Exercise- A family affair........

The past couple of days have been pretty good. Miles slept better last night, so that is good news for our household. He has been walking for about 1 month now so he is getting his exercise in these days. He was a pretty big baby ( 10 lbs. 10 oz.- I love to throw that in every chance I get). He is 11 months and around 22-23 lbs. Healthy guy with precious baby rolls galore. His face is starting to thin out with all his activity.

Amara has started her new gym class at her preschool. It's a great idea and I wish I thought of it. An outside source comes in once a week ( Rising Starz Fitness) and teaches the kids about fitness, self-esteem and nutrition. I asked her how she liked it. Her response, " I loved it!" After that she demonstrated a few donkey kicks, somersaults and a faux carthweel that she learned that day. I asked her if they talked about nutrition and she said, "fruit and oil". Not quite sure what the means, but she's only 4-I am happy she paid enough attention to the non-activity portion of class to tell me that much!

I think Matt made it to the gym twice this week, which for him is great. He does full body workouts on his lunch break. He is not really a cardio machine type of guy. He would rather play basketball although that has not happened in a few weeks. We are still working on that. He's the type of person that will eat well for a week, make it to the gym 3 times and play basketball 1-2 times and a 6-pack magically appears. No fair. Back off ladies-he's with me. He is into fishing and hunting, so that gets him plenty of walking in when the season hits.

I am back to teaching 8 fitness classes a week. It can really wear on me after a few weeks of this. I can get burned out very quickly. I am trying to avoid this by trying to do doing different things everytime I teach. It worked this week.

I did a Boot Camp style class with 1 minute drills. For another class I did compound exercises the entire class. One class I only used the Body Bar for equipment. My Spinning class is always different-this week it was hills and sprints. I like to teach classes the same way I like to be taught. I talk as little as necessary and I am not always in your face telling you " Good job!" and " Way to go!" I know, I know..that does not sound very motivating, but I do give kudos when it's needed. I let my classes know they are doing well. My feedback is great and a lot of people tell me the reason they keep coming back to my classes is because of the resasons I stated.

I ended up getting to the gym today and did my own thing- A full body circuit and intervals on the treadmill. Sometimes people cannot believe I still go to the gym after teaching all week. I have to, or I will go insane. End of story.

Cold Stone anyone???

Miles won't sleep. He is either:
a) teething
b) sick
c) both a and b
d) neither
e) likes to party all night
I have been going on auto-pilot these last few days. Not. Fun. At. All. Stressed to the max! The bad news is I am a total stress eater. The good news is I have not given in! Even when my loving husband called me tonight on the way home from running errands ( buying broccoli, chicken and turkey bacon). The conversation went something as follows.
Matt: Hey Marcia...I'm not trying to sabotage you or anything, but I am near Cold Stone..do you want me to stop?!!?!?
Me: NO!!!
Matt: Ok, bye. Just thought I would check.
This was a pretty big step for me. A month ago, I would have been all over that!! If you don't know..Cold Stone Creamery is just the best ice cream ever invented! Take a peek: www.coldstonecreamery.com/index.html
They do have some "healthier indulgences" options to choose from, including a Sinless Sans Fat-non fat no sugar added ice ceam ( um, no thanks!). If I am going to eat ice cream give me the real deal please!! If you ever get a chance to go there, I highly recommend it..in moderation of course!!
My 4 year old is learning what a "cheat" meal is but does not really like the word cheat. She wants to call our next cheat meal a fun meal instead--they sure do learn fast at this age! She's still a tad confused on why her cheat still has to include a side a broccoli though. Hmmmm, how to explain that one.......

What a waste.....

Today was my first official " cheat meal" of the week. A cheat is basically an off plan meal that might be something you craved all week--basically something fried, cheesey, sugary and all things that I am trying to avoid.
I had Taco Hell and it was not even worth it.
I took Miles for a walk while Amara rode her bike for 30 minutes ( exercise for me--yay!). After the walk we just started driving and we ended up at Taco Hell. It did not even taste good. UGH!!! I even passed on the pizza today at Chuck E. Cheese. What was I thinking???
Sometimes "cheats" are needed and necessary for me to stay on track. Next time I will remind myself that if I just don't really feel like it then I won't have the cheat. Either that or just get pizza. I can never go wrong with pizza.

3 days down and a lifetime to go

Well, it has been just about 3 whole days since I am "back on track" with all things healthy!
When I am off track, my whole family is off track..that's just the way we roll. We are back to eating ( hubby and I) 5-6 healthy meals a day. I feel good about this. I hate being "off track" and just eating like I don't care about myself. I do care about myself and my family. We were given life for a reason, may as well take care of it the best way we can! Our plan is to eat clean all week long and then we will have one dirty meal a week. This has worked pretty well for us in the past, we just let it slpi during the summer months. We were having a few too many dirty meals, snacks, weeks--you get the picture.
My exercise has also gotten back to where it needs to be. I do teach quite a few classes during the week, but I still need ( a personal choice really) to do my own thing as well. My new thing this week is Zumba. It's a latin inspired dance, aerobics, salsa, grapevine, booty -pop and hip shakin' type of class. It is not my type of class at all. I LOVE IT! It's so much fun to just go in and let loose and trip over my own 2 feet. I have taken 2 classes already this week and hope to add another one by this weekend. If you want to learn more about it : http://www.zumbafitness.com/index.php?acnt=GHZZU000&s_kwcid=zumba1464101708
I highly recommend this class to everyone. It helps if the instructor is awesome though!
Amara goes to preschool two times a week. They just added a new gym class too. I am very excited and happy about this. While in this class the teachers will discuss self-esteem, body image, nutrition and they even get to do fun gym stuff! These are all things we try to teach her at home, but I am happy that these things will be reinforced at school.
Miles is a grat baby with a great appetite. He will eat basically whatever I feed him. I hope he stays this way forever (having a good appetite, not a baby).
So here is to taking everything one day at a time!

Let me intorduce myself....

I probably should have done this a few posts ago, but having 2 young kids to chase around I must have forgotten.
My name is Marcia ( Mar-See-A..not Marsha!) and I have been married for 5 years and have two beautiful children- Amara is 4 and Miles is 10 months.
I went to a university and obtained a bachelors degree in Movement Science ( an extra fancy way to say P.E.)
I have been a certified fitness instructor since 1998 and have never looked back! Back then
( early 20's) I was not too concerned with what I ate. I could eat garbage ( and did) 75% of the time and maintain a pretty enviable physique ( if I do say so myself). I love teaching and love to help people reach their goals. I like to eat clean--not everything and not all the time, but a majority of the foods in my house are fresh and not out of a box. We do buy organic when we can, but let's face it-- is is expensive to eat right! I am phasing out high fructose corn syrup and trans fat in my home as well. HFCS is in just about everything.
Currently, I own my own small fitness business and I also teach classes at my local YMCA. I spend any free moment reading up on the latest and greatest fitness news, gadgets and diets. I just like to keep on the up and up in the industry.
I exercised all through both pregnancies ( oh, it's a myth that when you exercise you have "easy" labors....2 hours of pushing with both and lots of other gory details I won't type).
I think I might have loved being pregnant ( I foget sometimes). I probably would have enjoyed it more if I did not get so darned big (Amara was 8 lbs 5 oz and 3.5 weeks early, Miles was 10 lbs 10 oz. and 1 week early). I ate well for the most part( we all have our moments of shame) and was teaching anywhere from 5-11 classes a week during both pregnancies!
That about sums me up.
It is my mission to try and live a fun, healthy, balanced life and teach my kids to do the same!