I love to bounce!!!! Day 4

I love this cardio program. I know I sound like an idiot but I love love love love it! I get so excited that I have it as much as I do in the program.

Day 4  I started with cardio and then took a break to talk to you guys about why I do this part of the program not in the apartment.

I don’t say this stuff to deter you from getting the program. I say it as a warning that in cardio, your feet will leave the ground. You will love it but people downstairs will know it’s exercise time. Upper body and full body have a little loudness to it, but not enough that you would really bother someone else. Cardio… tons of bouncing. BUT I LOVE IT!!!. You need the belt for cardio only. And honestly, you don’t really need it. It just adds a little fun to the workout… and makes it more resistance on your body… but mostly I think it’s there to let you bounce around and have fun 🙂

Abs was next. I hate you Tony. Not really but I do when I’m doing abs. The weakest muscles in my body. Even if my muscles didn’t separate with my pregnancy with the boys, this would still be a hard workout. But I never took care of my muscle separation so this is basically torture. Anyone else have this problem? Anyways, it’s an ab workout that actually gets everything. And it’s only 10 minutes. But lets be honest here, 30 seconds is enough to make me pout. The main focus is that its a program that is going to help you, not matter how much you dislike that 10 minutes. It could be longer Laura! Stop complaining.
 Best part of situps

 Not best part of situps

Then I did Yoga (soft serve) which actually hurt more this time than the day before. I’m thinking its because I had stretched those muscles a little bit more than I normally would with the yoga the previous day. Sounds bad, but it’s a good thing because that means I USED them. You know what makes me happy? I actually finished it. I felt the burn and I grrrrrr’d my way though it. That makes it enjoyable. And again, it’s not a hard workout. It works everything in 10 minutes without making you feel uncomfortable about the pretzel you’re stuck in. He makes it avaialable for people of all stretchy and unstretchy levels. He comments on how he used to be Mr. Stiff guy and now he’s more flexible. Guess. what, I’m gonna keep working at it and get flexible too. Thank you for the note of encouragement Tony.

As for food today… don’t ask. I didn’t take my shakeology that morning because I left the house not even thinking about it and ended up eating sweets from Burger King and having a soda. That’s kind of a hint hint that I was no where near staying in my calorie range. Ughhhhhh

Daily Challenge July 10- Take it as a learning experience

You learn every day right? It’s impossible to know everything unless you’re God and I’m just not that perfect. I think maybe I know .0000012% of every lesson people should learn out there. So don’t judge me unless you know .00000121%.

That being said… I don’t know jack sometimes. I decided it was a good idea to take an inexperienced dog out for a run around a duck pond this morning with two kids who just woke up.

I did what I was supposed to do.

I woke up at 7:15. Got the dog out for a potty break. Took my stuff to the gym to get in my 30 min of 10 minute trainer. Came back to the apartment. Ran back to the gym because I forgot my phone. Came back to the apartment again. Ran back to the gym to get my bag that I had sat down to get a drink on my way back out the gym the second time. Came back to the apartment AGAIN. Woke up Josh, told the kids to get their shoes on, put the dog on the leash, AND WE WERE OFF!

The kids were saying they wanted to go around the pond 3 times but my mommy intuition should have told me they didn’t really mean it when they both groaned at the beginning of the run. And when your dog isn’t very good at not sniffing everything when  you walk with her, she may not be ready for a run.

So you would think I wouldn’t be suprised when my dog almost pulls me into the lake while she chases a group of ducks. And you would think I wouldn’t be suprised when my kids aren’t behind me when I turn back to tell them they’re doing a great job. Instead, they’re pretty much still on the other side of the pond. I would have noticed if I didn’t have a dog trying to run between my legs for most of the run. They said they were upset because I said jog and then started running. Me thinks they were having an off morning because normally they’re outrunning me.

So I learned today.

What did I learn?

1. Sleepy kids will find any excuse to not run.
2. Sasha does not have an athletic drive unless you count her constant wagging tail.
3. I had a pretty friggin hilarious morning if I really think about it so brush it off my shoulder instead of being upset.

I ended up dropping the kids and dog off back at the apartment and headed out for another lap around the lake myself.

Tomorrow will be better.

So I didn’t learn a life lesson, I just learned for today. But it was learning, not failure.

Your challenge for the the day, FOR THE WHOLE DAY NOT JUST YOUR WORKOUT AND EATING TIMES, is to take it as a learning experience. If you would see it on a big screen and laugh about it when someone else does it, then you should laugh about it. If it just didn’t go your way, you now know better for next time. DO NOT GIVE UP because it sucked once. Let it be your drive to work out the kinks and be awesome at it. You’re not failing, YOU’RE WINNING!

Daily Challenge July 6- Written vomit

Part of getting fit is getting over frustrations in life and in the mind. How much weight are you carrying around in your heart that is showing up on the scale? When I talk to people who have been successful at losing weight and keeping it off, there’s a few things that almost all of them have in common. One of them is that they share their story and include their failures in it. It keeps you grounded. It reminds you of who you are. By sharing your story, you’re motivated to make it a happy ending.  By including your failures and insecurities, you remind yourself that you’re human. The great part about sharing is that you get support, whether it’s positive or negative and you keep doing your best to make things positive.

For a long time I was scared to tell anyone when I was struggling. When you sell a fitness drink and fitness products and want to be a trainer/nutritionist, you don’t want any of that to look like a struggle. No one wants a trainer who has gained weight or just wants to sit down with a whole entire pizza for a day and roll around in its yummy gooey cheesiness. No, I would not roll around on a pizza… in public. I just want you to know sometimes I crave an entire pizza. And who’s goign to buy a shake that’s meant to help you curb your cravings when it’s actually doing its job but you’re just being an idiot who misses cheesecake. But by not sharing that info, I was pretty much lieing to people. There is no magic pill out there in the form of a shake and there will never be a personal trainer out there or nutritionist that lives on salads alone. But I thought I had to be perfect.

Long story short, no book is complete without a problem and a victory.

So your challenge for the day is to share your story. Join an online fitness forum, make your own blog, join weight watchers, join a challenge group, or even just share with your favorite fitness buddy.

One of my friends is doing what seems to be life purge and I love it. You can follow her here. She’s an amazing writer and puts my blogging to shame… which isn’t hard ;p But I read her first blog and I do believe she is the Phoenix she wants to be.

Daily Challenge July 5th- Face your fears like a 9 year old

I hope everyone’s fourth of July went well. If you’re not in the United States, I still hope it went well and got to see something spectacular like fireworks anyways. I heard the Chinese New Year puts any of our celebrations to shame so you can gloat on me that entire month.

Yesterday I took the kiddos to Oaks Park. It’s an amusement part next to the river that was actually pretty fun. The rides were very state fair-ish but the whole thing was fun… oh how I miss Six Flags. But we did have a great time.

I am a huge thrill seeker when it comes to my rides. If my hair isn’t messed up by the end of it, I didn’t have fun. Two years ago I couldn’t even get my kids on a mini drop ride. This year, one of my kids was all for the spinning and bouncing and woohooing. But the other kid… not so much. He was almost too scared to go on the kids spinning teacup kind of ride. So when my thrill seeker mini asked to go on a ride that spun alternating directions and bounced higher than a two story house, I knew as a mom, I honestly couldn’t force the other kid to get on. We asked, he said no. I said it was just like the first spinny ride but it bounced high… he said no. I wasn’t going to make my kid cry so I said “You know bug, sometimes you have to face your fears to realize you had nothing to worry about. But if you’re too scared right now, I’m not going to make you get on it.” Full House Danny Tanny sappy music was playing for this parental speech by the way, followed by an awwwwwww from the audience. Just kidding. I think Free Falling was playing in the background on the Screaming Eagle ride to be honest. But needless to say, thrill seeker, who had already jumped in line for the spider and was jumping up and down waving for us to come over, was crushed we weren’t going on.

Something I love about my kids is that they protect each other. They feel each other’s pain. When one is sent to his room, the other worries about him the entire time. They bicker like all kids and there are times you’d think they hated each other. But when you get to the heart of it, they’d die to save the other one if they had to. We walked to the other side of the park. Sadly it was all thrill rides and we had already done all the kid rides. I was about to tell the boys we’d go do the kid rides again, but then my kid who isn’t into thrill rides suprised me. He said… word for word… in the goofy style that he’s known for… “Well I guess I gotta face a fear. To the spider!” and started running back towards where the spider was. It was a proud mama moment.

In the line, he faced about 30 changes of heart. It didn’t help that adults were getting freaked out in line and leaving.  I kept telling him we’d stay in line and if we got to the front and he didn’t want to go on, we’d head straight for the exit, but I also said if he faced his fear he would be really proud of himself. We got to the front of the line. He didn’t panic. We got on the ride. He didn’t panic. The ride started moving and I could literally FEEL him shaking next to me. I had a safety bar crushing the air out of me so I couldn’t exactly move to console my kid.

First the car started spinning. I looked over at him and he looked almost puzzled. After the first bounce, I could see a grin. Second bounce, he laughed. Third bounce, he was cheering with his brother. As a mom, of course I was about to start crying like a baby at how proud I was of my kid. But then the nausea kind of crept in from all the spinning. In the 2 minute long ride my NEW thrill seeker was cracking jokes about being Tigger and doing the “Hoo hoo hoooooo” with a few of the bounces. They he said we were Xtreme pogo sticking. The kid was going crazy over this ride. And the previous thrill seeker was laughing and giggling but also pale and extremely nautious like I was.

Right after the ride, my kid who faced his fear wanted to go on it AGAIN! His brother and I… wanted to vomit.

Moral of the story- Don’t share a gatorade with your thrill seeker son right before a spinny bouncy ride. The person who doesn’t drink will have the most fun. Drinking and riding is bad mmmkay.

Bigger moral of the story- Face your fears. If the statistics are in your favor that it’s not going to kill you, and isn’t bad for your health,why not try it?

Your challenge for the day is to think about facing/face a fitness fear. If you’re afraid of a group exercise class but really interested in what the class is… seek one out and give it a try. If you want to try to water ski… put together a group and go. If you want to wear spandex and don’t want to be giggled at for the wobble wobble of your butt… who cares? Shake it till you make it. Afraid your family won’t like your new healthier version of lasagna? They can make a sandwich. They’ll be ok. Try it anyways. Want a friend to come exercise with you but afraid they’ll turn you down? The worst thing they can do is say no, right?

I’m going to follow through with this one also. I have avoided getting a speaker system to teach Hip Hop Hustle at my apartments like they’re going to make me battle zombies in the process. I know I can do a warmup. Why not be the actual leader of the class? I can do this! I’m going to have hubby take me TODAY to go pick out something that will play the music and learn how to yell over it.

Feel that adrenaline pumping? Run with it. Work yourself up. Get excited. Be a nine year old kid with his fist held high and charge towards the Spider.

But not like this guy…

Daily Challenge July 4- Invest in success, not a heart attack

First off, Happy Independance day to all of you American’s out there and a big old “It’s not you, it’s me… no it was you” to my English friends.

Because I woke up too late to get the kids into the 4th parade this morning, I’m taking them to a Lake Somethingwaga park where they have rides and fun stuffs until fireworks tonight. Mmmm carni food. J/k I’m packing sammiches and snacks.

Back to the task at hand… Success sometimes requires investments. Yes, I’m a beachbody coach and would love for you to buy my programs, but I’m here to talk about other stuff mostly.

Do you know how much being overweight is costing you? It may not cost you as much now as it will in the future, but in some ways, it’s costing you now. Your immune system may be low, you may be emotionally eating out of insecurity, it may keep you from getting out and being active outside, even the emotional side of it has a cost. Now fast foreward into your future. How much does a heart attack cost? According to this article, anywhere from 760,000 to a million. The worst cost all together would, of course, be your life. How do they get that cost? Doctors, surgery, prescriptions, checkups, lab costs, ect. ect. I’ve seen it happen in my family. My dad has been hospitalized with 2 heart attacks. One required angioplasty, the other required an open heart quadruple bipass. Add on top of that complications with the bipass. What they don’t factor in is the damage that it costs your family. Constant fear for a parent’s health doesn’t sit well.

So now that I put all that out there, 120$ for the right pair of running shoes doesn’t really sound all that bad, does it? And maybe shopping organic once a week each month? How about an in home ice cream maker where you can put in your own ingredients?

Yes, I know it all adds up, but this is an investment into yourself and a cheaper future. How many 120$ running shoes can you get for 760,000$? 6333 and a few pairs of socks. Do you really think you’re going to go through 6333 pairs of shoes? Lets say you buy 1000$ worth of exercise equipment each year and spend an extra 1000$ on top of your regular food prices for organic food each year. It would take 380 years for you to come up with the cost of a minor heart attack.

When I tell people a bag of shakeology cost 120$ a month or that a fitness program is 120$ and it’s only a 3 month program (that you can repeat as much as you want and keep by the way) I get really funny looks. it doesn’t matter that I tell people shakeology is praised by my doctor for raising my HDL as much as it has and boosting my immune system and helping to re-adjust my thyroid from years of post pardom and diet ideas as a teen. I’m sure I’m going to get the same looks when I become a fitness instructor and tell people what it would cost for me to train them. But lets face it, nothing I ask for is going to add up to that 760,000$. I’m sure some trainers or programs in Hollywood might add up to that much, but you’re not going to spend that. If you were that rich, you wouldn’t think twice into investing in your success.

Now lets add in that

• Organic food keeps you satisfied longer so you eat less meaning you lose weight faster and the grocery bill isn’t as high as you’d expect
• Having an in home ice cream maker would cost about 40$ for the machine (I paid 15$ for mine), you can use truvia instead of regular sugar, add in the fruit that YOU like, and have a low calorie sorbet without having to drive anywhere to get it. The average sorbet costs me less than 5$ per quart to make and that’s with strawberries and the costly cherries.

• The right running shoes will keep you from injuring yourself, make running less painful and more entertaining, and you can use them as regular shoes also. You need shoes anyways. BTW, trust me, get the right shoes. Plantar Facciitis sucks!

So now I’m going to ask you. Are you worth an investment into yourself and a healthy future or are you going to kep giving lame excuses?

Your challenge for the day is to change your mind on what’s worth money in your house. You can’t afford to not understand this. BTW a heart attack is not the only thing that can kill you from not being fit. Just remember that.

Are they really that expensive now?

Daily Challenge July 2- Invisible workouts

I used to have a joke in one of my chat groups about Kegles. For those of you who don’t know what kegles are, it’s when you clench your ummm… how can I say this… lower woman parts… like you’re trying to keep yourself from peeing. Great way to start a blog, I know. But I used to have this woman who worked in front of me that did them. She said they were great for toning her butt. I told her she was doing butt tucks and not a Kegal then. It turned into a hilarious play argument between her and I. She said if you did them right, it worked the whole area. So at the next break I was sitting down at a table with my friends and got the wise idea to try one. No one would see. No one would know. And she was right, it works the butt also. Butt tucks are still better though, and just as invisible. I ended up bringing it up in my chat group and it turned into something even more hilarious. It’s the invisible workout… as long as you’re sitting down (the cloth on your pants is a dead giveaway if you’re standing up for either the kegal or the butt tuck).

What am I getting to?

There are tons of things you can do to workout at work or at a friends house without someone even knowing you’re working out. Butt tucks lift the butt and you can easily do them in a computer chair.

You don’t really need to reorganize the books on the shelf but no one else knows why you don’t have to pull all of them down and put them all back up while slightly clenching your bicep muscle.

Oops, did you drop those pencils? Is there paper on the floor? Squat 1, squat 2, squat 3…

There’s tons of parking spots next to the grocery store entrance but you just accidently only noticed the ones at the back of the parking lot.

It’s extra super duper cleaning day at your house! You just decided!!!

Your challenge is to be sneaky with a 5 min workout. Most of them are for toning so extra points if you do one that actually raises your heart rate. What do the points get you? I have no idea, but get them anyways.

Day one of the giggles- Ten min trainer (D1)

Who needs to lose weight again? This girl!

It was the 30th instead of the 1st of the month but I’m a firm believer in not puting things off till the first of the month or Sunday or noon. When you can do it, DO IT! It actually irritates me when people say “Well it’s Thursday so I can eat bad until Sunday and then start my diet on Sunday.” Break the rules. Start on a Thursday. I don’t care if it’s Tuesday, do it.

I’ve had 10 minute trainer for a few weeks now. Unfortunately, I did have to wait until things slowed down with the move. Or at least I thought I did. When I stepped on the scale, after unpacking it, and saw 239 lbs, I wanted to cry.

I did the blog on it the other day. You know what I got? TONS OF SUPPORT. Where I thought I would be embarassed and people would look down on me, I found people actually felt a little closer to me for it. On my facebook I had responses saying that people would start that as day one with me.

So Friday we did the 6 mile hike (I’ll post on it later) and Saturday I started 10 minute trainer.

The basic program comes with

• 2 workout dvds that have 5 workouts total on it plus the trainer tips for all of them
• A bonus workout from Tony 1on1
• Measuring tape for your measurment chart
• Measurment chart
• Workout on the go cards
• 10min meals guide
• 2 day jump start (I did not do because I’m anemic and actually do better with Iron from meat instead of supplements)
• The rapid results guide book (great tips and instructions you need for the next two following items)
• A cardio belt which really helps with resistance
• Your resistance band
• and 30 days of Beachbody Club where they help you set up a diet plan with the recipes and grocery chart, tips from the trainers, a blog, chat forums, and 10% off any other beachbody purchases that month.

My Chart

My goal for this month is to lose at least 10 inches and 12 lbs.

My breakfast: Frozen Strawberries, cherries, and shakeology blended in water.

Food: (Does not include snacks like fruit or veggies or anything less than 100 calories.)

Lunch- My brussel sprout, zucchini, little cheese( less than 1/4 cup),  egg mixture from the other day on a tortilla with salsa. It was Colebear approved since he ate it also.

Dinner: It was our first dinner with Josh (my husband) since he had just gotten into Portland that morning. So we went out for pizza. I had a margarita slize (little sauce, all veggies) and a side greek salad with no dressing. Nothing I could do about the cheese since it’s pre-made slices 😦 but honestly it wasn’t a bad choice.

The workout-

Before I get into this, let me inform you that Tony is hilarious. He is not afraid to make fun of himself or his partner when something is goofy. Just when my legs were burning enough that I would want to punch him for coming up with the workout, you have to giggle at what he says. It’s like having an instructor that you love to be around. He’s the biggest part of why I chose 10 minute trainer.

Day one is Cardio, Lower Body, and Abs when you choose 30 min a day.

This is after Cardio. Sweaty!!!

After Lower Body I had serious elbow sweat ;p

Colebear helped me out with sidekicks on Lower Body

Abs, just like any of Tony’s other ab workouts, SUCKED! Not sucked in the way of not doing anything. Sucked as in by the end you’re wishing you had no abs to hurt that bad. It’s always a hardcore ab workout with him. But then again, the man is a beast without having to look like a beast.

All together I loved the workout. By the time the 30 min was over, it didn’t feel like 30 min and I had burned over 400 calories. There’s a timeline at the bottom of each workout. None of the actual exercises go over a minute and before you know it that timeline is halfway gone and then gone all together. So pretty much I felt like I walked into the gym for 15 minutes and walked out feeling like I had just done an hour of working out. The pain the next day was fully worth it.

Wasn’t perfect but it was a perfect try.

I did a million hours of exercise and stuck to 1300 calories yesterday!

Just kidding… by a lot.

We actually didn’t get to start 10 minute trainer yesterday. I’m too much of a perfectionist and my kids are too much of hyperactivists. But I did do a ton better than I have been doing.

I started with my Shakeology. Fish ice is not required but fully entertaining, water, banana, and the shakeology. 250 cal all together mmmhmmmm

With an apple in my purse, we headed out for furniture shopping. 8 stores and 4 hours later we gave up and headed  back to Ikea. I USED to like that place. But yesterday I had to pick out a bed for Josh and I, a bed for the kids, and a couch. That’s freakin exhausting after walking around, trying everything out, playing hide and seek with the info people, and then realizing my kids aren’t right behind me and it’s actually someone else’s kids for about 10 minutes. Yes, two parents at the same time got their kids mixed up. Luckily, we were only 2 showrooms apart from eachother. Unfortunately, I can get lost in a simple showroom. Needless to say, I probably walked about 2 miles around in Ikea before we were ready to purchase anything.

We ended up having lunch there. I got an open faced shrimp sandwich (no mayo so it eas 380 cal) and lentil soup (which I still can’t get used to the taste of so I ate abou 150 cal worth).

Apparently, life knew it was probably time for me to throw in some weight training because I had to pull the items we were buying myself. They wanted to charge me 40$ to do it for me and I’m cheap. So on one cart I had all the items to make a kids bed with trendle, two kids matresses, and everything for my queen size bed except the matress.  On another cart I had my queen size mattress. On the last cart I had the couch. Then someone helped me put the mattress on top of the couch boxes so I only had two carts. I had one kid in front of the couch cart making sure I didn’t run anyone over. Then I had the other kid behind the back cart guiding it. I was entertainment for waaaaayyy too many people. I had a little help from a few women when I finally got to the lines. The real humor happened when an Ikea employee told me to go to a different line so she could scan everything for me and put me right in the middle of two self check out aisles and then walked off. People giving me the middle finger and rolling their eyes at me is a sign of friendship, right?

After getting that to the delivery area we headed back to the apartment to clean out the car and finish unpacking what we have here. I had promised the boys that we would walk to the grocery store or around the pond every day so after we finished we walked to the grocery store with our dog,  got the stuff we needed for dinner, and came home (about 1 1/2 miles round trip).

For dinner I made the kids cheeseburgers and strawberries. I decided to try making my own recipe though. While their burgers were cooking I sliced up a zucchini, shredded 4 large brussel sprouts, put a tablespoon of butter of it with some salt and pepper, and put it in the oven. When the boys burgers were done I put the veggie mix in the pan with my hamburger meat (1/3 lb extra lean) and an egg.  If I had eaten all that it would have been 535 calories. But I only ate half of it before I was ready for a bath and bed.

I guess me not eating all of it made up for half the voodoo donut I ate earlier that morning that I “accidently” didn’t tell you guys about. Plus I had an apple and some cherries somewhere in the day also.

So at the end of the day, I walked at least 6 miles, did my arm weights, and other than half a donut, did insanely good with my diet. I really can’t complain about it.

Who’s awesome? I’m awesome! Hopefully today I can start 10 minute trainer… if the Ikea people ever get here with our stuff.

Ughhhhh moving.

Daily Challenge June 28- Hold it right there! (wall sits)

I have interwebs back!!! I’m a nerd, I need my interwebs on a big screen with a big keyboard, not a tiny screen with a swype keyboard. I’m sorry this is coming at you late today. The cable people came at 8 but didn’t leave til 10 😦

But now I can really kick your butt now that I don’t have to swype out a daily workout.

Here’s your exercise choices for the day. Pick 3 and then do your normal workout.

1. See how long you can do a wall sit. Arms extended is a great idea but not required. If you want to do bicept curls at the same time, you’re just an overachiever.
2. 10 air jacks. It’s like a jumping jack but instead of a hop, you do a jump. And you try to look as awesome as Chalene does in her turbofire videos. Modified if you cant jump is squat, step to the right, legs together, squat, step to the left, legs together, repeat.
3. Do 5 sideways plank rotators on each side. Start at plank form. Rotate to side so that feet are on top of each other. Raise arm that’s not on the floor towards the ceiling. Bring that arm under you like a hug which naturally rotates your body. Now bring it back up to the ceiling. That’s 1. This works like a crunch. Modified is knees instead of feet.

Now pick from three of those. Yes I know there’s only 3. Now pick from them 🙂

And for your food challenge!- Make a vegetable sandwich and enjoy it. In this case, a tomato is a vegetable… and so is the bread. JUST PLAY PRETEND WITH ME!

My favorite is whole wheat bread, half an avacado spread like mayo, red onions, romaine lettuce, sprouts, a little salt (IT’S A VEGETABLE!), sliced tomato, and then a little minced garlic. My breath is amazing afterwards. Very date worthy… Bring a toothbrush.

Daily Challenge!!! June 21- Cheat them healthy, they will love you forever

For those of you who don’t know, I’m in the process of moving. So I apologize for missing a few days of challenges here and there. But I am no longer employed at the moment so I should have at least 30 min a day to get a blog done till my trip back to Oregon.
Anyways, I had my last night at work on Tuesday. Woohoo!!! Stay at home mom for a few months! But it was still sad. I hate saying bye to people. It would be one thing if I wasn’t leaving the state and it was just me leaving the job. But I am moving a little too far away to have a Saturday lunch and stuff. So my friends at work threw me a party.

As you can see, we had a little bit of foodage… Ok a whole table. It was wonderful. I didn’t expect it at all. I’m still in shock that people cared enough to do that for me.

At my work, a lot of people know me as the girl who lost a lot of weight in automation (the area I worked). There’s actually a few women in automation that lost a ton of weight but my weight loss is pretty much the only thing I’m known for there. Others a tad bit ( a lot) more well known than I am.  So right after the party, people came up and said stuff about my diet plan and the food that was there. There really weren’t a bunch of healthy options there.

1. I’m going to be real honest here and say my diet has sucked over the last month. Like sucked enough that people that know me will be shocked when I reveal my weight during the 10 minute trainer challenge. I do blame stress but at the same time, I know what choices I should make and I haven’t been making them. I’ll apologize for that when the time comes.
2. . It’s my freakin party. I couldn’t care less what food was there. People threw a party for me. If it was a table of burnt cookies, it would have still been lovely. Why? Because for that entire 20 minutes (how long our break was) that table of food was put there to celebrate me. I enjoyed that food like a carb, sugar, cheese diet was going to save humanity.
3. I did the whole number thing but had to get up and put the cat out and now I forget what #3 was, so you’re just going to pretend something epic was written here.

But the comments had me thinking. The people that put this together had said they were thinking about telling people to only bring healthy food but decided that it would go over better if people could just bring what they wanted. Now if I was the one bringing food, I would have been the wonderful person who brought the fruit tray. But if it was me from 3-4 years ago, I would have been bringing the soda or a cake or something I thought would be gone within minutes. Why? Because I don’t want to have to go back to get the leftovers. I’d rather it was gone. Don’t you want to go back and know your item was so wonderful that the front of the line tore into it and the back of the line missed out? Admit it, you want to be the “Hey, you brought that awesome cheesecake.” person.

This brings me to your challenge.

I want you to come up with a party tray. But not just any party tray. It has to be one of your favorite party trays. And I want you to make it a healthier version. One that you can fool others into believing is still sinful for them to pop into their mouth.

How do you make it healthier?

• Replace plain white sugar with truvia. This is my sugar of choice unless you have something that you can put raw cane sugar or agave nectar into instead of sugar. Yes, I know, it’s made by Crack-a-Cola, the people dentists love best. But hear me out. It’s all natural, about a quarter of the calories as regular sugar, and you can cut the amount of sugar requested in half. So if the recipe calls for a cup of sugar, use a 1/2 cup.
• Make the portion sizes a bit smaller. Instead of using a full cup cake tin for the mini cheesecakes (yes, I am craving cheesecake), use the mini cuppycake tins. Spread them out on the tray you put them on so they’re not touching and that way they look bigger to the human eye (apparently animal eyes are much smarter). Then put a frozen strawberry half on top of each of them so that by the time the mini mini cheesecakes are served, the juice coming off the strawberry (which is super duper  condensed with sugar from the natural freezing process) looks like a glaze. Then sprinkle (not dump) a bit more truvia over the top. Like a pinch worth… whatever amount a pinch actually is. Doesn’t look like it’s big enough? Put the small cuppycake tin with the cheesecake in it inside of a larger cupcake tin and add strawberries to fill in the gaps. Now it’s like an epic desert. If they don’t eat it, I will.
• Substitute white flour with wheat flour. My sister in law does this with cookies. Then she adds flax to it and it’s like a godsend for moms with kids who have tummy issues. Plus they’re the tastiest cookies I’ve ever had. JOIN ME IN ENCOURAGING HER TO OPEN HER OWN SHOP!!! Her cookies are so good that I have been known to not know when to stop and because of the flax, I will be in the bathroom for a while. TMI, I couldn’t care less. I’m just trying to say, the wheat flour will not ruin your recipe. It will still be tasty.
• Skip the syrups. If it doesn’t actually need cherry pie filling, why are you adding it? Whats so wrong with just cherries or kiwi or strawberries? They don’t need the goop to taste yummy.
• Skip the chips. Do you know how many better alternatives there are to chips now? My perfect table would have a bowl of lettuce leaves next to a bowl of home made pico de gallo, a bowl of hummus, or (le gasp) a bowl of shepherds dip. Yes I know, shepherds dip is taboo in the “eat well” category. Anyways, I know others wouldn’t like lettuce like I do but maybe pita squares or triscuits or anything else with a corner to it made for shoveling on side items.
• Use real ingredients. You may not be cutting calories but you are saving a life. You know what “light” usually means? It usually means “More unhealthy for you than just eating the regular calorie filled item in the first place.” Certain chemicals added to make your food “light” can actually cause you to crave more food. They can also cause stomach, liver, kidney, intestinal, and even heart issues. When you’re adding “light” or “calorie free” to a recipe, it’s like slabbing canned cheese goop to a burrito instead of real shredded cheddar. YOU RUINED IT! “But Laura, you told us to use truvia.” I did. I also explained it’s natural. Those swaps are ok. Chemical swaps deserve a slap to both your ears. So be proud of your natural recipes.
• Think of your own ideas. You’re smarter than me. Now get to it.

So now that you’ve come up with a new recipe for such a loverly party food, try it out on a friend.

Bonus points if you shove it in their mouth and scream “SAVED YOUR LIFE!”

Yummo!!!!