My youngest son is in Kindergarten this year and this is the age where they bring home all sorts of things about their family, their friends, what they like, what they don’t like and so on from school.  So last night, as I’m sitting in the family room vegetating on the couch (complete and utter shame), my son decides to go through his school pile on the other side of the room and bring me select items.  Somehow in this pile I missed this “What I Know About My Mommy” write up that came home in last month or so that describes a bunch of things my son knows about me.  Who hears me when I say that these things are absolutely precious and well worth the read?  Well this one did not disappoint.  I’m not going to put them all here but the one that got me…

My mommy’s name is “Jodi”.

My mommy is “22” years old.  Hahahaha!!  Almost 2 times over!

But the kicker—cuz there were some good ones—is what I do for a living:

“talks on the phone and is doing work with her friends”.

Oh you gotta love him!  Well he’s right, mommy talks on the phone for work and the women I work with are ‘friends’ in an odd way and honestly, I love what I do.  But one thing I do not love about what I do is running into things that I cannot explain, see more often than I like and cannot find research for.  These things drive me crazy because you want to help but you are not sure how and one of those things is a food intolerance.

Think about this scenario: one day…for no particular reason that you know of at the time…you suddenly find yourself sick as a dog after eating your lunch.  It’s the same lunch you have had for months.  You made it so you know its fine, it’s not spoiled and it came from the batch you ate the day before and so on, so you know it’s not that the food is bad.  But for some reason you are nauseous beyond belief and your digestive track is doing the Olympics.  If this was just one day, you’d overlook it.  But it’s more than just one day—it’s been a few weeks now.  And there’s no pattern to when you’re getting sick vs. what you are eating.  You start to guess a whole host of things wrong with you beginning with celiac, moving over to lactose intolerance and rounding out with a fresh case of IBS but I am here to tell you that it’s most likely none of those.  What seems to be killing us more is that we are intolerant to the foods we call “healthy”.

For the longest time I would talk about rotating foods in our daily diet because it’s not healthy to eat the same thing day in and day out.  I would say that you are limiting the amount of nutrients in your diet and that you are exposing yourself to the same pesticides all the time and they will build up in your system, etc, etc, etc.  At the time, I knew this to be true through research but what I didn’t know was one step further which are the food intolerances that created.  I didn’t have hardcore proof—just an inkling—and I didn’t have the amount of experience I have now to be able to stand upon what I was saying until now.

EATING THE SAME FOODS DAY IN AND DAY OUT FOR WEEKS ON END WILL ABSOLUTELY PUT YOU IN A POSITION TO DEVELOP A FOOD INTOLERANCE.  YOU MAY NEVER DEVELOP ONE, BUT YOUR POTENTIAL IS GREATER THAN OTHERS.

Ok, let’s first acknowledge that that is based on anecdotal information and not hard core, double blind studies.  Second, I have not worked with anyone who has a food intolerance that has also had a varied diet but that’s not to say that they do not exist–I just have not worked with them.  So with that being said, let me tell you about the 3 main culprits that we like to eat like psychos that could be getting ready to wreak havoc in your life:

Egg Whites

Yes we love them because they are fat free, a complete source of amino acids and the only acceptable protein for breakfast besides protein powder (for most folk) but these suckers are a loaded weapon.  Besides the obvious fact that eggs aren’t eggs anymore mainly because chickens aren’t chickens anymore, the thing that makes these things so lethal is that they are easy.  Not only are they easy, they are the only acceptable binding agent out there for us clean eaters (protein pancakes or muffins anyone?).  So not only do you eat them every day, but you eat them 2 and 3 times per day.  You put them in shakes, you scramble them, you have muffins, you have bars, you have a ton of different things all made with egg whites.  OY!!  But what you may not know is that egg whites are a known allergen and eating large amounts of them may cause a food intolerance.  How I’ve seen this one show up:  nausea or vomiting, headaches and red rashes in the winter months.

Chicken

I do want to ask…is that what they’re calling it these days?  Chicken is so full of estrogen and antibiotics that I’m not sure that they can call it chicken anymore.  But here’s another one that we eat on a level that’ll make your hair stand on end.  Many of us have some form of chicken EVERY SINGLE DAY.  Really right now?  And most of the times we are buying either the big Costco pack of it or we’re buying it at our local grocery store so we’re not getting an organic chicken or even an “all natural” chicken.  No, we’re knee deep in chemicals and additives talking about “we’re healthy”.  YIKES!  How I’ve seen this one show up:  MAJOR hormonal issues and/or super sensitive to all the other known allergens.  So you’re this walking pin cushion in terms of food additives and everything sets you off in either a rash, bloating, nausea, diarrhea, you name it.  But because chicken is so prevalent in your diet, you cannot lock it down to just that so you do not suspect.

Peanut Butter

What a nuisance PB is.  First, y’alls are obsessed.  A jar of PB can silence a room full of women.  It’s the Kryptonite of clean eaters.  You go from this hard core chic who can shut anything down in terms of temptations to a blubbering fool when someone pulls out a jar of this stuff.  It’s amazing to me the hold this food has on some of you.  And because PB is yummy, smooth on the palette and a form of good fat you eat it EVERY DAY.  No, I mean EVERY DAY.  You have anywhere from 2 to 4 tablespoons of PB a day—no joke.  However, PB is more of an allergen than any of those mentioned above and I’m not sure you care. Haha!  All joking aside, this is how I have seen this one show up:  a strong wheat/grain intolerance.  You cut out the grain thinking it’s the grain when it’s not—it’s the PB.  Nausea eating chicken or egg yolks.  Celiac symptoms such as diarrhea, loose movements or lack of nutrients even though you’re eating fine.

Let me make sure I say this so you’re not confused:

• I am not a doctor.
• I do not claim to be one.
• This is all anecdotal information.
• The clients that I work with that have verified these intolerances have done so through medical professionals.  So if I cannot verify that they have seen a doctor, I have not taken their situation into consideration.
• If you suspect you have this, go see a doctor.

This information is provided so that you can navigate your lifestyle effectively and begin to be proactive about the foods you eat instead of robotic.  Change the foods in your diet regularly!!  It can save you a ton of tummy ache.  If you are not sure how to do that, go here.  This is a series I did on how to safely and effectively change up your diet and keep the lean body you like and are used to.  Cool?  We’re in this for the long haul ladies.  Woop woop!!

I wrote this back in the winter time and it was the last email I sent out from Jodiojo.  I never had the chance to follow up with the series and put on paper all that I see day to day with clean eaters.  I am sending them out in the beginning of next week.  If you are not signed up on the blog, yet, you still have time.  This is an eye opening series that I am sure at some time in your clean living history you will experience.  Sign up and find out what you don’t even know you don’t know.

One of the most frightening things that I could ever read is an email from someone who wants to works with us that starts out with, “I run/bike/do cardio/whatever 7 days a week for at least an hour, eat clean, lift 4 to 5 days a week and want to lose X amount of pounds for my sister’s wedding in 8 weeks.  Can you help me?”  Ummm…

Getting lean the first time around is not that hard.  For some people it is a chore but for many of us, it is the most magical time period ever because you are on top of the world and you are invincible.  You look great, you feel great, all is well in the land and you think this will never end.  In fact, you walk around speaking “truth” to everyone about ‘how they need to clean up their act’ and ‘they should get in shape’ and ‘how it’s not that hard’.  You have become a walking billboard for the American Heart Association and you shun those that take elevators and eat junk food.  At some point we all lose our minds and become, even if just a little bit, self righteous and pious in our fitness.  It happens to the best of us; don’t think about it too much about it.

But then trouble begins to brew in paradise.  We start to have little things here and there that undermine our progress or even worse, jeopardize our maintenance levels.   This sets off a conundrum known as, “Oh I’ll just…” which is one of the most damaging phenomenoms  known to woman-kind because it takes all logical, rational thought and turns it on its head.  Basically, you’re going down hard because you begin to lose control and you think “you will just do XYZ” to get it back but it doesn’t work.  Somehow, someway you pushed it and the result of that is either plateau or dangerous territory known as weight gain.  None of us really want to admit that we’ve gotten to that place so I am going to spell it out for you so you can connect the dots.  Here are 3 common scenarios for you in terms of pushing it:

1. You cannot stop cheating for the life of you. In the beginning it wasn’t so bad because it didn’t affect your weight or your leanness so who cared, right?  But now, you’re softer and up a few pounds and you cannot “fix it” no matter what you do.  Sugar or salt can send you into a fit of nibbles that is essentially uncontrollable and mentally debilitating and happens way more often than you would like to admit.
2. You are falling apart at the seams. Because of the endless cardio and workouts, there is not a part of you that doesn’t ache.  You have just about every “itis” you can think of:  bursitis, tendonitis, shin splints, rotator cuff and so on.  You feel like a walking zombie because you are in perpetual motion and after a while you don’t even notice the pain anymore.
3. You are an emotional wreck. Can I just admit to you that I am a crier?  It takes nothing to make me cry—in private.  In public, I can hold it together like duct tape on a kid’s toy but you…you can’t hold *anything* together.  You cry at Bud Light commercials (those dogs are cute, though) for Heaven’s sake!  Anxiety, irrational behavior, drama and crankiness define your life now.  Girl, you are not happy and we can’t leave you like that.  There’s not enough tissues in the world.

If you have any one of those scenarios, are very lean and are working out hard…you are who I am talking to right now.   Fighting for leanness is bad business…seriously…knock it off now.  Instead, let’s talk about our options and what that really looks in the world of clean living.   There are 3 different situations you may find yourself in or have found yourself in already and handling them in the best possible manner could save you hours of cardio and pounds of regret.  Each one of these situations represents an email in this series and will have real guidelines in them to help you navigate your journey from lean to not so lean to lean again.

Email #1               Being Realistic:  What true maintenance looks like.

Email #2               Being Diligent:  Getting back to lean after gaining a few pounds.

Email #3               Being Smart:  Knowing when to say ‘uncle’.

If I do nothing else I want to impress this upon you:  There are a lot of ‘gurus’ in this industry.  Many of them are very good at what they do but very few of them do this.  Make sure all the blogs that you are reading and all the articles you are absorbing are talking about lean folk trying to get lean again.  Most of them are always referring to the first time around and like I said before, that is easy.  What worked before will not necessarily work again—or at least not without a fight.  We are all about balance here at Jodiojo.  All of us in some way, shape or form have had this struggle so we are more than qualified to talk to you about it.  If you have any questions during this series, feel free to hit us up at Jodi@trans4mationstation.com.   Please note:  the emails are not the same as the blog.  Don’t forget to check us out at www.jodiojo.com/blog  Monday through Friday for articles on living clean beautifully.

What?

Where are we going, you ask?

IT’S SUMMER TIME!!

Unlike last summer, this summer we are taking it off.  Why?  Because we are all about quality and not quantity. 

Every single one of us is up to our whazoo in projects and traveling and posting for us is becoming harder and harder.  Knowing this, it’s easier to cut this off before we get two weeks into the summer and there isn’t a post to be found with no explanation why.   So what does this mean for you?

Just like our last hiatus, if you are signed up on the blog, you will receive emails from me all summer long.  I have not sent any out for a while so you don’t have to sign up again.  You haven’t missed anything.  What’s sitting in my laptop now and going out in the next week or so is “Lean Going Leaner”.  It’s all about the pitfalls, what you need to know, how hard it is and answers to your questions.  That will take a week or two.  I will also cover a few other hot topics like Staying on Track–For Real.  If you have been eating clean for a while, you know that you can fall off the wagon for weeks at a time and not be able to get back on track and it can incredibly frustrating.  We’ll talk about what you can do to get around that and why it happens. 

We want to thank everyone who reads this blog all the time.  When we jumped into the blogging world we had no idea what to expect nor did we know what we were doing (ummm…and we still don’t!).  Almost two years later, our readership is up over 300% (WOW!) and our email list is up about 400%! We are blown away by your response to us.  Why?  Because we’re not your typical bloggers nor are we your typical company:

• We do not really advertise.  Yes, every so often we’ll tell you what’s coming, but we’re not all ‘in your face’ about it.
• You have no idea what we do.  And we’re kind of ok with that for now.  What you do know is that we love what we do.  We’re real.  And we know what we’re talking about.
• We are consistent.  We’re not a blog that showed up for 10 min and then disappeared.  We’ve been in this location and at Model Per4mance for 2 full years and I pray we have a few more left in us.
• We are low key.  What most of you do not realize (and why should you–read bullet #1) is that Jodiojo & Co. is a thriving company behind the scenes.  While all the world is shouting at you for your attention, we are quietly doing our thing one body at a time.  We will be a bit more flashy when we come back, but not by much.  I am so not the flashy type and I am deeply committed to our clients.  This means I am not trying to pull in a billion clients we cannot service just to say my numbers are up.  (I am SURE there is an internet marketer reading my blog right now CRINGEING over what I am saying.  I am supposed to tell you all kinds of things to make you *think* otherwise. *sigh*)  

So while we will miss you for the next 8 weeks or so, we are happy to take time off to renew our minds, relax and think about the next series or topic we’re going to talk about.  I will be honest with you and tell you that I do not know the format of Jodiojo when we return.  We have a bunch of ideas on the table and we are exploring them all.  If you have anything you would like to see, let us know!  We always want to know what you would like to have us chat about.

In the mean time, I have been doing a ton of consulting lately (funny how this happens) and I thought I would let you know what I do, what it entails and how much it costs.  If it is of interest to you, our contact info will be at the bottom of the post and you can get us at that email address.

I am always asked: “What am I doing wrong?”  “How could I do this better?”  “I want to be healthier, what do I change?”  “How do I take this to the next level” and so on.  Sometimes you just want to know that without having to invest in a full program.  You like what you’re doing and are not ready to change OR you cannot afford the commitment right now because it’s summer and that’s not in the budget OR you’re deciding whether I am serial killer masquerading as an internet guru who is going to run off with all your money so this is the safest way to check me out.  I understand the last one more than you can imagine.  But regardless your reason, what you are searching for is answers.  Things like:

• How much protein should I be getting?
• Am I doing enough?
• Am I doing too much?
• How many calories should I be eating?
• How do I go from lean to leaner?
• What supplements should I be taking?
• How do I incorporate running into my schedule?
• The weight is not coming off like it did before…why?  And how do I change that?
• How do I put my schedule for the week together?

I will answer these questions for you and more in two phone calls:

Phone Call #1:  30 minutes in length

Initially I will send you a questionnaire for you to fill out.  Tell me as much about you and what you’re doing as possible.  Email it back to me and I will call you at the time we agree upon.  During that call I will drill you like a bolt to a beam and get the real truth.  Ok, not really–but it sounded compelling.  I will actually get the details that I need to help you out and I will also get to know what your true goals are–there’s always more than what’s written;).  Then, I need about a week depending on what you have going on because I am going to be VERY detailed in my answer to you.  This is not a general plan or canned phone call.

Phone Call #2: 60 to 90 minutes in length

This phone call will be your life spoken back to you in an orderly and optimized format.  You will have all your questions answered and then some, a detailed schedule that you may change and solid, implementable recommendations.  Typically the call is 60 min in length, but I pad the time by 30 minutes because I am a yapper so I allot for that and I don’t want you to feel like the clock is ticking.  If you have questions–this call is the time to ask them.

What I will not and cannot do in the phone calls is give you custom programming.  I can, however, give you a sample program of some type if you want one or feel that it will help you in any way.  I also cannot give medical advice, I am not a doctor.  But I can tell you what questions to ask your doctor or tell you what specialist can help you more than another based on past experience. 

I am offering this special for the summer only while we disappear off the blogging radar.  Quantity is limited and this will fill up fast because it already has and I have not even advertised it!  Hop on it while you can.

SUMMER SUMMIT CONSULTATION PACKAGE:  $100

If you are interested or have any questions, hit me at jodi@trans4mationstation.com and I will get right back to you with either the questionnaire or answer to your question about this service.  If you would like this with Heather, let me know when you email.  She has a different set of pricing but I will put you in touch with her and you can go from there. 

Thank you again for making this blog awesome!  We had no idea that it would go this far and it has…  Thank you!!  Have an awesome summer and we will see in you September!

Is it me or does Ginny keep cropping up everywhere?  And she still has the clipboard! OY!

How fun is your workout? Honestly. Are you still doing the same old “old fashioned” four day split based on body parts hoping that if you rearrange the exercises a little or go from incline press to flat bench that suddenly, somehow, you will have a hot body? So week after week you trudge into the gym, walk by the front desk (“Hey, how’s it going, Donna?”…”Great! Good to hear! Take care.”), head to the locker room, drop off your stuff and then hit cardio to do a tedious 5 min warm up that has absolutely nothing to do with the muscles you are about to work. After a few months of this you are over it and decide you need a 5 day split and you enter into an even deeper abyss of boredom only to re-surface with the same body you went into it with. *Sigh* Seriously, there has got to be more than that.

You know, any chance I can get to use this I am all over it!  But this is where you’re headed with that four day split.  And I mean having big hair with a head band, not the awesome triceps.

Well you know I am going to tell you there is so stop getting impatient. {staring at you with a saucy look now}

But before I do that (you knew there was more, I’m so longwinded) I have another question: Are you doing the same thing with food? Are you eating the same thing day in and day out hoping that you are just one more meal of chicken and broccoli away from tight abs? You may be…but not until you yield to hours and hours of cardio. You can avoid that cardio, though, if you get smart about your menu planning.

Below are three ways to add life to either a dead program or a plateau filled menu. Let me know which one you try and how it turns out. If you like this and want more, sign up for my emails because I give all premium content via email.

Grin and Bear It: One of the hardest things you can ever add to a program and survive it is plate pushing. If you have never heard of it, it is putting a 25 pound weight plate on the floor and pushing it across the floor with your hands. This means you are in a bear crawl position. Holy Heaven’s above, this is a killer. You would add about 3 plate pushes across a 20 foot area for every year of your life you want to take off—or at least it seems that way. These are great between exercises (not sets) on your program and I wouldn’t go above 8 in a program.

Amp It Up A Tad: Adding plyos to your program in between exercises is old hat. Adding a series of plyos to your program in between exercises is a bit more up to date. Adding a series of plyos to your program in between exercises to a set time (not reps) is beginning to separate you from “the rest”. Adding a series of plyos to your program in between exercises to a set time and increasing the volume each time is sick, twisted and truly cutting edge. (Did anybody recognize the stick of butter I just created there?) The premise? Every time you do a crank in b/w the set (per week, not per workout), you increase the amount that you do in that time limit while still keeping good form.

Twist and Shout: I know you hate to journal or track food in any way but I can guarantee you that you won’t see change without it. If you are eating a loose menu that’s clean but full of “play” in it (have a handful of nuts, a little of this, a little of that) you will have the same results as the menu. Your body will be “getting there” but you’ll be “missing the mark”. Just like your menu, you will never quite be exactly what you want. Change that by doing two things: 1) Measure and track what you eat so you have true accountability and 2) *change* what you eat over a 3 to 4 day period to keep your body guessing. We do things like low, med and high days or long run vs short run days. Whatever you choose, stick with it and you’ll love the results.

If the thought of changing your food is intimidating, start by changing your good fats first.  YUM!

If you want the actual programming behind these ideas, sign up on the right hand side for my updates. I have just begun a series on being and staying lean: how to manage it. Hop in now and you’ll get all the good stuff coming. In the mean time, get back to pushing, timing and measuring your way to the body you know you can have. Woop woop!:o)

Cheat meals are both a blessing and a curse.  When we first begin dieting they tend to be the biggest worry for the newbie dieter:

Can I have a cheat meal?

What counts as a cheat meal?

What can I have as a cheat meal?

Just the thought of eating off plan the first two to three weeks for some folks is too much to handle because ‘they want to get everything right’ or they are trying to maximize the amount of weight they can lose in that time.  During this time you try to eat as clean as possible and deny yourself the right to even breathe by a bakery much less walk into one.  I am going to venture to say that you go over the top during this time by trying to over diet.  This eventually backfires when you just cannot take it anymore and do the backstroke through the buffet table at the Beansprout restaurant.  Not pretty.

The other end of the spectrum is counting down the minutes to your cheat meal to the point where you have a counter on your blog stating: 3 days 2 hours 25 min 32 sec til my cheat meal.  There’s cause for concern if this is you.  You’re going to wait until you have a cheat meal but you’re going to treat it like it’s the last meal in the year 2012.  Not only do you plan it down to the moment, but you have built it up to the point that unless this meal comes served with a 2 week vacation in Maui, you are not going to be happy.  So now you cannot stop with just the meal.  You’re actually let down so you start trolling through the cabinets for something to satisfy the fantasy you just basted all week long.

For the next couple of posts I am going to dissect the cheat meal for you.  I’ll talk about what you can get away with, pitfalls, fallacies and etc. with the hopes of getting you through this holiday season safely (I don’t want anyone throwing their back out hucking their scale out the window.lol).  There is an art to this and you can master it.  If you understand what makes you psycho, you can get in front of it and own it before it owns you.  Also, if you also understand how much damage this meal doesn’t do, you will handle the day after so much better. 

Get ready to venture into the land of cheat meals…WOOP WOOP!:o)

Next Post in Series

I realize it is that time of year now where fitness professionals start giving out hints and tips for staying focused during the holidays.  They tell you how not to gain weight and how to stay on track and etc.  I may or may not pull one of those out of the closet this year but before I do, I am going to give you at least 3 or 4 posts that say to you, “Really? I mean really?”

My main message has been and most likely will stay as ‘what you need to do to look good naked’.  You want more out of your body and you expect more out of yourself.  This means the proverbial “put some extra veggies on your plate” type of lecture almost seems out of context here.  But we are human right?  We’re not perfect and we should never try to be.  So I am sure you’re wondering what’s on my mind right now…

Snacks.

Yes.  Snacks.

They torment you so they torment me. 

If I had a dollar for every “I know what to eat for my meals but what can I have for my snack?”.  Umm…food.  The same stuff you have been eating all day.  Just have less of it.  

Somewhere some clown made all of us think that there is this *snack fairy* who is going to come along and give us this unknown snack food that is clean and legal that is going to WOW us like no other.  This food is rich and full of flavor, bursting with color and juiciness that sends our eyeballs to the backs of our heads.  Motion stops, breathing stops, the world stops as we savor this snack as if it was our last meal.  The phone is ringing, kids are crying, mountains are moving—heck, the universal health care debate is being solved and we just don’t care!  We have our snack, by golly and dammit it’s amazing!  Why haven’t we eaten this before?  Why didn’t Jodi tell us about this snack?  It has no calories, amazing texture, can be eaten everyday without any ramifications; it has protein galore and no ST count in it.  OH MY LORD I THINK I HAVE FOUND UTOPIA!

Then you wake up.  Wipe the drool off of your face.  And realize you are holding a cup of plain Fage yogurt with cut up strawberries in it.  Good.  But not where your mind just was…

Snacks are only elusive to you because you do not want to admit that there is no secret snack out there.  There is nothing majorly new under the sun.  Really what you are saying to me is, “Jodi, this is your problem that I find food boring.  You need to make up some new food so I can stick to my plan.  Because you refuse to make this exciting for me and force me to find a cookbook or recipe on my own, I can fully justify this really yummy pastry I found in the office lounge because you have abandoned me in my time of need.”  Sound familiar?

Most of you are savvy shoppers.  You are google fiends.  I am not falling for the “I cannot find any snack ideas (that do not involve copious amounts of starchy carbohydrate).  There are none that are clean (that I like or feel like eating) with protein in them.”

Ummm…yeah….

So here is the deal.  You want what you want when you want it.  So you are going to have to do what you have to do when it is time.  Period. 

There are plenty of snacks all over the web.  I will post them for you as we get deeper into the holidays if I come across them, but let’s be very real here:  The issue isn’t the lack of recipes floating around or the lack of information available to you, the issue is your mindset and *deciding* on how you want this holiday season to go. 

Feel free to let me know what your decision is.

So unrelated to this post but so worth sharing, this morning my husband was in the kitchen making my youngest son’s lunch (yes, read that and weep—woop woop!) when he dropped some of what he was putting in the lunch box on the floor.  My son, in the sweetest tone and facial expression said to him, ”It’s ok daddy.  It’s your fault, but it’s ok any way.” 

Honestly, don’t you wish you could have someone like that follow you around in life and just make you feel better about anything you may do “wrong” knowing you’d have that kind of support? 

Jail clerk, “It’s ok Ms. Jones.  You did take a baseball bat to the car in front of you at the light because it cut you off at the previous intersection—so yes it is your fault, but it’s ok any way.  Let me get you a soft pillow for your cell.”  *Sigh*

On to other things like six pack abs and a stellar performance!

“Ordering” your food (and I don’t mean, “I’ll take a large steak and cheese with pickles and tomatoes”) can make the difference in the outcome you want to achieve either aesthetically or performance-wise.  There are many different ways to align your food choices to elicit a different effect such as more definition, greater muscle gain and excellent recovery.  The following will give you some guidance as to how to put your menu together to get the most out of it:

Six Pack Abs:

I am constantly asked not ‘how can I get six pack abs?’ or even ‘can I get six pack abs?’ but ‘Can I have her six pack abs?  I want hers.’  I say the same thing every time I am asked, “Sure, go find her parents and ask them if they have any spare DNA.”  When it comes to definition, musculature, symmetry and etc. you are at the mercy of the genetic gods.  Get over it.  Wait…you missed this…

GET OVER IT.

If you have abs, you have them.  If you don’t, you don’t.  If you are female and 10% bodyfat and smooth as smooth in the belly but ripped up shoulders—guess what…you missed the ab boat.  If you are 18% bodyfat, large on the bottom, nice shoulders with a visible outline of a 6 pack—guess what…you just hit the lottery.  Where you wear your bodyfat is specific to you.  You can alter this (although be careful of what you wish for sometimes) if you stick with it long enough, but it requires due diligence.  So how can you maximize the chances of getting 6 pack abs?  Do not mix your starches with your fats. 

When you order your foods for the day, put a protein and a fruit/veggie in every meal and then decide which meal will get the starch that day and which meal will get the fat.  i.e.

MEAL 1                        ST

MEAL 2                        ST

MEAL 3                       

MEAL 4                        GFAT

MEAL 5                                               

Do you need to have your starches all in the morning?  Not necessarily, depends on when you are working out.  But I would separate them from your major serving of fat by at least one meal.  This does not kick into effect until you get within 5 to 10 pounds of goal weight.  If you have 30 to lose, head over to Order In the Court.

Stronger, Faster:

I am sure you have figured out by now that I do not believe that you need to sacrifice your physique to perform well.  I believe you can go for both without having to have to choose until you want to go to the highest level for either.  Whenever I say this I always get the person who points out many an athlete who is on the national circuit who looks fabulous.  These athletes are always the elite athletes who again, were blessed by the genetic gods in both talent and body.  They don’t count.  However, their parents DNA is for sale–hurry up and get it while it’s in stock. 

Now, if you’re reading this you are not one of them therefore you must think about you and your situation which requires a bit more attention than theirs does.  If you want to perform beautifully, then you need to think in terms of recovering and in terms of dieting.  So you end up with a hodge podge of days:

                    TRAINING                    TRANSITION                    DIETING

MEAL 1             ST                                ST                                ST

MEAL 2             ST                                ST                                ST

MEAL 3             ST/GFAT                      (GFAT)                        

MEAL 4                                                ST                               GFAT

MEAL 5             ST/GFAT                      (GFAT)                                    

MEAL 6 (TR)

Training is a day where your activity extends longer than 90 min. and you need maximum recovery.  Transition is an active day where your training is 90min. or less so you need to fuel but not too much.  Dieting is a day where your activity is an hour or less and you are just like everybody else doing cardio. 

When you mix up your days like this, you are truly serious about performing well and looking good both at the same time.

Behemoth:

Muscle gain.  Man is this a loaded subject or what?  It’s the hardest thing to get folks to understand–even more so than the elusive 6 pack abs.  If you want more muscle you need to eat more food. Simple as that. You know and I know there is more to it than that but 9 out of ten times when I get a client, male or female, who wants to get “bigger” and I check out their diet they are not eating enough.  Why?  “I want to get bigger but I don’t want to gain any weight.”  Really?  I want to pay my mortgage but I don’t want to use my money.  Do you think the bank wants a great diet plan to help them out instead?

I don’t know where this started but I honestly would pay money to make it go away.  Please, resign yourself to the fact that if you want to put on muscle, you will have to gain some weight.  Do you need to go up 25?  No, total waste of your time because you will lose much of what you gain in muscle having to diet that long to get off all that extra poundage.  But you will need to go up by *something*.  That means you cannot have 6 pack abs during a building phase.  So…

GET OVER IT.

Same concept as stronger faster but no transition day:

                        TRAINING                               DIETING

MEAL 1               ST                                          ST

MEAL 2               ST/GFAT                                ST

MEAL 3               ST                                                       

MEAL 4                                                            GFAT

MEAL 5               ST/GFAT                                                         

MEAL 6(TR)     

I Want What I Want

I do understand how this may seem easy to me because I do this all day long and so much work for you because this is the first time you are seeing it, but I cannot stress enough that if you want something more than what you have right now you are going to have to WORK for it.  If you want to do this on your own, you will truly have to learn how to do it.  There are short cuts and diet programs and etc. but they are made for the masses.  If you want to just complete the goal then please go that route.  It will simplify things and give you a foundation for you to build upon.  But if you have done that already and are looking for more, take the time to learn about what works for you and what does not.  You can do it with someone’s guidance or without.  To me, that’s a preference thing. Regardless, it will be work for you none-the-less.  Remember, there is JOY in the completion!

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I have to say putting this series together has been awesome for me simply for the fact that I have had the chance to become reacquainted with the food that I recommend daily.  I speak food the same way all of you speak English:  fluently.  That’s a good thing and a bad thing.  Good thing because I know so much about food and its benefits so I can help my clients be successful; bad thing because I can sometimes become numb to the same things that I espouse.  So sitting down and analyzing the different ways to characterize food has been a blessing in disguise for me.

After going through light to dark for protein, dark to light for fruits and veggies, rough and ragged to smooth for starches, we have arrived at fats:  thin to thick consistency.  The thinner the fat, the better it is for you.

I am really loving how many people are tuning in to my blog every day getting to know a little bit about me as you learn “a lot bit” about food/dieting/etc.  One thing you will find as you come visit me every day is that I am completely obsessed with good fats.  No, I don’t think you heard me.  Completely obsessed with good fats.  If I could marry them, I would.  The only thing I love more than Omega 3 is butter.  And that’s saying something because I tried trading my 3 year old on the black market for a pound of butter.  Too bad they said he was only worth a tub of Country Crock.  Just know I’m holding out for more!

Fat heals.  Plain and simple, it heals.  It makes what’s wrong, right.  It makes wrinkles disappear and periods resurface.  It calms aching joints and soothes a craving palette.  Fat is beautiful.  From long chain to short chain I just cannot get enough and am blown away when I find someone who won’t eat it.  Is it an Omega 3, 6 or 9?  Do you want it as an oil or as a solid?  Would you like to cure psoriasis or just fix a metabolism?   Whatever you want to do you can do it with fat.  And then if that fat is butter?  Awww sookie sookie now!  Where do I sign up?

So as I sat down to go through fats, I almost had to get up and bake a pound cake, slap a little sumthin’ sumthin’ on my dry elbows and down a fish oil cap…but I held out long enough to at least tell you how to work fats into your menu.

You should have a good fat every day.  Unless you have something going on in your life or you are preparing for something, there should never be a time when you do not eat a good fat.  They are just that important. 

A typical serving of good fat is 14 to 16g.  This is a tablespoon of oil, 2 T of nuts and seeds, ½ avocado, 1c soy beans or 3oz. of wild Alaskan salmon.  When we talk about “ordering” our food, I will address the fat mixed with starch question that I am asked quite frequently.  For now, we’ll just talk about fats and how great they are in your diet.

Thin is in:

Fish oil, flaxseed oil, Udo’s oil, hemp oil, pumpkin oil and walnut oil.  Why these?  Because they are Omega 3 rich.  Next, olive oil, avocado oil, peanut oil and almond oil.  Why these? Because they are rich in Omega 9.  Lastly, safflower, sunflower and sesame oils.  They are rich in Omega 6.

Meaty Thick:

Salmon and Avocado

Pasty Thick:

Peanut butter, cashew butter, almond butter, soybeans, nuts and seeds, coconut oil.

Here are the rules:

1)        Your ratio here is 3, 2, 2.  I would do 321 but that’s only 6 days.  Sorry for that extra day.;)  You may choose one from every type of oil to make 3, or you may choose 1 type.  You know I am going to recommend you vary it as much as possible.  But they are listed in order of benefit so keep that in mind.

2)       You must have a good fat everyday but are more than welcome to have more than one in a day.  If that is the case, start from the top with thin and add going down first.

3)       Do not cook your fats.  You may only cook with coconut oil on a regular basis.  You may use Pam to  grease a surface, but try not to cook with oil–even olive oil.  High heat damages the goodness of fat.

4)       Salmon must be Wild Alaskan and you may also have any fatty fish in its place. 

If you do not have fat in your diet and you add it in, you are in for a treat.  If you do have it in your diet, make sure you are mixing it up.  Nothing beats the shine of your hair or the softness of your skin when you are filled to the brim with good fat. 

I hear a mango coconut protein shake calling my name right now!  WOOHOO!!:o)

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So far in this menu series we have laid out proteins, fruits and veggies using a simple system of color coding.  Color is tremendously important in the world of food because the more colorful the food, the nutrient packed the food is.  Keeping your plate looking like the Rainbow Coalition is a great way to stay on the healthy side of life. 

But unlike protein, fruits and vegetables, starchy carbohydrates are not easily broken down by color.  A perfect example of that would be potatoes.  You have red potatoes, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, Yukon gold potatoes—and I would recommend that you eat them all at the same frequency because none is more nutritious than the other (ok, sweet potatoes have a slight edge;).   

Starches are also *not necessary* to be in your diet the way that fruits and veggies are or any other food source for that matter.  Yes whole grains are healthy, but they are not necessary.  For one thing, we just started eating them as a species.  We never ate grains on a regular basis thousands of years ago.  We were more meat based and plant based.  Also, no matter what grain you choose, it will require some level of processing just to be palatable.  When’s the last time you went wheat berry picking? 

So going strictly by color might not be the most prudent methods of choosing a starch.  But what about a starch’s texture?  I would venture to say that a starch’s texture is far more important than any other aspect of its composition.  There are 3 types of texture:

Shards of fiberglass:  This starch is the mainstay of any person’s diet who honestly says they are serious about looking good naked.  Fully represented by cut up gums, acquired taste buds and hard core chewing, this starch is all about health.  Do not even THINK of giving this to any family member who has not been thoroughly sworn into the “I care how I look AND feel club” or you will never hear the end of it.

Barley, quinoa, couscous, shredded wheat, millet, brown rice, steel cut oats.

Pass me the water, please:  This starch is characterized by a thick, smooth feel on the palette.  Nowhere near as intense as the shards of fiberglass family, but not an easy sell either.  Family members may not hate you after these, but they are still not party favorites. 

Lentils, beans, oatmeal (slow cooked), Ezekiel bread, oat bran, whole grain, brown rice

Flashbacks of Sade:  That’s right, these are Smooth Operators.  Eating these guys makes you forget about the 3 molecules of water that you’ll be holding on your butt for every gram of starch in them.  To be honest, you don’t care.  If you could slap a stick of butter on these and hum while eating them—you would!  These guys make ya wanna holla every time you eat one.  Family members will eat most of these starches but typically they bathe and dress them in things that would make you do double cardio just knowing they were in the house.

Potatoes (sweet, red, white, gold), Squash (acorn, butternut, spaghetti), pumpkin, root veggies, bananas

There are some foods that are missing off of this list on purpose:  peas, corn, lima beans, tortillas, pasta etc.  They just are not worthy of any good press.  Try to limit them to one time per week or less if possible.

Here are the rules:

1)       VARY YOUR TEXTURES!  Because we are creatures of habits and eat oatmeal like it’s our jobs, we deny our palettes the fun of pumpkin!  Texture is AS important as color when it comes to variety and beating food boredom.

2)       Try to have at least one from each texture every week.  If you are not eating starches on a regular basis, try starting with the Flashbacks.  They are easier to get down and chock full of vitamins.

3)       Do not repeat a texture in a day.  Most people have 1 to 3 starch servings per day but may find themselves eating different variations of oatmeal all day long.  Do not do that.  Vary your starch as much as possible.  Although quinoa, millet and spelt are all very healthy for you, eating them all in the same day may preclude you from any long board meetings for a few days.  Easy on the fiber there quick shooter!  OY!

Ok…we’re getting closer to having all of our foods laid out on the counter.  We have fats next and then we ‘order’ them.  I hope you have been trying some of these suggestions as to how to put some variety in your menu.  Feel free to share some tips in the comment section below if you have any!  I really want to hear about them!:o)

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Menu Planning:  Living Life Beautifully

As we embark on this fun journey together (which will resume on Monday after I finish getting through all the emails that state, “I didn’t know you had a blog and now I need to get caught up on the reading!;) learning how to plan our menus, I feel the need to empty my soul as to why this needs to be so important to you. 

Do you have any fears?  I mean real “wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night” fears that almost take your breath away because they seem so real?  I do.  More than most of you will ever know.  Some of my fears are irrational just like most people’s fears.  But there is one that I have that is real…and big…and furry (ok, not furry, but I loved how that sounded). 

If you think it is the fear of dying you are wrong.  I do not fear death so much and as I age I am almost embracing it (I make myself sound so old yet I still feel like I am oh so young).  Somehow for me there is an unspoken serenity in a timely death.  No, I do not fear that.  What I fear is living with disease.  Not dying from disease—living with it. 

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Jodi, I already eat clean”.  Yes, I know.  If you are reading my blog, you care what you look like.  However, that’s why I am talking to you about living with disease.  Not dying from it.  I do not want to be 65 with beltway skin, shards of teeth, straw for hair with enough fire in my engine to make it from A to B, but otherwise so depleted that I literally hurt all over to get there.  I am not interested in being 70 but looking like I am 90.  Don’t you feel so bad when you meet that person?  Or how about being 75 with every known condition out there that requires oodles of medication to keep you going?  Not my desire.

That’s us, though.  That’s the path we are headed on.  We exercise daily so we are keeping our vessels healthy.  We do not eat processed food so our arteries are clean.  And we flush ourselves daily with loads of water to keep our cells teeming with life.  But we also secretly stuff ourselves with so many chemicals and artificial sweeteners that if we listen closely at night we can actually hear our livers sobbing quietly looking for relief from the toxins.  We work hard, play hard and pretty much live hard, too.  Don’t forget, we are type A.  And lastly, we eat the same nutrients day in and day out so that when we go to replenish what we rob of our body everyday in our killer workouts, we fall short.  Thereby creating what I call now, “the slow, painful life”—not death.

See we’re going to live.  And we’ll be somewhat vibrant.  Maybe vibrant is too pain free of a word.  We’ll be operational.  But for who we are used to being, we will not be happy.  More than even the processed food loving general public folks who do not value their health, we need to be diligent about food periodization.  That’s a $100,000 word for “not eating the same thing all the time”.  We need to cherish the gift of performance that we have been so blessed to possess. We take for granted things like weight loss, functioning joints, working organs (hysterectomy anybody?) and regeneration. 

Take it from someone with first hand knowledge, regeneration ends.  And when it does, will you be on the good side of that stick or on the bad side?  Don’t get caught out there on the bad side of the regeneration stick!  Hormonal hell, emotional distress and physical therapy will all be staring you in the face.  And they are not that good looking to be that close to you!

I bring all this up because I don’t want this series to be a fly by night thing for you.  You know, you throw a few amens out there and agree with all that is being said to you only to find yourself 2 weeks later eating the same thing you were eating 2 weeks before.  I don’t want that.  I want you to read this, get this, try this, live this.  For that to happen, we need to take it slow and develop some habits.  Food is habitual.  If you think you are going to just wake up and start balancing menus left and right—good luck to you.  Actually, if you find that you can I have a few food diaries for you to help me with when we’re done with this series.  Email me. J

So although the info will be coming faster than it has so far, it will not be coming so fast that we are on the next letter before you have fully taken advantage of the first.  Please try to incorporate as much as you can in between posts so that it is instilled in you in real time.  You learn by doing, not by reading.  Give me feedback as to how it is going and share any tips and tricks that you learn in the comments so that others may learn with you. 

The response from this series so far has been tremendous and it has just started.  I am so excited for the rest and from the looks of my Facebook page, you are too!.  Let’s put this to good use and truly set ourselves up for living beautifully…cool?:o)    

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