I've been on my own fitness journey for a few years now, and it has not always been easy or pretty!  I  like to talk about the great things fitness has done for my life, and I very rarely talk about the annoying things about fitness. Here is my list of inconvenient and annoying things I found out along the way. 1.  You need to be consistent      Sadly, lifelong results only come when you actually stick to your plan.  You will never see long-term results without a long-term commitment.  Changing your body and health requires a full lifestyle do-over.  So consistency is key. 2.  Your diet really does matter      Yes, I know, this is just plain unfair but its true.  Especially unfair considering all the cheese, pies, cakes, chocolate, pasta and bread there are in the world!  But sadly, those don't exactly all add up to the greatest results.  I am not saying don't enjoy those things, but keep them as...

Now that we are settled into the New Year, everyone is working on their resolutions.  It seems like the number one resolution is doing something to lose weight or get healthy.  I am not knocking people who have this as their goals for the year; I always admire anyone who chooses to take the first step to being healthy! That being said, I cringe every time I see someone on a new "detox".  You know what I am talking about; they come many forms of detox diets, pills, shakes, juices, herbal cleanses, and more!  They come with claims to clean your kidneys, liver, colon, skin, stomach, etc.  I can understand why these things fly off the shelves and people flock to them; celebrity and trainers endorsements, quick 10 day programs or even 1 day cleanses!  These cleanses and detoxes claim to offer a quick fix for years of unhealthy eating habits,  smoking, drinking and to aid in healthy weight loss. They use tag lines like "natural, cleansing, fast, lose 1...

If you are anything like me, the task of packing your lunch every day is daunting and annoying!  I used to be so lazy and just pack a couple of granola bars and buy my lunch on most days.  What seemed even more daunting was meal planning and prepping. I started doing some prep here and there about a year ago, with little things like veggie bags.  I decided about 4 months ago, I started prepping more and more, and I will never look back!  I don't have to worry about what to make to put in my lunch.  I started just like most people, just browsing sites on the internet looking for meal ideas and I started throwing things together. I always get told by people, that they don't even know where to begin when it comes to meal prep.  So I thought I would put together some tips to help! 1.  Find a time, day and number of meals to make the task manageable!      Finding time to make meal prep work is correlated to long term success.  Pers...

If you look the majority of fitness or body building Facebook pages, Instagram feeds or websites, you'll see a bunch of confusing jargin! Take this supplement, take this fat burner, drink this fit tea, do this detox.  Don't forget Vitamin, A, E, D, B1, B12, Glutamine, Creatine, etc.  Its insane the amount of pills and things that the fitness industry brings about. I am not one takes a bunch of supplements, fat burners or a bunch of vitamins and minerals.  There are several health and scientific evidence as to why I don't do that; but in short I just don't have the need to.  I am not a serious body building competitor, and it seems like a lot of effort to boot! I take really only two "supplements" with my workouts; BCAA's during my workouts and protein powder after.  I will talk about protein powder for today and touch base on BCAA's later. I started reading into protein powders a little more lately because I knew I wanted valid information to wri...

I know I have been MIA these past few weeks so I thought I'd put up an update. Things have been going really well lately with recovery from surgery and I am finally feeling normal again.  It is very deceiving because I am told that between 6-8 weeks post surgery is apparently when the graft for the ACL is at its weakest.  As a result of the graft being weak at this point, this time is a common point for re-injury because people are feeling good, there is no discomfort, and are starting to return to work, etc.  So I am being cautious, but still enjoying finally having more freedom of getting around. I was surprised at how slow I was to get off crutches.  I was starting to get concerned because I was told that I needed to wait until I could walk normally before I was allowed to go without crutches, but I felt like I wasn't getting there.  By week 3, I could get around the house without them easily, but for anything out of the house, I took my crutches just in ...

The past week of my recovery has gone very smooth compared to the first week. I started to go a bit stir crazy from being in the house and have so far taken almost any opportunity to get out of the house! Physio has been going well. I'm still on crutches but I'm trying to make a conscious effort to go without when I'm at home. It seems silly, but I have to actually concentrate on walking properly. To walk, I have to stand with even weight in my legs, contract one quad muscle, then take a step with the other. While I am walking, I have to try and keep my legs as straight as possible, which means I walk VERY slowly. Normally I am a very fast walker, so it annoys me that I have to walk so slow!  I am getting closer to getting my range of motion back in my knees. However, they have split personalities right now. My left leg bends really well, but it is very resistant to straightening compared to my right knee. My right leg is the opposite; I almost have it straight, but...

Last Thursday (Sept 1st) was the fateful day for my bilateral ACL reconstruction surgery. It's been an interesting week of recovery this far. My surgery went well, but I did have a bit of a long recovery in the hospital.  I spent a long time in recovery because I was apparently very sensitive to anesthetic.  Every time I would fall asleep in the recovery room, my breathing would slow down too much and my oxygen stats would fall and alarms would go off!  Then the nurses would come and wake me up and say, "Jackie, you HAVE to breathe!"  Oops, I guess I forgot.   When I finally got back to my room, my poor husband had been waiting for over two hours for me since they told him I was awake.  I wasn't sent home until the evening because I was quite nauseated, so they gave me Gravol which knocked me out for the afternoon.  When I finally was awake enough, it started getting painful.  They offered me Morphine (they couldn'...