Hot Mom/Body After Baby Challenge

Hi y'all! It's Lindsay. At the end of June, I put out a feeler on our Facebook page about hosting a "Hot Mom" Challenge, starting in September. This is both accountability for me after having Everett, but also a way to get other moms involved who are self-conscious, having trouble, not feeling how they want to feel, or just wanting to be healthier after having a baby. There was a HUGE response, so I'm definitely moving forward with the challenge!

Below are the details....everything you need to know! You will have until August 31 to sign up to be a part of this.

Hot Mom/Body After Baby CHALLENGE

• Starts September 9th and runs for 90 days, ending December 7th. 
• You must commit to the following:
• Exercise program; both at-home and gym programs will be offered, but you have to commit to an actual program/schedule. 
• 80/20 Clean Eating (Eating clean 80% of the time, with some wiggle room 20% of the time)
• Taking before and after measurements and pictures (You don't have to share them, but I want you to have them to track your success!!)
• In return for your commitment, you will receive:
• Exercise AND nutrition support, guidance, and coaching
• Private Facebook group to share your victories, challenges, concerns, whatever with myself and the other challenge members 
• I will be logging my food on MyFitnessPal (free website/app) and will give access to anyone who wishes to see how and what I eat. I will also gladly monitor and give feedback to anyone else who logs their food.

There is no charge for participating in this challenge. Yep - this is FREE. Only costs will be related to if you need to purchase an exercise program. 

To sign up, please comment below or message us on Facebook your email address. I'll contact you that way and invite you to the private Facebook group. 

We've hosted challenges in the past with great success...challengers always lost weight/inches/sizes, but more importantly, established healthy habits and felt better about themselves!

LET'S DO THIS!!

In Health, 

Lindsay

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

INSTAGRAM: fitwithfarrar

YOUTUBE

The Evolution of Our Healthy Lifestyle

People throw the phrase around a lot...

"It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change."

But for us, it is now 3-4 years later, so it clearly was a lifestyle change.

Typically, it is a healthy thing to look back once in a while, to see how far you've come and/or to see how things have changed and evolved. Our commitment to fitness and nutrition has certainly changed a lot over the last several years:

• We are much more in tune with our bodies
•  We know when to take a break before it gets to the point of an injury or exhaustion
•  Along that same line, we can see the true value of rest days
•  We are gaining a better understanding of what works bests for us nutritionally
  
• Less focus on calorie counting, more on actual nutrition
•  Initially, it was all calories in versus calories out. NO LONGER! Now, the focus is on nutritional value. Your body processes 100 calories of vegetables completely differently than a 100 calorie Chips Ahoy pack. (Sorry for the mini-rant, that's a whole other post topic!)
  
• We aren't stuck in a box and afraid to experiment
•  At first, anything that didn't involve a workout DVD (Lindsay) or a gym (Timothy), we wouldn't touch. Since then, we are constantly experimenting with all different kinds of training and can definitely say that cross-training (working out in a variety of ways) is the most effective.

Things have evolved in others ways too:

• Our inner circle of friends has changed dramatically
• This was a hard pill to swallow at first and we certainly felt lonely. But time has allowed us to let those people go and focus on connecting with those that we better relate to now that we've made this lifestyle change. BUT we are always hoping to have a positive impact on people, including those from our past, and help them become healthy with us. 
  
• Our outlook on our future has a different focus 
• At first, a lot of our healthy eating and working out was wrapped up in numbers, sizes, and looks. As our knowledge of nutrition and fitness improves, and with moving into different phases of our lives, the focus is less on sizes and looks and more on doing this to live longer and avoid chronic illnesses. Mid/Late 20's is not "old" but it is a time to be concerned about your future.  
  
• We cut ourselves way more slack
• Everything was so strict in the beginning: missing a workout was unfathomable and eating had to be on point at all times. Now, if life interferes and we miss a workout, it's okay. If our eating isn't clean or we have a food that is fried or has HFCS in it, it's okay. We know it doesn't happen often and we know we can fall right back in line immediately. *This isn't for people who are just starting. This came with time!* 

Overall, we are pretty darn pleased with the evolution of our healthy lifestyle thus far. We look forward to seeing how future life events will impact everything, particularly having a child. We'll keep you posted ;-)


In Health,

Lindsay and Timothy
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
YOUTUBE

Nutrition 101: Part 2 - Protein

This is Part 2 of our Nutrition 101 blog series. Check out Part 1 here for an overview of how many calories to eat, what to eat, meal makeup, and timing of meals. Now ladies and gentlemen, we present Part Deux....

Protein is absolutely essential for life. While most microorganisms and plants can biosynthesize (check out that fancy word!) the amino acids in protein, most animals, us human-folk included, must get it through our diet.

What is typically the first thing people think of when they hear protein? We're willing to bet it is something like this:

MMEEEAAATTT!

Yes, tis true - los animales make up a good portion of protein sources: meats, poultry, fish, etc. However, other sources of protein include:

• legumes (dry beans and peas)
• tofu
• eggs
• nuts and seeds
• milk and milk products
• grains, some vegetables, and some fruits (provide only small amounts of protein relative to other sources)

To explain the difference between a complete protein and an incomplete protein, we introduce this lovely summary from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 

Proteins are made up of amino acids. Think of amino acids as the building blocks. There are 20 different amino acids that join together to make all types of protein. Some of these amino acids can't be made by our bodies, so these are known as essential amino acids. It's essential that our diet provide these.

In the diet, protein sources are labeled according to how many of the essential amino acids they provide:

•  A complete protein source is one that provides all of the essential amino acids. You may also hear these sources called high quality proteins. Animal-based foods; for example, meat, poultry, fish, milk, eggs, and cheese are considered complete protein sources.

• An incomplete protein source is one that is low in one or more of the essential amino acids. Complementary proteins are two or more incomplete protein sources that together provide adequate amounts of all the essential amino acids. For example, rice contains low amounts of certain essential amino acids; however, these same essential amino acids are found in greater amounts in dry beans. Similarly, dry beans contain lower amounts of other essential amino acids that can be found in larger amounts in rice. Together, these two foods can provide adequate amounts of all the essential amino acids the body needs.

How much protein you should take in depends on your sex, age, and goals. The USDA recommends that protein make up between 17% - 21% of your total daily calories (~46 grams for adult women, ~56 grams for adult men). In our case, where we do strenuous workouts on a daily basis, we consume much more protein than that. Feel free to email us (fitwithfarrar@gmail.com) for some personal consultation to help figure out how much protein you should be consuming.

SOOO....That might be more information than you feel like you need to know, so let's K.I.S.S. it.

• You need protein....
• You should mostly get your dietary need of protein through high quality/complete proteins, but can supplement with incomplete proteins, and....
• You should at the very, VERY least be consuming 46 (women) to 56 (men) grams of protein each day.

And that concludes Part 2 of the Nutrition 101 series - Part 3 will go into the supposedly dangerous waters of the land of CARBS!

If you enjoy our blog posts, please share with your friends and family! We are on Facebook too and always have motivational updates, workout and food pics, etc. Just click here and "like" our page!

In Health,

Timothy and Lindsay

Nutrition 101, Part 1: What and How Much?

This is the first of a series of blog posts related to nutrition. It seems to be the hardest piece of the puzzle, the most difficult thing for people to make lasting, lifestyle changes with. We'll start with the basics in this post: how much to eat, what to eat, the make-up of your meals, and the timing of what you eat.

How Much to Eat: Finding Your Caloric Range

This process starts with determining your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). This number is how many calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day; the number of calories your body uses just staying alive. Age makes your BMR go down and not eating enough food makes your BMR go down. There are tons of calculators online that you can use, like this one here. For any mathematicians or scientists out there who get off on numbers, here are the actual formulas:

BMR calculation for men (metric)	BMR = 66.5 + ( 13.75 x weight in kg ) + ( 5.003 x height in cm ) – ( 6.755 x age in years )
BMR calculation for men (imperial)	BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) – ( 6.76 x age in years )
BMR calculation for women (metric)	BMR = 655.1 + ( 9.563 x weight in kg ) + ( 1.850 x height in cm ) – ( 4.676 x age in years )
BMR calculation for women (imperial)	BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) – ( 4.7 x age in years )

As we mentioned, BMR is just what your body burns being at complete rest. Obviously, even really inactive folks do more than just stay in bed all day and night, so you need to add in an "activity factor" to your BMR. You can do that with these numbers: 

Little to no exercise	Daily calories needed = BMR x 1.2
Light exercise (1–3 days per week)	Daily calories needed = BMR x 1.375
Moderate exercise (3–5 days per week)	Daily calories needed = BMR x 1.55
Heavy exercise (6–7 days per week)	Daily calories needed = BMR x 1.725
Very heavy exercise (twice per day, extra heavy workouts)	Daily calories needed = BMR x 1.9

If you are unsure where you fall with activity factors, go with the lesser one. More often than not, you don't burn as much/aren't as active as you think you are. Once you have your BMR plus activity factor, that's the number of calories you would need to maintain your current weight. If you want to lose weight at a healthy rate of 1 pound per week, you would need to reduce your magic daily number by 500 calories, either by increased exercise or cutting it from your diet/caloric need. 

What To Eat & The Makeup of Your Meals

While how much to eat is just a simple numbers game, what to eat is a wee-bit more complicated. People choose to utilize various nutrition and dietary guidelines: some prefer vegetarian/vegan, paleo, etc. The USDA puts out this as a guideline:

This isn't "horrible" and is certainly better than the old pyramid; BUT - for our nutrition, we'd make a couple tweaks: make the grains much smaller, less dairy (or at least organic, grassfed, hormone-free dairy only) and increase the protein. Unless you have specific dietary guidelines (like vegan and the others we mentioned before), this is definitely a good place to start! 

You should try to have the makeup of your meals the same throughout the day: a good amount of protein, some wholesome carbs (vegetables are the preferred!), and a little bit of healthy fat. 

Timing of What You Eat

Hmmm....tricky. For the lay-person, someone just getting started, or someone just wanting to live a more healthy lifestyle, it can be pretty simple: eat the bulk of your carbs early in the day, eat when you are hungry, and try to have smaller meals more often rather than just one or two humongous meals. Pre and post workout nutrition is also important (Pre: slow digesting, fibrous carbs and lean protein; Post: fast digesting proteins and carbs). Now the reason we say tricky is because this is an area we are still researching ourselves, mostly about the concept of intermittent fasting. More to come on that in the future, but for now, just K.I.S.S. with the basic rules! 

Okay - how ya feelin? Don't get overwhelmed - it really is not that scary! Figure out your caloric intake for either maintaining or losing weight, eat the good stuff, and taper what you eat throughout the day. 

If you are interested in discussing this information on a more individualized level, let us know! We'd be glad to consult with you and develop a plan based around your personal goals and needs. Email: fitwithfarrar@gmail.com or message us on Facebook!

Part 1 of Nutrition 101 is done! Keep an eye out for Part 2!!

In Health, 

Timothy and Lindsay