Tag: beachbody coaching

Health and Fitness Challenge

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Hey guys, I have an extra little challenge for all of you this week. You opened this blog article for a reason, whether you have a lot of weight to lose, a little weight to lose, or even if you just need to tone up with muscle definition. No matter what your current level may be, or what your goals may be, I have a challenge that I think can help each of you achieve your goals.

As Darren Hardy wrote, “the first step toward change is awareness. If you want to get from where you are to where you want to be, you have to start by becoming aware of the choices that lead you away from your desired destination. Become very conscious of every choice you make today so you can begin to make smarter choices moving forward.”

To accomplish this, I want you to picture where you are RIGHT NOW. Next, I want you to picture where you want to be. Then I want you all to start keeping a record of your daily activity, water intake, and the foods you eat. If you are SERIOUS about your goals, you WILL do this. My coach got me to do it when I was starting out, and now I want you guys to do it because it seriously helps. There is something about seeing that DQ blizzard listed on your daily food journal as it destroys your healthy goal for the day that suddenly makes you think “maybe I don’t need this after all”. When you track your physical activity on a chart, you’ll see empty spaces on days you didn’t work out and will start to want to fill them in – even if you just do a 10 minute workout.

I want you to write it all down, every single day, for a week. If you don’t find that it is helping you be more motivated, or helping you to stay on track, then you can cut out at the end of the week. No excuses! If you make this commitment for 7 days, I really think you’ll start to see improvements. I highly recommend that you try getting a friend to do it with you so that you can both keep each other on track and for accountability. If you start slacking off, that way you’ll have a friend to help pull you back in – and vice versa.

“The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the compound effect.” – Darren Hardy. What this is getting at is that even though the task that I have set before you might seem insignificant and simple, it can be the determining factor in whether or not you are successful in achieving your goals. It may seem like a waste of time at first glance, but as I’ve learned through this book, it is the smaller things repeated over time that make the biggest impact.

If you want to learn more about this for yourself, I highly recommend The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. I have the E-book, and it is a truly great read. It isn’t even about health, fitness, or weight loss – it is just about how you can improve and create success for yourself in any aspect of your life by employing simple methods.

Create motivation through determination

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I hear all the time “I don’t have the motivation to work out“, and I cringe. I know the feeling, I was in the same place a few years ago. I did not want to work out at all, and I had so many other things to do.. Including watching a bunch of television, Netflix, and surfing the internet. If I had just been willing to give up some of my TV and internet time, I could have easily found the time to do my workouts. IT WAS AN EXCUSE. I simply hadn’t made it a priority.

In the beginning of the journey, it is not about having the motivation to do it. Instead, it is about making a CHOICE to make it a priority to start eating healthier and working out. Make this choice to create a better body and a better life for yourself and the people that you care about. Once you start seeing results from that choice, and it starts positively impacting your mood and other areas of your life, that is when motivation kicks in and pushes you to continue. Don’t use a lack of motivation as another excuse to stay inactive, get moving and create your own motivation through determination!

Click Here if you’re ready to get started!

Do it for YOU

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One thing that absolutely drives me insane is when people ask me why I work out, and frame it like “well who are you trying to look good for/impress”. This is absolutely ridiculous, because it implies that the only reason to exercise or eat healthy is to look good or impress people. Do those things help make you look better, lose weight, add muscle, etc? Sure they do. However, they also do a number of other things for your health and personal well-being that are much more important than simply the way you look.

I chose to get into fitness for myself, not to impress anyone else. I got into health and fitness to feel better about myself and improve my own quality of life. I was sick of being depressed and hating my own body, and I knew that I needed to make these changes if I ever wanted to get back to myself. I put on some makeup before I go and do a workout. Nobody sees me working out because I have a home gym, but once again, I don’t do it for anyone else – I DO IT FOR ME! It makes me feel better, more confident, and I find that I can hit my workout harder.

Stop worrying about what other people think, because there will always be people out there that want to discourage you from what you are doing. Chances are, if they are trying to discourage you, it is simply because they were too afraid to do it themselves and they want to get you to give up so that it validates their decision not to follow your lead. Instead of giving them the satisfaction of being right, PROVE THEM WRONG. Keep working for your goals, and be a positive role model for those around you. Maybe once your friends start to see that it is really working wonders for your life as a whole, they will finally decide to join you and start their own health and fitness journey.

Click Here if you are ready to start working on yourself, because you DESERVE to be happy and healthy!

Sometimes all it takes is for you to make up your mind

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One quote that has been resonating with me ever since I became a coach is that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. This could not be more true, and I’ve seen it time and time again. I can give you a million reasons why you should work out and eat healthy, but until you DECIDE that you need to change, it is not going to happen.

I can not physically force you to exercise, and I can’t force feed you healthy food or follow you around and slap your hand every time you reach for junk food. You are in control, and it is ultimately up to you to make the choice to create a healthier future for yourself!

You honestly just have to reach a point in your life where you know that you need to change for the better, no matter what the reason may be. For me it was because I was sick of isolating myself and being lonely and depressed. I wanted to regain my confidence so that I could start living my life again. Once you reach that point in your life where you just know that things HAVE to change, I sincerely hope that something will click in your mind and you will gain a sense of determination. That is what happened to me. I just knew I needed to make a change so that I could have a better life, so I decided to push through workouts that nearly killed me and to eat healthy because I was determined to reach my goals.

Click Here if you’re at that point in your life now, and you’re ready to make a change.

Don’t let failures hold you back

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This is something that everyone should live by, and it holds great meaning for those into health and fitness as well. You are bound to slip up a few times, or even a bunch of time, and make some mistakes along your journey. That is perfectly normal, and it would actually be kind of weird if you DIDN’T make any mistakes or slip ups! Everyone has bad days sometimes where they just don’t have it in them to resist temptation. The holidays can be tough, because you’re surrounded with yummy treats. Vacations can be a menace because it is easier to grab a snack on the fly than to make a healthy meal. You don’t have to be good 100% of the time, and it is okay to splurge a little bit occasionally.

The problem with these “slip up’s” is not that you had them, it is often the way in which you think about them. For example, you have a big meal over the holidays with dessert. That is okay, it is a special occasion and everyone deserves to have what they want over the holidays. However, if you start worrying about that meal and thinking that you totally destroyed your progress, you are going to run into trouble. That is where people go wrong and start thinking “well, I already screwed myself so I might as well have more treats”, or “…so I might as well skip my workouts”. Once you get into that line of thinking, it can be hard to bounce back.

You need to stop thinking of those slip-ups as failures, and start thinking of it as a reward for all of the hard work you’ve put in thus far. It is only a failure if you choose to quit because of those slip ups, instead of using them as motivation to do better!

Click Here if you’re ready to embark on a health and fitness journey of your own!

Do you make excuses?

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I am in no position to judge others for making excuses, because before I got into Beachbody I came up with just about every excuse in the book not to work out and eat healthy. It is so easy to make excuses because we all have lives, and we all get tired after a long day at work. Some people I’ve spoken to are stay at home moms, some people work a lot, some people are strapped for money, some people lack energy, some people lack motivation, and the list goes on and on. These are all excuses that I’ve heard people use time and time again as reasons for why they can’t get into a fitness program.

Honestly though, no matter how true each of those things are, they ARE excuses. Before I get into any of those examples and cause an uproar with anyone who falls into any of those categories, let me give you my own example and show you what I mean. I used to say things like “I don’t have time to work out because I’m busy with school and work”, and it was true to an extent, but it was still an excuse. I WAS busy with school and work, but I also wasted A LOT of time surfing the internet, playing games, watching Netflix, etc.

Just like my example, the stay at home mom thing is also an excuse. I understand that being a mom can be tiring, and I understand that when you’re watching your kids all day long you may have a hard time finding the time to do a workout. However, even if you don’t want to do a Beachbody program, there are still plenty of simple exercises that you can do from home at night as you watch TV or even spaced out throughout the day when you have a spare minute here and there. My sister is a stay at home mom of a 1 year old, and he is a mama’s boy and likes to be held. She uses this excuse, so I told her to start doing squats as she holds my nephew. There are also Beachbody programs designed for those with little time to work with! Plenty of Beachbody coaches within my team are parents, some are stay at home parents while others have jobs in addition to parenting, but the common factor is that they find the time to do their workouts. It CAN be done, you just have to decide for yourself that it is a priority.

It is the same thing with the work example. A lot of people have full time jobs and work overtime to pay the bills, but plenty of people that do that are still getting their workouts in at some point. I know people that will get up at 4 or 5am just to get their workout in before leaving to start their day, or who will do their workout at 11pm or even 12am at the very end of the day despite how exhausted they may be feeling. Some people even work overnight shifts and come home and do their workout before going to bed! These are people that know their workouts are important, and have decided to make it a priority and not to let their work be an excuse.

I definitely understand the money factor can be a true factor for many people. However, more often than not, the people making that claim are losing money unnecessarily somewhere. For example, they have a drinking habit, they like to go clubbing every weekend, they like to go to Tim Horton’s or Starbucks for coffee everyday, they have a smoking habit, they like having fast food on a regular basis, etc. All of those things are examples of that which could be given up to provide the money needed to buy a fitness program. Again, it is simply a matter of whether or not you are willing to make your health and fitness a priority by giving up something that is unhealthy to provide you with something to help you BECOME healthy.

The energy thing is actually kind of ironic, because though working out does seem to decrease your energy in the short-term, it actually INCREASES your energy level long-term. When you are exercising regularly, you will actually start to find that you just naturally have more energy. This probably sounds crazy to anyone that hasn’t experienced it for themselves, but it is true. It just takes a bit of time for you to start seeing the effects, and many people give up before they reach that point.

Lastly, the motivation excuse, which is something that I prefer to call the Motivation Myth. Essentially what this means is that motivation often isn’t a factor when it comes to health and fitness. What really matters is that you are mentally prepared for the changes you are about to make, and that you want to reach your goals bad enough that you JUST DO IT. It kind of reminds me of how my mom used to talk about the challenge of quitting smoking. She has been smoke-free for three years now I think, and she always says that the reason all of her previous attempts to quit failed because she simply wasn’t mentally prepared to quit. As in, she didn’t want it bad enough. As she watched my grandfather’s health deteriorate, she knew that she had to quit or else she could wind up with the same health issues not too far down the road. Does she still crave cigarettes? YES. Does she give up and have one? NO. Why is that? Because her desire to be healthy long-term is more of a priority to her than simply giving in to temptation and curbing her craving in the short-term.

If you want to be successful with fitness and nutrition, you need to start thinking of it as something that you need to do if you want to reach your goals. If you keep waiting for motivation to come along and put you in action, you’re most likely going to let life pass you by never achieving your goals.

Click Here if you’re ready to take that step, because I’d love to help you get there!

Courage doesn’t always ROAR…

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This is such a great quote!

Chances are you’ll struggle in the beginning, and it will be trial and error until you figure things out. What you need to remember though, is that the struggle is totally normal. You just need to stick with it and you will surprise yourself with the progress you make!

So many people get down on themselves because they can’t do certain moves, or they aren’t seeing progress on the scale, or they aren’t able to go running. Whatever the case may be, none of that matters. What matters is what you CAN do, and that you do it. Over time, you will get stronger and be able to do more.

You should always focus on simply being better than you were yesterday, not by trying to kill yourself doing too much too fast. Have you ever done that? If you have been the person that called it quits instead of sticking it out, are you ready to be courageous and try again?

Click Here if you’re ready to take that leap.

Core/Ab exercises you can do from home!

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This is a list of some simple core/ab moves, as well as some moves straight out of various Beachbody workouts. Keep checking back for a bigger list, because I will add more over time.

-Hold weights in each hand straight down beside your thighs, and then shift your body from left and right bringing the weight down toward the floor. This works your obliques.

-Leg lifts; lie down flat on the mat with your hands on the mat for balance, and then raise your legs up into the air at a 90 degree angle. Then you’ll lift your butt off the floor and push your legs into the air as high as you can, come back down slowly, and then repeat as many times as you want.

-Crunchy frog (P90X): Sit on the mat and lean back at an angle. Lift your legs up off the floor and bend your knees up to your chest as you wrap your arms around your knees, then your legs go straight outand arms go out to the sides. Repeat.

-Sit at an angle with your legs off the floor and knees bent, then reach from side to side and touch the floor. This move can be done just by linking your hands to tap, or you can use a light weight.

-Leg extensions: Start this move on your knees and put your hands down on the floor for balance. Then you will just lift one leg up so that it is parallel to the floor, let it come down but not hit the floor, and repeat. If you want to make the move harder you can extend the leg and raise one arm out also parallel to the floor, then bring the knee up to your chest and pull the arm in at the same time.

-Leg extensions standing up: This time you balance on one leg with your hands on your hips, and then just raise the leg out to the side as high as you can. Starting out you can tap the floor between reps, but over time try to do them without touching your toe to the floor.

-Scissors: Lie down and start with both legs up straight in the air at a 90 degree angle and your arms down on the mat for balance. Then you will bring one leg down parallel to the floor, but not touching. As you bring that leg back up, the other one comes down.

-Cross crawl (Les Mills): Lie down on the mat with your hands behind your head and start by just bringing one knee up but bend it so that only the bottom half of your leg is parallel to the floor. Then switch back and forth a couple of times to get used to the movement. Once you’ve got it, (let’s say you are doing the right leg) you’ll add the crunch and then turn your body to the right, bringing your left elbow close to your right knee. Do this again several times on each side.

-Bridge: Start in a sitting position and put your hands on the ground behind you, then bend your knees and plant your feet on the ground. You will then lift yourself up until your body is parallel to the floor. Hold as long as you can.

-Plank: Start by lying face down and then resting your toes on the mat. Plant your hands in a pushup position, and then lift yourself up parallel to the floor. Hold as long as you can. This can be done on your hands or on your elbows if holding on your hands is too difficult starting out.

-Modified plank (Les Mills): Start the same way as plank, hands and feet planted body parallel to the floor. Then come down off of your right hand and onto your elbow, then the other hand, and then lift back up onto your right hand, then the other hand. Repeat. This one buuuurns when you do it enough times.

-Banana rolls (P90X): This sounds silly, but you will look just like the shape of a banana. It is probably easiest to start lying face down. You’ll want to do this at the end of your mat because then you will have more range of movement, and the mat should be positioned under your hips and butt. You’ll want to have your legs lifted off the floor as high as you can get them, and the arms straight out in front of you also lifted as high as you can get them. Hold for 10 seconds, then turn onto your side and position your arms and legs in the same manner just to the side. Hold for 10 seconds and repeat on your back, and this one will be tough so you can bring your legs a little higher if you have to. Then do the other side.

-Superman (P90X): This is exactly the same as the first part of banana roll. Keep your arms straight out, legs straight out, both as high as you can get them. Hold for as long as you can, give yourself a break, repeat as many times as you want.

-Cobra: Lie down on the mat with your hands straight out in front of you, then lift your chest as high off the ground as you can manage while bringing your arms out to the sides and pushing them as far back as you can. Repeat this as many times as you want.

-Lunge and reach (P90X): With this one you’ll want to be standing with wide legs, and then you lunge down to one side and reach for the ground. Then you will start to stand up and as you get halfway up you’ll start turning your body to the opposite side and reaching your arms up into the air. It will feel like you are picking something up off the ground, and putting it up on a high shelf on the other side. Repeat on the same side, then do the other side separately. You can do this with or without weights. If you want to add weight but you don’t have dumbbells you can even use something as simple as a can of soup.

-Stand up crunches: Can be done with a light weight or without. Just stand in a wide leg position for better balance. Then you’ll hold the weight or grip your hands together and crunch down from side to side. Do not lean forward, make sure that you have good posture and your back is straight. It should be like your back is up against a wall and all you’re doing is moving side to side.

Figure eights (Turbo Fire): Can be done with a light weight or without. Again you’ll stand in a wide leg position for balance, and then reach your arms straight out and bring it down to one side, then up, back down as you cross in front of your body to the other side, back up, etc. This literally is a figure eight, and the wider you make them and the further out your hands are the harder the move will be.

-(Les Mills) Start this move by lying down with your legs straight out but not touching the floor, and then bend your knees up toward your chest as you crunch up and reach your arms toward your toes. Then you’ll lie back and bring your legs out straight in a hover again, then lift the legs up straight in the air at a 90 degree angle while crunching up and again reaching your arms toward your toes. This counts as one full rep.

-Mountain climber: With this one you plant your hands on the floor, and then bring one knee up close to your chest. Once you put that leg back down you just switch to the other leg, and repeat. The faster you go, the harder this gets.

-Spider: Here you will start in a plank position, and then lift one leg up and bring the knee up to the side and crunch it toward your upper body. Do this on both sides repeatedly.

-Burpees: With this one you start standing up, plant your hands down on the floor quickly, jump your feet back to a plank position, jump them back forward, stand up. That is one rep. If you get good at these and you want to get a little crazy and make it harder you can add a knee tuck jump in between reps, you can jump your feet out wide after the plank before jumping them back in and standing up, or you can do both.

-X press (P90X): This one is done standing up, and you’ll want a wide stance with your toes pointing out toward the sides of the room. This one is best done with light weight, so if you don’t have those just grab a couple cans of soup. You start by squatting down and your arms just hang in between your legs, then as you come up out of the squat you reach your hands up overhead into an X. Repeat.

-Lying toe-touch: Start this move lying down with your legs straight out and your arms up behind your head. Crunch up and reach your arm across your body and touch it to the floor on the opposite side, then come back down slowly before doing the other side. Repeat as many times as you want. You can also do this with your legs crossed if you want a bigger challenge.

-Steam engine (P90X): Start standing up with your hands behind your head. Then you will bring one knee up as high as you can, and turn your body toward the knee so the opposite elbow almost touches. Then you’ll switch back and forth repeatedly.

-Another one to do standing up is to hold weight on one leg and lunge back with the other, your arms and upper body turns in the opposite direction of the lunge. Then you bring your knee up as high as you can, and your arms and upper body turns to the other side toward the knee. Repeat on this side as many times as you want before doing the other leg. You can also do this move by reaching your arms into the air straight up as you lunge, and then crunching your arms and upper body down as you bring the knee up.

-Running man (P90X): This one is done with most of your weight on the front leg, and the other leg in a bit of a lunge backward. Then you just move your arms back and forth as though you are running. The faster you go, the harder the move gets. You can also do this with light weights to make it harder.

Click Here if you would like to take me on as your coach!

My Fitness Pal

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Hey Everyone! I have had a couple of people in the group approach me about meal plans, so I wanted to write a blog post for everyone in case anyone else had the same issues with nutrition. I am going to do you one better than simply give you a meal plan. I am going to do for you what my coach did for me when I started getting into fitness – show you how to use myfitnesspal. This is an AMAZING tool because it takes all of guesswork out of counting calories and macronutrients (carb/protein/fat). I strongly advise each of you to create an account at www.myfitnesspal.com because it will be super helpful for you to keep track of your nutrition and make sure you’re on track. After I explain a bit about myfitnesspal and how to use the features, I will then discuss macronutrients and the levels you should be focused on depending on your goals, and then I will get into some healthy meals and snacks that you can use on your plans. Honestly, this method works SO much better than anyone simply providing you with a basic meal plan to follow day after day. Anyone can give you a meal plan, but you are GOING to get sick of the foods on the plan and you are most likely going to give up. With MFP, YOU are in charge of what you are eating and are able to change it up from day to day as long as you stay within the calorie and macro limits. You’ll fluctuate a bit in macros from day to day as you change things up, and that’s okay, as long as you are around the numbers you are supposed to be using.

Okay so how do you get started? Like I said above just go to the link, and create an account by either signing up through facebook or email. I believe it will ask you some information about your current weight and stuff like that just to help determine a calorie level. Once you’re logged in, you’ll see the “My Home” page automatically. This is where you can track your progress and see how many calories have yet to be consumed each day. Honestly though, I recommend filling out your meal plan for the day the night before. This way you can shift things around a bit to make the macros match up, that way you get them closer to the goal than if you were doing it as you ate your meals. Under the Home tab you can also visit Goals, which is where you update your calorie limit if you want it changed as well as how many workouts you do and your macro targets. If you want to change anything you just hit change goals, and then go to the Custom option to set your own fitness goals. If you have lost some weight or seen a decrease in measurements, you can track that under the Check In tab. The rest of the subtabs for home are all self-explanatory, so I’ll move on to the Food tab. This is where you do all the work! You just click the day you want to prepare, and it automatically has 3 meals and 3 snacks set out for you to update with foods. You just click “add food” and it brings up a database where you enter the food you want, click the right food and the proper amount, and click “add checked” to add it to that meal option. Once you’ve been using it for a bit there will be a bunch of foods listed under the tabs “recent and frequent” to make it easier for you to use. You can also save meals if you plan to be eating the same kinds of meals more frequently to make it easier, instead of having to repeatedly search for those ingredients or items every time you make it. If you’re making something completely original, you can visit the Recipes tab to log in all of the ingredients. This works AWESOME if you are making soups or chili or anything like that with multiple servings because all you do is put in the ingredients used and the amount of servings it makes, and MFP calculates how many calories and macros are in each serving!! Lastly, the only other thing you really need to know about MFP is the Exercise tab. This is completely optional, and I honestly don’t care if you use it or not! It is totally up to you, but if you are running or walking or doing some kind of physical activity and you want recognition for it – by all means, log it in!

Now that you know how to use MFP, let’s focus on calories and macros. This is going to differ depending on weight and size, and if you are doing workouts on a regular basis. However, as a ballpark number for those of you not doing fitness programs, I would say somewhere between 1300-1500 calories. You DO NOT want to go below 1200 calories a day. If you do, your body can enter what is called “starvation mode” and it will be completely counter-productive. A lot of people seem to believe that if you just don’t eat that much you will lose weight, but in reality your body will start storing the foods you do eat as fat because it will think it isn’t being fed enough to function properly. If you’re working out on a regular basis you will want to add 400-500 calories to that calorie range to create a deficit for the calories burned off in your workouts. Again, this will depend on your size and weight. As for macro nutrients, if you want to be on a fat burner diet I would aim for 25% carbs 25% fat and 50% protein. Everybody is different though, so if you are finding that you are sluggish and totally grouchy on that plan, you may need to modify. If that happens to you it is just because your body needs more carbs, so just bump it up in increments. So start the next day at 30% carbs and 20% fat with protein staying at 50%. If that still isn’t working for you, and it may not be when you’re just starting out, modify it again to 40% carb 40% protein and 20% fat. Once you’ve been doing your plan for a few weeks I would suggest bumping it back down and seeing how you fare. It could be that the first method was too drastic of a change starting out, but once you’re used to eating better it may be easier for you to manage the other level.

Okay so now that you know how to use myfitnesspal and you know what kind of a range you should be focused on macro- and calorie-wise, I am going to give you a list of meals and snacks that I like to have on my own plan to help you figure out some healthy foods you can be eating yourself. Keep in mind that you will want to measure everything out with measuring cups or count the chips or whatever you have to do to make sure you’re getting the amount you’re putting in to MFP – otherwise, the calculations will be off.

Meals:

-Homemade soups: You can throw in just about any vegetable you want with spices and bouillon cubes for flavor. Just try to pick something with a lower sodium content. Add some chicken if you want for a better protein source.

-Homemade chili: Throw in tomato paste and diced tomatoes with lean ground hamburger, kidney beans, chili powder and any spice you want for flavor, and whatever else you like in your chili.

-Omelet: cook a couple eggs with some egg whites (you can buy little cartons with egg white so you don’t have to waste your eggs getting the whites) and throw on chopped veggies when it is cooked.

-For meats I prefer lean ground beef and boneless skinless chicken breast. Lean ground turkey is also an option, as well as haddock and some other fish. You can add your choice of vegetable to this with white rice, sweet potato, or regular potato. Good veggie options include carrots, celery (really good for a snack if you have the munchies – people into fitness comps eat a lot of this when trying to lean down), asparagus, cucumber, peppers (any color really), and broccoli.

-Greek yogurt with fruit mixed in. I prefer to chop up strawberries, but you’re welcome to add whatever you like. Plain yogurt is better, but I can’t stand the taste so I use vanilla and just measure it to make sure the calories are the same. If you want to use plain yogurt and don’t like the taste, you can skip the fruit and add a serving of peanut butter or Nutella for flavor.

-Cheerios with almond milk.

-Shakeology with almond milk. I personally like the chocolate shakeology with vanilla flavored almond milk. I also mix in some frozen strawberries for flavor, and if I am using vanilla shakeology I mix in a teaspoon of Nutella.

-Ezekiel bread with a serving of peanut butter or Nutella.

-Stir fry: Dice up some boneless skinless chicken breasts and throw the pieces in the frying pan. You can add whatever veggies you want, some rice, and seasoning or soya sauce for flavor.

Some meals I like to have ONCE a week as a cheat meal:

-Nachos: Organic nachos (Kirkland brand, comes in a big brown paper bag at Costco), salsa, and tex mex cheese.

-Homemade pizza: You can find healthier pizza crusts at the grocery stores so you just have to go searching for one. I add pizza sauce to mine (measured out), pepperoni, pineapple, and tex mex cheese.

Snacks:

-Fruit: apple, banana, strawberries, blueberries, grapes. Try to limit yourself to 1-2 servings of fruit because they are high in natural sugars. I personally just have an apple a day and then have the strawberries in my shakeology.

-Greek yogurt as a bedtime snack.

-Plain rice cake with a serving of peanut butter or Nutella.

-Protein shake: I prefer Gold Standard chocolate whey protein from GNC. You can get cheaper stuff at Costco and other places though I am sure.

-GoGo Quinoa chocolate chip cookies: These are vegan and gluten-free, and you can purchase them at Costco.

-Skinny pop popcorn: You can find this at Costco and it is a great alternative to chips. I would recommend just having this on weekends if you are craving junk food. Measure out the proper amount. It is only 39 calories a cup, but you still want to measure so you know how much you’re eating. Trust me lol I know from experience that it is easy to eat way more than you’re supposed to with this stuff if you don’t measure :P

-Almond and unsalted roasted cashews are good in moderation, but you don’t want to have too many.

There you go! Now with the snacks I would recommend having 2-3 snacks a day that are between 100-200 calories and then your meals in between. To make it easier on yourself for on the go snacks, you can get little Ziploc baggies and measure out those amounts in whatever snack item you want and put them in a basket on the counter so that you can easily grab and go on the fly! There are tons of other healthy foods out there as well, but this is just a template to get you started from my own personal diet. I hope you find this useful. Please feel free to comment on this thread with any questions that you may have or if you need clarification on anything. I stopped using MFP for a while because when you’re eating the same foods all the time you kind of get used to the macros lol, but I will be starting up again soon. You’re welcome to add me as a friend on there if you want (handle is jsajm) to review my food journals in the days to come once I start using it again. If you’re not sure you’re on track, you can also just tell me to visit your page and check out your food diary.

Click Here if you would like to take me on as your coach!