How To Girl

Have you heard of the Latte factor? David Bach writer of Start Over, Finish Rich says “Putting aside as little as a few dollars a day for your future rather than spending it on little purchases such as lattes, bottled water, fast food, cigarettes, magazines and so on, can really make a difference between accumulating wealth and living paycheck to paycheck.” You can have your cake and eat it too. By making your favorite coffee drinks at home to save a little bit of money but still getting your coffee fix. Today's hint coffee-house drinks at home, first the quote of the day.

Listen and read more at helpfulhintsshow.com

I saw The Avengers this weekend like most people it seems :). It was a fun and entertaining movie. Robert Downey, Jr always makes me laugh as Iron Man. While watching the movie I was amazed at how fit Scarlett Johansson got for her role as the Black Widow As you can see in the picture above, the costume is a really tight formfitting black jumpsuit that is very unforgiving. She looked amazing and I was curious to learn what she did to get “Black Widow” cat suit ready.

It's nice to know that unlike most models that swear they don't do anything to get in shape, Scarlett admits to putting in a lot of work to look good in the catsuit. She wrote in an article at the Huffington Post that “There is no magic wand to wave over oneself to look good in a latex catsuit. Eating healthy and getting fit is about commitment, determination, consistency and dedication to self-preservation”.

Health

This is right at the top of the article because I believe it is really important to understand. Crash dieting is not in her vocabulary. Do not even think about hurting yourself by restricting your calories to unsafe levels. Scarlett herself focused on eating healthy meals that made her feel strong. Scarlett says in her article at the Huffington Post “The concept of ‘Stars Are Just Like Us!” makes us feel connected to lifestyles that can sometime seem out of this world. Yes, celebrities are just like us. They struggle with demons and overcome obstacles and have annoying habits and battle vices. That said, I would be absolutely mortified to discover that some 15-year-old girl in Kansas City read one of these “articles” and decided she wasn’t going to eat for a couple of weeks so she too could “crash diet” and look like Scarlett Johansson.”

She reiterates “It's great to get tips on how to lead a healthier lifestyle, but I don't want some imaginary account of “How She Did It!” I get into and stay in shape by eating a proper diet and maintaining a healthy amount of exercise.” With that said I gathered the diet, and workout tips that Scarlett herself  has been talking about and used for  The Avengers. Using the tips below only as a guideline to see what she did may give you some insight into what to add to your regimen. Of course, always check with your physician before trying any new workout routine or diet.

Workouts

Scarlett worked out 90-minutes a day, 6 days a week for two months before filming according to her trainer Bobby Strom. Describing the workouts as “very high intensity” Strom said “my purpose was to keep pushing.” He focused on a Circuit Training plan that was built around sets of 25 to 30 reps of either five exercises done four times each or two times each of 10 different exercises. He would have her sprint on the treadmill for 20 seconds and then rest for 40 seconds every minute for a total of 15 minutes. He said his goal was to keep her looking feminine by focusing on muscle definition instead of bulking the muscles up. He says “The studio didn't want her looking like Thor”

Diet

Scarlett created a healthy eating program that worked well with her fitness routine. Mostly vegan, she focused on eating small portions of healthy foods. She says, “I was eating really, really clean. But you can’t deprive yourself. That’s when you really get in trouble because you have like low energy and feel deprived.  I was constantly eating, but it was all super clean food, a lot of veggies and protein, that kind of thing. It makes you feel good, especially when you are exercising.  I felt really strong, efficient and athletic, all of those things. It helped me to feel confident about my physicality. It was one less thing to worry about.” She also said of her diet ““You have to eat a really clean diet, a lot of kale and salmon. Basically you get all your nutrients and then training like crazy”.

Confidence

It's great to want to get healthy and fit. It's even OK to look up to others for inspiration but it is important to keep it all in perspective and go about it in a healthy way without crash dieting or hurting yourself. Many of the celebrities and models in magazines are airbrushed to look like unrealistic ideals that are impossible to obtain. Be confident in yourself the way you are now and be proud of the work you are putting in to making yourself even stronger or healthier. You have been beating yourself up long enough, this time treat yourself with loving kindness and see where it takes you. You deserve the love and respect you give everyone else.

All the information presented on howtogirl.com is for educational and resource purposes only. Always consult your physician or health care provider before beginning any nutrition or exercise program. Use of the programs, advice, and information contained in this website is at the sole choice and risk of the reader.

“You can't exercise away a bad diet”.  This is a really popular saying and like most quotes it's popular because the message is true. Time magazine outlines why exercise alone will not make you thin and if you have time I definitely recommend taking a look at the article for some really interesting information. Since what you eat is just as important or more important than exercising I wanted to put together the top 8 steps to take when using the Insanity Nutrition guide. These steps are a combination of tips from various Shaun T. interviews and the nutrition guide.Insanity Nutrition Guide

Step 1

Figure out how many calories you need to lose, maintain or gain weight. The Insanity nutrition guide uses the Harris-Benedict formula to calculate your basil metabolic rate. What is a BMR? Wikipedia describes it like this ”

“The amount of daily energy expended by humans and other animals at rest. The release, and using, of energy in this state is sufficient only for the functioning of the vital organs, the heart, lungs, nervous system, kidneys, liver, intestine, sex organs, muscles, and skin.” Basically, the BMR is the amount of calories your body would need to stay alive without moving at all. For example, if you were in a coma. It is important to know your BMR because it is the place your body has to be at to survive. The BMR equations are below so you can see what they look like but the calculator right below the equations is a much easier way to calculate your BMR.

Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) – ( 6.76 x age in years ) 

Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) – ( 4.7 x age in years )

Now multiply the number above with the activity factor that applies to you below to get your daily caloric needs. If you are doing Insanity the activity factor will be 1.7 for “Very Active”. (Example: BMR of 1456 x 1.7 = 2475.2)

Now that you know how many calories you need to maintain your weight while doing Insanity you can add or subtract from the total to lose or gain weight.For weight loss, subtract 500 calories per day from your total. A pound of fat is 3500 calories, if you have a deficit of 500 calories a day after 7 days (500 x 7) that will work out to a pound a week. Read more

As you may know by now I was in charge of the dessert table for my nephew's birthday party. The party was Mickey Mouse Clubhouse themed so naturally I started googling “Mickey Mouse & Desserts”. The first dessert that I came across was the most adorable Mickey Mouse cookies. The iconic mickey ears and head frosted in a cool black icing were exactly what I wanted for my dessert table. I knew my nephew would go crazy over them.

Black icing- Is it possible?

Before I could make the cookies I needed to find out how I was going to make black icing. From experience I knew that it was not very easy to get a true black color when trying to make black frosting. While shopping at Michaels I picked up the Wilton black gel food coloring and tried it with the icing recipe below. I'm not sure if it is because I added too much coloring or if it was the product itself but it had a funny taste. After doing some research online I found that others had encountered the same problem with this food coloring. I was still determined to find a good black food coloring I mean I could not have been the first person that wanted to create black icing. After a little more digging I found amazing reviews for Americolors brand of gel icing. They are known for being able to deliver vibrant deep food coloring without the weird after taste you find with difficult colors such as black and red. I ordered my tube of super black at amazon.com and I was good to go on that front.

Finding the best recipe

My next order of business was to find the best sugar cookie recipe. I have tried a number of recipes over the years and even though they were good (I would munch on them of course, maybe that is why I have to do the insanity workouts now :) )I still wasn't satisfied with my results. I found the highest rated sugar cookie recipe on allrecipes.com and then experimented a little with it. I changed the amount of sugar, type of extract and rolled these out with powered sugar instead of flour. The final result was a chewy, sweet and delicious sugar cookie. Read more

Molly S. Insanity Results from the Beachbody Website

I am working on a brand new podcast and more recipes for the website. In the meantime while I am working on those I wanted to share some amazing results I found online from other women that have completed the Insanity program.

If you are like me, you like to see the results others are having with the program so that you know that all of the hard work is going to pay off in the end even if you do not see them right away. From what I have read the majority of the results will come in the second month. Keep this in mind and be faithful that as long as you continue to dig deep and eat a healthy diet the results will come to you just like they did for these women.

1. Ryanstiffhoney (user name) Lost 23 lbs (!), started with a BMI of 28 and is now at a BMI of 22.

2. Cheryl M. Lost 13 inches and 7 lbs.

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