mnb challenge: week one!

Alright folks.  Week one of the "move.nourish.believe." challenge is over! I love doing these challenges.  It holds me accountable, it forces me to step out of the box and try new things,  it gives me "easy" content to post on social media {which some days is much needed, haha!}, and it gives me a focus.  I tend to be all over the place because I get too excited and start getting too much going at once, so focus is good.  {If you want to jump in and join in on the fun, click here for the event on Facebook! It's an awesome party!} You're supposed to take a picture that relates to that days challenge, post your accomplishment on Twitter and Instagram, and then recap here at the end of the week!

Besides, the grand prize for this fabulous challenge is $1,000 shopping spree to Lorna Jane!!! As a mom who's always putting her kids needs before her own, I could use workout gear... I've been using the same stuff for several years now! 

Week one was all about movement. {Does anyone else get the I like to move it, move it song from Madagascar song stuck in your head when you talking about moving? No? Just me? ok.}   So, without further adeiu, here's how my week went! 

Feb 3: Sweat it out - show us your favorite way to sweat it out! 

I'm a stay at home mama with a two and a half year old and a four month old.  Workout DVDs are a staple for me.  I love to get out and walk with the kids when I can, but it's been too cold here to get them out.  Boooo.  To be honest, our Playstation has been trying to fritz out for awhile, and I think it finally bit the dust... I couldn't get the silly thing to boot up.  So, I worked out on my laptop.  I wasn't going to let anything stop me starting this challenge on Monday! In case you can't see it in the picture,  I broke out my Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Boot Camp dvd, it's an oldie but a goodie! :) 

Feb 4: Change it up! Sweat a new way! Find a workout from movenourishbelieve.com/category/move and show your post-session selfie! 

This is a prime example of why I love this challenge.  I had to log on to the move.nourish.believe. website and find a workout to do for this day.  I had to step out of my comfort zone and try something different. After scrolling through several workouts, I picked this travel workout.  I don't have the confidence quite yet to try some of the yoga stuff she had posted without causing myself harm! I added a little extra to do it by pulling up a video from +Natalie Jill on Instagram.  Love her workouts, and I hadn't done this one! 

Feb 5: Let's get planking! Plank for at least 5 minutes today.  You can split the planks up.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have a love/hate relationship with planks.  I'm four months out from my second c-section, and it still ceases to amaze me how different I feel even when compared to after having our son two and a half years ago.  I've always prided myself on having strong abs, but there's just something about carrying a baby around then having those muscles sliced through that puts you in a new category.  It's worth everything you go through, it's just a different kind of challenge.  I spent some of my planking time with my favorite little boy riding on my back.  Totally makes any workout fun! Love this kid.  

Feb 6: Buddy up! Workout with a friend today.

My favorite workout buddy happens to be my sister.  I'll be honest, we have had the most incredibly rocky relationship, and I love that we are now at a point in our lives where we seem to have called a truce and just enjoy being around each other.  I think that for the first time in our lives, we actually aren't competing with each other, we're working as a team.  I still haven't seen it, but I've heard that our relationships mimics the one in Frozen {and no, I don't have magical ice powers, sorry to disappoint, haha!)...  We popped in another oldie but goodie: Flirty Girl Fitness - abs and booty.  I haven't done this workout in awhile, and I rememberd it being a halfway decent workout... Our legs were both jelly by the end, and today, I'm feeling the repercussions of "leg day".  I'm all those ridiculous meme's you see all over the interwebs.  

Like this one.  

Feb 7: Show your five fitness favorites.  Exercise, people, whatever gets you moving and motivated! 

I'm hoping in a few months I can come back and revisit this, and some of my items will be different.  I have a few things on my fitness "wishlist", like a Polar, or fitbit, new sports bras and shorts/yoga pants and leggings, new shoes, etc...  :)  But for now, these are my go-to essentials.  My favorite Pink yoga pants, my loved Nike sports bra {so comfy}, my Under Armour shoes, my yoga mat, and my fave workout DVDs: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Bootcamp {hey, I'm from the DFW metroplex, I love my DCC!}, Flirty Girl Fitness, anything Shaun T - the man is crazy but knows how to get 'er done, and Yoga Booty Ballet.  I'm actually about to begin a new program - which just shipped tonight - hooray! in a little over a week and I'm almost beside myself with excitement!! Woo hoo!!! 

Next week is Nourish.  I'm supposed to eat a meatless meal on Monday which should be interesting as I loooove my meat.  And so does my husband...  Hmmm.  Wish me luck! 

Thankful Thursday

I've never done one of these before, but I plan on making it a habit!

Every November, there is a trend that goes around Facebook where people list things they're thankful for every day of the month.  That's all well and good, except that we should be always be thankful and always willing to share it! Regardless of what might be going on in our life, there are things to be thankful and grateful for.  So, in no particular order, here are my top 3 today at this moment.

**Our daughter: Our little glo-worm is such a light in our life.  She's fit seamlessly into our lives like she's always been here, and literally doubles my joy as a mama.  Finding out in December that she had a milk/soy intolerance {{literally}} flipped our lives upside down, but in the best way I could have never imagined.  I had no clue that I ate so bad until I was truly forced to sit down and examine everything I put into my mouth.  I don't overeat, I've always had a good idea of many calories I ate, my labels always said "healthy" things on them... but that's just it: If your food has a label, it's not a food!!! It's amazing the way that our eyes have to be opened sometimes.  I'm just so glad that mine were.  Now I'm not only making better choices for myself and our daughter, but it's bleeding into other family members as well.  It's ignited a passion in me that I always knew I had, but never knew what to do with it.  Now, I have an outlet and a purpose!

**Beachbody: I've always loved the workouts.  I honestly had no idea until recently that you could even be a coach.  Having this opportunity shown to me finally provided the outlet that I wasn't fully aware I needed.  It's helped me to be the advocate for living healthy and taking care of yourself that I've always wanted to be.  God places things in your life for a reason - this was a door He swung wide open, and I took a leap of faith and went through.  I haven't been in it long, but I already have some awesome people that will be starting on a journey with me this month to try out the new 21 Day Fix, and I'm so excited to see what this does for them!!!! I'm also hoping that this will turn into an amazing business opportunity for me so that I can not only build a business doing something that I absolutely love, but it will take some of the financial burden off my sweet husband.

**My husband: He is my #1 encourager, regardless of what I want to do.  He's there to console me when I feel like a huge failure, to comfort me when I feel lost, to be my cheerleader when I want to try something new... He's my partner in everything.  He's a great dad, an incredibly hard worker, and never fails to sacrifice things to make sure everyone has what they need.  I tell people constantly how amazing he is, but I'm sure I fail on more than one occasion to tell him how grateful I am that he's in my life.   My heart swells when he roughhouses our son, or snuggles with our daughter.  I don't think I could ever be more thankful for what my life has been blessed with... but then again, God never ceases to surprise me!     

**Ok, so top 4.  I can't leave out my son.  He was the first light in our lives, our little monkey that started bouncing around in utero and has yet to slow down.   At two and a half, he has become such an individual, so independent.  He loves to help with things, to be a big brother to his new baby sister, to be the astounding little awesome person that we created.  He literally is our first little miracle.  He challenges me to be the mama I want to be for him, to create a lifestyle for us that keeps us all happy and healthy together.  Our chapter of life that began the day that he entered the world has never been the same, nor would I want it to be.  So thankful and blessed for my little immediate family!!!!

I seriously could go on and on, and mention how grateful and blessed I am for the rest of my family and my friends, but this could turn into a seriously long post...  I'll save them for their own special Thankful Thursday in the future.  :)

What are you thankful for today??

let's make some goals!

i don't know about y'all, but i'm not really a resolution maker.  i like to make goals, i feel like they stick around longer.  plus, they seem more long term than resolutions.  :)

i came into beachbody because i felt like it was the absolute best fit for rme: a way to help others improve their lives, through their health, diet, fitness, and nutrition which is something that i'm truly passionate about.  it also happened to fit one of my biggest goals of this year: step out of my comfort zone and make a difference.  

another goal that more or less fell into my lap was to eat clean: our daughter was diagnosed with a milk/soy protein intolerance at 6 weeks old.  if you've never had to deal with this, good for you! it wasn't so much the huge lifestyle change that we've had to make with our eating habits, it was watching our daughter suffer and we had no idea why.  the lifestyle change has actually proven to be one of the best thing i've ever done.  not only do i feel better, i've lost the baby weight faster {and so has my hubby, haha!}, but i'm not putting ridiculous amounts of processed food in my body.  have you ever taken the time to read the labels of the food you're ingesting? i had occasionally, but i had no idea what most of it meant.  i'm still educating myself but y'all, it's scary stuff.

if you haven't sat down and made a list of goals for yourself, you should.  you can always add to it throughout the year as well.  in fact, take a moment to do that right now and then leave a comment at the end of this post.  i can't wait to read what you want to accomplish in 2014 and beyond!

i'll share mine:
- step out of my comfort zone and make a difference
- workout regularly
- eat clean {with the occasional indulgence of course, we love our southern food here}
- set a healthy example for our kids
- reach out and meet new people {this is a super tough one for me!}
- find a church home
- participate in whole family physical activities {like the 5k i already signed us up for!}
- find a job i can be passionate about while also relieving some of the financial stress on my husband and continuing to stay at home with our children

i'm going to keep adding to this list as i think of things, but this is where i sit today!

what are yours??

welcome to southern charm fitness!

welcome y'all!

sharing my love of fitness has been something i've been chewing on for awhile now.  apparently right now was the time God saw fit to provide an amazing opportunity for me to do so.  :)  

southern charm fitness isn't just my outlet to be an online coach for beachbody, it's a way for me to encourage, teach, motivate, and inspire you to be the absolute {best} version of you.  

we are still new, so bear with me as we get off the ground, but keep your eyes peeled for notes of encouragement, recipes, workouts, tips, devotionals, inspiration, and downright good fun.  

southern charm fitness is a place for you to learn how to love yourself and lead a healthy lifestyle with a little bit of southern charm...  

a little about me.

i'm all about keepin' it real.  i'm a 31 year old stay at home mom to two precious kiddos and a devoted wife to a hardworking husband.  i love the outdoors, country music, the sounds of nature, laughing so hard it makes you cry, and making memories with those that mean the most to you.  i hoard fitness magazines and ambitiously try out new workout routines and dvds, because i absolutely love them.  i love firepits in the winter at our lease on the river, i love lightning bugs dotting the evenings in the summer, i love a great concert or a loud playlist vibrating the water at the lake or the river...  i love living life.

i, like millions of other women out there, have suffered from self-esteem and insecurity issues.  not only are we bombarded daily with what society thinks we should look like, we have our own opinions.  and people like to share those opinions.  it doesn't matter your weight, somebody is always commenting on how skinny you are or how much weight you should lose.  shouldn't it be more about how healthy you are rather than a magic number on the scale? a clothing size you've predetermined you need to be able to fit into?

starting in about eighth grade, i decided i needed to lose weight.  i have never, by anyone's standards, been what can be considered "overweight".  but i didn't fit in with the girls, boys didn't seem to be attracted to me, and how i looked was the one thing in my mind i could control.  i'd eat one banana and do a hardcore workout video and then run on the treadmill or go workout in the pool for at least another hour.  i think at one point i'm being gracious to say i was taking in 500-900 calories a day.

this trend continued off and on through high school, where i still continued to feel like i didn't fit in, where i never found my place with "the cool kids".  {you know the ones.}  i finally gained a little footing in my confidence in my senior year after recovering from the devastating experience of not making cheerleader for i think the third time, and realizing that i had to be ok with me or my senior year was going to be miserable.  i danced, i met an incredible guy that allowed me to blossom, and i loved life.

unfortunately, things moved on and i met a guy two days into my college experience that completely wrecked the person i'd become.  it was gradual, so i didn't even notice what was happening.  bad habits returned full force and i began to restrict calories, work out too hard, and this time, i was armed with the assistance of a little diet pill called ephedra.

 i'm not proud of my choices.  i'm not proud of all the pills i popped and how hard i worked to be the picture of someone else's perfection.  but i was lucky enough to break away from it.  to get the chance to start over and truly live healthy.  i would be lying if i said making the right food choices was easy - i struggle a lot less than i used to, and my dear husband has been an amazing cheerleader in helping me realize that food is not necessarily my enemy.  it's meant to be enjoyed.  but you have to practice control, which isn't always an easy thing to do.    

now i'm a mom.  i've been through two pregnancies that have changed my body forever.  my weight has fluctuated to numbers that a younger version of me would have sobbed over.  but as i sit here typing this, with the newest addition to our family snoring softly on my chest, i can't imagine never having had those experiences.  i've learned to see my body as beautiful, regardless of that number on the scale or what size clothing i fit into now.

if nothing else, that's what i want to pass on to {YOU}, my readers.  that you're beautiful.  it's not a number, it's how you feel.  it's being comfortable in your own skin.  it's knowing that you're making food choices to better your life so that you can live it to the fullest extent possible, expand your family, play with your children...  being active so you can sleep better at night, improve your health, live longer, play harder.

i can't wait to get to know every one of you: your ambitions, your dreams, your challenges...  think of me as your personal cheerleader! lookin' forward to a happy, healthy, fabulous 2014!