Two items to keep in mind with this recipe:

First - this recipe is not healthy in any way, shape or form, but it is delicious!

Second - Meg is completely unaware that I am posting a recipe drenched in cheese sauce - so do me favor and don't mention it to her.

If your family is like mine, you have traditions that shape your holiday memories, and I suspect food is a big part of those traditions. If you ask my family their favorite part of Christmas or Easter morning, it's not going to be the gifts or baskets, but sitting with family enjoying a delicious breakfast buffet, and these ham rolls are at the top of the list every year!

I first had these ham rolls at a holiday breakfast that a wonderful lady from church hosted every year. She spoiled the young moms with delicious food and a beautifully set table. This recipe was an instant hit! As with all the best recipes, no one knows exactly where this recipe originated, it has been shared on a recipe note card traveling from person to person!

If you need a special breakfast to share with your family - this is the perfect dish. It is a foolproof recipe for so many occasions: Christmas morning, Easter, work luncheons, Mother’s Day, Bridal or Baby Showers - it will please any crowd. Savory casseroles usually feature eggs, which makes this dish stand out amoung a table of fritattas and quiches.

The combination of ham, spinach, stuffing and cheese is perfection! Feel free to experiment with stuffing options for the filling. I have tried a variety of brands, with seasonings and without, and even different bread types - they have all been great. It is essentially a fail proof recipe!

This recipe holds a special place in my family’s heart, there are so many wonderful memories tied to sitting around the holiday breakfast table, and this recipe always stands out as the favorite. I hope your family enjoys it as much as mine does!

Ingredients:

Rolls:

• 2 1/2 pounds of sliced ham - ask for a thicker cut at the deli (about 20-24 slices) *

• 2 packages of frozen spinach (10 ounces each) cooked and drained

• 2 cups of packaged cornbread stuffing

• 2 cups sour cream
  

  Cheese Sauce:

• 8 Tablespoons butter (1 stick)

• 1/2 cup flour

• 4 cups milk (I use skim)

• 2 cups grated cheddar cheese

• paprika

• grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Cook and drain spinach. In a large bowl, combine spinach, sour cream and stuffing mix. Place about 1/4 cup of mixture down one side of the ham slice. Roll up and place seam side down in casserole.

Melt butter in a saucepan, add flour and blend well. Add milk and continue stirring over medium high heat until thick. Add cheese and remove from heat. Stir until the cheese is thick. Pour over ham. Sprinkle with paprika and grated Parmesan cheese.

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes covered, and another 15-20 uncovered.

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A little later than I had hoped, but we wanted to share the top 10’s from last year, from articles and workouts, to where you live…we will give you a run down! It’s always fun to go back and see what stories you found helpful and what workouts got you sweating.

We had over 100 different countries visit the blog last year - woohoo! A whooping 66% of our visitors were from the US, but that means that over a third of those visiting our website were from outside of the US. That’s more than the previous year. Thanks for visiting our website - we appreciate every one of you!

Here are the top 10 countries that visited Cardio Coffee and Kale!

1. United States

2. Canada

3. United Kingdom

4. France

5. Australia

6. India

7. Singapore

8. South Africa

9. Netherlands

10. Germany

The Top 10 Workouts

1. The Only Kettlebell Workout You Will Ever Need

2. 21 Minute HIIT Rower Workout

3. The Best 21 Minute Chest and Back Workout

4. The Ultimate Calorie Burning Upper Body Workout

5. Ultimate HIIT and Strength Leg Workout

6. 21 Minute Beginner Full Body Kettlebell Workout

7. Fat Burning Cardio Step Workout

8. Absolute Total Body TRX Workout

9. 5 Exercise TRX Combo

10. Brutal Battle Ropes Maximum HIIT Workout

Drumroll….The top 10 overall visited articles from 2022

#1 The Only Kettlebell Workout You Will Ever Need

This has been our #1 visited page for years, and it’s our most viewed video on Youtube. If you haven’t tried this workout, you’re missing out! It’s a great full body workout that allows you to modify how long you workout by how many times that you run through the exercises - you choose if it’s 15 minutes or 45 minutes! Even better, is that you only need a kettlebell! I revisit this workout more than any other - it’s a winner!

#2 7 Yummy Topping for Greek Yogurt…Without Adding Sugar

If you are looking for ways to cut sugar from your daily intake, this article gives you some great ideas! The 7 yummy toppings are great for Greek yogurt, but they could also be used for other things as well. Sugar causes inflammation in our bodies…so cutting back on refined sugar is always a good idea.

#3 Essential Oil Blends for Every Need

Have you fallen in love with essential oils? If not you may want to give them a try, they can help change your mood or energize you with just a few drops in a diffuser. I needed some help remembering blends I could use for different purposes, so I made these recipe images for myself, but they were just too good to keep for myself, and I wanted to share them with you too! There are 10 different pins to meet every need and every season - in fact, these essential oil recipes are our most popular pins on Pinterest. Enjoy!

#4 21 Minute HIIT Rower Workout

If you are looking for an awesome full body workout that gets your heart rate pumping, hop on a rower! The rower uses all your body’s muscles and by adding the high intensity intervals, you will be burning fat long after you finish your workout. Tons of research has shown that doing HIIT for less time than steady state cardio has benefits, like more fat burning, lowers heart rates and blood pressure, and leads to increases muscle definition. This workout is a kick in the pants…but so worth it!

#5 I Tried Barry’s Bootcamp - Read This First

If you’ve ever thought about trying a Barry’s Bootcamp class, this will help you know what to expect and be prepared for what’s ahead…lots of sweat! I share my experience from walking through the door, to the heart pounding workout! This is a must read before you walk in the Red Room!

#6 How to Make a Superfood Beet Juice Shot… Without a Juicer

I love the concentrated beet juice shots you can buy premade, but I wanted to drink one that had other health benefits too, so I decided to make my own using my Vitamix Blender. I added other ingredients that would help me recover from my workouts, like turmeric, parsley, and ginger for their awesome flavonoids and their anti-inflammation properties. Less inflammation means a faster recovery time. The beauty of this recipe is the you can make juice without the expense of buying a juicer.

#7 The Best 21 Minute Chest and Back Workout

I love the format of these 21 minute workouts!  The focus is on your back and chest, but cardio bursts keep your heart rate up and calories burning. This workout has three 7 minute circuits that you work through and do as many times as you can, stopping after 7 minutes regardless of how many sets you can get finished, and then you move onto the next set.  After 21 minutes (25 with warm up) - you are all finished!  It's a great workout for any fitness level!

#8 Banana Bread Overnight Oats… Not Just for Breakfast

Overnight oats in a jar...there are so many posts on this breakfast recipe that Meg wanted to see if she could make the recipe better.  She focused on adding muscle building protein, fiber and taste without adding sugar! Who doesn’t love banana bread?

#9 Ultimate Calorie Burning Upper Body Arm Workout

It’s a huge challenge to burn many calories on an arm workout since you're using smaller muscles, your heart doesn't have to beat as hard, and your caloric burn is usually pretty low.  This workout addresses this challenge because it is designed to give you maximum calorie burn while still increasing lean muscle! Brilliant!

#10 50 Fitness and Healthy Lifestyle Goals to Get You Moving

If you are like most people, you want to get healthier, but you have no idea where to start. The best way to tackle that is to focus on one or two areas and to make some realistic goals that will help you turn those goals into habits. Healthy habits are how we maintain healthy lifestyles. This list gives you a jump start of 50 ideas to help you take the first step toward healthier living!

Thanks for making 2022 a great year! Comment below and let us know your favorite articles! We’d love to hear form you!

We love being fitness trainers! Seeing clients do things they once thought impossible is such an awesome feeling. It is amazing when people embrace healthier living, and we love celebrating that each journey is unique. 

What’s always interesting to Meg and me is how other people interact with us when they find out we are fitness trainers. I vividly remember walking up to a buffet at a work event - it was like a police raid at a high school party. People practically dropped their plates and ran. The less fortunate ones, who were too slow to dodge their way out of the line, were left to share a flood of excuses, “Oh, this isn’t my plate! I’m getting this for my husband.” 

I remember hearing my pastor say that when he initially meets people, it is interesting how the coversation turns after they ask what he does for a living. Well, believe it or not, we often experience a similar response. Once someone finds out we are fitness trainers there is a shift in the conversation…which usually ends in one of two directions. One is reminiscent of a confessional revealing everything from missed workouts to bad eating habits, or it can turn into a Q and A answering question after fitness question.  

Here are a few things your fitness training friends wish you knew, but don’t tell you!

We Aren’t Judging What You Are Eating

Meg and I experience this all the time. When we are out to eat with our children’s sports teams or at dinner with friends, people assume we are judging what they eat. How do we know this? They make excuses for everything they order and give us guilty glances as they say “I know I shouldn’t get this but…”. 

Listen, we don’t care what you eat! That’s the truth. I promise that am not judging your food selections; to be honest, I am not even paying attention to what you are ordering. Trust me, I am indecisive and just trying to decide what to order for myself, I can’t pay attention to what you are ordering. So please feel free to eat whatever you want without any judgment on my part.  

Please Don’t Judge What We Are Eating

Interestingly, in our experience, others DO make judgments on our food selections and have no trouble commenting about them. I mean they have NO problem at all commenting.  

Let’s make a deal…we won’t pay any attention to what you are eating, and we’d love it if you could do the same for us. We all have different styles of eating - that’s ok! You eat the foods that fuel your body and we will do the same. They may not be the same types of foods, but again that’s ok!  

I can’t tell you how often we hear comments about what we are eating. For instance, we take an apple to a game and someone says “Oh, of course she’s eating an apple.” Or when we order food at the restaurant and ask for a salad with no dressing the response is, “Yuck, who eats a salad with no dressing? What’s wrong with dressing?” As crazy as it sounds, we enjoy the taste of the salad, and we don’t want dressing.  

Just as people feel self-conscious about not ordering “healthy” foods around us, we feel self-conscious about ordering our meals too. Help a trainer out and ignore what we eat - we would appreciate it more than you know! 

We Can Talk About Other Things Beside Fitness and Nutrition

While we love talking about fitness and working out, we do it all day, so we appreciate the time to talk about other things too. Luckily for you, most people probably don’t consider themselves an expert in your profession, so they rarely sit and talk to you about computer programing or the channel distribution struggles facing your company. When you go out to dinner with friends, the discussion around your work is likely limited to generic questions about how things are going, and the conversation moves on.

Fitness and nutrition on the other hand, is a topic everyone has an opinion which they are usually pretty passionate about, so it ends up being a significant part of our conversation. We hit everything from different workouts, or a new eating style they love, to what kind of shoes we recommend for running. Sometimes, after I return home from a night out with friends, I realize the only thing we talked about was fitness and nutrition. I get why it happens though - fitness is a stress reliever for most people and something they are really excited about, so it is understandable that our friends and acquaintances like sharing their thoughts about fitness with us. 

We have many other interests: decorating, current events, entertainment news, gardening, and books. There are so many other topics we can chat about. While Meg can throw around some pretty significant weights, she can also work a circular saw like a pro! She redesigned her entire kitchen cabinets with Facebook Marketplace finds - that is a conversation worth having. I love my outdoor pots and I have a secret weapon that makes watering once a week possible - also a conversation worth having! And don’t get me started on Real Housewives, I have lots to say about that matter (while not as impressive as Meg's wood working skills, I do possess an embarassingly thorough expanse of knowledge on the subject)!  

So feel free to jump into a variety of conversation topics with your fitness training friends - they will appreciate it!  

Please Stop Trying to Convince Us that Your Workouts or Eating Styles Are the Best 

Here is the thing, there are hundreds of ways to stay active and hundreds of ways to fuel your body - you have to do what works for you. That means focusing on the workouts and eating styles you can maintain for the duration. Meg and I have found what works for us, and we are 110 % “all in” with how we work out and fuel our bodies. We train people who share the same desires as we do.  

We understand that what you are doing works best for you, and we are genuinely happy that you have found a gym or eating style that you love, but please don’t continually try to get us to try what you are doing. You wouldn’t go into the Honda dealership every couple of days and try to convince them to test drive a Toyota because you love yours. Well, it’s kind of what it’s like when people are constantly talking to us about trying their new diet or doing the latest gym craze. For example, you will never convince us that carbs are bad - we are firm believers in the health benefits of complex carbs and we will always eat whole grains, beans, and fiber rich foods. We love that you are a fan of Barry’s Bootcamp, but it’s not what we do, and we will stick to our workouts (if you’d like my experience with Barry’s Bootcamp you can check it out here). 

Keep in mind - you can find an expert that supports whatever style of eating or workout you want. One person says only plant-based eating will help you stay healthy, another intermittent fasting, and another says that keto diet is the key. You have to follow what you believe and we will do the same! There is not one right answer. We celebrate your healthy lifestyle choices right along with you…but we may not try each one of them - we have our own thing we love.

Go Out and Have Fun! 

Enjoy a night out with your trainer friends eating and drinking whatever you want, knowing you are free from any judgment on their part, and we will enjoy doing the same. We can feel free to chat about any topic under the sun, except maybe politics and religion (wink), and we can even chat a little about fitness too! In this post-covid era that has created such fragmented social interaction, we are so thankful for gathering with our community of friends - what better boost for both mental health and physical health than laughing with your buddies!

Grab your DB Method and join me! I will walk you through the exercises and remind you about proper form the entire way! We can do this together - Remember burn is change!

If you have more time, try our challenging 15 minute DB Method Booty Burning Workout HERE!

Join me for the 5 Minute Leg Burning DB Method Workout HERE

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We published this workout a while ago, and I love it! I just posted a video version of this workout so you have choices…you can do it on your own with the written version, or join me for the video workout and we will sweat it out together (the video link is HERE!

This is the perfect workout to do outside on a beautiful day!  I tried it today and I loved it!  Find a shady spot and burn some calories!  It is a perfect mix of high intensity hits of cardio, mixed with some core and strength work.  

The reverse ladder is a mental boost!  The first set is a push to get through, but with each successive set, the exercise reps reduce...which means as you get tired, the workout gets a little easier.  The set reps go from 20/15/10/5 and from 80/60/40/20.  Work through the sets taking breaks as needed, but make sure you continue to walk around during your breaks.  The last two sets can be done quickly and with a higher intensity since the reps counts are low.  For instance, I added star jumps at the end of the burpees for the last two sets, since they were only reps of 10 and 5.  

Have fun!

Click on the image below to do the video version!

directions:

• Do 4 sets of exercises, with the number reducing with each set.

• Take breaks as needed

• You should consult your physician or other health care professional before starting this or any other fitness program to determine if it is right for your needs.  Click HERE for full disclaimer.

equipment:

• Jump rope (if no jump rope is available, just do it as if you were holding the jump rope)

warmup: 30 seconds each

Boxer Shuffle - Butt Kicks - Jumping Jack - Skaters - Good Mornings - Squat with a kick - Lunge - Side Lunge

workout:

SET ONE  20/80

• 20  BURPEES

• 80  SQUATS

• 20 AB TOE TOUCH

• 80 JUMPING JACK

• 20 PUSH UPS

• 80 JUMP ROPE

• 20 REVERSE CRUNCH

• 80 HIGH KNEES

• 20 UP DOWN PLANK

• 80 MT CLIMBERS

SET TWO  15/60

• 15  BURPEES

• 60  SQUATS

• 15 AB TOE TOUCH

• 60 JUMPING JACK

• 15 PUSH UPS

• 60 JUMP ROPE

• 15 REVERSE CRUNCH

• 60 HIGH KNEES

• 15 UP DOWN PLANK

• 60 MT CLIMBERS

SET THREE  10/40

• 10  BURPEES

• 40  SQUATS

• 10 AB TOE TOUCH

• 40 JUMPING JACK

• 10 PUSH UPS

• 40 JUMP ROPE

• 10 REVERSE CRUNCH

• 40 HIGH KNEES

• 10 UP DOWN PLANK

• 40 MT CLIMBERS

SET FOUR  5/20

• 5  BURPEES

• 20  SQUATS

• 5 AB TOE TOUCH

• 20 JUMPING JACK

• 5 PUSH UPS

• 20 JUMP ROPE

• 5 REVERSE CRUNCH

• 20 HIGH KNEES

• 5 UP DOWN PLANK

• 20 MT CLIMBERS

Fill out the form below for a link to download the workout.

Don't forget to CLICK the link.

Equipment:

weights and yoga ball

Set up:

10 exercises that utilize the yoga or stability ball done @ 40 seconds of work/20 seconds of rest Go through this circuit 3-4 times for a fabulous full body workout!

Workout:

1. Squat with Push Pull

2. Yoga Ball Deadbug

3. Zig Zag Jump or Lateral Hops

4. Yoga Ball Fies to Tricep Extensions

5. Power Jacks with Light Weights

6. One Leg Deadlift with Foot Resting on Yoga Ball

7. Lat Pullover with Toe Touch - Feet on Yoga Ball

8. Split Squat with Shoulder Press - Feet on Floor

9. Plank Crunch with Feet or Shins on Yoga Ball

10. Rotational Row

Join me for a great full body workout!

Do you ever have those moments when a lightbulb goes off in your head? The lightbulb seems to be going off less and less for me these days, but I had one of those moments while listening to the radio the other day. They were talking about how social media affects how we see ourselves, which is obviously not earth-shaking. We all know it. We all complain about it. But what do we do about it? The light bulb moment came when the host offered a simple solution for engaging with social media.  

She realized the more time she spent scrolling on her phone, the more unhappy she was becoming. Her social media was full of good things, lots of home ideas, cooking, and fitness; all things we would think are helping us live our best lives! The images on Ticktok and Instagram were carefully crafted to perfection, but not real life. Okay, also not a startling idea! We know that the girl doing the fitness workout probably doesn’t work out in full glam and a matching sports bra every time she works out. (Let’s face it, if she does, she is not my kind of girl anyway.) Seeing all of these perfect lives was making her feel less satisfied with her own life. It was pricking her heart to be a little less confident about her cooking, house, and body. Even though these accounts were posting good things, they were not making her feel good about herself.  

Hang on - here is the light bulb moment! Her suggestion was to scroll through your social media and if there are accounts that make you feel bad about yourself, delete them. It is so simple - do a purge! It’s not real life to be perfect! It’s not real life to do a workout in full glam! It’s not real life to have everything in your house perfectly organized! It’s not real life to make your family a five-course meal every night.

I remember watching a video of someone working out and she said something to the effect of, “Excuse my appearance, I was just trying this exercise out. I’ll have on full glam when I do it for the video”. Wait, what?!? Why?!? Can we stop this madness? Who works out like that?

The very nature of social media being so visual has created a need for influencers to craft beautiful images of perfection, but perfection isn’t real and perfection isn’t always inspiring either! So that is where the real crux of the matter is. We want to see beautiful images, something that transports us, but not to the point that there are seeds of self-doubt planted.  

So how do I find a happy medium between engaging with positive social media accounts and those that make me stressed and unhappy with myself? Scroll - and do a little soul searching while you scroll. If you are constantly looking at an account that makes you feel bad about yourself - unfollow it, even if there is good information. If it makes you feel less than - it is not worth the good information.

Meg and I feel so strongly about this - which is why we try to be authentic when we work out. When we film a video, we put on our workout clothes and go downstairs to workout. No glam….which is probably obvious to those of you that have seen our videos. Hmm, upon further reflection this could be why we don't have many followers (haha!), but also why we feel good about the videos we do with you. We wear black because it always matches and it hides the coffee stains. We do not even own matching sports bras and leggings. We are real women trying to live a healthier life - not a perfect life. We suspect most of you feel the same way.  

Perhaps the best thing we can all do is go through the list of people we are following and do a purge. Look for real people to inspire us, and remove the accounts that create a false reality to look perfect. It is a simple task - remove the accounts that prick your heart and make you feel a little "less than." 

Social media is feeding your self-worth messages, whether we like it or not. What is your heart hearing? You are incredible! Fill your feed with accounts that inspire you to feel fantastic and confident about yourself!  

Turning 50 has me me thankful for so many things in my life, especially being able to move my body! Since I didn’t find fitness until I was older, I was always amazed at the things my body could do as I started working out…and now I am amazed that at 50 I can do more than I probably could at 30.

Join me in celebrating a healthy body at 50...or any age! We are going to do each exercise a total of 50 times...but we break it into sets of 10 (doesn't that sound better than 50 straight)! If you are short on time, just run through the circuit as many times as you can in your time frame - or set an alarm for 30 minutes and stop when the alarm goes off. Listen to your body and take breaks when needed, you control how fast or how slow you go.

Equipment

Medium Dumbbells

Heavy Dumbbellls

Mat

Workout:

• 10 Mt Climber. (10 each leg)

• 10 Thruster

• 10 3/4 Leg Lifts

• 10 Squat to Bicep Curls

• 10 Burpees

• 10 Sumo Squats

• 10 Push Ups

• 10 Jump Squat

• 10 Long Leg Obliques (10 each leg)

• 10 Goblet Squat to Deadlift (count 1-1-2-2)

• 10 Star Crunch

• 10 Jump Lunge (count each leg)

• 1 MINUTE BREAK - REPEAT

Have an awesome workout and thanks for celebrating with me! Pin now, save for later!

Meg and I hear it almost every week. The four little words that are stealing the joy and happiness out of so many women’s lives….”I used to be.” Does it sound familiar? “I used to be 20 pounds skinnier.” “I used to be so much faster when I ran.” “I used to be a size 2.” “I used to be able to lose weight without even trying.” “I used to be able to run half marathons.” Gosh, I just realized I could go on and on, but you probably have already heard yourself in one of those statements.

Well, I used to think that what was causing women to be unhappy with themselves, was that they were competing with the images they saw on social media and magazines, comparing themselves to unrealistic images that flood their instagram feed, but then we really started to listen to our clients and we realized…that ain’t it! The women were all chasing is who they were 5, 10, or even 20 years ago, not the Instagram model.

I used to tell my daughters all the time that “Comparision is the thief of joy,” and it is absolutely the truth! Think about how awesome your family vacation to the beach was… until your friend told you about her trip to Hawaii. Competition breeds discontent with our current circumstances and leaves us feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied. This same competition creeps into our lives when we spend all of our time looking over our shoulders at what we used to be. Instead of celebrating a 5 mile run, we are disappointed we didn’t run the 8 minute mile we did 5 years ago. When we are constantly chasing the glamorized version we see in our old self, we fail to be content, and dare I say even delighted, with the women we are today!

Here are some practical ways to change course and start heading in a new direction - one that isn’t looking back!

Celebrate your accomplishments today, and don’t compare them to any other day

If you are taking steps to be healthier in any way shape or form, celebrate that and pat yourself on the back. Making healthier choices with eating, working out, or making sleep a priority, are all awesome things that are moving you in a positive direction, try to enjoy the journey without comparing it to any other time in your life.

Don’t allow the competition with your old self to stop you from moving forward

We see this a lot with people starting into fitness or healthy eating for the first time in a while. When people don’t see the results they had in their youth, they get discouraged and stop working out or eating healthy altogether. The truth of the matter is that living a healthy lifestyle takes some effort, it doesn’t just happen. When we give up and stop making any effort, we get further from our goals. You may not have the results you did before, you are a different person with different circumstances. Try to stay focused on making positive changes now.

Make reasonable goals for yourself

That takes me to my next point - don’t make your goals based on anything other than where you are today. Make your goals small and relevant based on your current lifestyle and not who you were. Take an honest inventory of who you are right now and what one or two short-term goals are that you would like to see accomplished. Focus on those goals, and then move on to new ones once you achieve them - Don’t forget to celebrate!  Need help setting goals - here is a great place to start. 

Become your own cheerleader

It’s hard to tear yourself down when you are cheering for yourself. Try to make it a habit to pat yourself on the back for all the small things you do to move in the direction of healthier living. You worked out today - awesome! You made a healthy family meal - fantastic! Every time you acknowledge your positive steps toward your goals, you are keeping your eyes focused ahead of you instead of behind you.

Practice positive self talk!

Recognize that you’ve changed

Change does not have to be a bad thing - with time comes maturity and experience. The person you are today is a much wiser person and that person is worth celebrating!

Listen, there is a reason why we make a big deal out of 30-year-old Olympic athletes, our bodies peak at a pretty young age. The “fittest man in history”, Crossfit’s Mat Fraser retired at the ripe old age of 31. When elite trained athletes recognize that their bodies are changing…we probably should too. Cut yourself a break! That doesn’t mean we have to throw in the towel, but we should acknowledge that we have changed and that’s ok! We may not run as fast as we did in college but we can still run and workout. Our bodies will only stay strong if we continue to work at it - so don’t stop!

Be a good role model for your daughters and sons

We leave a legacy for our children, especially our daughter’s when they see us chasing our youth. Spend time creating positive memories as a family doing fun active things! Focus on the here and now! You will be an amazing role model of how to care for your body that goes against what society is telling your children. Be the voice with the loudest message!

You can do this - It won’t be an easy habit to break, but you will be so much happier! Be happy with who you are today, it’s a pretty awesome person! You can do it!

Sometimes I stumble across something brilliant…not very often, but when I do - I am so excited to share it with you! If you are looking for a flooring solution for your gym, I think I may have found The Perfect Home Gym Flooring!

Gym flooring can be so HARD! It is either flooring meant for a gym and not good for anything else, or flooring meant for a home and not for a gym! We have two rooms that we use for our gym, one for cardio equipment and one for weights and everything else, which means a lot of square footage to fill with rubber matting in a house! The smell would have been terrible, and let’s face it, if we ever decide to sell, how many people would want a basement full of rubber flooring. It just doesn’t work well for family room environments. On the other hand, if we decided to use vinyl flooring, which is perfect for basements and great for resale, it can mark so easily with the heavy equipment and overall gym use. That’s when we stumbled across Home Depot’s Lifeproof Scratched Stone Luxury Vinyl Flooring! The key is the Scratched Stone finish! It is quite literally perfect!

Great for home gym OR family rooms!

My husband and I will probably have a basement full of gym equipment until we are 80…but if we would ever decide to sell our home, the next owner may not be the gym enthusiasts that we are. The scratched stone finish works great for a gym, but if anyone ever decided to turn the space into a family room area, it easily can make that transition. My entire family liked this flooring finish better than any of the other options regardless of whether we used it as a gym or not. It’s a fun flooring that could work great for a playroom or entertaining area, just as easily as a gym.

Doesn’t show marks because it is heavily distressed

This is the best part about this flooring! We had decided to go the vinyl flooring route, but every sample we looked at gave me nightmares thinking about all the marks and scratches on the floor from moving benches and equipment around. We are pretty hard on our floor and I didn’t want to have to be stressing every time I put down a set of weights. This flooring is PERFECT! There is so much distressing, you never have to worry about leaving marks even if you are dragging benches etc. The reality is that you would probably never even notice wear and tear, since the pattern on the floor already has scratches and marks in the distressing.

You have to see it for yourself - but it is a perfect finish for vinyl gym flooring!

Very little VOC’s

Here is where this floor has an advantage over rubber flooring. The smell emitted from rubber flooring can be terrible for months, especially for those sensitive to odors. I think the problem is even worse when installed in a basement with less airflow, and a large amount of square footage - it could have made the gym unbearable for months. We have an Airthings air quality monitor in our basement which measures a variety of things, VOC’s being one of them. The VOC’s were pretty negligible with the new flooring. I was amazed at how low they stayed, significantly less than rubber flooring!

Can withstand holding heavy equipment

I can not say what the actual rating is for this floor, I can only speak to my experience - and over the last 6 months that we have had it installed, I can see no damage from the heavy weights and usage. We have three areas I was most concerned about: the weight rack (which holds over 700lbs), the Power Cage with the pulley system which also holds a lot of weight, and the deadlifting area.

Both of the areas that hold the heaviest amount of weights, the rack, and the cage have not shown any damage to the flooring under the mats, at least from what I can see. I was also concerned about the deadlifting area when my husband lifts because not only does he use very heavy weights (sometimes over 450 lbs), there is a certain amount of impact involved when the bar is put back down. We have the deadlift area on stall mats to help absorb some of that impact, but I can hear my husband’s weights hitting the ground when I am upstairs…YIKES! Surprisingly, it has not left any damage to the flooring so far.

I have no idea whether 5 or 10 years from now there will be any wear and tear from the areas that hold the heaviest weights, but we are 6 months in and everything still looks great.

The finish is somewhat non-slip

Meg and I have previously trained at two locations that had an issue with this, which made me very aware that I needed to find a flooring that was not slick. I would probably not have been so insistent on having a non-slip flooring had we not experienced it first hand, but doing mt climbers or suicides on a slick floor can be treacherous! We had trained on both a vinyl floor and a mat flooring (the puzzle-type flooring), which one would have thought would be great for a gym, but both were extremely slick.

I tried lateral movements on all of the floors, and while the Scratched Stone flooring isn’t exactly non-slip, it was by far the best of any that I tried! I have no trouble with sliding or feeling like I have to be tentative with my movements with this flooring.

The color is very cool gray

I just want to mention that between my lighting and the pictures, it makes the flooring look like it has more brown and warmth to it…it does not. It is a very cool gray finish, with no yellow really at all.

We would love to hear from you if you decide to go with the Scratched Stone Flooring!

Here is the link again for the flooring!

The workout is pretty simple - 4 exercises! I demo all four exercises before we begin, and then I do the workout right along with you! It’s a sweaty one! If you have time, stick around for the 10 minute stretching at the end.

If you are new to HIIT, this probably isn’t the workout to start high intensity with. Join Meg and I for a beginner workout, we have lots of other workouts that would work for you HERE!

Grab your sandbag and get ready to sweat! Join me HERE!

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Adding resistance training to your new fitness routine will make a huge difference in your overall health. It will help you get stronger, lose body fat, gain lean muscle, and develop healthier bones, and a stronger core as well. All the experts recommend doing strength three days a week, but if you aren’y familiar with strength training, that can feel overwhelming. We are here to help!

Join us for a great full body workout! (SORRY! I don't know why the video quality was so bad the first four minutes - but be patient - the workout video quality is much better once we start the workout.)

Do the workout right along with Meg and Cindy using this 15 minute video

directions:

• Do each set 2 times through

• Rest as needed

• You should consult your physician or other health care professional before starting this or any other fitness program to determine if it is right for your needs. Click HERE for full disclaimer.

equipment:

• weights (can also be done without weights)

warm up:30 seconds each exercise

• click HERE for video of warm up

• boxer shuffle, butt kicks, jumping jacks, skaters, good mornings, squat kicks, reverse lunges, side lunges

workout:

Set one:

1. 10 Skiers

2. 10 Hammer Curls to Shoulder Presses

3. 10 Goblet Squats

Set two:

1. 10 Single Leg Jumping Jacks

2. 10 Rows to Triceps Kickbacks

3. 10 Glute Bridges

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Have you fallen in love with essential oils? If not you may want to give them a try, they can help change your mood or energize you with just a few drops in a diffuser. I have pretty much replaced most of my candles with essential oils. I love having the freedom to change the scents in my room depending on my current mood. I can’t be the only one who has been stuck burning a pumpkin candle long after the fall mood has left because I am desperately trying to use it all up. Sometimes I need a fresh uplifting scent to get me moving (more often than not), and sometimes I need something to relieve some stress. Sometimes I just want to fill the air with a fun seasonal scent.

Blends are “recipes” that focus on creating different aromatherapy environments depending on what you need. Aromatherapy works in a couple of different ways, but some of it is emotionally based on our response to smelling a scent, but the molecules also travel through our olfactory nerves directly to the brain. Scientific studies show things like Rosemary can help mental clarity and lavender lowers stress responses. Still a skeptic on whether essential oils work? I get it! Check out a quick article from John Hopkin’s about the effectiveness of essential oils.

I needed some help remembering blends I could use for different purposes, so I made these recipe images for myself so I could easily find them. They were just too good to keep for myself and I wanted to share them with you too! Pin them, print them, or save them to your phone images. We would love to hear your favorite blends too! Share them below!

If you’d like printable images, or ones you can save on your phone, sign up for our newsletter below! Don’t forget to click the link after submitting.

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To join me for the full workout video below…

CLICK HERE !

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For a printable version of this workout, sign up for our newsletter! Just fill in your email below….easy peasy!

To be as efficient as possible, the workout uses very little rests and compound exercises. I keep a midtempo pace during the workout so that I can continue to talk the entire time, but feel free to go faster or slower than I do, depending on your fitness level.

Grab your mat and a set of weights and get ready to work HARD!

(Disclaimer - this isn't a workout for beginners, since we move quickly between exercises there isn't much time to demo the exercises. We have lots of workouts in our Beginner Section that may be a better place to start.)

Join me with the full workout video below!

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You have a choice of doing the full video workout with us, or printing the workout and doing it on your own! You decide! The video workout lis is below, and to print the workout, just sign up for our newsletter and follow the link to a printable version.

You should consult your physician or other health care professional before starting this or any other fitness program to determine if it is right for your needs. Click HERE for full disclaimer.

Click here for full video workout

directions

• Do each set for 5 minutes

• Start with the top exercise and move through the list. When you finish last exercise, start again at the top.

• Do 5 reps of each exercise and get as many sets as possible in 5 minutes

workout

AMRAP SET ONE - 5 MINUTES

• 5 BICEP CURLS

• 5 SHOULDER PRESS

• 5 ROWS

• 5 OVERHEAD TRICEP EXTENSIONS

AMRAP SET TWO - 5 MINUTES

• 5 HAMMER CURLS

• 5 90 DEGREE SHOULDER RAISES

• 5 CHEST FLIES

• 5 LYING TRICEPS EXTENSIONS

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If you haven’t heard of the DB Method, it’s a simple machine that allows you to go lower into your squats without added stress on your knees and it recruits more glutei activation than normal squats. I actually think it has helped strengthen some of my hip abductor muscles. I have some imbalances that I have been addressing, and I began to see a difference in my weaker side after using this for several weeks. I plan on writing a review soon!

Grab your towel and join me for this 15 Minute DB Method Workout!

We do not represent DB Method and we are not getting compensated for this video - we are just sharing our favorite workout.

You should consult your physician or other health care professional before starting this or any other fitness program to determine if it is right for your needs. Click HERE for full disclaimer.

WATCH VIDEO HERE

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Join Cindy in this full video workout! Do the video one time through for a 30 minute workout, with stretching, or do it two times through for a longer workout - you decide!

You should consult your physician or other health care professional before starting this or any other fitness program to determine if it is right for your needs. Click HERE for full disclaimer.

Watch the video here

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You should consult your physician or other health care professional before starting this or any other fitness program to determine if it is right for your needs. Click HERE for full disclaimer.

Click here for the full video workout

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Join Meg as she walks you through this full body workout!

You should consult your physician or other health care professional before starting this or any other fitness program to determine if it is right for your needs. Click HERE for full disclaimer.

Click here for the full video workout

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