Recession-Proof Ingredients

Cooking meals at home is a healthy way to save money in these tough economic times, but which ingredients should you buy? We’ll show you which common groceries will support your budget and your fitness goals. Become a Team Beachbody FREE member and start your body transformation today! http://www.changetodayfitness.com/Joinnow.html

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How to Measure your transformation

Measuring your transformation takes more than numbers on a scale. Learn how to take a simple set of body measurements that will help you quantify how far you’ve come on your fitness journey. Become a Team Beachbody FREE member and start your body transformation today!http://www.changetodayfitness.com/Joinnow.html

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How to Photograph your transformation

The year 2011 is almost here and for sure you are getting ready for a total physical makeover. Prepare to get your PhD in transformation photography, because before” and after photos are Beachbody's bread and butter. Learn how to take the perfect set of transformation photos to showcase your results. Become a Team Beachbody FREE member and start your body transformation today! http://www.changetodayfitness.com/Joinnow.html

Pull-Ups! Don't be afraid of them!

They’re a part of any of Tony Horton's fitness programs (p90X, Power 90, 10-Minute Trainer) and they’re the exercise people find the most difficult But fear not. Tony is here to help you conquer pull-ups You may struggle with them now, but you can do them!
Join the Team Beachbody Club now to learn more tips from your favorite trainer including: Shaun T (Insanity- Hip Hop Abs), Chalene Johnson (Turbo-Jam, Turbo-Fire, ChaLean Extreme) and Debbie Siebers (Slim in 6).
http://www.changetodayfitness.com/Joinnow.html

Kitchen clean out!

Clean out your kitchen to eliminate the bad foods that will slow down your transformation.
Download the Take Away Tips for more information on unprocessed carbohydrates.
Find out how to become a Team Beachbody member and get your own "Thin Kitchen Tips" http://www.changetodayfitness.com/Joinnow.html

8 Tips for Avoiding the Holiday Pounds

8 Tips for Avoiding the Holiday Pounds

By Stephanie S. Saunders and the Team Beachbody

It's that time of year. The leaves turn majestic hues of red and gold. The air becomes fresh and crisp. We can finally put an extra blanket on the bed and cuddle up with a cup of hot tea. Yes, it's fall. We just spent 8 months killing ourselves to get into that bathing suit, but now we've replaced it with a worn pair of jeans and a much more relaxed attitude towards food. After all, it's the holiday season, and no one'll notice a few extra pounds under layers of clothes. A little extra weight just gives us a New Year's resolution to focus on, right?

Wrong. According to a recent study by researchers at Sweden's Linköping University, those 4 weeks of celebrating can actually lead to long-term weight gain.

Essentially, the researchers took a group of healthy young people, increased their caloric intake by 70 percent, and lowered their exercise levels. They also had a control group whose diets weren't altered. At 4 weeks, the participants in the test group had gained an average of 14 pounds. After 6 months, and no longer on an increased-calorie diet, only a third of these participants had returned to their original weight. After 1 year, the test group members were each still an average of 3.3 pounds heavier. After 2.5 years, the "gluttonous" group continued to gain, while the control group still maintained a stable weight.

Now, most of us don't increase our calories that drastically for 30 days straight. Sure, there's Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving leftovers, Hanukkah, the work Christmas party, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day, not to mention the extra sweets, cocktails, and (ahem) fruitcake. But according to the New England Journal of Medicine, the actual average weight gain over the holidays is only 1 pound. (They obviously didn't poll my family or friends.) So what's the big deal? The problem is, a year later, the vast majority of people have not removed that pound. Continue this pattern over 30 or 40 holiday seasons and the problem becomes—quite literally—huge.

So how are we supposed to get through the holidays without causing weight gain? Here are eight effective ways to get yourself ready to beat the holiday bulge.

1. Buy clothes that fit right now. This first tip might be a bit pricy, but it's a great motivational aid in staving off weight gain. A new addition to your wardrobe in a size that shows off your summer body can be all you need to prevent those extra pounds from creeping on. Imagine that beautiful holiday dress or great pair of pants, then imagine being unable to zip them up thanks to sugar cookies. Yeah, no one wants that. So before you begin the festivities, go buy yourself something perfect to wear to your parties and hang it someplace visible, so it serves as a constant reminder. Perhaps on the TV where you play your P90X^® videos, or in front of that treadmill that might be starting to collect a little dust in the corner, or on your refrigerator door . . . that way, if it doesn't fit quite the same way the next time you try to slip into it, you know it's time to get back to work.
2. Write it down. We try to write down everything we eat, right? We spend hours each month staring at a food diary, adding up our calories, and seeing if we got the correct balance of macronutrients. And then the holidays happen, and our little book ends up in the bottom drawer. It's almost like we're hoping that if we didn't write it down, it didn't happen. Unfortunately, the scale doesn't fit in that bottom drawer. The truth is, if we would write down the not-so-perfect meals and treats, we could find a way to compensate for it, at least a bit. For example, you have a peppermint brownie in the break room at work, which you know is carbohydrates and fat. Eat one less portion of carbohydrate and one less portion of fat for your dinner. It's not ideal, but it'll help. Or perhaps you couldn't resist Mom's homemade scones for breakfast. You could plan on an extra 20 or 30 minutes of your workout tonight. The point is, if we write it down, and do the math, we can lessen the damage. It isn't a good long-term plan, but to help compensate for a few slip-ups, it can help.
3. Keep exercising. Most fitness trainers will tell you the slowest point of their year is between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Sure, their clients schedule workouts with the best of intentions, but then they cancel them for parties and gift shopping. It's hard to remain balanced when you have a million things to do and gifts to buy. Yet the greatest gift you can give yourself is to stay focused on your fitness goals and get your workout in. Shopping getting in the way? Do it online and save some time. Parties getting in the way? Just show up later. Who cares if everyone else is a couple of cocktails ahead of you? You'll be healthier, and you won't have to worry about the embarrassing YouTube^®videos in the morning. Just stay consistent, even if it's inconvenient. You'll be much less likely to look like Santa (both belly-wise and red-nose-wise) at the end of the month.
4. Eat before parties. Most holiday parties don't focus on low-fat, low-calorie refreshments, so unless you're organizing the event, the best damage control is to show up with a full tummy. Make sure you eat your meals and snacks throughout the day, and try to eat a healthy meal before attending any party. If you're going straight from work, prepare a healthy and filling snack to eat on the way. You'll be a lot less likely to swim in mayonnaise dips and pigs in blankets if you're full.
5. Get junk out of the house. The majority of people don't get into the car at midnight, drive to the store, buy the ingredients for cookies, bake them, and then stay up to eat them. But if those homemade cookies that Linda in accounting made for you are already on your kitchen counter, you better believe you'll find a way to justify it. Frankly, at 12:30 AM, after a rotten day, for most of us there's nothing like a few cookies to drown our sorrows. The secret is to get the enticements out of the house. Send them to work with your significant other, donate them to a bake sale, regift them to your 100-pound friend with the perfect metabolism, or just dump them in the trash. Linda will never know. If you have holiday dinner leftovers, box them up for your guests individually and send them home with them. If your family still sends you that Pepperidge Farm^®cookie assortment, invite a bunch of people over for a pre-party party and serve 'em up before the drinks. Don't be more wasteful than you have to, but get the less-than-healthy temptations out of your reach.
6. Offer to prepare healthy fare. This suggestion won't be well received by those of us who'd rather spend Thanksgiving sitting around watching football than toiling in the kitchen, but if you do the cooking, you have the control. Your family could have a tasty and satisfying meal without ingesting thousands of calories and fat grams. The way the turkey is prepared, the type of stuffing, how vegetables are made, whether the cranberries are real, and countless other things can make or break the healthiness of a meal. There are tons of cookbooks out there, plus recipes in this and past newsletters, that can help you out. Yes, it does require a bit of work. But you work out with Beachbody^® fitness programs. You can do anything.
7. Choose wisely and proportionally. Something occurs during a holiday meal. It's like a Las Vegas buffet—we feel like we have to eat some of everything. We feel almost like those foods will never exist again, and this is our last meal on the planet. This year, why not try to eat only your favorites, as in two or three items, and keep the portions to the size of your palm? If you're still hungry, try to fill up on veggies (preferably ones that aren't drowned in butter or cream-of-mushroom soup). If you want dessert, lean toward a small slice of pumpkin pie (220 calories) as opposed to pecan (a heftier 543), leaving out the hydrogenated nondairy whipped topping if possible. If you're going to have an alcoholic beverage, go with a flute of champagne (100 calories) as opposed to that rum-laced eggnog (with more than four times more calories, at 420). Just a few wise choices will save you a ton of calories, and probably a significant amount of heartburn as well.
8. Don't beat yourself up. Quite possibly the worst thing you can do is beat yourself up over a bit of holiday indulgence. Yes, it does stink to backslide after working your tail off. But sometimes it doesn't stink as much as dealing with your mother when you turn down her brisket and potato pancakes. Sometimes, we don't have time to go to work, buy a Christmas tree, decorate it with our kids, make dinner, oversee homework, tuck kids in bed, and spend an hour doing INSANITY^®. We can only do our very best. Mentally berating yourself will only make you feel worse, which never helped anyone get back to their fitness program. So if you happen to gain that one extra pound this holiday season, be part of the rare group who actually follows through with their New Year's resolution and manages to shed it again. A week of hard work and a slight calorie deficit should do the trick. Resolutions don't come easier than that!

Insanity Workout Review 1- Fit Test

 

When I first watched the INSANITY infomercial on TV, it intimidated me. I saw those young 20-30 year-olds challenging themselves to the extreme, and my question was: what exactly can INSANITY do for a 44 year old woman?
INSANITY pushed me over and above anything I believed was feasible with mind blowing cardio and plyometric drills and non-stop intervals of strength, power and resistance.  Further more, ab and core training techniques allowed me to get incredible results really fast.

It was very challenging and sometimes I thought I would never make it, but I persevered and I did it!

The Fit Test DVD was a complete workout! To start, Shaun put my body to the test and I saw what I was made of. Intensity, fun, challenge, sweat, feelings of accomplishment; all these things came to me while I was going through the Fit Test.

 So, what is Insanity?

INSANITY is a 60-day cardio-based total-body conditioning program that’s probably the most extreme exercise routine ever before put on DVD. Physical fitness expert Shaun T drew on his collegiate track and field training plus his following quite a few years of expertise being a professional trainer to produce a program that requires total-body conditioning to an extraordinary level.
P90X stands out as the top level strength training workout, INSANITY is the peak of cardio training.

For more information on INSANITY workouts go to: http://changetodayfitness.com/ProductInsanity

 

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A Chocolate Delight for every day of the month. Just add Shakeology®.

It is the Ultra Premium Health Shake – The healthiest meal of the day!
It will help boost energy, improve digestion, reduce cravings and helps you lose weight. It’s more nutritious than a salad and tastes like a desert! So, how does it work?
It is a potent nutrient vitamin therapy system
Derived from whole foods, it nourishes and revitalizes at the cellular level – meaning the nutrient penetrates the cell walls to repair damage. And it helps restore balance and energy to your whole body.
So, What could be better than a 30-day calendar of delicious Shakeology recipes? Probably nothing. That's why Beachbody made this recipe guide for you! Perfect for your fridge or easy reference on-the-go.
A Chocolate Delight for every day of the month. Just add Shakeology®.
Click on the picture below and download this calendar to your computer.
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To learn more about Shakeology, please go to: www.shakeology.com/coacheliana

What a wonderful date night...

I had a wonderful date night with my husband yesterday. Our daughter was not at home (sleep over), and we've decided to spend some quality time together... working out to Body Gospel Strength and Power DVD.

We usually have our workouts at different times (Don is currently doing P90X), and I am doing everything else...

But yesterday was special. The workout was like a party, even though it was hard. The music was incredible and great sweat just came out of us. The workout made us feel like we were in a very "lively church" with great Gospel music, great worship, an opportunity to Glorify God with our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), and spending an amazing time with each other.

Our date nights are usually a dinner and a movie. We had that, but we added a workout before the dinner and the movie, right here in our home. Exciting times!!! 

Thank you Lord for the opportunity to have spent some fun time with my husband while we worshiped you.

Eliana Dukes

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (New International Version) 

19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.