I can read a cookbook like a good novel.

I was so excited when my copy of The Eat-Clean Diet Vegetarian Cookbook finally arrived. I had anticipated the release of the book for months, seeing advertisements in my favorite magazines Oxygen and Clean Eating well in advance of the release.

Then I was lucky enough to be selected as a guest blogger, writing about Progress Not Perfection for the clean eating master herself, Tosca Reno, which meant I got an advance peak at a couple of recipes plus a copy sent to me! Once I learned of my good fortune all I could think each day as I checked the mail was, “Is it here yet??”

The day it arrived, I curled up on the couch with a cup of hot tea and started to lose myself in all the creations I could make.  I thought about flagging them with post-its, as I often do, until I realized I would be flagging just about every page!

I haven’t been so lucky with Tosca Reno’s previous books. As a vegetarian, a good portion of the recipes have been off limits. Breakfast usually provides many good options as well as the soup section. After that I’ve been limited to a small selection of meat free recipes, like the Black Bean Burgers in her Eat Clean Cookbook or the Vegetarian Chili in The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook.  I admit, I was even a tiny bit miffed when I realized that she included a seafood chapter. I really wanted an Eat Clean cookbook were every recipe was open to me.

After reading the cookbook, I did manage to let that go. I was overwhelmed with all the things I wanted to try it no longer mattered that a hand full of recipes contained seafood. In fact, I even made a curry recipe from the From the Sea chapter substituting Braggs for fish sauce. It turned out yummy over quinoa.

My next adventure was the as promised 7 Citrus Salad. While the salad turned out great, making a nice side with an egg white and spinach omelet I had to make a lot of substitutions. Where I live finding ingredients like an Ugli fruit or, this time of year, a blood orange can be challenging.

This has been, and perhaps always will be, my biggest issue with the Eat Clean Diet Cookbooks and recipes. Many ingredients are either foreign to those new to clean eating or very difficult to find in Small Town USA. I am dying to try to the Eggless Egg Salad but have been challenged in finding  the black salt listed. It says you can use regular sea salt in a pinch but then indicates this particular salt give it the egg taste. I feel using regular sea salt would leave the recipe lacking. Thus I have yet to make it.

Would I buy this cookbook if it hadn’t been sent to me? Absolutely!! There are still plenty of things to try. Just be ready to for some experimentation, adventure and treasure hunting for some new ingredients.

Do you have a favorite recipe from Tosca? Where do you go for those hard to find clean eating ingredients?

I have another new nickname. I call myself Slow Burn.

It’s because my methods are slow and steady. I never promise anyone quick weight loss or dramatic overnight transformations. This can be a challenge when competing with the unrealistic expectations set by weight loss TV shows and advertisements for fat burning pills, fad diets and weight loss centers.

Clients say they understand that when we first meet and they start their programs. Yet sometimes, at that first weigh in, she may step on the scale and sigh that she’s “only lost 3 lbs”. Meanwhile I want to jump for joy, “That’s awesome, you lost 3 lbs!”.  In her mind the weight should come off faster, she should see these dramatic results showcased on reality TV.

Despite its name, “reality TV”, the results and process are anything but realistic.  Participants are exercising 6-8 hours per day and eating a very low calorie diet.  They are removed from family, friends, work and the responsibilities of normal life.  The reality is very few participants actually keep all the weight off. They leave the show ill equipped to make fitness part of their normal routines and the thrill of competition has long worn off, leaving motivation waning.

Fad diets and most commercial weight loss programs are no better. Most involve severe calorie restriction with little to no exercise. Diet foods with fat removed and sugar pumped up do more harm than good. Quick fix programs lead to Refeeding Syndrome and the vicious cycle of gain and loss.

I say slow and steady wins the race. The first 30 days of a program are about making small but powerful changes:

• Establish the habit of daily and purposeful exercise.  Even 5 minutes a day can make a difference.
• Take a multivitamin and Omega Fatty Acids. Think of them as an insurance policy to cover gaps in your nutrition as you work towards a more balanced diet.
• Drink more water and eliminate calorie containing beverages like soda and coffee drinks. Being properly hydrated and eliminating empty calories can make a huge difference in not only how you look but also how you feel.
• Eat breakfast. You need fuel to start your metabolic fire in the morning. It can be small and quick but eat something when you get up.

Losing 2-5 lbs in the first month of a starting a fitness journey is a fantastic start. Those first 30 days of eating better and moving more also brings benefits beyond the scale, benefits you won’t get with fad diets. With a few small changes you will have more energy, sleep better and feel happier.

I will never promise anyone that they will lose “30 lbs in 30 days” or be “2 dress sizes smaller by Valentine’s Day”. I believe you are better and smarter than that.

Personal Trainer Pamela Hernandez talks about what she considers a sweet treat and how often you should have them.

In this video is advice for:

• How Pamela defines a "sweet treat".
• How often you should have one.

I do not like to call treats “cheats”. I don’t like “cheat meals”. Cheating implies there is something, like a diet, to cheat on. Cheating implies guilt and guilt has no place in a healthy and fit relationship with food . I prefer splurge. It’s special. We enjoy it and move on.

If you like to enjoy the occasional chocolate treat then I have the recipe for you. I’ve got another great recipe this month, courtesy of Tosca Reno and The Eat-Clean Diet Vegetarian Cookbook. Tosca’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Backpack Kisses are easy, kid friendly and freezable, making them easy to enjoy in small doses.

Have fun trying out another great recipe from Tosca. Next week I’ll share my version of her 7 Citrus Salad and my review of The Eat-Clean Diet Vegetarian Cookbook.

Download the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Backpack Kisses Recipe

Cycling has a much different pace than running. I certainly pedal faster than I run. This month’s playlist is a little more high energy, great for longer rides. Have fun cycling, running, lifting or whatever you do to stay active this month!

• Evacuate The Dancefloor by Cascada: One of my clients turned me on to this one. Thanks Jennifer!
• The House That Heaven Built by Japandroids: Anyone else listen to All Songs Considered on NPR? They introduced me to this one.
• Back In Time by Pitbull: Really, another Men in Black movie?
• We Run The Night by Havana Brown: Perhaps run at night?
• Turn Me On (Feat. Nicki Minaj) by David Guetta and Nicki Minaj: The power pair of 2012.
• Rumour Has It by Adele: I am late to the Adele bandwagon, try not to hold it against me.
• Fire Woman by The Cult: This song will make you shake it and pedal just a little bit harder.
• Radar Love by White Lion: Perhaps a bit out of place genre wise but good for pedaling.
• Dance Again by Jennifer Lopez (featuring Pitbull): Pitbull is everywhere!

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image by W Brian Duncan

I am a vegetarian.

I eat clean.

I am a personal trainer.

I am not perfect.

My whole fitness journey, now in its 14^th year, has been a work in progress. First, learning how to manage portions and find balance in my early meat free but carb heavy diet. Then learning being fit doesn’t mean spending hours in the gym; it’s quality not quantity that matters in workouts. More recently I discovered clean eating and how to do it without chicken or salmon and fewer frozen veggie burgers.

It’s this concept of progress, not perfection, and slow transformation that I teach to my clients. They want to change every aspect of their diet and fitness overnight. They want to know what I eat or what I do when I work out. I am never afraid to share my workouts or food log, but I always tell them it took me years to get where I am today. In fact, my goal is to help prevent them from making many of the mistakes that I did by giving them the tools that I didn’t have when I started, like Clean Eating Magazine.

I reassure them, telling them it may seem slow but in 6 months or a year they will look back and be amazed at how far they have come, one small change at a time.  I also counsel them that it will never be perfect but each choice is an opportunity to be a better.

That’s why I live and teach a clean eating, plant based and fit lifestyle. I’m not perfect, but each day I want to be better. I believe I can be better. I believe you can be better too.

I think I have a new nickname.

I am … the Booty Lifter.

I have several clients who have commented on the lift they’ve been given in their backsides since they started working with me.  I can see it in their progress pictures too. Where there was flatness there are now curves. Where there was sagging there is now shape. I feel I have found my calling – helping women lift their derrieres.

If your backside isn’t as shapely as you would like it to be try adding one (or all) of these 3 moves to your workout routine. These are all on regular rotation in my client programs and the results speak for themselves.

• Single Leg Romanian Deadlift: The glutes are your primary stabilizer muscle in the legs. This move doesn’t even require a weight to be effective. It’s top of my list for a bikini ready body.
• Single Leg Bridge: Bridge is a common yoga pose. This version focuses on the glutes by shifting the lifting of the body to one leg. I always tell my clients to keep the sole of their shoe parallel to the ceiling. Then squeeze the glutes to lift, as though they are trying to push up the ceiling.
• Reverse Lunges: Lunges hit the front and back of the leg. The secret to putting the focus on the glutes is to take a bit wider than normal step back.

These moves will help you rock the short shorts this summer. But don’t forget, to really show off your new found shape you need to eat clean too! Try my Post Workout Pina Colada as part of your summer shape up plan.

Personal Trainer Pamela Hernandez answers a viewer question about drinking cows milk.

In this video is advice for:

• Is cows milk ok?
• Reasons people might have for not drinking cows milk.
• Alternatives to Cows Milk.

I came across an interesting study recently about the stress of being judged for being overweight. Brenda Major, from the University of California-Santa Barbara, conducted a study of 99 women of varying sizes. Based on BMI, each group had approximately 1/3^rd normal weight, 1/3^rd overweight and 1/3^rd obese females.

The women were asked to give a speech about themselves as potential dating partners, which they thought would be evaluated for potential dating ability by researchers. Half thought they were being video taped while the other half thought there were being recorded for audio only (not visible).

Women with a higher BMI saw marked increases in blood pressure and stress, with poorer performance on executive control tests than their normal weight counterparts when they thought they were being video taped.

The cause: the anxiety from a fear of being judged for their size.

Now imagine that every day in the real world: job interviews, grocery shopping or shopping for clothes. People treating you as though you aren’t there, not wanting to look you in the eye. Perhaps making jokes about food or size at your expense. Or people branding you as lazy due to your size. It happens more often than we think and we may do it when we aren’t even aware of it.

The stress of it all doesn’t help. It perpetuates it. It takes glucose from the body, glucose the brain needs to make good decisions and say no to the awful junk that society is peddling as food. The stress and disrespect create a vicious cycle for those trying so hard to make positive changes in their health and fitness.

Most overweight people are actually trying quite hard every day to not be overweight. It takes a lot of effort to starve oneself with liquid diets, eat bland frozen meals or to self inject questionable hormones. Many fad diets are quite a challenge to maintain. That’s why they don’t work for long. Those that figure out the real way to get healthy and fit still face an uphill battle because of the way our society and lifestyles are set up. The bad choices are everywhere; to make good ones takes a lot of work.

To make progress in the health of those we love (or even those we don’t know) we need to leave the judgment behind. Everyone deserves respect and support, we are all human beings trying to do the best we can in an obesegenic society.

Take a moment today and think of one way you can make a positive change and create a more healthy and fit environment.

• Take the candy dish off your desk.
• Ask a co-worker to go for a walk.
• Give your employees time off each week for exercise.
• Donate the fitness DVDs you don’t use anymore to a local women’s shelter.

One small action may not solve the obesity epidemic but they could change one or two lives for the better.

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”- Mahatma Gandhi

Sometimes I forget how much I like basic free weight training.

My workouts recently have been full of kettlebells, jump squats and intervals that push my endurance. I’ve done a lot of body weight exercises, like push ups and planks. I love these exercises and what they do for my body. I love the challenge of pullups. I still dream of being able to do a one handed push up a la Demi Moore in G.I. Jane. Yet, recently, I felt something was missing.

It was the dumbbells.

Perhaps it’s been my schedule, being extremely time pressed and on the road, that has kept me focused on only the most efficient of exercises and workouts. Or maybe it’s my emphasis on getting the most bang for the workout buck for my clients who are working out only 2-3 times a week. But somehow I had forgotten the joy, and effectiveness, of focused dumbbell exercises in split workouts.

I also had to remember my own advice on the importance of taking time for oneself.  My goal to continue to refine my shape, not lose weight, required me to change my training and give a little more to myself. 15 minute activity blasts and express workouts are useful tools but they should not be the only option. I was short changing myself.

So I started a new upper/lower 4-day workout split. I’m still efficient with my time, none of my workouts are longer than 45 minutes, and I keep my heart rate up by using supersets. The exercises that I’m loving right now are:

• Dumbbell front squats: These hit the quads slightly more by putting the weight at the front of the body. I’m doing them offload, with a dumbbell only on one side and slow. I count slowly to 3 on the descent. Anytime you slow down it makes an exercise more challenging.

• Arnold Press: Yes, they’re named for the Govenator and they are challenging shoulder shapers. I prefer to do them standing so I work my core stabilizers at the same time.

• Incline Dumbbell Bench Press: I was surprised how sore my chest was the next day. It just proves the body adapts to anything, even push ups. I also used a bench (instead of my usual stability ball) allowing me to push a little more weight than I might have otherwise.

My workouts feel new and fresh with these “old” exercises, and my muscles are responding well. It’s amazing how much fun it is to make the old new again. I also mentally feel better; giving myself much needed decompression time. Those slow counts on the squats aren’t just good for my muscles, my brain gets to slow down and focus too.

We all need a plan B, quick workouts and exercises we can do in a time crunch. I believe in the power of functional and bodyweight training. But I also believe in the power of iron to sculpt beautiful curves and refresh my spirit. Take a little time, slow it down and invest in a strong and beautiful body.