(Photo credit: Beauty's Bad Habit blog)

I'm going to lay it out right out of the bag (pun intended) that the SkinnyMint 28 day teatox is not worth your dollars in my opinion. Cleansing your body should be seen as a positive start to adding nutrients and removing harmful chemicals or foods in your diet, not a quick and easy reset button that floods contents out of your system. (Those don't exist, you should know that by now.)

A sip of SkinnyMint tea tastes subtle with the morning boost like a weak English Breakfast and minty for the night cup. My energy levels lifted without the need of coffee in the AM, which is a miracle. I also appreciated the packaging of SkinnyMint for an easily stored zip lock on my tea leaves to keep the freshness in instead of bulky boxes.

The S...

Veganism. Think you can do it? (Spoiler alert: I can't.)

It's been a while since I've taken a serious, planned out, Instagram approved health challenge. A fellow BBG fit fam member tried out a vegan program recently, which I coincidentally follow the program's creator on Instagram already for vegetable based meal ideas.

Post-wedding bod ended up composed primarily of booze, bread (pizza!) and cheese. Natural pooch transformed into a nice little padding all around my belly and hips with an inch of extra waistline cushion that a few pairs of my pants refused to give in to. Enter a weight loss challenge!

Rawvana, a fitness journey for weight loss transformation and self-love promotes an active vegan lifestyle. Yovana Mendoza, the face and creator, truly embodies the positive effects of...

“Life is like riding a bicycle.  To keep your balance you must keep moving”.

Albert Einstein gave that advice to his son in 1930, but how much more relevant is it to families today? With recent data showing that kids spend over 4.5 hours a day on screen media, the world facing an obesity crisis, and kids and teens reporting higher anxiety levels than ever, could the simple pleasure of a family bike ride be just the antidote we need?  Movement is one of the best forms of self care to energize and refresh our bodies and minds; imagine applying that not only to yourself but to your loved ones too.  What a great gift.
 

Get active

Nearly 1 in 5 children is obese, according to CDC figures.  This is a crisis not just for the economy and healthcare system, but for childhood in general.  Kids...

With almost 20% of American women involved in sports or exercise every day, it’s essential that post-exercise nutrition is effective and healthy. There are lots of post-workout favorites we can enjoy, but getting the right nutrition can affect more than just our rumbling stomachs. Not eating after exercise, or eating the wrong foods, can affect our recovery, muscle repair, and blood sugar levels. Even on a packed schedule, there are certain quick and easy foods available for optimal recovery.
 

What are the risks of poor post-workout nutrition?
 

It can be a huge risk to our health not to eat after exercise. Inadequate refueling can lead to a lack of glucose to the brain resulting in low mood and a decrease in alertness or concentration. When blood sugar levels drop it can also cau...

How many days in a row (or worse, weeks to months) do you let yourself feel like crap before you decide it’s time to do something about it?
 

Cheers to anyone who has enough mindfulness, time, and self-control to practice a regular self-care routine without tumbling backwards quite frequently. I am not one of those unicorn, woodland fairy, in touch with the Earth people. 
 

Did that sound bitter? I could be a bit on the salty side, because self-care does not come to me naturally. Most humans in this universe have internal factors, such as anxiety or depression, that takeover the view in front of them before they recognize self-care as a solution to the problem. 
 

Self-care is one of the most vital practices we can perform for our mind, body, and soul.
 

“In health care, self-care is any neces...

Wowza. I made it to day 15 of the Whole 30. Reading over the line previous, a feeling of surprise washes over me. I never thought my love affair with cheese, bread, and wine could take a back seat for 15 whole days.

Well, I did break at day 15 with Gouda and a glass of red. But, I'm still super proud of myself for making it that far. I'm taking it as a valuable learning lesson, not a failed challenge. I wasn't happy denying myself even a spoonful of peanut butter, so I wasn't achieving a huge part of the Whole 30, which is balance.
 

For those of you unfamiliar with Whole 30, take a gander here for the full deets. It takes some serious motivation, mindfulness, and dedication. But, as the famous Whole 30 line says, it’s not hard.

“It is not hard. Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Q...

Top: Before 21 Day Fix Extreme  Bottom: After 21 Day Fix Extreme progress pics
 

Shouting to the hills that I officially achieved my goal of completing the 21 Day Fix Extreme challenge! Whew, it was a doozy.

After finishing the 12-week Kayla Itsines' Bikini Body Guide (BBG) last March, I think it was, I might have let a few of my positive habits slip. Maybe threw in some Springtime binge eating. 

Needless to say, I was angry at myself and upset that I took a step back from my progress. I mean, who gets more fit in the winter and gains body fat in the summer?!? (This girl.)

My relationship with food shifted a little to the unhealthy side. I ate very little for lunch or for the entire day Monday through Wednesday, and then binge ate the rest of the week and weekend. Snacking knew no boun...

"I wanna be able to eat spaghetti bolognaise and not feel bad about it for days and days and days," Lily Allen, "Everything's Just Wonderful". 
 

Before I decided to truly change my eating habits, one of my go-to dinners since college was pasta (penne, tortellini, bowtie, you name it) with meatballs or sausage and store bought sauce. Pasta night dinners became a ritual for me to celebrate conquering more than half of the work week, along with a heaping glass of wine, aka #WineWednesdays.
 

Then, my research enlightened me to how much these pasta nights were holding me back in my fitness journey. It's pretty common knowledge that carby pasta is not the healthiest or the lowest calorie dinner choice. But, a lot of people don't realize how unhealthy those freezer meats and sugar-filled pasta sa...

I can’t attest to the “pregnancy glow” that Elizabeth Banks’s character in What to Expect When You’re Expecting debunks, but I recently found a natural, raw, gluten-free, and vegan (and baby-free) product that definitely has me feeling aglow.

I bragged about the TinyTea Teatox not to long ago, and completed it again because I love the balance it brings back to my belly, and I’m a tea-holic anyway. Of late, I tried a 14-day detox powder that is an additive to regular eating and drinking, like TinyTea, but comes with a more extensive set of positive results.

The Oh My Glow Detox, or OMG for short, is a 14-day or 28-day detoxing powder that you can add to all kinds of foods which you consume daily. I was skeptical of OMG at first because I couldn’t tell if it was a deceitful supplement (ew) o...

KAYLA ITSINES’S BIKINI BODY GUIDES, OR #BBG…

…as her fans have named it, have spread across the world. It’s a fitness and lifestyle movement that I introduced to my life about a year and a half ago. Above is a picture of my results after fully completing her BBG 12-week guide.

Before you get up in arms and ask me what magic or trick I did to achieve these results, I will tell you that I did no such thing. These results don’t happen from cheats or quick fixes. They happen from committing to a workout plan and eating well. They come from hard work and a lifestyle change.

Yes, I realize I was skinny before, or what I like to call, “skinny fat”. I’ve always had the superficial “thigh gap”. But my arms were weak, and my stomach harbored all the cheese, wine, and bread in one central place, maki...