Why I Became a Beachbody Coach

To be completely honest, I had no idea about beachbody coaching until my friend Liz became one! I never even knew about challenge groups until Liz messaged me late one night in October and told me all about it. As I was reading, I was like wow this is exactly what I need. She asked me to be in her first challenge group in November, just in time for the holidays! I knew this would be the ultimate test for me to know if this was  what would finally work for me. Would this be the first holiday I would be able to make it through without gaining weight? I was so tired of starting things and never finishing them. I was tired of being a quitter!! I was tired of being unhappy with myself! So, Liz added me into two different Facebook groups and I was so excited to get started!! I started looking around in the groups and reading all of these posts and looking at pictures of all the lives that beachbody had helped change! I began thinking, could I be the next beachbody success story? Halfway through the November Challenge group, Liz mentioned that she thought I would make a great beachbody coach. She explained to me that coaching doesn't make me a fitness expert, nor does it make me a nutritionist. You are simply a product of the product who is passionate about helping others reach their health and fitness goals. You are there to be their supporter, encourager, and motivator! I was apprehensive at first because I hadn't met my goal! Liz explained that by becoming a coach it would help me push even harder towards my goals and people don't relate to perfection. They relate to real people who have the same struggles as they do. I definitely meet that criteria.  I told her I was interested, but just wasn't sure I was ready to take that leap of faith! I continued Liz's challenge groups through February. Over the 3 months of challenge groups, I had awakened this new part of myself that I never knew existed. I began feeling more confident in myself! I noticed that people were watching me to see if I would stick with this or if I was going to once again allow myself to fail. I REFUSED to fail again! The girls in my challenge groups were so incredible and helped keep me on track. When I was ready to give up, they were there to pick me up, help dust me off, and remind me why I started in the first place! February 14, 2013 was the day that I finally decided I was ready! I was ready to become a beachbody coach! I was ready to start helping everyone around me become healthy and happy like me! Coaching for me is the opportunity to help make a difference in this world. I always knew I was meant to help people. I knew I loved it and I always thought that a career in healthcare was my way of "helping", but the more involved I get in beachbody the more excited I get and the more I think maybe this is what I was meant to do from the beginning! I'm excited about the possibilities that I have been afforded so far, and I cannot wait to see what my future with beachbody holds! If you are ready to take the challenge and get the support and encouragement you need to reach your goals please contact me! jessicaringley@yahoo.com or via Facebook www.facebook.com/jessica.ringley

7 Tips for Portion Control

7 Tips for Portion Control

By Joe Wilkes

In the world of nutrition news, there was a recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that took a look at cookbook recipes over the last several decades (with emphasis on recipes in The Joy of Cooking). This study found that calorie counts per serving have gone up dramatically as authors have increased portion sizes to conform to new cultural norms. Where the 1936 edition of the kitchen classic averaged 268 calories per serving, the most recent edition in 2006 averaged 384 calories. The study theorized that lower costs of food and larger plate sizes are part of the reason for the increase, but nutritionist Marion Nestle says that mainly it's just a reflection of people becoming accustomed to eating more and more overall. What can we do to monitor and control portion sizes? Here are some ideas . . .

1. Downsize your plate. One issue the study pointed out is that the average plate size has grown over the years, and the amount of food served on those plates has kept pace with that increase. Instead of breaking out the big dinner plate, try eating your dinner off a salad or dessert plate. The smaller plate will make the amount of food look larger by proportion, a visual cue that will trick your brain into thinking you're eating more. Plus you can trade in your big dinner fork for a more petite salad fork, which will also help to slow down any shoveling behavior you might be tempted to engage in at the dinner table.
2. Divide and conquer. When you're cooking more than one serving of something, immediately store the prospective leftovers in single-serving containers. By putting out the entire dish, you run the risk of not having any leftovers at the end of the meal. Depending on what the meal is, I divide my food onto two plates—one for that meal and one for lunch the next day. And as a side benefit, this can help you tighten your wallet while you tighten your waistline.
3. Count it down. If you eat your reasonably sized portion of food in the dining room/living room/den/bedroom/bathroom, etc., and leave the leftovers in the kitchen, it will make this next step a lot easier. Here's the scenario: You've finished your first portion, and yet you still want more. This is far from atypical, especially if the big plate of leftovers is sitting in front of you, tempting you, calling to you—maybe just a half a spoonful or maybe just a pick at the serving platter with your fork (just the good parts, of course). That couldn't possibly have more calories, right? Wrong. The calories from the food you sneak in after you finish eating are as potent as the calories from the food you're served. The good news is that if you can hold off, you won't be hungry for long. 
   
   After you have a decent-sized portion of food, it takes your brain about 20 minutes to get the message from your stomach that you're full. So try this: Before you reach for seconds, glance at your wristwatch or the clock on the wall. Spend the next 20 minutes chatting with your dining companions, or if you're eating alone, check out the newspaper, read a magazine article, or play along with a round of Jeopardy on TV. Then, after 20 minutes, see if you're still starving for another bowl full of whatever. Chances are that your cravings will have disappeared. If they haven't, maybe you do still need a little more food to achieve satiety. Review what you ate before, and if the calorie count seems low, treat yourself to a little extra. Or, if the calorie count seems about right or high for a regular meal and you're still hungry, fill up on some low-cal veggies or have a big glass of water. Sometimes it's easy to confuse thirst with hunger.
4. Embrace your inner child. And we don't mean have candy for dinner . . . When you're on the road or out at a restaurant, don't be ashamed to look at the kids' menu. As the adult menu has been supersized to gluttonous proportions, the children's menu often has the most nutritious options. Check out Debbie Siebers' portion-control tips below, and you'll see that oftentimes the amount of food in a kids' meal is just the right amount for an adult watching his or her figure. Not to mention, if you play your cards right, there could be a free toy in it for you. Out of the mouths of babes . . .
5. Sharing is good. And while we're getting lessons from the small set, how about sharing? If you're a foodie like me, the hardest part about eating out is passing up all the goodies you want to try on the menu. Instead of ordering too much for yourself, strategize with your fellow diners about how you can maximize the variety of the food instead of the quantity. Most restaurants will be more than happy to provide you with extra small plates so you can split dishes. And make sure you actually split them! Don't dine out with your friend who survives on a nibble here or there and split two dishes; you'll end up eating 80 percent of the food on the table while he or she makes do with a couple of forkfuls. In case you ever wondered how Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi keeps her model physique while judging up to 12 meals a week, the secret is that she doesn't eat everything. Also, when you're figuring out how to eat family-style, make sure that at least one of the dishes is a healthy salad, a non-cream-based soup, or a vegetable dish. That way you and your family can get full without getting fat.
6. Learn your weights and measurements. As anyone who's a regular reader of this newsletter knows, we're always going on and on about reading labels. And like the calorie, carb, protein, and fat numbers, the serving size is important. This is where the corporate food interests get you a lot of the time, by adjusting the serving size downward to make the nutritional numbers look a little better. As anyone who's recently spent a Saturday night alone with the TV can tell you, the estimate of four servings in a pint of Ben & Jerry's® or Häagen-Dazs® is wildly optimistic. Whereas the label would indicate a 300-calorie serving, keep in mind that the entire container has 1,200 calories. And since most of the containers taper downward, eating what appears to be half of the container can actually amount to two-thirds. 
   
   It's definitely too much of a hassle to weigh and measure everything you put in your body every day. Even the most anal-retentive people among us don't have the time to be hauling out the scale and measuring cups for every meal. But it's worth it to at least familiarize yourself with a few standard weights and measures. Try learning what an ounce, a gram, a tablespoon, etc., look like. That way you can at least eyeball how much you're eating. I've yet to meet the person who can make a typical bag of potato chips last for twelve servings.
7. Give yourself a hand. For an easy guide to portion sizes, follow this guide from Slim in 6® creator Debbie Siebers.

Handy Portion-Control Guide

By Debbie Siebers, creator of Slim in 6®

To achieve weight loss—and maintain that healthy weight once you've achieved it—it's crucial to really understand what a portion is. Here's what may prove to be an indispensible tip: use your hand as a guideline for portion sizes. (If your hands happen to be extra-large or extra-small for your size, adjust accordingly.)

Palm = Proteins: Make protein portions the size of your palm. Protein is found in animal products, like fish, meats, and cottage cheese. Some veggie protein sources include legumes (beans, etc.), tofu, tempeh, and wheat glutens.

Thumb = Fats: Fats are important, but they're also very dense, so match fat portions to the size of your thumb. Good fat sources are avocados, olive oil, nuts, and seeds.

Fist = Fruits, Grains, etc.: Your bread, fruit, cereal, rice, and grain portions should be about equal to the size of your closed fist. Remember that it's always preferable to consume whole grains.

Hand = Veggies: Open your hand and spread your fingers as wide as you can. That's a good vegetable portion. Raw vegetables are loaded with fiber and nutrients, and they contain very few calories.

8 " Diet Foods That Can Make You Fat

8 "Diet" Foods That Can Make You Fat

By Justine Holberg

A veggie wrap for lunch. A night out for sushi. And you're working out . . . but you're still not losing weight. What gives?

Some "diet" foods may be your worst enemy. That's because they're tricking you into eating too many calories. So what are some of the worst offenders?

1. Sushi: Fish wrapped in rice and seaweed. Not a diet food? Yep, that's right. It's not always as "light" as it seems. Some sushi has calorie levels so high it might just shock you. 
   
   Diet Shocker: One eight-piece serving of Philadelphia sushi roll is the caloric equivalent of 1 medium bagel with plain cream cheese—close to 500 calories. It's the cream cheese that gets you. And what about spicy tuna and other mayo-based rolls? They can contain as many as 450 calories and 11 grams of artery-clogging fat per serving. Eat too many of the "wrong" rolls and you're in Big Mac® calorie territory.
2. Wraps: You order the whole wheat veggie wrap thinking it'll put you on the skinny track. But is it actually the fat track? For some reason, wraps have been viewed as a healthy upgrade from a sandwich, but this isn't always the case. 
   
   Diet Shocker: The tortilla holding your wrap together can easily contain the same number of calories as four slices of bread, not to mention more carbs and twice as much fat. Many kinds of wraps you get at a deli have at least 300 calories. And that's just the tortilla, not the contents. You also have to factor in the fillings—and keep in mind that a wrap has more surface space to spread these calorie-boosting culprits:
   • Dressing
   • Cheese
   • Mayo
   All told, one healthy-seeming wrap can easily trick you into eating hundreds more calories than you planned.
3. Granola: When you're having granola, you might think, "It's healthy. The fiber and all those little pieces of dried fruit are so good for me." Truth is, although it's got good stuff in it, it also packs in the calories. 
   
   Diet Shocker: A half-cup serving is what's often listed on the nutrition label of prepared granola. But who eats just half a cup? For most brands, there are more than 400 calories in a one-cup serving of granola. And when's the last time you actually measured? If you keep filling your cereal bowl with this stuff, it's no wonder you're not losing!
4. Bran Muffins: The kinds sold at many bakeries today aren't the little 3-inch muffins Grandma used to bake. They're much, much bigger. And just because they're made with "healthy" bran doesn't mean they're a diet food, either. 
   
   Diet Shocker: The average bakery muffin can contain as many as 630 calories. You might be slightly better off with a bran muffin than, say, a banana or blueberry one because of bran's extra fiber, but most of them are still packed with sugar and butter. Eat one bran muffin from Dunkin' Donuts® and you'll be consuming 480 calories, 13 grams of fat, and 46 grams of sugar. OMG.
5. Dried Fruit: The more fruit you eat the better, right? Not when it comes to the dried stuff. 
   
   Diet Shocker: You could boost your calorie count as much as four times (!) by choosing to eat the dried version of a fruit rather than its fresh counterpart. Check out these calorie comparisons based on a 100-gram (about 1 cup) serving:
   

   Fruit (about 1 cup)	Fresh	Dried
   Grapes	70 calories	(Raisins) 300 calories
   Apricots	50 calories	240 calories
   Bananas	90 calories	(Banana chips) 350 calories
   Plums	45 calories	(Prunes) 230 calories

   
   
6. Pumpkin-Flavored Baked Goods: Pumpkin is nutritious, but these baked goods can be a dieting disaster. Like bran, pumpkin has lots of stuff that's good for you. So if you see pumpkin on a baked-goods label, it's easy to think you're eating something that's lower in calories. Not the case, though: Pumpkin doesn't mean diet food. 
   
   Diet Shocker: Dunkin' Donuts strikes again. Their pumpkin muffin has 630 calories and 28 grams of fat. OMG again! Want to switch bakeries? It won't help much. A pumpkin muffin from Panera Bread® has 530 calories and 20 grams of fat, and the pumpkin scone at Starbucks® has 470 calories and lots of fat too—22 grams' worth. You might as well be eating pie with whipped cream!
7. Olive Oil: It's a good fat and helps you burn fat. However, you don't need a lot of it to get the benefits. Two tablespoons a day can do the trick. And overdoing it can backfire. 
   
   Diet Shocker: Olive oil served with bread at a restaurant is heart-healthy, but high in calories. You can easily sop up a quarter of a cup. That's 478 calories, not including the bread. Or the rest of the meal you've ordered.
8. "Healthy" Salads: That's what some restaurants want you to believe in their "lite" section of the menu. It must be diet-friendly, right? Not always. 
   
   Diet Shocker: Listed under "Healthy Options" on the T.G.I. Friday's® menu, their pecan-crusted chicken salad, which contains mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, and celery, has 1,360 calories. Meanwhile, their cheeseburger and fries combo weighs in at 1,290 calories. Say it ain't so.

So what's a dieter to do in a world filled with "diet" traps?

Ask about nutrition and read food labels. After a while, you'll be a pro at it and enjoy the weight loss that comes with it. You won't even have to give up the foods you like. That's because you'll know how to work them into your food plan the right way.

"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!"

My diet has always been a huge issue for me! In short, I LOVE FOOD!!!!  And I love GOOD food!! I suffered from emotional eating for YEARS before I discovered beachbody. It had gotten so bad that I would HIDE food in my house so that my husband wouldn't see what I was eating and I would eat it when he wasn't home. I was embarrassed and couldn't imagine that he could love me the way I was!! My husband is my very best friend I tell him everything... EVERYTHING but I couldn't tell him about this.... what would he think... would he think I was a bad wife for turning to food for comfort instead of confiding in him? I had gotten to the lowest point of my life last April. I was so unhappy with myself that it had started effecting every aspect of my life. I didn't want to live this way. I wanted to be happy. I didn't know what to do to bring myself back from this dark place! My best friend Amy started Insanity around this time and was keeping me updated and I was so amazed at the results she had. I started thinking maybe I should give it a try, I can do anything for 60 days right?! So I ordered it! I did ok for the first couple of weeks--it was definitely the hardest thing I had ever done! I tried to keep my diet on track but I cheated way more than I should have! I quit insanity in my 5th week. I never even finished my first round! I saw some results and I still quit. Fast forward to October 2012, my friend Liz Facebook messaged me about a beachbody challenge group all done through facebook and she thought I would be interested since I had done insanity before! She explained to me that it was a group to help keep you encouraged and motivated to finish and something deep down told me.. Jessica this is what you need! So I decided to start off the challenge group with Brazilian Butt Lift, something not as crazy and intense as insanity! And Liz also introduced me to shakeology! I had never even heard anyone talk about it! The only thing I knew was after my insanity workouts they would show a short commercial about it but I always cut the dvd off and never really watched it! I cannot even begin to describe to you what shakeology has done for me! Shakeology has helped me completely overcome my emotional eating habits! It has helped me with my chocolate cravings! It has given me more energy! I used to be tired ALL the time and now I feel like I have the energy to live a fulfilling life! I have also noticed that instead of craving fattening unhealthy foods I crave healthy foods!! I have even seen a difference in my hair and skin. There is literally no way I can describe the difference shakeology has made in my nutrition and my life!! I look forward to it every day! When I started my first challenge group in October it was just in time for the holidays. The holidays are always hard for everyone with all the eating that takes place. I never knew it was possible to loose weight over the holidays and I DID!! I never knew how to eat until I was part of these challenge groups I have learned so much by being in them! I've learned that to keep my metabolism going I have to eat 5-6 small meals a day. I have learned that I have to plan my meals because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail! You need to plan out what you are going to eat for the week and STICK TO IT!!! I've learned that when you feed your body what it needs it rewards you! Our bodies can't survive off of the fast food and junk that I was constantly eating. I will forever be an advocate for beachbody because I have done 180 degrees in one year's time! That is why I decided to become a coach because I want everyone else to discover this new life I have discovered.  You only have one life and one body why not live it to the fullest?! Why continue to be depressed and overweight and unhappy with yourself? I finally hit rock bottom and I refused to live another day unhappy with myself! Are you ready to be happy with yourself again? I would love to help you in your journey to health! Nobody ever said it would be easy, but it will be SO WORTH IT!!! To learn more about nutrition and how to start eating clean click here http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/planning-healthy-meals/