Hi friends! Happy Friday! How was the week? I hope you had an amazing one! We’ve had a busy one over here, but school’s out for the summer and we’re all PUMPED. We all slept in today and it.was.magical.

What’s going on this weekend? For my parent friends: are your kids out of school or not yet?

This weekend we have a friend staying with us, have dinner plans the next three nights, and I head off to the Biohacking Conference next week. I’ll definitey be sharing a recap of everything I learn. I’m also excited to spend some more time studying for High Performance Health.

It’s time for the weekly Friday Faves party! This is where I share some of my favorite finds from the week and around the web. I always love to hear about your faves, too, so please shout out something you’re loving in the comments section below.

5.24 Friday Faves

Life:

A new fridge! This was completely unintentional because our fridge broke last week. Of course, it happened the morning after I’d done a grocery haul for the entire week, and I had to toss out 90% of it. When they went to install the new fridge, water had been leaking behind it. It was a blessing that it happened when it did, because it the leak would have persisted, it would have been an entirely different situation.

This is the one we ended up choosing, and are adding a Clearly Filtered filter to the line.

This pour over coffee maker. I just can’t with the Nespresso decaf anymore. I’ve never been a fan of the taste, and I also don’t like pushing hot water through aluminum to drink. Instead, I’ve switched over to a glass and stainless steel pour over coffee maker. It tastes a million times better (I’ve just been using Whole Foods Organic decaf) and is much less expensive.

Fashion + beauty:

This Amazon dress! (with these sandals) It’s just a classic cut, good quality, and the perfect throw on dress. They don’t have many sizes left because it’s on sale for $9 (what?!) but I accidentally got an XS instead of a S and it works.

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Hi friends! How’s the morning going? I hope you’re having a great one so far! Today, I’m cleaning up all of the patio furniture and getting it ready for swim season. Bring.it.on! I’m excited to head out for a yoga class in between client calls, too.

For today’s post, I wanted to share more about my initial health journey. Newer reader friends (hi! hello!) may not know that I lost 40 lbs in college. This was long before I became a group fitness instructor, or personal trainer, or Integrative Health Practitioner… and I had to learn everything on my own, the hard way. This was also in the old ages, when blogs weren’t a thing. Everything I learned (good and bad) was through fitness magazines and stacks of health books I’d purchase from Barnes and Noble.

When I reflect on my initial weight loss journey, I remember the snafus (like getting so sick after eating a pack of cooked chicken and a can of cold black beans lol) but I also feel proud of myself. I stuck with it, I wasn’t afraid to pivot when I realized things weren’t working, and I did a lot of things right.

What I did wrong, and what I’d do again [in my health journey]

Here are some of the things I did well, and are foundational habits I recommend to all of my clients:

– More protein and whole foods. I started to emphasize protein in my diet, and I paid attention to the foods that were processed. I used to eat almost entirely processed foods (with the exception of dinner), and it felt so much better to eat food from the earth. I was sitll a poor college student, so I had a tight, tight budget, but I went for inexpensive options, like apples, yogurt, frozen veggies, bananas, jerky, and wraps that I could make at home.

– Adding walking into my routine. Walking made me feel better almost instantly, and I also got the benefits from the sunshine, and a mood boost.

– Started strength training. I had NO clue what I was doing, but my friend and I hired a personal trainer from LA Fitness. He gave questionable nutrition advice, but he taught me the basics of strength training.

– Paid attention to a balanced plate and portion control. I learned that my plate couldn’t be entirely carbs and actually be satisfying, so I started to incorpoarte more

I think it’s easy to remember that the classics are classics for a reason— they work! Simple changes that you can maintain for a long time are going to make the biggest difference.

Mistakes:

Here are some things that were difficult for me, and it took me many years to unravel the damage from some of these.

– 3-5 hours of sleep per night. It wouldn’t be unusual for me to go to school all day, teach at the dance studio until 8pm, drive to the school library and study until 2 or 3am, and then drive back home, nap, and repeat. I did this for pretty much all of college. The weekends were for work (I alternated bet

Hi friends! Happy Friday! How was the week? I hope you had a wonderful one. The kids officially have one week left of school (YESSSSSSS) and we’re all counting down the days. This weekend we have dinner with friends, a concert, dance activities, and all the chores. I hope you have a lovely weekend, too!

It’s time for the weekly Friday Faves party! Here’s this week’s roundup, and I always love to hear about your faves, too if you’d please shout out something you’re loving below.

5.17 Friday Faves

Life:

Mother’s Day advetnures. It was the best day with my favorite people, doing so many of my favorite things. I woke up early, and while everyone was still sleeping, I went to the farmer’s market to stroll around and get some meat for Maisey’s dog food. When I got home, I got to open amaizng cards from the family, and then we set off for brunch at Hacienda del Sol.

Hacienda has become one of our favorite special occasion brunch spots (we also love date night on the patio with the live piano music), and they have a legendary spread. They truly go for quality over quantity with the best prime rib, veggies, charcueterie, pasta, omelet station, a huge seafood spread, desserts for days, multiple mimosa flavors and a full bar, and live Spanish guitar. Some friends who are like family joined us, and it was the perfect morning.

(so many gf desserts!)

After brunch, we did the tour de Tucson, dropping off flowers and cards for my mom, nana, stepmom, and other nana 🙂 We came home, where I rode the spin bike and then took a glorious little nap. We met up with friends at the pool at Ventana for pizza, swimming, and margaritas.

I also had some excited news to share with you guys: earlier this week, EquiLife and IHP announced that I was chosen as one of their five IHP champions for the year.

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Lots of tips here on metabolic flexibility and how to improve it. 

Hi hi! How’s your day going? I hope you’re having a wonderful day so far. I have quite a few things on my to-do list for the day — all good things, of course!

For today’s post, I wanted to talk a bit about something I started paying more attention to over the past couple of years: metabolic flexibility. As I learn more biohacking tips and strategies to improve my health, I’m excited to share more of this info here. This post was written in collaboration with Mia, our Fitnessista RD. If you have any questions for her or topics you’d like us to cover, please let me know!

Now, let’s get into it!

How Do You Know If You Are Metabolically Flexible

What is metabolic flexibility?

Metabolic flexibility is the body’s ability to switch between fuel sources, whether it is energy received from fat or energy from carbohydrate consumption. Do you notice that you feel better when you eat a steak vs a pizza?

Why Is Metabolic Flexibility Important

Being metabolically flexible allows the body to easily switch between glucose and fatty acid catabolism. Catabolism is essentially the process of breaking down the food you just ate and using it for fuel, or if it’s been hours or even a day since your last meal, it lets your body dip into fat stores for fuel.  A flexible metabolism allows this to happen with ease while feeling great and is an indicator of mitochondrial function.

How do you know if you have a flexible metabolism?

Here are some indicators that your metabolism is functioning at an optimal level:

– You can go hours without eating and without becoming “hangry.”

– Your meal frequency doesn’t dictate your mood.

– Your energy levels are great when eating a diet rich in protein and healthy fats.

– You feel great when eating a diet rich in protein and carbohydrates.

– There’s no need for you to eat every 2-3 hours to prevent fatigue, headaches, or hypoglycemia (low blood sugar levels).

– You haven’t coined yourself as someone who follows a specific “diet”.

How I measure my own metabolic flexibility:

I use two things to see how my metabolism is functioning and how my body responds to different foods and eating patterns. The first one is the Lumen, which will actually tell you whether you’re predominantly burning carbs or fat, based on your RER (respiratory exchange ratio). I use Lumen a few times throughout the day, and tweak my nutrition based off its suggestions. (If you decide to try it use FITNESSISTA for an extra $35 off!)

It’s also been insightful to see how certain workouts and foods (especially late-night meals) affect my metabolic function.

Hi friends!

I’m so excited about today’s episode because I’m chatting with Dr. Avanti Singh all about Ayurveda and how you can use this ancient wisdom to boost you immune system and help with allergies/

Here’s what we talk about:

– How to find your dosha and what it means

– Ayurvedic strategies for this time of year

– Morning routines and daily habits

– And so much more

160: Ayurveda for Allergies and Immune System Function with Dr. Avanti Kumar-Singh, MD

Avanti Kumar-Singh, is an Ayurveda Wellness Expert on a mission to show how Ayurveda is a health catalyst to achieve optimal wellness in modern life.

After receiving her Bachelor’s in Art History from the University of Chicago, she went on to receive her medical degree from Rush University Medical College. While working as an ER physician, she experienced first-hand the limitations of Western medicine. To learn more, Kumar-Singh began a 10-year wellness journey during which she studied energy healing and yoga therapy and became a practitioner of the 5,000-year-old ancient healing tradition known as Ayurveda.

Over the two decades of her training, study, and research, Kumar-Singh has shared her expertise with Fortune 500 companies, at elite undergraduate and graduate institutions, and at prestigious industry and medical conferences. She has been featured in the Huffington Post, goop, Thrive Global and mindbodygreen and served as the co-lead facilitator of the Faculty Scholars Program in Integrative Healthcare at the OSHER Center for Integrative Medicine at Northwestern Medicine.

She is also the author of The Health Catalyst and the host The Health Catalyst Podcast. If you’d like to receive new episodes as they’re published, please subscribe to The Healing Catalyst in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,