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I received a Fitbit for Christmas. I have been wearing my Fitbit Charge II a month now, and I’m obsessed. I love this thing. I sleep with it, I check it 50 times a day, and by the way, I now always know what time it is. Plus, I see my text messages faster.

I wrote a full review on all the neat-o things this technology can do, over at Monterey Premier.

Here’s a snippet:

12. It provides COMPETITION.

You can “friend” people, and it tells you how many steps they walked. Just don’t friend my pal Erika because she logs in like 14,000 steps/day, and it just feels so impossible to beat her!! And she’s a dentist. I gotta figure out how she’s racking up so many steps.

13. It will give you a nudge to go walk…..

Click here to check out the rest! I’m disabling comments here in order to allow you to give Monterey Premier’s page some comment love.

Psst!! I am still sending out newsletters every 2 weeks. These are just short stories that don’t appear on the blog. One went out yesterday, and the one from 2 weeks ago had a spiritual gifts survey on it. Wish you hadn’t missed it? No problem. If you’d like to receive the link to the spiritual gifts survey, just join my bi-monthly newsletter below, and I’ll zip it right to ya.

The post What can a Fitbit Charge II do for you? appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I was all excited to buy “Georgia peaches” now that I live down here, but look. These aren’t actually from Georgia. 🙁 Apparently, peach season is over already. I missed it!

This week I have two cardiology appointments. The one yesterday was fairly easy, and all went smoothly. John David, my faithful sidekick, tagged along for that one. I think he fully entertained the cardiac floor of the hospital. My favorite part was the bit he did with the crayons. See, I brought a brand new box of 24 crayons along. New crayons interest people more than old ones.

My sidekick…..He’s not distracting at all…But he can entertain a cardiology office like no other.

JD enjoyed the crayons very much, but I’m not sure that he actually did any coloring. The door to my appointment room had a large gap between it and the floor. John David found it delightfully fun to roll each of his crayons, one-by-one, under the door and out into the hallway. I stopped him at first, but then I was trying to give the doctor my full attention, so when he eventually resumed his game, I didn’t even notice really.

When I finally opened the door and fetched all the crayons, there were nurses giggling in the hallway. When I got onto the elevator, the elderly gentleman behind us said, “Well, we all know you had a good time at the doctor’s office,” to little John David. John David was wearing his Lightning McQueen back-pack, and he looked ridiculously adorable. He just looked up at all the people who kept talking to him with his little straight, serious face. This is definitely not the toddler you have to worry about running off with strangers.

I asked the man, “Oh, did you see the crayons rolling out into the hallway?”
“Oh, yeah,” the gentleman replied with a smile. “Is this your first?”
“Oh, no, my fourth.”
“What! Gracious! You don’t look old enough to have four! But then you don’t act like he’s your first. First time parents are, you know, different, more anxious and restrictive.”
Haaaa!!! Yep, true, and we’ve all been there.

So the heart problem lives on. I see my electrophysiologist today. It’s all sort of embarrassing when all of my health problems start coming out. Maybe I’ll just keep my mouth shut today about all the other non-heart symptoms that I have. I’m glad I didn’t yesterday though because that doc actually understood my hip problem and referred me to a local orthopedic surgeon, but don’t worry, I’m not hoping to have surgery.

What I actually want to tell you all is what a difference eating better has made for me. You know that whole, “You are what you eat?” slogan?? Well, it’s true. I hate it, but it’s true. The last few days, I’ve just re-embraced the fact that I need LOTS of sleep, and I can’t handle wheat, and I feel like a living human again, instead of a dying one, like I felt the last week.

Out for a walk with my work-out partner, JD

See, moving to the South from California was exciting and also bad, or really just I was the one that was bad. I wanted to eat buttermilk biscuits, fried chicken, and pie, pie pie!!!! I decided to pretend like I don’t have a problem with gluten for a while.

Until it caught up with me, and I was back in the hurt locker. So now I’m back to behaving, and I feel better. Eat better. Feel better.

I’ve been getting in more exercise too. I felt too poorly to do much of it last week. Who knew? Food, sleep, and exercise: three things I never realized would be so important for the rest of my life.

That’s why I’m such a fan of Justin Cox’s Kettle Bell Burn program. (You can check it out here.) He teaches the importance of a balanced diet, 8 hours of sleep per night, staying hydrated, 20 mins. of exercise per day, and taking vitamins.

I recently noticed that his current promotion is a free 5-day course on nutrition, so I just wanted to call your attention to that and urge you to sign up.

His regular exercise program is only $30/month, and it’s awesome, but if you’re still on the fence, the free 5-day course is a good starting place.

What, your gym doesn’t have a china cabinet?

When it comes to exercise, arm day is my favorite. I always actually do the whole work-out on arm day. You have to understand. I was never an athlete. I don’t even feel ashamed when I quit. I’m like, “Eh, this is heavy, or I’m out of breath. Time for a nice little rest.” No shame.

Case in point: Yesterday Caleb came into the kitchen asking Joshua to play ball with him. Joshua refused. Joshua was in the kitchen snacking. (Peas. Joshua eats whole cans of peas for a snack. We are baffled and pleased).

So I volunteered. Caleb kind of looked unsure, “Sigh. Okay, but I mean Mom can’t really catch or throw, but….Just so you know, Mom, there ARE bugs out here, and it is hot. I’ll get you a glove.”

(I complain about sweat, gnats, and bugs on the regular.)

9. Wow. It took my children only 9 years to surpass me in athletic skills. Nice. 

Now don’t be mad at Caleb. He was very sweet to me out there. He has played with me before, so he knows that half of my pitches will go over his head or five feet away from him, and I can’t throw very far. And I don’t really care. Sports are not my thing.

My sons say that P.E. is their favorite class. Can you imagine??? Well, I certainly can’t. I even found a way in high school to not have to take any P.E. at all. 🙂

Nutrition and exercise suddenly became so important to me after it actually turned my illness around. I was the queen of having two granola bars and a Coke for lunch, so this epiphany that if you want to feel good, you have to eat good was a truly rude awakening. (Yes, I know that’s bad grammar, but it’s catchy, you see. Eat good, feel good……Eat well, feel well doesn’t have the same ring to me, but we could also use that.)

I want you all to feel better too.

info graph/ affiliate link property of kbburn.com.

Let me know if you decide to give kbburn.com a try, so we can cheer each other on.

Eat better. Feel better.

The post Eat Better, Feel Better appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I like what he has to say here about calling out the hype and building a consistent, simple, effective routine.  –April

Everyday we see ‘gurus’ pitching the ultimate 12 week plan, or 6 weeks to sexy, or how to get the flat sexy stomach you have always wanted in just 20 minutes per day. Trust me, I see them all the time. I have made those programs, I have sold those ads, and I have made a lot of money doing it.

But there is a secret the ‘gurus’ don’t want you to know. This is the secret that keeps you coming back to them time after time again. They purposely keep sending you 6 week programs and special 21 day detoxes so you will buy those products instead of discovering this one secret. They do it because they don’t want to lose their job.

Let’s face it, people like shiny. Coming out with a new sexy abs program every 4 weeks is shiny. Just follow this program for the next 4-6 weeks and you will have the abs you and your husband have always wanted. Just take a look at this screen shot. All I did was a quick google image search of Shape Magazine.

Notice anything? How many new body plans, 4 week to sexy programs, and the ‘new diet’ programs can they really create?

It is all distraction. They want to keep you away from this one secret that I have been teaching to my personal clients for the last 10 years to give them amazing results. This one secret allowed me to create the top personal training studio in my city before I left it to have more family time. It is the same secret I use with all of my online premium coaching clients today. The same secret that I give away for free in my Transformation Made Simple program.

So what is this closely guarded secret that can cost all ‘gurus’ their jobs?

Consistency. That is what you need. You need to be consistent in your program in order to make the best progress. By continually selling you new and different programs, the ‘gurus’ are purposely keeping you from achieving your goals. This ensures that when you fail, or the program doesn’t go right, they can sell you a new program that promises to fix the problems with the old one.

But the biggest, and the truly best fitness professionals I have ever come across, we all have one thing in common. We keep our clients consistent and give them the time they need in order to achieve all their goals.

Consistency allows you to adapt. Adaptation is the sole purpose of exercise and fitness. Forget everything you have ever heard of muscle confusion. There is an actual term for it and a place for it, but it is not what you think and not the topic of this conversation.

Adaptation is what you need. You need to adapt to the stress you are putting on your body so that you can handle more. If you are constantly jumping from shiny workout to new shiny workout every few weeks or even every couple days, you will never fully adapt. That means you never get that much better.

Consistency allows you to adapt and get better.

A simple way to look at it is like this. Burpees burn a lot of Calories. They burn them fast and skyrocket your heart rate. Which workout will burn more Calories? Performing 10 burpees for 4 sets or performing 20 burpees for 8 sets? Without adaptation, you will have a near impossible time progressing to the harder workouts that burn more fat than the easier workouts. If you are jumping from shiny workout to shiny workout every few days or weeks, then you can’t adapt.

Consistency allows you to adapt and get better.

Now consistency doesn’t mean you need to do the same workout every single day for the rest of your life. That just sounds horrible. But there are a few things that you should always be doing. Take these 4 exercises for instance:

Military Press
Squat
Pull Up
Dead Lift
These 4 exercises, or close variations are in ALMOST EVERY SINGLE PROGRAM I make for my clients. I create for them new and different workouts every 4-6 weeks, but within that, these 4 exercises remain consistent. Over time, they end up doing hundreds and thousands of reps of these exercises. They adapt to them and they get stronger. This strength carries over to other parts of the workouts and allows them to do more.

Once they can handle more, they can burn more fat if they want, build more muscle if they want, and eat more food without worry. That is the power of consistency.

But there is a trick to consistency. I am sorry but it is not as simple as just saying, “I am going to start being consistent today.” I truly wish it were that easy.

The key to consistency is simplicity. Sit for a moment and think about past fitness or transformation programs you have used. Were they challenging? Were they complex? At first you started off with all the greatest intentions right? You followed the program 100%. Then something happened. You maybe missed a day or you stopped feeling the vibe.

The key to consistency is simplicity.

That novelty wears off and you start finding yourself having to convince yourself to workout. You have to almost fight yourself just to get your program going. That is the time where you lose your interest, where you fall off the program and have to start over in a few weeks.

The key is simplicity. In my free course, Transformation Made Simple, I stress this in every lesson. The key to being consistent is to make the process as simple and easy as possible. Make it so simple that there is absolutely no reason you can’t do it.

Sounds too easy right? I mean how could something that simple actually work. Well think about it this way. It takes about 50 heavy reps per week to develop strength. To accomplish this, you could do:

5 reps x 10 sets one day per week
5 reps x 5 sets 2 days per week
5 reps x 2 sets 5 days per week
All three of those programs have been proven to be very effective for developing strength. Which one would you rather do? Do you think you will be more inclined to ramp yourself up to do a huge heavy 50 rep workout every week, to a moderate 25 heavy reps twice per week, or a simple 10 reps every day?

That is the idea of keeping things simple and being consistent.

Break things down into the simple small steps that you can manage to accomplish everyday. AND THEN GIVE YOURSELF TIME.

Going to level with you here. Those 6 week, 12 week, and even 20 week programs are good and all but they are kind of a lie. Personally I went from normal to photo shoot ready (sort of) in 8 weeks. But then again, I was already in good shape. I already had a foundation of consistency and simple basics that allowed me to increase my intensity and buckle down for those 8 weeks.

The images they use to sell you those programs, are from people like me, who already were in a decent place. If you are just starting, give yourself time. International fitness coach Scott Sonnon says that it take about the same amount of time to completely transform a body as it does to prepare an Olympic athlete, 4 years. From personal experience, I agree.

Give Yourself Time.

It takes time to develop the new habits you need to create, to change the bad habits, and to truly develop the consistency that you will need in order to achieve the results

To recap, here are the 3 things you TRULY need in your program.

Consistency
Simplicity
Time
Now here is what I want you to do:

1) If you liked this article, and learned even 1 thing from it, click the share button down below.

2) Leave a comment below and tell me what you are going to do to make things simple and consistent for yourself going forward.

– See more at: kbburn.com

The post The 1 Thing All the ‘Gurus’ Don’t Want You to Know, Guest Post by Fitness Blogger Justin Cox appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Something wonderful has happened to me lately, as a result of working with Coach Justin Cox.  No, I haven’t lost any weight yet. It’s only been three weeks. Actually, I’ve gained 3 pounds, so let’s not focus on that…

What I’m actually referring to is this.

Some of you may remember that I have terrible psoriasis of the fingernails, and it has hit an all time high level of UGLY this year. I didn’t even know it was possible for nails to crack on top, until this year. If you look closely at my right pinky or my left pointer finger, you can see a little of the pitting that is still there. Each day it’s clearing up a little bit more though, which is so exciting!!

Do you know why it’s exciting? It’s not just vanity. This stuff HURTS. Thanks to my nails, I can barely open bottles, use screwdrivers, or work buttons. Buttons are the worst.

Let me tell you about this Coach Cox program.

Step 1 is the interview. Coach Cox and I discussed my goals and physical fitness needs. Then he works with you to build LASTING habits to affect true change. We decided to first focus on my water consumption.

Here’s the rule of thumb: Take your body weight, in pounds, half that number, and drink that number of ounces of water per day. That equals 70 ounces of water for me.

My results, in the first three weeks:

1. Right away, I had more energy. Who knew being dehydrated was sapping my energy!?

2. After 3 weeks, I noticed the nail change, and I can’t tell you how excited I was about that. Of course, part of the nail problem was dryness, so it does make sense that water would help.. Right now my nails don’t have a single crack, and you should have seen them two months ago. They were like monster nails.

Here’s a REALLY scary picture of what my nails used to look like:

fingernail psoriasis

GRRRRoss, right?

I’ll also give you a preview of one of the workout videos from Coach Cox. I’m supposed to be exercising 2 days per week and doing one longer cardio session on the weekend, like running. So far I keep only getting around to one exercise day and one cardio day.

BUT, with Coach Cox, you’re still a success as long as you’re focusing on your one goal at a time, and for me that’s drinking my 70 ounces of water.

When you sign up as a client, he actually puts together a string of videos for you to follow each work-out session. Best of all, every work-out is not the same. So if you’re like me, and enjoy variety, that’s built right in.

If I can stick with it, I’m hoping to lose a couple of inches off of my waist. So far, I’ve managed to gain 3 pounds, but my inches are unchanged, as far as I can tell. But as I’ve written before, when it comes to weight loss, overnight results don’t last. That’s what stomach viruses do, not lifestyle changes.

Exercise was a regular part of my life when I lived in Virginia, but taking on a new job this year, and losing my support system of workout friends took its toll, so I’m gradually easing back in.

The boys were super excited because today I took them all four to the pool by myself. OY! I was worried about that task. My friend Kristen gave me the idea of putting swimmies on the two little ones so we could all just swim in the big pool. Kristen has a set of twins, so she knows what she’s talking about. I figured I’d give it a try. Dan has his frog float that goes around his chest and arms, so he was all set, but I couldn’t find JD’s swimmies anywhere. However, I did find him a toddler-sized life jacket, left over from our boating days. Life preservers in place, pool day was actually FUN for everyone. 🙂 I was pleased as punch, and my thighs are sore now because swimming with a toddler on your hip is great exercise!

Summer is off to a SMASHING start. 🙂 And now without further ado………

THE GIVEAWAY WINNER!!!

brought to you by Cer Maz and Polmedia Polish Pottery and Stoneware

The winner is………Congratulations, Amy!!!!!

I will be emailing you your coupon code!

Thanks to all who entered!

Let the weekend begin!!!

The post The Water Challenge appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.