My Top 3 Workout Moves, Flavor Your Greens & Crunchmaster Crisps Review

Crunchmaster 

Here's a little bit about Crunchmaster :

Click to enlarge Nutrition Info

Our Crisps are made with 100% whole grains, contain 50% less fat than regular cheese and graham cracker snacks and are certified gluten and peanut free. Crunchmaster Crisps give kids (and grown-ups) the perfect snack for at home, on the go and every stop in between. Keep the flavor. Lose the gluten.

#nomcakes recipe and QUEST BAR GIVEAWAY

I call my pancakes #nomcakes because when I like the word better, and because I NOMNOMNOM them like no tomorrow.

Here's the recipe for my eggless and protein powder-less nomcakes <3

NOMCAKES

April Fun & Quest Bar Giveaway!

SO fitfam I have a few fun things this new April Month!

Firstttt, A PHOTO A DAY CHALLENGE!

Move Nourish Believe Month

 I am teaming up with @laura_rixon from Instagram and ten other amazing girls and guys to present to you 30 days of either Move, Nourish or Believe inspiration! 

To play along just repost this pic and join our #mnbmonth quest to make our health and fitness journeys more holistic! 

I can sympathize that a lot of these photo-a-day type challenges can often be a hassle to commit to for a whole month. But I encourage you to start with us on Monday and work through the months goals in your own time and space. Post a photo every day, every so often or just once. Lets make living about more than just fitness, clean eating and selflove, lets make life about the complete package, about the complete Move Nourish Believe philosophy!

To share your progress, journey and photos with us and the #movenourishbelieve community tag your photos at #mnbmonth

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Next I'm having an awesome  

QUEST BAR GIVEAWAY! 

  If you don't know about my love for quest bars, check out my past reviews HERE and HERE.

THEY ARE MY ALL TIME FAVORITE PROTEIN BARS AND I SWEAR BY THEM.

Low carb because of the high fiber, and high protein, and clean ingredients?!?! WHATTTTTT.
Yeah that's right.

And I'm giving TWO people a chance to win a SAMPLE BOX from Quest Protein Bars! This includes one of each of their normal flavors that they offer!   

Here are the ways to enter:

1) Comment on THIS POST about your favorite flavor of protein bars!
2) REPOST the picture that I post on April 1st on my instagram about the Quest Giveaway and tag #vmquest
3) Upload a picture to YOUR instagram of your favorite clean eating recipe but it MUST HAVE ON THE PHOTO the tags #vmquest and @vmfitness!!! And then tag me in the caption! <3 <3 
4) For everyone who buys my EBOOK, that'll be an entry also! 

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And Lastly I'm doing another 

NO CHEAT FOR 2 WEEKS CHALLENGE 

 I had done one of these before and saw some slight progress, and a lot of you joined in on the fun as well! So if you want to join me, DO IT! It's just a fun little thing that'll strengthen that will power! 

I challenge you to NO CHEATS from

April 1 - 15!

That means no junk foods, candies, sodas, etc!

But you CAN eat filling healthy foods like lean proteins, filling veggies, sweet delicious fruits, yummy complex carbs, ALL THAT GOOD STUFF! <3 

Let's get that summer bod underway!
It's better to start NOW getting into shape and eating right and working out than to crash diet like the few weeks before a vacation! So start now, use this challenge as a kick start to your healthy lifestyle journey!

So if you're with me, just tag your progress #vmfitness and #vmfityear so I can see what yummy things you're eating in the kitchen, what workouts you're doing, and how fit you're getting!

<3 <3  

Think that's all I have up my sleeve for now this new month!

I hope you're all having a gorgeous and spectacular EASTER!

<3

Josie   

Fitness Diaries, AVOCADO, and ABOUT TIME Protein Winner!!

Hey everyone!
So today's main topic will be on Food & Fitness Journaling!

Since the start of my lifestyle change in May, I have kept a food/fitness journal! Now know I was the type of person to ALWAYS start a diary, say, "I'll finish this one this time!" and then I always ended up forgetting to update it, and leaving it in a dark dusty corner of my room somewhere. So yes, I do forget to update my food journal as well! But hey I'm a work in progress!

Anyway, back to the Importance of keeping one of these journals!
Here's what I typically include in my journals:

• workouts I did that day
• the foods I eat (NOT the calories or portions, JUST THE FOOD)
• any supplements I take
• my feelings and emotions (this is where the diary part comes in!)
• this can include feelings from the day, or also feelings internally. Do you have an upset stomach? Maybe a headache?
• amount of liquids I've drank
• Usually once every 2 weeks I have a section on measurements - weight, measurements of body parts, all that jazz! But remember, they're just NUMBERS! They don't determine your beauty and worth. It's just to see what progress is happening!

It's so great to write all this down so that you can go BACK into your journals and find out what foods impacted you in what way! 

If you did have a stomach ache, what did you eat that day that may have caused it? 

If you're feeling weak, do your foods look satisfying enough?

If you're craving, what have you eaten? Did you have enough healthy carbs, fats, and protein?

What I didn't do much this summer was go back and read my entries. If I had, I would have realized I was killing myself! I had entries like "I feel so weak today.." or "I could barely get up the stairs because my legs felt so weak..."! How crazy is that?! I should have read that and realized, I'm not eating properly to give my body energy! I'm depriving myself of being HEALTHY!

This is a recent writing I had in my notebook after the second day of no cheats!! Sorry it's so messy, but I was just so excited I had to write as fast as I could!! November 15, 2012! Now whenever I'm tempted again, I'm gonna go back to this entry and read how HAPPY I was eating clean! Which will motivate me to keep on eating clean!

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Oh yeah, I also have a yummy and sweet avocado topping recipe for you! The simplest thing in the world and takes only seconds to whip together! SERIOUSLY.

First, what are the benefits of Avocados? Don't they have lots of fat? I DON'T WANNA GET FAT JOSIE!

Oh shush now it's HEALTHY fats! It's GOOD FOR YOU! Your body needs them! Why??

And here's what avocados do for your body:

1. Lower cholesterol. Avocados contain oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat that lowers cholesterol. A study of people with high cholesterol showed that eating a diet high in avocados can decrease bad cholesterol levels while increasing good cholesterol levels.

2. Improve your vision. Avocados contain high amounts of lutein and zeaxanthin, antioxidants that protect your eyes from age-related macular degeneration and can actually improve your vision.

3. Protect your heart. Avocados are chock full of nutrients that promote heart health. The high amount of potassium in avocados can regulate blood pressure and help prevent heart disease and strokes (not to mention lower cholesterol). Avocados also contain high amounts of folate, a nutrient that can also help prevent heart attacks and heart disease.

4. Prevent cancer. The antioxidants in avocados do more than protect your eyes—they can also ward off certain types of cancer. In medical studies, avocado extract inhibited the growth of precancerous cells that led to oral cancer and prostate cancers. The oleic acid in avocados also offers protection against breast cancer.

5. Boost nutrient intake. Not only are avocados full of beneficial nutrients, they’ll help you absorb antioxidants from other fruits and vegetables. Studies have shown that adding avocado to a basic green salad helps increase the body’s absorption of carotenoids, a type of antioxidant, from those foods, and adding avocado to salsa increases lycopene and beta-carotene absorption 4.4 and 2.6 times higher than eating salsa without avocados.

From: http://www.motherearthliving.com/natural-health/5-health-benefits-of-eating-avocados.aspx

And they're just plain DELICIOUS!

Makes you wanna eat like 12 doesn't it?

Ok maybe not...

but it DOES make me want to make this topping again!

Try it out next time you're eating something sweet! Maybe with your pancakes like I did! Or even a side to your breakfast or dinner for a little something sweet! Or even add some protein powder in it for a good snack of protein and fats! Or add it on top of your casein at night to slow down the protein even more for your muscles to feed on!

SWEET AVOCADO TOPPING

Ingredients:

Ripeeeee avocado

Stevia or sweetener of choice

Unsweetened almond milk

Method:

Get your ripe avocado (needs to be soft enough to mush and smash)

You can use however much avocado you want! I used 1/2

then add 1/4 cup almond milk

1/2 packet stevia (or as much as you want for taste!)
MIX MIX MIX IT UP! 

SMASH and SMUSH and MASH and MUSH! 

After it's all mixed together stick it in the fridge until you're ready to eat it!

VOILA!

Seriously tastes JUST LIKE avocado smoothie boba/bubble tea if you've ever had it! Trust me!!!!

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Sorry this blog post has been EVERYWHERE with NO overall thing, but just had a bunch of random things to write!

ABOUT TIME PROTEIN GIVEAWAY WINNER

So for those that did follow the instructions on the giveaway, I wrote each entry down on pieces of paper and chose blindly....

The winner is cheri_amour05!!

Congrats girlie! E-mail me at vm.fitness@yahoo.com your shipping details and what flavor you want (check out their site for flavors!) and I'll have them ship it out to you!

Great job!

And if you didn't win, DON'T WORRY! I have another giveaway coming soon... and it'll be an icy cold treat.....

:)

Current Workout Split, Leg Workouts, and About Time Protein Review!

Hello all you health addicts! Today I'll be posting for you my current workout split and my leg workouts, if you haven't already seen them on my IG! Anddd of course, another review! Finally catching up with them all!

The workouts will be at the end of the post!


This time I'll be reviewing....

ABOUT TIME PROTEIN!

I first originally found out about this Protein Powder from Vevian over at Fitalicious.me when I was browsing through her delicious and CLEAN recipes! (If you haven't go check out her site NOW!) I've followed her since the beginning of my fit journey and her clean recipes and fitness motivation has definitely helped me so much!!!

What caught my eye was that this protein has ZERO CARBS! Perfect for those low carb days or those on a specific diet! As you can see above, it is completely natural and uses 100% Whey Protein Isolate! Many other proteins out there always have a bunch of mumbo-jumbo mixed with their powders, but not About Time! Also, it's lactose and gluten free, for all you food sensitive people out there! And PERFECT for my new gluten free diet! YAYYYY!

Here is what their awesome company claims:

The cleanest protein available

About Time's All Natural Whey Protein Isolate is the cleanest protein on the market. About Time holds a high standard of quality ingredients with zero sugar, zero carbs, and zero fat. About Time's All Natural Whey Protein Isolate is one of the only whey protein products without artificial ingredients and we also use Stevia as our sweetener, which is an all natural sweetener.

The About Time difference

All protein supplements are not equal. Unlike most other products, About Time's all natural whey protein is cold-processed micro-filtered whey isolate which means the protein is absorbed more efficiently into your system. Most other protein supplements offer misleading labels and health claims, but About Time keeps it simple and 100% all natural. Just look at the label – only 4 ingredients!

High protein, clean ingredients, lower calories than most other proteins that add a lot of other things into their mixes, and NO CARBS?! Sounds pretty dang perfect to me!

About Time was nice enough to send me some single serving sample sizes to try out and review for you all! They gave me the flavors: Banana, Vanilla, Birthday Cake, and Chocolate!

And here's my review!

Taste Test: put finger in packet and lick test & mixed with water test, to get the full flavor of the powder.

Chocolate: This is a very nice and simple chocolate flavor. No hint of any artificial sweetness at all! (And I hate the artificial sweet taste, so this is good!) It can be compared to unsweetened cocoa powder, but not as bitter. Great chocolatey taste, and I bet it would taste just like a chocolate milk shake when blended with almond milk and ice!

Birthday Cake: This had more of a vanilla-ish taste to it! Right when I opened the bag I could smell a lot of sweetness! So this can definitely cure any craving you're having for some real cakes :] It won't taste EXACTLY like a cupcake, but gets the job done!

Vanilla: Very mild with a hint of sweetness! Not toooo pungent, but not too bland either. This would be a perfect flavor in any baking recipe because it's not too overpowering!

Banana: Intense banana flavor. Didn't really enjoy this one too much. It had an artificial banana flavor to it, kind of like those banana candies? Very sweet and banana-y if you catch my drift. But I bet this would go GREAT in any baking recipe when the flavor is not too strong, like in a banana bread or protein bars or mug cakes! Or mixed with almond milk!


Overall Review:
Flavors: GREAT! They have more flavors than the ones just mentioned above too! I think my favorite would have to be Chocolate, and maybe my least favorite is the Banana.
Powder itself: Awesome mixability (is that even a word?). Didn't clump up, mixed real well even in just water!
I am a HUGE fan of this protein powder. Super clean, all natural, zero carbs, and great flavors. I recommend this to ANYONE and will definitely keep it a staple in my protein shelf! These would be the PERFECT protein powders to use in baking recipes too! Gives a great taste and great nutrition and macros! I'll be turning to this on my low carb days, and it's one of the best clean powders out there!

They even have a PEANUT BUTTER flavor! You know I'm addicted to any kind of Nut Butter... I will need to get my hands on this ASAP!

Make sure to try ABOUT TIME! You can order single serving sizes from them if you want to try a certain flavor before committing to a whole tub! You won't regret it!

Check out my INSTAGRAM for the rules on how to win a free tub of About Time Protein!!

Current Workout Split

Just because a few of you have asked when and how often I work out, thought I would just post it here on my blog so it's easier for everyone to view! Remember the importance of REST! Your body and mind need it!!

Monday - Abs & Cardio

Tuesday - Back and Bis

Wednesday - Quads and Calves

Thursday - REST

Friday - Shoulders Chest Tris

Saturday - Glutes Hammies and Calves

Sunday - REST

There you have it! Nice and simple! I'll be posting more workouts on my blog so you guys can get an idea of where to start!

Here are my current leg workouts! I'll probably do these for a month, and then switch them up so that my body doesn't get too used to the same thing! Here ya go! If any of you try it out, let me know how it goes! Do you feel the burnnnn in your quads and glutes?! Remember, LIFT HEAVY, where you're near failure on your last rep! You won't get a tight and toned bod from doing endless hours of cardio!

P28 Bread Review and GIVEAWAY Rules!

P28 Bread Review!

MMMM, BREAD. CARBS!

My favorite things to eat. Unfortunately, it's hard to find breads in the grocery store that aren't full of a bunch of sugars or artificial ingredients, and aren't exactly healthy for you either. If you've been following me on Instagram, you know I LOVEE my Ezekiel bread, the clean eating bread that can be found at Whole Foods, Trader Joes, or other health food stores, but I recently just fell in love with a new bread....

P28!

This is like WONDER POWER BOOM MUSCLE Bread! JAM PACKED with protein, super clean ingredients, and it's perfect for those of us on that fit and healthy lifestyle! Check out the awesome nutrition facts for its Whole Wheat Bread, Whole Wheat Bagels, and their Flat Wraps!

Click here to see ALL the benefits of their bread for your body!

Here's what P28 has to say about their amazing bread and bagels:

"P28 is 100% Natural. P28 makes it easy to get a perfect balance of protein and carbs in every meal. 28 grams protein in two slices, one single bagel, or one flat bread.  P28 is made with 100% Whole Wheat, 100% Whey Protein Isolate, Oats, Flaxseed, Sunflower Seed and Millet. P28 contains important Omega 3's, and is a rich source of 8 essential Amino Acids. This product also is cholesterol free and a good source of fiber. P28 makes a great pre-post workout snack when nutrition is the most important. Don't have time to prepare a meal and need to get to the gym? Just add two tablespoons peanut butter and you have a healthy snack jam packed with protein.

We are pleased to present to you our brand new P28 High Protein Bagels. They are 100% Natural, 100% Whole Wheat, and jam packed with 28 grams of protein. Each bagel is carefully formulated to provide you with the highest quality ingredients possible. 

Each bagel is made with the highest quality source of whey isolate protein, Oats, Flaxseed, Sunflower Seed and Millet. Our P28 Bagels also contain important Omega 3's, and is a rich source of 8 essential Amino Acids. This product also is cholesterol free and a good source of fiber. 

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Start your day off right by grabbing a P28 Bagel and enjoying your favorite breakfast sandwich. Hit the day running strong and feeling great! 

Grabbing a quick snack? Don't rely on fast food that just ends up slowing you down. Grab a P28 Bagel, satisfy your hunger and fuel your body! 

• 28 grams of Protein per two slices of Bread, each Bagel, or each Flat Bread. 

• 100% Natural

• 100% Whole Wheat - Made with Oat, Flax Seed, Sunflower Seed, and Millet

• Made with 100% Whey Isolate - The highest quality source of protein

• A rich source of 8 essential Amino Acids that your body needs for growth, energy, and vibrant health

• 7 grams of whole grains per serving 

• Cholesterol Free

• A Good source of Fiber

• Contains Omega 3's

• Excellent for people who are trying to build muscle and/or lose body fat."

I was fortunate enough to get samples of the bagels and breads to review for you all! And ALSO, I'll be hosting a giveaway! There will be TWO winners, one for the Bread, and one for the Bagels! The details for that will be at the end of this blog post!




So first, let's talk about the products:
My first impression when I opened the bread bag: these are HUGE slices! Oh my gahh it was awesome, because I love bread, the more the better! It was so SOFT and fluffy, but definitely sturdy!
When I ripped the bread apart: it's a tough bread, but it's sturdy and will hold up well with fillings (if you wanted to make a meaty muscle building sandwhich ;] ). Looked kind of spongey when I ripped it apart!
Texture: Dense, thick, chewy

<- Had to try my 2 favorite toppings ->
COTTAGE CHEESE and PEANUT BUTTER





Now the bagels:
These babies are pretty big also! The bagels are already presliced for your convenience, which is nice!
It takes a good tug of the teeth to bite the bagels, but man it was SO YUMMY. It's also chewy just like the bread, just a little tougher to bite off.



Both the bread and bagels had a sweet taste to them! When I topped my bread with some cottage cheese (one of my favorite combinations), the sweetness of the bread was so light and mild and it just tasted so darn GOOD. The bagels weren't AS sweet, but I could still taste a hint!
The bread and the bagels were both thick and huge, and definitely filling! Especially with all those awesome ingredients and proteins in there! I loved the fact that I could SEE the clean ingredients, like the oats and sunflower seeds and all that grainy goodness.






Overall review:
I would DEFINITELY get this again! It's made of such great ingredients and is so healthy for you! Plus the extra punch of protein makes me know it's allll going towards this dream of a tight toned body!

One HUGE slice of bread for 130 calories, 7 NET carbs (left after fiber and sugars removed) and 14 grams of protein?! One huge bagel for 260 calories, 16 NET carbs, and 28 grams of protein!?!?! PRETTY AMAZING IF YOU ASK ME.


If you want to try some samples before being a whole bag, you can click here to purchase some! Only $3.99 and they pay for your shipping! SWEET!

I can't wait to try other toppings with these breads! My great Instagram friend Alexandra from Tales of a Freckled Lifter suggested mini pizzas with the bagels, YUM! She's a genius!! Can't wait to try :]

GIVE AWAY RULES

You can enter TWICE - once on here, and once on instagram!

Rules for blog comments entry:

1) MUST be following my blog

2) Leave in the comments what your favorite toppings or favorite thing to eat with breads or bagels is and the first thing you'll try with P28 if you win!

Rules for Instagram entry:

1) MUST be following me on instagram

2) Upload a picture and hashTag #vmp28entry of your favorite way to eat breads or bagels and include what you'll try first with P28 if you win in your caption! DON'T tag @vmfitness, just #vmp28entry !

Good Luck!

I'll be choosing 2 random winners on Friday, October 12!