Another Healthy Snack Alternative

Hey there, hope everyone is having a great week. It's been another busy one for me, I'm finally getting a bit more settled in to my new schedule and I'm still finding some time to take care of my little family, get some chores done, as well as work on some projects around our new place. More updates on all those exciting things coming soon!

Today, I thought I would share yet another somewhat healthy snack option for those moments in between meals when hunger strikes (it happens to me more often than not). I like this snack because it combines a bit of crunch, sweet and a tad salty. While the rice cake isn't super healthy, the almond butter adds a bit of protein and a healthy fat and the apples give a crisp sweetness.

To make it all you have to do is take a cinnamon apple rice cake, spread almond butter across it and top it with some sliced apples. For a finishing touch I like to sprinkle a bit of cinnamon on top. And there you have it! 

Contentment Challenge - What I Learned

Hi all, it has been a few weeks since my last post, I apologize. As many of you know, I started a new job about a month ago and the last two weeks we have been working hard getting ready for the grand opening of our new store. Good news, the store is now open and it is amazing!

I love it. The team I work with is beyond fantastic and I just love that I literally wake up in the mornings and look forward to going to work! It's really a refreshing feeling.

Anyway, now that the store is open I should be able to settle in to my new routine! So be looking forward to more regular post here in on the blog.

Today, I wanted to start by recapping the end of the Contentment Challenge I did mid-February through March. I finished up my month-long challenge about two weeks ago and I have to say I couldn't feel better about it.

At first I was hesitant about the fast, thinking it would increase my desire to shop more, but God is gracious and loving and I never once felt deprived at all. I will admit there were a few times I browsed through clothing and shoes, but it was freeing to not feel that desire to desperately need something. I felt content with what I already had.

I am happier to report that even now, two weeks after the completion of the Contentment Challenge, I still don't have that desperate need to shop. I love that I can feel free to go walk through Target or window shop at local malls, but not feel that nagging need to make a purchase. I have bought an item or two since the end of the fast but haven't felt the need to do a major shopping spree. 

It is truly amazing what God will do in your life when you give him the reigns, when you give up those desires that seem to drive you and instead let Him drive. I never imagined I'd feel this way and while I was hesitant at the beginning of this experience I am so incredibly thankful I did it.

Image Credit: Nancy Ray

Guest Post: Part 2 - Our Workout Routine + A Printable

Hi all! We are back today with the second part of the guest post with my husband Chris. Yesterday, he shared a little more about both of our fitness backgrounds and how we've moved forward. Today, I'm excited to share our current fitness routine. I apologize, in advance, it is a bit lengthy but Chris will give you an in-depth look at the programming he put together for us. I've tried to include photos and links to help guide you on form. That being said, if you have never done any olympic lifting I would strongly recommend seeking a fitness trainer/professional to assist you before attempting any of these lifts on your own. I was fortunate enough to have my husband teach me technique as well as certified coaches at our last Crossfit gym.

And finally, I'm beyond excited to share my first printable with you. This is a prettier version of the workout spreadsheet Chris created for me. I like to print mine out and put them in a notebook (I love using the Martha Stewart Arc notebooks from Staples). It is a great way to track progress and push yourself to move up in weight each week. I hope you all enjoy!

Hello everyone, welcome back! Today, I will be sharing the workout routine I've programmed for Meghan and I. As I mentioned in yesterday's post our goals are a little different so our programming varies slightly but this programming is a great place to start.

Mondays: Squats, Presses and a 10 minute met con (metabolic conditioning). 

(Source: Bodybuilding.com)

Squats are done with two warmup sets, and three heavy sets of 5 across. The last heavy set of squats is “5+”, meaning done to exhaustion. So, the heavy sets would be 5/5/5+. This method is taken from the GreySkull Linear Progression (GSLP), which I have had a lot of personal success with. The goal is to add 5 lbs. to the heavy sets every time you squat, in a linear progression. Once the lifter is no longer able to maintain sets of 5 across, you reset, lowering the weight by 10% and restart the linear progression. This allows the trainee to smash through previous PR's (personal records) as they continue the linear progression. Check out this post on bodybuilding.com for proper form.

The presses alternate on Monday and Thursday between bench press and strict overhead press.  They are also done in 5/5/5+ fashion. So, one week you bench on Mondays and strict press on Thursdays, and the next week it’s in reverse. The linear progression with presses goes up by 2.5 lbs. weekly until a reset is necessary. On Mondays you finish with a 10 minute metcon. The metcon is programmed on the fly, but we are trying to incorporate pullups or chins into each Monday metcon. For example, a Monday metcon might be 6 rounds: 5 pullups, heavy farmers carry with dumbells, and 10 pushups. This allows Meghan to push herself hard at the end of Monday’s workout.

Strict Press

(Source: Bodybuilding.com)

Check out this video for proper strict press form from Crossfit Endurance.

Bench Press

(Source: Bodybuilding.com)

Tuesdays: Cleans, ring dips, overhead squats, and sprints. 

(Source: Girl Walks in to Bar(bell))

Cleans (full squat cleans) are done for 3 heavy sets of one rep across, progressing up in weight each week. 

Check out this video from Crossfit Endurance on proper form.

(Source: bodybuilding.com)

Ring dips are done with 3 sets of 8-10 reps, once Meghan can do 10 reps across; the weight is increased, utilizing a weighted dip belt when necessary. The reps are higher with this to allow more of a hypertrophy/aesthetic focus. 

Bodybuilding.com has a great video on proper form for Ring Dips as does Crossfit Endurance.

(Source: Bodybuilding.com)

Overhead Squats (OHS) are done in the 5/5/5+ GSLP fashion, adding 5 lbs. every week. The OHS are to build strength for the oly lifts, and to build a strong core. 

You finish the Tuesday workout with sprints, either utilizing straight sprints of 50-100 yards or football style cone drills. Last week I had Meghan doing 5-10-15 style sprints for example, and the sprint style changes weekly to make it fun. 5-10-15 sprints mean you have a starting point and sets cones out at 5 yards, 10 yards, and 15 yards. You sprint from the start to the 5 and back, then to the 10 and back, then to the 15 and back, without rest. I like to do these starting on the minute, and shooting for 6-8 total sets. This allows for power and speed development.

Wednesdays are an active rest day, and Meghan has said she would like to incorporate a yoga sessions on these days or some other type of group-based class.

Thursdays: Presses, Front squats, and a 10 minute metcon. 

Meghan does the opposite press movement from Monday, in 5/5/5+ fashion. See above for proper strict press and bench press form. 

(Source: Bodybuilding.com)

Front squats are also done in 5/5/5+ fashion. 

The metcon on Thursday incorporates at least one core/ab movement, for example I had her recently do: 6 manmakers with 15 lb. dumbbells / 10 sit-ups, 5 manmakers / 10 sit-ups, 4/10, 3/10, 2/10, 1/10.

Fridays: Presses (hypertrophy focus), snatch, heavy deadlift. 

The presses on Friday take the movement you did on Monday, and is done with 3 sets of 8-10 reps. This allows you to focus on hypertrophy/aesthetics for the specific muscle group. 

(Source: The Rockzone)

Snatches are done for heavy sets of 1 rep across, with the goal to focus on form and progress in weight each week. Snatches are one of the hardest olympic style lifts to perform. If you have never done snatches, it would be best to learn from a coach to ensure you have proper form so as not to cause injury.

(Source: Bodybuilding.com)

The deadlifts incorporate 4 warmup sets building up to a single heavy (should be very heavy) set of 3 reps. Meghan is awesome at deadlifting, so this should progress fairly quickly. I personally prefer heavy deadlifts to be done at a rep scheme below 3, which I think (in my experience) allows for maximum power development. 

If you have time, you can incorporate some more sprinting on Friday, but you don’t have to if the deadlift crushed you that week.

Saturday is an active rest day allowing her to do yoga, maybe a jog, or some other fun activity, and finally, Sundays are supposed to be a pure rest day allowing for adequate recovery.

I’m sure there may be questions, so if you ask them in the comments section I can either address them through Meghan, so work on a second guest blog post. 

Click here to download this printable.

This program isn’t for everyone, because quite frankly programming shouldn’t be a one program for all type thing. Programming should be developed with the specific trainee in mind to focus on their specific goals. Meghan created the printable above based on the programming I created. Feel free to download it and modify based on your own fitness goals.

Have fun and lift heavy!

Disclaimer: We are by no means medical professionals or dietitians, therefore; the information on this blog is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. I do the best I can to present information I find helpful myself, however, you should always review any information from this blog against additional sources and consult your doctor or medical professional before making any decisions in regard to treatment or diagnosis.

Guest Post: Part 1 - A New Routine

Happy Wednesday everyone! Today, I'm super excited to introduce to you our first guest blogger, my sweet husband, Chris. As I have mentioned before he is the person that got me out of my 'health' rut and really educated me on what it looks like to live a balanced life. Because of him we now share a mutual passion for physical health through exercise and a well-balanced diet. Today he'll be sharing a brief overview of what we have been working on the past few years and tomorrow's post he will share a much more in-depth review of our current programming and how it works. Hope you all enjoy!

Hi, I’m Meghan’s husband Chris. When Meghan and I got married she wasn’t super into working out. She would occasionally go to the gym, and ate “healthy” by normal American standards: avoiding high fats, eating whole grains, maintaining portion control, not eating too many sweets, etc. Well, she ended up marrying a gym rat, who by nature takes everything to extremes. On our first solo date I was cutting weight for my fourth professional MMA fight, and she wasn’t quite sure what to think of the guy who was only eating meat and veggies… She described me as “intense”.

Through three years of marriage she has been awesome though, open to trying new workouts, and a new healthier “whole foods” diet (think Paleo-ish), which in conjunction with prayer and the Lord’s grace, has reduced 99% of her previous digestive and health issues.  Since she had no formal weight training experience other than using machines at globo gyms, we spent the first year of marriage doing power routines, incorporating lots of squatting, deadlifting, presses and exercises designed to add muscle onto a tiny little lady. 

We started her on a version of Rippetoe’s Starting Strength program (review of the program via Bodybuilding.com here), progressing through the Madcow 5x5 linear progression, and ending with the Greyskull barbell linear progression. Each has its own merit for the novice trainee, and she gained a ton of relative strength. After about a year she had enough of a solid strength base that I felt comfortable taking her back to Crossfit.  I’d been doing Crossfit since about 07-08, had my Level 1 Crossfit Certification, and had done some coaching in the past, so we were both pretty excited about the opportunity to get out of the local YMCA and back into a “real” gym. 

We spent the next two years at Crossfit Albuquerque. We had great coaches there, made a ton of awesome friends, and Meghan really got to develop her olympic (oly) lifts, as well as a much broader skill set (pull ups, toes to bar, ring dips, handstand pushups) thanks to the Crossfit programming.

When we moved to Houston a month ago I thought it would be fun for me to get back into programming our own strength progressions. I absolutely love programming, and I kind of nerd out about the intricacies of it. We found an amazing gym, Studio Fitness, located in the Heights, which has a ridiculous amount of good equipment (bumper plates, squat racks, pull-up rigs, and even a sprint pad!). Meghan and I sat down and discussed her goals, which are to focus on strength and oly lifts, as well as having an aesthetic element to the programming (check her goals post out here), because who doesn’t want to look good? 

Tomorrow I'll be sharing a document that contains the linear progression I currently have her doing. We’ll stick with it for a 8-10 week cycle before revisiting it for modification. Her program is similar to mine, but has a few small differences as I’m focusing on building a stronger power base after two years of generalized Crossfit style programing. It’s a four day a week program, incorporating heavy movements on Mon/Tue/Thur/Fri, with two days of short metcons (metabolic conditioning), incorporating sprint work for speed and power, basic oly lifts, and a little bit of hypertrophy/aesthetic based movements.  Be sure to check back tomorrow and I’ll go through the specific days and methodologies.

{Image Source: Crossfit Albuquerque}

Fitness Goals

Hi ya'll! Hope you had a great weekend. Ours was refreshing, we got a lot of rest, enjoyed a date-day on Saturday, hung out with some new friends, and had a great time of worship at church. It really doesn't get much better than that.

Anyway, this week I am pretty stoked, I have some really exciting things in store! I've decided I'll just dub this "fitness week" on the blog since most, if not all, of my posts this week will be related to just that.

Today, I thought I'd start off by sharing some of my fitness goals with you.

(Source: Women's Health via Shutterstock.com)

When Chris and I moved to Houston we began rethinking our fitness goals, after all, our goals would help us determine what type of workouts we needed to do and what type of equipment and gym would be most suitable.

To be honest, I had really never written out specific goals before, but I've been reading and learning more about the importance of setting specific goals the last few weeks so I wanted to give it a shot. At first it wasn't easy. I mean in the past my goal was simply to learn how to lift weights properly and gain muscle weight. As I've mentioned before I never used to work out much at all. I was the girl you'd find running on treadmill or barely working up a sweat on the elliptical. I also had a terrible immune system and what the doctors thought was IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), needless to say, I felt pretty miserable just about all the time.

When my husband and I got married, I was sickly thin and really had no idea there was something wrong with me. Thankfully, my husband being the fitness guru he is/was, knew exactly how to help. The first week we were married we immediately began eating clean (think paleo-ish) and Chris got me in the gym and began teaching me the basics of weight lifting. About a year later I had the basics down and we decided to get back in to a Crossfit gym.

Now almost three years later, I can honestly say I feel like a whole different person. Physically, I'm stronger and healthier than I can ever remember being. I don't worry about being sick, I sleep better and I have so much more energy! Since I have gained strength and feel like I'm in a good place physically, I decided to start refining my goals to focus on more specific areas.

My first goal is to continue building strength. I loved doing Crossfit but sometimes I'd get frustrated because I wasn't reaching my full potential when it came to lifting. I know I have a lot of bandwidth left in me as far as my lifting goes so I want to continue working my way up in weight. This doesn't necessarily mean I'm getting big, rather it means I'm building strong lean muscle.

(Source: skinnyms.com)

My second goal is to focus more on physique. I want to have a more toned body, specifically my arms and legs. My arms have always been little so I want to focus on building muscle there. For my legs, I want to continue building strength while also toning them. I've posted a few inspiration photos below.

Look at those legs! (Source: Glamour Magazine)

(Source: Jenn-Fit)

We began our new workout routine about 2.5 weeks ago but I'm excited to see how my body changes over the next 8-10 weeks. 

Be sure to check back this week as I'll be doing a two part guest post from my husband on our programming!