PiYo Review

Wow! I can’t believe I’ve finished my THIRD Beachbody program already. I love PiYo but not for the reasons that you may think. PiYo is a melt of Pilates and Yoga, and suitably named. Prior to this program I had never taken either type of class and, I’ll admit, I’ve skipped the stretch and yoga sections of both T25 and 21 Day Fix because I thought they were less important. I figured that these types of things would never help me reach my goal because my goal at that time was specifically to lose the baby weight. However, after reaching my goal weight I decided to work on improving my flexibility and though some PiYo would be a big help (plus it was on sale! So I really couldn’t say no). PiYo is a 60 day program and, like all Beachbody programs, comes with a schedule and a nutrition plan. The schedule starts off easy and then gradually introduces workouts that make you really thankful for child’s pose! The nutrition plan is very similar to the one for 21 Day Fix with the exception of the containers and the addition of a “secondary grains” food group.

Why I will forever be in love with PiYo:

1. Flexibility – I can put my hands on the floor WITHOUT bending my knees! What?!? Yes this is huge for me. Now, I didn’t take before pics of my flexibility (because really who thinks to do that??) so I’ve taken pictures of about where I was before and where I am now. AMAZING! I danced for 14 years of my life and have never been this flexible. It works.

Before

After

2. Strength – Specifically core and shoulder strength. I can actually hold a plank for longer than 2 minutes. One day I will grab a magazine and time how long but I got bored the last time I timed it and gave in at the 2 minute mark.

3. Great party tricks – There’s one move that Chalene tells you you can use to show off at a party and be like “I bet you can’t do this”. And I always thought, who on earth would actually do that?? The answer, ME! Ok so maybe it wasn’t a party, but I did show it off while at a friend’s house for supper!

4. Easy, but hard – I have an internal battle with this. It always seems like such an easy program compared to the other programs I have done and yet I sweat more and gain more strength than I did with the other programs. If you want something that makes you reap the benefits of working out but doesn’t feel like working out, this is it!

5. Pain relief – It’s not like I have chronic pain or anything like that but I do seem to continually have a sore back. You know the usual stress points that always have giant knots that you just can’t seem to lose. Well PiYo got rid of them for me. I found myself asking my husband for way less back rubs while I was doing the PiYo program and now that I haven’t done it for a week my knots are all back. Time to get back into it I think!

The not-so-great parts:

1. Portion Tracking – I think I was spoilt by 21 Day Fix. PiYo doesn’t come with a chart to track how many portions of what you have eaten each day. It’s a small downside but it caused me not to really follow the nutrition plan like I should have. I also think I could have easily made my own or found one on the internet. This was pure laziness on my part.

2. Results – Pretty sure this one is all on me… I didn’t have any definition results like I was hoping for but I also didn’t follow the nutrition portion of the program. Afterall, abs are made in the kitchen! Next time around I will be sure to follow the WHOLE program and not just do the workouts.

3. Length – Once again spoilt by T25 and 21 Day Fix I was shocked that the workouts range from 25 minutes to 50 minutes! This is something that I’m just going to have to get used to since I plan on starting BodyBeast next which has hour long workouts.

I will definitely be continuing this program. I plan to combine PiYo with any program that I do in the future, mostly for the pain relief aspect. The flexibility that it’s given me and the tension that it’s relieved has given me a passion for PiYo that I never thought I could have.

If you would like more information on my experience with PiYo just comment below or send me an email! If you are ready to commit to this program or any other Beachbody program, click here.

Focus T25 Review

The title says it all, so let’s get down to it! This was the first ever Beachbody program that I bought and completed. Actually this was the first ever fitness program that I have ever completed. Now that’s saying something! Here’s the quick breakdown of what you get: The program is 10 weeks long and comes with a schedule of workouts. Each workout is 25 minutes long (on the nose!) with a 3 minute cool-down, aka stretch, on top of the 25 minutes. You workout out Monday – Friday with an option to do a double workout on Fridays. Then there’s STATurday where you record your results for the week and Sunday is a relaxing stretch routine. The program comes with a “nutrition plan” which basically tells you what the best food choices are but nothing specific. 

Here’s what I love about Focus T25:

1. 25 minutes – Seriously who doesn’t have 25 minutes in their lives that they can spare?

2. 5 days a week – this one is killer for me. I love my weekends. I can get up at whatever time you want me to during the week (these days it’s 5am) but on weekends I want to sleep as long as my little darlings will let me (like 6:30am, don’t laugh at me! That’s a whole 1.5 hours extra sleep!). So when I found a workout program that let me sleep on weekends I was totally game for that!

3. STATurdays – this quickly became my favourite day of the week. Tracking my results every week gave me the motivation I needed to keep going and push harder.

4. Results – WOW! I was losing 1-2, sometimes even 3, pounds per WEEK! And inches galore! T25 uses a technique called HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) that ramps up your metabolism and keeps it high for HOURS after you’ve finished your workout. So essentially I was working out for 25 minutes but my body thought I was working out for hours.

5. Two sets of discs – Just as I was nearing the end of Alpha, the first 5 weeks, I began getting a bit bored with doing the same set of workouts. But then alas! There was Beta and I had a whole new set of interesting workouts to do!

And, since no one can love everything about a program, here are the cons:

1. The “Nutrition Plan” – I use “” because really I’m not sure anyone would really call this a nutrition plan. It showed pictures of foods that you should be eating, calculated your calories, and gave a couple recipe ideas but there was no real guideline for how much of what you should be eating. If you want to work on your nutrition, this program is not going to help you there.

2. Plyometrics – A really big word that basically means jumping around. This may be some people’s cup of tea in a workout but not so much mine. Two reasons: 1) I have bad knees and it hurts to do this much jumping and 2) I was working out while the kids slept which doesn’t bode well when there’s a 140Lb woman jumping around in the next room. Luckily the modifier does low impact so that helped but it would have been nice to say I could keep up with the hot shots.

3. Shaun T – Sometimes he gets that crazed look on his face and you think he’s going to jump out of the screen and punch you in the face if you don’t listen… Ok, not really a con, but had to fit Shaun T in here somehow! Sidenote: A lot of women would put him in the “loves” list as easy on the eyes but to me he’s just the guys that kicks my butt and that person doesn’t even make the friends list haha.

Overall, this was my soul mate program. The workouts kicked my butt but the results were totally worth it. I would recommend this program to anyone and everyone. When I started I was extremely out of shape and I was still able to handle the intensity of the workout. So if you think you can use your “I can’t keep up with them” comment as an excuse, don’t. Give it two weeks and you won’t even need the modifier, unless, of course, your kids are sleeping! You get out what you put in, but in the case of T25 you get out twice as much as you put in.

If you would like more information on my experience with Focus T25 just comment below or send me an email! If you are ready to commit to this program or any other Beachbody program, click here.

“Bad Planning, Letting Go, Conquering Fears, and Climbing Mountains”

We are officially back from our 5 year anniversary camping trip! It seems like whenever I plan a trip something always has to go awry. Who knew you needed to have your passports with you if you were planning on crossing the US border?! OOPS! What a test of our marriage though! Instead of getting angry at each other we worked through it. We weighed our options, 1) drive 16 hours there and back to get our passports and continue on our planned trip or 2) cut our losses (we had paid for campgrounds across the border) and explore our home country. This was tough for me at first because I love to plan and hate when plans don’t work out the way I had hoped. It took me a little while but I finally put it into perspective. The point of this trip was not to see the coastline or the California redwoods, though it would have been a nice backdrop I’m sure. The point was to work on our MARRIAGE, to have time ALONE, to have time TOGETHER, to be ACTIVE, to UNPLUG, and to RECHARGE. None of these were going to happen if one of us was driving while the other slept. We let go of our original plans and made a new plan: to fly by the seat of our pants.

Our first night was spent in Waterton. The following day we drove part way up a small mountain and then hiked the Lineham Creek trail. The trail was gorgeous, starting in a wooded area and continuing through some open meadows with great views of mountains and valleys. We followed it over streams and through paths that had rather steep drop-offs until the final view of a beautiful waterfall. We were fortunate to meet some more experienced hikers at the end of this trail and learnt some incredibly beneficial information! For example, we should really carry bear spray when hiking in the mountains; probably should have a backpack to carry food, water, and extra clothes if we did a more difficult hike; and what the best stops, drives, and trails were between Waterton and Banff.

Upon the guidance of our new hiking friends we chose to check out Lussier Natural Hot Springs next. After all we weren’t opposed to “a little bit of gravel road driving” that is until the “gravel road” turned American Loggers on us with a steep drop on one side of the narrow lane and a rock wall on the other. Needless to say we powered through but I’m sure glad Scott was driving since I’m sure my vertigo would have put us right over the edge! If you are ever on the 93 south of Radium Springs be sure to stay at Whiteswan Campgrounds and check out the Lussier Springs. Our campsite backed out onto a serene glacial lake at the base of a mountain for only $18/night! The natural hot springs are truly a step above the pools that Radium and Banff offer. Four different rock pools with four different water temperatures and a blue-green glacial river rushing in the background is truly relaxing. 

Lussier Hot Springs

The "gravel road" to the hot springs.

Despite all these amazing adventures so far, I have to say my favourites were in Banff. Upon arriving in Banff around 4pm on Monday we set up camp at Johnston Canyon campground, bought bear spray, and set out on a 1.5 hour stroll through Johnston canyon which was highly populated compared to the Waterton trail and we probably didn’t need the bear spray! It did offer spectacular views of multiple waterfalls, some educational facts about the creation of canyons and limestone, and a surprise visit with some friends from home!

My favourite waterfall of Johnston Canyon

As I’m sure you’ve already noticed, the activity that I wanted to do the most on this trip was hike. But after our new hiking friends mentioned a mountain that you could actually SUMMIT in just 4 hours, we both set a new goal to summit Cascade Mountain near Banff. The mountain has an elevation of 4,392 metres, what an accomplishment! We began our day by driving up Mount Norway to the ski lodge parking lot around 9am. The trail led us down Mount Norway to a bridge that connected to mid-way up Cascade Mountain. From there we began a steady climb. When I say steady I actually mean every part of our legs, buns, abs, etc were in pain. The slope was easily 45 degrees on the easy sections and ranged to close to a 60 degree incline. The first 3 hours of our climb were spent in heavily forested area and towards the end we were becoming rather discouraged at ever reaching the end. We took turns using our precious breath to encourage each other and make noise to deter wildlife encounters. It was all worth it once we finally reached the edge of the thick forest and were able to see the view.

I found the next part the most difficult in terms of conquering my fear of heights. From the concealed forest path with trees to block my view of how high we were actually climbing we switch to open stretches of rock piles that showed exactly how high you were and how far you could plummet to your untimely death. As long as I didn’t look behind me I just kept climbing. I pushed that voice that said “look how far you are going to fall” to the back of my head and chose instead to tell myself “don’t think, just do”. And guess what?? I DID! We made it to the summit of Cascade Mountain right around lunchtime and sat down to a snack amongst a view so extravagant and magnificent that I wonder how people dispute God's existence. His Glory was surrounding us from every angle and in every way. 

The pile of boulders and shale that we climbed to reach the top

WE MADE IT!

The small white buildings in the background was our starting point.

Banff in the background.

 
As much as I wanted to soak in this glorious view and experience at the top of the mountain, I found my mind wandering to how on earth I was going to make my way down this mountain. Going down was my stumbling point. I have often become overconfident and climbed a ladder onto a roof, or ended up in various other viewpoints from which I have had to be carried down from or have crawled away from an edge. I honestly had a picture of Scott carrying me down this incredibly steep, rocky slope to the safety of the covered forest. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the same vision as I did. So we began our climb down and one rock at a time I DID it AGAIN! The slope down raged against both of our knees and we were very thankful to reach the car at just 4:30pm. We can officially say that we summited Cascade Mountain in just 7.5 hours!!

On our way down. Very, very slowly.

We sumitted the peak on the left.  It would have been another 4 hours total to get to the other peak and back.

After a full day of climbing we were sore to say the least and wondering how we would conquer another hike tomorrow morning. We were thankful when we received a message from Scott’s parents to come back home to our girls who were missing us. As much as I work-out at home and stay fit, nothing compares to working every muscle in your body at the same time while consuming less oxygen at higher altitudes. To those of you who are feeling unchallenged in your workouts or like you need a new perspective on life, go climb a mountain!

Super Cheesy Mac N’Cheese

Mac n’cheese is a favourite food of mine. I remember when I was little and my mom would make a mac n’cheese casserole with hot dogs in it. It was one of my favourite meals so I figured I would try it out myself, with a bit of a spin of course. Now the other day I was talking to my aunt about recipes and realized there are two kinds of people out there: the type that follow recipes to a T and measure absolutely everything out (her) and the type that never measures and just wings everything (me, unfortunately for you). So on that note here is what I think I put into my mac n’cheese…

Ingredients
2 medium tomatoes, crushed (about 1 cup)
2 Tbsp margarine
3 cups cheddar cheese
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup milk
2 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp flour
450g dried elbow macaroni
Breadcrumbs
Optional: 2 cups protein, cooked
Optional: Cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes to taste

I started by boiling, peeling, and crushing two medium sized garden tomatoes. 

Add to this the margarine, cheddar, Parmesan, milk, and garlic. Melt this down on low-medium heat until it’s smooth. I find it best to use a whisk and stir continually to get a good consistency and avoid burning the cheese. While this is melting, prepare your macaroni. Once your macaroni is almost ready, whisk the flour into your cheese sauce. I chose to add a few shakes of cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes to mine for a bit of heat but you could also add other spices for a different taste. 

 
Now mix the sauce, macaroni, and your choice of protein (I used leftover chicken). Pour it into a casserole dish and top with a thin layer of breadcrumbs. Toss this in the oven at 350°F for 10 minutes or until it’s brown and crispy. Dig in and enjoy! 

How NOT to Camp: A Learning Experience

All this planning for our anniversary camping trip this coming week has me reminiscing about our last camping trip. Our last experience with camping was 4 years ago, before kids, and newly married. The tent that we had was one I had purchased in highschool on a whim because it was on sale and we needed one for Relay for Life. The car we drove was my husband’s old Pontiac Sunfire, “dog pee yellow” as his grandpa calls it. We had just bought a house and paid for a marriage but really wanted to get away for a long weekend so why not go camping since we had all the stuff for it anyways. 

We thought we had it all planned out. Scott would finish work early on Friday and we would drive to Waterton National Park, get a site just before sunset, set up, and stay the whole weekend. Easy, or so we thought. Turns out everyone else had the same plan… by the time we got to Waterton all the sites were full and we were turned away from multiple campgrounds. By midnight we were tired of driving, all the sites were closed, and we had resigned to waiting until morning. Our lack of planning meant there were also no vacant hotels so we parked in a viewpoint halfway up a mountain with some really nasty outhouses nearby. Our handy, LITTLE, good on gas Sunfire didn’t seem like such a fun little vehicle anymore. Even with the backseats folded down and our feet in the trunk space it didn’t prove to fit two adults comfortably. Camping fail #1 turned out to be not too bad since the view we woke up to the next morning was totally worth the lack of sleep!

Best views I've ever had while brushing my teeth!

We got on the waitlist to get a site and then had a picnic and went for a short hike up a mountain and enjoyed the gorgeous views. This trip was starting to look pretty good. We were both having a blast and I was “attempting” to conquer my fear of heights by getting close(ish) to the edge of a cliff. We climbed down a rather steep mountain side and walked back to the car via a creek. It was really a gorgeous day.

Facing my fears

Scott clearly has no fear of heights!

The creek that we walked along

I know you all are waiting for the next camping failure so here it is… remember that tent that I bought years ago? So I had left it at my parents house for them to use and had just got it back from them. We assumed that all parts would be in the bag, I mean that’s what a tent bag is for, right? Turns out we were missing a few parts. But I mean who needs poles anyways. So we headed over to the ridiculously overpriced camping gear store to find some replacement poles which, of course, they didn’t have in stock. They were, however, able to offer us two options of brand new top-of-the-line North Face tents. In the end our “inexpensive” camping trip ended up costing us about $500 more than we planned. Oh, and we forgot the basics like a frying pan, plates, and utensils. 

That's one fancy tent right there!

Made that spatula myself! 

This time around things will be a bit different. We have pre-booked all our campsites so no matter what time we get there at we won’t be left sleeping in the car. Our new, only-used-once tent is currently set up in our basement on a test run with all poles, pegs, and pieces accounted for. And the list of things that need to be packed includes everything we forgot last time and then some!

After all this reminiscing I am super pumped to start on our camping adventure tomorrow! I’m sure I will come back with many stories to share with all of you!

My First 5K

 I started preparing for a 5K in early May 2014. This was about my 3rd attempt. After I had Alice I “decided” I would go on daily runs and train for a 2K, start small. I had the race picked out and started running. It lasted about a week. My next 2 attempts lasted about 2 weeks and then I got pregnant again and used that as my excuse not to run.

May was different. This time I planned ahead. I gave myself 8 weeks to complete the Couch to 5K (C25K) app on my phone. I started running outside when it was nice at sunset and became addicted to the gorgeous views I was given while I ran. Then came the rain and I could’ve given up but I had already told so many people that I was going to run the Run or Dye 5K on July 5th that I was fully committed so I began running on the treadmill during naptime.

When I started out I was winded after the 5 minute “brisk warmup walk”. Yup, just 5 minutes of walking was all it took to tire me out but I was determined to run this 5K and reach my goal so I put mind over matter and pushed as hard as I could. When I got tired I would tell myself “run for one more minute” and after that minute I would say “you can push harder than that, how will you run ever run for 5K if you can’t even run 5 minutes, DO THIS!”. And every time my hands touched the treadmill Jillian Michaels (the one in my head anyways) would yell “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY TREADMILL!!” I pushed myself during my training harder than I ever have and a week before the race I was running 3K straight in 25 minutes according to my treadmill.

Morning of race day!

When race day came around I was so nervous because I had never actually ran for 5 kilometers. Let’s face it 3K on a treadmill is a lot different than 5K outdoors on uneven terrain. So I set my goal time for 40-45 minutes. We waited for a long time out in the hot sun while they cleared the path of some obstacle or another and then even longer while they let waves of 100 people at a time leave the starting gate.

Feeling like I'm in a herd of cattle being round up...

Sidenote: I chose an untimed, low pressure race (Run or Dye) as my first race because I didn’t want to feel like I was being left in the dust by the other runners but ended up being slightly disappointed by my choice. At this point I discovered this “race” was more like a stroll in the park than an actual 5K. 99.9% of the group came out of the gate walking and then we slowed down from a walking pace to go through the colour zone. It was like walking behind a line of seniors with walkers blocking a mall hallway. I was trying my best to get around people but not succeeding.

After the first colour zone the group loosened up a bit and with some weaving from side to side and dodging trees beside the path I was able to get around the bulk of the group. It was about this time that I realized I should have chosen a more competitive race. I was flying past people and almost tripping over some as they walked into my path. Soon I gave up on running on the path and instead ran on the street or grass beside it. My confidence was building as I spotted other runners, some people were actually running this race after all, then caught up to them and passed them. It felt so great not to be the one that gave up at the start and decided to walk the whole thing. The old me would have either a) not shown up at all or b) started with the intention to run and then walked as soon as I saw everyone else walking.

I pushed harder than I ever have and only walked through the 5 colour zones. When I reached the end I couldn’t believe it was actually over. My adrenaline was pumping so hard that I felt as though I could do another 5 kilometres! I am so proud of myself for pushing through the pain of training and putting mind over matter to reach my goal of running a 5K. Not only that but I beat my goal time of 40-45 minutes with a time of 31 MINUTES!! 

Woohoo!

I may have conquered my goal of running a 5K but I’m not stopping there. My ultimate goal is to run a marathon. The next steps in my journey are to run a 10K in spring of 2015 and run the half-marathon (yup, 21K) in the Queen City Marathon in September of 2015. I can’t wait to share these experiences with you when I get there!!

All coloured up!

Alice was a bit bored by the end...

Pizza!

Sunday is pizza night in our house. It has been for awhile but has undergone some changes throughout the year. We started with take out pizza when we lived in town. It was a great way to end the busy weekend (I didn’t’ have to cook!) but left us all with that bloaty, greasy feeling. Ick! So we moved on and I started making homemade pizza. I had a recipe from my mother-in-law for your basic yeast crust and my hubby wouldn’t let me do anything different. I mean what’s better than mom’s cooking right? It was a good crust but doughy and I am not a fan of doughy. So a few months ago I decided to try my hand at a thin crust pizza. I tried out a few recipes that still involved yeast until I found this beauty!

This recipe is seriously so simple you will doubt that it can be called pizza crust… here it is:

- 2 Cups flour

- 2 Tbsps. Vegetable oil

- ½ Tsp. sea salt

- 2/3 Cup warm water

That’s it! Just throw it all in a bowl, mix, knead, do whatever you have to do to make it look like pizza dough (sometimes I add a bit more water to get all the crummies off the bottom of the bowl) and voila! No waiting, no rising, just pizza!

Roll it out so it looks like this 

HELPFUL HINT: I like to put parchment paper on my baking sheet because it makes cleanup easy and I can slide the pizza onto my cutting board and not ruin my baking sheet!

Top with whatever sounds good to you. I used salami, mushrooms, red pepper, onion, and of course a heaping amount of cheese! 

Bake at 450F for 15 minutes.

This is by far the simplest, crunchiest, tastiest, healthiest, and quickest pizza crust I have ever made! ENJOY!