Tag Archive for nutrition

Healthy Snacks

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There are two types of people in this world. Those who eat 2 or 3 solid meals per day, and those who graze. I am a total grazer. I like to snack and would rather eat 5-6 small meals a day than only a few big meals. Basically I’m like a cow with less spots. And no utters. I hope.

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Snacking can be really dangerous if you’re not careful because many snacks don’t really fill you up, leading you to just keep, well, snacking on them! I’ve compiled a list of my favorite healthy snacks that both allow me to munch on them throughout the day and give me some great health benefits.

Scandinavian Crisp Bread w/ Whipped Cream Cheese
-Fiber city meets Fat town. It tastes good and is good for the gut too. I find the crisp bread in the kosher aisle at Ralph’s (or Kroger, or Fry’s depending on where you live)

(I’m likely going to get a lot of flack for this one because cream cheese is dairy and has fat in it, oh no!!! But I’m not afraid of fats and full fat cream cheese is delicious. Depending on how much criticism I get for this, I may dedicate an entire post to why I include it in my diet as a HEALTHY food.)

Baby carrots w/ Guacamole
–Trader Joe’s chunky guacamole is by far my favorite, but Wholly Guacamole is a close second. Their portion control packs are awesome. 100 calories of delicious avocado goodness.

Strawberries and Greek Yogurt
-It’s like dessert. Oh, so delicious and filling. Perfect blend of protein and carbs too! You can use 0% fat greek yogurt, or get crazy, sexy, cool and buy full fat. Whatever you’d like!

Almonds w/ stevia and cinnamon
-Like candied almonds without all of the sugar!

Coconut Oil + Cocoa Powder + Stevia
–Emily Zaler taught me this one. Mix equal parts coconut oil and cocoa powder with stevia to taste. Mix it up and freeze it for 10 minutes. When it melts in your mouth, you can come thank me (or Emily). šŸ™‚

What are some of YOUR favorite healthy snacks? Add to this list!

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A New Journey

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I haven’t posted on this blog in quite some time. I’m almost positive I don’t have any readers anymore! But that’s okay, a lot has changed since I used this blog, but I think I’d like to bring it back….

At the time that this blog was a daily part of my life, I was single, competing in bikini competitions, living in Arizona and going to school. Now? I live in beautiful, sunny Santa Monica. I still work out daily, but don’t compete (and don’t do nearly as much work out volume as I used to). I’m not the petite thing I was back in 2009. I am a sound engineer and work out of a few different recording studios in Los Angeles and Hollywood. I still work part time at a gym doing operational duties. Life has definitely changed for me, but I’m happy and loving it.

Competing was fun for me, but it wasn’t good for my brain. It took me over two years to get my brain back to a semi-normal state, and I would say that I am about 75% of the way there now. It has been extremely tough, taken a lot out of me, and been a huge fight, but I finally feelĀ almostĀ  like a normal person again. I’ll go into some details some other time.

Anyways, for those of you that still have this blog in their news feeds, maybe you’ll stick around for some more. Since I gave up the dieting long, long ago, I am about 20 pounds heavier than I was when I was competing. Not terrible, but not where I’m totally comfortable either. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with my body. For the first time in 3 years, I am at peace with my body and embrace it. With that said, I’d like to find a place somewhere in between where I was and where I am. I have been able to maintain this weight within 5 pounds for the last year and a half. I finally feel ready to do it for all of the right reasons and not because I hate myself. Because yes, as soon as I gained 5 pounds post-competition, I hated myself. For 2-3 years I hated myself. Sad, really, but I’m proud of how far I’ve come along.

My workouts over the last year or so have been pretty random. I work out about 5-6 days per week, but I don’t have a strict regimen of lifting and cardio on the daily like I used to ( which was about an hour of lifting + an hour of intense cardio and sometimes a boxing class to boot). Some days will be a run by the beach, a tough bleacher/stair workout, some days will be lifting, some days will be just cardio at the gym, sometimes a combination. I try to go hiking with my boyfriend when I can as well. I still like to push myself, but I prefer the shorter workouts as opposed to the 2-3 hours I was putting in before.

I’d love for you all to follow along if you feel like it, but I really just want to document my journey again. It’s fun to look back and see what you’ve accomplished. Life is much, much busier these days, so it won’t be quite as easy to fit it all in, but if I’ve got time for Facebook and Twitter, I’ve got time for cooking, working out and prepping food too.

My goal is to drop about 15 pounds and get my abs back. I want to keep my bubble butt. šŸ˜‰

Here’s my plan:Ā After reading Janetha’s blog about Jamie Eason’s Live Fit plan, I’ve decided to give it a go. Never in my life have I followed a “plan”. Even when competing, I kind of just did my own thing. That’s just my personality, but I’m bored and want to spice it up and actually work on losing some extra weight I don’t want. Maintenance has been great as I’ve gotten back normal hunger cues and such, but I feel ready to push harder.

Help push me along or even better, join me and we can do it together! I’ll post daily details of what I’m doing and how I’m feeling.

Take care friends!

(Photo below of me at a studio in North Hollywood last month)

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Posted in Abs, motivation, Workout tagged with , , , , , ,

Special on Personal Training

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Hey guys!

I just wanted to let you know that I’m running a special through Memorial Day!

Buy 1 month, get 1 week free!

Buy 6 months get 1 month free!

Visit www.fitlizzio.com for more information

(The pricing is a little wonky on the website and I’m working to get that fixed ASAP! For now, please e-mail me for pricing at [email protected])

I really appreciate my readers and as a bonus, if you mention this blog post in your e-mail, I will give you an additional week for free!! 6 weeks for the price of 4!

(Offer expire 5/30/2011)

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Summer is upon us…

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And it’s getting hot!! For all of you dealing with the crazy storms, my heart goes out to you! I am happy to not be dealing with that, but it is definitely getting hot here in AZ. The kind of hot where you walk outside in the morning hoping for a nice cool breeze with the sun beaming down, and instead you get hit in the face with a wall of HEAT. Imagine opening an oven, except the world is a really really big oven. Anyways, I’ll stop complaining now šŸ˜‰

Workouts

This week’s workouts have been kicking my ass. First of all, my sleep pattern is really screwed up. Working sound gigs really takes the life out of me. It’s 14 hours of mostly pushing heavy gear around and in between sitting and waiting. The actual work time of sound checks and mixing is really short compared to the long day you have to put in. Again though, I’m not complaining because I LOVE working shows and it inspires me more and more each time. The moral of the story is that it makes me SO tired. In fact, after Saturday’s gig, I slept for 11 hours. And another 11 hours the night after that.

Monday: 45 minutes of incline walking + quick Leg workout (squats, quadruped hip extensions, SL deadlifts)

Tuesday: Heavy upper body workout + 20 minutes elliptical

Wednesday: 30 minutes incline walking + Conventional deads and burpees

As you can tell, I’ve been throwing some heavy lifting back in the mix. I took off some time from heavy lifting because I mostly just wasn’t into it, and I like to enjoy my workouts! Last Friday I decided to lift heavy and it made me miss it, so this week I brought it back a bit. I’m pretty sore, but my strength hasn’t gone anywhere which is refreshing. I have been doing plenty of body weight and high rep training, and I actually think my endurance has gone up a lot, which helps with the heavy lifting. I’ve always had a lot of endurance with weight lifting, but my upper body sometimes wants to crap out when the reps get high(lower body just goes forever haha) I noticed my upper body endurance has increased, so I’m pretty happy!

FOODS

I’ve been doing pretty well with keeping myself accountable and staying on track. A few mishaps here and there, but for the most part I’ve stayed pretty strong with it. It’s funny how much easier it is to stick to when you’re just ready to do it and how much of a struggle it can be when you just don’t care and want to eat like crap šŸ˜€ Don’t get me wrong, I still have a sweet tooth, but I’m managing it.

My latest obsession:

Broiled green beans with cracked pepper and sea salt, slightly burnt. (that part is an old favorite) but the NEW addiction is in the sugar-free ketchup. Yes, it’s artificial and I’m trying to eliminate most artificial things, but it is SO good. It made me realize that I actually don’t like french fries, I like ketchup. Since a green bean mimicks the texture of a french fry in some ways, it works Ā quite well. Try it!

What’s your latest food obsession?

Posted in food, Workout tagged with , , , , ,

Remember me?!

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Holy crap!! I have completely neglected this blog. Life has been nuts, but that isn’t why I haven’t blogged on here. I just haven’t felt compelled to write about fitness/nutrition lately, so I started a music blog called It Just Sounds Good.

The good news, though, is that I plan on updating this blog as well! I miss blogging on here, and miss interacting with my awesome readers! I hope there are still some out there!

So what have I been up to?? EVERYTHING!!!! In keeping things simple, I still work out daily, but my workouts are somewhat different. I’ve been running a lot more, doing more plyometric/circuit/compound exercises in the gym and have shyed away from heavy lifting. My reasoning? For one, I just haven’t felt like it. I’m really liking the fast-pace movements lately. The other reason…well I have a pretty decent amount of muscle, I don’t want more, and I tend to put on muscle fairly easily! I know that many people say this, but I actually got a blood test and my testosterone levels are slightly higher than the average female (maybe i’m a man? haha justtt kidding) but this is common for weight lifters, actually. With that said, I will still throw in some conventional lifting days here and there, but for the most part I’m running 5-8 miles 3 days a week, doing 2-3 circuit/plyo workouts in the gym per week, and on then some track workouts and boot camp style workouts usually about once per week. I occasionally am boxing (when I can wake up that early!) and have also been riding my bicycle around to run my short errands!!

The Food

Well in January, I decided I needed to overhaul my view on food. I have to be honest with you guys, I’ve gained a pretty good amount of weight since I competed. I no longer have that tiny lean body, but I’m not a big tub of lard either. I am muscular, with some extra padding is the best way to put it! My weight around competition time was about 130, these days I’m about 155. A 25 pound weight gain….It’s embarassing, frustrating, and is completely my fault. I will say, however, that I’m at a healthy weight for my height and build, and besides my elevated testosterone levels(sounds so funny haha), all of my blood tests came back saying that I’m a healthy bean, so I really have to remind myself to be thankful of that!

How Competing Changed Me

Competing was an amazing experience. I decided in December 2008 to get in the best shape of my life and compete, and I DID! I will be honest, my body looked smokin’!!! (Of course at the time, I only saw my flaws.) I Ā guess being so naive to the sport was a blessing, because I had a great prep (no crazy carb-cutting) and did well. It was after competing that things got a little hairy. Suddenly, those who saw potential in me, started giving me advice. They told me what I should/shouldn’t do, and it was coming from many different angles. It really made me view everything differently and I got a very bad mental view on food, eating and working out. I could go on and on (and if you’d like me to, leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail and I’ll do an entire post on my thoughts/feelings on everything). I started to try to put on muscle, and also was eating more to do so. This slight weight gain looked to me like I had gained 50 pounds! Your body image gets really screwed up when you get super lean. Anything above that, and you truly believe you’re fat. From there, it was downhill and I have basically yo-yo’ed my weight for the last year and a half.

How I’ve Changed Recently

Going back to my “overhaul” this past January, I decided to STOP restricting the types of foods I was eating, and be a “normal person.” I have still been counting calories, but I haven’t been restricting WHAT I can eat. I’ve eaten gummy candy (helloooo sour gummy worms!), sandwiches (oh, how i missed those turkey sandwiches), and even the occasional sweet treat. In doing so, I haven’t really lost weight, but I haven’t gained weight either. I haven’t been “perfect” but that wasn’t my goal. My goal was to rid myself of viewing foods as good or bad and stopping myself from being so obsessive about the types of foods I was eating.

The Verdict

I finally feel good about food. I feel like I have made LEAPS in the last 3 months. Had I done this a year ago, I think things would have been much easier. As dumb as it sounds, I feel very proud of this. I know many people who absolutely fall into eating disorders from competing and seem to never free themselves, but I finally feel freed from it. I don’t think that I had an eating disorder, but did I have a skewed view on food? Heck yes I did. Very screwed up.

Body Image Now and Goals

I still suffer from some body image issues. After all, I’m not lean anymore(and hello, i’m a girl!), and it’s a hard pill to swallow. I don’t look the way that I want to, but my goals have also changed. A happy weight for me these days would be about 140. I think I was a bit too small at 130, and although I did love that look, it was hard to maintain. I think that I could maintain a 140 pound body without being “crazy” about a strict diet. So, with April 1st being tomorrow, and me being cliche, I’m going to start tightening up my diet a little bit. I know you’re probably thinking “Lizzy, you just told us you were getting away from that, what’s with this?!” But the fact of the matter, is that my mind is different now. I feel comfortable cleaning up my diet a bit (less junk, more wholesome foods, slightly less calories) without falling back into a distorted view of food and eating. While I don’t believe you have to eat squeaky clean to lose weight (you absolutely do NOT) I prefer to eat this way for the most part. It doesn’t mean I won’t have the occasional turkey sandwich or beef jerky (another recent obsession) but probably not as frequently. (Not to mention beef jerky is too damn expensive!)

GOALS

-Lose 15 pounds

-Continue viewing food in a healthy way

-Keep doing the work outs I love

-Stress out LESS

-Don’t dwell on my flaws!

Wow, that was a marathon of a post!! I also want to note, I’m VERY HAPPY with life right now. I’m following my dreams in the music business and I couldn’t be more blessed with everything going on. Hopefully I didn’t portray that I have been depressed or anything, because that definitely ISN’T the case. I’m very happy, but ready to make some changes as well.

Anyways, I’m not sure what direction to take the blog, so your input would be greatly appreciated! For now, I will be posting workouts, healthy recipes, and my thoughts/feelings toward my weight loss and fitness. Share this with your friends too! I’d like to share my experiences with others and build a network on the Fit Lizzio blog.

What are your goals for April?

Here are some recent pictures as well. My sister is getting married next weekend too, so I will be sure to post pictures from that!!

From left to right: Aunt Suzie, my sister Rachel, me, Grandpa(just turned 90 and still works out everyday!!), little brother Ben(so little right? HA), mother, Aunt Nancy

My best friend Taylor(left) myself and my sister Rachel(right) on my birthday

Most people go to Ostrich farms on their birthday..right?

My friend Maggie, myself and Morgan at my other birthday dinner. This is right before I ate a RAW QUAIL EGG. and it was good….

That’s all for now folks!

Posted in Fit Lizzio, food, motivation, pressure, Running, Workout tagged with , , , , , , ,

Itā€™s Been a Minuteā€¦.

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This will make you laugh. I was bored the other night and made thisā€¦haha

HA! Anywaysā€¦ Wow, thatā€™s the longest Iā€™ve gone without posting since I started this blog.

I needed a break, and I canā€™t say that Iā€™m 100% back yet, but maybeā€¦

Training:

Going amazingly right now. I am LOVING my workouts and seeing better results than EVER!! Iā€™m lifting heavy and really can tell a huge difference in my physique.

Dieting:

I feel better than ever. I am eating a liberal contest diet. Meaning, Iā€™m actually eating carbs every single day (in my first 2-3 meals) and I havenā€™t felt this good in a long time. My weight has been holding steady the past few weeks, as my body got used to having carbs again since I wasnā€™t really having much in preparing for the USAā€™s.(more on that below.) My clothes are getting looser though, and my mind is in such a great place.

Competition:

If you didnā€™t know already, Iā€™m NOT competing in the USAā€™s this weekend. I made the decision that I am going to do this the right way. The right way is different for everyone, but MY right way is slowly leaning out. None of this no-carb crapola for me. My body does better with high protein, moderate carbs and moderate fat. My activity level is high enough to support that and it is the way i started this whole thing. I got too wrapped up in ā€œhavingā€ to do the show, that I started to do what Iā€™ve always said not to do: eat too little. My body wasnā€™t responding as well and I knew I needed to get into a long-term mindset.

Future Plans

As of right now Iā€™m not sure. Iā€™d like to compete in a national bikini show this year, but part of me is really turned off by the sport and the judging/posing. I am really considering doing figure. At this point, Iā€™m not finalizing anything because I really just am having a good time working out hard, leaning out and not having a timelineā€¦ā€¦.

 

Itā€™s becoming a lifestyle. The workouts have always been, but the eating too. It doesnā€™t feel like a chore anymore these days and itā€™s what I want to do.

Basically, Iā€™m loving life right now, getting back into music again, training for the fun of it, getting amazing results, and enjoying every moment. I do plan on competing before the year ends, but Iā€™m seeing where this road takes me.

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Chestaratops and biceptasaurus-rex

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Hola! (Do you ever find it awkward to be writing a hi, hey, or hello, at every single post. Maybe I will stop. Rebel blogger.)

Today was a really good day. I was in a good mood for the first half, and a bad mood the second half(due to being tired mostly.)

Workout

I started off the day with some boxing!! It was SO much fun. We sparred today for the first time. A 60 year old man kicked my ass, but it’s cool. I also sparred with 3 other people, one of whom was my instructor. He started talking shit to me at the end to get me to hit him harder, he knows me too well haha.

We started off with 2 minutes on, 1 minute off, and then half way through the class, we had no more breaks.Ā  I seriously had no energy left by the time the 60 minutes was up. I felt like I had gotten hit by a stampede, and then reaped of any and all awakeness that I had prior to the class.

The verdict? Most fun boxing class to date. I shall return šŸ˜‰

Afterwards, my friend talked me into going to tan at her work. If you know me at all, you know I do NOT do tanning beds. I am against them in every way, shape, or form, but maybe the boxing lowered my inhibitions. I am not against tanning in the sun(although I am aware of the skin cancer dangers and try not to over-do it), but I live in amoxil-info and paying for a tanning bed is just dumb. We have sun almost every day of the year. Talk about stupid spending. Anyways, i tanned for free and I’m pretty sure my arm pits are burnt. What is hotter than that? The sweet zits that keep popping up on my face. šŸ™‚ Are ya still with me??

I dragged my toasted body to the gym afterwards to lift. Today was Chest/Biceps.

Chest was mostly machines. Chest flys, cable flys, hammer strength incline press, EZ bar curls, DB curls, Preacher curls(machine). Why so many machines? My trainer chose them, not me. I let him take the reins of my workouts this week. We finished up with some ab work.

This afternoon I did a sprint workout and realized how dead my legs are from yesterdays Stump Day. It was still a good workout, but I was just exhausted in general. I may or may not be getting faster with my sprints. Most likely not, but a girl can dream right?!

Nutrition

Meals were good today, but the balance was a little weird. It still turned out good in the end.

M1: 1 egg, 5 whites

M2: 4 oz. ground turkey burger

M3: Protein Shake

(all protein, not ideal.)

M4: 4 oz. ground turkey burger, 1 carrot, green beans, and a Flax Cracker(just flax and water)

M5: Protein Ice Cream

M6: 4oz ground turkey burger, 1TBSP PB, mustard, and a broccoli/cauliflower mix.

M7: Protein Ice Cream(addict much?)

It seems like a lot of food, but only 1658 calories worth. It was also a low carb day if you didn’t notice. Two more low carb days and then carb day is Sunday!

I’m off to go pack food for tomorrow and then be in bed by 9. I am working out at 530am and then working until 1 or 2pm. Should be a good time šŸ™‚

Good night!

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You can always start swinging again…

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I’ve got to admit it’s gettin better! And better, all the time!

I’m talking about life. Although, yes, stress and bad things DO happen (they ALWAYS will, better get used to it :)), life just gets better and better as time goes on! Each new day is a chance to learn something new about yourself! Whether you learn a new favorite workout move or that you can single handedly take down an entire box of cookies(i would never! ;-)), there’s always something new!! (And no, i didn’t eat any cookies, just an example.)

(ugh why is this girl in such a good mood)

Anyways peepers, I had another epiphany.(Is there a certain amount of them that you get per year? I didn’t have any for a while, so maybe these are leftĀ over? Like rollover minutes?!)

Anywhozzle, this epiphany is regarding momentum. Do you ever notice how much EASIER it is to run after you have been running for xx days straight? Or how easy it is to eat healthy when you’ve been doing it for a while?

Imagine you are onĀ a playground pushing a child on a swing(hopefully your own child or at least one you know haha) and when you start to push, it’s a little bit tough. The child swings back and you push again, a little bit easier, but still kind of tough. Again, the child swings forward and back. You push again, and its almost effortless.

Are you seeing the common ground? I’ll go on….

If you walk away from the swing, eventually it slows down. A little more, a little more, and finally, it isn’t swinging anymore(and the child is screaming their head off to “PUSHH MEEEEE”).

So you see, staying on your exercise and nutrition plan is much like a swing. You use the momentum that you gain to help keep your “swing” going. Eventually, it will get easier. BUT, if you walk away from your swing (goals and good habits) you will lose that momentum. And eventually, your progress will slow, and slow more, until finally it stops.

We must always be mindful of our swing and keep it swinging. The minute we walk away, we could lose some of that momentum.

Ā 

The good news? You can always start swinging again.

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