News and New Things We’re Loving #14

Check out the new products and things I’ve been trying over at The Fit Cookie, like Vitargo, Yuni, my ACE health coaching program, and a new chore chart

Disclosure: some of the items included in this post were provided to me for free (ACE Fitness, Yuni, Smarty Pants vitamins, and The Power of the Other book) or at a discount (TribeTats). This post also contains an affiliate link for Yuni Beauty

Hey, friends! It’s time for another News and New Things post to share what stuff I have been using and things I have been doing lately. I don’t have a lot of food items in this post since I haven’t tried out any crazy new food things lately.

Except for one or two, but I have a pretty bad allergic reaction to it (more on that in a later post). I have never had an allergic reaction quite that bad before, so I’m heading to an allergist in May to get checked out. I have been to an allergist several times, but I need more help.

I don’t understand what’s going on with my body sometimes! Life’s funny and frustrating, but that’s what makes it interesting I guess 🙂

My sprint triathlon is coming up in a few weeks! I feel ready for this since I have been really working on my swimming and it has improved a lot. Well, my technique has improved but not sure about my speed… I’m slow haha! I haven’t been doing much by way of speedwork or HIIT intervals so I don’t know that my speed will improve much. I am hoping to get a better time than 2014!

The last time I did the triathlon I didn’t have a good suit, so this time I got an actually triathlon outfit since I would like to continue doing this. I got a great deal on a Pearl Izumi tri top and tri shorts from Sierra Trading Post.

It’s not meant to be worn in chlorinated pools (the swim is in a pool), but it should be fine if I do that just a few times just for the triathlon, I won’t practice swimming in this outfit. It’s probably going to be chilly again, so I’ll pull on my warm running top and leggings over it when I transition. The last time I was freezing during the bike ride even though I was working hard! Hopefully the weather is good this year.

I also got the new book The YogaFit Athlete that I’m excited to read! I’ve been reading the YogaFit manual in preparation for getting certified in May, so this will be a nice addition to my reading. After I get yoga certified next month I’ll be transitioning my classes from a PiYo format to a yoga format and I’ll mix in my favorite things about my PiYo classes (creating my own playlists and flows of course).

Health Coach Certification

I’m partnering with ACE Fitness on my blog and I’m working on getting certified to become a health coach! ACE Fitness is providing me with the health coach program as part of their partnership with me, so I have been busy working on studying for this.

I really enjoy studying and learning more, and the curriculum so far has been excellent! I’m looking forward to completing the program and adding the knowledge to my personal training and creating some new health coaching programs. I’m learning tons already! So much information to learn through this book, hopefully I can remember all of it 🙂

TribeTats

I got some fun and pretty motivational temporary tattoos from TribeTats! TribeTats gave sent me some tattoos to try out and share, so I picked the scripts collection. These will come in handy for a little motivation when I’m working out, plus they are classy looking and can add some sparkle to an outfit 🙂

The Power of the Other book

Vitargo

I bought some Vitargo as a carb supplement to try out and see if I could mix it with my post-workout protein shake. I checked to see if barley amylopectin was low-FODMAP (this product is certified gluten-free), but I couldn’t find anything about it online, so I decided to give it a shot and see how my body would handle it.

I mixed half a packet with some cashew milk alone to see how my body would handle it, and it must be high-FODMAP (which I had a suspicion it was) since I had intestinal cramping for a couple days. Not good.

I only ordered 3 sample packets to try out so I’m going to give the rest to my husband since he should be able to have it. But for anyone out there who is curious, Vitargo is gluten-free but is not low-FODMAP and if you have IBS I would avoid it. It says “no bloat” but that’s probably for the average person and not for someone on a low-FODMAP diet.

Chore chart

I finally decided on a chore chart system for my kids! We have tried a few things and haven’t had a ton of luck sticking with things, but I got this idea from Monica Swanson’s blog and decided to give it a whirl. Things are divided daily and weekly, then rotating chores.

Now that we have a solid list set up and written down, our kids are a bit more serious about getting their daily chores done. Yay! I’m pretty flexible with things, though, since my kids also have after school activities like soccer, music, volleyball, etc. so we do a lot of the deeper cleaning on the weekends.

Yuni

Yuni sent me a pack of their popular products since I am an ambassador and affiliate for them now! I personally love the shower sheets – they are in my gym bag and I use them if I have to train right after teaching a fitness class and they help tame the sweat a bit until I can get a shower. The Yuni products are natural and have aromatherapy properties. Pretty amazing! The lotions and moisturizers are really nice 🙂