May
21st

“When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser. The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.”  – Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics

May
19th

Food is nothing but fuel for our bodies, yet it is so much more.

Food brings people together, cultures revolve around food, people look to food for comfort, rewards and pleasure and much, much more. Food is the answer to so many things: do you want to show your appreciation for someone? Buy them dinner. Are you stressed or sad? Indulge in ice cream.  Want to lose weight? Stay away from junk food.

Food is so deeply engrained into our culture that it has become so overly-complicated. Over-eating, under-eating, clean eating, dieting… food should be simple yet we tend to over think it and cause unnecessary stress in our lives.

As I’m writing this, I’m having an immense craving for cheese puffs. I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t have one!! In a perfect world, I would just go get the damn cheese puffs but my mind is telling me to resist because I’m going out for dinner later… and that I’m going to Vegas in 2 weeks and I want to look good… and I had an easy workout today. But I want it so bad. Gimme!! How has my relationship with food turned so complicated?!

But in reality, I just went to get those cheese puffs. Why? Over the years as I slid into this healthy lifestyle and as my philosophy on food and fitness evolved, I’ve discovered a new mindset that now comes naturally:

I don’t let food rule my life.

By setting some simple rules for myself, I eat anything I want. I don’t feel bad. I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel regretful. This makes me happy because I love food.

Here are some basic rules everyone should follow:

• Indulge all you want in anything that grows from the ground or in trees.
• Avoid anything is packaged and contains ingredients you’ve never heard of.
• Once in a while, treat yourself to something “bad” (see above point) if you really love it.
• Enjoy, savor and appreciate every single bite.

Here are some rules I’ve set for myself. This may or may not work for you depending on your lifestyle, personality and many other factors. Everyone has to find their own way and this is my way.

• Eat healthy during the day and indulge at night (because that’s the time I like to eat). People say you should eat more during the day and taper off at night but that’s when I like to chill out and perhaps watch a show while snacking on some good eats. It makes me happy so why not?
• Or eat healthy during the week and indulge on weekends when I usually go out. I’m too busy working during the week anyway so there are less distractions for me to fill myself up with junk. This is when my willpower is the strongest so I’ll use it to my advantage.
• Cook at home most of the time so I can indulge as much as I want and don’t feel guilty when going out to eat. You never know how much butter and fats they put into their dishes.
• Exercise lots. This is easy because I love exercise.
• Never feel guilty about overeating or indulging. I can always push a little harder during my next workout. I love food and like I’ve always said, I will NEVER not eat things I love just because it’s deemed unhealthy or fattening. Knowing I have the discipline to make sacrifices elsewhere makes me feel a lot better about food.

How is YOUR relationship with food like? Are you still struggling with it or did you already overcome it?

May
15th

Last week, I had an FML-moment and I have no one to blame but myself. I just finished a killer HIIT session on the bike, did some upper-body work and was just starting to do my recovery routine. Then I had this bright idea that came out of nowhere:

I’m going to do 100 burpees!

I sat there fought with myself for a minute because I didn’t want to do it since I was pooped but I already told myself I was going to. I couldn’t back out now! Well… it’s only about 6 minutes of torture then it’ll all be over. I pressed my timer and just did it.

This set of burpees was probably the worst mental fitness challenge I’ve faced in a long time (yes, worst than those Glute Lifts). I didn’t have my music on so every time my knees (and crotch) slammed on the floor, the sound seem to elevate the pain. I was tired. I was hungry. I was hangry. By the time I got to 90, I was on the verge of giving up and the yoga teacher who was setting up for her 1pm class left the room because I was awkwardly making dying/wheezing sounds. She probably didn’t want to be responsible if something happened to me. Although this was the worst set of burpees I’ve ever done (went over my PR by 30 seconds), I finished it! Everything that was going through my mind was mental and I just had to overcome it because I knew I could do it. Well, I did finish it and felt great afterwards.

Okay, I lied. I felt like crap and think I swallowed my own puke afterwards. But after lying on the mat for a good 10 minutes and a nice and long recovery routine, I felt awesome!

Try this challenge: When you tell yourself to do something, JUST DO IT. You can’t change your mind. You can’t take it back. Just do it.

My best friend and I do it all the time. We’ll spontaneously come up with exercises to add to our pre-planned workouts or switch it up with harder variations and once it slips past our lips, it’s finalized. We almost always regret saying it but for some reason, we keep on doing it… maybe because we always finish a workout.

“Let’s add 30 burpees with a jump tuck in between the 20 Wall Balls and 40 kettlebell swings.”

*gives each other a scared look then proceeds to write it down*

“Nooo wait, I’m just kidding. Let’s just do 10 burpees.” *scared look*

“Too bad! You already said it.”

“……………………” *sulk*

Although out workouts makes us want to kill ourselves, we feel amazing afterwards because we know we worked hard and pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone.

May
13th

May
11th

This is a guest post from my sister, Louise.

This morning I made ‘whole wheat banana chocolate chip quinoa pancakes with strawberry syrup’ (whew).

I found this recipe online, and it just so happened my sister had all the ingredients in her fridge (including the already cooked quinoa). So if you’re a health nut like her and have all this at home, then throw it together to make these yummy pancakes.

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 3 large egg whites (about 1/2 cup)
• 1/3 cup plain greek yogurt
• 2 tablespoons of milk of your choice (skim, soy, almond, coconut)
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar (you could also use honey or maple syrup)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 large very ripe bananas, pureed
• Chocolate Chips (optional)