How to Lose Your Muffin Top

Hold a stability ball overhead with both hands and with your feet shoulder-distance apart. Keeping your back flat, abs tight and arms by your ears, bend forward from the hips until your torso creates a 90-degree angle with your lower body. Hold for 15 seconds and slowly return to starting position. Repeat 15 times.









Double Oblique Crunch: Lie with your back on the floor, hands behind your head and legs lifted so your shins are parallel to the floor. Exhale as you crunch your knees in towards your right shoulder. Lower and repeat by alternating left and right for 20 to 30 repetitions.

Leg Scissors: Sit with your legs straight and place your forearms on the floor beside you. Lean back slightly and extend your legs until they form a 45-degree angle with the floor. Scissor your legs, alternating your right leg over your left and left over your right for 30 seconds. Repeat 15 to 20 times. For an added challenge raise your arms.

Berry Blast Shake

Indulge yourself in the morning with a delicious Berry Blast Shake that is sure to get your day off to a good start!

4 oz of Skim Milk/Soy Milk/ Water
4 oz of Low-Calorie/Sugar Free Cranberry Juice
1/4 Cup of Ice Cubes
1/2 Cup of Frozen Berries
2 Scoops of WellnessPro Vanilla Shake

Blend until all of the ice cubes and frozen berries are crushed.

Enjoy!

A Hard-to-Quit Workout

If you want a workout you’re practically guaranteed to stick with, choose this one: walking.

Walking has the highest compliance rate of any exercise. But you’ll need to take the right number of steps each day to reap the maximum health benefits. What’s the magic number?

When you’ve taken at least 10,000 steps today -- a pedometer can help you keep count -- you’ll have walked the optimal amount for good health. Or set your stopwatch, and don’t stop until you’ve accumulated 30 minutes -- all at once, or broken up into 10-minute segments.

Phase 1 Snacks

Eating snacks 3-5 times a day between meals is a great way to keep full and speed up your metabolism. If you include protein with your snacks, you will feel full longer!

Here are some phase 1 approved snacks:

-Raw vegetables – I have a low tolerance for vegetables, so I tend to stick to the same ones: celery, cucumbers, and snap peas
-Cooked vegetables – I will eat most vegetables as long as they have a sauce disguising them. Try some with cheese sauce.
-Cheese slices
-Hard boiled eggs
-Deviled eggs
-Plain Yogurt (I usually find a low carb flavored yogurt instead. I’ve found some with fewer than 8 carbs. Of course, as soon as I found them, they stopped carrying them in my grocery store! But keep your eyes peeled!)
-Half of a WellnessPro shake
-Salad – add bacon bits, cheese, and/or eggs to make it more filling
-Cottage cheese
-Beef Jerky
-Cut up sausage, or any other kind of lunch meat
-String cheese
-Sugar-free Jello

And remember to drink LOTS of water. Sometimes when you think you’re hungry, you’re actually thirsty.

If you have any other great phase 1 snack ideas, let me know!

Cheese Sauce

Since I have a low tolerance for most vegetables, especially cooked ones, I use cheese sauce to disguise them. I LOVE it on broccoli and cauliflower.

Ingredients
1/8 cup butter
2 tablespoons cup flour
dash of paprika, pepper, salt
1 cup of milk
½ cup grated cheese

Directions
1. Melt butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir in flour, paprika, pepper and salt. Pour in milk; cook, stirring constantly, until thickened.
2. Stir in cheese. Cook, stirring constantly, until melted and well blended.

15-Minute Sand Workout

While summer is still here, enjoy working out while you soak in the summer sun!

Shuttle Run:
Make three parallel lines in the sand, 5 yards apart. Straddle the middle line with your knees slightly bent and your arms bent so your hands are in front of your thighs. Move to your right and bend at the knees to touch the line with your right hand, then run to the left and touch the far left line with your left hand.

Sand Skip:
Skip forward so that you're jumping and landing on the same foot. Work on leaping as high as possible by driving your knee upward as you push off the ground with your opposite foot.

Squat Jump:
Stand with your feet slightly more than shoulder-width apart and your fingers laced behind your head. Bend at the knees to lower yourself until your thighs are at least parallel to the sand, then jump up as high as you can. Sink directly into the next squat without pausing.

Jump and Stick:
Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart, hands beside your thighs. Jump straight up, then land on only one leg with your knees bent, your shoulders slightly forward, and your butt and hips back. Try to steady yourself for 2 seconds, then return to the starting position and jump again. Alternate the leg you land on and do four jumps on each leg.

Standing Calf Raises

Develop "head turning" calfs by doing standing and seated calf raises. Complete calf raises anywhere with or without weights. Simply stand or sit flat footed, lift up onto the balls of your feet and return! I like to do about 3 sets of 25. You can increase the difficulty by holding onto some weight while you do them. I'm not there yet, but my gym machine Wendy is!