On the Road again : Low Carbin' It !

Sunset over Forney, Texas...


My travels this summer take me to a quaint little town in Texas called "Forney." Why here you may ask ? It 'antique' heaven ! Lots of little shops, makeshift antique barns, roadside antique thrift stores.. you name it, they have it. My twelve year old is an antique maven of some sort -- thanks to his crack knowledge (from his grandpa, of course !) he can tell you just about anything and everything he can about antique bottles and signs, glassware, etc. He is quite enthusiastic about it as well. I'd like to call this little town of Forney his 'honey hole' :)

I'm doing quite well low carbing. Ate a little something for breakfast and left my hometown for a little 8 hour or so drive up here. I am very thankful for my Glucerna bars.. as I call it 'protein on the go'. I also liked the fruit and walnut salads from MacDonald's'. I've learned in moderation for this product though.. it's high in 31 carbs, so I usually share it with Sean, or just eat 1/2 of it at one sitting, and then eat the other half. For lunch, I had a Mc Donald's chicken salad.. although I think they gave me crispy chicken (grilled is my fav), I was hungry enough not to let it bother me.. Ranch dressing to top it all off.

Tonight, I settled up front of my hotel, to a friendly little chicken place. One seasoned breast I exclaimed to the friendly cashier, who looked at me in bewilderment, only to acknowledge that 'all breasts tastes the same'.. HMMM I thought.. am I missing my Popeye's ALREADY lol... SO I devoured the chicken breast... and some unsweetened tea.. and tried a few of the okra on the side... not bad for country eatin.

I was able to get in a good one hour workout at the local gym.. Will probably ride the exercise bike tomorrow morn here at the hotel.. I'm an early bird.. always have been... great way to start off the day :)

How is your summer going ?

Three Workout Mistakes that Slow Metabolism

Three Workout Mistakes that Slow Metabolism




by the editors of Prevention Magazine

Exercise is the single best way to torch more calories all day long. Don’t let these mistakes rob you of your postworkout burn.



Mistake #1: You're in an exercise rut

When you do the same activity day after day, week after week, your mind isn't the only thing that gets bored—your muscles do, too. Whether you take the same daily 30-minute walk around the neighborhood loop, or do a few sets of the same old strength moves, after a while your body stops being challenged and your results plateau.

Correct it: Change things up. Go for a hike on the weekend instead of doing your usual power walk. Find new strength moves that work the same muscles. Try a new type of exercise by slipping in a workout DVD. Any little way to mix things up and challenge yourself with something new is a step in the right direction.

Give your routine an instant boost with these 13 new outdoor workouts.

Mistake #2: You're a slave to cardio

While aerobic exercise is good for your body and soul, if you don't balance those workouts with some strength exercises, you're not only compromising your results but missing a key component of health and fitness. Resistance training—weight lifting, or strength training—is the only way to increase lean muscle mass and lose stubborn bulges. That's important on many levels, especially as we start to get older. (Video: Strength-train at home without heavy weights.)

Starting in their 30s, women lose about 1/2 pound of muscle a year. (Men usually hold on to muscle longer, but the rate of muscle loss speeds up dramatically after age 60.) Because muscle burns calories even when at rest, losing it will noticeably slow metabolism. This is one big reason many of us see that "middle-age spread" beginning in our 40s.

A study from Skidmore College found that exercisers who combined cardio with a high-intensity, total-body resistance routine lost more than twice as much body fat—including twice as much belly fat—over 12 weeks as those who followed a moderate-intensity cardio plan. (Search: New fitness plans.)

Correct it: Substitute a couple of strength sessions for cardio days. Lift weights at least twice a week, hitting all your body's major muscle groups.

Mistake #3: You're stuck in a "fat-burning" zone

If you hop aboard a treadmill, elliptical trainer, stair climber, or other cardio machine at the gym, you may see a programming option that allows you to stay in a "fat-burning" zone. It's based on the fact that at lower intensities, the body uses a greater percentage of its fat stores for fuel. Sounds great! You don't have to work as hard and you're sucking some of that fat out of your belly, butt, and thighs.

But do the math and you'll see the problem. At a lower intensity level, your body will indeed burn a higher percentage of fat than carbs but still burn fewer calories overall. Here's an example. A 150-pound woman who walks on the treadmill at 3 mph (a 20-minute mile) burns about 112 calories in 30 minutes. At this moderate intensity, she burns about half of those calories from fat, or about 56 fat calories. If she were to take that workout into a brisk walk for 30 minutes at 4 mph (a 15-minute mile), only about 40 percent of her calorie burn might be from fat. But she'd be burning more calories overall—about 170 in those 30 minutes, or about 68 calories from fat. (More: Get the complete Turn Up Your Fat Burn Plan today!)

Correct it: Burn more calories and make more of those calories come from fat by increasing your overall effort. A great way to achieve that is by doing intervals—periods of higher intensity followed by a slower recovery pace.

Glorious Glutes for a Sunsational Summer

Glorious Glutes for a Sunsational Summer !!

Best Butt Workout --
Look Better From Behind! (webmd.com)


With beach season upon us, do you like what you see in the full-length mirror?

This week, Pamela Peeke, MD, shares her secrets for gravity-defying glutes!



We’ve begun our Beach Mind Beach Body journey, but this time with a mental and physical twist.

Instead of obsessing about body parts, I’m asking you to engage your mind to see how your lifestyle behaviors are reflected in how you look and feel. If you do, you’ll experience a royal win win — by being more mindful of your body all day, your body will benefit by all of that attention. You’ll look great and feel so much better. This week we’ll use your beautiful behind as a case in point.

Hey, call it what you want — behind, booty, derriere — those soft pillows of feminine flesh serve you well all day. They power you out of chairs, up the stairs and straighten you up after tying your sneakers. I’ll bet you didn’t know that the gluteus maximus is the largest muscle in the body. Keep in mind, that, like all other muscles, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Simple routines that anyone can do will keep your rear end from sagging into those less than attractive rolls of bountiful butt straining your pant seams.

Many of you have a love-hate relationship with your butt. Well, that ends now. It’s time for you to express your own Glute Gratitude. Yep, let’s take what you’ve got and appreciate and optimize it.

Staying consistent with my MIND MOUTH MUSCLE template, you’re going to enter this third week with Power MIND. As I’ve noted in the previous blogs, you’ll fight any urge to default back to self-denigrating comments about your body. We’ll have none of that! Instead, this week you’ll say, “I’m smart, beautiful and fun and this week I’m going to practice body gratitude.” Every day, wake up and appreciate all of the body parts that work. Stop concentrating on what you can’t do, and pay attention to what you can do. This is especially true for as you age. Joints are creaking and there’s that recurring pain. Adapt and adjust and be happy you’re here today to rock and roll through another 24 hour life adventure.

Moving to the MOUTH, how about a few simple tricks to help you with the cravings that can destroy your best beach body intentions? Get over the urge to splurge by:

1) Medicating with Movement: Stop using food to anesthetize your stresses. Instead, get up and move. Research has shown that when that creepy craving starts to hit, you should hit the road. All it takes is 15 minutes of walking to increase levels of both the pleasure chemical dopamine as well as the mood modulator serotonin. In combination, they help you win the food fight.

2) Pound down the Protein: Got a craving? Grab lean protein all day long — for meals and snacks. Protein helps to curb the “I’m starving and I need to eat everything that’s not tacked down” hunger hormone, ghrelin. Avoid only eating protein at main meals. If you include protein in your snacks (low fat dairy, peanut butter on apple slices), you’ll keep this hunger hormone in check all through the day.

3) Substitute: Hey, it’s OK to have a treat every now and again. When you do, how about creating a tasty, healthy “cheat” by doing simple substitutions. Instead of grabbing something with boatloads of addictive refined sugar, make a fruit parfait with fresh berries and yogurt. Forget the potato chips and instead have hummus and carrots.

Now it’s time to honor that gluteal MUSCLE. I love these exercises because most are simple and easy to do throughout the day. Remember to always check with your medical team before you engage in any physical activities, especially if you have a medical and/or physical condition.

1) Stop Sitting So Much: Get up more often throughout the day. Walk while you talk on the phone. I always recommend standing and moving every 30 minutes. You’ll increase your fat burning metabolism as well as engage your muscles to keep them firm and fit.

2) Stay Mindful of Your Rearful: As many times as you can, become mentally aware of your behind and as you do, contract your glutes. You can be standing in line, walking up stairs or running to the bus. Pay attention to how they feel as you move. As I noted in a previous blog, engaging your core throughout the day keeps your posture upright and makes you appear taller and slimmer. The same is true for the glutes. Become glute aware!

3) Burn Your Butt Fat: As you proceed to do some of the glute exercises, just remember that in addition to strength training and good nutrition, you absolutely need to be doing regular cardio (goal is to burn 400 calories each session) with intensity intervals. That means when you hit the hills by increasing your treadmill’s incline, you’ll cook a ton of calories compared to simply walking on the flat. Crank up your treadmill’s incline to 5%, walking at a pace of around 3.5-4MPH and you’ll burn at least 350 calories per hour, which is a 64% increase over walking on a flat surface. Or ramp up the speed with which you walk. Intensity intervals simply mean adding hills and/or speed every now and again to your workout. Check out the WebMD resources on how to do interval training.

4) Butt Blasters:
Backward Leg Toe Touch and Lift: Stand behind a chair, toes facing forward, with both hands placed on top of the chair for stability. Keeping both knees straight, extend your left leg back pointing your toes with your big toe is touching the ground behind you. Gently lift your left leg about 30 degrees off the ground without bending your knee. Tighten your glutes and hold for a count of 10. Bring down and touch the ground with your pointed big toe and lift right back up for another count of 10. Repeat this 5 times and switch sides.

Donkey Kick Crossover: Grab a mat and get on all fours with your hands under your shoulders. Keep your left knee and ankle flexed as you lift your knee to hip level behind you. Hold for a count of 5 and bring down, touching the mat briefly and lift again. Repeat 5 times and switch sides.

Butt Bridge: Lie face up on a mat with knees bent and feet flat, arms by your side. Left hips slowly off the floor, forming a straight line from knees to shoulders. Tighten your glutes and maintain this bridge position for a count of 10. Bring your butt down for 10 seconds and lift back up again into bridge position for a count of 10. See if you can do it for a count of 20. Repeat 5 times.

Sizzling Squat: Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Engage your core abdominal muscles. Place your hands behind your head, elbows out to the side. Squat down, never going beyond a 90 degree angle to your lower legs. For novices or anyone with knee issues, just squat down enough to feel your glutes engage well and hold for a count of 3. As you stand up, for an added twist, rotate your trunk to the left and lift your bent left knee in front of you. Return to squat again. Switch sides and repeat. Do this whole set 5 times.

Invisible Chair Wall Squat: You can do this anytime and anywhere there’s a wall. Standing straight, place your back on a wall. Squat down as previously described, and imagine you’re sitting on an invisible chair. Squeeze your glutes. Hold for a count of 5-10 (or 20 for the advanced), and stand up. Rest for 10 seconds and repeat 5 times.

Everything I’ve described is simple and doable. So, do it already! Summer’s around the corner. That’s your “bottom” line! Next week, we’ll move upstairs anatomically to help you with your right to bare strong and fit arms for a sensational season. Keep it going everyone!

Low Carb Recovery

I received an interesting email today. A friend from the gym wanted to know how I could take two classes and then go home to 'work' some more ?? I explained to her that it's all about RECOVERY...



In Sage Rountree's new book The Athlete's Guide to Recovery, Rest & Restore for Peak Performance, he explains how its harder to RECOVER than it is to Exercise.. it's about finding the balance between working enough and resting enough. You should treat recovery as an extension of your training.. Say if you are passionate about Bodypump, then you should be JUST as passionate about recovery ! "You have to go easy to be able to go HARD." Now it's starting to make sense.

Paying attention to recovery takes time and discipline. Of course our idea of recovery may be to kick back and relax, watch some television, while folding laundry AND checking the facebook account. NOT> The body needs to have quite a fine balance between work and recovery. "You can drive a car across the country, and then get in the car and drive the next day.. You can't do the same thing with the body. Use your energy where it is best spent. When you rest, REST.

I'm only on chapter 11 in the book, but I've learned SO much already. Rest involves planning workout days and REST days. He talks about the importance of breathing and work load. Each chapter is delegated to a section that stands alone. Hard work tears down the body, but REST allows the body to repair itself and come back stronger than before.

I found this book a valuable resource. In the back there are charts and such. Whatever you need to know about recovery, you can find it here... Definitely a good read, OR a gift to a person in your family... :)

School is almost over.... Low Carb summer is HERE !

One more day of school left ! YEAH ! Had a great day today ! Was at my son's 6th grade achievement awards. He did extremely well. Finalized some papers with other students... Low carb summer is HERE. Are YOU ready for it ??

Chris and Darrell worked us hard at Bodypump. Afterwards, I did Bodyflow . I think I'm bodied out !! All my muscles feel lengthened until they feel like they are gonna pop .. FEELIN' THE BURN... defining that lean muscle tone... YEAH..

It's amazing how workouts make you feel... and the feeling lasts a very long TIME !

Low Carb Container Planting !!

What do you do with 24 empty tubs of molasses ? Low carb container planting of course ! We started planting on May 13, 2011

What started out as a simple project to teach my 12 year son, Sean, how to garden, is turning out rather nicely ! My father in law is passing down his gardening tradtion, and teaching us how to container plant.




We started planting in smaller buckets...




Then my father in law suggested doing it on a bigger scale ! Soo just HOW is it done ? The secret to this low carb gardening is to use these huge molasses containers, they feed the cows with out here. Then get a good mixture of soil and manure... and you are on your way !@!

We are planting seeds.



I think one of the more interesting is the shallots (green onions)..


You know the containers that a package of 50 CD's or DVD'S come in ? Well, we turn it upside down, put some holes in the bottom, moss, then the fertilized soil and then the shallots.. and put it up on the fence.. wallah !! lol



We are planting shallots, potatos, bush beans, carrots, spinach, radishes and beets.. I'll have to take some current pictures for yall.. as the beans are starting to come up already. I've had these pictures in my camera , waiting for some TIME to write this article...

So what are YOU waiting for.. you can plant ANYTHING you like just use your imaginations and EMPTY CONATINERS...

In a later blog, I'll show you how to cook and store them in the freezer for year round fresh veggies.. !! Enjoy !

Today's Exercise and Low Carb Tally...

Cheese (2 Carbs), Wheat toast (16 carbs) strawberries (four carbs) 2 slices cheese (2carbs) Blueberries (4 carbs) banana (17 carbs)

For Lunch I had a grilled Chicken Salad from Mc Donald's.. 11 carbs

Ate a protein bar after RPM and Body pump tonite.

RECOVERY PLANNED FOR WEDNESDAY !!!

Have a great evening !!






Continuation of the other post...

Exercise with RPM and Bodypump...