocolates to satisfy the craving. If you’re going to eat chocolate, make it the good stuff! Maybe that could be a Friday reward for every week that you eat healthy.

I didn’t make homemade desserts or rolls because I knew I would eat way too much of them. But I didn’t give up bread, potatoes, bananas, or avocados as so many diets recommend. If you feel too deprived, you won’t stay with it. My rule is if it’s real food, it’s ok to eat it…just don’t fatten it up with all the extras like butter and whipped cream. I never felt deprived – I felt very much in control of myself.

When I was wearing the body bugg a few years ago, I noticed that I burned tons of calories mopping or vacuuming the floor or cleaning the windows. I got just as good a workout as I ever did at the gym. Anything that requires movement is exercise. I get a good feeling about having a clean house and a good workout at the same time. I love to go outside on a nice day and clean the windows. Nothing brightens up the house so much as sparkling windows. In the old days, when Dad or the boys would complain that they had to go all the way down stairs to get a towel from the laundry room, I told them it was good exercise. Every thing we DO is exercise…sitting on our fanny only makes it bigger. (I am watching mine grow minute by minute!) I’m also on a soapbox about all the TV commercials that talk about “taking the work out” of cooking, cleaning or whatever it may be. While taking the work out, they are helping us gain a layer of fat around our middles! WORK is not a four letter word, no matter if it does look like it."

Thanks for the tips, Mom! Let's all get to Work!

Tip of the Day: Have a Smoothie!

Fruit Smoothies!

This is a tip from my beautiful, talented and brilliant sister-in-law, Angie. Here's what she says, "Lately, I've been making smoothies with some ice cream for my afternoon snack. It satisfies the sweet tooth, but gets the fruit in too. I'm starting a basketball league with my friends and I'll still be playing soccer, so that gives me 2 workouts a week!" Go Ang! Thanks for the tip.

I just have to add that we've been making fruit smoothies for breakfast in the mornings and we use yogurt, juice, milk, frozen strawberries and a banana.

Banana-Orange-Strawberry Fruit Shake

1 cup vanilla yogurt

1/2 cup orange juice

1 banana,

10 frozen strawberries

1/2 cup skim milk

1 heaping tbsp. high- quality protein powder (optional)

1 tsp. flax oil (optional)

In a blender, process all the ingredients until thoroughly mixed and serve.

Tip of the Day: Drink water!

Did you know that one can of soda has 10 teaspoons of sugar?

Do you have a soda habit? Here's some advice on how to cut back.
By Elaine Magee, MPH, RDWebMD Weight Loss Clinic - Expert Column

Soda -- it's everywhere! Even if you wanted to drink something else, you'd be hard-pressed to find it as prominently displayed in vending machines, at fast-food chains, and supermarket checkouts. You might not realize how ubiquitous Coke, Pepsi, and the like are in our society until you try to stop drinking soda.
For some people, drinking several sodas a day is a fierce habit. You know drinking soda is a habit when you find yourself going to the grocery store at 10 p.m. because your refrigerator is tapped out, or you feel like having a tantrum when the drive-through attendant tells you the soda machine is broken. If the idea of drinking one token soda a day is unfathomable, you just might have a serious soda habit.

Still, while Jacobson believes "less is better" when it comes to alternative sweeteners, he concedes that drinking diet soda is better than gulping down the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar -- which is what you'll get in a can of regular soda.
And just how do you go about kicking a soda habit? If you want to stop drinking so much soda, it basically comes down to four steps, according to the experts:
1. Make Up Your Mind. You have to make up your mind to give it up, notes Jacobson. Even if you're just trying to cut back on your soda consumption, it can take a firm commitment to make it happen.
2.Switch to Diet Sodas. Gradually make the switch to diet sodas, suggests Paul Rozin, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "Just make a small decrease at a time, like one sugared soda a day," he says in an email interview. If you're drinking much more than one soda a day, work toward decreasing the amount of diet sodas you drink as well -- eventually.
3. Go Caffeine-Free. Popkin and Jacobson believe that caffeine, and the fact that it is mildly addictive, is part of the reason soda is such a hard habit to break. Look for caffeine-free soft drinks, and gradually decrease the number of caffeinated drinks you have each day as you work toward kicking the soda habit completely. If you're addicted to the caffeine in soda, you're really kicking two habits -- the soda habit and the caffeine habit. "It takes a few weeks to truly forget the craving," Popkin says.
4. Stock Up on Alternatives. Keep plenty of tasty non-soda drinks on hand to make giving up soda as convenient as possible.
What Are Some Soda Alternatives?
Here is a list of non-soda beverage possibilities to consider. You'll notice the drinks that contain calories also contribute important nutrients like calcium or vitamin C.
1. Give Soy Milk a Chance. If you'd like to work in a serving of soy a day, give soy milk a try. Lots of brands and flavors are available. If calories are an issue, try one of the lower-calorie options.
2. Don't Skimp on Skim Milk. Skim milk is a great way to boost your intake of protein, calcium, vitamin D, and other important nutrients. One cup of skim milk has only around 85 calories. The Beverage Guidance Panel recommends up to two servings a day of nonfat or 1% milk and fortified soy beverages.
3. Pimp Your Water. To an avid soda drinker, water can seem a little unexciting. One of the best ways around that is to add noncaloric flavors to your water. A sprig of mint or a slice of lemon or lemon will do wonders. If you like subtler flavors, try a slice or two of cucumber or a frozen strawberry.

Get Healthy with Me!

I'm going to get healthy this year! Are you going to join me?