Black Fire

Hi everyone!! ::waves::

So it's been a while since I've posted. Since my last post, I have moved back to the Unites States (YAY!!!), and we are settled into our new home. Life has been crazy! It's already Christmas time, and my kids are so excited. They haven't seen snow in so long, and it's supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow. You can practically feel the excitement in our home.

All that moving and excitement can throw a real kink into a girl's workout schedule! Luckily Bob Harper came out with a new system this past week, Black Fire. It's on Daily Burn, which is almost like Hulu for fitness programs. It's amazing!

Black Fire is meant for advanced fitness levels. It's pretty intense, and I'm only in week 1. This is definitely one of the more challenging workout systems. There is a food/nutrition plan to go along with it, which is great! I tend to stick with my Weight Watchers program, because it's easy and it works for me.

<=== Is my new workout tank amazing, or what?! I bought it just for Bob. By the way, he's figured out a new way to torture us through Burpees. He has a new burpee, called "The Burpee Step-Over", which involves a plyo box. Yep.

What I love so far about Black Fire and Daily Burn, is that there is an app for it, which I can stream right into my Apple TV! Easy peasy at 5:30am! It also has a handy scoring system, so I can actively track my progress, and load it into the app itself. I never lose track this way. There are new moves, which keeps it interesting. In true Bob style, the workouts are not that long, but highly effective.

What's on my Christmas list?
-New Nike's
-Plyo Box from Daily Fit for Bob's program
-New workout tanks (I can't get enough)
-Earrings
-Mantra Band bracelets, I have 2 and I love them!

What are you asking Santa for?

All the best,
HarperGirl

Clean Eating Confessionals - Part 2

In the past week I have had pasta for dinner twice, and dessert 3 times, and I still lost weight. Want to know how I did that?!

In my last entry I posted that clean eating just wasn't working out for me. I was over it. Done. I was frustrated and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I thought back to that year of stability I had maintaining my weight, from 2011-2012. I was working out with Bob, like usual, and I was on Weight Watchers....which in a nutshell is moderation. Now that my body had changed though, I wasn't sure what I should be eating and how much of it.

I've been stuck in this rut for a while now, and it's been infuriating. I have been cutting back, trimming this, taking that, and my body just said "enough". This time, I decided to listen.

I decided to try get back to basics. I needed to get back to what worked for my body, not the fitness models on TV, but my body. I started researching what I should be eating, and nothing really made sense at all. I needed something that would fit my busy life, and that didn't involve the insane prep-work of clean eating.

I decided to join Weight Watchers again.

Now, hold on....listen to Damon for a sec....I'll explain myself!

 

 

 

What I love about the WW program is that it has programs for weight loss, maintaining weight, and nursing moms. It's not just for weight loss, but....and this is important....weight management.

 

 

I have been saying it from day one, but everyone shakes their heads at me. Maintaining your goal weight is significantly harder than losing weight. It is. Why do you think so many people who lose a significant amount of weight put it back on? It's hard. You have to know HOW to maintain your weight correctly, and not revert back to old habits that send you down this slippery slope that you have to crawl your way out of later. Although I didn't go back to old habits, I did start forming these new ones that I never had before.

 

The WW program works for me ME for a few reasons. First, it balances me out. It allows me to have sugar in moderated amounts, which means I won't binge eat after 5 days of not having a single bit. When I was on the clean eating program, I thought about sugar all day. Specifically chocolate. On WW, I have chocolate all.the.time. Yep. At least once a day. If my day doesn't involve chocolate, then it's a sad day for this girl. Second, it lets me know how much to eat. It puts limits on my eating, and it takes out the guesswork that I don't have time for. Seriously, who has that kind of time on their hands? I work. I have a family. I don't want to spend my entire day planning out every ounce of food and pre-chopping veggies for a meal I won't eat for 3 more days. No thank you. Third, I can eat out at restaurants, have a splurge meal, and feel normal. Do you hear that? Normal.

 

 

What does all of this mean?

 

It means I can stay on it for a long, long time. I can do this and manage it daily. I can make one meal for my family, and we can all have the same thing as we sit down to eat. No more making 2 seperate meals. My family eats healthier, I eat healthier. Win-win. Most of the time, they don't even know it's healthier. I can find all kinds of meals online that are WW friendly, or I can make my own meal and just calculate out how many points it is, and BAM! Dinner is done! It's so easy.

 

The perks:

-I eat more

-I eat dessert

-My digestive system likes me much better

-I feel normal!

-No "crashes"

-No binge-eating

-....and I lost 3 pounds in 2 weeks!



They have an app, too, which makes eating on the go easy. I know what I'm eating all the time, and what I can have at almost any restaurant. I can eat like normal people again and not feel so deprived! I was so unhappy on the clean eating program.

I'm not saying that clean eating is bad for you. I'm just saying that THIS works for me. I'm not into fad diets. I'm not into sugar-coating things. I'm into being completely honest about my fitness life, because someone needs to be honest in this world. Moderation and WW works for me. Maybe clean eating works for you. Maybe something else works.

My two favorite sites for WW-friendly dinners are:
Skinny Mom and Skinny Taste

My boys have really enjoyed their meals!

<3 HG