Total Health and Fitness

Happy Weekend!!

I have some news to share with you and its something I am pretty excited about.


Here is the story- (the short version)

Last summer I turned to the Paleo diet. Within two weeks of the diet, I felt great- I was running faster and ended up being the leanest I have ever been. After awhile, I was having major stomach cramps, bloating, constipation – TMI? I added a digestive enzyme but it just wasn’t enough. I decided due to my activity level,  I needed more fuel and decided paleo wasn’t for me- I had cut calories low and it ended up slowing down my metabolism. I had hit a plateau and felt weak and just burned out. I added more carbs into the diet in the form or gluten-free oats, brown rice etc. I started gaining weight. So I went back to paleo… with no luck… I think my metabolism has slowed down and after trying different things to get it to speed back up.. my weight hasn’t’ budged.…So, fast forward to now and I am actually up 16-20lbs from last year, my pants are all super snug and I just want to wear my skinny jeans. I eat clean, I exercise daily and I’m just a bit frustrated in the fact that I can’t figure out myself.
After talking with one of my friends she referred me to her friend Porter Brinton at Total Health and Fitness.





Last week, I called the office and set up a FREE consultation with him. I talked to him about my goals, what was going on, what I think happened and he assured me he could get me right back to where I want to be. He took my BW and BF, figured out my lean muscle mass weight and gave me a goal that would be realistic and achievable for me in 12 weeks.


 NOW, let me say, that by any means I do NOT I think I look bad or overweight, I am actually stronger then ever right now, I simply just want to fit back in my jeans and be comfortable with me. My goal is to lose a few lbs. and gain more lean muscle mass.


Porter was very knowledgeable and friendly, he went through his program and helped me understand how to get my metabolism revving again, without making me completely stopping what I am doing now. He has designed a program around my schedule and lifestyle to get me where I want to be.
This last Thursday was my actual first week with him, He gave me this notebook (which he does with all his clients.)



Inside the notebook there are 5 key components





Starting with nutrition, I was given a diet plan that pretty much tells me what to eat and what time to eat it. This diet plan was designed specifically for me and my is set to my body weight and is what my activity level requires.I will admit I am eating about 400 more calories per day then I was eating. Think 1700 to about 2000 and I’m eating every 2-3 hours just like I was before. So far I have followed it to a T,. Well, besides taking a nap yesterday with the twins and completely slept through meal 5. It is actually pretty similar to how I was eating before. Minus bananas.. which I really miss. but I still get peaches, strawberries, apples and raspberries, so I think I’ll live!





I have posted my plan on my pantry door for quick access.




2nd is Vitamins and Supplementation



FYI- Porter likes to scribble as he explains things.
I am a vitamin queen, and pretty much had this down pact. The only change he wanted to add is for me to start taking a CLA tonalin and stop taking any pre-workout.---> Also, really hard for me.. I love heart caffeine pre-workout.


3rd is cardio- Which he set at a 4x minimum for me. Which throughout the week will be a breeze. He does want me to keep an eye on my heart rate and make sure it stays in a target zone. I don’t have a heart rate monitor so any suggestions right now would be fab!





I am happy that he didn’t try to alter my lifestyle in a big way. I LOVE getting in my GPP everyday. GPP has changed my body and made me confident and stronger in so many ways. So, for Porter to understand that and has fit GPP training into my program along with teaching my Body Pump/Body Attack classes means a lot.


4th is Resistance Training.



Porter prescribed me 2 workouts, a upper body and a lower body workout for me to do 4x a week. This will be controlled and AHAP (as heavy as possible.)—> This is also hard for me, I have completed one of the workouts so far, and going slow and controlled is tough.. I love to go as fast as I can through things, so I really had to concentrate and count to myself. Maybe it’s a mom thing to feel like I am always in a hurry?
It wasn’t to bad and by the end I found it to be a little relaxing? Not during the workout but afterward. Maybe Resistance training is what yoga is to other people? Ha!


5th and last is professional assistance- This is the part where we will actually track my progress and make a week by week goal to work for.  Since this is my first week, we have only documented my starting point and set a goal for me to be at next week. Which I will share with you all as we go.


So that is that! I am starting a new training/nutrition program just for the next 12 weeks. Every Thursday I will be meeting with Porter and I am happy to share with all of you my experience and progress!

Red Rock Relay 2012

I know it has been a few weeks since Red Rock Relay but I was waiting to share my re-cap until the video came out.. ---We had a videographer hang out with us throughout the race.
So without further ado.. buckle up my friends your in for the review of a lifetime.. Seriously, its long and photo loaded!

Red Rock Relay Zion was pretty great this year! This was my second time doing this race and my third Red Rock Relay. I’m a huge fan of this relay. The race support is amazing and the the folks in charge of this are the bees knees.
We headed out on Thursday morning to help with registration in Cedar city. We got all packed up and ready to go. The back of the Suburban was packed and all the bags strapped down on the roof.
OR so we thought… It only took from zero to sixty until one of the bags flew off the top of the car on the freeway and was hit by a few cars.. I was driving, so I pulled over quick and we called highway patrol. Once we received the bag and gathered as much of her stuff off the side of the freeway we decided it would be best to just take everything off the top of the car..

Great start, eh?
The rest of the trip down was full of fun music, treats and girl talk.
Once we got to registration we got put to work!
We organized cute, awesome, and affordable clothing—seriously I wanted one of everything!! I also helped with and each teams race bags and assisted with check in and any questions that runners had about the race.

We got to bed around 11pm.
The next morning, our start time was 7:30ish. We all headed to the starting line to send of our runner #1. The race starts at 11,000 feet at Brian Head Ski Resort and makes it way through Dixie National Forest.

As runner #1 was running her leg we decorated the burb!
GPPsuperfits!

Each of us took on a superhero character- Bat girl, Super girl, Robin, Wonder Woman, Cat girl and Spider girl.
There was a few scooter rides in between legs. ---Next year I’m bringing roller blades..

First Transition DONE!

Wonder Woman powered up a crazy hill known to the relay as El Diablo.

It’s a steep climb but a short leg, so we headed to the next exchange to get Robin ready to go!

Off she went.. I won’t blog about each exchange but if you haven’t done a relay race before you pretty much continue to pass off to one of your team mates until you pass off to the next van.

I was the last runner in my van for my first leg and it was absolutely beautiful!! It was pretty hilly and was raining as soon as I got started but it quickly cleared up and was perfect! I couldn’t of asked for better weather! Running through Cedar Breaks was amazing!

After I passed off to our van #2 we rested, danced, swam and ate until it was time for us to meet with the other van to start our 2nd legs. It was about 11pm, when we started running. The night run was my shortest leg 4.7 and it was a great run, I am always surprised how great I feel when I am running at 2 am? 


I have no idea why my hair is crazy..

I get a little lazy at night with picture taking.. Sooooo, that is that for those legs.

To start off our last legs we decided to go ALL out. I mean we ARE professional relay runners and we don’t hesitate to dress up when needed.

Our friends had a hotel room and let us go clean up and dress up for our last legs.

When we got to the exchange, we immediately felt like Disney characters. We took pictures with everyone and cheered on the runners coming into the exchange.


This is my friend Marly, she lives in my neighborhood and just started running last year, has lost a bunch of weight, and now is addicted with the rest of us crazies! I love seeing her reach her goals and having her around in the relays!
I picked up an extra leg or half of a leg, one of our runners wasn’t feeling to well so super woman and spider girl covered her leg.

My last leg was 6.2! (which served as my longest training run for the marathon..)
Some folks use Gels, Jelly beans, or Gatorade—my supers use ice cream popsicles and Diet coke.Oh, and swedish fish. I know Janae would agree with that!

It felt great to be done! Once all the other superfits were done running we waited, slept, showered and got ready at my MIL condo in St. George, UT for the other van to make it to the finish!


Neil was the DJ/announcer/cool guy talkin’ at the finish.

There was even a slip n’slide at the finish!


We wrapped up the race in 28:34. Relays are not competitive to me at all. They simply are a good time! I had all my girls and we enjoyed supporting, cheering and laughing at each other all weekend.
You finish this race at Zion's National Park. Seriously, could it be any more amazing?

Here is the Video to wrap it all up!

I hope to see you guys at a Red Rock Relay next year! The cool thing about RRR is that they have one day relays! I did Moab this year and next year they will have two more ONE day relays if the two day thing isn’t your thang. Relays ARE for everyone! They are
Come run with me!
This week has been full of tough workouts and big things happening! I’ll fill you all in tmrw.
Have a great day or night..
PS. Don’t anyone dare say anything about Greys Anatomy.. I haven’t watched it yet! Can’t wait!!

Bear Lake

Right after the Big Cottonwood Marathon I headed home and packed the fam up to spend the rest of the weekend at Bear Lake with some of Brent's family! It is only a 2 1/2 hour drive from our house.

We spent the day boating and of course had to pick up a Raspberry Shake (extra raspberries)

I haven’t had a shake, and or real ice cream in forever..(I’m lactose intolerant) so this was absolutely heavenly.Thick and creamy just how I expect a shake to be!  Everyone got a different flavor and we had fun dipping into each others cups to taste all the flavors.
We got all the kids down for bed and the guys were able to finagle a little internet to watch the Utes get killed by ASU and the girls all decided to watch old school Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory! I forgot about a few of those one-liners..

source
I love old school movies but I am also a narcoleptic when it comes to watching movies at night.. I was out shortly after Violet Beauregarde turned into a blueberry.. Or maybe it was because I woke up at 3:45AM that day..
Anyway, the next day we woke up and I whipped up my latest breakfast of pumpkin oats. Since it was Sunday we pretty much lounged around for awhile just talking and being all lazy like. Which was fine by me because all that running caught up with me and I was pretty much down for the count. I have never hated stairs so much in my life.

We ended up going to the beach to play for awhile, it was a perfect day! We played catch and splashed around in the water a little bit.



It was a perfect day! –minus the stairs!
Now, its back to work, workouts and real life. Man, I love vacations…
I feel better today! Did the GPP workout and taught pump today! Back to the grind.
I’m teaching a 5:30 am Pump class tomorrow so I better get to bed!
Good night!

Big Cottonwood Marathon

Hey, guys! So right after the marathon, I took off to Bear Lake with my husbands family to spend some time on the boat and beach. Thanks for being patient with me lately, I have been pretty busy lately and enjoying the last bit of warm weather around here.


BIG COTTONWOOD MARATHON



This was the inaugural year for this marathon!
When I heard about the course for this marathon I wanted to be part of it.
The race has a half marathon along with the full marathon. The full marathon is a BOSTON QUALIFLIER! The “halfers” start the race 3 miles below the marathon start. Start time: 6:30 AM
Pacers were available and were all decked out in glow sticks/necklaces/bracelets so they were easy to spot at the beginning.
Full Marathon Pacers were:

• 3:05
• 3:10
• 3:15 
• 3:35
• 3:40
• 3:45

It is a fast half/full marathon with the first 14 miles being straight down hill and by straight down hill I mean STEEP downhill. So if you run the half, the majority of the race is down!



The views of running through the canyon were absolutely beautiful!


Photo courtesy of my friend Jodie!

The green, red and orange leaves were unbelievable and the tall mountains were amazing.  I seriously could of ran down that canyon all day.

At about mile 14 you hit the bottom of the canyon and the half marathon runners go left, full goes right. You run along the road with a great view of the SLC, UT.

If it wasn’t so smoggy from all the fires lately, it would have been a bit prettier..
Oh and yes, that is kind of a hill..after leaving the canyon the course got pretty “rolly”? Lots of ups and downs.
We ran down to 3500 S. then went over the freeway (I-215) and through the city of Cottonwood Heights, which takes you through a neighborhood, and busy intersections that were being controlled by police officers so you never had to stop and wait at stop lights.
As far as race support goes there were stations at

2.5, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25.

There was Power Bar sports performance drinks, water and bathrooms at every station. There was only fruit at two. Bananas at 19 and oranges at 25. Gels were at 7,13,17, and 23.

All the volunteers were fantastic and motivating. Some even wore costumes but all held out the cup for us and cheered us on.

The finish going up to the finish is at a business complex and there were sponsors there (whole foods) with a recovery drink, ice cream. Great Harvest was there with muffins and raspberry bars and Jimmy Johns had sandwiches.

You could even get a massage at the end!


MY EXPERIENCE
As I mentioned in a previous post, I went into this race with no goals. (Besides finish). I did not have time to train and did absolutely NO long runs prior to this marathon. I wanted to do it simply because I LOVE running and love races. I wanted to just enjoy this race for what it was and take each mile as it came.
And that I did.
This race is close to my house so I was able to sleep at my home and with a 3:45 am alarm, I was up and out the door to meet my friend Nikki, who was running the half to drive out together to get on the buses.
The buses were clearly marked full or half. I found a friend who was running the full with her husband and we got on the bus.
The bus took us to the start of the race at Brighton Ski Resort. It was pretty chilly up there so dress accordingly. The race did provide those lovely silver blankets and gloves in our swag bag to keep warm which was awesome! I kind of wish there were fire pits available to keep warm. It was also super dark at the top so more lighting would have been great to see.


About 5 minutes from go time, I stripped of my kissy lip jammies and kept my jacket because I was shivering..which I ditched around mile 5. (They picked up all clothing to be donated)
There were only about 350 marathon runners so the beginning wasn’t packed so I wasn’t’ being pushed or shoved, which was fantastic!
The lines for the bathrooms were pretty long at the start line, so I decided to wait and just go at the next one at mile 2.5. (I also drank a bit of caffeine that probably contributed to my frequent bathroom breaks.)
I started off feeling great! The first 8 miles down I had about a 7:20 mile average.
My feet really started to hurt at about 9 from the steep downhill. I think I have bunion on both of my feet and running downhill, really aggravates it. I slowed down a bit and ran with a lady named Mo. She was awesome! I introduced myself to her and she mentioned that her runner partner name is Candice. We ran a few miles together chatting about marathons, kids, training etc.

When I got to the bottom of the canyon I had caught up with two young bucks, Michael and Kyle? Shoot… I forgot his name, but it was their first marathon so I gave them my best tips and kept on running.

When I saw the split for the half marathon and full I was really tempted to take the left but I stayed with it. I continued running and caught up with Elaine. She was an older lady (but awesome) She was running her 67th marathon. We chatted all things running. She would run for 2 minutes and walk for 45 seconds. It was fun talking with her and learning a few tricks from her.

This was a great hill…
I walked through every aid station, chatted, hung out and enjoyed that drink of water/ Power Bar drink---which was really gross. I actually think Gatorade or powerade would have been better. The Power Bar drink was a lemon lime powder mix and most stations it had to much water in it and it was just gross.. by mile 15 my stomach was starting to hurt and I think it was that electrolyte drink so I veered away from it at the rest of the stations. I loved having fruit at some stations and think there should have been more fruit stations. I knew there would only be two stations with fruit so I carried some baby food (smashed bananas) with me that I took at mile 13.
At one of the stations there was a man there that was drinking some water and he was on his 107th Marathon! I was amazed.. How cool would that be to run 107 marathons!!? He was defiantly inspiring. I asked him what his favorite marathon was and he said he has loved them all but to do the Pocatello Marathon at some point in my life. ---- Deal.
The rest of the course out of the canyon was pretty up and down. I felt great and had a pretty comfortable pace until mile 20. At this point it was starting to get a little warm outside and my legs were pretty tired. I started picking out points to run to then walk for a little before picking the next point to run to. After a few rounds of that, I remembered Elaine's strategy. I decided to run for 4 minutes walk 1. I continued in this fashion until mile 25 and then finished the last mile strong.
During my one minute walks I texted Brent a few times to let him know how close I was so he could get to the finish with two happy kids.

I was amazed to see that I had 14 text from my friends and actually took a minute to read them all and was overcome with crazy stupid emotions that you probably only get when your pregnant or had run 21 miles without training..Lets just say, I have the best friends in the world.
 
I finished strong and felt great. I wasn’t to beat and glad I took it pretty easy. I was happy to run through the finish to see my husband, kids, MY SISTER! and my mother in-law and her husband.

Yep, I’m sitting because 1. I was tired and 2. Baylee would NOT let go of me and she is getting so big..

I
 gave them a nice sweaty hug and then immediately wanted chocolate milk.. or water.. none of which I could find at the finish line.. Brent handed me a raspberry bar from the great harvest stand but I could barely eat it. Popsicles were given out but it was claimed quick..


We grabbed my bag and headed to the nearest gas station and grabbed a recovery drink.
Overall, I loved the marathon, simply because I did it with no expectations for myself and enjoyed the amazing views and met some great people. For being the first year of the race I found it to be well organized and supported.

I’m not sure I would do the full marathon again, just because my feet don’t love that much down hill and rolling hills. But I know it would be a great race for a lot of my friends.

I do however want to give the half a go! You run down the canyon then straight to the finish! PR city baby.

This is a great race for anyone who loves downhill but still has guts to run up a few hills as well.

I was impressed by the aid stations and felt like they did a great job. I would of liked more fruit and colder water. It was kind of luke warm and I LOVE cold water when running. That Power Bar stuff has got to go.. it was gross and made my stomach hurt..if you don’t train with a certain performance drink you probably shouldn’t race with it….
I also would of liked to see a timer over the finish line so I know what my approximate finish time was right when I crossed the finish line. Also, Water bottles, chocolate milk would have been nice. Jimmy Johns ran out of sandwiches by the time I got there, but I heard a lot of family and non-racers were given some treats. Which is cool, if your prepared to share..


An awesome bonus to this race is that your race pics from ZAZOOSH photography are FREE! Which is great! You don’t have to pay for a nice sweaty pic of yourself running with sweaty pits.


I LOVED the medals and the tech race shirts! The shirt was actually fitting and comfortable which isn't common with a lot of races.

Now, I know some folks are probably wondering how I feel about running the marathon without really training or following a plan prior to the race.

I have to admit, if I was going to race this race for a PR or to qualify for Boston I would probably recommend actually training for it.(Duh..) I actually felt great during the race. My legs got tired yes, but not more so then my last marathon that I actually trained for.
I was a bit sore the next day and even a little today but again, not more then my last marathon. Actually, probably a little less!

I would run a marathon with minimal training again for sure! Crazy, I know.. but I really loved running this race because I absolutely LOVE running, There was no pressure or expectations. I loved meeting people and not feeling stressed to get to the finish. I was able to relax and just enjoy it. I wasn’t beat down by long runs or over trained. It worked well for me.


I finished in 4:49. I got a PR for my slowest marathon ever. I finished with little training and I didn’t poop my pants, so it was a good one!


Questions of the day?


Q. What do you LOVE about races?


Q. If you were a race director what would you add to the race to make it different/better then others?