Starting 2012, I am in the worst shape I have been in a few years. The feeling in my belly is horrible. The extra weight in my thighs is literally weighing me down. Although I have not seen my weight increase much, I know that I am totally out of shape because of the way I feel and my lack of tone. This is going to be the year that I change my life! When I am fit, and eating right, it not only helps my children but also my husband as well. With that said, here are my starting stats:

Starting Stats:
Age – 30
Height – 5′ 0″
Weight – 103 pounds
Waist – 25″
Belly – 29 1/2″
Hips – 32″
Butt – 36″
Thigh – 19.75″
Arm – 9.5″
Chest – 30.5″

Plan my food – I would like to have everything I eat planned, including my cheat meals. I need to take the time before to help make sure I am making supportive choices for my body. This also takes the “What are we having for dinner” stress, and eliminates it.

Muscle tone – I want to look in the mirror, and see the tone of my muscle. Right now, I look and see where I am getting fatter, and I don’t want to feel that anymore. I want to feel good about my body when I look in the mirror, and seeing muscle tone always helps. I also want my legs to feel tones again. There are two places that I gain fat first and that is my tummy and my legs. My legs feel so heavy right now, I can’t even stand the feeling of running up the stairs.

Clothing – I want to fit comfortably into my clothing, and not have to suck in to zip or button anything. I have nothing right now that fits me like it should, and I am looking forward to the day where I feel good in my clothing.

Food Log – Logging what I am eating always helps me see if I am staying on track or not. I also seems to hurt a little more when you have to write it down.

Its time to get it done, and reach my goals for once. I am thankful for FYM and am honored to be a part of the 2012 NYTC challenge.

So, what I found that I need is accountability and a community of people to support me, and help hold me accountable. I had this for a while, but drifted away because I “didn’t have the money”. Now looking back, I made a huge mistake.

I have now re-joined Club FYM (Fit Yummy Mummy). This is a site full of community, accountability, and loaded with more information than I could ever need to be successful.

Now, Club FYM is a wonderful thing to join, but sorry guys, it is for ladies only

If you are a male, and are looking for something just like what I mentioned, check out Turbulence Training. This site has all of the great things that Club FYM has, but is for men and women.

So, will you join me in changing your life in 2011??  What do you have to lose?

Ladies, check out Club FYM

Ladies or Men, check out Turbulence Training

Tony - Before - Front

Tony - Before - Rear

Tony - Before - Left Side

Tony - Before - Right Side

Please follow me and see how I am doing.  If you would like to join me in the challenge, go to London Personal Training Studio

Check out what John had to say on one of his latest newsletters.

My Quest For The Perfect Shake

by John M Berardi, April 28th, 2010.

My good friends know that I’ve spent years on a very specific nutrition quest. The quest for the perfect protein shake.

Now, to those of you who don’t drink protein shakes, that probably seems pretty strange. And that’s OK, I totally understand. There’s probably a bunch of stuff you do that I’d consider strange.

However, I’ve been working out and using protein supplements for the last 20 years of my life. During these 20 years, I’ve probably averaged 1 protein shake a day. (Heck, that might even be a conservative estimate).

So, at minimum, according to my rudimentary math, I’ve consumed over 7,300 protein shakes in my life. Is it any surprise I’ve made it my mission to find the perfect, tastiest shake?

My Secret Weapon

During this quest of mine, I’ve destroyed many a blender. Indeed, because I like my shakes thick (often so thick I can eat them with a spoon), I’ve blown through, on average, one blender a year.

In fact, I even have a small blender graveyard where I’ve retired some of my favorites. Just in case I’m feeling sentimental and want to pull one out for old time’s sake

Now, for the last 2 years, my blender of choice has been the Magic Bullet. It’s got several advantages: inexpensive, small, portable, and very easy to clean. It’s pretty powerful too.

However, on the disadvantage side, I’ve had to replace my Bullet every 6 months or so. It just wears out too quickly. In addition, it doesn’t let me make large shakes, for when I’m wanting to pack in the calories, or for when I want to share with friends.

That’s why I recently decided to invest in a new device: the highly acclaimed Vita-Mix.

Now, I use the word “invest” instead of “buy” because, when you pick up a Vita-Mix, you have to look at it as an investment in your future of blending and food processing.  Mostly because the thing costs a whopping $400 – $600 (depending on the model you choose).  And that’s around 10x the price of a Magic Bullet.

However, there are a good reasons for the big price tag.  For starters, the Vita-Mix is the most powerful blender around.

Ever seen those “Will It Blend” videos where, using a BlendTec blender, they decimate things like an NFL regulation football, an IPad, a hand gun, and, one of my favorites, a dozen glow sticks?

Well, the Vita-Mix is as powerful as the BlendTec (although I think they’d both be a great choice) and is typically rated higher in terms of the non-decimation variables such as ease of use, quietness, and lifespan.

Which brings up my second reason for choosing the Vita-Mix, the warranty.  With the Vita-Mix I got a pretty comprehensive lifetime warranty.  So I feel pretty good knowing that I won’t have to replace this blender every 6 months.

After all, buying a $50 blender every 6 months means I’ll spend $1000 on new blenders over the course of the next 10 years.  Why not just spend about $500 bucks now and get a superior blender that’ll last?

The Perfect Shake = Precision Nutrition Ice Cream

Ok, so I bought an expensive, powerful blender that should last me a long, long time.  That’s nice and everything.  But how does it perform?

Well, I have to admit, it’s opened up a whole new world of possibilities for my protein shakes!

In fact, using the Vita-Mix, my quest for the perfect protein shake has ended.  And it’s ended with something we call PN Ice Cream.

Call me crazy, but PN Ice Cream tastes like a legitimate DQ Blizzard.  At just a fraction of the sugar, saturated fat, and calories.  In fact, I’m so pumped about my new creations, I’d like to share a few of them with you today.

PN Peanut Butter Chocolate Ice Cream (AT)

This first recipe, our Peanut Butter Chocolate Ice Cream, is considered an AT (or any-time) snack, for those of you who are using the nutrient timing rules in Gourmet Nutrition.  To make this delicious snack, you’ll want to lay out the following:

• Your Vita-Mix with 4 Cups of Ice
• Muscle Milk – Peanut Butter Chocolate Flavor – 2 scoops
• Natural Peanut Butter – Chunky – 2 tablespoons
• Cacao Nibs – Organic – 1 tablespoon
• Unsweetened Almond Milk – Chocolate – 1 cup

Next, you’ll add all your ingredients together, placing the Vita-Mix tamper through the hole in the cover.

Next, you’ll turn your Vita-Mix on low and slowly ramp the speed up from 1 – 10.  Once you get to 10, you’ll flip the switch to high and begin “tamping” your mixture.  Now, I’ll warn you, the blender will be working hard; and so will you.  But keep tamping for about 30 seconds while all the ingredients are pulverized and mixed.

After 30 seconds, shut your blender off (blending for longer may start melting your ice cream).  Then, remove your tamper.  Remove the lid.  And with a ice cream scooper or tablespoon, serve.

This recipe makes 2 servings, 302 kcal each.

PN Vanilla Blueberry Ice Cream (PW)

This second recipe, our Vanilla Blueberry Ice Cream, is considered a PW (or post-workout) snack, for those of you who are using the nutrient timing rules in Gourmet Nutrition.  To make this delicious snack, you’ll want to lay out the following:

• Your Vita-Mix
• Muscle Milk – Vanilla – 2 scoops
• Frozen Blueberries – 4 cups
• Unsweetened Almond Milk – Vanilla – 1 cup

Next, just like above, you’ll add all your ingredients together, placing the Vita-Mix tamper through the hole in the cover.

After that, you’ll turn your Vita-Mix on low and slowly ramp the speed up from 1 – 10.  Once you get to 10, you’ll flip the switch to high and begin “tamping” your mixture.  Keep tamping for about 30 seconds while all the ingredients are pulverized and mixed.

Remove your tamper.  Remove the lid.  With a ice cream scooper or tablespoon, serve.  Makes 2 servings, 330 kcal each.

Nutrition Facts

So, earlier I compared my PN Ice Cream to a DQ Blizzard.  And, based on the texture, taste, and consistency, I think it’s a pretty fair comparison.  However, how do the calories stack up?  Well, let’s look at a comparison for an equivalent serving size:

DQ Blizzard (Peanut Butter Cup)

• 1350 kcal
• 52 g fat (28g saturated)
• 204 g carbohydrate (1g fiber, 150g sugar)
• 24 g protein

PN Peanut Butter Chocolate Ice Cream (AT)

• 604 kcal
• 37 g fat (11g saturated)
• 28 g carbohydrate (10g fiber, 6g sugar)
• 37 g protein

PN Vanilla Blueberry Ice Cream (PW)

• 660 kcal
• 16 g fat (6 g saturated)
• 96 g carbohydrate (33g fiber, 48g sugar)
• 37 g protein

As you can see, the PN ice cream mixes are 1/2 the calories of a DQ Blizzard and contain less saturated fat, fewer carbohydrates, more fiber, less sugar, and more protein.  Plus, there’s no dairy.  In addition, if you follow the recommended serving size (which is 2 servings per ice cream recipe above), you’d be getting 1/4 the calories of a large DQ Blizzard.

In the end, hopefully you can now see why I’m so excited about my Vita-Mix “investment” and my PN Ice Cream creations.  They’re delicious.  They’re nutritious.  And they won’t give you the diabetes.

So give ‘em a try.  And if you’d like to contribute a few recipes of your own, feel free to post them here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

As always, thank you John for your wonderful recipes!  I am so glad that we have you to rely on to come up with new things.  By the way, I think I will have to invest in the Vita Mix!  I am so sick of getting mad at my blender in the morning

Check out Precision Nutrition fore  much , much more!!

So why do we crave chocolate or sugar?  I was just thinking of this today!  After coming away from Valentines Day, that just so happens to be my daughters birthday, so that means birthday cake too, I just keep thinking how can sugar have such a hold on me?

Well, my friend and coach Holly Rigsby must have been thinking the same thing.  Today when I saw her e-mail come through I just had to smile!  It was all about craving sugar, and why we crave it.

Check out her blog post from today so you can see what I mean:

Do You Crave Sugar?  by Holly Rigsby, author of Fit Yummy Mummy

Top 2 Reasons you Crave Sugar

1. Sugar Cravings exist out of Habit

You must have satisfied this craving in the past – following a meal with something sweet. Then suddenly it becomes a part of your mindset. After every meal must come dessert. The good news is ALL Habits are learned, so this habit cam be unlearned as the result of practice and repetition.

2. Sugar Cravings exist because you EAT Sugar

What?  If you eat simple, refined carbohydrates or high sugar foods everyday, your body will remain in “crave” mode.

Sugar takes your Hormones for a Roller Coaster Ride. Take a peek at what is happening inside your body when you choose to foods high in refined sugar.

Eating simple sugars causes a spike in your blood sugar for these foods are quickly absorbed into the blood stream.

This in turn gives you the temporary sugar high ~ it feels good…however, your body does not like this imbalance and a series of hormonal responses take place.

** Insulin Increases
Your body produces an increased amount of the Insulin – a storage hormone. Insulin’s job is to remove excess sugar from the bloodstream and store it in the muscles and in the liver.

** Glucagon Goes Away
In order to facilitate this rush of insulin, glucagon – a release hormone…responsible for releasing More Fat…good right? NOT when you eat too much sugar. This helpful fat loss hormone is diminished.

What does this hormone game mean to you?

Each time you consume simple sugars and refined carbohydrates, you are doing nothing more than locking in fat.

But wait…the ride doesn’t stop there…

About 30-45 minutes after the sugar rush, you wind up with residual low blood sugar….your blood sugar levels hit bottom. You Crash!

This rapid drop in blood glucose levels starves the brain of its primary fuel and you experience symptoms such as:

* Energy slumps during the day – especially in the afternoon
* Cravings for sweets
* Cravings for stimulants (tea, coffee, cigarettes)
* Irritability of mood swings
* Poor concentration or fuzzy thinking

Your body reacts once again for at this point your energy level bottoms out, you have trouble thinking clearly and you end up with cravings.
You will inevitably crave sweets as these foods will raise blood sugar the quickest, getting you out of your slump.  The blood sugar High/Low cycle repeats – again and again and again…just like getting on an endless hormonal roller coaster ride.

This is what is happening inside your body every time you eat sweets, simple sugars, refined carbohydrates.  The only logical way to stop the cravings…..is to get off the ride!

You said it Holly!  If we keep giving our bodies the sugar and refined carbohydrates, we are staying on the roller coaster that we hate so much! We are causing our bodies to store fat.  So the best cure to beat the sugar cravings, is fight them, and do not give your body sugars!

Trust me, this is hard to do, but it is well worth it!

I just had to share this with you….

It’s about that time of year.  This is when folks slowly start dropping off from their workout program, or cheating on their diet.  And for a lot of folks, weekend eating – particularly SuperBowl weekend eating – is to blame.

When some folks binge eat, they go looking for a “detox diet”, thinking that will reverse all their mistakes.  But I’m not here to recommend that…no way.

Instead, I have an amazing article – perhaps his best article ever – from fitness expert Craig Ballantyne about a simple 7-Step Detox
Diet that you can easily follow everyday…

…so that you never need to do an extreme 7-day or 2-week cleanse. Here’s Craig to tell it like it is:

I just got back from the SuperBowl and got a chance to sit in the front row right in the endzone. It was really cool, and I also got a chance to see “The Who” live in concert at half-time.  But, while I was there, I had a few extra “non-compliance” meals than normal, so it got me thinking about detox diets.

I have a pretty strong opinion about detoxing, and I put together a simple 7-step detox diet plan that you can easily follow so that you never have to do a 16-day detox ever.

You see, my biggest “beef” with the entire theory of “detoxing” is this… It is simply NOT possible to EVER detox your body.

Why?

Because it’s such a vague statement. What does “detox” mean? How do you measure “detoxification”? What do you even define as toxins? And when do you officially become “detoxed”?

The answer is, “You don’t.”  It’s impossible.

After all, every single second of every day your body produces carbon dioxide, which is a toxin.  And if you have deep belly fat, research shows that this “visceral fat” is constantly releasing inflammatory toxins into your blood.

Every second. The more fat you have, the more toxic you are.  Plus, every breath you take includes pollutants.  And even the water that you drink may contain “toxins”.

So….what’s the real deal on detoxing?

Listen, while every “expert” is out there arguing about tiny little details and “gurus” are trying to sell you on detoxing so they can sell supplements, the TRUTH is that you really just need to know a few steps to avoid getting toxic in the first place.

In my opinion, the #1 factor in living a “low toxin life” is simply to keep as much garbage out of your body in the first place, rather than depending on a 3-day, 7-day or even 16-day detox to be healthy.

So what do I do to prevent “toxin build-up” in the first place?

Well, I live the Turbulence Training Lifestyle of course, including my “7 Step Detox Nutrition Plan”:

1) Start each day with a blender drink of berries, spinach or other greens, raw nuts (such as walnuts – rich in healthy fats), and other
ingredients packed with antioxidants and healthy fats.

2) For lunch, have a large green salad with spinach, beans, broccoli, peppers, avocado, onions, etc.

3) Eat an organic apple a day. Certain fruits (i.e. apples, peaches, cherries, and strawberries) and vegetables have a higher exposure to pesticides, and you should choose organic when possible.

4) Eat RAW snacks only – of fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Try using this one simple rule and limit all of your between meal snacks to
raw fruit, raw vegetables, and/or raw nuts and I promise you’ll drop the pounds because you’ll be full on a smaller number of  calories.

5) Drink Green Tea (2-3 cups) and filtered water (3 liters) instead of beverages that contain calories or chemicals.

6) Limit animal protein intake to only 2 servings per day. On most days, I’ll one of the following: an “after workout” chocolate milk,
organic eggs in the morning, or occasionally I’ll have high quality meat at dinner.

You don’t need to be a full vegetarian to live a longer life, but you should probably avoid eating meat 5 times per day, like people
in Chicago.

(Hey Chicago, don’t get mad at me for that…it was a born-and-raised Chicago native who told me 5 servings of meat per day was the
average Chicago meat consumption.)

7) Minimize or completely eliminate alcohol intake.

While research does show that for men, up to 2 drinks per day may help cardiovascular health (and for women, up to one drink per day), I’m not about to recommend you start drinking.

After all, if you go above those limits, you start to destroy your health…and you risk addiction. Alcohol killed my father, and I
don’t want to see the same thing happen to you. Tread cautiously with the booze.

So that’s it. A simple 7-Step Detox Diet Plan.

By the way, it goes without saying that you should avoid:

- cigarettes
- trans-fats
- excessive amounts of sugar
- refined grains
- and 7-11 nacho cheese

Right? Of course.

And you should be exercising to lose the belly fat…using proven methods, such as interval training – which is proven to beat long,
slow cardio when it comes to burning dangerous belly fat.

Plus, you should be using Turbulence Training resistance supersets to burn more calories and sculpt your body.

If you’ve never used Turbulence Training, you can try it out today for less than the cost of a Superbowl hot dog.

Click here to get Turbulence Training for less than 5 bucks:

Turbulence Training

Simply follow those 7 nutrition guidelines and use the short TT workouts to cut out as many toxins from your body – without detoxing.

Stay strong,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

PS – I also believe you should avoid toxic relationships… …so you need to take a hard look at the people you surround yourself with in life.

Do you have the right work friends? Are you in the right relationships? Do you spend enough time with the right family members? Or are they toxic too?

Remember – you need social support for success in life and in fat loss…so surround yourself with positive people, like the good folks on the TT Member’s forum.

If you need to dump the toxic folks and get positive social support, we’d love to see you on the forum and help you out. You will get a free 3-month TT membership access to the forum when you try out Turbulence Training for only $4.95 today:

$4.95 Turbulence Training

Please click that link to get started losing fat & getting rid of the toxic baggage in your life.

Here you go, and keep in mind, losing weight was not the goal for me, it was inches

Weight 100lbs ( lost 4 pounds)
Chest 28.5″ ( lost 3 inches)
Waist 25″ ( lost 4 inches)
Arms 9.75″ ( stayed the same)
Hips 29″ ( lost 2.5 inches)
Thigh 17″ ( lost 3.25 inches)

Awesome!!  I am so happy with my results!

I will never forget something that Dax said early on when a few people had gained a pound or two.  He said, who cares if you gain 15 pounds!  If you look in the mirror, and you are the leanest you have ever been, the strongest you have ever been, and the hardest you have ever been, are you going to care what the scale says?  Right on!!

Thanks again for all of your support!

Pick up a copy of my lifesaver book, the Elimination Diet Cookbook, and don’t forget to check out Dax at London Personal Training Studio

I will have pictures tomorrow!