You. Yes, you. Put down the extra slice of pie. Now.

The holiday season is rapidly approaching, literally in 24 hours, which for many is synonymous with unwanted weight gain. However, that does not give you the excuse to gorge yourself with food whenever the opportunity presents itself. That doesn't mean you have to be a stick in the mud at holiday parties and be miserable because you've restricted yourself all of the delicious holiday treats. So go and have yourself that extra helping of mashed potatoes and stuffing…or maybe an extra slice of pie, or two…if you want to gain those unwelcome pounds only to bitch and complain about it later. Restricting yourself is only a recipe for disaster, even for those with the strongest will power. So how do you indulge during the holidays without packing on the pounds? Portion control. It’s as simple as that. There’s no secret, no diet pill, nothing except for simple common sense. I won’t sugar coat it, it’s not easy and actually quite the bitch. But if you think about it, how many times a year do you turn down dessert or fried over grilled? The holiday season should be no different. Just think of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and all of the holiday parties in between as one of your cheat meals for the week. When you allow yourself a cheat meal any other time, you don’t stuff yourself until no return do you? No, you don’t, so this should be no different. There are only a few simple rules and guidelines to abide by in order to still enjoy the holiday festivities, but not let it ruin your diet.

First things first: eat breakfast. It is such a common mistake that people make, of which I used to be guilty of myself, in order to save calories for later. That is your first mistake. You should be having a protein rich breakfast in the morning year round anyways, and Thanksgiving shall be no different. Firstly, it’s going to boost your metabolism, so you’re body will be able to actually metabolize the food your eating later. But most importantly, you’re body won’t go into starvation mode and feed on your muscle rather than fat. When it does this, I can guarantee you that you will both physically and mentally enter a “binge mode” and want to eat everything in sight because you haven’t eaten all day. Not only will you be bound to over eat, mentally, you will be unable to make healthy choices that you would be able to otherwise. So it's either an extra 300 calories at breakfast, or an extra 650 at dinner. Your choice.

The holiday season can also be tantamount with forgetting to exercise. For those who are slaving away in the kitchen for 10 hours a day, I get that the last thing you want to do is hit the gym for 2 hours. But do SOMETHING, and for those who aren't cooking all day long have NO excuse. Go for a hike, do some yoga, lift some weights. Even if you aren't going hard like you usually would do at the gym, just move your ass doing something…I don’t care what it is. More than likely, you’ll feel so good after getting a workout in, that you may not even fully indulge later…completely saving your waistline.

Now that you've made proactive attempts at not making the holidays a full on gorge-fest before you hit the table, here’s what you have to do once you finally sit down to eat.

Unless you are cooking the meal yourself, if you are dining at someone else’s home, chances are they may not be as health conscious as you, so you might not have much of an option of what to eat. But you do have an option of what NOT to eat. You don’t have to try out every single dish just because you think it’s rude not to. All you have to do is make healthy choices. If you've decided to have a serving (and yes, I stress a serving, as in singular) of candied yams, don’t indulge in the mashed potatoes, or visa verse. Pack on the vegetables, unless they are all dishes smothered in butter and creamy sauces. Refrain from smothering your turkey in gravy. Be mindful of your starches…don’t load your dish with potatoes, pasta’s and breads. And for god’s sake, practice portion control!

Now it’s time for dessert, and yes, you can indulge in dessert. If you really have a sweet tooth, try limiting your food intake during the main course. But either way, stick to one slice of pie opposed to two (and that doesn't mean one enormous piece), and eat it sans whipped cream. Little things like not adding the whipped cream or chocolate syrup, will really play a difference in whether you pack on the pounds or not.

So please, for the sake of your waistline, just be smart and make healthy choices. You do it all year round, make the holidays no exception.

If you're drinking coffee at the gym...you aren't really working out.

Pet peeves. We all have them,and nothing annoys me more than when people do stupid shit at the gym. I could write a ten page paper venting about all the idiotic things people do while at the gym, but I’ll keep this relatively short.

I’ve been to the gym at all hours of the day, anywhere from 4am to 11pm. Without fail, I always see at least one person exercising with a mug of steaming hot coffee. Seriously? Don’t get me wrong, I am an avid believer in the health benefits that coffee can offer, but within moderation and not during your workout. First of all, if you are so tired and exhausted where you need coffee as your workout companion, you shouldn’t be at the gym, but rather keep your ass in bed. Second of all, if you think that drinking coffee rather than good ol’ fashioned water is better for you at replenishing fluids and electrolytes, then I actually feel very sorry for you. Because that just proves you have no damn common sense. Furthermore, after getting sweaty and out of breath, are you really craving a hot beverage over a cold drink of relieving water? I didn’t think so. It’s not even a matter of what you are craving, but rather a matter of what your body needs before, during and after a workout. When you exercise, you put your body under tremendous stress where it losses a sleuth of essential nutrients and fluids, of which it is essential to replenish. So if you have made the choice in working out to keep healthy, why would you want it all to go to waste if you aren’t going to replenish your body properly?

Now I love coffee, and “love” may even be an understatement, so I will be the last person to advise to stop drinking this wonderful cup of joy. Instead of drinking coffee during your workout, why don’t you be smart about your coffee consumption and drink it before your workout, anywhere from 30-60 minutes beforehand. This could be a valuable addition to your exercise regimen by delaying muscle fatigue and keeping you both focused and energized.

This isn’t a science lesson…it’s actually just common sense. With all this being said, put that shit down while you’re at the gym. Or I promise you that I will dump it all over you with no remorse.

The Power of Planking

It is not uncommon for someone to bang out hundreds of crunches or sit ups to achieve the ultimate midsection. I'm going to save your 20 minutes of your day by telling you that you are wasting your time, and that instead of doing hundreds of useless crunches, you should be planking instead.

Plank exercises are an important component of isometric training. For those of you who don't know exactly what isometric training is, it can most simply be defined as contracting your muscles against stationary resistance. Although your main reasoning for incorporating planks into your exercise regimen may be to improve your abdominal strength, you’d be pleased to learn that planks actually benefit several elements of both physical fitness and mental well being.

Building strength is probably the foremost important benefit of planking due to the multiple muscles it works simultaneously. Planks aid in strengthening your midsection, upper and lower body and back muscles. Plank exercises of course active your core muscles, while in turn stabilize your spine and hips, which aids in improving your posture. For those who have a weak back or skeletal deformities like scoliosis, such as myself, planks are one of the best exercises that you can do to promote good posture, prevent back injuries and build overall strength.

I am a huge advocate of incorporating planks into your daily workout regimen. However, because your abdominal muscles are a fast twitch muscle group, only doing traditional planks most likely won’t give you the results you’re looking for. Try encompassing the below plank variations to reap the most optimum results.

 

Dolphin Plank

Be sure that your shoulders are aligned over your wrists and the rest of your body remains in one straight line. Complete this plank either by holding for 30-60 seconds and repeat 2-3 times.



Side Plank Leg Lift

Place your right elbow on the ground with both legs extended, keeping your body in a straight line. Keep both feet flexed if you can and rest your left hand either on your upper hip or keep straight up in the air. Lift your outer leg up slightly higher than your top hip, keeping your spine lengthened and abs engaged, and then slowly lower your leg back to your bottom leg. Complete three sets of 15-20 repetitions on each side.

Plank with Knee to Chest

In a basic plank position, pull one knee in toward your chest slightly to the side of your body, alternating both sides. Complete for 45-60 seconds and repeat 2 or 3 more times.

* For more oblique work, you can add a twist to this exercise by pulling one knee to the opposite side of your body.

Plank with Kick Back

In a basic elbow plank, raise your leg off the ground as high up as you can while keeping good form, feet flexed and legs straight. Alternate both sides while completing for 45-60 seconds and repeat 2 or 3 more times.



No, protein is not going to make you fat. It's going to make you fit.

Over the past six months so many people have asked me to either help them out with a meal plan for whatever their goals are or they ask what I eat on a regular basis. I actually don't eat anything outrageous or go on any super intense diets...I just make healthy, common sense choices, which I will elaborate on in future posts. However, the most important part of my diet is protein. From what I have observed over the years, a lot of women are afraid of intaking too much protein beause they are leary about gaining weight and/or bulking up. The fact of the matter is though, that regardless of how much protein you are consuming, a woman's body isn't capable of gaining the same muscle mass as a man's due to lack of testosterone levels. The only way you can gain weight from consuming a lot of protein is if you consume a very high level of protein and don't exercise, in which case it would just turn into fat.

Regardless, if you've graduated middle school, you should know that protein is essentially the building blocks of life. It is essential to helping your body repair muscle, grow tissues, control metabolism and regulate hormones.

Particularly in muscle development, it is absolutely a vital component of your diet. So all of those squats that you just spent 40 minutes doing? They are more or less a complete waste of time if you aren't giving your body enough protein. Without the amino acids of protein, it is impossible for your muslces to grow no matter how hard or often you train them. If you train hard, and you all should be, then you should be consuming approximately one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. I weigh 120lbs, so I should be consuming 120 grams of protein per day. You're probably thinking to yourself, "Holy fuck, that's a shit load of protein", because I know I did at first when I began increasing my daily protein intake. It's not as outrageous as you may think though because there are an unbelievable amount of protein rich foods that you should be eating anyways.

What are the best sources of protein you ask? Below are a full range of foods that contain high levels of protein which should be a staple in your diet.

• Poultry: Chicken, turkey
• Red Meat: Steak
• Fish: Tuna, salmon, etc. 
• Dairy: Milk, Cottage cheese, greek  yogurt and milk
• Eggs: Whole or whites. (Although I recommend egg whites to avoid the saturated fats in the yolks)
• Nuts: Walnuts, cashews, almonds, pistachios, peanuts
• Beans: Kidney, gorbanzo, pinto, black, etc. 
• Quinoa

Now that you know where to find protein, I'm sure you're curious when is the best time to have protein. Your body can only consume so much at one time, so having 60 grams of protein at once really isn't going to do much good considering you'll most likely absorb only half...if that. So the best time...is every time you eat. Virtually every meal or snack you have throughout the day should have some type of protein source. Even so, there are certain times throughou the day where it is more critical to have protein than others.

• Within an hour of waking, you should be consuming between 25-30 grams of protein. It jump starts your metabolism and will give you energy for the rest of the day. More importantly though, after a complete night's sleep, your body is seriously deprived of any nutrients and you need to replenish quickly.
• Before you hit the gym is absolutely essential. Eating quick to digest protein (such as whey) before your workout will promote muscle growth since as you are training your muscles are being fed.
• After your workout is even more critical as both protein and carbohydrates are necessary to repairing your muscle cells after you have damaged them during your workout. Just think; you've spent an hour breaking down your muscles...wouldn't you want to feed them so they can build up?
• Before bed is the one time of day that most people forego due to that pesky myth that you shouldn't eat within 3 hours before you sleep. Get that nonsense out of your head. In an ideal world, you'll be going without food or any nutrient source for several hours. Considering the most optimal time for muscle growth is while you sleep, you must consume some type of protein source before you sleep. I'm not advising to eat a full steak dinner; but some greek yogurt, a handful of nuts or a couple spoon fulls of peanut butter is sufficient.

Now that I've rambled about the in's and out's of protein - turn off the computer, eat some protein, and hit the weights.

Saved By The Bell

You've walked by the kettlebell rack a million times as you make your way towards the dumbbells, barbells, medicine balls and weight machinese. If you haven't tried using them by now, I can guarantee you that you've barely tapped into how ass kicking of a workout you could be getting.

Perhaps you think that exercising with a kettle bell is more or less the same as exercising with dumbbells. What most people don't realize is that it is not necessarily how heavy the weight is (although I am always an advocate for increased weight) but how the weight is distributed. Because it is not evenly distributed, you will force all of your stabilizer muscles to work even harder. Therefore, you will be conditioning your entire body, increase resistance to injury, improve range of motion and increase your ability to simulatenously train aerobically and anaerobically.

Want to know another incredible benefit of kettlebell trianing? An average exercise can torch up to 20 calories per minute! Which means you'll receive maximume results in less time. However, this fact will not be true if you swing a kettlebell around with improper form and low intensity. You can't be a little bitch about it. Make it count for each and every rep and I promise you will reap the endless amounts of benefits.

There is a surplus of exercises you can do with a kettlebell, but I've chosen and outlined a few staple moves which activate the most muscles at once that you should be incorporating into your fitness routine.

1) Two Handed Swing 

    Targets: Shoulders, back, core, hips, glutes and legs

    How to do it: Stand with feet slightly wider than hip width apart. Hold the kettlebell with both hands in front of your body. Sustain a slight bend to your knee while driving the hips backwards and lowering the body. Now explosively drive your hips forward while swinging the kettlebell forward, keeping your glutes and core engaged, ending no higher than your chest. This motion should come from your hips, not your arms. Perform this movement for 12-15 reps. (3-4 Sets)

 

2) Push Press

    Targets: Shoulders, core, glutes and legs.

    How to do it: Stand with your feet about hip width apart while the kettlebell is in your left hand and in a rack position. Lower into a squat and speedily explode upward while pressing the kettlebell overhead. Return to starting position and repeat. Perform this movement for 30 seconds on each side, with NO rest in between. (3-4 Sets)

3) Kettlebell Lunge Press  

    Targets: Shoulders, back, arms, core, glutes and legs

    How to do it: Stand with feet hip width apart while holding the kettlebell in front of your chest with both hands, arms bent. Lunge forward with one leg while raising the kettlebell overhead. Return to your standing position while returning the kettlebell to your chest. Perform this movement for 12-15 reps and alternate to the other side. (3-4 Sets)

No Pain, No Gain...until you throw your back out

It's no secret that I workout harder than most women and even some men (guys, I hate to break it to you, but your 65lb front squats aren't all that impressive...especially when I do 100lbs). Although, as invincible as I'd like to believe that I am, I am just as prone to injury as anyone else...a fact that I've recently proven.

It's Wednesday afternoon when I meet my trainer for a full body circuit workout. The first exercise is a hang power clean. So basically, it's a dead lift to a power clean to a front squat. It's a quick and dynamic movement that offers almot a total body workout. I perform a few practice reps with a 45lb bar with ease and add 20 more pounds for the actual workout. My trainer told me to do 8-10 reps, and being the over achiever that I am, of course I don't stop at 8 and go right to 10 reps. Big mistake. By the 9th and 10th rep, I can feel that something in my back isn't right. I have back problems as it is because of my scoliosis that I've had since childhood, but this wasn't a normal pain. I finish the set and my back is absolutely killing me, but I suffer through the rest of my workout figuring it's just still sore from yesterdays back and shoulders workout and not much of a big deal (actually listening to my body is something I haven't exactly mastered yet). 60 minutes have passed and I go over to the stretching mat and it takes me a solid 5 minutes to get up from the floor. I walk down the stairs in excruciating pain and barely make it 30ft before I am completely debiliated. My boyfriend helps me over to the functional training area to help stretch me out and relax my back. At this point, I feel completely crippled. Without exaggeration, I can't move an inch without tears strolling down my face. I've broken toes, pulled muslces and sprained ankles...but nothing is anywhere close to comparable to this type of pain. It takes me an hour to finally have the strength to get off the floor. Whenever I injur myself, I tend to have hypochondriac tendancies. I start researching what the possibilities that I just did to myself are and have suddenly come to the conclusion that I need back surgery. It's ridiculous, I know, but in such a time of physical agony, I can't help but think of the worst case scenario.

Now here comes the real challenge: resting. This in itself is a complete and utter foreign concept to me. I give myself one rest day per week to allow my muscles a bit more time to rebuild, but the last time I took this many consecutive days off in a row from exercise was the last time I injured myself (which was a series of injuries actually from a pulled glute muscle, a pulled hamstring and ending with a sprained ankle). I am just like my father in the sense that I can not sit still for more than ten minutes at a time. I hate feeling lazy and I hate being unproductive. Though when you throw your back out, you don't really have a choice but to lay the fuck down. It's been three days of physical and mental agony, although as each day progresses I feel better and better.

My trainer told me yesterday that his high school coaches would take one week off completely from exercise every couple months. I instantly thought to myself  "oh, hell no". I've only taken that amount of time off from working out when I was injured, and even then I'd push my luck when I probably shouldn't have. My fears were always that I would lose most of the strength and muscle that I've worked so hard to build, and I'll be honest, I don't want to gain weight that isn't in the form of muscle mass. But I'm laying here in bed, with nothing to do other than to think, and start researching why it's so beneficial to take that much time off every couple of months, and what I found was actually pretty interesting.

What you do outside of the gym is equally, if not more, important as what you do inside the gym. This isn't something I didn't already know. But why an entire week? Why every couple of months? When you train hard day in and day out for so many days, weeks, months at a time...a lot of stress and wear and tear is put on your body. Physically, your body just needs a rest approximately every 8-12 weeks to recover. Aside from the physical benefits of resting, it gives yourself a mental break as well. Because let's be honest, waking your ass up in the early hours of the morning and/or dedicating hours of intense exercise a day is enough to mentally break down anyone after a while. The above makes enough sense, since your muslces obviously need a recovery period in order to grow, but what about losing everything you've busted your ass working for? I don't know why this didn't hit me before, because really it's just common sense. You've spent months, and more realistically...years, transforming your body. Do you really think your muscles are going to atrophy in only 7 days? No, and you're a complete idiot if you think otherwise.

Even though I don't have a choice but to relax and take some time off from exercise, I'm trying to take advantage of the opporunity. Before my injury, I would have never done this on my own. I think in a strange way, throwing my back out was a blessing. I forget that I'm not a superhuman, I'm not invincible and I can't do it all. You need to push yourself in life and working out, however, I'm realizing that I tend to overestimate myself. As much of a mental challenge this is proving to be, I'll take advantage of this recovery week that I know my body so badly craves. I'll tell you what though, once I'm fully healed and able to exercise again, I'm going to step into that gym like a boss and come back stronger than ever.

In the meantime, I just need to chill the fuck out.

"Six Weeks to OMG" will NOT melt the hot fudge sundae from your thighs!

Regardless of who you are or where you are at in your health and fitness journey, I am certain you have heard the laundry list of diet over the years. From Atkins to South Beach and everything in between, most of you have probably tried a few. I have a huge problem with diets first of all. I don't believe in them, because I think healthy eating should be a lifestyle not  a quick fix. But before I write a 7 page rant about my issues with diets in general, there is one in particlar that I absolutely have to talk about. "Six Weeks to OMG: Get Skinnier Than All Your Friends" by British actor, Venice Fulton.

This isn't a miracle diet plan, because guess what? It's all bullshit.

It is a book cleverly marketed towards desperate women who will do just about anything to lose weight and look better than most people they know and filled with a whole bunch of unbased and unproven methods of losing fat, becoming more toned and even keeping your nails, hair and skin healthy. Now since I don't want you to spend your money and support his mans book in any way, I will break down all of the principles he suggests are essential to being successful at weight loss.

Take Cold Showers & Baths
The diet suggests that since your body has to use energy to keep your core body temperature at approximately 98.6 farenheight, you're body will burn more calories than if you took a hot shower. Although this is true, you aren't reducing the amount of cellulite on your things by eating a bag of potato chips, not exercising and taking a freezing cold shower/bath instead. Honestly, this is a recipe for acquiring hypothermia.

Skip Breakfast & Exercise on an Empty Stomach
Fulton recommends that you should skip breakfast and shouldn't eat until after you've exercised. He claims that exercising on an empty stomach causes the body to use its energy stores, fat. First of all, once you've woken up from your nights sleep, your body has just gone (hopefully) 8+ hours without food or water. Due to this, your blood sugar leveles are far lower than normal and your body doesn't have enough fuel to for an optimal workout. I don't know about you, but there is no way in hell that I am running 4 miles and lifting weights as soon as I wake up without putting anything into my system. That is a recipe for disaster coupled with diminshed performance and a higher probability for passing out. Also, there have been countless studies proving that breakfast is the most important meal of the day since it keeps you energized throughout the remainder of the day and keeps your metabolism up. So if you're a morning exerciser, have a light breakfast before your workout and replenish afterwards. It's not rocket science, it's common sense.

Stay Away From Fruit
Umm...what?! I'm so unbelievably sick and tired of people trying to promote that people ought to stay away from fruit because of it's sugars. There is a very distinct difference between the sugar you find in a honey bun and the natural sugars you'd find in blueberries. How in the world can you advocate not eating something that is healthy and comes from our own earth? Fulton recommends not eating much fruit because the body processes fructose differently and this will interfere with appetite hormones. Though this may be true, that doesn't mean you should cut it out of your diet. I promise you, that if you don't incorporate fruit into your diet, you are going to feel the effects and you'd be missing out on plethora of incredible health benefits. Don't listen to this idiot.

Carbs are Carbs
This is probably the most infuriating opinion of his. Fulton promotes the idea that all carbs are the same and that there is no difference between the carbs you find in chocolate cake and the carbs you'd find in an apple. Right, because all of this evidence and factually based studies about complex vs. simple carbs are all a bunch of lies. Let me tell you this...eating a piece of chocolate cake will not give you the body that eating an apple will. Plain and simple. So stop being so engulfed in this dream world that you can make shortcuts and cheat your health and still look like a smoking hot bombshell. Life doesn't work that way.

The above are only a handful of the points that Fulton makes throughout this disgusting diet book. Plain and simple..this book is a concoction of bullshit, lies, and shortcuts that are all a recipe for disaster, no results and quite possibly a window for eating disorders among young women.

 

Up & running....literally.

Hello fellow fitness fiends! After many months of perfecting my blog...from the name, layout, design, images and most of all direction....I have finally been able to launch "Eat Clean, Exercise Dirty". The name says it all really, and I truly believe in the lifestyle. For me, exercise isn't just a hobby, it really is a way of life...and I couldn't imagine living without it. Quite frankly, you wouldn't want to know me if I had to, because I'd be the most miserable and bitchiest woman alive. As pissy as I am when I'm hungry (and anyone who knows me knows first hand that is a side of me that you don't want to see), I'm even more horrible when I don't incorporate exercise into my daily routine. So for the sake of my mental stability, and the well-being of others...I eat, breathe and sleep eating clean and exercising dirty.

I understand that a training routine which works for one person, won't work for everyone. I like yoga, pilates and all that...but I simply cannot commit to that type of training on a regular basis. If I wasn't able to lift a weight that was at least 50% of my body weight, I'd start having some serious withdrawls. I have an intense and extreme personality, and it comes through in how I train. I run fast, lift heavy and go hard...every, single time.

As much as I love exercise though, it isn't all that effective if you aren't nourishing your body properly. It took me a long time to actually realize that fact. When I was younger, I could honestly eat whatever I wanted to. Mostly because of my lightning fast metabolism and because of how active I was in dance and sports. Although, after the luxury of my incredible metabolism started to diminsih, my body showed me that I couldn't eat whatever I wanted to and still stay fit...no matter how hard I tried working it off in the gym. I figured I could just spend a couple extra hours at the gym and I would stay exactly the same. Wrong. It doesn't work like that. Although I believe that exercise is absolutely crucial, it all starts with what you feed your body. You know that age old saying "you are what you eat", well guess what, it's true.  

I'll lay it all out on the line now, this isn't going to be your typical health and fitness blog. I'm not going to sit here and say "It's ok that you didn't finish your last set, just finish it tomorrow" or "Go ahead, eat that heart attack on a bun with a side order of diabetes, you'll burn it off on the elipitcal later". What I will do, is be straight forward and to the point. In many regards, I usually have to filter myself or tone down my personality so that others are more comfortable around me, because let's face it, I'm a lot to handle sometimes. So here, I've decided Im' not going to filter myself or tone down anything.

So if you're looking for a blog to the likes of articles you see in Shape, Self or Fitness magainze, I will tell you right now that you haven't come to the right place. However, if you are looking for an intense and extreme approach at motivation...no need to search any further! I will post my opinions, tips & advice, facts, workout routines and even some recipes that I swear by as frequently as I am able to. So stay tuned & enjoy!