My friend, Rafael J. Felipe, shares his mom's sucess with shakeology!!

Without her even knowing, my mom expressed to me the compliments she was receiving ever since she started on Shakeology.

To start things off, let's start with my moms medical condition prior to Shakeology. My mom is type 1 diabetes and anemic. She was placed on Thyroid medication to help her lose weight. Her insulin was prescribed to ...help control her sugar levels. My mom is medically disabled and has had to use wheel chairs and a cane to assist in getting around. She also has to sleep with a sleep apnea machine to help her breathe at night.

After hearing and seeing what Shakeology has done to me, my mom decided to give it a try. After having to spend hundreds of dollars on shakes and ensure from her doctors office, she figured why not do Shakeology.

So 2 months have gone by and my mom opened her third bag. She went to the local grocery store Publix where like always the cashiers are so friendly and always remember their customers. My mom walks in and the cashier yells " OMG SYLVIA, You've lost so much weight and your walking WITHOUT A CANE!! What are you doing?"

That excitement brought my mom to say SHAKEOLOGY! my son got me on it and it's help me so much she said.

My mom got the ladies email And called me about the news. Next my mom went to her doctors office. All the nurses, techs, and receptionist were shocked too. She went the other day after having a physical done.

Her doctor walked in with a confused look on her face. Looking at the chart then at my mom, the doctor couldn't understand the rapid change. First thing out the doctors mouth was, "Sylvia, what are you doing Different?" my mon said "Shakeology why?" the doctor replied, "Well don't ever stop it"

The doctor then explained to my mom that she no longer needed her insulin, her levels where normal. Next the doctor lowered her triglyceride medication. Next the doctor was happy to tell her that she was now no longer anemic. Within 2 months my mom lost 32 pounds, that's an average of 16 pounds a month. Mind you my mother is disable so she CAN NOT EXERCISE. This has all taken place simply by drinking Shakeology. Also with the weight loss, my mom hasn't needed to Use her cane to walk or sleep apnea machine when sleeping.

This is true testimonial that Shakeology is the healthiest meal of the day.

 

http://beachbodycoach.com/shayna214

Are you sprinkling Cinnamon on your food or in your drinks??

You should be!!

What are the Benefits of Cinnamon?

Cinnamon has extremely high anti-oxidant activity, and the oil of cinnamon has strong anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. Cinnamon is also a great source of manganese, fiber, iron, and calcium. As a result, it has been used as an effective home remedy for:

•Reducing blood sugar levels and treating Type 2 Diabetes.
•Lowering cholesterol.
•Aiding digestion.
•Treating diarrhea.
•Curing the common cold.
•Reducing arthritis pain.
•Boosting memory and cognitive function.
•Treating toothaches.
•Eliminating bad breath.
•Curing headaches and migraine pain

Want to burn more fat? Then do this....

SLEEP...

One of my favorite things to do, but also one of the things I really
have to work on....getting my 8 hours in and getting to bed on time..
I would have to say this one simple thing is MY biggest challenge.
Most of my days start with a 5:30am wake up call. If I stay up past 10pm, my entire next day suffers. My workouts suffer, I crave sweets and caffeine to stay "on" all day.

Does this sound like you?

If so, this is what we all need to do...

*Optimal sleep times are between 10:00PM -6:00AM or 10:30PM-6:30AM. 8
hours...
*Why these times?  Your body works on a hormonal clock (circadian
rhythm). Around 10:30 at night your body releases melatonin your,
hormone of darkness,(called this since it is only released in the
dark) to help you relax and fall asleep.
*The hormone  melatonin also acts as an antioxidant in your body to
help heal you and fight off disease.

In addition around 12-3am your body releases Growth hormone( your
anti-aging hormone) to help build lean muscle mass, burn FAT, and
promote healing of the skin, joints, organs etc.

Here are a list of things that will disrupt your sleep.
1. Watching late night TV or computer work
2. Caffeine
3. Alcohol
4. Lights( your room should be as dark as possible, any light can
disrupt melatonin release)
5. Sugar and late night eating
6. late night exercise
7. noise
8. travel

I know many of you will say, "I am a night person, its just too
hard for me to go to bed early."  It is only too hard because you
choose to stay up late...watching TV, movies, ...go to bed and here is
why..

Numerous studies show that when we stay up late, sleep with lights or
TV on, get too little sleep or have restless sleep we are far more
likely to GAIN weight. 

Why?
1. When we are tired we crave sugars and caffeine to try and wake up
up and give that jolt we think we need.  Thus we throw our hormones out
of whack and increase fat in our body
2. Our growth hormone becomes suppressed, thus its fat metabolizing
effects decrease
3. Melatonin is suppressed, our body does not heal properly thus we
can become sluggish and weak.
4. Our workouts suffer
5. Our minds are slower and we get less done so we stay up late again
to finish our job.

Most of know when we are not getting enough sleep. We wake up tired
and irritable, drink too much coffee the next day, usually eat more
carbs to stay awake, skip our workouts since we are so tired and feel
"off" all day..

This is one of the easiest things to do for most people...GO TO SLEEP
at a normal hour.  Your mother was right when she said you need your
beauty sleep...

If you need help going to sleep, try these:
1. Warm bath
2. Chamomile Decaf tea
3. Lavender oils
4. Melatonin
5. Use white noise or a sound machine
6. Turn the room temp down, ideal temperature should be 68 degrees
7. Read, turn off TV, computer, I pad
8. So light stretching, meditate or yoga before bed
9. Remove electrical devices from bed area: phones, clocks, computers
10. Check your bed, you spend 30% of your life on a bed, get a good one.

Be conscious of your sleep patterns this weekend and note how you feel
if you stay up to late or get restless sleep.  Make a conscious effort
to try and improve, it is the easiest thing you can do to stay healthy,
fit and lean!

Youtube!!

Subscribe to my youtube channel! shaynacrossfitness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qxTw76pL3w

Drinking Soda...

When somebody drinks a Coke watch what happens…

•In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.

•20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)

•40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.

•45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.

•60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.

•60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.

•60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

So there you have it, an avalanche of destruction in a single can. Imagine drinking this day after day, week after week. Stick to water, real juice from fresh squeezed fruit, and tea without sweetener.

Are you as shocked as I was?????

5 Surprising Signs of an Unhealthy Heart

We've all read the signs of a heart attack listed on posters in the hospital waiting room. But what if there were other, earlier signs that could alert you ahead of time that your heart was in trouble?
It turns out there are. Researchers have done a lot of work in recent years looking at the signs and symptoms patients experienced in the months or even years leading up to a heart attack. "The heart, together with the arteries that feed it, is one big muscle, and when it starts to fail the symptoms can show up in many parts of the body," says cardiologist Jonathan Goldstein of St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey. Here are five surprising clues that your heart needs checking out. Any of these signs -- and particularly two or more together -- is reason to call your doctor for a workup, says Goldstein.
1. Neck pain
Feel like you pulled a muscle in the side of your neck? Think again, especially if it doesn't go away. Post-heart attack, some patients remember noticing that their neck hurt and felt tight, a symptom they attributed at the time to muscle strain. People commonly miss this symptom because they expect the more dramatic acute pain and numbness in the chest, shoulder, and arm. Women in particular are less likely to experience heart pain that way, and more likely to feel twinges of pain and a sensation of tightness running along the shoulder and down the neck, says Margie Latrella, an advanced practice nurse in the Women's Cardiology Center in New Jersey and coauthor of Take Charge: A Woman's Guide to a Healthier Heart (Dog Ear, 2009). The pain might also extend down the left side of the body, into the left shoulder and arm.

Why it happens:

Nerves from damaged heart tissue send pain signals up and down the spinal cord to junctures with nerves that extend out into the neck and shoulder.

What distinguishes it:

The pain feels like it's radiating out in a line, rather than located in one very specific spot. And it doesn't go away with ice, heat, or muscle massage.
2. Sexual problems
Having trouble achieving or keeping erections is common in men with coronary artery disease, but they may not make the connection. One survey of European men being treated for cardiovascular disease found that two out of three had suffered from erectile dysfunction for months or years before they were diagnosed with heart trouble. Recent studies on the connection between ED and cardiovascular disease have been so convincing that doctors now consider it the standard of care to do a full cardiovascular workup when a man comes in complaining of ED, according to cardiologist Goldstein says. "In recent years there's been pretty clear evidence that there's a substantially increased risk of heart attack and death in patients with erectile dysfunction," Goldstein says.

Why it happens:

Just as arteries around the heart can narrow and harden, so can those that supply the penis. And because those arteries are smaller, they tend to show damage much sooner -- as much as three to four years before the disease would otherwise be detected.

What distinguishes it:

In this case, the cause isn't going to be immediately distinguishable. If you or your partner has problems getting or maintaining an erection, that's reason enough to visit your doctor to investigate cardiovascular disease as an underlying cause. "Today, any patient who comes in with ED is considered a cardiovascular patient until proven otherwise," says Goldstein.
3. Dizziness, faintness, or shortness of breath
More than 40 percent of women in one study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, reported having experienced shortness of breath in the days before a heart attack. You might feel like you can't breathe, or you might feel dizzy or faint, as you would at high altitude. If you can't catch your breath while walking upstairs, vacuuming, weeding the garden, or doing other activities that previously caused you no trouble, this is a reason to be on the alert.

Why it happens:

Not enough blood is getting through the arteries to carry sufficient oxygen to the heart. The heart muscle pain of angina may also make it hurt to draw a deep breath. Coronary artery disease (CAD), in which plaque builds up and blocks the arteries that feed the heart, prevents the heart from getting enough oxygen. The sudden sensation of not being able to take a deep breath is often the first sign of angina, a type of heart muscle pain.

What distinguishes it:

If shortness of breath is caused by lung disease, it usually comes on gradually as lung tissue is damaged by smoking or environmental factors. If heart or cardiovascular disease is the cause, the shortness of breath may come on much more suddenly with exertion and will go away when you rest.
10 Ways You Can Help Prevent a Heart Attack
4. Indigestion, nausea, or heartburn
Although most of us expect pain from any condition related to the heart to occur in the chest, it may actually occur in the abdomen instead. Some people, particularly women, experience the pain as heartburn or a sensation of over-fullness and choking. A bout of severe indigestion and nausea can be an early sign of heart attack, or myocardial infarction, particularly in women. In one study, women were more than twice as likely as men to experience vomiting, nausea, and indigestion for several months leading up to a heart attack.

Why it happens:

Blockages of fatty deposits in an artery can reduce or cut off the blood supply to the heart, causing what feels like tightness, squeezing, or pain -- most typically in the chest but sometimes in the abdomen instead. Depending on which part of your heart is affected, it sends pain signals lower into the body. Nausea and light-headedness can also be signs that a heart attack is in progress, so call your doctor right away if the feeling persists.

What distinguishes it:

Like all types of angina, the abdominal pain associated with a heart problem is likely to worsen with exertion and get better with rest. Also, you're likely to experience repeated episodes, rather than one prolonged episode as you would with normal indigestion or food poisoning.
5. Jaw and ear pain
Ongoing jaw pain is one of those mysterious and nagging symptoms that can have several causes but can sometimes be a clue to coronary artery disease (CAD) and impending heart attack. The pain may travel along the jaw all the way to the ear, and it can be hard to determine which it's coming from, says cardiovascular nurse Margie Latrella. This is a symptom doctors have only recently begun to focus on, because many patients surveyed post-heart attack report that this is one of the only symptoms they noticed in the days and weeks leading up to the attack.

Why it happens:

Damaged heart tissue sends pain signals up and down the spinal cord to junctures with nerves that radiate from the cervical vertebrae out along the jaw and up to the ear.

What distinguishes it:

Unlike the jaw pain caused by temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ), tooth pain, or ear infection, the pain doesn't feel like it's in one isolated spot but rather like it's radiating outward in a line. The pain may extend down to the shoulder and arm -- particularly on the left side, and treatments such as massage, ice, and heat don't affect it.

By Melanie Haiken of yahoo

~Shayna Cross

The Office

Beachbody style :D

http://beachbodycoach.com/esuite/home/shayna214?bctid=1020865332001

Can you actually change your metabolism?

There Are Actually 2 Types of Metabolism
Actually there are lots of different types of metabolism. There is carbohydrate metabolism, fat metabolism, sugar metabolism and so on. In our fitness culture, we tend to talk about 2 different types: BMR and TM.

BMR is basal metabolic rate 

TM is total metabolism. BMR is the total number of calories you burn just to maintain your body as it is, and TM is the total number of calories you burn, period.

Neither one is worth losing sleep over.

Total Metabolism Is Quick and Easy To Change
Your total metabolism is really quick and easy to change. It’s like a raging river where the rapids are always changing shape. Just simply stand up right now and do jumping jacks. Your total metabolism just increased! Eat something, anything at all and your total metabolism will also increase. But if you stop moving or eat less, you will burn fewer calories and hence “lower your metabolism”.

All Foods Increase Total Metabolism
All foods increase your total metabolism regardless of what they are. Anything from fried Twinkies to organic salmon requires some sort of energy to digest and thus will “boost your metabolism.” Some foods boost more than others because they require more energy to digest (like salmon) but unless you’re making a radical change in your diet, the differences are nothing to get all excited about.

All Physical Activities Increase Total Metabolism
Do something, anything at all, and you will increase your total metabolism. You can do any activity you like be it cardio, weight training or wrestling in a pool full of Jell-O. The longer or more intense the activity, the more calories you burn and thus the more you “boost your metabolism.”

EPOC Is Hard To Track or Account For
I used to look to certain exercises for the so called “after burn” or what is known as the Excessive Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption. There are many factors that influence how long or how intense the E.P.O.C is. It’s a very unreliable calorie burn. Sometimes your E.P.O.C could last for hours and burn hundreds of calories, other times it might last 20 minutes and burn off a few potato chips. I simply figure it’s a bonus burn, but nothing I’m going to count on simply because it’s very hard to track and keep consistent.

Your BMR Isn’t Going Anywhere Anytime Soon
While total metabolism can change at the drop of a hat, your BMR is like a glacier, moving and changing ever so slowly. Plus it’s important to note that most of the factors that determine your BMR are not something you can intentionally change or control. Your age, gender, height, somato-type, and even genetics all account for the lion’s share of what causes your BMR to be where it is.

Muscle Plays a Minor Role In Changes To BMR
It’s true that lean body mass plays a role in influencing your BMR but muscle is only a part of what makes up your lean body mass. In the movie of metabolism, muscle is a bit character. Your organs, blood, water, skin, bones and everything else that’s not fat is a contributing factor.  Muscle is just one player on the massive team that makes up your BMR. In the past, I believed that a pound of muscle burned hundreds of calories. Now though, the figures are coming down to as little as 15-20 calories per pound. A few added pounds are hardly anything to get excited about.

You’re Probably Not Going To Change Your Muscle Mass Quickly
Let’s face it, unless you’re a young adult male who has never done any exercise, or someone on drugs, you’re not going to be packing on 30 pounds of muscle this summer. At the same time, unless you are going to starve yourself and give up all activity for 4-5 weeks you’re not going to drop a whole lot of muscle either.

The amount of muscle on the human body is slow to change even with most diet or exercise changes. What this means is that because most of the factors in your BMR can’t be controlled and that the few factors that can, are not going to change very fast, your BMR isn’t gong to go through any big changes anytime soon. It would be like expecting a glacier to come racing through town.

Food Is a Relatively Minor Player in Maintaining BMR
Lots of diet strategy is aimed at boosting or protecting your metabolism. Most of it isn’t really going to do anything. Eating frequent small meals, never skipping meals, and eating at only certain times of the day has little, if any, effect on BMR. It’s like changing the course of that glacier with an ice pick.

Your Metabolism Doesn’t Control Your Weight
Finally we must recognize that either BMR or TM is only half of the weight control equation. They are only focused on the calories going out of the body and while that’s 50% of the game, it’s the relationship between calories out and calories in that makes the difference.

You can have the metabolism of a humming bird and still gain weight. You can have the metabolism of a slug and lose it. Granted it would be easier to be like the humming bird, but a higher BMR or even TM is in no way a guarantee that fat loss will occur.

So that’s why I don’t give a hoot about metabolism any more. Instead, I focus on something that is far more important....being healthier overall :)

~Shayna

http://beachbodycoach.com/shayna214