Top Exercise for Busy Moms. I do this exercise every day!

Here is one of my favorite exercises I do every day, Squats! I love squats because they tighten and tone your thighs, butt and strengthen your core. 

I do alot of exercises with free weights. Why? Because they give the fastest results. Free weights require your muscles and body to control the weight as opposed to training on a machine, where you follow the track of the machine. You get more benefits, a tighter core and it's much more convenient. You can get a few pairs of dumbbells and do dozens of exercises. 

Here is one of my all time favorites. SQUATS.

How to do squats:

This exercise can be done with or without a weighted object.

Squats:

This exercise can be done with or without a weights.

Starting position: Stand with feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart, toes pointing forward, core tight, shoulders retracted (pulled back and pressed down), head neutral (looking straight ahead.)

The motion:

From this position, squat down as if you were going to sit in a chair. When your upper legs or thighs are parallel to the ground, exhale as you push up through your heels and inhale as you return to starting position. Repeat 20 times.

Go Fit Moms!

Point toes outward to focus on toning the inner thighs.

Visit GET FIT for more Exercises and Fitness Tips!

Veggie Tacos / "Eating a Rainbow Day" / Guest Post by Firefighter AL

This picture was sent to FitMomTV.com and Kiana.com from a Fit Dad, Firefighter "Al," showing us their healthy veggie tacos he and his Fit Family made for dinner.

"Adding crunchy veggies to tacos is a healthy way to add texture and crunch to your tacos. By eating a wide variety of colorful fruit and vegetables, you easily increase the range of vitamins and minerals you eat. I see radishes - they are naturally spicy and are perfect for Taco Tuesday! Thank you for sharing and inspiring millions of viewers in 100 countries! Looks yummy!" says Kiana.
Share your photos with us: info@fitmomtv.com

:60 Fit Tip: 5 seconds to better health

Here is a 5 second Tip to take better of yourself...



Flax seed oil comes from the Flax Plant (hm, that makes sense, doesn't it?)  Flax seed oil contains both Omega 3 and 6 Fatty Acides.

I use it everyday because it is good for practically every system of the body, such as the immune system, circulatory system, reproductive system, joints, nervous system and the cardiovascular system. You can buy a bottle of it at any health food store, I buy mine at Trader Joes or Whole Foods. It comes in soft gels or liquid form, I prefer the liquid form: it's a convenient way to add a little to your protein shake. Adults need only 1-2 Tbs. There really isn't any taste, and an easier way to increase your intake of Omega 3 Fatty Acids than taking fish oil-yikes!  Flax Seed Oil does so many great things for your body: it helps your body recover after training, helps lower cholesterol, and even helps make your nails strong!  Stay Fit!

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:60 FIT TIP: SUMO SIDE KICK EXERCISE

Got a minute? Do an exercise. The benefits of fitness are cumulative. Do a little throughout the day!

All of the upcoming exercises in Kiana's Fitness Minute Video Tips are easy to do right now. So get up from the computer for 1 minute and do this terrific exercise and get moving....
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Kiana :60 Fit Tip: EZ Portion Control

I always use salad or dessert plates instead of the larger entree dinner plates. That way, I automatically use smaller portions.  It's much better to eat 6 small "Mini Meals" instead of 3 LARGE meals. Bon Appetite!

Kiana :60 Fit Tip: Easy Portion Control from Kiana Tom on Vimeo.

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Kiana :60 Tip: Juicer

I love fruits and vegetables. I love juice. So you can imagine how excited I was when one of my gifts from Santa was a brand new, top of the line, Juicer! I love to get all types of fruit and veggies: kale, spinach, apples, carrots, ginger…and make new juices to try….it is such a yummy way to add more vitamins and greens to your daily food intake. I recommend juicing as an addition to eating whole fruits and veggies. My whole family loves it!



Here is what I will be juicing tomorrow morning:
Kale, spinach, apple, carrot, celery, lemon.

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Kiana :60 Fit Tip: My go-to breakfast

Mornings are always rushed. However, it is so very important to eat breakfast every day to kick start your metabolism. Here is one of my favorite and easy breakfasts that takes 1 minute and has complex carbs and protein.



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Sugar Junkie Blog. by Rebecca Hill

Hello Fit Moms and Friends!

Unfortunately I've had a bad cold for the past week and I'm still under the weather. I'm excited for what I'm sure is going to be a fantastic New Year but for now I need to stay low and rest and recover so let's touch base next week. In case anyone else is suffering with this cold, Kiana told me she recommends the homeopathic (natural) cold medicine Ostencillin. She said she "discovered it at a health food convention, it comes in tubes and you dissolve the pellets in your mouth as soon as you feel a cold coming on. May be good to get some and leave in the medicine cabinet for you and Tom."



Be well, Fit Moms - talk to you next week! And Happy New Year! I have a feeling that 2011 is going to be a very good year!

Fit Tip: Bye Bye Mayo

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Kiana Fit Tip: Before every meal...

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Happy New You!

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FIT MOM VLOG: FRUIT / INCREASE SERVINGS EASILY

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FITMOMTV.COM VLOG: DAILY VIDEOS & WEEKLY WORKOUTS

Great news! I am so excited to be bringing you DAILY FIT TIPS and WEEKLY VIDEO WORKOUT to the Fit Mom TV Blog!

It's something I've been wanting to do for quite awhile, but didn't know if I could carve out the time needed to do this.

RAW & UNEDITED FOOTAGE:

Being from a TV Broadcasting background, I am embracing the website online world of  "shooting from the hip" without elaborate productions, camera crews or directors.

Raw and unedited video - just solid information and instruction -




DAILY 1 MINUTE VIDEO FIT TIPS:

You will be able to visit the site every day and watch a 1 minute VIDEO TIP on healthy living for the busy mom. These are MY personal health and fitness tips and things I really do: my short cuts, easy tricks to make your life healthier and more fit!

WEEKLY VIDEO WORKOUTS:

The key to a successful workout program is consistency!

Come to Fit Mom TV Blog 3 times per week (or more if you can) and do my 10 Minute Weekly Workout Video. It will be free of charge and my gift to you to help you make fitness part of your regular daily routine. The most important part of all of this is to establish a Fitness Routine.  We are all busy Moms, we can support and help each other.

I will be using some of the best and innovative fitness gear available today - at very realistic price points. I will help you build your own HOME GYM to workout with me.

I developed the trend setting "HOME GYM" segments for my television series "Kiana's Flex Appeal" ESPN that became the #1 rated fitness series in the history of the network, reaching 80 million homes worldwide in 100 countries.

I want to bring you the BEST instruction and information ONLINE, too!

Please help me spread the fitness word. The Weekly Workouts will start January 1st 2011! Please besure and check it out and I'd love to hear feedback.....(ummm be kind...I am a busy mom too!)

Here are a few of the HOME FITNESS GEAR I will be using in the WEEKLY WORKOUTS.

THEY ARE ALL UNDER $20.00!

Click on the pictures below to ORDER YOUR GEAR SO YOU ARE READY TO WORKOUT WITH ME:

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Love and fitness,

Kiana Tom

Founder FitMomTV.com

3 Secrets to Sticking to Your Health & Fitness Resolutions in 2011

1.  Realistic Fitness Goals:

If you don't exercise regularly now, your goal should be to simply GET MOVING as opposed to trying to workout for 1-2 hours per day.  Try and do something active each and everyday.

2. Exercise Early:

Be active 1st thing in the morning before the day gets too busy.  Often, if you wait to workout, you may never do it. Early exercise means you will feel more productive and make healthier choices all day long.

3.  1, 2, 3 Fitter Foods:

Replace 1 not-so-healthy foods with a healthier option: i.e., Pita chips or mini carrots for chips.  Once that becomes easy, increase it to 2 and so on.

Fit Tip: Vitamins

Hi Fit Moms! I had to share this Vitamin Tip from a well known Doctor.... Here is what I just bought that he recommended.

It's a busy busy time of year! And from all the coughing I hear in town....it's also flu season.

I am a firm believer that we should get most of the necessary nutrients from whole, natural foods. Basically, I feel we should eat our vitamins by eating a wide variety of natural foods. However, we are all very busy and don't eat as healthfully as we'd like to, so that is where a good solid vitamin comes in to the picture.

Just got back from the store and stocked up on vitamins. Here is what I bought:

• Centrum Multi Vitamin


• Vitamin C 1000 mg.

Last week, I had my annual check up at the Doctors and had a nice visit with him too. It seems everywhere I turn, people are coughing and are sick, they cannot get rid of the cough. I asked my Doctor if he often got sick, since his patients are sick.  He told me he hadn't been sick in 30 years and only took antibiotics 1 time. This was amazing to me, considering the fact that he sees dozens of very sick patients who come to his office with the flu and worse.

I asked him how he stayed so healthy. I told him I hadn't been sick for years until I had kids (they bring home all types of new germs from school!)

I thought I'd share his advice with you:

My doctor said he has been taking "Centrum" vitamins for decades. 1 per day. He said he also takes 1000 mg. vitamin C per day and if he is going to be around sick people, he increases that to 3000 mg. I had never taken Centrum vitamins so I thought it was worth a try. They have a large selection of vitamins for "performance," "cardio," "multi-vitamins" and "for kids" too! No, I don't professionally endorse Centrum vitamins, but I do buy them.  I just thought it sounded like simple, doable and realistic advice.

Old School? It may seem old school, especially that there are dozens of vitamins to pick from.  I believe that "old school" is often the best, since the fact that it has been around for a long time, is proof in itself that it works. It's not a gimmick or fad.

To your health!

Fit Cooking: Hawaiian Island Banana Bread: No Sugar Added

What is a health and fitness minded gal to do when you have a huge bowl of over-ripe bananas?



Make Hawaiian Island Banana Bread, of course! Being the sugar conscious person I am, I replaced sugar with stevia, a plant based extract that tastes like sugar without the highs/lows...and without the guilt!

Hope you enjoy this! I am loving my warm slice of banana bread as I blog this with a hot cup of coffee. Yum!

Hawaiian  Island Banana Bread : No Sugar Added




Preheat oven to: 350

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup sugar OR 1/2 cup stevia that is 2 to 1 to sugar (use half as much)

1 cup ripe mashed bananas

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or almonds or even trail mix! I just love to add nuts: more protein and more texture!

DIRECTIONS:

Spray non stick spray on bread loaf pan.  Stir dry ingredients in 1 bowl. In another larger bowl, mix shortening, stevia (or sugar you naughty girl), mashed bananas, eggs and nuts. Add combined dry ingredients and mix until batter is blended. Pour in bread/loaf pan and bake 55 minutes until brown and slightly crunchy on top. (I cook mine a few minutes more since I love crunchy crust.) Let cool 10 minutes before slicing and serving. TIP: Serve with FAGE yogurt for protein or alongside scrambled egg whites. Reheat in toaster so it's warm and crunchy.

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Blogger's Butt

I truly believe that there is such thing as Blogger's Butt or Blogger's Body.

Okay. I love being active. I move, walk, jog, run 99% of my day. My kids make fun of me because they have to beg me to "just sit down." It is so hard for me to sit down, I always want to be doing something. Then I jumped on this Blogging craze. Now I am sitting, sitting, sitting. I am sitting so much, I can't stand it! I needed to find away to still blog for my readers but be my active self. I tried blogging while on our treadmill, exercise bike, you name it. Nothing worked. What does work is I set the timer to 30 minutes and get up every 30 minutes, do squats, jumping jacks and MOVE MY BODY!

Here is how to avoid Blogger's Body:

1. Get a Core Ball Chair. No I don't endorse this chair, I just love it. I bought one in black for the office and in purple for my home. All of my girlfriends and my immediate family have one.  I am ordering my hubby one for the office for Christmas, too.  The idea is that you are sitting on the fitness ball and are literally strengthening your core while you sit at your desk and type, work or blog. From a Fit Mom's POV, why not strengthen my midsection while I am blogging, right?

Plus you can get the kit and do arm exercises on it too.

AND, you can remove the ball altogether and Workout with Me on Fit Mom TV when we use the Ball!

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2. Set the timer as I mentioned above.

3. As you blog, lift one leg and then the other to engage the lower abs.

4. Raise your computer so that the screen is eye level so you aren't looking downward, using poor posture.

5. Sit with your back straight, shoulder blades pulled back and pressed down, contracting your butt muscles (glutes.)

So fellow bloggers, set your timers, sit up straight and be active. And please Fit Mom Readers, remember all the sedentary risks we bloggers take to post daily blogs for you. That's all for now!.

Sugar Junkie. Part 5. By Guest Blogger Rebecca Hill

KIANA'S FIT MOM TV 2010 HOLIDAY CHALLENGE:
WEEK #1: SPEND 5 MINUTES PER DAY MEDITATING, PREFERABLY IN THE MORNING.



How much time does a mom (or any woman) have for herself each day?

I asked several of my girlfriends this question. One of my friends answered, "None. A working mom is lucky if she has clean clothes to wear to work each day." Another friend said most days she only finds "about half an hour" for herself.



I was particularly moved by an anonymous email that Kiana and I received several weeks ago. Anonymous said:  "I really think my issue with food is that I just don’t care enough about myself. I sometimes think if I lived all alone I could handle the food, but when I have to cook and take the kids out to eat all the time, I can’t control myself. It’s (difficult) to carve out a life of my own among everyone else. Food helps me cope with the things in life I can’t seem to control. In my daily life, I end up feeling more like a maid, cook, and chauffeur, than I do myself."

I wonder if mothers are actually being "good moms" by putting everyone else first or if they're sending the wrong message to their children. I'm not a mother so if I’m off base, feel free to knock me off my soapbox, but in dealing with a needy child who won’t allow you to take a moment for yourself, I wonder if a positive way of replying might be, "I love you and am going to make sure I always take good care of you, but I also love myself and am going to make sure that I take care of myself too." My own mom gave me everything and put me first for 39 years, but time has shown that she has resentments about that. My father died suddenly and unexpectedly last year, and I really needed my mom. But, because she had given everything to me and sacrificed everything for me she had nothing left to give. She had no bandwidth for my grieving and carved out her new life quickly, far from anything that reminded her of her old life, including me. I finally understood that, by giving too much of herself for too long, she finally had nothing left to give. In hindsight, it would have been healthier for her to pace herself, to understand earlier on that a person must take care of themselves along the way, or the well may run dry too soon.

I took this as a cautionary tale. Whether you have children or not, it’s important to find at least a little time to put yourself first so that you don’t build up resentments and damage your body and soul by neglecting your own needs. I've struggled with this for years and when I've had jobs that were too demanding, I leaned on food to compensate for a lack of sleep. Not a good plan!

I'd like to propose a Holiday Challenge. Let’s open our minds to the possibility that we can find at least a little time for ourselves each day. I consulted Kiana and asked her to come up with "baby steps" that we could do over the next 4 weeks to help us regain our lives and sense of selves.

Kiana’s assignment for us this week is to FIND 5 MINUTES EACH DAY TO MEDITATE, PREFERABLY FIRST THING IN THE MORNING. She says, "You want to take yourself away in your mind. 'Taking yourself away' means envisioning you are somewhere you want to be, with anyone you want, or all by yourself. For me, I envision myself sitting alone on a white sandy beach where the sand is like powder, the ocean is clear and turquoise blue. There is no one on the beach for miles. All I see is the ocean gently crashing onto the white sand and I feel a warm, balmy breeze and hear birds in the distant background. I sit there in my mind and get to enjoy completing my own thoughts."

If you're like me, you may have trouble sitting completely still for a minute (much less 5) so I'm going to include a mp3 of my husband's song, * "Quiet Time" in this blog to help guide you and time your experience. This song is exactly 4 minutes and 13 seconds long so I want you to find a comfortable place and "take yourself away" for the duration of this song. If you feel your mind wandering, gently bring your thoughts back to your breath. Just feel yourself breath in and out. Relax, concentrate on your breathing, and visualize something peaceful.

** Oprah said, "You will be surprised by the discipline that comes from doing (meditation) on a regular basis, how your life begins to unfold for you differently. I call it 'centering up for myself.'"

If it's good enough for Kiana and Oprah - it's good enough for me!

5 minutes of meditation each day this week. Let me know how it goes, okay?
Click to enjoy: Quiet Time
* "Quiet Time" is on CAUFIELD's CD, "Leave Tonight." CAUFIELD is a harmony duo comprised of American singer-songwriter, Tom Caufield, and German vocalist, Yasmine Tanriverdi.  http://www.caufieldmusic.com/cmt/78.html

** To read Oprah's full article on mediation, please visit http://www.oprah.com/spirit/The-Power-of-Meditation-with-Oprah-and-Cheryl-Richardson

Rebecca Hill is the author of “Confessions of an Innkeeper” and “Don’t You Worry, Don’t You Cry.” Her writing has appeared in Redbook Magazine and she frequently contributes to Chicken Soup for the Soul. Her most recent story appeared in the new Chicken Soup for the Soul book, “Thanks, Mom!” She has worked as coordinator on high profile projects including: Kiana’s Flex Appeal, American Idol and Scooby Doo the movie.

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