So check this out. I love data. I'm a nerd. I know. But I decided to do a little data drill to see exactly how much it costs Wes and I to eat healthy these days.

Pretty much everyone I have talked too since starting out on our new health and fitness lifestyle change has commented about how much more expensive it is to eat healthy! And based on our latest monthly grocery bills, I usually found myself quickly nodding my head in agreement. It was pretty easy to see that we were spending more money every Sunday on our new healthy diet, which was making my immediate answer to the question that yes, there was an increase cost of eating healthy.

Although it was pretty easy to see how much more we were SPENDING, it really didn't dawn on me as to how much we were SAVING at the same time! One Friday, I went down to the cafeteria to buy lunch and I didn't really realize how long it had been since I had been down there last. So it got me thinking that since we starting our meal planning and meal prep on the weekends, I hadn't actually spent a dime on buying lunch at work.

So being the data-loving-nerd concerned consumer that I am, I decided to check out the math behind it all.

Now here is my disclaimer. This was my quick and dirty accounting of OUR spending. I didn't really go too crazy and try to figure out which months had extra weeks, and made some assumptions, etc but you will get the idea.

First step. Why....make a spreadsheet of course!

Sheesh.

I went through our online banking and started to tally up the number of times I withdrew money from the ATM machine at work (because the only time I do that it's because I need to get money for lunch) and at the same time, I started to tally up our grocery shopping bills. I formatted the dates so they would only show up as which month so it was easier to determine the monthly cost for each. Here's a little snapshot of what I came up with...

Next, I do have to say that I think part of the increase in our weekly grocery shopping bill was our new location. On June 27th, we officially moved into our new home and you can see, the immediate grocery bills in the beginning of July (before we really started our health kick) were higher.

I then took that data, and added it by month, to come up with a monthly cost of me buying lunch and a monthly cost for our grocery shopping.

After I had the monthly totals I simply calculated the monthly average cost of my lunches at work and our weekly grocery shopping bills. We started our challenge at the end of July, so it was a clean break. Anything January through July counted as Pre-Healthy costs and anything after July was Post-Healthy costs.

So as you can see below, BEFORE we started our healthy eating habits, I was spending on average about $63 a month buying lunch at work (some months you can see were much higher then others). AFTER we started our healthy eating habits, I ended up purchasing lunch at work once a month, so I withdrew $20 a month (lunch really only cost about $4 now that I was eating less but I really only counted how much I withdrew like I did before).
 

BEFORE we started our healthy eating habits, we were spending on average about $861 a month at the grocery store. AFTER we started our healthy eating habits, we found ourselves spending on average about $901 a month at the grocery store.

So that basically translates into this. We are now SPENDING an extra $40 a month at the grocery store (not too shabby - about an extra $10 a week) but I am SAVING about $43 a month because I have been meal planning and prepping my meals each week!

The other thing, is that we have cut back on our liquor store expenses too! I didn't tally those up yet but that's even more savings!

So as you can see, at least for us, we are spending more for food at the grocery store, but it almost exactly matches what we are saving at the same time. As we get better at this, I have no doubt we will learn how to reduce that grocery bill even more each week! Just thought that was interesting!

Tasty Tuesday: Crunchy Chicken Fingers w/Tangy Dipping Sauce

It's "Tasty Tuesday"!  On a Thursday!

So I decided to post next week's Tasty Tuesday a little early since we had a couple requests for this recipe! The one isn't all that super creative but we have to say this is one that our kids love, and it's a little better for us parents since it's not just the standard chicken fingers with ketchup meal. We love this one to because it goes with tons of different healthy side dishes and it's quick! 

This recipe is another good one that you can use the leftovers for lunch the next day and make a pretty good healthy salad with! PLUS, we almost always have all the ingredients (outside of the cornflakes) at home already!

Crunchy Chicken Fingers w/Tangy Dipping Sauce

One of the reasons why we love this one is that we can convince our kids its just regular chicken fingers. But little do they know it's the healthier version. This is also another one of our go-to dinners when Wes and I don't feel like eating "kids food", but still need something super easy (but with a little bit of excitement). Both Emma and Jack love to get involved with making this one too. They always help with the mixing of the flour mixture and crunching up the cork flakes. Although I usually have to watch them like a hawk because they will tend to EAT most of the corn flakes while crunching them up.

The first time we made it we kept to the recipe 100%, but now we tend to up the crab seasoning (Old Bay of course) because we couldn't taste it much. Keeping in mind that will change your sodium levels but it's still such a small amount that you don't go overboard.

What You'll Need for The Chicken

• 1/2 teaspoon reduced sodium crab seasoning (or 1/4 teaspoon paprika and 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder for a sodium free option)
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon of whole wheat flour
• 12 ounce of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 12 strips
• 2 tablespoons fat-free (skim) milk
• 1 egg white
• 3 cups of cornflake cereal, crushed (i.e. man-handled by little children)

What You'll Need for The Sauce 

• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup 100% orange juice
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 teaspoons deli mustard
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Directions
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Mix the crab seasoning, pepper and flour in a bowl and then toss the chicken in, coating each one evenly. Combine the milk and egg white in a separate bowl, and mix well. Then pour that over the chicken and give it a toss.

Crush up your cornflakes and add those to a separate bowl. Dip each chicken strip into the cornflakes and coat well. Place chicken on a nonstick baking sheet (and be sure to throw out any remaining cornflake mixture). Bake the chicken strips for 10 - 12 minutes (to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees).

While your chicken is cooking, prepare the sauce by mixing all of the sauce ingredients above and mixing well. And then enjoy!

PS: Our kids love to be involved in this one. Since they are still pretty little, we let them handle the crushing of the cornflakes but not the chicken dipping part. If your kids are older, that's something that they could do as well!

Nutrition Facts Per Serving: (Serving Size 3 Chicken Strips)
Calories: 248, Total Fat: 2 g, Saturated Fat: 1 g, Total Fiber: 1 g, Protein: 30 g, Carbohydrates: 36 g, Potassium: 303 mg, Vitamin A: 4%, Vitamin C: 16%, Calcium: 6%, Iron: 4%

Help Us Choose A Front Door Color!

We need YOUR help!

Although the sellers of our "new" (meaning new to us - built in 1989) house put on a new roof, the exterior of the house needs some sprucing up, much like every inch of the interior. The brick exterior is in pretty good shape, shutters aren't terrible but could probably use a fresh coat of paint, but the exterior wood molding and gutters need some love for sure. And although the landscaping leaves a little something to be desired (I seriously can't help but think of Cousin It every time I look at that random bushy-thing in the middle of two garage windows), we will probably wait to do anything major with that until next year.

One project that I would like to do pretty soon though is spruce up our front door. There are some small rotten sections of wood at the base of the trim and we know all about that from our old home, so that's on the top of the list to get fixed. I also painted our exterior molding in our old home and it made a world of difference, so it's an easy project that we can tackle ourselves. And this is something I'd like to do before winter and the snow piles up and makes the door molding any worse.

But the problem is, that we can't decide what color to go with!

I've been stalking researching some brick homes with black shutters for a little while now and checking out their front doors, and I think we have it narrowed down to black, red or white.

So of course, I whipped up a little something using my trusty PowerPoint skills to try to envision what our home would look like with each of the color combinations. For fun, I added a few bushes and flowers to the front as well.

Here's a shot of our current "cream" front door and molding....

Here's what a new black front door would look like, along with some updated true-white molding around the door frame. Eventually, we would paint all the above wood molding the same true-white as well.

 Here's what a new red front door would look like. Again, with some spruced up true-white molding.

And last but not least, here's what a new white front door with white molding would look like.

I know. You are seriously impressed with my PowerPoint skills. You don't have to tell me.

Right now, I'm leaning towards either the black or the red, but I'm slightly afraid the black door will get too hot in the sun (at least in the summer).

So we need your help! 

If you don't mind...head on over to the poll on the left hand side of the blog (at the top) and let us know which color you think is the best fit! OR feel free to leave a comment with what you think! Maybe a different color we haven't considered?! Thanks so much!!

My Why to Becoming a Beachbody Coach! (From Wes!)

My Why to Becoming a Beachbody Coach! (Hint, it will have a running theme from Laura's!)

What is Beachbody Coaching?  Is it a Pyramid Scheme? Is it some ridiculous sales pitch to get people in hopes to make a few bucks? Is it some fad that will pass in the coming months? As Laura and I have come to find out, it truly is none of these things. All the people we have encountered when we decided to start this journey all had remarkable stories and reason's for joining as a Beachbody coach. And as Laura pointed out, not one of them was financial (which can be a nice side bonus if you are DEDICATED to making it happen.)

Everyone we came across had very personal "why's" and when Laura first brought this opportunity to my attention I was skeptical of the coaching aspect.  However, the more and more I started watching these folks videos and reading their posts about their passions and wants, I started to realize that they all have some very common wants and desires that I have. 

My why started out with the desire for accountability in my workouts and a more healthy eating routine. I am a runner, but I never was truly pushing myself. I always said, "we need to eat more healthy!" Which we would for a week or two then it would tail off. So I saw this is a good opportunity to hold myself more accountable.  How was I going to help or motivate someone to eat well and exercise, if I wasn't really doing it myself?? So, Laura and I did a lot of research, and talked and we ultimately decided to join. And we admit, somewhat still skeptical.

As the next week or so went buy and the more and more video's I watched, everyone always stressed to find your "why" for wanting to coach, which I thought I had.  But as I slowly started to realize that my original "why" was only the surface of my real "why."

I am a federal contractor by day, so the nature of my business is fluid and always changing.  However, over the last five years, I have been blessed with being on a long term contract and have not had to worry about job security.  However, over the past 3 or 4 months, I was in job limbo. I was told by my current contract that I could only stay onboard until the end of July (it dragged to the end of August in the end). So, I began looking at the current openings my company had. I started looking in Mid-March....by the end of July, after sending out over 200 resumes, I didn't get one call back or have one interview lined up. I was told that if July 31st came and I had no job lined up, I would be let go. We had just bought a new house (which we love!), I have two kids to help support, and my wife just had finished cancer treatment. I was trying to hide my stress and fear from the kids and Laura, because God knows we have had enough of that over the last few months. I wanted to be the "strong" one that kept things moving along and didn't want to add to the day to day stress on Laura or the kids. I started to think about what the most important thing to me was, and obviously the first thing that jumped out at me was my family. I had spent so much time over the last 4-5 months worrying over losing my job, I forgot to step back and realize, my family is more important that any corporate job. I wanted to be the Dad who dropped his kids off at the bus stop and was there to see them when they were dropped off in the afternoon. I wanted to be the Dad that was able to be at all the practices, recitals, soccer games, gymnastic practices....I didn't want to miss a second of any of it. Like Laura said, with my job being Federal Contracting I was afraid I was going to wake up one day and realize, I spent the last 10-12 years commuting 4.5 + hours a day to and from work and I got home too late to see Jack pitch in a game or I got home to late to watch Emma score her first goal.

My FAMILY is my why. I still want to be held accountable for my workouts, but the big reason I am so excited about this opportunity is because it could give me the chance to LIVE A LIFE OF DESIGN, own my own time, at all hours, not just between the hours of 7:00pm - 6:00am (giving me a whooping 45 minutes with the kids in the evenings.) To be able to help Emma and Jack establish healthy eating habits, by showing them Mommy and Daddy are doing it too. I want to be there to be the loudest most obnoxious parent cheering when Emma scores a goal or Jack strikes out the side (of course when they are pre-teen and teens, I will need to tone that down a bit or they will disown me for embarrassing them!) With the understanding that I am going to need to WORK to accomplish that, that's ok, because its something that I feel strongly about.

So if this sounds familiar to you, and you are interested in joining our team, or even if you are just looking to start writing a new story for you or your family, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to have you join us in our journey.

Tasty Tuesday: Lemon Chicken w/ Avocado-Corn Salsa

It's "Tasty Tuesday"! 

This Tasty Tuesday's recipe comes from one of our new favorite cook books, "Power Foods." We love this cook book as every recipes has at least one or two "power foods". These power foods are things such as berries, nuts, lean protein's and whole grains. The power food in this recipe is the AVOCADO!!  The avocado is full of "good" fats.

This is one of Laura's favorite recipes. It combines avocado, lemon, black beans and chicken. Its light, full of fresh veggies, and has a ton of flavor. This recipes does involve a little more chopping and prep, so make sure to give yourself plenty of time.We usually save this one for one of our weekend dinners since we have some more time.

Now I have to say that this isn't exactly one of the kid's favorite meals. They will eat the chicken because it's pretty simple but our picky eaters won't usually touch the salsa part. This is a great recipe that you can change based on how you like it. For example, we love black beans, so we usually double the black beans and add some extra tomatoes. To make it easier, we also will just bake the chicken sometimes too. We will also use a spring mix instead of arugula sometimes, based on what other meals we have planned for that week (that way we are only buying one type of lettuce for that week).

I usually like to eat this with a side of brown rice where the meal itself is usually enough for Laura. The meal has a very mexican feel, so a side of brown rice rounds out the meal nicely.  I hope you enjoy this as much as we do!!

Lemon Chicken with Avocado - Corn Salsa

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Avocados in the salsa supply a generous portion of monosaturated fat and fiber. If fresh corn is not in season, opt for frozen; it will taste better and have more nutrients than any "fresh" corn in the grocery store.

What You'll Need

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (6-8 ounces a piece)
• 1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice (from 1-2 lemons)
• 2 ears of corn, husks and silks removed (or 1 cup frozen corn kernels)
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped red jalapeno chiles (ribs and seeds removed for less heat, we have also used green jalapenos)
• 2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1/2 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice (from 3-4 limes)
• 10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 2 firm, ripe avocados, halved lengthwise, pitted, peeled, and diced
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
• 4 ounces baby arugula

Directions

Combine chicken with 2 tablespoons each of oil and lemon juice in a shallow baking dish. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 1 - 3 hours, turning once.

Working in a large bowl, stand each ear of corn on its flat end; shave off kernels with a serated knife (to yield about 1 cup total).Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add corn kernels, chiles, and ginger; cook, stirring frequently, until softened, 3-4 mins. Let it cool.

Heat a grill (or grill pan) to medium heat. Grill chicken until lightly browned and cooked through.

Stir together black beans, onion, corn mixture, lime juice, and 1 tablespoon oil. Add tomatoes, avocados, and 1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste); season with pepper, and stir gently to combine.

Toss the arugula with remaining 2 teaspoons each of oil and lemon juice. Divide evenly among plates, and top with chicken and avocado-corn salsa. And enjoy!

To give you an idea of the health side of this dish, a serving breaks down as:

524 calories; 5 g saturated fat; 4 g unsaturated fat; 68 mg cholestrol; 29 g carbohydrates; 34 g protein; 244 mg sodium; 11 g fiber.

Tasty Tuesday: Walnut-Crusted Chicken Breasts

Welcome to our first official "Tasty Tuesday"! 

As part of our new family health journey, Wes and I decided to pick at least one new recipe each week, with the hopes to build a decent list of some new favorite healthy family recipes. Poor Wes, as the chef in the family, he has to please all four of us at the same time, which is not an easy thing to do! So we figured, that if we try something new each week and find more healthy meals that work for all of us, it would be like striking GOLD, so why not share!

With our busy schedules, Sunday's usually end up being the best day for us to try something new, so we figured that we should be able to get our act together enough to post about it by Tuesday. Ergo, Tasty Tuesday! Mostly because that's when we go grocery shopping, plan our meals and have more time to spend in the kitchen if we need it. This first recipe though is definitely one of our favorites and takes very little time to make.

Walnut-Crusted Chicken Breasts

Walnuts add a healthy dose of omega-3 fatty acids to bread crumbs, which keeps the chicken really moist and yummy! Plus, you can convince your kids that these are like chicken fingers or chicken nuggets. If your kids are like ours, and you call it "Walnut-Crusted Chicken" they won't touch it. But if you call it "Nutty Chicken Fingers", it's a different story.  Also, if you bake or roast the chicken, you get a pretty crispy crust without adding extra fat. If you don't have day-old bread, you can just lightly toast some fresh bread to use instead, or Panko bread crumbs (which is what we do most of the time).

What You'll Need

• 2 slices day-old whole-wheat bread/or Panko bread crumbs
• 1/3 cup walnuts
• 2 tablespoons finely grated Parmesan cheese
• Salt and Pepper
• 1 large egg white
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts halves (6 - 8 ounces each)
• 1 tablespoon grapeseed oil
• Lemon slices, for serving

Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a food processor, combine bread, walnuts, Parmesan cheese and 1/4 teaspoon salt; then season with pepper. Transfer that into a shallow bowl.

Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel (this just helps the coating to stick better). Season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper. Dip each chicken breast into the egg white to coat it completely, and let the excess drip off before coating it in the crumb mixture. (We usually press it on to make it stick).

The original recipe said to heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat and cook the chicken until lightly browned on one side, then flip and transfer skillet to the oven. We tried that and it works but to be honest, with two full time jobs and two kids we are all about streamlining the process! So we usually just bake the chicken. Serve with lemon slices if you are trying to be fancy-smancy. Enjoy!

I have to say though, that my favorite part of this meal is that you can use the leftovers for a great salad for lunch the next day!

Big Boy's Room Makeover

As we slowly get settled into the new house, we are turning our attention to at least starting some of the "smaller" projects. Like most parents out there, that means we are making sure the kids are settled and happy first. The easiest room to tackle is probably going to be Jack's room because it already comes complete with chair rail molding and crown molding. Granted the walls need some serious patching before painting, but outside of giving everything a nice fresh coat of paint (including doors) and adding some new door hardware, we have most of what The Squishy needs for his big boy room makeover.

In the old house, his room was probably one of my favorite rooms that we updated. I still would have loved to paint his ceiling and have added some crown molding, but even without that, his room was light and bright and clean and incorporated a lot of nautical items from my family (the life-jacket, the fishing rods hanging over his dresser, the small wooden oar, etc). And frankly, I think it turned out pretty good even though I incorporated some pretty cheap updates (his valences were cut and made from one navy curtain, I made the pictures in PowerPoint, etc).

As you can see on our home projects page, here's what The Squishy's room looks like as of today (there are more pictures on the other page). It's definitely a bit darker then his previous room and even a bit smaller, but big enough to still fit his double bed, dresser and his shelves (which you can't see in the picture below).

Since I loved his old room so much, I really want to stick with the navy blue/orange nautical theme. I think its perfect for a little boy, but also gives him something that he can grow into. Plus, my family pretty much grew up on the water, so it always reminds me of when I was little. I'm planning on using a lot of the same decor too, like his "Work Like A Captain" and "Play Like a Pirate" pictures, his life-jacket, etc.

I had been eying up this Pottery Barn Kids curtains literally since we found out we were having a boy, but I could never really justify the cost. I finally decided though to bite the bullet after three years of stalking them online and figured since we have so many other things that we are reusing, I'd be saving a bunch of money elsewhere. So you don't even know how excited I am to have those babies sitting in the dining room just waiting to be hung.

Since we are pretty big fans of Sherwin Williams paint, and more specifically, their sales that they have all the time, we are heading there this weekend to hit up their big anniversary sale and score some serious paint since this house pretty much needs it on every single surface. We had just missed a sale a few weeks ago but this one was going to be even better, so it sped up the process a bit of us deciding on what to paint.

I think we have narrowed it down to keeping things simple and clean for The Squishy, so we are thinking about just brightening up his room with some crisp white paint. We used Behr's "Frost" pretty much everywhere in our old house, so we are trying to find something similar to that. I've always loved pictures of the wood-planked walls so I'm debating on whether to try something like that in his room as well (but probably a little later down the line). To see how things would all work out, I (very poorly) created a little Inspiration Board for his new big boy room makeover. What do you think?

We hope to get painting shortly and actually have a couple days off of work coming up so we are hoping to knock out The Squishy's and Emma's painting in the next couple of weeks. We will keep you updated on our progress!

Beachbody Coaching: My Why (It's Not What You Think)

I have to say that it didn't take long after signing up as an Independent Beachbody Coach to hear about all of the "whys" from the other coaches. What the surprising thing was, was that I didn't (and still haven't) heard one person talk about money being their "why". Sure, it's a perk that comes along with being a coach, but only if you want it to be and only if you decide to put the work in to try to help others.

What surprised me about most of the "whys" from other Beachbody Coaches was that the majority of them revolved around their hopes and dreams for their family. There was no doubt in my or Wes's mind that this was a good place for us, because a lot of those "whys" that we heard, we could have written ourselves. They were about wanting to spend more time with their family. They were about people wanting to choose a life of design. They were about people not wanting to live a life of complacency, just going through the motions. Wishing away the Monday through Friday work week, to spend a whopping two days out of seven with their family, in between using those two days to get ready for the next Monday through Friday work week.

We were already starting to focus on a new journey for our family because you can't go through something like we went through over the past year and NOT come out with a different view of life. We could have easily just joined with a free coach to help us too, but after truly thinking about our "why", it was like the choice was made for us. I admit, I was completely skeptical, just like most people probably are when they hear about the opportunity of becoming a coach. Part of me didn't even want to entertain the idea because A) I'm busy enough B) how could I help others if I wasn't a health or fitness expert myself and C) I was afraid to admit my "why".

I had a lot of "whys" running through my mind, but there was just something that wasn't sitting right. Almost like an itch that I couldn't scratch. There were so many reasons that I wanted to do this, that didn't have anything to do with money. I wanted to hold myself accountable for sticking with my health and fitness goals for a change. I wanted to make this a transformation for our whole family. I wanted to set a better example for Emma and Jack. I wanted to learn how to help other cancer survivors who were struggling with where to start after treatment. All of those things were 100% true, and still are. But it just felt like something was missing. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

One of the things my coach said to me when I was talking to her about my why, was this...

"They say that "your why" is supposed to make you cry."

And it sure did.

I fully know this sounds crazy to most of you. And especially for our family members that read this blog, probably seems like its out of no where, but just stick with me for a second.

I remembered coming across this post one day, that I couldn't even finish reading. It was called "The Important Thing About Yelling", by Rachel Macy Stafford. I couldn't finish reading it because it just hit too close to home. I chalked it up to the fact that I was going through cancer treatment and that it was okay for me to get frustrated more easily than others. So at the time, I closed the post and went on about my business. But even though I didn't read the whole post, I remembered it, it struck a cord, so I ultimately ended up going back.

If you haven't seen it yourself, the post talks about Rachel "in the midst of her highly distracted life" and how she became a yeller. It wasn't often, but when it happened, she said it was extreme. And it wasn't even about anything big. It was the normal mishaps and typical kid issues and attitudes that irritated her to the point of losing control. Just like what was happening to me.

It wasn't an easy pill to swallow. And for a long time, I avoided trying to even think about it. It was when I started to notice the look on Emma's face after she made an innocent mistake, or spilled some milk. She was afraid of Mommy's reaction. That was a hard thing to watch. Just like Rachel did, I realized that was not the mother that I wanted my kids to grow up with.

After a lot of soul searching and self reflecting, I realized that it all stemmed from just being spread too thin. I was overloaded by to do lists, my inability to say no, my constant need to try chase perfection as a working mom. In the little free time that I had, I was focusing on things that weren't truly important or benefiting my family, like what the Kardashian's posted on Instagram that day, or trying to catch up with some reality TV show.

It was like finally, everything seemed to fit together. Everything I learned about myself, and what I wanted out of life after surviving breast cancer. The goals I had for myself. The things I needed to change about myself to become the mother that I wanted to be. The things I wanted for my family.

Then I thought, well crap. If I become a Beachbody Coach, isn't that just adding to my to do list? Isn't that going to make it worse? Nope. It helped. 1,000 times over. It helped.

It helped me focus on what is TRULY important in life. And guess what. It's not what the Kardashian's posted on Instagram. It helped me to realize that I need to slow down. It was something that Wes and I could focus on together, for our family. The personal development that comes along with being a coach has been invaluable. I don't claim to have all the answers, and I probably never will. I don't yet know exactly where this new journey will lead us, but it feels so incredibly good to be so focused on something healthy for our family.

Obviously as a parent of a five year old and a three year old there are going to be frustrating days. I will never claim to be Mary Sunshine every single day. But I have made the CHOICE to become more aware of my reactions and get those non-value added things out of my life. And you know what? It's working. I can see the change in Emma. I can see the change in myself. Like Rachel says, "The important thing is ... life is too short to get upset over spilled cereal and misplaced shoes."

So if you ever run into a Beachbody Coach. Don't assume they are in it for the money. Don't assume its a get rich quick scheme. Ask them what their "why" is, and I think you'll be surprised.

For me, my why is my family. My why is learning how to TRULY focus on what is important in life. My why is learning how to slow life down, before I wake up one day and Emma and Jack are in college, and I regret yelling at them over spilled milk every day. My why is putting my story out there, no matter how vulnerable it makes me, or how scared I am of people's reactions. My why is sharing my journey as a cancer survivor, to hopefully help others who also feel like they got dropped off a cliff after treatment. My why is learning how to teach my kids to make good decisions for their body's.

If this sounds familiar to you, and you are interested in joining our team, or even if you just are looking to start writing a new story for you or your family, don't hesitate. Take it from Rachel, no matter what happened yesterday, today is a new day.