My Husband and I - The Adventure

I don't ever really talk about my personal life much on here, outside of fitness so today I wanted to post about my husband and I. Our relationship and what works for us!

We have been married for 6.5 years, together for nearly 10. We have two kids together, Hayden who is 7 and Adalyn who turned 4 today! (EEK! My baby is growing up :( )

We have had to grow up together since getting married at the ripe ole' age of 20 and 24. We have learned a lot a long the way and each day we continue to learn. One of our biggest lessons in marriage is that it has its ebbs and flows. Sometimes it's really great and other times we want to kill each other! Not literally....at least I hope not! Haha

One thing that really binds us together and that we LOVE doing together is working out. We are both extremely into fitness and love sharing workouts, exercises, nutrition advice, etc etc...

BUT something you may not know about us is that we LOVE Adventure. We love doing new and exciting things. One being travelling, just the two of us. We haven't gone anywhere too extravagant as of yet, but it has been super fun nonetheless.

Our most fun trip we have taken together, to date, is Las Vegas last May 2013. We kind of planned it on a whim. I didn't know what to expect as we have never been nor have we ever gambled. Maybe that's what made it extra fun...the unknown? Can I just say that we had the TIME OF OUR LIVES there?!!

We stayed 4.5 days. Some things we did - went hiking (10 miles!), had a pool day, saw two Cirque De Soleil Shows, went to a night club and danced.

But our favorite day was when we decided to walk the strip and hit up as many hotel casinos as possible. We made a game out of it. We said we would go into each casino play enough to get a free drink and if we were winning we would stay a little longer, but if we were losing we would move on to the next casino. It was so freeing and so much fun! We made it to 10-12 I think! And we made sure to get a picture at/or of each . Here are a few.

 

We both feel like we got the full experience of Vegas - we did what you are 'supposed' to do there. We stayed up entirely too late, drank way too much, gambled our hearts out (even won a little!), explored, and had no regrets!

It was an experience we will both have forever and a wonderful memory we made together. We were able to get to know each other again and be 'kids'. We didn't make many plans like we do in real life. We were gypsies. We were young, wild, and free. And it was AMAZING.

I encourage you to do something fun, new and exciting in your marriage. Step outside of what is your norm and do something maybe you would never do. Take chances - be a little wild! Let your hair down and just be in the moment, whatever it is.

8 Week Fat Loss Program!

This is a strategically designed fat loss program based on NASM's Optimum Performance Training (OPT) model that is scientifally structured to improve all functional abilities. This plan incorporates 2 phases for a methodical approach for fat loss.

Phase 2 will build off of phase 1 and you can expect to gain stabilization endurance, strength endurance, flexibility, balance, and cardiorespiratory endurance throughout this 2 month plan.

This is a 5 day a week plan that can be done at a gym and also has options for those who workout at home. Things you will need for completing this program at home is two sets of dumbbells, a stability ball, resistance band(s), and a jump rope.

Each exercise lasts around an hour to an hour and 15 minutes depending on YOU.

While there are no pictures, each exercise is more or less easily identified or can be looked up via www.bodybuilding.com, google image search, or www.youtube.com.

If you are looking for a program to reduce your body fat, while at the same time gaining strength, then look no further! This program will challenge and change your body! I would say this is more of an intermediate/advanced plan than a beginners plan, although you can always make modifications if you are a beginner and wanting to jump start your weight loss goals.

TO PURCHASE: Click on the add to cart button below the logo and once payment is made, you will find a link or be redirected to a link and able to download the program immediately. This is an excel file and you can view everything by clicking on each sheet at the bottom of the excel page.

 

 

 

To purchase go to www. EricaNicoleFitness.com

Cardio Routine - Tabata Style

For Workout Wednesday I wanted to give you all a routine that will work your entire body, be done at home or a gym and requires NO equipment! It will also burn fat, torch calories, and raise your metabolism for up to 24 hours after. It's quick and will have you dripping sweat in no time!

Mountain Climbers

 

 

 

Butt Kicks

 

Skaters

 

Squat Jumps

 

Plank Jacks

 

Burpees

 

 

 



Fit Tip Tuesday: Setting Goals

Today I wanted to share with you all what helps to keep me on track with my workouts and eating healthy - really anything in life.

I will preface this by saying it's not always easy and it takes effort, effort that I have been lacking in the past few weeks. But that all changes and it changes right NOW!

Making goals and actually writing them down help me a lot! Currently my goals are to cut out the snacking/junk food eating and to not have a 'cheat meal' for at least 10 days. I want to do this to lose a couple pounds and tighten my core up BUT also to get over the need for sugar daily. I love sweets to the moon and back and my cravings have crept up on me and have left me feeling out of control.

Once I jot my goals down, I then think of a realistic approach to get me there. I like to focus on short-term goals and for me that is usually one or two weeks away. For the goals mentioned above, I believe I can realistically drop 2 pounds a week over the next two weeks and that I can cut my sugar craving down by getting it out of my system (this is where the no cheats/snacking/junk food eating comes in)

I'm going back to the basics. Back to what I know without a doubt works for ME and that is 'clean eating' - this term has been getting a bad rep lately with all of the "if it fits your macros" talk going on. I believe in both ways honestly. I believe doing what you are able to manage and balance without it becoming an obsession and without it becoming overwhelming. I love being able to eat "unclean" foods and fitting them into my macros but I think that is where I have become out of control with my sweets, so for now I need to pull back and make things simple for myself. Chicken, fish, tuna, veggies, berries, greek yogurt, almonds. Just to name a few. I don't need the pressure of tracking my every food intake all day. It's time consuming and tedious (for me).

So now that I have my goals down on paper with my approach - and it's all in writing - I feel like I have taken a positive step in the right direction. There is something about getting it down on paper, admitting that you need to make changes, that lifts a burden off your shoulders.

I challenge you to write one to two short-term goals down on paper today and underneath each, write down how you are going to realistically reach those goals. Then Just Do It.

Check it out!

Head over and read the interview I did for Annie at the Strong Brees - I really enjoyed diving into some answers for many of the questions I get asked on the daily!

Meal Plan - Week 4

Meal Plan for the week of September 23rd-29th is available for purchase and immediate download for ONLY $5 along with the meal plans for weeks 1-3! They will be on sale until Monday the 23rd - You can purchase them separately for $5 each or purchase all 4 for a total of $20!

Week 4's plan has a calorie range of 1615-1790 and includes the macros for each meal (6 meals a day) so you can adjust to fit your macros and your personal fitness goals.

Each meal is simple and a grocery/shopping list is included with each plan weekly.

You can purchase this plan as well as the others by going to the Workout Plans tab at the top of my blog page (you can be sent directly there by clicking on the highlighted words) or you can purchase the week 4 plan only, by clicking on the add to cart button below!

Workout Wednesday - Upper Body Burn

Today's workout will shape and sculpt those arms and back! Sexy arms are all the rage!

This routine is done using Supersets. A superset is when you do at least two exercises back to back without stopping. You can work the same muscle during each superset to really fatigue it or you can work a muscle and it's antagonist muscle - for example doing a chest press followed by a lat pull down.

 

For this routine we will be fatiquing each muscle group. Below each superset is a picture of the exercise.

4 Sets of 8-10 Reps

Superset (biceps, shoulders, back)
-Hammer curl to shoulder press
-Barbell rear delt row (back row)

 

Superset (shoulders)
-lateral raises
-cable one arm lateral raise

Superset (biceps)
-Slow tempo barbell bicep curls
-Cable hercules curls

Superset (shoulders)
-Barbell upright row
-Cable upright row

4 Sets of 10
Lat pull down (back)

Your upper body should be spent after this routine!!

Our Weekend Events

We had a very eventful weekend! My son Hayden's birthday is tomorrow, Septmeber 17th (he will be 7!! EEK) so we had one of his best friends over for a little sleepover Saturday. It was his first time having a friend stay the night at our house and to say he was excited would be the understatement of the year!

So Saturday we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese, the park, and then to Blockbuster to rent a movie. We made them a pallet, let them eat some ice cream after dinner and we were all in bed at 10 and up early at 6 AM Sunday morning!

Sunday after church I dropped Hayden's friend off at his house and headed home to do a million loads of laundry and to play a Dora game and War with the kids.

It was such a fun weekend! In two weeks we have the kids' birthday party and I am feeling so unprepared and un-organized. Usually I'm on top of these kinds of things. We are hoping to get the kids both new bedroom furniture and re-decorating their rooms - This may take a month or two but I'm hoping to have it done by Thanksgiving! LOL. Kids bedroom furniture is EXPENSIVE! Holy Cow.

I'm also working on my my CPR certification so I can take my NASM personal trainer exam and am so nervous/excited - this week needs to be spent on focusing on studying for sure!

Happy Monday All!

Comparison is the theif of Joy

Over the past year of being on Instagram I have started following quite a few people. I saw somebody that I thought had a great body, I followed. I saw great healthy recipe/food accounts, I followed. Well, over the past two weeks I have been really thinking about the people I follow. I would get on to check out my feed and see picture after picture of women who I deemed as having "perfect" bodies. It would leave me feeling bad about myself like I'm not working out hard enough or eating healthy enough. I began to compare myself to these bikini and fitness models and feel like I needed to look like them. It's not reality. I do not compete in figure and bikini competitions, I don't want to. I don't personally feel I have the time and energy -or money- to do that kind of thing. Hats off to all who do and double hats off to all the mothers that do it! I think that is amazing!

What I am getting at is, here I am 26 years old with two children and I am seeing picture after picture of these fitness models who many were barely in their 20's and have no kids. I am not taking away from what these women have and are accomplishing, it takes a lot of dedication to be that age and to have such will power and structure. But I, personally, must stop comparing myself to them. I am not them and they are not me. Just as they work their butts off to be in their best shape, so do I. We all have different circumstances and situations and we are all, for the most part, trying to do our very best and I want to let you know....you are beautiful and imperfectly perfect and doing the best you can with what you are given. We all are.

Our culture tries to define how we should look physically and we feed into it by allowing those opinions to shape our beliefs of ourselves and others.

If you find yourself making comparisons to other women thinking- they are better mom's, wives, DIYer, chef, have more money, smarter, prettier, fitter. STOP! You are perfect right as you are. God made YOU with a purpose in mind, with special talents and gifts to be used for a much bigger plan. Do more of what makes you happy and what you feel you are good at. Focus more on the good and less on the bad. Choose to be happy because you are uniquly blessed.

Today I am choosing happiness. I am choosing to feel beautiful, smart, like a good mom, a good wife, to feel fit and healthy - I hope you do the same! We are all in this together, we all have many of the same struggles and feelings. Let's support one another, give compliments as much as possible, offer help when needed, listen more and smile often.

Meal Plan Week 3 Available

Hey guys, the meal plan for week 3 is now ready for purchase and immediate download. You can purchase it two ways: on the side bar of this blog right under the pic that says 'efitmama's meal plan week 3' or by clicking the 'add to cart' button at the end of this post.

This week's calorie range is 1650-1800, macros are included for each of the 6 meals for each day so you can adjust to fit your personal macros. There is also a shopping list included. All of these meals are simple and don't require a lot of prep or crazy ingredients.

These meal plans are great tools in addition to your workout regimen. If you aren't seeing the results you want, more than likely it's due to the way you are eating, what you are putting in your body and how much of it.

For your personal macros you can go to www.iifym.com and calculate them and simply adjust the portions, ingredients, brands, etc...for the meals if needed.

Each weekly plan is $10 and can be downloaded immediatedly once purchased

Fitness is like Marriage

There are so many similarities between a marriage and living a fit and healthy lifestyle - if we can apply these points to both aspects of our lives we would be golden!

1. The more you work on your fitness, the better it becomes. The better YOU become. It is a daily choice you have to make, do you want to work towards your goals or do you want to sit and wallow in your pity and wonder why things aren't changing or why they are getting worse? I just recently went throught this, I haven't been doing as well as I know I should in regards to what I'm eating. I let a few weeks go by where I just kind of flew by the seat of my pants, it felt a little refreshing at first and my health and fitness didn't seem to be affected much, if at all. So I kept doing it. Well guess what? It caught up to me and I found myself wallowing in pity last week. It wasn't fun coming to the realization that I can't continue to eat what I want non-stop and not have to pay for it. So I made a decision over the weekend to STOP the cycle. I am a few days 'back on the wagon' if you will, and am already feeling liberated. The truth is we all fall off from time to time and I believe it's needed sometimes to push us to the next level. We have to be fed up and tired of living the way we are to make the needed changes.

2. To see changes and progress it takes being CONSISTENT - like the quote above says, you can't cheat yourself by not eating right and not working out and expect your body to magically drop weight or inches. It takes choosing the right foods to nourish your body with and the right fitness plan for YOU to get closer to your goals. And it takes doing this day in and day out.

3. Much like marriage, fitness can, and at some point or another WILL, be hard. That's where your mental strength must come in. That's when you must show up and put in the work. That's easy to do when you want to - not so much when you don't want to. Mental strength is a muscle just like any other muscle in your body, the more you use it and work it the stronger it gets.

4. Starting out is the toughest part. But as you stay consistent with your plan and with your goals in mind, you learn more about yourself - what works for you and what doesn't. What you are capable of, which most of the time you don't give yourself credit for. Once you get a routine down, it seems almost second nature. You eat right most of the time with a few indulgences here and there. You are excited about working out usually because you love challenging yourself and you love the way you feel afterwards, not to mention the way you are looking!

5. To really succeed in life, you must be married to your goals. You must make them a priority and work hard to get yourself closer to them. If you half-ass the work it takes to get to where you want to be, your outcome will be half-ass as well. Anything worth doing is worth doing right.

Meal Plan - Week 2

Hey guys! The meal plan for week 2 is now available for purchase, you can click the add to cart button below to pay the $10 and be able to download it immediately.

The calorie range for week 2 is between 1690 and 1750 with macros included so please adjust to fit YOUR personal macros. You can modify to fit your macro needs by substituting, adding, removing, etc...to each meal

There is a shopping list included at the end and there are 6 meals for each day.

Enjoy!

Meal Plan Week 2

What's Going On Wednesday

Switching up my normal "Workout Wednesday" Posts to talk about life and for a photo dump from my phone...we all like those, no?

We got through Hayden's first week of school, and he did so awesome just as I expected! He really does love school! We also got him signed up for flag football! He has been begging us to play for a while now. We were going to sign him up for it at the beginning of the summer, but he broke his arm. The fall will be so much better....and cooler :)

Adalyn started a new dance class last night - Hip Hop and Jazz! I always wanted to be in dance growing up and for whatever reason I never was, so I will live vicariously through Addy in a non-dance mom kind of way (or so I hope!!)

We had a really great weekend. Friday night I had a girls' happy hour, Saturday we went swimming at my mom's where we had the house/pool to ourselves then ate at Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Can you believe my husband has NEVER had their food before? Crazy! Sunday I got up and cleaned for nearly 4 hours, I have been slacking a little so it was nice to get that done. Later that afternoon the hubby and I went on a little movie date where we saw 'We are the Millers' It was very funny!

Monday - Labor Day we went to my father-in-law's for dinner and that sums up our holiday weekend.

I will leave you with photos from my iphone that never made it to instagram! Happy Humpday!

(concert selfie)

(she gets in front of the camera all the time!)

(happy hour outfit)

(very flexible MAN stretching in the squat rack)

(loaner truck we had that I very much so enjoyed driving, with a loud exhaust, remote start, and it was so roomy!)

Fit Tip Tuesday - Using a Stability Ball

The stability ball is where it's at folks! There are so many benefits to it like strengthening your core muscles, improving flexibility, improving your balance, and adding variety in to your weekly workout routine.

If you generally use a bench, try a ball this week. You can do pretty much anything that you would do on a bench, on the ball. It causes you to activate your core and lower body muscles tightening them up, which helps to tone. I enjoy using a stability ball because it's harder to balance on, which makes me have to slow down my movement, really concentrate on what I'm doing and push a little harder!

A stability ball is a great addition to your home for those of you who don't have a gym membership and even those of you that do!

Here are some fantastic exercises you can tryout this week using a stability ball!

Get at it!! And Happy Tuesday!