10 Tiny Changes for Big Weight Loss

By Chalene Johnson

Take baby steps toward eating more healthfully. If you "slip," get immediately back on track. Never let a vacation or a special holiday be an excuse to overdo it the entire time. Go ahead, enjoy the occasional indulgence, but keep it reasonable. Here are 10 tiny changes you can make for big weight loss. Wait 2 minutes. Cravings will disappear after two minutes if you walk away and turn your attention elsewhere. W.I.W.M. When you really crave something unhealthy, answer this question: "What do I Want More," that piece of chocolate cake, or a body I feel proud of? And on rare occasions, it's okay to pick the chocolate cake! No one's perfect. Don't allow one bad choice to result in bingeing the rest of the day, or falling back into old habits. Focus. Make eating purposeful, not something mindless to do while watching TV, driving, or sitting in front of the computer. Whenever you put food in your mouth, try to engage all of the senses in the pleasure of nourishing your body. Don't skip breakfast. Start eating a filling breakfast, but one that's lower in fat. It will help you eat fewer total calories throughout the day. Veggies. The majority of your plate should have veggies and/or fruit on it at both lunch and dinner. See what you eat. Eat your food from a plate instead of straight out of a jar, bag, or box. Don't buy it. Stop buying the food you snack on all day. Just eliminate the temptation. Eat more fruit. A person who gets enough fruit in their diet doesn't have a raging sweet tooth. Watch what you drink. Cut back on or cut out high-calorie drinks like soda, sweet tea, lemonade, and, especially, alcohol. People have lost weight by making just this one change. Want more Chalene Johnson? Visit Chalene's Corner Interested in finding out more about Beachbody?  You can check it out HERE!

Fit Club Push!

I had my Fit Club tonight!  I decided to push myself and see where my back was.  We did ChaLEAN Extreme Burn Intervals.  This is a 45 minute butt kicking workout!  I pushed and my back is happy!  No aches, no pain, no twinges.  I was afraid that it would be good during and then an hour or so later it would start to stiffen up.  NOPE!  I took care of myself, I stretched, I did some yoga and really focused on working out the kink and it seems that it worked!

I'm so happy! HAPPY DANCE TIME!!! WooHoo! ;)

My girls really pushed themselves hard too!  I am so proud of them.  Mary has been with me from the beginning and she is so awesome!  I have some regulars who have been out the last couple weeks and I miss them so much!  I can't wait to get my full crew back again!

Next week is KenpoX from the amazing program P90X!  I look forward to hitting this one hard too!  LOVE MY FIT CLUB!

Evening Workouts...

I tend to go back and forth between evening workouts and morning workouts.  Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I work out at night.  Friday, Saturday & Sunday I work out in the morning.  What?  ChaLEAN Extreme is only 5 days a week you say?  Oh yes you are right.  Wednesday night is one of my "off" days but I have a fit club and this week we are doing some Rev Abs! Oh yeah!  So while I technically do 5 ChaLEAN workouts I throw in an extra cardio each week with my girls!  So, back to the whole morning vs. evening thing.

When I workout at night I don't get my workout in until about 7:30ish.  I get home from work around 6:20, make dinner for the family and then change and get into my workout gear.  Log into the Wowy Super Gym and start my workout.  I'm usually done by 8pm to spend a little quality time with my hubby.  The thing about this is that I don't get to eat dinner until 8.  That puts my bed time at 11.  Since I wait three hours after a meal before going to bed.  Not that this is a big issue or anything.  After pushing myself really hard I find that I have way more energy and I am just not as tired as I used to be this time at night.  Not good when it comes to getting up in the morning for work though! ;)

Now I love Friday, Saturday & Sunday!  I don't have to get up super early to get my workout done because I don't work on those days.  I can get up at 7:30am and be working out by 8am.  This is great.  I get a great workout done first thing in the morning, grab my Shakeology and hit the showers.  I am good to go the rest of the day and start my day on a HUGE high note!  These are my favorite times to workout!  I don't do morning workouts on the week days because there is a huge difference between 7:30am and 5:30am.  At least in my mind there is.  I'm working on this mental block because I can't help but feel I'd love to get all my workouts done in the morning and start on that huge high!  Except the fit club workouts, those will always be at 6pm, I am not making my ladies get up at 5:30am to come to work and workout. :) I would never do that to you guys! You are my friends! ;)

Anyone else have these kinds of issues?  What time do you prefer to workout?  Have you made the switch to mornings and have suggestions on making it easier?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

For me, I think I'll keep doing what I'm doing for now because it is working and I am getting good workouts in and for me that is very, very important.  I love pushing it as hard as I can!

I did it! Week one ChaLEAN Extreme is complete!

I am so thankful today was a rest day.  I was so sore that even my arm pits hurt! That is some serious lifting!

But seriously, I honestly can't even begin to tell you all how thankful I am that I found ChaLEAN Extreme.  I have so many Beachbody programs and I like and love all of them for many different reasons.  I feel like the pieces are finally all coming together and I am getting it.  I must be a really slow learner because I've been trying to get it for several years now.

You know how you can know all the information.  Heck you can even help others because you know all the information.  But you don't focus on yourself because it's easier to help others and keep that focus away from your own needs.  If you don't focus on yourself then you won't fail right?  Wrong.  It is failing.  It's failing my family, my husband, my friends, my kids and even my job.  But worse than that, I am failing myself by not working on being the healthiest person I can be.  That was a hard thing to realize.  I know I love helping others.  That is why I felt a calling to be a coach for Beachbody.  It was always about reaching people who don't feel there is any hope.  Seeing a person who couldn't walk up a flight of stairs now working out 5 days a week and working towards a half marathon in November!  Now that is why I became a coach.

But helping others isn't enough.  I need to help myself.  That is why I am putting myself out here for all to see. I have my faults.  I am not a perfect Beachbody but yet I am a coach and I am helping people and now I can honestly say I am also helping myself.

I am so thankful for my friends and family who are so supportive of me on my journey.  I know it's not going to be easy.  I've been down this road before but I was younger and faster then.  It's going to be a slower journey but this time, I will not rest when I see the destination in the horizon.  I got comfortable and just knowing I was almost there was enough before.  It felt good to be healthy even though I wasn't exactly where I wanted to be.  This time I realize it's for life.  The journey to health and fitness never ends.  There is no final destination only small stops along the way to reflect, look back and take the next road.

Thanks for being with me!  Tomorrow I start a new week with Burn Circuit 1. YEAH!  I can't wait! My muscles are sore and need to be worked and loosened up again.

Ending my first week of ChaLEAN Extreme

Wow, I'm sore.  More sore than the first time I started this program back in June.  I was still nursing a pretty severe ankle sprain back then so I guess I didn't push myself as much before as I am now.  And while my ankle still has bad days it is really doing well and remarkably strong.  I decided after I had to stop the last time and take a break on lower body that when I restarted this program I was going to give it everything I could.

The last two days in a row have taken me to that near vomit stage and it was hard to keep going.  I would recheck myself, take my energy down for about 1 minute to get back to where I could go again.  I didn't stop, I didn't dog the workout, I didn't just press play and do the time.  I realized that I need to push myself as hard as I can in order to get the most out of these workouts.  Is it easy?  Heck no!  I am always trying to talk myself out of it.  Seriously.  Even though I have made the decision to push it hard I still have to make myself do the workout!  And I am a Team Beachbody Coach!  This is part of my job!  How much harder is it for someone just starting out and trying to get healthy without having all the support of the Beachbody community?  I just can't imagine.

I think back to the first time I started working out with Beachbody products.  It was 2003.  I was a lot younger back then.  I had three children, the youngest was 10.  I had a lot of weight to lose and I had tried many other programs only to give up on them.  I didn't realize what they were lacking, I thought it was something wrong with me.  I thought it was something I was lacking.  Will power or something that else I just couldn't figure out.  I had ordered programs off of infomercials before.  I had sweating to the oldies.  I thought that was going to work.  I purchased one of those Health Riders, I thought that was going to work.  I did Slim Fast, I also thought that was going to work.  Then I saw an infomercial for a program called Power 90.  By this time I was very frustrated and didn't think anything would work for me.  I went online to see what people were saying and what I found was this amazing online community.  I saw the infomercial in December of 2002.  I decided in February of 2003 to purchase the program because of the amazing people I met in those two months were were doing the program and having amazing results.

What I didn't know was that not only was there a community of people to support me, there was also an eating plan that came with my workout to help me decide what kinds of foods I needed to eat to not just lose weight but to fuel my body.  No one had ever talked to me about fueling my body.  It was all about low fat, low sugar, low calories yadda yadda yadda.  But no one had ever said, "hey, maybe you should eat more whole foods, things like fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean meats."  I got this great poster I put on my fridge called Michi's Ladder.  This was a break down of foods that would help and foods that would hinder my progress.

I pushed play everyday back then.  I finally realized that it wasn't something I was lacking that was keeping me from getting healthy.  It was something that was lacking from the programs and diets I had tried before.  It was the support and the nutritional information I didn't have!  

Fast forward 90 days and I was excited to see the changes!  I had gone from a size 16 and weighing 168 pounds to a size 10 and weighing 140.  I wasn't done with my fitness journey and I continued with Slim in 6 and went onto Slim Series.  I did Turbo Jam, and P90X.  I then let life get in the way.  I lost nearly 40lbs when all was said and done.  It was now 2005 and I had never been in better shape in my whole life.

I then did something I swore I would never do if I lost my weight.  I let life get in the way.  I had a surgery in December and another one the following July.  I was unable to workout after the July surgery because I had been given donor bone marrow in my hand and I'm not sure why but I couldn't raise my blood pressure by exercising until my body was healed.   I still kept eating healthy though and only gained a few pounds.  The tipping point for me was the car accident I had the following December.  Even though I wasn't badly injured I was frustrated and I just gave up.  At first my body didn't show any signs of getting heavy.  I was losing muscle mass because I wasn't working out and I was gaining fat.  Before I knew it I was as heavy as I had ever been and I had given up.  I always thought I was not going to be one of those people who lost weight only to gain it back.  If you work so hard to get healthy why would you let that slip away?  At least that's what I always thought.  Then I realized that it does happen and I let it happen.

I was so excited to find Beachbody again.  I knew that it helped me once and that they had the right combination to help me.  All I needed to do was pick a program and Decide to become healthy, Commit to doing the program and then I would Succeed at my health goals.  Decide. Commit. Succeed.  That is what Beachbody is all about.  

Wow, so I went on for quite a while just to say that I understand how hard it is to get healthy, it's even harder now that I am in my 40's than it was when I was in my 30's.  But I am not going to give up and I am not going to give in.  I am going to blog about my success and failures.  You will hear all the dirty details.  I am not holding back this time.  And I have to say I am excited and scared.

I started on Tuesday of this week.  I am currently at 171.5lbs.  I am only 5'1" and I will take my measurements in the morning so I have accurate numbers for my journey.  I will need support and I know I have it.  I have a great nutrition guide and a great fitness plan.  This next 90 days will be HUGE!