The 30 Day Jumpstart Program starts January 8th. Click HERE for more info!

If you want to work with me privately, click HERE to fill out the assessment form.

For more info, click here.

We video tape workouts, record positive affirmations, create your own personal and powerful mantra, schedule, workout, and food tips.

Fill out a client assessment form HERE if you’re interested in seeing if this is right for you.

This program is 100% customized and personalized. Check out what a couple of my clients had to say about their experience!

Interested? Fill out a client assessment form HERE if you’re interested in seeing if this is right for you.

David Bakke is a regular contributor for Money Crashers Personal Finance, a top resource for all things money management.

David says:

For years, I let my finances run me, and they sure did a good job of it – to the tune of about $30,000 in credit card debt. When the stress and strain became too much to bear, I vowed to turn things around. Although I didn’t really know where to begin, I knew the most important thing was that it happen now. As it turned out, just getting started was the hardest part. After that, things were much easier than expected.

Here are four tips to make you master of your financial domain:

1. Create a Budget
This is a critical first step, as you can’t manage your money until you know how much you have and how much you spend. To make a budget, get a sheet of paper, and on the left hand side write down monthly income from all sources. On the right, write down your monthly bills.

Go through them strategically. Start with credit card payments and fixed expenses such as cell phone, Internet, and cable or satellite TV, and include estimates for variable expenses. Don’t forget to factor in a monthly amount for big-ticket expenses like auto or homeowner’s insurance, even if you pay those annually. Once you see how far apart your bills are from your inflow, you can take action.

2. Eliminate Credit Card Debt
Carrying a balance on your cards is just silly. Truth be told, you’ll never have full control over your finances until all credit card debt is gone from your life. To see how long this will take with various payment scenarios, there are plenty of online calculators available. Say you’re $5,000 in the hole and paying an average 14% APR. With a $300 monthly payment, you can be out of debt in 19 months. Bumping that payment up to $400 has you debt free five months earlier. And in the meantime, pay cash for everything.

3. Impact Monthly Bills
Competition is intense in the cell phone, Internet, and TV industries. Get out your monthly statements, do a quick Internet search, and see if you can save money by switching providers. And since you’re likely already paying for a nationwide cell phone plan, consider eliminating your landline. To save on utilities, simply use them less. Take shorter showers, turn off appliances when not in use, install low-flow toilets and showerheads, seal up drafts, and so on. Most of this is DIY home maintenance. And if you haven’t been doing so, start clipping coupons – it makes a huge difference in your monthly outlay.

4. Establish an Emergency Fund
Do the aforementioned, and you should start to see an uptick in your cash flow. Now, you have to do something smart with that extra money. Start putting some of the savings you’ve reaped into an emergency fund to help with unexpected needs. Shoot for at least six months’ worth of living expenses, but don’t panic if you don’t get there right away. Once again, the most important part is just to start. With a little luck, you’ll have the funds built up before your next emergency hits – if it ever hits.

Final Thoughts
None of these steps requires any sort of rocket science, intense financial planning, or major sacrifice. And you will start seeing benefits almost immediately. Before you know it, you’ll be in charge of your finances instead of the other way around.

What other ways are there to take control of your finances?

Here I am happily playing volleyball earlier this week:

When I realized how hobby-less I had become, I was shocked. Had I lost part of myself while living my life? Apparently so. How did I manage to forego so many of my hobbies, and not realize it until 5 years later?

Has this happened to you? You decided to focus so intensely on one area of your life, and suddenly you step back and say, “Wow, what have I done?! Where are my hobbies?”

For many years I’ve bowed out of extracuriculars for multiple reasons – the biggest one being “Why should I make time for something that is not advancing my career or enhancing my familial relationships or friendships?” But now, I see the light. I understand why these hobbies of mine were so important, and ARE so important.

They are important because they are something fun to look forward to; they are something that can be taken seriously but really don’t have to be. They are an outlet and serve as a bump along an otherwise smooth, and even predictable, road that makes up our daily life.

Although it is a slow process for me, I am excitedly beginning to re-connect with some of my old hobbies, and who knows, maybe even adjusting my schedule to accommodate them!

Do you have any stories to share? I’d love to hear in the comments below.

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We did a lot of “Bootcamp” style exercises, and it was SO effective! Check out this guest post from my friend Adrian – really good info for experienced bootcampers AND newbies!

Back-to-Basics:  Boot Camp Gets Results

One of the more popular trends in fitness today is boot camp style workouts.  These workouts, which originated from army boot camp drills, include a combination of endurance and resistance exercises.  Boot camp classes are a back-to-basics exercise program, requiring little space and little equipment, yet they get results.  Many of the basic exercises–push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, squats–use only your body weight as resistance.  Yet these provide a total body workout in an atmosphere of competitive camaraderie. The purpose of a boot camp workout is to push yourself to your limits and achieve significant fitness gains in a short amount of time.

What to Expect

While a training camp workout typically includes an outdoor obstacle course, many boot camp classes held in fitness facilities include indoor obstacles like jumping or hopping rings or ladder rungs on the floor, climbing ropes or dragging or swinging heavy ropes.  You can expect to do lots of push-ups and pull-ups, but also some moves with light dumbbells like shoulder raises, bicep curls and tricep extensions.  Besides sit-ups, you can expect to do other core strengthening exercises like planks.  Lower body exercises may include jumping squats or plyometrics.  Aerobic intervals are interspersed throughout the class and may include jumping jacks, jumping rope, squat thrusts, or kick-boxing moves.  Each fitness instructor may present variations for their boot camp class, but you can expect to sweat, to be challenged and to get stronger, leaner, and more confident!

Who Can Do Boot Camp

While you should be in good health, you don’t have to already be fit in order to benefit from a boot camp class.  A good fitness instructor will provide modifications for beginners, so that you can exercise safely and progress at your pace.   If you are a teen or an older adult, look for boot camp classes targeted for your particular group.  As with any exercise regimen, check with your doctor if you have any limiting health conditions before you begin.

Guest Blogger Adrian Dunn is an American College of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer, Wellness Coach, and Fitness Coach for Everyday Health (http://www.everydayhealth.com/calorie-counter.aspx) and its calorie counter.

As you can imagine, I was a little bit shocked, pretty happy, and also very humbled. I was honored to have impacted them so much that they felt the need to say “hello”!

Without further ado, here we are all together:
Of course, I couldn’t help but give them a Step It Up with Steph tip while we were at the bar – make sure you drink a glass of water after that drink!

Back to compliments. Compliments can be double-edge swords. If you base your self-worth on compliments, i.e. if all I wanted were for people to come up to me and tell me, “Good job!” or praise me, we’d have a problem. Similarly, if I was unable to graciously accept a compliment and say, “Oh please, it was nothing, ” I am stealing the excitement from the compliment-giver.

I need to be a gracious compliment receiver in order to accept the gift of the compliment, and therefore make the compliment giver feel good about saying something nice.

On the other hand, if I based my self-worth on receiving compliments, I would never feel a sense of inner peace and inner-validation. Internal validation and motivation are much more long-lasting than external forces. While you may be motivated by words of praise after losing weight or becoming more in shape, eventually your motivation needs to come from inside in order for you to have a good sense of self worth and also have consistent motivation.

What do you think? You can leave a comment below and we can discuss!

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Check out my fabulous security guard from my building – we talk about being healthy and fit all the time. And, he whipped out this bag of hard boiled eggs from his jacket pocket! How cool is that! All it takes is a little planning.

When I was visiting my sister at Harvard, I ate dorm food with her. There was a delicious veggie soup, so I decided to add in an extra serving of broccoli. A great source of fiber and a nutritious veggie. While I do not recommend “scarfing” food, I was able to eat this bowl of veggies in under 3 minutes as we were in a rush. It was pre-made and quick to eat.

This is how I work with my clients – we take a look at their daily life and see what is realistic for them. Here are some snack options:

• Pre-peeled and packed hard boiled eggs. Make 12 at the beginning of the week and peel them the morning you take them to work.
• Pre-made bean & veggie dip with corn shells for tacos. Mix together a can of beans, corn, salsa, and raw kale. Bring this mixture to work with a few corn tortilla taco shells. You’ve got a healthy taco in less than 30 seconds, with barely any prep time.
• Nuts. Make your own single-serving bag or buy them pre-packed from the grocery store. Look out for any added ingredients and try to stay as simple as possible. You can even mix in some baked kale with your nuts and keep them in the fridge!
• Celery and almond butter. Cut a stick of celery in half, and smear almond butter onto each half. Place in a bag and bring with you on the go.

Do you have any other snack ideas? Let me know by leaving a comment below!

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As promised, I’m sharing with you more pics from my visit with my littlest sister last weekend:

Can you believe that she’s 8 years younger than me?!

Today I’m talking about what I believe to be the #1 key to success. I shared this story with my sister, Christine, after we had almost magically been escorted into Fenway for the Red Sox baseball game, for free, about 15 rows up from 3rd base, with no tickets. Yes, you read that right:

How did this happen? After arriving well into the 2nd inning, we began scalping tickets. We got a guy to go down from $80 for 2 to $40 for 2, but I was only willing to pay $25 for two. (Cheap, I know, but I have done this before at similar games, and it works.) Amidst looking for tickets, a few people selling hats and shirts outside of the stadium invite us over. We start chatting, and the group tells one of the guys to do us a favor. Before we know it, we are being escorted through a souvenir shop and told to go find a seat.

Wait, what? We had no tickets, and walked into the game completely free. We then found seats 15 rows up from 3rd base and had a great time!

My sister asked, “Stephanie, HOW did we do this? How were you so confident? I was getting nervous that there wouldn’t be tickets!”

I explained to her the #1 key to success: Believing that you already have it. Knowing and feeling that you’ve already got what you want. Not having a plan B. For me, there was no other option – there was no way I wasn’t getting into the game.

Similarly, the next day I had no idea where my sister’s class was. But, I decided to find a way to surprise her outside of it. After asking some random people questions, I went on a hunt. I found her bike, and surprised her in her class.

Another example of this is when we weren’t on the “list” to get into an ultra exclusive “finals club” on campus. I’m not one to get turned away – I knew we’d get in, somehow. Sure enough, here we are:

What does all of this have to do with our everyday health & fitness, or our everyday happiness, or even our lifetime successes?

Our minds and our beliefs are SO powerful – what you think really is what you get. What you see, from your eyes, is what the world is. Your perception is your reality. The problem is not only understanding this, but also recognizing and then changing your thoughts and behaviors to align with what success means to you.

If you have no other option but to succeed, you will succeed. The question is, are you mentally ready? Let me know what you think about this by leaving a comment below.

Last call: 1 more space left in my 3 month Diamond Program! Fill out a client assessment form here ASAP if you’re interested!

And if you like what I have to say, make sure you are on the list for email updates:

BTW – 1 more space left in my 3 month Diamond Program! Fill out a client assessment form here ASAP if you’re interested!

Last weekend I visited my littlest sister who lives in Boston and attends Harvard. Even though I did go to a great academic school, the University of Michigan, I’m proud to say that my little sister has indeed shown me up in the world of academics! Go Christine! In an attempt to “be more like her when I grow up”, here’s a pic of me going for the intellectual look:

Someone once told me that there’s no such thing as luck. Rather, luck is when Preparation meets Opportunity. Let that sink in for a minute. What does that mean, exactly? Well, when you are prepared for something, and an opportunity arises, you are in luck. You are lucky. You have good luck.

Take this picture of my sister for example:

She has pens that color-code her week. On Monday she uses a black pen, Tuesday a blue one, etc. She has set up a system to prepare her for opportunities that test her intelligence, such as tests, exams, and even open-book exams where thanks to her color-coding, she’ll be better able to find her notes because they will be organized by day and lecture.

This relates to our bodies, too. How many people see an attractive, in-shape woman and think: Wow, she’s lucky. Or, how many times have you said, “She’s so lucky. She has it all.”

Let’s say, for example, that you just feel unlucky because you have tried a bunch of diets, and none of them have worked for you. But you know countless people who have tried the same diets and they work! So, you assume that they must just be lucky, and you’re not so lucky. When really, what’s actually going on is that they are prepared, in one capacity or another, better than you are for the opportunity of this particular diet.

(How many people in this lecture at Harvard do you think were prepared to seize the opportunity to soak in all the professor had to offer?)

They are prepared mentally, physically, emotionally, and socially for the opportunity that the diet (or in this case, the lecture) presents. The problem therefore isn’t that you aren’t lucky; it’s that you’re not prepared for the opportunity or the opportunity isn’t right for you at that time.

There’s another saying that goes, “When the student arrives, the teacher appears.” In other words, when you are ready to learn, when you’re ready to change, when you’re ready to grow, and when you’re prepared to take that next step, the opportunity and the teacher will appear.

What’s the #1 key to having better “luck”? Being prepared for the opportunities that you want to take advantage of and that will make you feel “lucky”.

Have any comments to share? Leave them below!

P.S. I have 1 more space left in my 3 month Diamond Program! Fill out a client assessment form here ASAP if you’re interested!

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