Spring Transformation

Green Smoothie #3

Posted on by keepingupwithkate91

One of my goals for week 3 of the Spring Transformation is to drink 2 – 3 green smoothies. I made a batch of about 3 yesterday to store for the week.

Here is what I included:

  • 1 cup of coconut water (Organic – Unsweetened)
  • 3 cups of coconut milk (Unsweetened)
  • 3 – 4 large handfuls of fresh spinach
  • 1/2 avocado
  • 2 T raw cacao powder (Navitas Naturals) (probably should’ve added more)
  • 3 T raw almond butter (Trader Joe’s Raw)
  • 2 T Organic Flax Seed
  • 1 T natural peanut butter
  • 1 -2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 packet of Sweet Leaf (stevia)
  • Cinnamon
  • Pink Himalayan Sea Salt
  • You could add berries or a banana if you like.  Berries are low glycemic and better option than a banana as they are higher in sugar.  I didn’t add the fruit as I seem to be very sensitive to the sugar.

I use a vitamix so it does a nice job of blending.  I added the first 3 ingredients first to blend it all together.  Next I added the rest and blended until nicely mixed.  It is not a pretty color at all – I thought the raw cocoa would make it look like chocolate (it did not).

I poured into shaker bottles and stored in the refrigerator.

I had my first one today – about 12 ozs.  Since I was having it pre-workout, I did add more water, ice cubes and 1 scoop of Sun Warrior Chocolate vegan protein mix.   My workout was at 7:00 pm.  I normally have my pre-workout shake about 45  – 30 minutes before my workout.  Since there are a lot more ingredients in this smoothie I had it about an hour ahead of time.  I was a bit draggy today and I did have a good workout (I’m thinking this had something to do with it).  Guess I will see later this week as I will alternate between my normal shakes and this green smoothie.

Enjoy!

Week 2 Accountability and Week 3 Goals

Posted on by keepingupwithkate91

As promised – here is how I did on my Week 2 goals.  The goal is to achieve 80 – 100%.

  • Drink 80 ozs of water per day (which includes preparing the night before – filling up my pitcher – seems so simple, but something that I put off).  100% Goal Achieved
  • Set calendar for every 2 hours to get up and move around (away from my desk).  90% Goal Semi Achieved (got up and walked around every 2 hours – never put it on my calendar).
  • Have vegetables (non-starch) at every meal. I actually do a good job at breakfast and I’m getting better at lunch – dinner is sometimes the challenge – I use a personal chef and sometimes the meal has a starch vegetable and I don’t have a salad or add something else. I will add a salad to my evening meal.  90% of Goal Achieved – only night without a salad was Saturday night (although I did have asparagus – and do wasabi peas count?)

Other successes:  Tried out the Open Studio and made it to Project Sculpt on Thursday (killer workout).  Additionally made two yoga classes this week and was able to do a standing balanced triangle.

Celebrate:  Got to see a college friend and her family last night who I haven’t had a chance to see in quite some time.  It was a great time!!

Notes/Reflections/Revelations:  Preparation makes things so much easier!

Week 3 Goals:

  • Address my coffee addiction – Limit 2 K cups per day.
  • Add 2 – 3 green smoothies into my weekly menu – most likely pre-workout – good news is I’ve already made them and they are in shaker bottles in my fridge.  I had one today – pre 7:00 pm workout.  Not too bad (I did add protein mix – didn’t have it in the batch I made last night). (I’ll post later what I put in the smoothie)
  • Continue the following:
  • Drink 80 ozs of water per day
  • Get up and move around every 2-3 hours during the workday
  • Eat a salad with dinner

I’ll post my results and observations next week.

Week 2 – Goal

Posted on by keepingupwithkate91

I’m building on my week 1 goals and adding another goal for this week.  My ultimate goal is to make these become new habits.  I don’t have a lot of distractions except this Wednesday, I do have a board meeting in the evening – which means I will miss my HardBody workout (and I missed tonight as I had a touch of food poisoning last night – feeling better now – just a little wiped out).  I’m trying to figure out if it will go to the open workout during lunch or make it up on Saturday morning (I’ll keep you posted).

Here are my week 2 goals:

  • Drink 80 ozs of water per day (which includes preparing the night before – filling up my pitcher – seems so simple, but something that I put off).
  • Set calendar for every 2 hours to get up and move around (away from my desk).
  • Have vegetables (non-starch) at every meal.  I actually do a good job at breakfast and I’m getting better at lunch – dinner is sometimes the challenge – I use a personal chef and sometimes the meal has a starch vegetable and I don’t have a salad or add something else.  I will add a salad to my evening meal.

I’ll let you know how I do next week (and try to post daily on my accountability page).

Week 1 – Accountability

Posted on by keepingupwithkate91

Last week started BodyProject Fitness’ (http://bodyprojectfitness.com/) 6 week Spring Transformation. We do these twice a year (Spring and Fall) – a great way to re-focus on fitness and nutrition goals!  We were all asked to post our goals for the week so we could have accountability and support.

My goal was to drink 80 ounces of water a day and get up and move around every 2-3 hours (I spend a lot of time on conference calls).

  • Day 1:  Goal Achieved (HardBody Class)
  • Day 2:  Goal Achieved (Yoga)
  • Day 3:  Goal Achieved (HardBody Class)
  • Day 4:  50% of goal achieved – was in NYC for work and got quite a bit of walking in; however, my water was no where near 80 ozs of water – it is such a challenge to get all that water in when you are in meetings – but I did try (oh and I had an event in the evening that made it a challenge as well). (nice amount of walking)
  • Day 5:  50% of goal achieved – should’ve had more control as I was at home; however, really busy day on the phone and working on some important projects – just ran out of time in the day. (about 50% of water and 50% of movement during the day)
  • Day 6:  Goal Achieved  (Yoga)

So 4 out of 6 days, I hit my goal at 100%!  And if I was grading my week based on the scores I’d be at 83% or a B!  I knew Day 4 was going to be a challenge.  I tried to prepare, but sometimes ‘life’ gets in the way.  I’m pretty happy with my results.  And the really good thing is I didn’t beat myself up on the days I didn’t hit my goal – I’m understanding the why and learning from it.

 

Happy Day – June 11th!

Posted on by keepingupwithkate91

I started this blog almost a year ago to document changes when on the Clean program for 21 days – to see if I could find my X factor. Although I learned a lot during the process – it just didn’t work for me. The blog has morphed into both my personal journey and self-discovery as well as random fun and observations in general.

I’m hopefully that I’ve found my X factor – almost a year after I started this journey.  During the Spring Transformation at Bootcamp there was seminar with a Nutrionist that I went to see (and was encouraged by my trainer to attend).  I listened, took notes and even made changes starting the next day – moving from small meals throughout the day to 3 meals per day.  I promised myself I would make an appointment to go see the Nutrionist.  It probably took me a month to finally make the call and he is in high demand so it took a few weeks to get an appointment.  My first appointment was May 7th.  I weighed in at my heaviest ever (maybe someday I’ll share).  He gave me simple things to focus on:  Hydration, 3 meals a day (and make them things I enjoyed – ‘no dirt and grass’ – things to chew), have at each meal – protein, carbs (30 mg) and veggies and no fruit (he was treating me as a diabetic) and if I was hungry between meals go for protein first.  He also wanted me to find an exercise I enjoyed.  That was easy – I had bootcamp.

The first two weeks I did pretty well – well balanced for all three meals, getting at least 2 bootcamps in a week.  I even got a workout in while traveling (historically I take my workout clothes and sneakers and never use them – the workout is the lugging of the suitcase in the airport 🙂 ).  Then I had a challenge – weekend leadership conference – I did pretty well with my food selections and still enjoyed some libations with friends in Happy Valley.  I was hit with a stomach bug that derailed me for a few days and took me awhile to get back on track.  I started noticing major fatigue in the afternoon that I just couldn’t explain – that was really starting to worry me.

Fastforward to yesterday – my appointment and review of the past month.  We talked about how I was feeling – especially the fatigue.  We discussed what I had changed in my diet – I had added bread back to my diet as I love a sandwich for lunch – think that is what is driving my fatigue.  For the next month, I’m going to experiment – either selecting lower carb bread or bread type items for lunch or swap my lunch / dinner options – dinner for lunch and lunch for dinner.  We’ll see how it goes.  The end of the appointment is the weigh-in – I’m pleased to announce that I dropped 6 lbs!!  We were both very pleased with the results.  I will never see that ugly unnamed number from above.  I’m still on a HIGH from it.  I’ve tried many things in the past (JC, WW, SB, Clean, NS, etc – it may have worked for the short-term – but always felt I was missing something).  I can honestly say I didn’t feel that this passed month.  I went out to dinner, I shared dessert, had cocktails, enjoyed a BBQ over Memorial Day, had a hot dog and beer at a Phillies game.  I enjoyed life and I’m enjoying this lifestyle change that seems to be working for me.

I go back for my next follow-up mid-July – stay tuned for updates.

Have a fabulous day!!

6 Week Spring Transformation – Week 1

Posted on by keepingupwithkate91

Last Sunday started the BP (www.bodyprojectfitness.com) 6 week Spring Transformation.  I just love the transformations as they really help me re-focus.  The theme for this transformation is BE the transformation.  There are many things the same and some new things.  My biggest challenge is continuing to maintain the focus and commitment post-transformation.  Each week we are being given new goals (which are additive) to focus on and monitor ourselves as it takes 21 days to change a habit.  My long term goal is to learn from this transformation and carry it forward to the post 6 week transformation.

So how did I do week one?  I give myself a B+.  We had 19 daily goals to achieve and I achieved 17 of them – an 89.4%.  What was I proud of most this week?  Giving it my all the 3 days at bootcamp.  Particularly on Friday’s challenge.  I have a knee injury which hinders my ability to do high impact cardio.  Friday’s challenge which included all out running (I can power walk).  I kept my focus and continued through the challenge even though everyone else was finished.  My final time 21:21.

We also had a goal of drinking 70 ozs of water a day.  I achieved that each and every day.  I have a pitcher that I fill up with water each day that holds 80 ozs of water.

I’m ready to tackle week 2 – bring it on!