To The Point

Here We Go

Enough complaining and wishing. The time has come for me to kick it in high gear!  We were camping this past weekend and I was sitting around the fire stuffing my face with hotdogs, s'mores, and cheese puffs reading a FITNESS magazine. Pathetic? No, RIDICULOUS! I normally could give two hoots about someone's suggested diet or workout (I always try my own healthy eating and/or exercise routine), but the one in the mag caught my attention. It seemed practical, and the article was called Beach Body Bootcamp. Folks - I have NEVER had a beach body and I've always dreamed of it. I thought...I'm the only one keeping myself from accomplishing this dream (as shallow as it might seem).  So here is my starting point. If you want to join me, check out http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/ and sign up for the Beach Body Bootcamp. It's kind of fun because you can log your workouts and meals. The handy dandy chart will tell you if you're hitting your goals or not. The only downside is within the diet portion. The only foods to chose from to calculate your calories is from their menu. I usually just pick an item that comes close to the calories of whatever I ate that isn't listed. I do like the fact that you can also select how many servings you ate. So, say I had a 70 calorie snack of my own choice and their snacks are 150 calories, I just chose 1/2 a serving and the calories are close enough.
Ok...so what did I do this week?

The Workout

This portion is half resistance bands and half cardio. I do the resistance bands exactly how they recommend it and I do them all. The cardio is all for the treadmill, spin bike, or elliptical and while I have the treadmill and elliptical WHO wants to be inside this time of year?? NOT ME! So, I just take the recommended times and do it to running and walking (and for this week and probably most of the time I cut it back to 20-30 minutes). I want it to be realistic, so if one day I decide a bike ride sounds good, I'm not going to force myself to run.  For Pete's sake, doing something is better than what I was doing (aka nothing)!!

The Diet

I have an advantage here. I love to eat healthy foods! I picked 2-3 ideas from bfast, lunch, dinner and bought the ingredients I would need. My favorite so far is quite simple:

Spinach Salad with Chicken, Strawberries, Walnuts and Goat Cheese
KEEP READING...I'll tell you what I did differently incase you're already thinking negative things!

• Combine 3 cups baby spinach, 2 ounces chopped grilled chicken, 1/2 cup sliced strawberries, 1/2 ounce crumbled goat cheese, 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts, 2 teaspoons olive oil, and 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar.
• Toss all ingredients; add salt and black pepper to taste.

I didn't take the time to cook chicken for one serving at lunch time. I used lunch meat. Secondly, I used feta cheese (you might think it's $$ but a LITTLE goes a long way). Last, I always try to like balsamic vinegar, but can't seem to get the taste for it. However, I tried a bite of salad (separate from the entire dish) with it on just to see and the combination of ingredients makes the balsamic a PERFECT fit and I LOVED it! This is something that I will continue eating and sharing with my family! YUMO!

So, take what you want from what I'm doing. The point I'm making to myself and hopefully to others who are wanting to see change is just do SOMETHING, no matter how small it may seem, it will make a difference.

Yours Truly,
Beach Body Hopeful