I totally want to be Alex Rider(in female version) when I grow up. He is the hero of Anthony Horowitz's books that are about a teenage spy. They are a super good read. My sons, Matthew and Ethan are reading them. He gets cool gadgets and is like a mini James Bond. If your kids like to read, or don't, these are super good books. The first is called Stormbreaker. I am on the fourth book called Scorpia. They take me about a couple of hours to read and are a quick read. Enjoy!!

Ok...so if you have a gym membership here is Chest and back workout:

Start with pushups(I didn't think you would need a picture for this) then do these exercises.

Do each exercise doing 12 reps then move to the next exercise in a circuit with out rest in between the sets and do the circuit 3 times. Pick a weight that is challenging and brings your muscles to fatigue and all most failure by the end of the reps for that set. Make sure you include the pushups in your circuit!

pull-ups
chest flys

Did you know that cats are sneaky? They pee in your shoes...(this was said by my friend Jill when a cat was rifling through my purse at scrapbook night on Saturday...)

I have been painting this week and I now have 6 clients. It is really fun coming up with their workouts and making them challenging and interesting. They are such a wide range of age, personality, and motivation. I have to say that I REALLY enjoy doing this. It helps me be motivated to stay in shape plus I really love helping others achieve their fitness goals. It has been a busy week and a little tiring. I have two clients who want to train at 5:30am(are they insane??????) which is fine because I still get home with plenty of time to get the kids up, make them breakfast and pack lunches and get them off to school but it is pretty early(I walk in bleary eyed and 1/2 asleep). I am amazed at how many people get up and go to the gym, it is packed! It is going to be a painting weekend and a fine tuning of the pinewood derby car weekend. Matthew went to the mountains with his good friend and his family and I am going to do a little scrapbooking at a friends house tomorrow night, should be fun!

The best way to do these exercises is to alternate a bicep exercise and a tricep exercise then go back and do the first bicep exercise and then do the first tricep exercise again. Don't rest in between the sets and do 2 sets of each with 15 reps for each set. Then go on to the next two exercises and then the last two exercises, always alternating them.

Triceps

These are kickbacks. Kneel on a bench or chair as seen in the picture and bend your elbow to 90* with the weight at your hip/thigh. Extend your arm back so that the weight goes up and past the level of your back. Only go slightly above back so that you don't hyper-extend. Return the weight to hip/thigh level and repeat.

This is pretty self explanatory. Hold weight in both hands and bend elbows so that the weight goes behind your head. Extend arms to straight up and try to keep elbows in facing more to the front and squeeze at the top.
These are called skull crushers. Lay on your back as seen with your weight in your hands, bring the weight to your forehead. Keeping elbows steady extend arms with out moving the position of your elbows and squeeze at the top and return to forehead. Find the weight that will make the back of your arms feel like they are on fire and you will know it is working!
Biceps


ok here are some exercises for biceps that you can do at home if you have weights. Start with 5 pounds and work your way up. If 5 pounds is too easy, take it to 7.5 or 10.

Concentrated bicep curl. Kneel on floor or sit on a bench and grasp a dumbbell. Place the back of the upper arm on the inner thigh and lean into the leg to raise the elbow a bit. Raise dumbbell to front of shoulder and then lower until arm is almost fully extended













Next do a hammer curl. It is just like the normal bicep curl except that you hold the dumb bell in your hand and turn your wrist in so that they face each other




Alright! Next we will do chest and back and shoulders and then legs. I am still trying to see what exercises can be done at home for the back for helping to get rid of that wretched back fat... There are plenty of exercises for strengthing weak backs but I am talking about resistance exercises for toning!



Hope this helps you out. If you try these and decide to do them on a regular basis, make sure you switch up the order of them every week so that your body will not adapt to it. Increase your weight when you arms do not feel fatigued at the end of each exercise.



If you have questions email me!

Today we went to the library and checked out books. Paul and Ethan worked on his pinewood derby car for the race in 2 weeks. I did laundry and started painting the kitchen. I now have 3 clients for personal training with a possible fourth and received my official national certification for personal training in the mail finally. I am super excited! The kids played outside most of the day and I ran some errands this morning. Not a whole lot of big stuff going on which is good! One of the kids that was jumping on the trampoline got a nose bleed. He didn't even bump into anyone. His mom said he gets them every once in a while. As I was cleaning him up I couldn't help chuckle at the fact that I just can't get away from the nose thing!!! hahahaha(see how I crack myself up, even if you all don't find it amusing???)

Well, I guess that is a wrap for today.

So I had in my mind how I wanted to present my workout stuff in my blog. Unfortunately, it just isn't happening how I want. There is so much I want to share but I don't know how to present it. First of all, I haven't posted the exercises I wanted because I want pictures, but I am computer illiterate and don't know to copy and paste the pictures I want(I have tried and it isn't working) or if it is plagiarism to use someone's else pictures so I guess I will do the thing I didn't really want to do but that is take pictures of the exercises myself and post them. Pictures tell how to do it so much better than just words. I will work on that this weekend and hopefully by Monday you will have a full upper body work out using weights at home. If any of you know if it is wrong to use another websites pictures let me know and I will continue to try and figure out how to use them so they can be seen in my blog(much better than pics of me).

I do have 2 clients now and possibly another one. I am super excited and looking forward to working with them to achieve their health fitness goals.

Paul is busy at work as usual and the kids are doing well in school. They got a trampoline for Christmas from the Grandparents and jump every day. It is from Sam's club and square with a safety net and are getting outside and more exercise than ever before. They have also fallen in love with dance revolution on the PS2 which is something they got last year but have only just recently started playing with. They all work up a sweat doing it(and I admit I love doing it too!).

That is all the news for now!

Sorry about the delay in blogs for the exercises I promised. Our internet has been out of order. Actually we are trying to get the wireless hardware installed and working...and of course it's not!



So here are this weeks exercise tips:



It is important to strengthen your core and balance as you workout. This helps prevent injury. Here are some exercises to strengthen these muscles. You should do this after you stretch and do a 5 minute warm up and before you do resistance training(weight training).

These are specific exercises for strengthening your core:
1. 2 leg floor bridge. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor and shoulder width apart and toes pointing straight ahead(as opposed to to pointing out like a ballerina). Place arms to side. Pull navel in like you are pulling it toward the floor. Activate gluts(tighten them). Lift hips off the floor toward the ceiling until knees, hips and shoulders are in line. Do not over extend as this will cause strain on the lower back. Do 2 sets of 12 raises with a 60 -90 second rest between the two sets.

2. Prone Iso-Ab. Lie face down on the floor with feet together and fore arms in the ground like you are going to do an army crawl. The arms need to be at a 90* angle with finger tips pointing out in front of you and elbows resting on the floor at shoulder length. Draw in abs like you are pulling them toward the ceiling and tighten butt. Lift entire body off the ground until it forms a straight line and you are balancing on your toes which are pointing straight down and on your forearms. Hold for 1- 2 seconds. Slowly return to floor. Do 2 sets of 12. If this is too difficult, perform in a standard push-up position or perform push-up position with knees on the floor and perform exercise as described above. As you get better at this you can slowly progress to the harder version.

Good luck and if you have questions email or call. I couldn't find pictures of this to post, sorry. I will post some balance exercises along with some resistance exercises next! I was going to post them tonight but Paul needs to jump on the computer!

I was reading my friend Shana's blog(http://www.thehenrichsens.com/) and she mentioned that she was reading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers. I started reading them during the summer and have read the series twice already and have subsequently fallen in love with them...or rather more specifically with Edward. I have to admit this falls along the lines of my feelings for Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice(specifically Colin Firth). Well one of my best friends also read and fell in love with them and threw a Twilight party for Halloween. She came up with, and handed out at the party, this VERY insightful list, taken from the things Edward says to Bella throughout the books.

So here it is.

Things Our Husbands Should Say To Us

"I couldn't live with myself if I ever hurt you. You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever."

"You are utterly indecent-no one should look so tempting, it's not fair."

"I did mention that you look very nice, didn't I?"

"I can't live in a world where you don't exist."

"As if there were any way that I could exist without needing you!"

"I have always loved you and I will always love you."

"Only you could be more important than what I wanted...what I needed."

"You will always be the most beautiful thing in my world."

"The outside world holds no interest for me without you."

"You are my first priority."

"I promise to love you forever-ever single day of forever."

"Do you really have any idea how important you are to me? Any concept at all of how much I love you? Let me attempt to explain how I feel about you."(Husbands should then list all of the wife's good qualities.)


I have to admit that after I read her email with the list, I printed it off and left it on Paul's pillow to read. Hahahahaha he read them and the next day tried one out. I have to admit it was so cheesy I was laughing...and so was he but I truly couldn't decide if it was just cheesy because I knew Paul was laughing his head off inside his brain while he was trying to keep a straight face while saying it...or because men just don't say stuff like that in today's world.

But if you want to give it go. Copy and paste them and print them out for your husband!!!

(I have obtained permission from the writer, Nanette, to post this list):)

I was at the mall yesterday getting a baby present and passed by Bath and Body Works. Of course I had to go in, they are having their huge blowout sale that they do once a year. As I was picking up cheap gifts for teachers etc... Ethan came up to me(I had all the kids with me) and holds up a white plastic stick with a flat end used for applying samples of makeup and asks in his nice loud clear voice, "Is it a nose picker?" Of course the store was packed. I heard several snicker. I didn't respond fast enough to satisfy him so he mumbled to himself as he collected a few more, "must be..."

Paul's birthday is today and he is turning 29 for the 7th time!! He requested that we not count his birthdays any more and so I told him we would just stop at 29. He got the packing out of his nose yesterday and is off the painkillers and back to work today!!! Hip hip hurrah!!!! He has had a rough past 6 weeks and I seriously hope that we are now on the up swing for him. He deserves a break from being sick and under the weather!

Thanks for all your hard work at work and the time you spend with the kids, you are an absolutely fabulous Dad. I hope you have a great birthday with many more to come. Love you!!!!!

The kids went back to school this morning. It was so hard getting up. It felt like a Monday. All the Christmas decorations are put away(I did it on Monday) and now I am just left to clean up and get caught up on all the house-hold stuff today.

Tips of the day:

1. It is important when starting out with working out and getting in shape that you don't go all gung-ho and overdo it. One big reason for quitting is due to injury. Some one's knee hurts or back hurts. The best way to start is on core strength and stabilization around your joints. Using an exercise ball at home with 3 or 5 pound weights for you women is an excellent way to start.

2. Use Low weights and high repetition to start. Your muscle has memory and it is important to train them the right way. It is better to start by using lower weight amounts and do more repetitions(up to 25 per set) This will also help prevent injury.

I am going to look for some pictures I can post for some specific exercises you can use for arms with an exercise ball to help with stabilization and pictures of some core strength exercises. I could describe them for you but I am a visual person and I think that would really help!!

Every year, we all set new goals or at least have hopes for the new year. Over the years, and through many states and friends, I have noticed that most of my girlfriends and I have the goal to lose weight every year. I have recently(as you know from the blog) been very interested in personal fitness and health and have learned much. I thought that this year I would share some of the super things I have learned. A lot of this you will already know or heard. Also, there are so many veins of thought and many different directions and methods you can do that it is important to find out what works for you, so some of the things I say may not work but I would try them out and see how you feel!


What has been interesting is seeing how obsessed us women are with the number on the scale. Recently(about a month ago) a new lady came into the gym with the goal of weight loss. She told us her goal weight. She got weighed and measured.(her arms, chest, waist, hips, thighs, calves etc). She was assigned a personal trainer and she was on her way. As I was standing there talking to one of the trainers, another lady came in who has been doing the personal training and working out to do her monthly weigh in. She was weighed and measured. What was interesting is that she weighed about the same(give 3 1/2 pounds) as the first lady but looked obviously slimmer. All her measurements were considerably smaller(they were about the same heighth).

First of all, it important to know that fat weighs less than muscle. She was very happy with her weight and she looked great! We are so worried about what the scale says that we need to realize that often times when we start working out that we are loosing weight but that we are also gaining muscle weight. In the process of gaining muscle weight, we are actually slimming down!!

So I thought that I would post tips and exercises that are helpful over the next little while. Things I have learned, and all things I have tried and seen results.

So the first 2 tips are:

1. It is very important to be drinking enough water every day. The certification I did highly recommends drinking a gallon a day. If you are nursing or you sweat very easy and are working out quite a bit, it should be more. Of course there are many reasons to do this: to keep from getting dehydrated, it helps your body to get rid of the garbage in your body, and believe it or not your hair and skin will become more vibrant and healthy and you won't be hungry so much! Also a little extra info is that if you drink cold water as compared to room temp water, your body has to work harder(thus burning a few extra calories) to bring it up to body temperature, which your body will do. So drink cold water!!

2. Write everything down that you eat. Get a little notebook and do it for one week. A lot of the time, people don't remember all that they have eaten throughout the day and don't understand why they aren't losing weight. It is very easy to forget what you eat due to distractions or just not paying attention. The basic principle of weight loss is that you expend more calories than you take in. We often snack and don't realize what we consume in a day. So write everything down so you can get an idea of really how many calories you are consuming. Here are are some websites to help you figure out the calories of something that you might not know the calories for: www.nutritiondata.com or www.calorieking.com. You also need to figure out how many calories you need per day and then compare the two to see if you are exceeding that. I have researched many types of calculators on line to make it easy for you but they are all different. Some just use height, weight, gender and age while others calculate in your level of activity and your BMI(body mass index). I punched in my data to www.revolutionhealth.com under the daily calorie needs but it didn't take in to account my BMI or level of activity and got that I needed 1670 to maintain my weight. I used a calulator on www.glamour.com/health under 'calorie needs' which took in BMI and level of activity and it told me I needed 2057 according to my lifestyle to maintain my weight, though there choice of exercise didn't quite match mine. One website really broke it down to how many calories I needed per day plus the percent that should be protein, carbs etc...(too complex for me to really keep track of everyday) but that website was: www.hpathy.com/healthtools and it said I needed about 1970. So as you can see, it is actually hard to determine what your daily need is to maintain your weight but if you keep track of EVERYTHING you eat for a week and the amount of calories it equals and then subtract 250-500 calories a day, typically you should lose about a pound a week. This will need to be adjusted to each person. Then when you add in exercise you could lose more(if you don't re-consume the lost calories of exercising by eating more which is a VERY common mistake). You really don't want to lose more than a pound a week because it just isn't healthy. Also, I want you all to not give me the excuse of how your metabolism is low. Believe it or not, the average people, no matter what you weigh, have the same metabolism if their lifestyle is the same. However, if you want to increase your metabolism EXERCISE! It is scientifically proven to increase your metabolism. If you truly want to change your lifestyle and become healthier(and lose weight as a bonus) it is important to exercise. That is my big deal. I am the first to admit that I am not the healthiest eater and I am realistic to the fact that I will never be able to give up chocolate and junk food but it is setting realistic goals and cutting back and having moderation in all things that is the key. Don't set unrealistic goals and then quit because it is too hard. Set realistic goals!

So after that long winded paragraph, I basically am encouraging you to keep track of literally everything you consume, even if it is 5 peanuts, figure out the calories using some of the websites I mentioned, or some that you find, and at the end of the week add up the total and divide by 7 to see what you take in, on average, per day. Then commit to decrease it by 250-500 per day if your goal is weight loss. And with that said, I want you to know that my big deal is that you exercise. Enough can not be said about the importance of exercising. Not only for weight loss, if that is your goal, but for your heart, your blood pressure, and the generally functioning of your body. I will be adding exercises you can do for different parts of the body. But if you don't have time to tone the different parts of your body, get out and walk for 20 minutes and then increase that time to 25 after a week or two and then to 30, then 35 and so forth. You can actually keep your calorie intake as it is, but if you add exercising for a minimum of 30 minutes, you will lose weight. Maybe not as fast as you like, but as your level of exercise increase, so will the amount of calories you burn. If you are sort of active already and you want to do more than walk, jog, or bicycle(weather permitting!) or go up and down your stairs in your house for 20 minutes constantly, go play dodge ball with the kids for 1/2 an hour or freeze tag. In all that you do exercise-wise, just make sure your heart rate is going up and that you increase your amount of time you exercise over the course of time.

Let me digress for just a minute and tell you something that I experienced in college. I, of course gained the freshman 15, which turned into the sophomore 25. By the time I was done with my 2 years at college I weighed close to 25 pounds more than when I started. I couldn't understand how it was. I bought everything low-fat and my roommate and I would get up and go running at 5 in the morning several times a week for 20 minutes or so. I would also workout with weights a couple of times a week. What I realize now is that I had the mentality that if I worked out, I could treat myself and eat this or that, plus, I didn't realize how much I was eating in snacks and in quantity. I think I assumed that if it was lite, or low-fat I could eat the same or a little extra. All these are very common mistakes. I thought I paid attention to what I ate, but I really had no clue about the amount of calories I was consuming and my food choices were very poor. Instead of eating an apple that was 50 calories, I would eat a handful of chips which would be, at minimum 150 calories for 7 to 15 chips, depending on the type of chip(and I rarely ate just a handful, more like 1/2 a bag). I would swing through the kitchen and grab just one cookie and congratulate myself that I was only eating one. Of course I would eat only one cookie several times a day.

It is easy to fool ourselves about what we eat. It is easy to forget, or say, I have had a rough day, I deserve to pig out! Instead, of pigging out, eat a treat in moderation. I would be a hypocrite if I encouraged you to stop eating treats, just cut back and do it in moderation!!

With all this said, I have to put this disclaimer in, I am not a professional. I do have a certification in personal training and have learned lots. Do not take what I write as law. Everyone is different and so is their body. Generally the stuff I put in here will work for most body types and if I think that not every one can do it, I will put a regression that is easier for you to do and then you can build up to the other and there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing that. There is obviously a lot of conflicting information out there about what is the right way and the wrong way. There are tons of diets and pills(of which I would be VERY cautious of) out there and I will not mention any. There is one, long standing, scientifically proven method that has not been re-called or discovered later as not being healthy after all and that is exercise and calorie intake. It has been long standing and proven that as long as you are expending more calories than you are taking in, that you will not gain weight and that if you decrease your calorie intake you will lose weight.(There are other health issues that would actually effect this like thyroid problems, but if you have a clear bill of health, this is proven to work), and this is what I endorse: Exercise and healthy food choices.

Good luck and if you are interested, look for more tips and info weekly!!!

Happy New Year to all!

We spent a very quiet, uneventful evening last night bringing in the new year. We watched the 5th Harry Potter movie with the kids and ate Taco Bell(needed a little break from eating turkey!) Then Paige and Connor went to bed. Paul went to bed. Matthew and Ethan played in their hotel. I watched a movie and waited for the new year to come in. At 10 minutes to midnight I went to go get Matthew and Ethan who wanted to watch the ball drop in Time Square at midnight but I found them fast asleep in their hotel. I quietly went back down and watched the ball drop by myself. Poor me! hahahaha More like poor Paul. I can't wait for him to get the stuff out of his nose so he can get off the drugs and be awake! He goes in tomorrow so I hope things go well!!!

I hope you all had a safe and happy New Year's Eve and lets hope that this year is better than last, especially for Paul!!!!!!!

When I moved to El Paso, I started going out, the day after Christmas, to do some after Christmas shopping for wrapping paper etc. My neighbors Chrissy and Dana would go also. We would shop for hours and go everywhere in Las Cruces. The first year we went, I was specifically looking for house decorations. I had seen 2 huge nutcrackers by someones front door and it looked so cool, so I thought I would copy. Well, as you can see, I have collected several along with several types of trees. However, this doesn't even compared to Dana's collection! She has a quite a bit more and some very neat ones. You can see them on her blog which is: www.mcminutes.blogspot.com There is something fascinating about the nutcrackers that really captures my attention. They remind me of the ballet "The Nutcracker Suite" and they just bring me back to being a kid! There is just so much scope for the imagination!
And speaking of imagination...Ethan built this hotel in our toy room. He even set up a desk and put his suit on to check in guests. Matthew and Ethan slept in the hotel last night and had a really good time.