A good journey follows a map!

As January begins to wind down, many of the people who caught the fitness bug in December begin to hit a wall. Is this how you are feeling right about now? Do you feel like you are losing steam? Maybe you feel the train never even left the station!

Now is a good time to re-evaluate what you have done thus far in 2016 to meet (or exceed) your personal wellness goals. If you have not made any goals, now is the time to do it! 

Many of the times we fail because we fail to plan or we plan as if we are some super hero and not being real with ourselves. Saying "I am going to have 6 pack abs!" while you are 100 lbs overweight and drinking a liter of Cola---is NOT a realistic goal. 

Setting unrealistic goals is worse than setting NO goals because you are setting yourself up to fail, and when you inevitably do, you will feel bad about yourself and your fitness all over again. This is a vicious cycle that realistic goals can remedy very easily!

The first step to setting realistic goals is to really think about your goal and write it down. Then, ask yourself these three questions: 

1. How big is the goal? Is your goal only attainable in three months or more? If so, make smaller goals to get you to that long-term goal. Ideally, you should be able to reach the smaller goal in two to six weeks.
2. What does it take to achieve the goal? This question addresses your goal's frequency. If reaching your goal requires five workouts a week, but you can only get a babysitter two days a week, then you need to scale back your goal. Be realistic about what time you have to devote to the goal and be honest about your fitness level. 
3. Can you see yourself reaching the goal? You want a program that you can stick with for the long haul—not just this week. Be completely honest with yourself and ask if you can realistically see yourself doing what it takes to achieve the goal at hand. If you can and it meets the above criteria, then you probably have a goal!

Happy goal setting and crushing!

Tiesha Braley

The importance of environment on change

Part of what I have been doing since I became a beach body coach is read personal development. Thus far I have read two books and am about halfway through my third. The second book I read was 'Switch: How to change things when change is hard' by Chip & Dan Heath.

In this book it highlighted two points I'd like to bring up in this blog post that are crucial to any change. Feeling and environment.

This is such a huge and monumental piece of health and fitness as a whole and I just wanted to speak to this point a little bit in my post today.

First, in order to even get into health and fitness you have to have some sort of feeling of inadequacy. I am not saying that you NEED to lose weight. I am not saying you cry into a tub of ice cream every night while watching Burger king commercials on slow motion wishing to be thin----BUT there is something somewhere inside yourself that just knows you could be better.

Maybe it's that you want to just feel better or more confident. Maybe your goal is more tangible like better muscle definition; a squat booty; or a six pack. Whatever it is, you want something to change because you feel that you could or would be happier if 'x' happened. So feeling is what gets the train in motion so to speak.

Then comes the crucial piece of environment.

Your environment can make or break you. End of story. This is not a matter up for discussion--it is fact. If you are trying to make any type of change and your environment is sending you opposite messages to your current goals, you are more likely to fail in achieving those goals.

For example, if you kick a drug addiction but you are still living in the bad part of town and hanging out with all of your same addict friends---you are likely not going to be successful because your brain is going to think it is more of the same. It will hear about doing drugs and the chase of getting drugs. You will then start to think of the same things. Not because you didn't want it or because you are weak but the temptation is too strong and your environment is supportive of the old behaviors--not the new ones. BUT if you take yourself out of the environment (perhaps you go into a sober house) now you have changed your environment. It will psychologically be easier to trick your brain into the change.

This is part of the reason so many fitness programs or reality shows mention the cleaning of a pantry prior to the diet. They tell you to throw away the sugar foods or processed food options. Why? Because if the temptation is there and available to you, it is a lot harder to enforce sheer will power. It is so easy to slip back into old behaviors and justify your actions. This justification could range from "I don't want to waste this" to "well it's just one and the serving is 3 so I can have it."

When you change your environment and make it more in line with your goals you are sending the message to your brain that this is your new path. You can begin to accomplish smaller goals (i.e. 3 days sober or 4 days working out in a row) and this spurs good feelings in you---tying back out to the emotion component. These good feelings tell your brain that it likes what is happening. When you feel good about something your brain is associating that feeling to that action. The more you feel good about something the more your brain will want more of the good feelings. This starts a pattern and this pattern can lead you to a successful change.

Environment is so important because your feelings sway; change; and get run down. When your will power is downtrodden there has to be something else there to help pick it up and keep it on track. So feelings are only one piece of the puzzle. This is just one of the reasons I think it is so important to have the online supportive community for Beach body. In fitness it is so easy to justify your bad actions---"I can eat this because" "I can skip the gym because" "I don't really need to do that because".  When you have people holding you accountable or showing you that something is doable--then you feel like it is something you can accomplish as well. This increases the 'feel good' emotions and keeps the train on track so to speak.

If you are trying to reach a goal, look at the two components here. Are your feelings truly in it? Does your heart really want that change or did it just seem like a good idea at the time? Is your environment going to support that change? Have you made changes to make your goals and actions easier? These are all important things to consider when you want to make a change. If you harness them and work with them, you will make your successful change. Guaranteed.

Good luck and thank you for reading.

Review of the 3 day refresh

Tiesha presents: 3 Day refresh---The good, the bad, the ugly


Ok SO this week I tried my hand at the beach body product 3 day refresh. This is a cleanse system where you drink 3 shakes a day and eat fruits/veggies/healthy fats for 3 days to reboot your system. To start the diet I made sure I had a couple gallons of water and did my scale weight and my body measurements prior to starting the fix.

On day 1 I weighed 103.2 lbs and took measurements of my stomach, waist, and butt.

What I liked:

• The main reason I chose this particular cleanse type product was because it allowed me to still eat fruits and vegetables reasonably. I know all too well my limitations and I just think there would be a public safety concern if I went without any food for days. So needless to say I wasn't going on a shake only or tea only cleanse right off the bat. That was still one of my favorite things about the cleanse. Having food made it WAY more tolerable for me personally.
• The guide was really easy to follow and was pretty up front about the gas issue (more on this later). It let you know if what you could have was in counts (12 strawberries) or cups. It even let you know to chose a medium size item so it was detailed and pretty much a no brainer. It even had lines in the booklet where you could put your choices like a menu to keep you on track and prepared. 
• The vanilla refresh shake was actually pretty tasty. It was not as good as the vanilla shakeology I normally use as my 'go to' but after having the awful fiber drinks (read more about that below) it was a welcome change. On day 2 I decided to sprinkle a little cinnamon in there as it was a guilt free flavoring item. It made the shake even tastier. This shake and the shakeoology were good so I didn't mind having to do 1 nasty shake and a tiny bit of food because everything was pretty tolerable. Was it the best most fun I have ever had on a fitness program? Heck no. Was it the worst experience of my life? Heck no.
• The results on average are about 3 pounds lost and they tell everyone that from the start. I thought the booklet really outlined the expectation well. This isn't something thats going to necessarily help you lose 10 pounds but it will get out the excess toxins and crap sitting in your system and just start you off in the right direction. I like when a product knows its limits and lets you know exactly what to expect. 

What I did NOT like

• Bloat for DAYs. Reviews do speak of the bloat but they do not all tell you exactly what to expect. The first day I was doing good. My stomach didn't even start making loud noises until about 6pm on day 1. But on day 2, my lower abdominal area was so swollen. It extended similar to a malnourished child. I knew it was my body's way of processing everything and breaking it up/down but it didn't make me feel any less puffy or uncomfortable. This bloat lasted into Thursday (I did the refresh monday-wednesday).
• Consistency of the fiber shake was absolutely terrible. I described it as the bottom of a pulp infused orange juice. My friend described it as drinking water that someone had dissolved a cookie in. Regardless of which comparison you relate to more, it was unappetizing to say the least. The taste itself was not terrible, somewhat fresh in nature. I personally just could not get over the texture and found myself counting down the amount of shakes thinking "oh thank goodness I only have to drink that one more time."
• Gas that would drive away predatory animals--The gas came as I anticipated on day 2 after things had their chance to work their way around my system. At first I was home and Steve hasn't moved in yet so I let them rip. It was at work that I found myself in awkward situations trying desperately to get to the restroom or somewhere abandoned where I wouldn't cause any harm to anyone's nostrils (they were really atrocious!) The gas was not as bad near the end because for lack of a better term it found its way out (a little TMI, I know). 
• Not as work friendly as I would have liked. The vanilla refresh shakes were definitely thicker and I didn't want to just mix it with a blender bottle or spoon. This meant I lugged my ninja blender back and forth to work every day just to be able to mix up the refresh shakes properly. So unless you also want to do this---you may want to reserve this program for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or when there is a day off of work for a long weekend. That way it is a much easier transition with your daily activities (and the gas won't disturb anyone you have to worry about haha).

After day 4 when all my bloat FINALLY subsided and I began to see exactly what the product did. I ended at 99.8 lbs (total loss of 3.4 lbs). The measurement at my belly button went down 2 inches. 

What this told me is that those 3 lbs that I was under the impression I was "maintaining" as far as BMI was really just sludge (um, yuck). 

One downside I experienced was that I found myself with a cold! The booklet mentions not working out intensely as it overtaxes your body while it is trying to cleanse. I believe that because my body was cleansing and I kept up mild exercise it was lowering my immunities defense against germs. Admittedly I slacked also on taking my airborne and vitamins for the first two days. Alas, I got a cold. But that was more or less an unexpected side effect. If you get sleep, take vitamins, and keep hands clean you should be free and clear.

Now I am focusing on clean eating and trying to up the anti on my protein intake. I want lean muscle but I want to avoid the danger zone weight area of the past so I'd like to increase my weight but while chiseling out my physique. The next beach body product on my bucket list is Hammer & Chisel.

Stay tuned for more tales of my journey through life and fitness and be sure to check my food blog for 'Tasty Tuesday' to see if anything tantalizes you---who knows it could be something new and fun or end up in your regular menu or rotation!

Thanks for reading

Signed,

Tiesha

15 things you can do TODAY to better yourself

1. Swap butter or mayo with avocado for a healthier alternative
2. Replace refine carbs such as white rice or enriched pasta with whole grain versions instead
3. Always rotate and update any workout playlists you have so it doesn't become stale---a change of music can mean a change in motivation level so switch it up until you find the right mixture to get you moving!
4. Swap soda for an unsweetened tea
5. Watching tv? Workout during the commercials (sit ups; push ups; squats; planks--you name it you can do it). It may be 30 seconds or a minute but you are not sitting around on the couch collecting dust. This will also keep you from overeating or snacking too much by mindlessly eating in front of the tv. After all its a lot harder to eat a bag of lays when you are doing crunches (unless of course someone is standing above you dangling a chip for when you crunch up-----but let me not give you ideas for that one!)
6. Reward yourself with NON food when you meet even the smallest goals. If you do good or feel good---go buy yourself that cute shirt. Get yourself the cool water bottle you want. Get that $15 eye shadow you never wanted to spend the money on. If its a fitness goal, feel free to get fitness gear. But if that doesn't jazz you up, buy whatever it is that mass you happy. When you reward yourself for doing something good, your brain takes that experience and associates a positive emotion to it. Ergo, the more you reward yourself the more your brain will start to like that habit because its already got a positive association. 
7. Dedicate 75% of your plate to vegetables----fruits contain sugars which if eaten too much can do an unexpected toll on your diet. BUT you cannot really 'over do' vegetables. The go to is to fill your plate with vegetables first. We have a habit as humans of wanting to finish out plates. If we fill it with more of the good stuff, you are subconsciously reducing your intake of the less than
8. Wear a pedometer and shoot for 10,000 steps a day----seeing your activity in your face really makes you more accountable. You may be feeling lazy but if you spent 3 hours running around cleaning your house, you'd be surprised to know its almost as good as that 1 hour workout you did last week on the elliptical. Having my fit bit helped me realize just how much certain things ARE activity that are keeping me healthy. For example, going up my 30 steps and back down to switch out laundry in the basement seems like a pain----but do a couple loads and I've done over 1,000 steps. Its honestly that simple to appreciate what you are doing RIGHT and getting yourself in check if what your doing ISNT cutting it.
9. Use olive oil instead of butter! A small switch like this can lead to AMAZING results
10. Sign up for a competition to keep you motivated---let's be real. We all secretly LOVE when we win. Sometimes you enjoy winning if it is a scratch ticket but other times you get a slick sense of satisfaction in beating your fellow human being. Its psychological really. So take that and use it to your advantage. If you have a fit bit---challenge your friends routinely. If you have a  gym partner---challenge each other in an exercise and see who does more reps or more weights or whatever it is more intensely. These little challenges can really get your fire going so try it out.
11. Reach for:  Mustard, hot sauce or salsa INSTEAD of ketchup mayo or sour cream (again little swaps have a big impact, trust me)
12. Plan an activity date with friends or loved ones---check out that indoor trampoline park instead of the movies. Plan activities that are fun and get you moving instead of ones that put you in a chair or seat for a prolonged period of time.
13. Eat slower (this is my downfall, i inhale food)---science says it takes about 20 minutes for your body to realize its full. SO if you are "starved" and down that whole sub in 10 minutes----thats why you feel like your about to pop 20 minutes later---you overate without even knowing it. Slow down your food intake and stop when you feel full.
14. Get more sleep---there are countless articles outlining the healthy benefits of sleep. Do what you can to get more ZzZs and see how it helps with the LBS. 
15. Take the stairs/park further from the entrance. Make small choices and swaps like these in behavior to get in more activity each day. 

Take advantage of those easy and small tips and before long you will see REAL results and benefits. Small changes every day lead to success. Just remember that and be good to your body!

Thanks for reading.

Signed,

Tiesha.

3 day Refresh

Jan 5 2016

So yesterday was day 1 of the 3 day refresh. I lugged my whole ninja blender to work (pictures are up on my Facebook if you'd like to see them) so I could blend my lunch shake. What I like about the refresh in general as a concept is that it allows you to still consume some food (its not ALL juice or shakes). Thats helpful for me because I like to eat and shakes alone just wouldn't satiate me properly.

After Wednesday I will write a full review here of the good, the bad, and the ugly side of the fix.

Today I also posted my first recipe in my newest blog, 'Avo Tacos' in honor of Taco Tuesday. Check it out here!

Thanks for reading
Check back soon

Sincerely
Tiesha

A recipe for success

A Recipe for Success

   For some health decisions it is obvious -eat leafy greens instead of a box of oreos. But sometimes getting in track isn't so black and white. Here are some tips I have for staying successful in the kitchen:

• Make the time: Consider meal prep as important as an appointment or meeting. Look at your schedule and think realistically where you can find a couple hours to prepare your food. Once you find that time stay commited. Put calendar events, create an alarm, turn off your phone--whatever you need to stay committed to the process. This will make wellness decisions more of a habit and less of a hassle. 
• Save time: The reason people meal prep are successful is because they find ways to make their life simpler. This becomes self rewarding and satisfying which makes them want to keep doing it. Some of my favorite hacks are to precut fruits/veggies I'll need for the next day or few days and package them up. "I should have cucumbers tomorrow" becomes "let me grab those cucmbers" which leads to a better chance I'm eating a cucumber snack and not something from the vending machine or gas station. I also use mason jar salads/snacks which provide easy to grab on the go food. You can fill jars with oatmeal and fruit for a hearty breakfast or green and toppings for a healthy salad. You can even layer dressing at the bottom with the denser ingredients and no harm to your lettuce (unless it tips itself upside down)! Cook in bulk for items like chicken; casseroles; soups; oatmeal; rice ; sweet potatoes; and so on. These can be cooked beforehandand and then reheated (I use my oven mainly) when you need them. A lot of people also freeze items when they have too much on hand. This is good for sauces, soups, chili, casseroles, chicken, and the like. Invest on a crock pot especially in winter months! There are tons of low calories recipes out there, it cooks large portions easily, and requires little to no supervision. I love that i can toss in ingredients, set it, and forget it. Then I have an amazing meal 4-8 hours later. Use pre measured bags. I got myself these 1 cup snack baggies that are plastic and have measurement lines on them.  They have been a life saver for me especially during the 21 day fix. I didn't have to make sure my measuring cups and spoons were clean, just cut or cook and toss in the bag up to the line. I found mine at Walmart for a cheap price and haven't looked back since!
• Pyrex over plastic every time. I started with literally 1 Pyrex bowl and bought slowly or asked for them as gifts on special occasions. Plastic stains and is not as multi purpose as pyrex or glass. Most containers are oven, microwave, and dish washer safe. Investing in snap lock is also a good idea. 
• Anticipate and plan for the unexpected.  Let's face it even with the best intentions, shit happens. You get stuck in a meeting late at work, you totally forgot about that appointment or obligation--it is going to happen. Keep an extra snack on you so you are not hangry or making decisions out of desperation. Rice cakes, granola bars, oatmeal, or other non perishables are good to stow in your car as well in case you don't want to lug extra stuff around. Planning snacks for hectic moments will guarantee you stay on track.

Use these tips and feel free to recommend or comment some of your own favorite tips to stay on track in the kitchen!

If you love all things food, stay tuned for my recipe blog 'TablesidewithTB" coming very soon!

Thank you for reading, wishing you the best in 2016!

Sincerely, Tiesha