As I close in on my 90 day “trial” with Shakeology I thought I would share my thoughts and results with you. First you might be asking what is Shakeology? For that…you should first read this.

So, my first 90 days, or 3 months have been fantastic…more energy, more nutrition, better digestion, and shedding fat. My goal is no longer weight loss, as a cyclist I am striving hard for the power to weight ratio…so I am trying to be as strong and light as possible. This means trim fat, add muscle…and with the help of Shakeology, a simply healthy lifestyle, and my training I have been able to continually reduce my body fat %!

Robin, my wife has also been using Shakeology for about a month…and has a bit different perspective on it. You can read her thoughts here. I would love to add more and different perspectives as well …so if you are using or have used Shakeology please comment. I think everyone’s body is different, and will respond differently…so I welcome all feedback.

For me, I am sticking with Shakeology! Going into the “off season” for cycling, I am looking to get as fit as possible, and have seen Shakeology be a great part of my training process. I am also trying to maintain my healthy lifestyle, and this fits perfectly as well.

My favorite Shakes over the last 90 days (all made with Chocolate Shakeology), and everyone I add 6-7 ice cubes and blend in a blender fyi.

• Mexican Chocolate Shake
• 1 Tbsp. peanut butter
• 1 tsp. of cinnamon
• 1 tsp. honey
• 1 cup of skim milk

• Chocolate Bananas Foster
• 1 banana
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. rum extract
• 1 cup skim milk

• Chocolate Vanilla Minty
• 1/4 vanilla extract
• 1/2 peppermint extract
• 1 cup skim milk

• Pecan Cinnamon Roll
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 vanilla extract
• 8 pecan halves
• 1 cup skim milk

It’s Sunday,  day 7 or our 7 day series on having A Simple Healthy Lifestyle. I hope that this series has been beneficial for you. Well, I have saved the best of last…the big D word that goes perfectly when you are talking about your health in general. Discipline! Yep, that word when it comes to what you eat is just not a fun or friendly word is it? Well, I do not think its an accident that I was writing this series, knew I was going to save this topic for last, and discovered one of my favorite authors wrote a fantastic post about discipline here. Ironically, I was talking about this post a few days ago with a good friend, and was trying to articulate my thoughts around this topic…but Chris does a much better job than me talking about it. So, please stop, and take a moment and read this post on discipline…then come back.

Wow, eye opening wasn’t it? His 4 points were outstanding, and so inline with my thoughts and views on discipline!

1. Discipline is not Willpower
2. Success breeds Success
3. Beware of Justification
4. Discipline is a Ladder

It’s day 6 or Saturday in our 7 day series focused on having A Simple Healthy Lifestyle. So, the weekend is here and you blew it! Maybe it was falling off the Krispy Kream wagon, or you just loaded up all day long on massive amounts of crap you should not eat. I understand, this happens. But, here is the deal – it’s all about how you quickly respond that matters. I once heard a great analogy…when you have a flat tire, you simply change the tire and move on, you don’t hop out of the car and slash all your tires! So, you caved in, no problem, just move on and don’t slash the other 3 tires.

Bonus thought: this really does not fit so I am calling it a bonus. Years ago I got to spend some time with Larry North, a trainer and well know fitness guru in Dallas, Texas. Larry had a saying “make the better bad choice”. Often times we can find ourselves in situations where we don’t really have a “good choice”…so make the best choice you can. Instead of caving in saying well, nothing is good, so I am just going to eat the triple cheese burger with super sized fries…stop, and make the better bad choice!

My Saturday Food and Activity Log
5:15am – Shakeology shake
6:00am – 180min cycling
7:15am – mini Larabar on bike
8:30am – Cliff “Shot Block” (3 blocks) on bike
9:00am – Chocolate milk post ride
10:30am – mixed nuts
12:30pm – Boca burgers, tomato/mozzarella salad
3:00pm – apple w/ natural peanut butter
6:30pm – whole wheat pasta and maranara sauce w/salad
9:00pm – mixed nuts

Tomorrow is the last day, so I am going to talk about the big D word…discipline. Bring on your questions.

Yep, it’s Friday aka day 5 of our 7 day series focused on having A Simple Healthy Lifestyle…only 2 more days if this is boring you to tears.

I often hear people talking about not eating when they are trying to “loose weight”, or just skipping meals. What a dietician once helped me realize is, calories are important…the simple math of take in less than you burn is true, but skipping meals or allowing yourself to get hungry is not good. Part of the burning more calories is your metabolism, and speeding up your metabolism is very important to loosing weight. A good way to speed up your metabolism is simply to eat! Yes, eat! This is why I try and never get real hungry, if that happens I have waited to long to eat. It is also the core reason I eat 6-7 times a day, and back when I was trying to loose weight I would eat 8-10 times a day. I would still try and stay under a calorie level, but just do it by eating more often, just smaller amounts. My metabolism is a bit slower than normal, and this really helped me get a jumpstart on weight loss many years back.

My Friday Food and Activity Log

• Activity – rest day
• 7:00am – Shakeology shake w/coffee and milk (great mocha!)
• 10:00am – banana
• Noon – Lunch @ Which Wich – Black Bean patty in a bowl +veggies
• 3:00pm – apple
• 6:30pm – Dinner @ home – Couscous and Veggies
• 9:00pm – red grapes

What about tomorrow? Well, thanks for asking…we are going to cover the “crap, I totally blew it today”. But, before tomorrow, any questions?

Day 4 or Thursday is here in our 7 day series focused on having A Simple Healthy Lifestyle. I am sure you have noticed the trend happening with my shakes for breakfast. Well, Shakeology has become a regular part of my diet and it has been great for me. I wrote about it here, but simply put I was looking for a simple and easy way to add extra nutritional value to my day, as well as get some performance boosts for my cycling. After much research and talking with others, Shakeology seemed to be the perfect fit…and it was. Many people I know are using Shakeology as a great weight loss meal replacement shake, and others us it more like me as a meal replacement, and nutritional/performance shake. It is very flexible based on what you mix it with. You can check out the nutritional information here. I also have many asking for more details or specifics for weight loss, and for core fitness…I plan on writing more about that soon.

My Thursday Food and Activity Log

• 5:15am – Shakeology shake with milk
• 6:00am – 120min cycling
• 8:15am – Lara bar (snack size)
• 10:00am – banana
• Noon – Lunch @ local authentic mexican hole in the wall  3 Fish Tacos
• 3:00pm – apple
• 6:00pm – Dinner @ home – BBQ Chicken Salad (no Chicken +Black Beans)
• 8:30pm – mixed nuts

Day 3 or Wednesday is here in our 7 day series focused on having A Simple Healthy Lifestyle. I have talked about my amazing wife Robin a lot…so I thought it was appropriate to stay on that theme. A month or so ago Robin talked about dinner at our home. Take a moment and read her thought on Food, Family and the Dinner Table.

A simply healthy lifestyle does not have to be so challenging if you start early. Our kids are not the best eaters, but they are getting better. We try and model the right decision for them, but not shove it down their throats. I want our children to understand food, what it is made of, and where it comes from. Again, I really believe that education and information will help them make better choices. We watched a documentary on Netflix called What’s on Your Plate with our girls and it was great, and they both enjoyed it and learned a lot.

My Wednesday Food and Activity Log

• Activity – rest day
• 7:00am – Shakeology shake w/milk & natural peanut butter
• 10:00am – Apple
• Noon – Lunch @ Jamba Juice – Orange Carrot Karma +protein & Wheat Grass Shot
• 3:00pm – mixed nuts
• 6:00pm -Dinner @ home – Black Bean and Corn Quesadilla’s
• 8:30pm – Plum (2)

Day 2 or Tuesday is here in our 7 day series focused on having A Simple Healthy Lifestyle. My wife is awesome…she is an amazing cook, and is so helpful when it comes to having healthy meals. But, for the record when we got married nearly 15 years ago she did not cook…could not cook, but is now amazing. So, be encouraged if you are not a cook, you can learn! Anyway, Robin is a passionate planner, and plans out dinner in 2 week sessions. A tool she uses for this is Plan to Eat. This website is awesome for meal planning, and she is connected to many other Plan to Eat users, and they can share and get and share each others recipes. This tool makes things for Robin and our family so much easier. If you are trying to have a simple healthy lifestyle, planning is important.

So, its your average Monday, or better known as day 1 of this 7 day blog post series. Lets start with some simple and free tools that are very helpful.

1. Log your food - I use MyFitnessPal on my iPhone and web browser. It works great, and I track everything I eat, and all my fitness activities. My goal NET calories are just under 2,000. MyFitnessPal is free, and works great. However there are hundreds of different apps for different types of phones and computers…just use one.
2. Track your weight – You need to know and be able to track your progress. I personally use a Tanita digital scale that works with my Garmin, and also tracks % body fat, and lots of other stuff. The key here is consistant measurements…use the same scale, and weigh at the same time of day when you weigh. I now only weigh once a week, but in the beginning I weighed 2-3 times a week for more real-time results. However, do not obsess over your weight…your weight loss will follow a healthy lifestyle.
3. Know your food - Simply pay attention to what is in the food you are eating. Know your calories, contents, etc. I believe that knowledge is power…and when you know what you are eating you will make better choices. Fooducate is a great iPhone app for this. A quick side bar on this topic…I also really encourage learning a bit more about what we are putting in our bodies. I recommend renting or checking out Food, Inc. on Netflix. There a some fantastic documentaries that can help educate you on what is going into your body.

Tomorrow I will give some tips on meal planning, cooking and recipes. Well, actually I hope my amazing wife Robin will. Let me know if you have any questions about Monday.

I get asked regularly about what I eat and what my healthy lifestyle looks like…so I am going to address that this week in daily posts. To first offer a little context, over the last 3+ years I have dropped ~60 lbs (was 220 – now 160′ish), became a vegetarian+ fish, and a competitive cyclist.  I do stress this has been a 3+ year journey, and honestly a 30 year challenge with balance issues when it comes to food.

Some key factors along the way:

• Vegetarian +fish = many ask why. Simply because I feel so much better. This started after a spiritual fast I was a part of with my church where we gave up all sorts of foods for 21 days, and when I added meat back in I quickly realized how bad or sluggish it made me feel. So, over time I dropped meat all together.
• Eat often = my metabolism is actually a bit slow. So, a trainer I had years ago worked with me to speed it up by eating much more often. Part of this process was me moving to smaller meals more often. Really working hard to eat 5-6 times a day if not more.
• Quality foods = I did not start with quality foods, frankly…I first focused on eating often, and lowering my calories. But, after I started dropping weight I wanted to live healthier. So, I continue to try and cut down on/out processed foods. A simple way to look at it is, I try and eat more good food and less not good food. Good = natural. Not good = not natural.
• Robin joined in= at first my wife Robin was not on board…at all! I really can’t blame her, I am an all in or all out guy and she had seen this before. But after a year, she was seeing results and warmed up to a healthier lifestyle. Now she is a true part-time vegetarian, but did not start out this way and she cooks very healthy. She uses PlanToEat.com, and has some amazing recipes. I recommend you join and connect with her and see all her recipes.
• NO SODA! = no explanation needed. I drink water and coffee only, and lots of water.
• Activity = I added in activity over time. I lost my first 30 lbs with no activity at all…it was all food choices. But, I started to hit a wall and then added activity. That started as light bike riding that is now a much more intense cycling schedule.