Those of you who have been following my blog know I love stories that INSPIRE me to live a better life and be a better person! Well here is the best example I have found of this in quite some time. Watch this and BE INSPIRED!!!

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the
strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done
them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the
arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives
valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the
great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a
worthy cause; who, at the best, knows the triumph of high
achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while
daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and
timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
~Theodore Roosevelt

For those of you who have followed me, either on this blog or on Facebook or Twitter, you probably noticed that i have been away for the past several months.  My life, or as I should really say me, myself, and I, took a turn off the beaten path the past few months.  I take full responsibility for the decisions that I made, both good and bad, poor and wise.  I want to take a minute to encourage those of you out there who may be reading this and have made some not-so-wise decisions that have you in a less than desirable place in your life.  I want to encourage you that there is hope and you can overcome the mistakes and poor choices that you have made.  I made some really poor decisions over the past year and a half and it was the sum of ALL of those decisions, no matter how seemingly minor they seemed at the moment that I made them, that has brought me face to face with not only my own weaknesses  and vulnerabilities but also surprisingly with my own courage and strength.  I have had to accept some ugly things about myself, to accept but not embrace the tough consequences of the poor decisions i made, and to make some tough and not-so-fun changes.  In the words of the man who chiseled my physique just over two years ago, none other than Shaun T, I had to “dig deeper” within myself and go places psychologically and emotionally that were not very fun.  But the result of all of this has been nothing short of miraculous!  I have learned so much about myself and I have found strength and courage that I did not know were within me.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not done, there is still much work to be done, and I am really just at the beginning of the journey but for the first time in three years (since my journey with Beachbody and P90X and weight loss began) I feel hopeful and optimistic about the person I am becoming and the path my life will take, even despite the mistakes I  made and the consequences I may have to face (now and in the future).  I know that God is molding me and changing me and empowering me to be the best me I can be and preparing me to go to the places He wants me to go.  I could not have gone there before.   Anyhow, I will wrap this up.  Again, we all make mistakes in life, the important thing is to learn from those mistakes and grow as a person so that we don’t make them again.  And along the way there will be those people who want to bring us down or who are excited to learn that we have “failed,” those who are not at the same place in life  as we are and because of this are eager to spread gossip and let others know how we have failed.  To those people, I feel sorry.  I encountered a few people like this  after I made my most recent mistake, and I was both surprised and enraged at their response to learning of my mistake.  Some of these people were very close to me not too long ago and their reactions hurt me deeply.  But rather than staying in the muck of negativity, I decided to refocus my mental energy elsewhere on positive thoughts and emotions.  So when you encounter these people, just know that they are not important and their reactions are even less important.  When you encounter these people and you will, please be encouraged that it is not other peoples’ opinions (or two-cents) that are important and these people and their reactions to your mistakes should not be the reason that you choose not to try.  Rather, let them be fuel to the fire of change within you.  Get busy moving forward and do not give up.  For as Roosevelt said so eloquently, “the credit belongs to those who are actuallly in the arena who face is marred by dust and sweat…but who (continue to) strive valiantly….”

I love you all…..

(adapted and modified from a segment on The Today Show 12/30/11)

Create A Plan

-1st off and foremost, empty out your fridge today!  -  Do not eat any junk or leftover holiday food.  Clean out the fridge, give away the food that you can and throw out the rest.  Start from scratch with good wholesome nutritious foods, make a pact to drastically cut back on processed foods.

-Set and follow a structured eating plan -  Studies have shown that following a structured eating plan improves long-term weight loss success.  This is one reason why programs like P90X, TurboFire, Ten Minute Trainer, Power 90, and Insanity have such a high success rate; they all come with nutrition plans that were designed by a nutritionist to meet the specific needs of a person doing that particular workout.  The plans are easy to follow once you start planning and following them and the food choices are great!

-Buy a scale and weigh yourself regularly but not obsessively.   It is important to keep track of your progress but remember that the # on the scale is just one aspect of the BIG picture.  Do not get too obsessed with that # as it will fluctuate and it is only a #.   Then when you achieve small and large milestones CELEBRATE them!    I am celebrating the success of a good friend Stephanie Fenton who has lost nearly 30 lbs since August (2011) by traveling with her to LA to run the Rose Bowl 10K next month.  What a healthy way to celebrate with her!!

-Get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night.  Research has shown many reasons why this is critical to weight loss, a few of which are:  1) getting adequate rest gives your body a chance to replenish itself with neurotransmitters including Dopamine and Serotonin which are critical in regulating mood, sleep, and appetite.  2) research has also shown that losing sleep leads to an increase in the production of the body’s “stress hormone,” cortisol.  Cortisol has been linked to increased “belly fat,” which is the type of fat that has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and other bad health issues.  and 3)  Research has shown that people who are tired often mistake fatigue for hunger and often eat out of boredom or because they feel sluggish and want to get a quick pick me up -including sugar laden snacks that are so harmful to our health.

Revamp Your Eating

-Eat Breakfast every day.  Starting your day with a healthy breakfast will jumpstart your metabolism, plus, it will help keep you from binge eating later in the day.  Try to include some lean protein with your breakfast and if you eat carbs, try to eat whole grain carbs and eat them earlier in the day so that your body can convert them to energy for you to use during the day rather than eating carbs at night and having them converted to energy that is not used and thus is stored overnight as fat while you sleep – an example of a healthy breakfast that i enjoy pretty often is greek yogurt, with fresh berries and  (Bare Naked) FIT granola on top. I also enjoy eating an egg white omelet (2 or 3 egg whites mixed with 1 whole egg) along with whole grain oatmeal with berries on top.

-Try meal replacements -  Natural snack bars like Larabar and Clif bars (etc) are great as snacks but be sure to watch the sugar and carb content -  you want to keep these low if you are trying to lose weight -  Also meal replacement shakes are great too.  This is why I love Shakeology and why I drink it every day.  It helped me to lose that last 10 lbs that just would not come off two years ago after two full rounds of P90X, and it has helped me to keep that weight off since then.  Not to mention that after adding it to my daily eating ritual, I was able to come of all the medications I was taking for Crohn’s Disease.  Now I cannot say that it cured me, but what I can say is  that when I drink it I feel better and before I started drinking it, I was taking 12 pills a day.  Diet AND Exercise/Fitness = Success

-Swap (processed) carbs for veggies and fruit      -  Pretty simple stuff.

-Cut out or drastically limit alcohol intake.  Did you know that alcohol has nearly as many calories per gram as  fat?  That’s right alcohol has 7 calories per gram while fat has 9 calories per gram.  Also, alcohol inhibits fat burning in the body as it is the first fuel to be burned.  It is burned before the body turns to fat.  So while the body is metabolizing alcohol your fat burning is postponed.  Finally, alcohol prevents REM sleep, which is the “deep sleep” necessary for the body to build muscle, repair muscle, and heal itself.

-Eat at home.  This way you can control what you eat and what is in what you eat.   If you must eat out, plan ahead.  use reference books like “Eat this Not That,” and access online menus to plan out what you will order. And when you order, ask the waiter to box up half the order before bringing it to the table.  This will prevent you from overeating.

Boost Your Exercise Efficiency  

-Add Interval training to your fitness routine.  This is why programs like Insanity and TurboFire are so successful because they are built on the concept of interval training.  Research has shown that interval training, such as that in TurboFire (High Intensity Interval Training) burns calories and fat up to 9 X’s longer than standard cardio.  So after finishing an interval workout, your body will continue to burn fat and your metabolism will stay elevated whereas after standard cardio your body typically goes back to homeostasis rather quickly, meaning you burn less fat after the workout.

-Use spot exercise to work on problem areas.   This will make you feel better.  Although you have to burn fat to see muscle definition, by building muscle in “spot” areas when the weight comes off, you will more quickly see the definition.  Plus, you will feel better about yourself along the way.

-Be a mindful mover.   Look for opportunities to add extra steps and movement to your day.  Park farther away, take the steps rather than the elevator.  All things you’ve heard before really do work.

-Play fast music to move faster and get more out of your workout and daily activities.  Play fast music during workouts, while cleaning the house, and while moving about on foot throughout the day

Establish a Support Network

–Get a “diet buddy” who has the same goals or is doing similar activity or program as you.   Challenge Groups are one option.

-Join a group to stay motivated.  Find a group through Meetup.com with similar physical activity goals or interests (e.g. running, hiking, bowling, triathlete, etc) and get involved to meet people who can help keep you accountable and motivated.  Or come out to our free weekly workout groups – Fit Clubs that meet each week around the country.  I have one that meets on Wed nights at 7 pm here in Charlotte.  For more info visit this link.  Or if you are not in the Charlotte area, contact me by email or text and i will help you find one near where you live and  I will also help you get in touch with the person who is in charge of the Fit Club so that you can feel comfortable when you attend your first few times.

–Online support groups help when time is limited.  SparkPeople.com, Livestrong.com, and weightwatchers.com are several options

–Outside support helps after a diet or fitness lapse.  Helps you get back up and not give up on yourself.  We all have times that we fall off the wagon, so to speak.  Heck I took a “break” for most of December, going the longest length of time without working out that I have been in the past 3 years.  The important thing is that I did not allow that setback or apathy about my health and fitness to creep in and keep me from starting back this new year!  This is key.   Never give up.  You can always make positive changes.

So these were the basic suggestions for kick starting your diet and improving your health in 2012.  With several days of this new year already gone, I challenge you to get serious about getting healthy by picking out one or two (or more) of these tips to get started with over the course of the next few days…to weeks.

And if you are interested in learning more about Beachbody programs like P90X, Insanity, etc or if you are curious and would like to try Shakeology before you buy (I offer free samples, if interested let me know) or if you are interested in learning more about the challenge groups I run (I have one with a few spots still available that will begin on Jan. 15)  please contact me, send me an email or shoot me a text and let me help you get started.  I would love to help you!  I would also love to coach you through your transformation.  I provide individualized coaching (support, motivation, expertise, guidance, help with nutrition and meal planning) COMPLEMENTARY if you decide to purchase through my website here or shop over at shannonlutz.com.  Let’s get serious about getting healthy this year!!!  Just for reference as some of you might not know me or be familiar with my story, here is my before picture taken in January 2009 and after which was taken 15 months later in April 2010.

For those of you who have been following the blog the past year, you may have noticed that my blog posts have dropped off over the past few months, and it is now quite rare if to find an updated post on here at all.   There’s a long story and a few key reasons for this decline to oblivion, which I will elaborate on shortly.    But I want to start things off this way.  I stumbled across the quote this morning as I was trying to find something to write about here on the blog.  It has been so long that I often don’t know where to begin….and so I just don’t write.  I started to reflect on this and it hit me pretty hard that it is this way in many areas of my life:  where I get out of the habit of doing something for whatever reason, allowing time to pass without doing it and before I know it complacency has set in and I just don’t do it.  I thought further about this and it dawned on me that I have basically been complacent for the last half of this year, but it all started very gradually with a decision I made on day that probably was not a “good day.”  And it was the decision to give myself a break from working out for whatever reason I had that day.  Now, I don’t remember the exact day or the exact reason that I did not want to work out but it came and it went…and before I knew it several more days came and went until I woke up and I was miserable, disgusted, and just plain apathetic about it all.  And then before much longer it became the way I felt about life.  I just didn’t care.

So why is the quote noteworthy to me today?  Because it represents exactly how I feel about 2011 and it reflects my attitude towards next year and for that matter the rest of this year.  If I don’t want to have another 2011 I must take the steps and make the decisions (no matter how little or trivial they may seem at the time) to make 2012 different and happier and healthier.  If it is to be, it’s up to me.  I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about the direction I want to go in life and where I want my life to be this time in 6 months, a year, 5 years, etc.  And this is a question that I encourage all of you to consider as well.  As 2011 draws to close, think about this past year – the good, the bad, everything – and think about where you want to go in the next year or few years and then take a good hard look at the decisions you make (and have made) on a daily basis and ask yourself if these decisions are moving you toward your goals and dreams or away from them.

For me, I was miserable.  I had allowed one small decision not to take care of my health by working out turn into six months of sporadic workouts, social isolation, daily drinking by myself, and not eating healthy.  Now for me not eating healthy means NOT EATING at all.  I abuse my body and punish myself by denying myself nourishment when I am not working out and when I am not well emotionally.   So that is where I was until about 3 weeks ago when a couple true friends helped me see that I need to take control of my emotions , my health, and my life again.  I WOKE UP.   And I realized that the one small decision I made way back when had turned into a series of decisions I was making each and every day and these decisions were taking me away from the life I want.  So I decided to make different a different and very hard decision that day 3 weeks ago.  I decided to spend some money on groceries, pull out the nutrition plan that was written for me in 2008, and start pressing play on my workouts again.  I didn’t want to do these things and I still fight with myself about making the healthier decision every day but I knew that I had to do things differently if I want next year to be different.  The same is true for Tiger Woods and for many other people.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am not promoting or agreeing with the things that Tiger has done in the past few years, things that have hurt many people.  That is not my point here, just as it is never my point in writing these blog posts.  My point is that we can all change our lives but we have to make the decision(s) to do it.  We can either choose to do things that move us toward happiness and health or we can choose to make decisions that don’t.  And for me, I’ve had just about enough of the way I’ve been in 2011.  This was not a good year.  I want next year to be different.  So I am doing it.  I am changing my life starting today, and I encourage all of you who want the same thing to join me on this journey.  Two is better than one and four is better than two as Teddy Ruxpin used to say when I was a child.  Join me in taking control of our lives and encouraging and challenging each other to stay the course this next year because there will be times when we want to give up or we want to be lazy and there will be days when we convince ourselves that we don’t have to work out, or we don’t have to eat healthy, or we don’t have to go to work, or we don’t have to be nice and help the person behind us in line at the store, or we don’t have to smile at the stranger on the street.  There will be those tiny little moments when we have the choice to let apathy re-enter our lives and in the moment the decision will present itself as “just this one time.”   But it is in that moment that we must step forward and make the tough decision to continue to move life forward no matter how mundane the decision in front of us appears.  We must always strive to move forward and by doing so we shall gain the confidence we need to be our best selves.

It’s a health and fitness transformation competition. Commit to get fit and share the results you achieve with any Beachbody^® program. You’ll automatically get a free wristband, a free T-shirt, or BOTH! If your transformation is selected as the BEST in your age and gender category (18 – 29, 30 – 39, 40 – 49, 50+) you could win up to $100,000! Ready to win?

I will be personally coaching Challenge Teams made up of five individuals that are taking the Beachbody Challenge.  Please CONTACT ME if you are interested in participating with one of these teams.  I will send you all the details.  If you already have a fitness program in mind, let me know that as well.  I’m going to try and pair people together that are doing the same program.  People in this Challenge Team Groups will commit to:

• Following a Beachbody fitness program
• Drinking Shakeology on a daily basis
• Learning basic nutritional theory and eating to fuel your body for workouts and recovery
• Posting daily accountability in a private Facebook group viewable only by members of your Challenge Team
• FINISHING!  This isn’t about starting, it is about finishing!

You do not need to be on a Challenge Team to participate in the Beachbody Challenge.  The Challenge is open to everyone.  What I am offering with the Challenge Teams is an added measure of accountability and personal coaching.   The concept of Challenge Teams is not new  as research  shows that the people participating have much better odds of success.

Here’s how to enter:

STEP 1: COMMIT TO GET FIT — get a FREE WRISTBAND

Tell me which fitness program you plan to follow, state your goals, and start tracking your progress. You’ll want to take a “before” photo to remember what you looked like and submit your results when you’re finished. For making this simple commitment, I’ll send you a FREE WRISTBAND.
(It’s okay to skip step 1 if you’re already in shape and want to submit your fitness results.)

STEP 2: SUBMIT YOUR RESULTS — get a FREE T-SHIRT

Got results from your Beachbody program? It’s time to submit your transformation story. Send me your “before” and “after” photos, transformation stats, and tell me your story. I’ll give you a FREE T-SHIRT and you’ll have a chance to win additional prizes.

YOU CAN WIN up to $100,000!

If your entry is selected as the top transformation in your age and gender category for the month in which you entered, you’ll win $1,000 and a shot at the Grand Prize.

Plus you’ll have a chance to win:

• Daily Prizes: $500 just for logging your workouts in the WOWY SuperGym^® after you commit to get fit or submit your results.
• Quarterly Prizes: $5,000 and an expenses-paid trip
• Bonus prizes for drinking Shakeology^® during your transformation.

Ready to WIN? Enter now.

Shakeology and P90X

The whole Beachbody^® community is buzzing about Shakeology^® and all the great health benefits it provides. Now Steve Edwards answers your questions about how best to incorporate Shakeology into your P90X^® regimen.

Can Shakeology replace one of my meals in the P90X nutrition plan?

I’d hope so, given that it’s a meal replacement shake! But seriously, Xers do have a different nutritional equation to consider than most other people do. Generally, meal replacement shakes are designed so you drink one of them instead of eating a meal to help you lose weight. Of course, Shakeology fits into this mold just fine. In fact, given how nutrient-dense it is, I’d say it’s better than anything on the market. And even though it contains an entire day’s worth of many nutrients, it’s still only 140 to 150 calories.

Aren’t most of the meals in the P90X nutrition plan in the 400 to 500 calorie range?

Exactly. And it won’t serve the average Xer well to cut out calories. This is because as you get fitter, your nutritional requirements change along with your body composition. When you first start to exercise, you can lose weight just by restricting your caloric intake. But as you gain muscle, you need to eat more to continue losing weight, and this is often a lot more than you ate when you first began losing weight—sometimes it’s more than double. If you eat too little during P90X, your weight loss can plateau, along with your ability to do the workouts.

This is why we give you a lot of smoothie recipes and options. Shakeology, like many other meal replacement shakes, can be a component of something larger. For meals, we suggest adding more calories from healthy fat sources, like nut butters (almonds, cashews, etc.), along with more standard smoothie-like ingredients, like fruit. Doing this not only brings your calories into line with your diet plan, but also helps you balance your meals so they digest more slowly, like ordinary meals generally do.

I’m doing the portion approach in P90X. What block(s) could Shakeology replace?

The portion plan is basically little chunks of macronutrients portioned out to help you easily balance your diet. Shakeology is equal parts carbs and protein, with almost no fat. So Shakeology can replace one block of protein and one block of carbs.

Can Shakeology replace one of the snacks in the P90X nutrition plan?

Shakeology is an incredibly nutrient-rich snack, a perfect snack for Xers. Again, because it doesn’t have much fat, its nutrients are put to use very quickly by your body. This makes it an ideal pick-me-up snack when you’re on the go. It’s better, in fact, than a lot of energy drinks. While something like Red Bull^® might give you more up-front punch, Shakeology will give you sustained energy because it’s providing nutrients your body needs to get things done, and it has a low glycemic impact, which helps keep blood sugar levels stable.

Shakeology’s macronutrient ratio splits the difference among sports drink, protein shake, and recovery drink, but it can substitute for any or all of them, because it also has an excellent micronutrient profile. Most people are focused only on macronutrients (proteins, fats, and carbs), but macronutrients are only part of your nutritional equation. Micronutrients are things like phytonutrients, adaptogens, and other scientific-sounding stuff. While we refer to these as “micro,” nutritionally, they’re anything but small. Many of them are absolutely essential for a healthy life. Shakeology speeds these micronutrients into your system, which enables you to perform better.

Why don’t we hear more about the importance of micronutrients?

Not to dwell too much on conspiracy theories, but “Big Food,” as we call the American food industry, doesn’t want us focusing on micronutrients because most of them have been destroyed in many of the foods we eat, killed by things like processing and pasteurization. These processed foods are then sprinkled with what have been lobbied to be “important” ingredients, but which in reality barely provide enough nutrition for basic survival, as opposed to thriving. As you can observe by watching the American population grow “larger,” this is leading to all sorts of problems.

In nature, of course, food doesn’t come packaged and processed and robbed of vital nutrients that make it good for us. It has a balance of nutrients that help sustain life. It’s possible for food scientists to recreate this balance in processed foods, but this is expensive. Essentially, if it doesn’t fit the numbers, shareholders don’t want to see it happen. So the Big Food corporations make cheap food and keep us in the dark about nutrition. This is exactly why we’re in the predicament we’re in today, with obesity and poor health, because it’s much cheaper to make calorie-rich, nutrient-poor food than it is to produce natural food.

This is why Shakeology has been designed the way it has. There isn’t any one food in nature that has all the micronutrients we need to fill the nutritional gaps in our diets—that’s why we need to eat a variety of foods. But most of us don’t do that. So at its core, this is what Shakeology is doing—filling in our nutritional gaps.

Can Shakeology substitute for P90X^® Results and Recovery Formula^®?

It’s not an exact swap, but you could do a lot worse. When you’re training very hard, like those times when your body is shaking—during, say, P90X Chest & Back—Results and Recovery Formula is better because your body is “bonking”; it’s essentially run out of glycogen, or blood sugar. Any time you’re in this state, the more quickly you can recharge your glycogen, the less damage you’ll do to your muscle cells, and the faster you’ll recover. It’s the one and only time sugar is a preferred nutrient in your diet.

Shakeology doesn’t have nearly as much sugar as Results and Recovery Formula does. Shakeology only has a little, for nutrient transport. But because Shakeology’s other ingredients also support your digestive processes, it helps you assimilate nutrients more rapidly. The latest science showing that a small amount of protein can “piggyback” on sugar, helping your body put the protein to use more rapidly, during or after exercise, holds true for Shakeology. It’s not as effective as a Results and Recovery Formula for your hardest workouts, but at any other time, it’s pretty darn good.

How’s Shakeology as a protein shake?

Shakeology has an ample amount of protein. While many protein shakes on the market may have more grams of protein, the type of protein they use often digests so slowly you can’t drink them when you’re active. Shakeology uses whey protein, which is one of the most (if not the most) bioavailable sources of protein. That means it absorbs more quickly into the system than other proteins do. Most proteins, especially when you get them in a whole food, take forever to digest. This means that eating protein right before, during, or right after exercise is generally a waste, because your body is using energy to digest something that won’t help you for hours, energy that it could be using to enhance your workout or recovery. But when you combine whey protein along with Shakeology’s other nutrients, you have a high-protein shake that can fit into many different nutritional slots in your day, something a standard protein drink can’t do.

Should I still bother taking P90X^® Peak Health Formula or ActiVit^® multivitamins if I’m drinking Shakeology every day?

We get the vitamin question a lot, because Shakeology has so many vitamins in it already. However, using my previous example involving processed foods, on any given day, most of us only get a fraction of the nutrients we should be consuming, even when we’re eating more calories than we should. This is exactly why we have vitamin supplements in the first place. Throw exercise into the equation, which accelerates your body’s usage of nutrients, and you can see why we recommend so many times the recommended daily allowance* (RDA) for certain vitamins and minerals.

For an average person, Shakeology might eliminate the need for a multivitamin. But if you remember the movie Supersize Me, you may recall that the average American takes about 600 steps a day—which isn’t even your warm-up for a P90X workout! No one doing a Beachbody program is average. Xers, especially, are advised to take additional vitamin supplements.

It’s also great to take your supplements along with Shakeology because they’ll digest more easily with help from Shakeology’s digestive enzymes and whole-food sources of nutrients. One of the limiting factors with supplements is how well (or not so well) your body can assimilate them. Adding them to something you know your digestive system can break down easily is a plus.

It’s important to mention two other variables here as well. First, many—if not most—of our customers are trying to lose weight. This requires reducing caloric intake while adding exercise, which increases nutrient requirements. Starting to see an equation where multivitamins and supplements make sense? The body can be a complex organism, but this comes down to simple math. The key to losing weight isn’t just reducing calories; it’s also finding a way to reduce your caloric intake and still get enough nutrients to keep you body functioning at its highest level. To do this, you need to seek out nutrient-dense foods. As I said before, you’d be hard-pressed to find something else that’s as nutrient-dense as Shakeology.

Then there’s the RDA, which is the “recommended daily allowance” for everybody. Imagine one nutritional number for every person on the planet, from a 100-pound computer programmer who sits all day to a 350-pound NFL lineman. How absurd is that? Anybody who’s doing P90X is no longer an average individual. So chances are the RDA won’t fit the bill if you want your body to perform as well as it can.

When’s the best time to drink Shakeology during a P90X day?

One of the beautiful things about Shakeology is how versatile it is. Because it helps you digest anything you consume along with it, there isn’t really a wrong time to have it. Ideally, its best slot in an Xer’s day is as a pre-workout snack, taken about 1 hour prior to your warm-up. Then your workout will help you get the most out of Shakeology, and the Shakeology will help you during the latter part of your workout, especially if your glycogen stores have been depleted slightly. Shakeology can also be effective pre-workout, post-workout, or any time during the day when your energy’s flagging and you need a pick-me-up. Or you can make Shakeology smoothies and simply replace your meals. Basically, you can’t go wrong.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about Shakeology?

Price holds a lot of people back, and I can understand that on the surface, Shakeology might look expensive. We tend to look at foods in a cost-to-calorie ratio, instead of a cost-to-nutrient ratio. Sure, you can buy a Big Gulp^® and you get 800 calories for a dollar (or something like that). But what good are they? There are no micronutrients. They’re full of man-made sugar, chemicals, and the by-products of genetically modified corn and soy production—no nutrition whatsoever. Whereas if you tried to assemble all the nutrients in Shakeology independently, you’d have to spend 40 bucks.

If you’re serious about your health, you should consider what you spend your money on. People drop 3 to 4 bucks a day on things that are a detriment to their health without batting an eye. We’re talking the retail price of a latte or a smoothie, or any number of things that are even less healthy. The consumer is essentially at war with a bunch of corporations that seem to be trying to poison them to make a quick buck. The obesity trend will only end when we take some responsibility for our health and begin to make better food choices.

If you have any questions about Shakeology, please use our helpful Shakeology FAQ page at faq.shakeology.com.

“You all create so many problems…..I mean, I hate to start on this, but when guys are going out for the draft that shouldn’t even be thinking about that right now. Whether we’re worrying about the Heisman Trophy, and now we’re worried about playing Missouri rather than Tennessee somewhere down the road.  I mean, come on. Let’s talk about the game. “  Nick Saban

So many times in life, we create problems that don’t exist.  For whatever reason we decide to focus on things in the future over which we have no control at the present time, and by doing so allow ourselves to sit idle, plagued by worry and stifled by inaction.  I think the point Nick Saban is trying to make is a good one for us all today.  To live a full life, to really change things for ourselves and others, to have the life (or in the case of Saban, the season we want) we must worrying about things we cannot control and we must quit allowing thoughts of the future to impede our willingness to think about and plan for what we do have control over, which is this moment RIGHT NOW.  Do not get me wrong it is important to think about and plan for the future but all too often we are not just thinking and planning, we are creating excuses and trying to find reasons not to take action today.  We are looking for the easy way out, or making excuses in our head why today is not the day to make that change to improve our life.

Folks, today is all we have.  Have goals for the future, yes,  and dream and plan on how to achieve these goals but more importantly, TAKE ACTION TODAY to get the ball rolling towards your dreams and goals.  I don’t know about you but I am just as guilty as the next person of allowing anxiety and worry to stop me from taking action and I am just as guilty as the next person of “planning and planning and planning” and never taking action.  Looking back on my life these past few months, I have been the ultimate planner and dreamer, I have sought out perfection and wanted everything to be just right BEFORE I took action and moved things forward towards my dreams and goals.  But I have also called myself “working” when all I was really doing was listening to teaching from others (while  not applying it), or while all I was really doing was making lists and writing down goals but not following through.   Well this has gotten me nowhere.  In fact, I am in the same place I have been for the past nearly year because of this faulty logic  and this refusal to step out of my comfort zone, risk failure, and take action.  I share this with you because I need you guys to know that I am not perfect, things are not always sunshine and roses and my follow through is not always what it should be, I also share this with you to encourage you – that if you are like me in any way and if you struggle with anxiety and worry and inaction in any area of your life it is not too late.  You, like me, can make a decision today, to start taking action.  To plan for the future but live in the present.  And to create the life of your dreams.  It all starts today.  Will you join me?

WHAT IF? 

I took this blog post directly from a website and author/blogger that I have been following through daily emails and rss feeds.  You can check him out over at http://chrisguillebeau.com.  Amazing guy with an amazing story!  Check him out.  Today’s blog was simply amazing and super inspirational!!  I am re-posting directly as he posted.  These are his exact words.  This is his exact blog post today! This is taken from and can be found here.   Just for clarification -  I did not write any of the words that follow in the box.  Chris Guillebeau did.  I couldn’t have said it any better so I didn’t rewrite it.  However, it is his blog post – I am just sharing it with you!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

When I met the young and ambitious Nate Damm in Portland, Maine (AKA “East Coast Portland”) in September 2010, he told me about his plan to walk across America.

Wow. Really? The whole country?

It sounded incredible… so incredible that I couldn’t really get my head around it. At the time, I was just beginning my own cross-country journey, visiting all 50 states during the Unconventional Book Tour. I thought that trip was an adventurous one, but at least I didn’t have to WALK everywhere.

Fast forward more than a year, and Nate kept his word. This weekend, Nate finished the epic journey in San Francisco. After starting in early spring to plan for weather patterns throughout the country, the trek took him more than six months and several pairs of shoes.

I expect he’ll share more about the trip in his own time, and I’m sure his insights will be much more valuable than mine. But as an observer, the first thing I think about a trip like this is that it requires strong internal motivation. The big question is “Why do this?”

Here’s how Nate answers it in his own words:

First, I want to see America in the most slow and mindful way possible. I am also craving adventure and want to test my ability to handle tough and uncertain situations. A cross-country walk has long been a dream of mine, and it’s about time I do something about it.

I also want to (hopefully) inspire people to pursue big dreams of their own. The last thing anyone wants to do is get to the end of their life and wonder, “What if?”

As of 3pm on Saturday, the journey came to an end. Congratulations to Nate! He walked more than 3,400 miles, most of them by himself, many of them waaaay across the midwest, and finally through the Nevada and California desert.

You can join me in saying “well done” to Nate by leaving a comment on this post or over here on his site. When he’s not sleeping, he’ll probably stop in to say hi at both places.

And Think About This

When I hear stories like Nate’s, it reminds me of this quote from Mark Twain: “They didn’t know it was impossible, so they did it.”

Nate undertook this quest because he wanted to challenge himself and avoid later regrets. What are you doing about YOUR dreams? How will you ensure you don’t look back later and say “What if?”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

So my question for you today is What If?  What if…you dreamed BIG, you took RISKS, you were willing to FAIL, you took responsibility for YOUR LIFE, you made different CHOICES, you stepped out of your COMFORT ZONE, you stopped MAKING EXCUSES, you CHOSE GREATNESS over mediocrity?  What if…just what if?

After 13 years & 200 innings IP…….Randy Wolf now has the onus off his back.  He is no longer the big league pitcher with the “most career regular season starts w/o a postseason win.”  (among active pitchers only)

Until last night, his career postseason ERA was 9.00 and the last time he took the mound he threw  3 innings, allowing 8 H & 7 R in a game he described as “the most miserable game I’ve ever pitched.”

Last night in a game where nearly everything was on the line for Milwaukee, with their backs to the wall and lagging behind 2-1 in the NLCS, Randy Wolf finally recorded his first postseason win.

Stat line 7 IP, 2 ER, BB, 6 K – but most impressive is the manner in which he did it.

After allowing 2 opposite field HR right out of the gate (1 in 2^nd inning & 1 in the 3^rd,) and refusing to let that rattle him, he refocused, kept things in perspective, and did his job, throwing pitch after pitch after pitch as strikes -In fact, he threw a first pitch strike to 17 of the 29 hitters he faced;  only 2 batters he faced reached base, and he only ran one 2 – 0 count and one 3 – 0 count all night.  COMPLETE AND UTTER DOMINANCE!!!!

So one week made all the difference, right?   WRONG!!!

Randy Wolf is a veteran who has been pitching for 13 years.  He knows how to do his job; he knows what it takes to be successful and he has experienced failure on many occasions.  What changed for him in a week was…….NOTHING.  He went out and did his job.  He prepared beforehand just like he always does.  He didn’t allow failure to derail him or psyche him out.  Not that it didn’t bother him how that game in the desert went.  He admitted that he got home from AZ and wallowed in disappointment for one day.  ONE DAY and ONE DAY ONLY.    Wolf related, “I didn’t eat or shower that day (the day following his terrible outing in AZ).  I don’t know if they call that depression, but it was tough to swallow.”

But after that one day, he got up, put on his big boy pants and went back to work, focusing on the fundamentals, practicing tirelessly, and most importantly getting his mind right for his next start, which he knew would come if his team was able to make it far enough in the series against the Cardinals.  He didn’t allow fear to seep in nor did he cower at the prospect of his next start.  No he looked forward to it.  As Hairston put it, he was “itching to get back on that mound.”  So when he suited up last night, the past was solidly behind him, he had learned what he could from it, and put it out of his mind.  And  b/c of his preparation and mental toughness, he went out and obliterated the Cardinals’ line up.

He was FOCUSED, PHYSICALLY PREPARED, MENTALLY SOUND, AND DRIVEN TO SUCCEED.  And succeed he did!  Congrats to Randy Wolf on his 1^st career postseason win!  Thanks for the example you set for the rest of us on how not to give up and how to “Fail Forward.”

The Top 10 Questions About P90X2™

By Steve Edwards

What’s the difference between P90X^® and P90X2^™? This is the question of the year, and it can’t be answered in one simple sentence, or even one article. So I’ve written this series to help you decide whether or not P90X2 is the program for you. I wish I could tell all of you that P90X2 is right for you, but I’m too responsible for that. I’m sure one program in Beachbody’s huge collection will work for each of you, but if you want to know specifically whether that right one is P90X2, read on.

1. Is P90X2 better than P90X? How can you beat the most popular workout program in the country? You can’t. P90X2 is an extension of P90X. It’s not necessarily better, but it’s definitely evolved. For a more in-depth look at its development, read the first article in this series.
2. Is it more Muscle Confusion^™? You betcha! If you thought your muscles were confused last time around, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
3. Is it harder? Remember the first time you did P90X? Could anything feel harder than that? Probably not. So while P90X2 isn’t technically harder, it’s probably going to feel harder until you get used to it. And since it’s Muscle Confusion, it’s going to take you some time to adapt. During this adaptation period, it’s going to feel very difficult, but you’re used to that, right? And when you take your X2 body back to another round of P90X, that program’s going to feel harder too, because you’ll be prepared to push yourself farther than ever before.
4. Is it still 6 days per week? No, it’s only 5, though we suggest active recovery on your rest days. The more intensely you work out, the less time you need to spend doing it. With more breakdown, you also need more rest. P90X2 has evolved to the point where less is more.
5. Will there be options like Lean and Doubles? Instead of giving you different program options, P90X2 gives you the option of increasing each phase long enough to get the most out of it. If you’re having trouble with your balance, you may decide to spend more time in Phase One. For bigger muscles, spend more time in Phase Two. Want to get faster, jump higher, or become more agile? Spend more time mastering Phase Three. You’ll definitely want to read the guidebook, because it provides ideas for how to tailor your training personally for you (and much more). In P90X, we made the most versatile home fitness program ever created. P90X2 will open up even more options.
6. Is it true that there’s no cardio? Here’s a little secret: There was no true cardio in P90X, either. At least not in the kind of training generally associated with that word. P90X used anaerobic interval training to improve your cardiovascular system; although it’s technically cardio, it isn’t the public perception of cardio. “Cardio” is a training colloquialism for training your heart. So while you won’t see any cardio in the title names, doing Plyocide or P.A.P. Lower will train your cardiovascular system as well as any cardio routine you’ve ever done.
7. Will I need any new equipment? There’s a lot of new equipment for P90X2, and you’ll eventually want to own all of it. But the cool thing is that we’ve created an option that can be done with nothing but a few exercise bands and furniture found in any hotel room. This “hotel room” option virtually eliminates excuses for not working out.
8. So what is this equipment? Here’s a list of the equipment needed, which we’ll go into in detail in a later article. Did I say “needed”? It’s not, really. Besides the hotel room option, we also do most movements in a variety of ways to make it easy to add equipment as you can afford it. Here’s a prioritized list:
   • Bands and/or weights: You need some form of resistance.
   • Pull-up bar: Just like P90X.
   • Yoga mat: You must have one of these by now, right?
   • Stability ball: We highly recommend this, because the benefits outweigh the cost many times over . . . and over.
   • Foam roller: You may not have heard of this before, but don’t be surprised if it
     changes your life.
   • Push-up stands: You know ‘em. You love ‘em. How come you don’t already have them?
   • Medicine balls: Mainly used for balance, so easily replaced with substitutes (basketballs, etc.) if need be, though once you’ve used the real thing you’ll wonder why you ever waited to buy them.
   • Pull-up assist: While highly optional (we got away with chairs all these years), the pull-up assist will not only improve your ability to finish all your reps, it’ll greatly improve both your form and exercise efficiency.
   • Yoga blocks: If you need these, you probably have them already.
9. Foam rolling? What the?! Foam rolling is a myofascial release technique. Hmm . . . not much help? Okay, how about this? It’s a form of self-massage that forces your muscles to lengthen and align properly. Used regularly, it’ll increase your mobility and range of motion and actually help you get stronger, because it frees your muscles to work the way they’re supposed to. This one simple practice is often enough to change your alignment and allow you to move freer and easier.
10. How has the diet plan changed? For P90X2, the diet has evolved along with the exercise plan. Not that there was anything wrong with the old one, but we’ve been listening to your suggestions, and we’ve revamped the diet guide to give you more options on what to eat, how to increase effectiveness, and how to simplify the entire eating process. This subject is more than we can cover here, so the X2 nutrition plan is the topic of next week’s P90X2 article.