The 21 Day Fix

I have had SO many people ask me about the fix so I thought I would write a short blog post about this new lifestyle that I have come to love.

Instead of going straight into what the 21 day fix IS let me tell you what the fix ISN'T.

The 21 day fix is NOT a diet, it is NOT a craze or a fad, it is NOT unrealistic and it is NOT hard.

So what is it?

The 21 day fix is a NUTRITION and FITNESS program which is based on PORTION CONTROL and a CLEAN EATING LIFESTYLE and short 30 minute workouts a day. The 21 day fix is a REALISTIC plan that makes loosing weight not only SIMPLE but FUN.

Side note real quick before we go any further. Please REMEMBER I am not currently permitted to work out due to the complications I am having with my recent neck surgery so this blog post is explaining to you the nutrition portion of the plan. I am thinking about asking my coach (who has been doing this along side of me) to possibly write a guest blog post one day on the fitness portion of the fix but as for today I just want to explain to you how the nutrition plan works. I will touch on the workouts but I can not tell you what exactly they entail because I simply just have not done them yet!! (Key word being YET, I hope to get there)!

So back to nutrition...

What do I mean when I say it is REALISTIC? The answer is easy, I compare it with what I have done in the past. I use to do CrossFit and back when I did CF I was also really big into Paleo. Now don't get me wrong I still use a lot of my Paleo recipes but, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Paleo the only foods that are allowed are lean meats, fruits, vegetables, and nuts aka the caveman diet, aka very unrealistic (at least for me) for every day life.  

I enjoyed Paleo and I had a lot of success with it. First I completed a 30 day paleo challenge which I actually won at my box because my before and after pictures showed the most drastic changes and then I completed a 90 day challenge which I also did very well with and took 3rd place in. With that being said I did NOT keep that weight off and the main reason for that was because to me it was NOT a lifestyle change instead it was a diet. After the challenges were over It was NOT something I could adapt into a lifestyle as it simply did not allow enough variety of foods for me and honestly it was just super hard and unrealistic.

Soooo when I say the 21 day fix is realistic I mean just that. It is easy in that you can eat almost anything you want as long as it is on the list of fix approved foods. So what are fix approved foods? Here is the list:

See what I mean when I say you can almost have anything? There is not much restriction here and there is a wide variety of everything including carbs which I was not allowed to go near while doing Paleo.

Now that you have seen the list of foods that you are allowed to have you may be wondering what the colors on the list represent. This is where the SIMPLE & FUN come into play. Ya see with the 21 day fix there is no guessing, there is no counting calories, there is no measuring out or weighing your foods, and there is no point system. So what is the trick? Well thats the simple part...

You are provided with these cute color coordinated containers (see below) that all your food goes into. How many containers do you get to eat a day? Well that depends on how much you weigh. You are put into a category which tells you how many of each color you get a day and this is according to how much you weigh. Fun right? Yes. :) Very simple & very fun!

It has become such a lifestyle for me that foods are not really put into food groups anymore in my head instead when I see apples I think purple, when I see carrots I think green, and when I see chicken or protein I think red. Catch my drift?

You ALSO get to drink and incorporate (if you wish and you should WISH) Shakeology into the 21 day fix plan. Depending on what you put in your shakes will depend on what it counts towards in regards to your containers for the day. 1 scoop of shake always counts as one red but normally I add one of each color to make it a fully balanced meal. BUT if I am just using my shake as a sweet treat I use extract flavors oh my gosh YUM...the ones I posted below are my favorite shakes to date but this changes every time I find a new shake...

Shakeology is to me a MAGIC potion. It is so much more than a protein drink, it is a meal replacement and you can make so many different types of shakes with it its incredible. The Shakeology is the key to curb the sweet tooth cravings AND it includes essential vitamins and nutrients for everyday life. IT IS SO GOOD!!!!!!

So, there you have it. In a nutshell that is the 21 day fix! :) I am SURE I forgot some things and I am sure that I left some stuff out but in a nutshell that explains everyday life in the fix.

I hope this answers some of your questions and if not please ask me ANYTHING about this awesome lifestyle. I am so excited to get my January groups started and welcome even more friends and family on this journey with me! Do you want to take the leap? Just ask me and we can get you all set up.

Thats all I got for now. My next post I will share some recipes and give you the low down on 1 day in the life of the fixer! :)

Come back soon, XOXO
Heather

1. 
   

I'm BACK...

I knew when I started this blog back in March it would be hard to keep up because there wasn't much going on back then but my oh my how things have changed! 

What's been up? Oy vey, what hasn't been up! 

In July I went into the OR and underwent a cervical neck fusion to correct numbness, tingling and pain I was having in my hands upon flexion. I wish I could say I am completely recovered but it has left my neck in shambles and its mid December and I am still looking for answers. Looking back I don't regret my decision considering my hands are fixed but I am extremely annoyed and frustrated with all the crap and complications that I am having to go through post fusion. Things my surgeon at the time who is no longer my surgeon anymore (that's another story for another day) never told me would happen. Like I said a story for another day. For the blogs sake we will steer towards the positives and that is that my hands are fixed and I will be able to learn IVs next semester and move through nursing school and that is a blessing. I can get through the next two semesters with some stiffness and pain in my neck but I could not excel in my skills with numb hands so like I said positive thinking!  

BUT I am not here today to talk about my neck although it is a HUGE part of journey and is a part of "my why" it's not the only part and that's what I want to share and shout and blog about!!! 

My journey with what you may ask? Well my journey to become the best ME I can possibly be by becoming the healthiest and happiest ME in the process! 

How? Well that's easy...

b.e.a.c.h. b.o.dy....

This is my first time sharing my story so bare with me I'm not sure how long this will be. 

It all started when I was told that eating would be difficult post fusion. I had been talking to my friend from home (who is now also my amazing coach) about beach body for about 5 months prior to all of this and I had seen her million and one posts about Shakeology so I thought I would start there and drink that during my recovery. It was delicious but I didn't have much of an appetite for anything post op and I only used Shakeology a few times during those first two months. I had a slit in my throat it was hard to get in anything in, shakeo or not! 

Fast forward 3.5 months post op. I still had lots of packets left and I was released from Physical Therapy and was told I could do some low impact low intensity work outs on my own. This is also about the same time that Michael got news that he would be upgrading to Captain at Piedmont Airlines and he would be away for training for about 2 months. I was sooooo anxious for those 2 months. I never thought I would make it. How silly of me now looking back since it not only flew but also since I found myself in the whole process. It was like Mike went off to upgrade to become a captain and I wanted to become the healthiest me possible while he was gone and I achieved that goal and then some...

So it was October and I knew I had to get involved with something. I was only back in school part time, Mike was gone and since I had been laid up for so long bc of my neck I slowly felt like I was loosing my purpose in this world. Again it sounds silly now since I have found such a great sense of being and purpose within beach body but regardless at the time those feelings were very VERY real. 

I had not only seen PiYO advertised everywhere but one of my best friends from college was doing it regularly in her gym, one of my favorite PW's was also 8 months pregnant at this time and she was doing PiYO and my coach raved about it so I decided to give it a try. And I loved it! For those of you who don't know PiYO is Pilates and Yoga mixed! It was low impact and low intensity and it felt so good to stretch out everything!

This is when I really started to think more about the whole coaching thing. Lauren and I had multiple convos about signing me up to coach, she kept telling me that I would fly in this business and I would be successful and she had answered (and is still answering) my million questions and now she was just patiently waiting for me to take the leap. I was having dreams about coaching and this is when I knew I needed to learn more and quickly! So I I started an intro to coaching group. This group is what for sure sold the deal. I was about two weeks into PiYO and loving it but I wasn't drinking Shakeology on a regular basis and I knew if I wanted to become a success coach and motivate others I needed to become a product of the product so I needed something more than PiYO. And this is when everything spiraled up hill in the beach body world for me...

In the beginning of November I FINALLY decided to sign up to coach and I ordered my first challenge pack! I ordered the 21 day fix! I was so excited! I hit another bump in the road right before my fix came in and my car spun out resulting in some nasty whiplash. What I thought was just simple whiplash turned into much more and this is when I found out all my recent awful news about my neck. I am not going to go into neck stories today SO for the sake of the blog I will just inform you that due to some mistakes in the OR I am dealing with complications and I am in the process of working through the pain with a different neurologist who has taken over my case. I am not released to workout on my own however this next week I will start working out with a musculoskeletal trainer to slowly get me stronger and hopefully where I need to be for the time being! 

 

I didn't let the pain stop me. I signed up to coach prior to this news and even though I was devastated mentally and I was (and still am) physically hurting so bad on some days I knew in my heart that I could still do the fix! Could I work out? No but instead of focusing on what I couldn't do I focused on what I could do. I could still eat healthy, I could still follow the plan and I could still encourage, inspire, and motivate others with my story. There were and are still so many components to my story that make me a perfect candidate to be a successful coach and I didn't let my eye off of my main goal.

So I looked passed everything. I put it all in the back of my head and I did what I knew I had to do and I really wanted to do and I took 21 days and I focused it completely on myself. And after almost 10 months of contemplating beach body I finally turned all my negative energy into positive energy and in just 21 days I really did not only become a new girl but also a coach who is on her way to success! 

I started out at 184 pounds and after round one I was 16 pounds less. I couldn't believe it. Although I knew that diet was 70-80% and exercise was 20-30% of loosing weight I didn't think that I would see such huge gains! 

Not only did I myself see gains with the program but in one months time I welcomed 12 new clients to join me in my journey and I am now coaching 12 girls who are currently doing the fix with me! Wow! Just wow!!! 

I have far far passed my own goals for myself in the company this first month of coaching. One of my biggest concerns when I first signed up to coach was who in the world are my customers going to be and how will I ever gain a clientele? Little did I know that as soon as I myself became a product of the product and I started sharing about my journey others wanted to join too wow cool! My story inspires others? Neat I thought I can do this! And that's where we are now...

For the month of November I not only knock my own goals out of the park but I became a rockstar coach on my personal team!!!

And my hard work showed because I even earned a conference call next week with the CEO of our company! Ekkkkk I am so excited for that call!!!! :) :) 

PS isn't my coach the cutest!? She made this last week when we found out about the call, she and I have grown so much in this short month and she has become my number 1 fan! Love Ya Lauren! 

So where am I now currently with the fix? Wellllllll 

Well said. A lifestyle is where I am! 

I am technically if counting in round two day 10 of the fix however right now I am just trying to maintain what I lost in round one and not gain. Seeing that it's the holiday season and my favorite time of the year (YAY) I am not being too super strict on myself. If I want a cookie I eat a cookie and so on. Starting January 5 after all the holidays are done and the new year is beginning I plan to get back to strict rules in the kitchen as well as hopefully (fingers crossed) starting PiYO and some other low intensity work outs if I am released from all these damn doctors!!! Yay!!!

So there you have it! That's what's been up! If you are at all interested, inspired, or encouraged by what I have accomplished or what you have just read I would be more then blessed and honored to stand by your side and do it with you! I have always had a passion in helping others (hence nursing school) however I have truly found a new passion within beach body. If you are looking to make just a small change in your life to give you a little bit MORE or if you are looking to make a big change this New Year because you are looking for a completely New YOU I can help you achieve those goals and then some. All you have to do is shoot me a message and we can talk all about what beach body has to offer and what program  would be the perfect fit for you. Or you can go on over to my personal beach body website and check out your options just click on shop and you can see all the different programs we offer! :)

www.beachbodycoach.com/heatherklau

I look forward to continuing my journey as a beach body coach while finishing nursing school and then even so when I am a nurse. As my network continues to grow I know I will continue to succeed! 

In other news FO Hanson has officially passed upgrade training and he is Captain Hanson now (or Captain Handsome if you ask me)!!! 

He has been gone since Wednesday and he finally comes home this afternoon...SUNDAY COME HOME DAY! Yay! I can't wait to give him the biggest hug ever this afternoon! 

I finished the semester strong and I will continue my dream to become a nurse next semester full time at SU. Only 2 semesters to go! Life is going to get a little crazy come Jan 26 but I couldn't be more excited to go back full time!! 

Between now and then I plan to continue to focus on my business and one of the ways I am going to do that is blogging! 

Now that you have read this entire long post about my journey I want to let you know what the blog is going to be used for nowadays! 

So many people have asked me for recipes and I have a zillion and one pictures on my phone of food and recipes and all sorts of stuff related to the fix so I am going to use the blog as a place to track my journey and post recipes to share for others! :) 

I have wanted to be a blogger for a long time and I am so excited I finally have something to blog about! 

I think that's all for now! I am so glad to be back at it! 

Thanks for stopping by, come back soon!   

Until next time...

 

FLY HOME SAFE HANDSOME, ILY!

Come Home Day

Come Home Day...

By far the best day of any week!

It does not matter if he is home for 1/2 a day, a day, 2 days, or more, no matter what come home day is ALWAYS exciting and ALWAYS leaves my heart complete.

I told you the relationship with an airline pilot was unique, this is because every week he is my hardest goodbye and every week he is also my sweetest hello.

Hence the walkway you see when you first walk into our home. Proud of this wall, found the picture and the sign at hobby lobby and my awesome sister gave us that cute owl switch plate for christmas, this is just so us...

Nothing STINGS quite as much as watching him walk out that door or hearing his car start and then hearing it (and watching it out my window) slowly disappear down the street as he leaves for his trip. Sigh, it is the worst!

On the contrary, NOTHING feels quite as AMAZING as receiving the "just landed, on my way home to you" text message. (Side Note: The sweet "home to you" part gets me every time, knowing that he can not wait to get home to me makes my heart that much more joyful, I must be doing something right!)

AND...

Nothing feels quite as amazing as come home butterflies; when the garage door opens and I hear his car door shut I know that in the next second he will walk through our door, smile at me with his sweet 'hello baby smile' and take me into his arms leaving me breathlessly thinking "finally, all is right in my world!".

Every come home day is different. When he works mornings his arrival on come home day varies between 10am and 5pm. Obviously my favorite type of come home day (if I had to pick a favorite) would be the days he has morning arrivals back to base. This month however he is working nights therefore his ETA home is normally always past 9pm.

In the aviation world no week is 'typical' because every week his schedule changes. For example these past 3 weeks he has worked three 4 day trips with very few days spent at home in between. At one point I remember looking at the calendar and getting excited when I saw 2 full days that said "off" because I was getting so use to him only having 1 and 1/2 day breaks.

I am sure now you can imagine my EXCITEMENT this week when I noticed a 5 day stretch on the calendar with him home and only a out-and-back (meaning he flys in the morning but ends up back at home that night with me) scheduled in between.

In other words that means 7 whole nights in a row together, starting TONIGHT which is pretty much unheard of...

When things like this happen I say the aviation Gods are on our side because it is very rare we spend 4 nights together total at home in one week let alone 7 in a row. :)

A lot of people ask me how I do it, and I try not to focus on how because there are a TON of reasons that I could list which get me through all the ups and downs of this life but instead I like to answer that question by saying it is not a matter of how I do it but instead WHY I do it that matters.

Ultimately the answer to "how?"  and "why?" is LOVE....

Love is what makes every single bitter goodbye worth the pain. After all, every sad see ya soon day is followed by a happy joyful come home day that never disappoints...

SO that my friends is what keeps me going and that is "how" and "why" I do it...

Until next time...

<3, Heather

FLY HOME SAFE HANDSOME, SEE YOU SOON 

Two Plane & Simple Souls

I am not sure most really understand the life that comes along with being a pilots girlfriend. Many of you may be laughing thinking what in the world is she talking about but honestly trust me you do not get it because lets be for real I do not even understand this life I live. You see it is not something that ever once crossed my mind prior to meeting his sweet aviation loving soul. I never once boarded an airplane, sat in my seat and thought to myself hmm I wonder what life is like at home for the man sitting in the cockpit flying my airplane. It just is not something normal people think about when they fly. I did however use to wonder the obvious like how in the world did one operate this machine to fly and go up, and I also wondered if pilots got that feeling in their stomach when the airplane drops a little like I always got or were they use to it and did their tummy not drop, and of course my curious mind always wanted to know what the world looked like from a cockpit; these all seemed like normal thoughts a passenger would have right? Or did my heart secretly wonder because my future was sitting up front and because my future could answer those questions? Who knows.

Prior to dating this incredible man that comes and goes every week and keeps me on my feet and incredibly happy at my new destination I was just a girl stuck in a comfortable relationship that became routine and extremely toxic by the end. I am a firm believer that everyone who comes into your life comes into it for a reason and therefore I have no regrets in regards to the 5 years I spent with my ex nor do I regret any of the years I spent with other guys. The way I see it, people spend their time with others for weeks, months, or maybe years to live, learn and grow. In the midst of that time one finds out if they are or are not meant to be with one another. And then if you are lucky enough in middle of ordinary life you are given a fairytale and you find the person you are meant to spend forever with and suddenly everything else in your past, well it all made perfect sense...this is where my 31 year old handsome pilot comes into play . . .

This quote really does remind me of our story and today is one of our favorite quotes. In our grown-up dollhouse that we are creating as a couple I plan to start making canvas art (saving this topic for another post) and this quote is actually one of the first ones I want to make! It is just so US. You see I am not the only one in this relationship who has a past, it goes both ways for us which is why our story is so special and unique (at least to me).

At 27 and 31 years of age we are not young kids who have just started dating other of the opposite sex but instead we both have had pasts, we have both been in love before and we both have had our hearts broken by others. Because of this I truly feel that the two of us have a better idea of exactly what we want in the opposite sex and because of this I think we are better for one another then we would be without our pasts.

Our story to me is special (duh!). You always hear about the girl who falls in love with her friend but you never really imagine it will be you; it is so hollywood. With me, it was real life! I became good friends with this man who also happened to be a airline pilot during one of the hardest transitions of my life and in the midst of ending a 5 year relationship which came with a lot of heart break and ache. During this time I was hurting very badly but I was also experiencing a great deal of happiness and joy while getting to know this person. He looked at life in a different light, and everyday I was friends with him I grew more joyful and I realized I smiled a whole lot more then I ever remembered smiling in the past. He turned my tears into smiles and I remember thinking it took a real man, a man that I was suppose to be with who could make me laugh through the most painful times. It was last April when I had a deep gut feeling that this guy was something special and against most peoples opinions of the situation I went with my gut and I let my heart fall in love all over again.

Thank GOD I did because the days and months have passed and we are now living together in our own place and we are approaching our one year anniversary together as a couple. I am not only the happiest I have ever been in my entire life but I have grown as a person and a human being. This man makes me want to be a better person; because of him I wake up every morning wanting to do better in this life. He makes life easy and he gives me purpose; we are beating the odds that were against us as a couple in the beginning and I love every second of it! It has become evident to family and friends that I made the best decision of my life when I went with my gut last April and without a doubt him and I were meant for each other.

So welcome to our journey. Prepare yourself for many more mushy love stories (hey, don't blame me when he is only home half of the week you gotta make every second count and this includes sharing lots of little moments that lead to mushy stories), expect posts on yummy recipes I dig into while he is flying, and maybe if I start getting real creative I will also start on the many house projects I have pinned to make our grown up dollhouse a home. . . and lord knows what else? This whole blog thing is new to me. All I do know is that anything is fair game here...with a love as special and unique and different as ours everyday day gets better and our love story continues to grow. I never imagined I would be one to love like this or brag (I mean blog) about a love like this however I just feel like there is  way too much to say because there is ALOT that goes on behind the scenes, our life in the aviation world is one big fun, exciting, crazy, adventure and I'd love for you to tag along.

Until next time...

<3 Heather

She Always Knew She Could Fly

I have always been a story teller. A good story teller is questionable but a story teller nonetheless. Just recently my Mom gave me an old box with "Heather" written on the outside of it which she found while cleaning out the basement. To my surprise when I opened the box I realized it was filled with things she had saved over the years that belonged to me. All sorts of things were in this box. Pictures, journals, diaries, old letters and notes, cards, my college essay, you name it and it was in this box. I got a big kick out of going through these old things that belonged to me but what I enjoyed the most was reading old stories I wrote as a child. There were stories about everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. There was The Frankenstein Story staring my Grandpa, the story about a missing cookie who ran away because he(or she) whichever you wish did not want to be eaten by my older sister, and The Lost Pumpkin (written and illustrated by me in 3rd grade and even has a hard book cover) that was dedicated to my sister. I had (have) quite the imagination. As I was rereading my childhood writing and sharing some with Michael I could not help but laugh and cry at the same time. Happy tears of course. I was thinking about the past and I realized that nothing really changed about me besides the obvious, I  (kinda) grew up.

I say "kinda" because I do not consider myself a grown up and I never will. You see my Grandma always told me not to grow up. She told me that when people grew up they lost their inner child. She said that in the hustle and bustle of life and responsibility some people just had to grow up because they knew no other way. She also said that these same people did not live their life to the fullest but instead they woke up every morning and just went through the motions. At that time I was only a child myself and I remember thinking this conversation is quite silly because everyone had to grow up right? Wrong. My Grandmother knew something about my heart back then that I did not; she told me one day it would all make sense. During the same conversation we had she also told me that I had a gift inside my heart (the same gift as my Daddy) and it was something very few had. She said my heart was filled with the spirit of a child and that although she had no doubts that I myself would become an adult I would never really grow up.

As the years passed on I remember realizing that my Grandmother also had this special gift she spoke of to me. Looking back she was the biggest kid of us all. Raising two boys with my Grandfather she was also a house wife and a career women, none of which stopped her from letting her heart shine like a child, and that I admired the most about her.

I was already in college and on my way to growing up when I went to Florida during spring break to visit her and Grandpa; I remember this visit like it was yesterday. It was just the three of us for an entire week and although at the time I may not have known it this was a very special visit that I would forever cherish. One night at dinner she told me something I will never forget. "Heather" she said, "You will go extremely far in life if you continue to let the inner child inside of your heart shine"...I do not recall what I said back to her that night but I know to this day I still hold onto that special conversation we had very close to my heart. Because of that I do just as she asked, I continue to let my heart glow like a child something she did until the day she died.

I guess my Grandmother knew my heart pretty well because boy was she right. To this day what I love most about myself is that I still have this sweet inner child in me.

The idea about starting a blog has been running around in my head for awhile now but in the past it never amounted to anything; to be honest I really do not know where this is going yet. I do know one thing and that is I have a lot more to say then ever before. Maybe it is because there is a lot more going on in my life or maybe it is because I am surrounded by so much more joy then ever before but whatever the reasoning may be, who cares? All that matters is my life has taken a whole new flight and I am a better person because of it.

So,  come fly with me. Follow my story and see what I have been up to and where my dreams are leading me. Although it has been a bumpy ride with plenty of turbulence across the map I have finally reached a destination, a very happy destination may I add and I don't plan on leaving, nor do I ever plan on letting the child in my heart burn out.

Until Next Time...

<3, Heather