House of Glutes

There are a lot of rumors and nonsense in the fitness and health industry. However, these are by far the most common concerns and beliefs among women that are beyond not true! And most often this is also what’s holding them back from getting the results and changes that they want!!! 1.)     “If I want to lose weight I need to eat less.”   I addressed this already in my previous blog regarding my top 3 rules for weight loss and maintenance, so I won’t stay on this topic very long. Below is an illustration showing that it’s NOT about how much you eat, but about WHAT YOU EAT! When you eat clean healthy food, you will be AMAZED of how much more food you will be able to fit into your diet. A woman should NEVER eat less than 1,200 calories in a day, and an active woman should never have less than 1,600 calories. Anything less than that amount of calories and your body will start to preserve fat and your metabolism will be sloooooow way down! (This includes fad diets that require a d

I’ve said before that the easiest way to eat healthy is to plan, plan, plan! One of my favorite sayings is “If you fail to plan, then you can plan to fail.” With myself being a full time student, a part time bartender, a mother to 3 and 6 year old little girls, and a wife to a law enforcement officer who works crazy hours (which means I do all of the grocery shopping and most of his cooking and meal prepping as well) means that if I didn’t plan food ahead of time, my family would likely thrive on fast food and take out! That’s why once or twice a week I try to pre-cook meals for me and my husband, and for my kids I do some of their meals. but mostly healthy snacks. This is a general breakdown of how this routine goes: 1.        Decide what food you want to cook and how much of it you need. Determine how many ounces of fish, chicken, etc you will need for the upcoming days/week. This may require some math in order to know what to buy at the store. The good news is that this only

 One common mistake that people make is assuming that in order to lose weight they must start exercising; or the belief that when they exercise, they have then “earned”, in some way, unhealthy foods. Well, both of those assumptions are highly inaccurate. Let me explain…                                    When someone asks me what exercises they should do for weight loss, I instead immediately ask, “How is your diet?” Nutrition and diet is by far the #1 cause for weight gain and loss. Once proper diet and nutrition is in place, THEN add exercise and activity into your routine. The reason is this:               Below is an example of the calories I burned doing the step mill for cardio plus lifting weights for my shoulders. It took me about an hour or so of both advanced cardio and intense lifting to burn those calories. A good cardio session lasting from 45-60 minutes would burn, on average, around 500-600 calories. An hour long workout is equivalent in calories t

These are, to me, the most important guidelines for maintaining a healthy weight, yet it’s also the biggest mistakes I see people make: 1.)     Eat real food! Ask yourself; Does this food occur in nature? How many ingredients are listed on the label? Is this something that can be made without chemicals? By simply addressing these issues, virtually all junk food, processed food and unhealthy foods will be eliminated from your diet! Aim to eat foods that are naturally occurring, such as lean meats (fish, steak, chicken ,eggs, etc) whole grains and natural starches (potatoes, rice, corn,oats) veggies and fruits and also fats (nut butters, avocadoes and even real butter…in moderation of course). These foods are more easily digestible and are going to move through the body easier. They will also cause less chemicals to build up within the body. Look for “natural” or “organic” on your food labels and read ingredients lists. For example, look for nut butters whose only ingredients

I got the recipe for quesadillas from the book Deceptively Delicious. It involves putting pureed butternut squash into the cheese and mashing navy beans into sour cream. This alone was delicious! Then I had extra ingredients left over so I decided to make mini pizzas with the cheesy squash and tortillas and added pureed navy beans to ranch as a side dipping sauce. The squash/cheese makes an excellent alternative for pizza sauce for kids like mine who don't like red sauces!

I am a wife. I am a mother. I am a student. I am a bartender. I am an athlete….well kind of. I never grew up doing sports or anything athletic at all. I was a band nerd…not coordinated, not popular, not particularly attractive. As I entered adulthood around 17 or 18 I started running, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do but wanted to get physically active and in shape. Over the years I taught myself how to lift weights from reading magazines, watching FitTV and Googling everything I wanted to learn about. I learned what to eat, I learned how to exercise, and I did it all with no coaches and with no teammates. This has brought me to where I am today. I don't claim to have a perfect body...hell I don't want a perfect body! It's too much responsibility! But given my schedule and my lifestyle I do my best to look good and feel good. I've found what works best for me is to find a balance...between eating clean the majority of the time, while still allowing some