My children

Carly my oldest, MaKenna the youngest, Lady Dog & Roscoe boy


I'm going to get on a soap box here.

I absolutely love my dogs. I love them like I love my daughters. Both Lady & Roscoe are rescue dogs from the cell dog program. I highly recommend the cell dog program if you are looking to adopt a dog. Please save a dog's life and adopt, do not shop for a dog. Rescue's and shelters are over flowing with dogs that need homes.

But please if your going to have a pet treat them with love and respect. Do unto them as you would your children or as you would want done to you. Do not tie your dog up outside and leave them for hours on end. Do not put them in the back yard and leave them there. If your going to have a pet, do so because you want to enjoy their company and have them as a part of your life. Let them share the comforts of the inside of your home. If you do not want to share the inside comforts of your home do NOT become a pet owner. Dogs are domestic animals. They are not wild animals meant to live outside in the heat and cold.

If you need help with bringing your outside pet inside please contact me and I will help you find a trainer to work with.

Before & After

For those that haven't seen them. Here are my Power 90 & P90X before and after pics. I do plan on posting a current before & after pic from Les Mills Pump when I finish.

People surprise me

Since starting my health & fitness journey in May 2010 I have been surprised over and over again by how some people react to the things I am doing in my life. Initially in my journey I had people telling me I didn't need to lose any more weight after I had just lost 20 lbs. People discouraging me from trying to lose more weight and meet my goal of 50lbs. This completely surprised me that people would actually try to talk me out of weight loss. WTF???
But I tightened my circle and moved on. Met my goals. Made new goals and kept moving forward.

But I must admit that when I decided to go vegan I was VERY surprised when people tried to talk me out of that also. Seriously who the hell are they to tell me what I should and should eat? And how in the hell is it effecting them that I don't eat animal product anymore. Come on people, worry about what's on YOUR plate not mine. I have decided though that when people say to me "OH your vegan, make sure you eat enough protein!" I am going to reply with "Oh your omnivore, make sure you eat enough fruit & veggies!"

By now I should NOT be surprised at the things people say. I should not be surprised when people think what I am doing in my life dramatically effects their life.

So WHY is it that I was once again surprised when people felt my family's decision to move was something that maybe I should have discussed with them first? REALLY???? This is when I want to say "I know this is a hard concept to grasp but my family is doing what we believe is in OUR best interest. We are not thinking about YOU!"

I currently can not discuss to much about our decision to move, but as soon as I can. I will blog about this like crazy. In the meantime please bare with me and know that this decision is one that has been in the planning process for TWO years. We did not make this decision over night. I am just now leaking more details and maybe I shouldn't have until.

I do not want to end this blog post on a negative so let's talk about something positive. JUICING!!! If you haven't tried making your own fresh juice I suggest you buy a cheap $30 juicer from Wal-Mart and give it a try. You will never buy store OJ again. To start with juicing try a simple recipe such as 1 orange and enough carrots to fill the cup to 10oz. When your ready try some green juices which contain fruits and spinach or kale.

That's it for tonight peeps. Eat an orange and keep smiling;)

Fitness journey

So far I've talk a lot about my vegan lifestyle and I haven't mentioned much about exercise. Don't you worry though. I exercise 6 days a week! Matter in fact my health and fitness journey started with exercise alone. Back in May 2010 my husband Dan and I start Power 90. A workout program put out by Beachbody. It is the program you do if you aren't ready for P90X, LOL. Which at that time we were NOT ready for P90X and had we started our fitness journey with such a extreme workout program we probably would not have stuck with it. Power 90 was a great starting program. I lost 30 lbs in 90 days with the program. But my goal was to lose 50 lbs. So after I completed Power 90 I moved on to P90X. After 90 days of extreme boot camp style workouts I had lost 22 lbs. I was in the best shape of my life.

Not only had I hit my goal weight but I was a size 6! Seriously I hadn't been a size 6 since high school. I knew I had found one key to weight loss success. Exercise programs that contain cardio AND WEIGHT TRAINING!

After finishing P90X I started a hybrid of Insanity and P90X. 13 days into my hybrid I fell and broke my right foot. Not even gonna lie....I was freaking the hell out at first. I was scared to death that I would gain all my weight back while my foot healed. But the day after I broke my foot I woke up and realized that only my foot was broken. Not my whole body. I could modify P90X and still be able to workout during my healing process. I had to put Insanity off since that is pure cardio with crazy jump training. But for 6 weeks I modified and pushed myself 6 days a week and continued on with the P90X schedule. When I went back to see my Dr at 6 weeks he was absolutely amazed at how quickly I had healed. He thought for sure I would be in my boot until week 8 and said I would not be able to put pressure on my foot until week 10. He was WRONG! Not only was I out of my boot by week 6 but I was able to apply pressure on my foot also. Nothing was going to stop me on my fitness journey. Not even a broken foot;)
I finished round 2 of P90X and then started TurboFire. One month after starting TurboFire I decided I wanted more weight training and started doing Chalean Extreme along with TurboFire. By the end of TurboFire I was down to 18% body fat. In case your not sure, 18% body fat is REALLY good for a woman. Average is 20-22%
I finished 2011 with Insanity and round 3 of P90X.

Currently I am doing Beachbody's Les Mills Pump. I'm in complete love with this fitness program. I am only starting week 4 now and already I see changes. I have a hard time actually taking my scheduled rest days with this program because I love it so much. If you love Les Mills Body Pump you will LOVE LOVE LOVE Beachbody Les Mills Pump. If you want information on any beachbody program I have mentioned please ask. I became a beachbody coach January 2011 and have been helping people with their fitness journey's ever since.
You can also check out my beachbody website at
www.beachbodycoach.com/charitynr

Now that I have everyone caught up on my fitness journey we can just continue forward.
My current fitness goals are to lose 8 lbs that I gained over the fall. Then I would like to lost an additional 10 lbs. Not looking to get ripped. Just a little leaner.

What do I eat?

Lots of people ask me what I eat now that I am vegan. Some days I'm feeling a little frisky so I give a smart ass answer like fruits, veggies & grains. But I know what they are really asking is how do I prepare the fruits, veggies & grains. First let me confess, I am a LAZY cook. It has to be super easy & quick. Nothing complicated or I just don't want to do it. Preferably 10 ingredients or less because again I am LAZY. I don't really enjoy cooking. So if your looking for some amazing vegan recipes you will be sad because I have none. BUT I have a friend who is an amazing vegan cook. You can visit her blog at https://unlikelyveganfamily.wordpress.com/
I start every day pretty much the same way. Oatmeal with chia seeds, banana, 2 dates and some cinnamon. Glass of unsweetened original almond milk. I eat roughly every two-three hours. Many of my snacks are green smoothies or juices. Smoothies are yummy and it is a great way for me to get in spinach and avocado every day. Green juice is great because I am able to consume juices from produce that I normally would not eat alone. For example kale, lemons, grapefruits, parsley and celery. I have a great green juice recipe that taste good and gets lots of micro nutrients from the produce used.
I make homemade soups for lunch a lot or quinoa with red peppers and black beans. Actually I eat a lot of beans because I like them and they are filling. Hummus is great as a sandwich spread. I don't really consume a lot of bread. But I do like the sprouted grain English muffins by Ezekiel. Let's see what else do I eat a lot of? Salads, baked sweet potato's. Occasionally tempeh (not a huge fan)

Seriously people I do not get fancy with my meals at all. Let's remember this IS only day 18 of being a vegan. I am sure as this journey continues I will learn to cook more stuff and get fancier.

So there ya have it. My lazy eating habits. Not very exciting right? LOL

Why Vegan!?!

Today I am going to focus my post on why I decided to go the vegan lifestyle route. It's still a new lifestyle for me. I believe today is day 17. I have been playing around with so many different diet's in the past year. Now when I say diet I mean as in what I eat, not being on a diet. I don't actually believe anyone should be on diet. That is a temporary fix. You want something permanent then you need to be willing to make a diet change for good.
Back in the spring of 2011 I hit a plateau with my weight loss. Lots of people were telling me "Your not getting enough protein" and "Your eating to many carbs". I tried supplementing my diet with protein poweders, protein bars, protein puddings. I ate chicken until I thought I was going to grow wings and start clucking. I had almost stopped eating fruit all together because I was told the natural sugar in it was contributing to my weight gain. That's right folks. Weight GAIN. I was eating all this protein and I started to gain weight. Then I cut out a lot of my fruits and still kept gaining weight. Not only was I gaining weight, but my mental health was in the one of the darkest places it has been in a very long time. I was tired all the time. Felt like shit! Was in a bad mood pretty much every day and just over all pissed off at the world.

A friend of mine had decided to do this 30 day vegan challenge. He decided pretty early into the challenge that vegan was the way to go for him. Ever since he made that decision he has been dropping hints that I should try it also. He kept saying "You don't need all that protein". I kept ignoring him.

Then the week after Christmas I watched the movies Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead; Food Matters; Forks over Knives. After watching those 3 movies I decided why not give it a try for 7 days. See if I could actually give up animal products.

By the 2nd day I was already feeling the results of giving up animal products. I had this amazing energy. 3rd and 4th day I actually woke up before the alarm with an amazing amount of energy and feeling happy, ready for the day. BTW- I never wake up before the alarm. I am not a morning person at all and usually wake up very grouchy. The amazing amount of energy was not the only thing I noticed though. What really amazed me was how I felt mentally. It was like someone flipped a switch in my brain. I went from being sad, depressed and angry to happy, positive and patient. I had this mental clarity that I hadn't had in so long I almost forgot what it felt like. By day 4 I knew I would be continuing on the vegan path. If for no other reason then because I like being happy and having a positive outlook on life. I do truly believe that something in animal products makes me depressed and angry. There is no other answer. The only thing that changed was I went vegan and became happy. Go figure! The health benefits are just an additional plus for me.

I am the only one in my family that is vegan. My husband and daughters still eat animal products. I would love for them to make the switch also, but they have to make that decision for themselves. However I do not buy any junk food anymore. What is currently in the cabinet has been there since I made the switch. Now that our kitchen is stocked full of fruits my family on their own is choosing to eat fruit as a snack instead of the junk food. Eventually I will just toss it out as they continue to forget about it.

So there you have it. My reason for going vegan. Mental happiness.

Welcome!

First official personal blog post. I have no idea how many people are actually going to want to read this, but it is better then using fb as my personal diary. First things first...if you are offended by offensive language you probably do not want to subscribe to this blog. I'll do my best to keep my 4 letter words under control, but for heaven's sake this is ME we're talking about.

Speaking of me, I guess I should intro myself for those who don't really know me.

My name is Charity Reed and I am a wife, mother of 2 daughers, mother of 2 dog's, certified professional photographer, owner of Times of Life Photography, Beachbody coach and fitness freak. Above you will see our most recent family portrait.

The purpose of my personal blog is to let people in on my life as a fitness freak, a new vegan, and my relocation as it happens. I hope this will be a great way for me to keep people up to date on all that is going on in my life. If you have questions or comments. Or you want me to discuss something specific just ask:)

As I mentioned before I am a new vegan. Just started my journey on January 2nd, 2012. I am still learning as I go. But I can tell you, I feel AMAZING since making the change. I'll get into more detail of that as the blog continues. But for now welcome to my personal online diary titled Faith, Hope & Charity.