If you feel like your metabolism has slowed down with age, this article will explain why that might be (hint: its not because you got older!) and how to actually improve your metabolism at any age.

How to build your home gym

There’s no place like home—and nothing like a plan—for the holidays.

I just returned from a trip to Savannah, Georgia where I enjoyed all sorts of culinary delights thank to a Calories Up Lifestyle.

I’ve just returned from a quick #momventure to Nashville with my two teenagers and some friends from Montessori school who recently moved away from Kansas City.

The answer to this question, like many things health and fitness related, is “it depends”. I mentally divide my clients and potential clients into two groups: those who are simply overeating/not exercising properly and those who are actually UNDER-eating and/or OVER-exercising.

As an online coach providing fitness and nutrition services, I start to notice trends among my clients. Believe it or not, the biggest nutrition struggle that I see is not getting in enough protein. It is not overeating. (Many of my clients are actually undereating – which can be one reason you might not be able to lose weight).

For many of our clients dealing with parties, happy hours, holidays, and vacations while trying to achieve weight loss goals is anxiety provoking. I can relate. To me, the white knuckling (and resulting feelings of restriction) through parties, eating out, and just the ins and outs of life is the hardest part of following a nutrition plan.

One of the very first things I have any of my clients start doing (regardless of their goals) is to begin tracking their macros. The reason for this is that I can’t make informed nutrition decisions without seeing what you are currently doing as far as food intake. However, I think the thought of tracking food can really scare some people off! They think it will be incredibly tedious and time-consuming.

Last Saturday I debuted as an NPC bikini competitor at the NPC Midwest Championship in St. Louis. This post will be short and sweet with pictures, a few stats, and a bit about what I'm doing this week. In short, it was a whirlwind weekend! I came, I saw, I kind of conquered (I didn't place, but getting on stage didn't kill me), and now I'm decompressing from it all!

It has been a few weeks since I last posted here. Why? Because I'm exhausted and a little run down. I’ve been dieting for 13 weeks and I’ve got five more weeks until my show so it's time to grind a little. My cardio has increased, I'm walking more, and I'm just tired. I had writing a blog post on my to do list several nights last week, but I opted to go to bed early instead. But writing these posts is a little like therapy, and I'm probably in need of a little therapy, so here we go! In this week's post, I'll cover what a day in the life is like during the last month of competition prep. If I weren’t prepping for a competition, I would definitely stop dieting because 13 weeks is a long time to be cutting calories!

Recently, I was helping a friend figure out her macros and suggested she increase her protein intake. She was eating about ~50 grams of protein a day, and I suggested she try to increase it to between 80 and 100 grams a day. This overwhelmed her - what was she supposed to eat? About five years ago (the first time I did a fitness competition) I made a conscious effort to increase my protein intake to 100+ grams a day.

I'll start with a quick update about where things stand 10 into dieting for my fitness competition. In short, everything is tracking right along. I've lost an inch off most body parts - except for my waist where I've lost about 3 inches and my weight has come down about 11 pounds to about 152 pounds. My body fat has come down 5% as well. In total, I’m aiming to lose another 10 lbs or so goal weight of 143 pounds) for my show. This seems doable over the next 9 weeks.

I’m about eight weeks into my cutting/dieting process for preparing for a fitness competition. As I’ve written about before, I primed my body for this by doing about six months of reverse dieting.

Having a gym at home can be the best thing to ever happen to your fitness routine. You don’t have to drive somewhere in order to work out, you can do it while your kids are right there with you (if you have them and if they are old enough), and you can use it any time of the day without having to rely on gym hours.

'll cut to the chase as to how things are going. I just finished up my first month of training for a fitness competition with my bikini coaches.. So far I've lost about 5 pounds, 1% body fat, and an inch off of my waist, hips, and thighs. I've also increased all the weights on my lifts. So far, so good!

Have you heard of the WhatKateWore blog? It's a fashion blog that chronicles Kate Middleton's fashion - what she wore, where to get it, affordable knock-offs (RepliKates), etc. With all of The Crown hype (Season 4 really was amazing) my social media feeds have been flooded with news of the Royals - what they eat at the holidays, what the grandchildren call Camilla, which outfits have been repeated, how often they go to the bathroom, etc.

I chose this headline because it makes me laugh. We see this sort of all-or-nothing thinking all over social media: carbs are evil, bananas are the devil, cardio will ruin your life, jog yourself thin, eat this magical fruit/seed and you'll never have to step foot in a gym again, etc. It's so confusing it will make your head spin! WTH are we supposed to be doing to care for our bodies?

Last week marked 12 weeks since I began reverse dieting in preparation for training for a fitness competition. For the last 12 weeks my protocol has been as follows: reverse diet - eat between 1800 and 1900 calories/100 grams of protein per day; consistent resistance training - lift weights at least three times a week and focus on progressive overload; and do cardio at least two to three times a week.