We had the best time in Utah and Idaho visiting our kids and grandbabies!!! Our trip was filled with all the must dos, fun times, and of course all our favorite foods. What do you think of when you think about going on a trip? Do you picture going to your favorite restaurants? Maybe stopping at all the yummiest nostalgic food places that your family loves? We do too!!! And guess what, on our trip to visit our kids, we did just that. we went out to eat, we ate our favorite foods, and we enjoyed every moment of the trip! As you might know, I am obsessed with doughnuts. I am a little picky, or if you ask Mark I'm a lot a bit picky about doughnuts, but really, almost any donut is my biggest guilty pleasure. And let me be clear, I don't give up doughnuts while I'm dieting. Nope! I work them into my diet just like everything else I eat. This is at the heart of flexible dieting and counting your Macros, (macronutrients, ie. carbs, fats, and protein), and is the type of e

Years ago, after some pretty big health issues, Dr. Mark and I decided to get serious about losing weight and getting healthy. We were uber consistent and over the course of about a year, we got down to a size that made us feel really confident and strong. We kept the weight off for over 3 years but then because of a lot of stress and hardship, we went back to our comfortable bad habits. Do you relate to that? Bad habits die hard, don't they! Or at least, we want them to die but we don't put in the proper work to actually replace them with healthy habits. You can lose weight and keep it off and we can show you how to do that! Join us on today's video about how to make lasting change. And make sure you get signed up for our Happiness Breakthrough Challenge we have a new challenge starting soon!

Do you R E L A T E to this??? Dr. Mark and I have found that when we have the mentality of "all or nothing" we tend to get fixated on the things we can’t have and don’t stick with the program that will get us the results we are looking for. How many diets have you done in your adult years? Mark and I have yo-yo dieted so many times because of the all or nothing approach and now our metabolism is paying the price. Do you find that losing weight is harder than it used to be? There is a reason for that, the more you diet, the more your body becomes super efficient at storing fat for times of starvation.  You can't starve your body and see long term results, and you can't just eat food you don't like long enough to lose the weight and then go back to old habits as soon as you have reached your goals because the weight will creep back on!  Mark and I have found that moderation by fitting food into our macro count is the best answer for how to

Summary: What is the best diet plan? Is there one that is superior to others? The answer is both complicated and simple. Some diets tell you to eat tons of bacon. Others state it is about extreme calorie deficit. A successful diet is one that you will stick with over a longer duration. The diet that you can sustain is the life that you will be able to sustain. It is vital to know both the number of calories (energy) you consume as well as the calories (energy) you expend. Nutrition accounts for 75-80% of your overall health. You have heard it stated that you can not out exercise a poor diet. You can, however, adjust many aspects of a healthy lifestyle. It is imperative that you track your Basal Metabolic Rate, Non-Exercise Activities, Thermogenic Effect of Food, as well as move calories. From a scientific standpoint, if you expend more calories then you consume, you will lose weight. And so what diet is the perfect diet? The perfect diet is the one that you stick to. At the end

Hi guys! So, today we are going to talk about muscle imbalances.  Why? Let me tell you! Have you ever been to the gym and hired a personal trainer? One of the first things they have you do is a squat test and when I hired personal trainers and they had me do a squat test I just thought that meant that they were looking at how well I could do a squat. lol... That's not the case though, your personal trainer is actually looking to see if you have muscle imbalances. Why is that important? Basically, by the time you hit your mid 30's you have done a lot of sitting behind a desk, sitting in a car, sitting at kids' sports games...a lot of sedentary behavior and I don't mean as in you don't do anything, but for most of you, a good portion of your day consists of sitting.  If you think about filling out a health questionnaire that asks what your activity level is ie. light activity, moderate activity, etc. even if you go to the gym and work out, if

I have such a love hate relationship with planks! I wondered for years why they were always on the list of todos for my personal trainers and now that I'm a personal trainer, I get to be the bearer of  bad  ahem, I mean good news. The good news is that planks can be one of the best full body core strengthening, shoulder strengthening, mvp's of the game. So as much as we love to hate them or hate to love them, they are part of my fitness plans as well.   I have only recently advanced from knee planks to elbow planks. After carrying 6 children on my 5 foot 1 1/2 inch frame, and not understanding the importance of core and stability, my back and core are so weak and it has taken me months to be able to do a plank without back strain. So my motto and the motto I now give to you is Form over fashion!!! It doesn’t matter how “cool” you look, if you aren’t ready for the exercise you will injure yourself and then set your progress back! If you have a weak back please modify

Posting this picture is quite possibly the scariest thing I think I have ever done. But in order to understand the power of The Happiness Breakthrough Health and Fitness Plan that will be launching soon, I need to tell you my story and help you understand where I have come from.  I have battled depression and weight gain since I had my first baby 27 years ago. I have a really stubborn metabolism and even in my 20s when others would “diet” and the weight would fall off, mine would trickle off at best.  I, like so many of you, have tried EVERY diet out there. I have done Keto, Weight Watchers, HCG, Body for Life, Beach Body, Faster Metabolism, should I go on? I think you get the picture. Many of these Diets worked a little, some of them worked well, none of them lasted. Why? Because I hadn’t fixed the root of my problem. My self hatred for my body and my self sabotaging behaviors when hard times hit in my life. I was only committed to the physical results I was looking for, not