7 lbs later...

The holidays are over and I've assessed the damage. I officially gained 7 lbs over the holidays, which is the first time I've gained weight in over 2 years. Needless to say, as soon as I found this out I immediately started kicking my ass. 

Coincidentally, I am in the process of launching a juice cleanse for Raw Generation. So last week I did a 3 day juice cleanse to start off. The reason I didn't write about it last week was because I wanted to see if I could actually complete it successfully before I go and blab about it. 

I spent Monday easing into it by eating a ton of fruit and not much else. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thrusday was all juice and a little bit of fruit to curb the need to chew. Friday was a few juices, homemade guacamole, and a regular dinner. **It's important to ease into and out of a juice cleanse for at least a day before and after. After the holidays were over I felt stuffed and bloated, which pretty much went away after the first day. All in all I lost 5 lbs and felt sooooo much better!

I didn't really have any negative side effects other than that on day 3 I was literally starving all day. No matter how much juice I drank or fruit I ate. I had read that this would happen on day 1 or 2. A few people asked me if I pooped everything out, and I have to admit as much as I was hoping this would happen, it really didn't. I mean the first day was a little more than normal, but other than that it was business as usual. Apparently, the detox magic starts to happen after you reach the point of feeling like you are starving but I wasn't prepared to do it any longer.... so, I'm going to do a 5 day juice cleanse next week to see what happens. 

If you are interested in being alerted when we launch go to www.rawgeneration.com and enter in your email address. You also get a free copy of our new juicing recipe eBook!

Has anyone else done a juice cleanse? Good results? Bad reactions?

The perks of staying in a hotel

When I was packing to come to LA I didn't have any room in my bag for my running sneakers (mainly because I had to bring all of my monster heels). I figured it wouldn't really matter anyway because I wouldn't have time to workout between the conference and catching up with friends who live in town.

But now that I'm stuck here with some time to spare and a beautiful hotel gym, I want to workout. I had planned on getting a trolley over to the closest mall and buy a pair since I needed new ones anyway, but yesterday while I was in the bathroom I noticed a little message on the mirror.

This is the greatest thing I've seen a hotel do EVER! besides the hotels that are putting juice bars in their lobbies (hopefully that will be the trend soon). How convenient!?!?! This is one of those services that would seriously make me consider staying at a Westin where ever I could while traveling. And it is only $5 to rent them for your stay! and they give you a coupon if you want to buy anything New Balance online. Talk about a great marketing idea on both New Balance and Westin's part!

About to hit it hard!

How many meals should we be eating a day?

I get asked this question from time to time so I thought I would explain my views on how messed up America's eating habits are.

When I was a kid, we ate 3 meals. Breakfast, lunch, and an early dinner (by 6 pm). If we were hungry at 8pm we had a choice of fruit or to wait until breakfast. Somehow since then it has become fashionable to eat 6 smaller meals a day. Where this came from I am not really sure, but it is definitely an American-made concept.

I have tried this at least a few times and have stopped almost immediately because I felt like the only thing I was doing was eating- all day long! It was like I spent so much time managing when I was going to eat that it was annoying and I felt like I couldn't get anything else done because I was always eating.

Since attending nutrition school, I have come to think that not only is eating 6 times a day a little ridiculous, it is completely unnecessary, and actually detrimental to losing weight (which is the argument that trainers use when they tell you to eat smaller meals more frequently).

In a nutshell, your body will not burn fat if it is constantly getting fed. Fat is stored to be used as energy, but it only burns it if there is no food in sight. So if you can train your body to go longer between meals you actually have a shot at burning your fat stores for energy.

This brings up another aspect of eating 6 meals a day: night eating. Inevitably if you are eating 6 meals a day, you are more than likely eating later than you normally would to get that last meal in. Night eating is the worst thing you can do if you are trying to lose weight. It's ideal to go to bed on an empty stomach (slightly hungry but not starving) because then your body burns it's fat stores all night long. Everyone is different, but the ideal time for me to stop eating is 6pm, and I usually eat a large lunch and smaller dinner. When I do not eat a large lunch I go into the late afternoon starving, ravenous, and capable of eating everything. This is what I have been working on...eating my big meal during the day.

I have been chipping away at this over the past few months, and have seen tremendous results (along with all the juice I drink). I gave up the idea that I need to kill myself at the gym everyday and little by little have changed my eating habits. I have seen more weight loss from changing my eating habits than I ever did from spending hours at the gym. Now, a few times a week I go for a six mile walk (more like stroll most days) and an occasional run if I do not have the time to walk.

Changing one's eating habits is tough stuff, especially if you are addicted to sugar, caffeine, etc., but I promise if you just start where you are and make little baby steps you can see lasting weight loss without killing yourself at the gym.

And the most important thing to remember is: IF YOU ARE NOT HUNGRY DON'T EAT! (regardless of what you think you have to do...you don't have to do anything...you are an adult...eat ONLY when you are hungry!)