Keri Lynn Ford

This week I wrote about the Eat Clean principles in my Spoiled Little LA Girls revew! 

Tosca Reno (she's 50!) with her Eat Clean BooksThe same year I purchased my Intuitive Eating book, my grandmother had given me a subscription to a fitness magazine for Christmas. I had never heard of Oxygen Magazine, but I was instantly drawn to the athletic physique of the women on the cover because I could relate to their body shape having been a gymnast for half my life. There in the pages of Oxygen, I found myself. I also found an advertisement for the book The Eat-Clean Diet by Tosca Reno.

The Eat Clean Diet is eating from the earth. Here are a few key principles:

1. Eat foods from the earth in their cleanest form: fresh and whole. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store for lean proteins, complex carbs and healthy fats. You will not count calories, carbohydrate grams, points or fat grams. Avoid pre-packaged foods that are not true to how they exist in nature. This means… drop the granola (yes, granola in its most natural form is rolled oats)!!
2. Eat smaller meals, more frequently. Eating several meals with protein and carbohydrates every few hours will keep your metabolism revved up to burn fat and your tummy full. It will also sustain your blood-sugar levels leaving you with more energy. The book includes meal plans, portion sizes and optional menu ideas.
3. Drink plenty of water. Keep your water intake high, especially when eating more protein and fiber to keep things moving!
4. Exercise often. Eating right is only part of the equation to total body health. You have to exercise your body, mind and soul to reap the full benefits of the clean eating lifestyle.
5. Plan your meals ahead. “Fail to plan, plan to fail” as I always say! Tosca first introduced me to the idea of carrying a cooler around stocked full of prepared meals or on-the-go snacks, like raw almonds and fruit. Thanks to her, I took this to a whole new level and started carrying around chicken breasts in my purse. 

When I first purchased this book, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my bagels, donuts or Nutrigrain bars. The last thing I wanted to do was “diet,” but I was looking for something with more structure than an eat-whatever-you-want mentality. Several months later, I dusted off my copy of The Eat-Clean Dietand dove head first into my new lifestyle full of clean foods loaded with essential vitamins, minerals and vibrant colors. The eat clean way of life was exactly what I needed to stay inspired by eating healthy food, respecting my body and doing it with a positive attitude! Tosca is refreshingly enthusiastic in the way she describes the what and why of eating certain foods. Don’t let the title of the book fool you! The diet is not a diet at all. It is a lifestyle that anyone can apply to their everyday. I recommend this book to every single client I train or coach on my Virtual IGNITE Program.

Fun fact: At age 40, author Tosca Reno actually went through her own transformation. She was overweight and found herself in an unhappy marriage. As she shed unwanted pounds, Tosca became confident, joyful and ready to take on the world. She began writing a column in Oxygen, a renowned fitness magazine. Tosca shared her personal story of transformation, her triumphs and her challenges, as well as her advice to others. Tosca decided to record her journey in a book entitled The Eat-Clean Diet®.

The Eat-Clean Diet (original) is available at all major bookstores and Amazon for as low as $4.82
The Eat-Clean Diet, Recharged is available at all major bookstores and Amazon for as low as $11.87

Spoiled Little LA Girls is a blog dedicated to reviews on everything from beauty products to tech toys for women.

Several years ago, I struggled with an eating disorder when I picked up the book Intuitive Eating. This week's review on Spoiled Little LA Girls is about this book, and how it changed my life.

Several years ago, I struggled with an eating disorder when I picked up the book Intuitive Eating. There I was, standing in Barnes and Noble scouring the shelves for inspiration that I thought would feed the love affair I had at the time with my eating disorder. I didn’t intend to buy a recovery book, but it only took me skimming several pages before I decided to buy Intuitive Eating.

I didn’t follow the exact program of this book, but this book changed my life. Intuitive Eating is based on the idea that you can give yourself full permission to eat whatever you choose as long as you eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. If you listen to your body and it’s natural cues, you will become your natural, healthy self at a natural, healthy weight. This is actually much more complex than it sounds. After years of labeling foods as “good” or “bad,” even taboo, I had also suppressed my little inner voice to the point where I no longer knew what it felt like to be truly hungry, and truly full. Without being hungry, if you left me with a bag of cookies in a room by myself, I can guarantee you that bag of cookies would be gone. And the next day would be followed by ignoring my hunger pangs and plowing through excessive exercise to punish myself for being so “weak”.

The 10 Intuitive Eating Principles from their website:

1. Reject the Diet Mentality. Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight.
2. Honor Your Hunger. Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy, otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.
3. Make Peace with Food. Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings. When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in “Last Supper” overeating and feelings of failure or guilt.
4. Challenge the Food Police. Scream a loud “NO” to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating under 1000 calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created.
5. Respect Your Fullness. Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you’re comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you’ve had “enough”.
7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food. Find ways to comfort, nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won’t fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover, but food won’t solve the problem.
8. Respect Your Body. Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It’s hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.
9. Exercise: Feel the Difference. Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm.
10. Honor Your Health: Gentle Nutrition. Make food choices that honor your health and taste buds while making you feel well. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It’s what you eat consistently over time that matters. It is progress, not perfection, that counts.

As I began to read, I nodded my head in relation as my tears fell to the pages. I saw myself in those stories. The stories of chronic dieting, deprivation, failure, guilt, hate and anger. I realized that what I really needed to do was to heal myself from the inside out. I had to redefine my relationship with food, what it meant to me and what hungry and full felt like again. I had to reintroduce myself to the gym and stop punishing myself with excessive workouts. And I needed to heal the relationship I had with myself.

It has taken me years of healing and positive re-inforcement to get to where I am right now, and trust me.. there is always something to work on. I began this journey in 2006 by first allowing myself permission to eat anything I wanted. For awhile it was a bagel and a donut for breakfast (yes, both), or a Nutrigrain bar for lunch. Somewhere along the way I had labeled these foods as taboo and I felt the urge to re-taste everything I had deprived myself of for so long. I started eating consciously. I ate sitting down at the table, with no television, no computer, no distractions, so I could open my ears and listen to my body. Sure enough, I started hunger again. When I was hungry, I honored my hunger and I ate. When I was full, I was satisfied and I stopped eating. I started working out again. This time I covered the calorie counter with a towel and I did what felt good, not what I felt I had to do. I started lifting. I felt empowered. I started spinning. It was hard at first. The first several classes I was breathing heavy and somewhere in that room I found myself smiling through the sweat, at the gratification of the challenge. I found my love of exercise again. It took me several months until I no longer wanted the bagels, donuts and Nutrigrain bars. I began craving foods I have always loved, but were healthy. I wanted fresh salads with grilled chicken and I wanted egg whites omelets with whole wheat toast. I wanted to nourish, respect and honor my body.

While this book may not be for everyone, the core messages that I have used in my life are: eating consciously when you are hungry, stopping when you are full, and honoring your body by changing your inner monologue to a more loving, forgiving voice. If you are a client on my Virtual IGNITE Program, you know that I am constantly reminding you of the positive accomplishments you have made throughout your journey. Life is about so much more than a number on a scale! This book is primarily geared towards people who have had eating disorders or a history of chronic dieting. My advice is to take from it what you can apply to your own life, without treating it like just another “diet” with the false hope of losing weight to be happy. Happiness will ultimately come from the acceptance and permission you give yourself to be who you are, embracing all of your strengths, your weaknesses and the in-between.

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” – Anonymous

Intuitive Eating, 2nd Edition: A Revolutionary Program that Works is available on Amazon for as low as $3.12

Spoiled Little LA Girls is a blog dedicated to reviews on everything from beauty products to tech toys for women.

This week's review on Spoiled Little LA Girls is about a newly developed line of fitness wear, NUX.

 
Pictured above: me rockin' the NUX Trance Adjustable Tank in white and Focus Boy Shorts in black at my NUX photo shoot!

As many of you know by now, I am always looking for fashionable fitness pieces to add to my ever-growing wardrobe. I was recently contacted by NUX, a women’s activewear company, who wanted to send me samples because they thought I would like their collection. Well, they were right and not only do I like their collection, I am in LOVE!

The NUX collection is comprised of classic wardrobe pieces like jackets, pants, tanks and leggings with a modern flair. NUX has also created Body Engineering, which features their innovative and seamless design. Their Body Engineering is based on their custom Compression Scale that categorizes activewear from the lightest compression to the heaviest compression (or from loosest to tightest fit). The compression effect results in the ultimate body-slimming look that provides support while also featuring stylish mesh details in the ribbing that let your skin breathe to keep you cool.

Unlike other brands, I actually like everything from the jackets to the pants and I am pretty picky. Usually I prefer only the pants from one fitness line, and the tops from another, but never the entire collection. I can’t wait for you to see their fabulous fresh colors coming out in their Fall line!

I even love their NUXOLOGY:
To be pro peace and anti nothing.
To lead with my heart and follow with my mind.
To honor humility and be humbled by honorable people.
To choose to dance through life with all of my imperfections.
To cultivate compassion for the world by having compassion for myself.

NUX is available for purchase online at www.nuxusa.com. Price ranges.

Pros: quality, price, seamless slimming body engineering technology, fresh colors, made in USA, doesn’t resemble a reflector like other toning apparel, variety in design
Cons: none

I am honored to be the first official NUX Affiliate and Brand Ambassador. I will be able to get you the cutest clothes with amazing deals and other perks like free shipping when you order from my site by simply clicking the banner on the right ------->

Spoiled Little LA Girls is a blog dedicated to reviews on everything from beauty products to tech toys for women.

This week on my fitness review series featured on SLLG (Spoiled Little LA Girls) features the amazing Blender Bottle.

I’m one of those crazy fitness people that will pull a chicken breast or protein powder out of my purse at any given moment. A girl has got to get her protein! I usually carry my dry protein powder in a shaker cup and then I can mix it on the go when I am hungry.

There are two problems with other regular shaker cups:

1. Leaks: I have been left with a sticky mess on the outside of the shaker or all over my car, gym bag or purse.
2. Clumps: Sorry, but I don’t want to chew the protein powder in my shake. The grate on other shakers breaks after getting jammed, comes loose while shaking or gets clogged with powder and leftover milk rendering it useless.

I wasn’t searching for a new protein shaker because I didn’t know the BlenderBottle® existed. Then one morning at the gym, I saw the BlenderBottle® display. After a several times of passing by with a lingering stare, my husband and I decided to buy one. He chose the 28 ounce Original size in black, and I picked out the pretty 20 ounce Mini size in pink (duh). The brilliant design of a freely-moving wire whisk ball (BlenderBall®) is the method behind the madness! This portable mixer blends ingredients into a smooth and light consistency while you shake or swirl.

Aside from protein shakes, the BlenderBottle can also be used for:

• Salad dressings
• Waffle, crepe, french toast and pancake batter
• Yogurt smoothies
• Pudding
• Sauces and marinades
• Omelets, quiche and scrambled eggs
• Water bottle
• Lump-free gravy
• Dry ingredients (ie: cinnamon, Splenda, cake mix)
• Chilled beverages (ie: lemonade, eggnog, iced coffee, cocktails)

Try this Zippy Ginger Salad Dressing from the Blender Bottle site. The fresh ginger and hot chili oil give this a spicy flavor that would be great over chicken, mandarin oranges, scallions + greens. It would also make a great grilled chicken marinade.

• ¼c rice vinegar
• ¼c vegetable oil
• ¼c sesame oil
• 3 tbls hot chili oil
• 4 tsp low-sodium soy sauce
• 3 tbls fresh ground ginger
• ¼ tsp garlic powder
• ¼ tsp sea salt

Combine all ingredients in BB and shake!

For a gourmet flare, try these BlenderBottle Crepes with sweet or savory fillings of your choice.

• 3 eggs
• 3/4c and 2 tsp skim, rice, soy or almond milk
• 3 tsp wheat flour
• 1 tsp Splenda
• 1 pinch of salt

Heat a large, lightly greased pan over medium heat. Pour approximately 1/4 cup batter on to pan and tilt pan with a circular motion to evenly coat surface.

Cook for 1-2 minutes, until the bottom is slightly brown. Carefully flip crepe and cook other side.

Fill with berries and yogurt, turkey bacon and low fat cheese, baked apples and cinnamon, Cool Whip, Nutella or your favorite crepe filling. You can fold in half, and then fold in half again for quarters or roll it up like a tortilla. Makes 4 crepes.

Available online from the BlenderBottle site or at 24 hour fitness: Original 28 ounce size is $8.99 and Mini 20 ounce is $8.49

Pros: BPA-Free plastic, dishwasher safe, easy to clean, convenient, secure lid, large drink/pour spout, versatile for blending anything!
Cons: mix only room temperature or cold ingredients, hot ingredients may build up pressure after being shaken

Spoiled Little LA Girls is a blog dedicated to reviews on everything from beauty products to tech toys for women.

This week I wrote about how and why this Malibu Hemp lotion tones and tans your skin on Spoiled Little LA Girls!

In the past I had used “self-tanning” lotions that stained my hands and smelled like chemicals and sunscreen until I found vacation in a bottle, Malibu Hemp Lotion at Walmart. Not only does this lotion create a natural, even golden glow, but it smells like a pina colada and it firms your skin. It has a few active ingredients that I have highlighted below.

Coenzyme Q, or CoQ10
This ingredient is already produced by the body and is necessary for basic cell function. It is considered an anti-aging, anti-wrinkle tool because it can help repel free radicals. Sources also say CoQ10 can help the skin produce collagen and elastin, which keep it appearing firm and young.

Dihydroxyacetone, or DHA
DHA is used in many sunless and self-tanning skincare products. DHA reacts with the amino acids in the skin, resulting in brown pigments called melanoidins. These are similar in coloration to melanin, which is also the natural substance in the deeper skin layers which “tan” from exposure to the sun’s rays.

Virgin Hemp Seed Oil
Derived from the Cannabis plant, is 80% essential fatty acid, the highest amount of any other plant. Hemp seed oil similarly matches our own skin lipids, so it is actually able to penetrate our cells and lubricate the surfaces in between. Without clogging pores, it will soften skin and enrich it with potassium and calcium. It is also considered a natural sunblock (please note that this should not be used in place of actual sunblock or sunscreen).

Larger size available at Walmart for $5.77 or a smaller size at Sally’s Beauty Supply for $2.59 (its under the name Moist Hemp Bronzing Moisturizer, but same ingredients and manufacturer)

From the experts: Use Daily. Smooth on evenly, and allow to dry before getting dressed. Wash hands after application.

Pros: tropical smell, really bronzes the skin, non-streaky, softens skin
Cons: often out of stock

Spoiled Little LA Girls is a blog dedicated to reviews on everything from beauty products to tech toys for women.