Fitness Diary - Week 4 Family Workout!

Thank you to Ubisoft for providing me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and sponsoring this fitness diary series. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

My son has been my partner in crime since I started my journey to fitness.  He has been my biggest cheerleader and has participated in all of my fitness activity! I love being a role model for my son because he has already established that exercise is a natural part of life and something that we all should do.  He has run with me, danced Zumba, done workout DVDs and now he loves Your Shape Evolved 2012.  


Although he cannot get all of the moves, just having him up and moving with me is enough. Here in Georgia, we have one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in the nation. At four, my son understands the importance of exercise and because we make it fun, it isn't a chore for him. Fitness games are such an easy way to incorporate exercise that the entire family can do and believe me, if your child is anything like mine, if you miss a day you will be reminded! 


This is especially essential during the winter months when exercising and playing outside may not be an option for everyone. Having fun exercises that can be done indoors is a necessity and Your Shape fits the bill! 

Holiday Attire!

One thing I love about the holiday season is having the opportunity to dress up. When I look at my wardrobe I mostly see workout attire and comfy yoga pants. On a regular day that is my uniform yoga pants or workout pants and a comfortable top. I might switch things up and wear some jeans but I usually take the ultra casual route. 


But give me a reason to glam up and I am ready to go! I was sent the Boogie Woogie dress from Shabby Apple that I'm wearing in the photo above and I can tell you that I received compliments the entire night! I wore it for a speaking engagement followed by a holiday party and folks just loved the dress. I felt so comfortable too. 


From the soft cotton top to the satin floral design on the skirt of the dress, this one is a winner! And it is just one of many women's dresses from Shabby Apple that can be both for a date night, holiday adventure and just when you want to look pretty! Shabby Apple is offering a 10 percent discount for all of my readers simply use the code - cutiebootiecakes10off at checkout. Also, be sure to like the Shabby Apple facebook page for discounts and specials! 


I know I'll be wearing my dress frequently. I love the style, fit and of course a little black dress is a staple for everyone's closet! 


Disclosure: I was sent a Shabby Apple dress for purposes of writing this post but as usual, all opinions are 100% my own.

Holiday Dinner with Friends

This post is sponsored by Serve from American Express. Sign up for Serve and receive $10 credit towards your first use. Comment below within the next 7 days for your chance to win an extra $100 credit to your account!

Oh, the holidays! Just when you think things are winding down for the year, the whirlwind of holidays is upon you. I am anticipating going home for the holidays but before that happened I wanted to break bread with some friends. We tried a new Mexican place in Midtown Atlanta, the food was delicious and the libations were flowing (okay, that is an exaggeration, since we had no designated drivers we all only had one drink).

The conversation was great and we discussed everything under the sun from Christmas shopping to the Real Housewives of Atlanta! After a dessert of tres leches and flan (it is the holidays and we had to indulge) it was time to settle the bill. Sometimes this can be the most awkward moment of an otherwise outstanding time but in this case it was simple! 


All of us had opened a Serve account before we'd met for dinner. I utilized my smartphone to help settle the bill. I simply tapped split the bill and it quickly calculated the amount each of us owed - including the tip! Since I didn't have cash with me, my friends footed the bill. HOWEVER I paid them back on the spot by transferring the money from my Serve account directly to them by email! 


We were all impressed with the ease of the transaction and thought of many ways we could utilize serve in the future! I will no longer worry about those awkward moments at the end of meals, Serve has it covered for me!

Remember to sign up for Serve and receive $10 credit towards your first use. Comment below within the next 7 days for your chance to win an extra $100 credit to your account! Official sweepstakes rules and regulations may be found by clicking here. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Paying it Forward this holiday season!

This year I have been truly blessed. I have had the opportunity to work with a number of different companies and honestly despite having to deal with some personal issues, this has been a very good year for me. As a mother, I try to instill the importance of making a difference in the lives of others to my four year old. With all of our blessings I like to "share the wealth" and the holiday season has been perfect for doing that. 

I have been able to go food shopping with my son and let him know that all of the food was for individuals that are less fortunate than we are. I explained that we are able to help others because of my work and the kindness and generosity of companies I work with. This season I've been able to donate food for Thanksgiving, Christmas and donate clothing and personal necessities for families that are struggling this year. 


In addition, as a Mama Bear Ambassador for ArcticHome, I am able to spread the word about making a difference in the lives of Polar Bears by purchasing limited edition red Coca-Cola cans and donating a dollar to the cause! Not only are the white cans available but the red cans are too. If you are planning on purchasing Coca-Cola for your holiday festivities, these cans are perfect and can help you pay it forward! 


Have you found the Arctic Home red cans?  Remember you can donate to Arctic Home through logging on to www.arctichome.com, texting package codes to the package code to 357357 to make a $1 donation to WWF or donating points through MCR.com.


I've shared some ways my family has paid it forward this holiday season, what are your favorite ways to give back? 

Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Coca-Cola, but Coca-Cola is not a sponsor, administrator, or involved in any other way with this post. All opinions expressed in the post are my own and not those of Coca-Cola.

Fitness Diary - Week 3 Cardio Baby!

Thank you to Ubisoft for providing me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and sponsoring this fitness diary series. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

As a parent I reconsidered the importance of my health.....

It is funny how being responsible for another individual changes your entire outlook on life. After giving birth to my son I quickly lost the baby weight and kept it off for most of the first year of his life. Although I wasn’t actively exercising, nursing my son and just being busy kept the weight off. However, before my pregnancy I’d been overweight so I should have focusing on trying to lose the pregnancy weight and some! When I stopped nursing I continued to eat as if I was still burning an extra 500 calories daily, a big no no. I soon tipped the scales at over 200 pounds!

You can read the rest of this post on ABC's Million Mom's Challenge page! While you are there leave a comment and be entered to win an exclusive Million Moms Challenge Gift Pack, which includes an iPad2, a custom-made Million Moms Challenge pendant and a donation in your name to Global Giving! Be sure to sign up for the Million Moms Challenge

Fitness Diary Week 2 - Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012

Thank you to Ubisoft for providing me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and sponsoring this fitness diary series. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

Me after a workout - don't try this at home kids! LOL

Based on the photo above, it is obvious that working out with Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 certainly works up a sweat! I took this photo after an hour workout and this photo has not been retouched - all of that dark blue on my shirt is sweat. Although I live in the South I SWEAT, I do not glisten like other Southern Belles! 

This week I want to tell you about an aspect of the game that I really like - to say I "enjoy" it would be a stretch but Toning is really good. Similar to other aspects of the game, the toning section has a number of different options. You can do a three minute workout or a thirteen minute workout or even a combination. 

I took a photo of the actual screen as I was working out but it is sideways and I can't post it like that. I have no idea why it won't work but I'll do my best to explain. One of my favorite aspects of doing toning is that not only do I see my training but I see myself. It is like looking in the mirror. This is great because I utilized weights when I worked out and I was able to correct my form. LOVE IT! 

The thirteen minute toning program is an all-over body program, working the large muscles in my legs and my arms too. This is exactly what I need. By doing this a few times a week I know I will lose inches and tighten up! Abs too! Can't forget the ab workout. Total body toning. 

Next week I'll be talking about the different cardio options on the game. And I am sure that you are wondering how my weight is looking.....well, I am down 2 pounds this week. Go me! 

Send a message of hope to a Hospitalized Child This Holiday Season!

Watch the Video, Share the Hope with Children's!

Watch this video 'Share the Hope' and then share your own hopeful message with the young patients at Children's. Let them know you're thinking about them – this holiday season, and all year long.

http://sharewithchildrens.org

The holidays are no time to be in the hospital. I know first hand how it feels to be hospitalized just days before Christmas. I cannot tell you how very happy it made me when volunteers and the hospital staff tried to make things as festive as possible during the holiday season. My fondest memory was hearing a choir caroling in the halls. I was lucky enough to be discharged from the hospital before Christmas but sadly that is not the case for everyone. 


There are 1280 children staying at the Children's Hospital of Atlanta (CHOA) this holiday season. I know their family, friends and the hospital staff and volunteers are making it as homey as possible but at the end of the day they are still hospitalized. Won't you take a moment to send a bit of holiday cheer to one of this children? And also be sure to watch the video, for every view Verizon is donating $1 up to $25,000 for CHOA. This holidays season a simple short message and a view can make the difference in the life of a sick child. 

Hanes Virtual Sock Drive

Today I'm highlighting a very easy way for you to give back AND you don't have to spend any money!  Hanes is having it's 3rd annual virtual sock drive to donate socks to the needy this holiday season! 

Help us get to 250,000 socks donated by simply clicking on the image above or click HERE!  Hanes sent me 250 pairs of socks to donate and I am giving the men's socks to the homeless identified by my son's school and the other socks are going to a special charity that I will be doing an event for later this month! More to come on that........  In the meantime, Click and share, click and share! Help the needy this holiday season! 

Giving Back this Holiday Season!

I love the holiday season! The pretty lights, the music and the general atmosphere, it is just a magical time of the year. One of my favorite things about the holidays is having opportunities to give back! This week, I plan on highlighting awesome opportunities that I've had for spreading some holiday cheer and also will give you an opportunity to do so - virtually!


First up, the holiday grocery haul at Walmart.  I was given a $50 giftcard to see how much food I could purchase. This coincided with a food drive at my son's school - perfect! The school has a list of items so I took the list and went shopping. I think I did a pretty good job and I know the children will enjoy making the sandwiches for the homeless! This is a win win project all around! I'm happy to donate and help teach the kids about the true meaning of Christmas! Thank you for the opportunity Walmart! 



Disclosure: I am a Walmart mom and have been compensated for my time to write this post and make the video. As usual, all opinions are my own!

My fitness Diary

Thank you to Ubisoft for providing me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and sponsoring this fitness diary series. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.



It is no secret that I run half-marathons but I have been keeping a dirty little secret....I've gained weight. I could blame it on stress but at some point I have to take responsibility. And I've reached that point. Over the last eight months or so I've gained about 20 pounds. Not good. Not good at all. But about three weeks ago I decided it was time for a change so I started managing my food intake and to date I've lost about 7 pounds or so. I still have more to go and that is why I will be chronicling my fitness journey with you. It keeps me honest! 

For the next five weeks I will discussing my experience with UbiSoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012. I can already tell you I'm a fan (you may remember I taught a class utilizing the game at the Blogalicious conference) but I want to see what type of results I garner after 5 weeks of working out with it. 


Today I weigh in at 173 pounds. Let's see where this journey takes me....this week I spent time really getting started with the game. My favorite warm-up is jumping rope, it is strenuous but I feel good and ready to workout after a few minutes of doing it. One of the things I really like is that because this game utilized kinect I look like me on the screen when I'm working out and my hands are totally free. If you've never experienced this - you must! 


For cooling down I really like doing the Zen "workout" basically it is Tai Chi. I feel totally relaxed after I complete my workouts. You may be asking what about the workouts themselves? Well, I get to design workouts based on the things that I like! So in the upcoming weeks I will be highlighting a few of my favorites. 


For now, I've admitted I'm starting a fitness journey again, given you my weight (gasp) and let's just see where Your Shape Evolved 2012 takes me! 

World AIDS Day 2011

It is difficult for me to comprehend that AIDS has been around for 30 years. I can recall the early days of the epidemic, when my aunt was a nurse on the AIDS ward when no one else wanted to help "those people." I remember her stories of people bleeding out and the doctors being clueless about what to do other than make them comfortable. Over the past 30 years we have come so very far....but AIDS continues to be an epidemic in Africa. In the United States African-American women make up 12% of the female population and 66% of the new HIV/AIDS cases.

I spent a large portion of my professional life working on the fight against AIDS both domestically and abroad. I've lost friends to this disease and also experience joy for my friends that not only continue to live with it but fight everyday to ensure that people are aware that it has not gone away but there are things that we all can do to prevent it.

In 1993 I had the opportunity to see the original AIDS quilt laid out on the mall in Washington, DC. It was truly one of the most moving moments of my life. Each quilt represented a life lost to AIDS. I get teary just thinking about it. Things have changed now and HIV is no longer a death sentence but most importantly we can end maternal to child transmission by the year 2015! One has partnered with (RED) to encourage us all to make panels for a virtual quilt and pledge to fight and have a generation AIDS free by 2015! My panel is above and you can see it in the actual virtual quilt HERE. 

I am happy to be a One Mom ambassador and spread the word about this exciting movement.  Make your panel today and pledge to join ONE in the fight against poverty and disease. I'm sure you are aware of the (RED) movement and I implore you this holiday season to purchase at least one product so that money can go to the fight against AIDS.  You can pledge by creating a panel for the (2015) Quilt. A virtual quilt made of panels by folks like you and me and a ton of famous people too!
Let's end maternal to child transmission by 2015! We can do this!