Happy Hump Day!

I hope your hump day is rolling along nicely so far! Mine started off with a kick butt 6 AM Barre class at ToddPilates. I am always so impressed by all the people who get up bright and early to work out week after week. They never cease to amaze me.

After class, I headed home and tried to wake the beast (E is not a morning person). As I sat down to enjoy a cup of hot water with lemon, I saw one of the books I am currently reading sitting on the coffee table and thought I would share. I am actually reading three different great books right now on various subjects. I am usually not a person that reads multiple books at one time, but these three were just too good to wait on.

First up, is Chia Vitality by Janie Hoffman. I was sent this book by the wonderful people over at Mamma Chia. In Chia Vitality, the author, Janie Hoffman, describes her struggles with an autoimmune disease and how incorporating chia seeds into her life helped her overcome it. She discusses in detail how chia seeds can help boost your stamina, help you lose weight, and feel more alive. It is also packed with delicious healthy recipes. I just started reading yesterday, so I promise to report back with a full review and GIVEAWAY soon!

Next up on my reading (well, really listening) list is The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.

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I actually downloaded this book using Audible so I could listen to it while I drove to and from Houston this weekend. If you have never listened to a book on tape while driving, I would highly suggest it. Having something interesting to listen to made the trip fly by. I've also been listening to it while taking my daily walks which is nice as well. Plus, I am in love with this book!



This is so not your typical self help book. The story begins with Gretchen riding a bus and thinking about why she isn't happier with her life. She has a loving marriage, two great kiddos, she loves her job, lives in New York City, and just generally has a wonderful life. She decides that there is so much in her life to be thankful for and happy about that it's a shame to let all of that go to waste. As a writer and avid reader, she sets out on a quest to read as much about happiness as she possibly can.

After gathering all of her resources and information, she decides to dedicate a year to finding more happiness in her already great life. Each month she focuses on a different area such as her marriage, parenting, or her job, and sets resolutions to work on for the month. The book tells the story of this year from her point of view. Gretchen actually reads the book herself and her sarcastic, witty personality makes it all that much more entertaining.

I consider myself, like Gretchen, to be blessed with a wonderful life; however, I all to often dwell on what I could be doing better or worry about things that are out of my control. I am only to the month of May in her journey, but I have definitely had a couple of revelations so far and picked up many helpful tips to help me keep in perspective what truly is important. I would highly suggest this book to everyone!

Now what kind of pregnant lady would I be if I wasn't reading some kind of baby book right? Well have no fear! Book #3 on my reading list is The Happiest Baby On The Block by Dr. Harvey Karp, M.D
This book discusses how the 5 S's can help your baby sleep better, be happier, and avoid colic. It actually goes into a lot of great detail on what different doctors theorize cause colic and why they are incorrect. Additionally, it discusses how other cultures have soothed their babies for centuries and why westerners may be missing the mark when it comes to helping our little ones find comfort.

The overall premise of the books is that babies need 5 things to be comforted when they are first born.....
1) Swaddling - They need to be swaddled to feel safe and protected.
2) Side/Stomach Position - They prefer to be on their side or stomach which can aid in digestion.
3) Shushing - A shushing sound imitates what they were used to hearing in the womb and is therefor very comforting.
4) Swinging - Babies are used to constant motion when they are in their mothers womb, so a swinging motion helps to soothe them.
5) Sucking - Sucking actually triggers the calming reflex in babies.

Dr. Harvey Karp describes in detail how each one of these helps to soothe babies in it's own way, but also why doing them all together is the most important (and often most missed) step. It is totally worth the read if you are a mommy-to-be or have a fussy baby at home. Of course, I haven't actually put any of this to use on Annabelle yet, but it's fascinating none the less!

So there you have, the three books that are currently occupying my brain space! Now, it's time for some breakfast.

What are you currently reading?

In health,

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Howdy!

I am super excited about writing this post today, but I have to admit, I've been putting it off for over 2 weeks now. Anytime I read a book I really love, I always want to share it with you guys, but then it's a little overwhelming trying to pick out the high points without writing a novel. I'll do my best to keep is short and sweet and let the book do the rest if you decide to read it. Which I would highly suggest.



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The Calorie Myth by Jonathan Bailor is not your average "Fad Diet" book by any means. I actually came across it when I was reading an article titled "6 New Healthy Food Books That Don't Promote Fad Diets," on Living Today Online. The title kind of says it all.

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Jonathan Bailor is a former personal trainer and Microsoft program manager who made it his personal mission to find out why all of the "healthy eating" and "diet" information being fed to the masses are simply not working. Jonathan's writing style is laid back and easy to understand; however he backs everything up with NUMEROUS scientific studies.

Jonathan begins the book by walking you through a multitude of studies that show all calories are not created equal and that everyone has a "set point weight" that their body will try to hover around naturally. One point he made early on that really struck me was that 95.4 percent of the time counting calories does not keep off body fat over the long term. So we've all heard our entire lives that if we want to loose weight we have to cut calories, but 95.4 percent of the time that doesn't work? Something has got to be wrong here! He thoroughly describes how calorie quality not quantity is the key to health and fat loss.

After explaining the science behind his theory on nutrition, he's lays out his plan in an extremely easy to follow and simple way. Essentially, eat so many high quality healthy foods (non-starchy vegetables, protein, and some fruits), that you are too full to eat low quality starches and sweets. He obviously goes into much more detail and is much more eloquent then I am about it. However, I love his no frills plan! He also does a wonderful job explaining how low quality food adversely effect your hormones and cause you to settle at a higher "set point weight" making it harder and harder to loose body fat. Who wants that?

He also breaks down what makes a "high quality" food with the helpful acronym SANE. You will hear him refer to SANE goods all throughout the book. He is the expert, so in his exact words, SANE stands for:

Satiety is how quickly calories fill us up.
Aggression is how likely calories are to be stored as body fat.
Nutrition is how many vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, etc., calories provice.
Efficiency is how easily calories are converted into body fat.

He goes into wonderful detail about what makes each one of these things so important when it comes to balancing your hormones and lowering your set point weight. It seems so easy and SANE, anyone could do it.

Delicious SANE Fodds! (source)

Jonathan lays out his theory on exercise and the importance of eccentric training for promoting proper hormone regulation in the body. As a fitness instructor and personal trainer, I thought this part was extremely interesting as well.

Overall, I would HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone. Rather you are trying to loose weight, or are just a nutrition information junkie like me, it is a great read!

I have also started listening to Jonathan's podcasts "The Calorie Myth" while I work out and really enjoy them as well. They go into greater details on some topics covered in the books, share tips on eccentric training and SANE eating, and answer readers questions. His website www.thecaloriemythbook.com has lots of great information, recipes, and resources as well. If you are looking for the mother load of SANE recipes, you have to go visit www.carriebrown.com. This is the hilarious lady he does the podcasts with and she is a wizard in the kitchen!

Has anyone read this book? Thoughts?

Any suggestions on the next book I should tackle?

In health,

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Howdy Howdy!

How was everyone's weekend? I hope it was restful and fun!

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I went home to College Station this weekend to attend TexFit! TexFit is a statewide fitness covention where a bunch of fitness instructors from all around the state get together to share ideas, choreography, teaching techniques and more. It was so fun to see all of the girls I used to teach with at A&M and meet a ton of new instructors. We worked out all day Saturday and spent Friday and Saturday night socializing. It was an AMAZING weekend, and I learned so much.

While in College Station, one of my good friends Alison surprised me with a little gift of the knowledge building variety.


I have been wanting to read this book for a while now. It looks like it has a lot of very sound information, and I am super excited to try out some of the recipes in the back of the book. I will be sharing all of the yummy eats with you of course! I will also give y'all a full recap as soon as I am finished reading. Has anyone read it? What did you think?

When I got home today, I was greeted with a package from my friend Maryann- Peanut Flour! I have been dying to get my hands on some of this stuff forever. Maryann to the rescue!



You all know I have a slight obsession with nut butters, so a flour that has a peanuty (is that a word?) taste sounds right up my alley. Check out these nutrtion facts!


I was really impressed by how much protein, folate, and magnesium it contained. This is for a 1/4 cup serving. I am beyond excited to try baking with this stuff! I have found a peanut butter cookie recipe I want to try out, but other than that I am open for ideas!

I am off to make some cake batter cookies for my office, and maybe Eric's if he's nice. They were requested a while ago, but I am just now getting around to making them. :) I feel a little guilty bringing unhealthy goodies to the office, but I'm a people pleaser so I want to give them what they want. I usually bring them a healthy alternative to at least try! Last time, I brought cake batter cookies and 2 loaves low-fat pumpkin bread, and all of the cookies were gone before 1/2 of one loaf of bread. Oh well, I try!

I hope you all have a marvelous Monday!

Q's and A's:
What did you do this weekend?
Have you read and of The Eat Clean Diet series?
If you have posted any recipes using peanut flour, I would love it if you would leave me the link below!

In health,

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Happy Wednesday!

I think the weather in Dallas officially has a split personality. Yesterday was beautiful and sunny outside, and today I wake up to this yet again!

I know it doesn't look to bad, but we got a ton of sleet and rain that froze on the roads. Luckily, I was saved from a 45 minute icy commute when school and work were both closed down this morning. Looks like I'm in for another day of fun at home. I'm ok with that! ;)

Today's workout called for a 7 mile run and speed work. I think the speed work was supposed to be included in those 7 miles, but I forgot to do them so I just added 4, 200 meter sprints on to the end of my run. Overall the run felt pretty good but my right hip flexor started acting up again about mile 5. Ever since the White Rock Marathon in December, my right hip flexor has been ridiculously tight. I have dedicated a ton of extra time to stretching it and made sure to take days off after long runs etc., but nothing seems to be helping. I'm starting to think so much time on the treadmill might be messing with my stride, but I'm not sure. Any thoughts from my fellow runners out there?

Although I should be taking advantage of this extra time to catch up on homework, that is so hard when I have so much good snow day reading at my fingertips!



I'm hoping that I can find the answer to my hip flexor problem in the Athlete's Guide To Yoga. I purchased this book online a few days ago and I am so excited to dive into it. I love showing people how incredibly amazing and beneficial yoga can be when add to your fitness routine. I am hoping that this book increases my knowledge on how to help athlete's use yoga to improve performance. We are all athletes after all! I am living proof that yoga can dramatically improve your running performance. I pr'd  in my last race, and I know my increased dedication to yoga had a lot to do with it.

One of my wonderful friends & reader, Jennifer, asked me to do a post on fish oils so I am off to start doing my research for that post, which I hope to have up on Friday (oh and I'll try to do some homework as well)! I absolutely love getting topic requests from readers! If you ever have any questions or topics you would like to read about, please feel free to let me know by leaving a comment, posting it on the FF&F facebook page (which if you haven't "liked" yet you should), or shooting me an e-mail at LaurenEGeorge@gmail.com. I want this blog to be a place where we can all learn more about health and fitness, so it's great to know what you want to read about!

Thank you again to FitBlogger for choosing Fun, Fit and Fabulous to be the featured blog of the day!

If you are stuck inside like me, check out these neat reads:

12 Tips for exercising on the cheap

USDA says eggs now lower in cholesterol This is great news for me since I eat eggs almost every day!

150 Years of fad diets and still no quick fix

New excuse for eating carbs

Q's and A's:
Do you ever have issues with chronically tight hip flexors?
What books are on your must read list right now?

In health,

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Happy Monday!

How was your weekend friends? Mine was absolutely inspiring. I found out late on Friday that I would have the opportunity to attend a YogaFit Level 3 certification this weekend.



The Level 3 training focuses on introspection and understanding your personality as an instructor. It also dives deeper into the power of meditation, breathing, emotional intelligence and positive thought. I know this weekend helped me grown as a yoga instructor and as a student.

Speaking of yoga, I have raved about how much I love Tara Stiles new book Slim, Calm, Sexy Yoga, and I recently came across an article discussing all of the controversy it has caused in the yoga world. Check it out here. This is what one of her critics had to say:

"Don't even try to sell me on the 'yoga for the masses' excuse; it's pathetic, and, frankly, she should be ashamed for allowing herself to be talked into shilling for this trash. That is, if any convincing was really necessary--somehow I doubt it. But if asked about it, I am sure we would hear the typical higher-lighter-brighter-peace-love-dove-I'm-just-bringing-yoga-to-the-people" talk."

I was frankly pretty shocked when I read this. I know Tara's style of yoga is very "westernized" (whatever that means), but the above seems a little harsh. I love yoga and have seen the benefits first hand not only in myself but in my friends, colleagues and students as well. I believe yoga can and should be for everyone, and just like we all have different preferences when it comes to the clothes we wear and the food we eat, we can all have different preferences when it comes to the yoga we practice. Some people like the chanting, incense and Sanskrit terms that make up what we consider "traditional" yoga, and some people just don't. Just because you do yoga to music with words, don't really like to chant, and call things by their English translation, doesn't make it any less yoga.

To me yoga is about connecting with your body, letting go of stress, building strength, increasing your energy, and improving your overall health. Whether you practice yoga in your living room with a Jillian Michael's DVD or in a temple in India with a 80 year old yoga guru, if it works for you I'm all about it. Yoga is a very individual and personal thing, and no one has the right to tell someone elsenthat their yoga is wrong or not "real" yoga.

Ok.... I'm going to hop on down off of my soap box now. Sorry for the little rant, but that really sparked something inside of me, especially after such an amazing and touching yoga filled weekend. What do you think about the article?

Anyways, after I got home from day two of the certification, I was pooped and starving so I whipped up a veggie pizza. It hit the spot quite nicely, and I was left with plenty for lunch for the next couple of days! :)


I hope you all have a wonderful day, and if you feel stress or worry start to creep into your mind, just remember to breathe!

Q's and A's:
Do you think there is one type of yoga that is "real" yoga?
Have you read Tara Stile's new book? What did you think?
How was your weekend?


In health,

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Happy Friday,

I'm sure everyone is even more ready for Friday than usual since this was most people's first week back to work! This is going to be a quick post, because I am running around like a crazy person getting everything ready for our friends and family that are coming up for the Cotton Bowl!! Whoop!


I am so excited to go to the game and cheer on our Aggies! I know we are going to Beat The Hell Out Of LSU!! (All non Aggie readers, don't worry, I'm not a violent person that is just something we say.)

Last night, I made a classic his and hers dinner. Whole wheat pasta with meat sauce for Eric, and pasta with roasted veggies for me.


I also had a yummy mushroom and black bean salad on the side.


The best thing about last nights dinner was that I had leftover roasted veggies to take for lunch today. Frittata + roasted veggies + black beans + black bean and corn salsa = one delicious lunch! I know it doesn't look beautiful, but trust me it was amazing! I just love leftovers!


I have also been meaning to tell y'all about a book I 'm reading. I am about half way through, so I will give you the full scoop when I'm done. My friend Katie recommended it to me a WHILE ago, but I am just now getting around to reading it.


So far, I love this book! It really breaks down common relationship problems people have with food, and gives you exercises to work on fixing them. There is a quote on the back of the book that describeds it perfectly. "The key to changing the way you eat is not discipline over what is on your fork, but mastery over your hungry mind." I'll give you more deails when I'm finished reading!

I'm off to finish cleaning! I hope everyon has an marvelous weekend! Go Ags!

Questions of the day:
What are your favorite leftovers to take for lunch?
Are you reading any good books right now?
What are your plans for the weekend?

In health,

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Summary of this book in one sentence: Most of our body fat comes from ingested sugar not ingested fat!

Sugar Busters! is an oldie but a goodie! I give this book four stars for it's usefulness and sound information. Sugar Busters! is written by four men- H. Leighton Steward (CEO of a fortune 500 energy company), Dr. Morrison Bethea (cardiac surgeon), Dr. Samuel Andrews (endocrinologist), and Dr. Luis Balart (gastroenterologist). Talk about a line up! The basic concept of this “diet,” is to have a positive influence on insulin and glucogon secretion through nutrition. The Sugar Busters! way of eating includes a diet composed of natural unrefined sugars, whole grains, veggies, fruits, lean meats, fiber, and alcohol (in moderation). So why cut out sugar? Sugar stimulates insulin secretion, which instructs our body's metabolism to create, store and hold on to fat. That is never good! On the other hand, protein stimulates glucagon secretion, which does the opposite of insulin. Glucagon instructs our metabolism to mobilize and convert fat back to glucose, which reduces our fat stores and waistlines! Gooooo Glucogon! Sugar Busters! isn't the Atkins diet, but it does recommend cutting out all overly processed carbohydrates and excess sugars. Overall, this book was very informative without being overly confusing. I was a little nervous about a book written by three doctors and a CEO. I was half way expecting to need a dictionary every other word, but that was not the case at all! 

• Avoid refined carbohydrates at all cost!
• “Potatoes are for pigs and corn is for cattle” (old french saying)nthey are both quickly converted to pure sugar and have a very high insulin response. Other high offenders are beets and carrots.
• Beware of sauces- ketchup, BBQ sauce, and salad dressing can all be loaded with sugar. 
• Whole grain (stone ground not whole meal) products are ok, but avoid ones with dextrose, maltose, honey, molasses, brown sugar or corn syrup. Read the ingredient labels! You might be surprised by what is hiding in your favorite loaf of bread. 
• Opt for smaller more frequent meals versus two or three larger meals. Less frequent larger meals will alter the body’s response to insulin secretion and increase fat storage.
• Proper portion sizes are still very important. This book does not give you a free pass to eat three plates of fatty steak for dinner!
• Since most cholesterol is manufactured at night (while we are sleeping), try to finish your evening meal by 8:00pm. Then close the kitchen.
• Healthy snacks are encouraged, and most fruits (except watermelons, pineapples, raisins, and bananas, which all have a high glycemic index) are great for this occasion. This part of the book almost brought me to tears due to the fact that watermelon is my all time favorite food! I’m talking even more so than ice cream!
• Fruit contains the basic sugar fructose and stimulates approximately 1/3 the insulin response of glucose. Fruit is great when eaten alone, but loses the advantage of lower insulin secretion when consumed with other carbohydrates.
• Caffeine should be limited because it makes the stomach produce gastric acid, which stimulates appetite.

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