If Tomorrow is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

When starting a new fitness regime or eating plan, my husband and I will joke that "tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life." So if you have big plans for 2013 to eat right, exercise more, lose weight, get leaner, stronger, etc. then I have a couple suggestions for you.

• Today is December 31, 2012 and that means tomorrow is January 1, 2013. You will be hungry when you wake up. Instead of ruining your big plans of changing the way you look, don't wake up and go to the closest McDonald's to get a sausage biscuit. Instead, at the grocery store today, grab some oatmeal and eggs. It is all about being prepared. 

• Spend the day tomorrow researching and planning your first week of meals. You will lose SO much more weight if you eat right. I cannot stress this enough. In fact, I would go as far to say that you could go without exercising and still lose weight. (I hate saying that since I am in the fitness business, but it's true!)

• Throw out all the processed junk in your fridge and cabinets. THROW IT OUT! You need to view food as fuel when dieting until your mindset changes. I'm not saying don't enjoy food, but for now you've got to get your mind and body adjusted to eating real food. It will take you a while, this isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. 

• Tell yourself that losing weight is going to be hard. REALLY HARD. It's going to suck and you are going to hate it at times. Think about all the donuts, tacos, ice cream and cheeseburgers you've eaten to get to where you are today. You've got to "uneat" all that grossness. But you can do it. I promise. 

Enjoy today and Happy New Years! Here is to health and happiness in 2013! Hopefully we can work on both together.

Quick Interval Workout

My first ever workout video! Let me know what you think!

4 minutes of high intensity intervals. Great for the holidays when you only have a couple minutes!

September 2012 Bootcamp Info

September Bootcamps

There are some changes to bootcamp starting in September! Please read the below information carefully. 

• Child care is now available at Bishop Park for the M/W 6:15 bootcamp, it is $5 per child each time. You pay and sign your child in at the front desk at Bishop Park at 6 and they will be taking them over to the Boys & Girls Club to play & watch movies.
• There is now a Tuesday/Thursday bootcamp from 6:15-7:15pm at Holland Chapel in Benton. 
• If you want to add one workout a week you have the option of doing one of the Tuesday/Thursday night classes. Half a month or 4 classes is $20.
• You can NOT substitute one of the Tuesday/Thursday classes for a missed any missed Bishop Park class. Please do not ask me to do so. 
• I am doing the Tuesday/Thursday as a trial run. If I can get a good group then I will continue it. 

Bishop Park - Bryant

You can sign up starting August 27th at Bishop Park or at the Bishop Park Online Registration. Please note the dates for the September session - the bootcamps are longer than normal, hence the higher price. 

Monday/Wednesday

September 12 - October 10 (4.5 weeks, 9 sessions)

Beginner BC $46 or $36 for members

5:15-6:05 pm & 7:30-8:20pm

Bootcamp $39 or $31 for members

 6:15-7:15pm

Tuesday/Thursday

September 11 - October 11 (5 weeks, 10 sessions)

Bootcamp $43 or $35 for members 

5:!5-6:15am

Holland Chapel - Benton

You can pay Marietta directly with cash or check. You can also pay via Paypal to mariettasmcclure@gmail.com or click the Paypal icon in top right corner of this website.

Tuesday/Thursday

September 11 - Oct 4 (4 weeks, 8 sessions)

6:15-7:15pm

$35 for 8 sessions

$20 for 4 sessions

Those of you not familiar with Holland Chapel, it is off Exit 116 and sits on the access road. It is right next to the fairgrounds and the airport. We will have bootcamp in the Family Life Center which is a big gym. I have equipment, music, etc. so the workouts will still be awesome!

Running for the First Time

Last night my beginner bootcamp class went out to the track for the first time in the middle of our class to do a little interval running workout.

We ran the straights and walked the curves. This gets your heart rate high as you are running as hard as possible and then brings your heart rate back down as you walk. Interval workouts burn all that yucky belly fat!


One lady in my class has lost over 100 pounds on her own and joined my class two weeks ago. She was able to run for the first time in 30 years! I was so happy for her - she said it felt amazing and she couldn't believe she had just ran!

I love her story and it inspires me to keep doing what I do!

- Please excuse any typos as this post was written using BlogPress from my iPhone

Water

Sometimes you can only drink so much water!

When I get sick of drinking water I do half tap water and half flavored water. It's a yummy solution to drinking water!



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Summer Salad

I worked at Market Place Grill in college and practically lived on their "Chicken Berry Salad".

Today's meal is super easy and you can use whatever summer produce is in your fridge (or garden!).

Kraft has a new raspberry vinegarette with poppy-seeds so I was inspired to replicate my beloved salad. This dressing is 1/3 of the calories and 1/4 of the sugar that Market Place's signature blueberry poppyseed salad dressing contains.




First, bake your chicken & slice it into chunks. I did not use any seasoning since the chicken would be going into a salad. I want to taste the yummy salad dressing, not a salty seasoning.



Next, open the fridge and start piling on the healthy toppings!

My salad has:
Mandarin oranges (canned)
Craisins
Apples
Cashews
Blue Cheese
Bacon bits (fake)
Purple Onion
Cherry tomatoes
Baked chicken
Raspberry vinegarrette poppyseed salad dressing





This salad is a great option if you're dieting because it is void of all starchy carbs. However, I can't say that I served this for dinner, my husband called it "shower food".

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Before/After Pictures of Yours Truly

I have been bombarded lately with people asking me to sell several types of shakes for weight loss. I am a huge proponent of eating REAL food and exercising to lose weight. To prove my point, I'm posting a before/after picture of myself.

In order to see a big change in your body you need to give yourself a good 90 days of counting your calories and working out. I have not used any special supplement or started a special diet.

This picture is one week after I had my baby and 100 days later. I've lost 42 pounds and only have 4 to go!

Here's to eating real food, counting your calories and exercising the right way (bootcamp, duh!).


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Channel 7 Interview

My bootcamp was on the news this week! Click on this link to see my interview... I am a LOT more twangy than I knew!

Bootcamp at Bishop Park! #2

Bootcamp vs Bootcamp

There are so many options now days when it comes to fitness. It seems that every gym is advertising a class that they call "bootcamp". I am going to address why you should choose one bootcamp over another. Your fitness goals should determine the type of bootcamp you choose. As a general rule, most people fall into one of two goal categories: 

Goal #1: Weight Loss & Toning

You are looking for a bootcamp that incorporates  a lot of cardio intervals (get your heart rate sky high and then bring it back down again) and high repetition of low weights. An example would be P90X or Intensity DVD workouts, they are aimed at weight loss and toning. 

Goal #2: Bulk Up & Muscle Building

You are looking for a bootcamp that incorporates power moves (block jumps, tractor tire drags, sledgehammer swings, etc.) and low repetition of heavy weights. Crossfit and sports agility training would be an example of this type of workout.

ALL of my workouts are aimed at goal #1 of weight loss & toning. We do interval training for the entire hour and an average person 140lbs burns 800-1,000 calories in one hour! 

Be sure to call the instructor before you sign up for a bootcamp and ask him or her to describe in detail the exercises that you would be doing. If you have fat that you need to lose you could be hurting yourself more than helping if you choose a bootcamp where the goal is to bulk up. You need to lose the fat first, then focus on muscle building. 

Calorie Counting & Exercise on My Fitness Pal

If you're trying to drop pounds you MUST count your calories. I have recommended using "My Fitness Pal" for doing so. However, there is a entry each day that asks for your exercise and then tells you how many calories you burned working out. It then tells you that you have that many more calories to eat.

Do not enter your exercise into your daily log. You need to eat the same amount of calories each day whether you worked out or not.

If you eat more calories because you worked out then there was no point in working out.

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Lettuce Wraps

It's time for another recipe! These lettuce wraps are SO crazy good that my husband and I fought over the last wrap.  There are only 1,000 calories in the entire dish and most of those calories are from the lean protein, so eat up!

Ingredients:

1 head of lettuce, Boston Bibb or butter lettuce if you can find it 

1 lb ground turkey

1 large white onion, chopped

4 cloves fresh garlic, minced

3 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 cup hoisin sauce

2 tsp ginger powder (or minced pickled ginger if you have it)

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

Asian chile pepper (if you want it spicy, I did not)

1 8 oz can water chestnuts, drained & chopped

1 bunch of green onions, chopped

1 large carrot, shredded

4 tsp Asian sesame oil

Directions:

1. Rinse lettuce, be careful to keep leaves whole

2. Brown the ground turkey, set aside on a separate plate with a paper towel and pat dry

3. Cook the onion in the same pan, then add the garlic, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, ginger, vinegar and chile pepper.

4. After onion softens slightly, add the water chestnuts, green onions, carrots, sesame oil.

5. Stir in the turkey meat.

You're done! Wrap the lettuce around the meat like a burrito and enjoy!

5 Ways to Make Your Workout More Effective

Are you in a workout slump? Try these five ways to change up your workout.

 Intervals

You've memorized your treadmill workout, and those minutes spent sprinting are not as exhausting as usual. If you're not challenging your body during those high-intensity spurts, you may not see as much change in your body as you're used to. Try elongating intense intervals, increasing your speed, or cutting your recovery period to challenge your body and shock it back into getting results.

Your Weights

Similar to your cardio workout, if you're not challenging your muscles when it comes to the amount of weight you're lifting, you may be wasting your time. As you get stronger, performing more reps becomes easier, making it take longer and longer to exhaust the muscles you're targeting. Instead, assess how you feel after you do your normal set of reps; if you're not fatiguing at eight to 12 reps like you were in the beginning, it may be time to test the waters with a heavier dumbbell. Read more about finding the right dumbbell weight for you here.

Your Go-To Machine

Even if your favorite machine isn't occupied, going for an entirely different type of workout can be beneficial. You won't be as bored, since you're learning a new machine, and you may find a new favorite to master while you're at it.

Your Direction

When you switch your movements to go backward, you'll be working different muscles than you normally do. Jogging backward on an incline on the treadmill or switching direction on the elliptical can help strengthen leg muscles that you normally neglect. Even alternating the direction you do your lunges — either forward, backward, or to the side — will ensure that you're toning all those muscles in your legs.

 

Your Workout Order

 

If you normally end your workouts with a few minutes of ab workouts, you're not alone. But if you're always saving something like a core workout (or other body-part-specific move) until the very end, you may be sabotaging your routine. "[At the end of your workout], your energy levels are lower, which means higher risk of injury and less intensity. And if you’re running late on time, you’re going to skip what's at the end," says celebrity trainer Gunnar Peterson. Instead, build a circuit workout that keeps you moving from one body part to the next, so you're working all areas throughout your workout. Try these fast total-body workout ideas to get started.

*Article from www.fitsugar.com

20 Foods NOT to Eat After Your Workout

The holy grail of nutrition is to be able to send the nutrients in your food toward your muscles for energy and repair and not to your fat cells. Exercise is the one thing that can do this. Exercise causes your muscles' cells to actively pull sugar out of your bloodstream and into your muscles with much more fervor than any other time of day. Read the article at the attached link to find out if your post-workout snack is ruining all your hard work!

20 Foods That Can Ruin Your Workout

Food Freebies

These fruits and vegetables are 80 to 95 percent water, making them hardly worth counting. Add as many as possible to your daily meals to fill you up without sacrificing calories!

-Celery
-Cucumbers
-Tomatoes
-Spinach
-Salad greens
-Asparagus
-Broccoli
-Mushrooms
-Green beans
-Red bell peppers
-Carrots
-Cantaloupe
-Oranges


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One Green Thing

Aim to eat something green everyday this week.

Today my green thing was real green beans (not canned) AND a green salad.

Eating healthy is colorful!



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Friday's Food 3.2.2012

I got a wee bit busy yesterday... Obviously you know what Grape Nuts and milk look like!
Lunch:








Dinner:








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Thursday's Food 3.1.2012

10:00am snack


Leftovers from Wednesday night for lunch on Thursday.





My favorite low calorie meal! Very simple... Season chicken with Cavenders and bake chicken leg quarters for one hour at 400. Only 150 calories of lean chicken - Just don't eat the skin!



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Wednesday's Food 2.29.2012

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Turkey Chili Recipe

Turkey Chili

1 cup = 200 calories

Ingredients:

1 lb 97% lean ground turkey (you can use 97% lean ground beef instead)

1 can diced tomatos

1 can Ranch Style beans

1 can tomato sauce

1/2 cup water

1 package of chili seasoning

Rice

Next time I'm going to leave out the Northern Beans. Not my favorite bean and the chili was a little too bean heavy.

 Make SURE you use 97/3 turkey or ground beef. If you use anything less you might as well eat a cheeseburger (I'm being a bit dramatic, but don't short yourself on lean protein).

Brown the turkey. It will turn white as you cook it, that's normal. Add a chopped onion at this point if you like onion.

 Add all the other ingredients to a big pot and cook on medium until it boils. Turn down the heat and simmer until dinner time. Cook the rice separately.

Layer a little rice, one cup of chili (use a measuring cup), a little cheese and crackers if you can afford the extra calories.

This is super yummy! Add your favorite hot sauce if you like a little heat!

Tuesday's Food 2.28.2012

Egg white breakfast sandwich, you can find out how to make it here.

I couldn't find an accurate description of my breakfast sandwich, but this one from Starbucks has about the same calories as mine so I used it.

Leftover turkey chili from the night before. I did add some cheddar cheese and saltine crackers. The cheese I used (1/4 cup) had half the calories of the entire bowl of chili. Not sure it was worth it!

I had a sweet potato at 3:00pm. I will bake 2 or 3 sweet potatoes at a time and keep them in the fridge for lunch or snack. I just microwave them and use one sweet-n-low. Being prepared is half the battle of eating right!

 For dinner we had steak stroganoff.  It is simply amazing and my husband's favorite meal. Anytime we have steak (like we did on Sunday night) he will grill one extra and I use it in the next couple days to make this steak stroganoff.  I ate before him and forgot to take a picture of my bowl, so this is his. I didn't eat quite as much as him. :) It is NOT low-calorie, so you must use self control with your portions. One portion size = a deck of cards. So noodles = deck of cards, stroganoff = deck of cards. That being said, click HERE for the recipe.

I went to Target and treated myself to a small sugar-free vanilla skinny latte. It was worth the 102 calories!

I had a baby that wanted to be held while I needed to cook dinner, so I cooked dinner like this!

Monday's Food 2.27.2012

Breakfast was real oatmeal (I cooked it on the stove) with one sweet-n-low, 2 slices of 100% whole wheat toast with 1tbsp of almond butter on each piece. 

Lunch was a tuna wrap with leftover salad and almonds. 

I didn't eat all my lunch, so I edited the food entry by deleting the greek yogurt, pita chips and carrots. Remember, you do not have to eat everything on your plate!

 Homemade turkey chili - VERY low calorie! I was only able to take about 4 bites because my baby started crying and then I had to runout the door to teach bootcamp. 

Because I didn't get to eat dinner I took a protein bar with me which  I ate in between workout classes. Try to keep a meal substitute like this protein bar in your purse or desk at work because sometimes you are just do not have the time to eat right. Better a protein bar than a Big Mac!

This is my favorite protein bar because it tastes yummy,  has 17g of protein and only 1g of sugar. You really have to check the sugar on so-called protein bars. Some have more sugar than a milk shake!

I had one protein bar at 2:30pm and another at 7:30pm.

You can find these at Wal-Mart and Kroger in the diet food section.

Sunday's Food 2/26/2012

I've screen printed my calorie logs so that you can see how I inputted all my food. I might have forgotten to take pictures at breakfast and dinner so I found internet images identical to what I ate. First day mistake!


Breakfast was a 1/2 cup dry (cooked on the stove) of plain oatmeal with one Sweet-n-Low mixed in and an EAS protein drink. Total 260 calories. I usually like to get at least 300 calories for breakfast, but this works since I got a lot of protein from the EAS drink.





Lunch was a salmon filet, medium sweet potato and a handful of baby carrots. There is a lot of orange on this plate! I buy the frozen Atlantic salmon at Wal-Mart. I simply put a little Cavendar's seasoning and bake at 375 for 10 minutes. I had baked the sweet potato the night before. I put one packet of Sweet-n-Low on the potato. And that large sonic drink is water! Not the cherry vanilla diet coke I wanted to order. :)


For a mid afternoon snack I had a small bowl of Kashi Heart cereal. This is really the only Kashi cereal that I like.





Dinner was a small caesar salad, a 6 oz filet mignon (no bacon) and half of a twice baked potato. This meal is a perfect example of eating what I wanted (or in this case what all the boys at my house wanted for dinner) and using portion control. Remember one portion of any food is the size of a deck of cards.





Shad had two of his uncles over for dinner.


Of course they are already teasing him.



~Marietta


***Please excuse any typos as this blog was posted using BlogPress from my iPhone.