Day after day I see it happen - couples, at the gym. Couples at the gym training each other. Couples motivating each other. Couples dominating each other. Couples fighting with each other. Listen, before you get it in your head that this is a post bashing the couples, just read on please. It is neither bashing or condoning, but rather my observations over the years as a trainer, gym-goer, and coupled partner at one point myself.

WORKING OUT TOGETHER VS. "TOGETHER"
           Going to the gym together as a couple can be fun, exciting, adventurous, maybe even little naughty feeling. But before you go workout together consider a few of things. 

1. Together doesn't mean "together joined at the hip".  I get it, you want to be near each other, hold hands, support, kiss between reps and have fun like the Instagram fit couples with the hashtag of #fitcouplegoals. But, doing the exact same workout, which I see far too often, is not always a good idea. For one, men and women are structured differently in their bodies because we are made for different things. We have different functions in life, different centers of gravity, and different bone structures. While we all need squats  we do not all need to do squats the exact same way. We have different goals, different visions for ourselves therefore we should be treated differently. Likewise, just because you are a couple does not mean that you HAVE to EAT the same things, go places together constantly, do the same activities, or have the same exact circle of friends. You are two different people, eat differently, lift differently, motivate one another, support one another. Your bodily chemistry is not the same as anyone else's on this planet. 
2. Gym time should be "Me Time". What do I mean by this? When you go to the gym your overall goal is more likely than not, to be healthy and fit. When you exercise it can be very beneficial to have a partner to spot you or motivate you to help lift the weight, couples even benefit hormonally from working out together. But what happens when you get to focus on the weight? When you don't have the distraction of another person there? What if you were able to actually work on your body the way that you need to without your significant other standing directly behind or next to you during your lift to make sure someone across the room knows who you belong to? I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this in my own gym with the same three couples over and over and over again. Please stop, it's very creepy and it makes me feel so sorry for your partner. When you go to the gym, go together and workout separately. Take the time away from each other to work on, and have a relationship with, yourself. It will better strengthen the one you have with your partner in the long run and the present. 
3. Vibenomics. ​What is "vibenomics", this is a term a former boss of mine liked to use to describe how our energies and moods impact those around us. If you are a couple at a gym and you end up with tension between you due to a privately quiet argument, you can guarantee those around you will become uncomfortable and can not only see but feel the tension between you two. Hormones change and release with mood, so if you go from busting out reps at the gym to stopping to argue or get in a heated discussion, not only are you changing your own vibes but the vibes you are putting out. Those are going to make the vibes of the folks around you change as well. 
4. Mindfulness. This is something I see often as well, couples not giving AF about anyone around them. Really this one goes for A LOT of gym goers, but when it appears you're doing it "as a team," it is easier to spot and all to easy to focus negativity towards. Again, we all get it, you want to be near each other. Come in the gym and support WHILE you work. When you sit there and mess around with each other in the gym you are hindering those around you who possibly need to use the equipment you're on. The gym is a place for working, improving, and healing and those who go have different reasons for going. So please be mindful of those around you when exercising in a public facility. Or allow someone to jump in with you, it never hurts to share. Then you can play kiss face after. 
5. What is the gym to you? I ask this often and generally get the same answer, it's just the gym. Can I tell you that you are wrong? The gym is place you go to heal, to learn about yourself and the body that carries you. If you are going to be a couple in the gym, grow together in this if you are going to workout together. The gym should be seen as a safe place for individuals to go where they can work on their ailments, issues, frustrations, learn, relax, be guided to better a better body, lifestyle, habits, and even mindset. If you want to be that fit couple in the gym that everyone adores, do these things. 
6. Trust. This is one I see every single day. Ladies, we are the worst at this, stop dogging a woman who is working out or even WALKING by you and your man. Pointer tip for couples, if you can't trust one another to be twenty feet away and around a stranger then you have no business being together. This touches back on the "Me Time" point. It is a trust issue within yourself most time unless your partner has done something to invoke that thought for you. Don't bring this into the gym, it is so acutely uncomfortable to see a woman glare at you and cling onto their mans arm when you are just trying to do your thing. Some people are in the gym people watching while they workout. This does not mean they are scoping for their next heartthrob. 

     So my point here is simply this, if you are going to the gym as a couple joined at the hip and determined to push each other that is great! However, be mindful, stay focused, remember that it is okay to let your partner focus on something other than you. You're in the gym, not the wild where you need to protect them. 

         Last week I got to meet up with RayRay of Lonestar Dance here in Austin, TX to talk about dance, ballet, and the difficulties and challenges he has faced over the years to get to where he is now. Something that RayRay and I got to briefly discuss was the importance of the fact that ballet, and dance in general, are for the body and mind. So I wanted to take a somewhat deeper look into the subject being a dancer since childhood myself. To see my full duscussion with RayRay, click here.


VITAL BENEFITS 
             Yes, I understand that ballet may not sound like everyone's cup of tea. But let me tell you something, there are some things in this world that are in fact GOOD FOR EVERYONE. Activity and movement, are one of those things, and ballet is something that is vital in aiding everyday tasks and movements of the body. Here is how: 

• For starters, ballet betters your posture. There is a lot of attention needed to the body and how you are aligned and how you move when you are dancing ballet (any form of dance or athleticism really). You end up, over time, developing a relationship with each and every muscle in the body as you practice and progress through the stages of ballet. Ballet affects our sensorimotor skills through practice, this has even been show to affect the way we walk. 
• Gain balance, flexibility, and even strength. Because ballet is very much a combination of pilates and endurance training the body is in a constant state of change and motion during ballet. You use your entire core when you dance or practice ballet. When I say core I mean more than just your abdomen, I mean all the muscles on the inside of your legs down to the big toe and all the way up to the neck. The core means your entire center is being utilized and engaged. Over time from practice you gain strength by standing on the balls of your feet, using plyometrics to bound and leap into the air. Stability and balance from paying attention to how every muscle works to hold you up and work with you instead of against you. 
• Ballet, well staying active in generally, helps ward off dementia and sharpens the brains abilities, lessens brain fog and heightens your cognitive functioning. Your brain is forced to work together with your body to achieve proper posture in ballet, therefore you are also exercising your mind. 
• Ballet, or any form of dancing, is a wonderful stress relief. Any time you are active your body releases hormones that naturally make you happy, aide in the muscle building and recovery process, and even hormones that make you hungry. So don't be afraid to dance a little after a long day at the office, smile and snack! 
• Ballet increases your bodies ability to metabolize nutrients and food. From constant motion to contracting your muscles in a leg lift as you hold for ten seconds at a time, your body is going to boost into overdrive and tap into your fat stores if you aren't properly nourished before you get active. That is not to say this is a bad thing, most of us want to boost our metabolism and burn more fat while we get sexy in the process, this is to say that is exactly what dance and exercise will do for you. 

     We gain so much from being mobile, strong immune system, happier days, better personal connections between people, better understanding of our own bodies. The list goes on, and on. You can sit here and read this, and then tell yourself that you could never because you can't dance. But here is the thing, any given dancer couldn't dance either - before they became dancers. WE ARE NOT BORN INTO THESE ABILITIES, THEY ARE GAINED THROUGH PRACTICE.  Which means that if you want to dance, then do it. It is good for you, feel the music, feel the beats. The energy that flows through you when you dance is your body's way of saying "Hey wow! This feels good, let's move more!" 

     Our bodies were designed for activity and movement, if they weren't we would not have such a strong and stable structure. Each and every one of us. If you have not tried some form of a dance class, whether you are male or female or any other configuration of being, I urge you to give it a shot for a good, consistent 3 months. The only true way to see the changes any physical activity will benefit you in is to be consistent with it for 90 days. Think of it like a review period in the "business" of your body, give yourself a solid business quarter to see if the change in resources, procedure, and protocols enacted yield a healthier and happier you.

So, if you are local, check out Lonestar Dance and take a class. They have students ranging from young children to adults in their 60's. So don't be afraid to try something new! 

Additional, Helpful Link:
The Effects of Ballet/Dance on Walking.

Photos:
Top photo: RayRay, instructor at Lonestar Dance and acro-ballet dancer. raymond.white.96742
Lead photo: Miss Kay, Doc List.
Gallery photos: Examples of how dance and ballet aides in sensory skills, daily happiness, stress relief, mobility and flexibility. Also how it can aide in battling illness such as scoliosis or other skeletal related issues. 
​

Over the last year I have endured so much more than I have shown to my followers, or even let my family in on at times. Things such as the loss of a best friend to a car accident, another good friend just a few days ago, my boyfriend passed away, I was homeless, I helped others and then got thrown out like trash... my point is that there was so much more going on than I ever make known to the public.

Here, my followers keep up with my social media. My friends in real life do the same, and my family, often with a text message or video chat. Everyday, multiple times a day, I hear or read someones complaints about their job, their home, their relationship, their hatred for one political party, their own pity party because nobody showed to whatever event they invited them to, a flowing stream of negativity and complaints. Day in and day out, the amount of negativity I see versus the amount of those who are actively trying to better, correct, or otherwise fix their situation astounds me.

Excuses are mostly what I hear: "But Kay you don't understand, you don't have (insert subjectively more important complaint than anyone else)." Your excuses are invalid, there are people who battle more than you on a daily basis and never lose the smile on their face. There are people who live in rundown homes that are still grateful and never complain, yet you complain about the job you do. The job that you CHOSE to take, to provide you income to survive, the job that you ultimately decided would be your saving grace until something better comes along and yet you bemoan all the stress you bring upon yourself by staying. So many of you have seen me keep a smile on my face no matter what situation I have been in, yet you complain to me how awful your life is. Yet you still do nothing to change these things.

Some things to think about the next time you feel like complaining:
1. Is it really worth it? What you're complaining about, if you complain will it change anything? Will it be worth the time, energy and breath you will use to complain?
2. What is going on around you? Take a step back and look at your situation from a different view. Look at the lives you surround yourself with and really see what your friends, family members, and anyone else you care about is going through. Look at your job, your home life, your nutrition, your mind, your thoughts.... look at all of it.
3. Someone always has it worse than you. That is a fact, someone, somewhere will always be in a worse/more unfortunate situation than you are in.
4. Start a gratitude journal. As corny as that sounds keeping a gratitude journal helped me to see the things I should be focusing on rather than seeing the negative that was happening around me and not to me.
5. Take care of yourself! Listen, I am so tired of saying this but nutrition and exercise are in fact NECESSARY FOR A PROPERLY FUNCTIONING BRAIN, MOOD, MIND, AND BODY. If you have known me for more than two years then you have seen what nutrition and exercise will in fact do to change the mindset and even life of a person.

Your excuses are garbage, but you are not, so you can spend the rest of your life allow the negative things to eat you alive from the inside out until it kills you slowly. Or, you can change the things that you do not enjoy or like about your life. You are not a tree, get up and move. You are not being forced to stay at a job you do not like. That being the case you are not stuck at the job you are currently at, these places are not your final destination. You have kids? So what, you have them for 18 years, your life does not end when they are brought into this world, nor does it end after they reach adulthood. You have the possibility of living to 100 years, and you want to act like your life is going to end in your sixties, like you are nothing if you haven't settled down and had kids, wife, husband, career by your thirties. So you work hard, you complain, you drain yourself of every last ounce of goodness and positive energy in you until you are nothing but the shell of a being that once was.

You can make the choice to change these things, to stop complaining. To see the other routes you can take, to explore every avenue to getting to the destination in your dreams, your thoughts, your goals. Life is meant to be hard, if you were not meant to endure it or handle it you would not be here. Open your mind, open your time to work and focus on yourself, for the betterment of a happier life. Re-wire your brain everyday by finding new things to be positive about.

                                      Hey-hey my wonderful Pawo's!

So sorry for the break from the site and the cookbook, but we are back now and things are growing! As some of you may already know, over the holidays we with a modest investor for our donuts and baked goods!
"Hooray!" - all shouted from behind their screens. I know it's utterly exciting! 

I have been away, not doing videos or posts or talks, due to the start up of DonutGrams & Baked Goods! Now with that being said, unfortunately we DO NOT have a location.... yet. We are working on acquiring one, mobile possibly. We came up with the idea because, well for starters, delivering donuts just sounds like a blast. I also thought about all the people that live throughout this pretty, large, and growing city. What better way in the beginning than to deliver our delicious, TASTY, and low-carb goodness to those that wouldn't be close enough otherwise. 

We are working on revamping the site a bit, and adding an ordering system for DonutGrams, rather than placing an order by text or social media direct message. Now that's not to say that you can't place an order by text anymore, by all means please do! My goal is simply to make getting our healthy treats and snacks to you in the most hassle and stress free way possible. 

                                       ON TO THE DONUTS!

Okay so the donuts, in case you are new to us and if so then welcome, the donuts and the majority of our other baked goods, are either low-carb or ketogenic. Not only that, but all are organic, gluten free, soy free, wheat free, peanut free, naturally sweetened, and protein based. Yes I said protein based. 
Now sorry ladies and gents and all other configurations of being, but I just don't agree with Omega-6, and we will get to that in another post in the near future.

Our bags and stickers are made from recycled material and always will be. As we progress and grow we plan to keep ourselves green! We also have plans to work with local businesses, where you may soon be able to purchase our products, as well as local farmers in the near future as well. 

HOW I STARTED:

I have been baking since I was a kid, I think about 8 years old. As I age and began to learn more from those older and more experienced, I am now here after dealing with and learning what my body can and cannot have nutritionally. Eventually, after nearly 20 years of baking the same way it's been done for decades, I have started to experiment with several flour alternatives and substitutes to accommodate the ever growing epidemic of food allergies and intolerances on the rise in our country. 

My goal has always been to share my creations, to share something good, and wholesome, something that when you're done eating you feel like you could get up and still go run without feeling bogged down by processed... well everything. The goal is to educate and show the world what organic means, not only in food but in the way we interact with one another. Food brings families and friends together, food seals the deal in business, food can end arguments, food can heal. I want to show the world how to utilize these wonderful ingredients and show that you can, in fact, still have your cake and eat it without sacrificing taste too. To show that you can still get the body and live the lifestyle that you want without quitting the foods and activities that you don't want to give up. I want to show how food can heal and how what is inside that product reacts and interacts with your body. Why? Because it is what matters the most. You can eat an over  processed donut from Dunkin' or eat a DonutGrams donut, and one will slowly poison you the other will aide in the recovery process after a workout, satiate hunger pangs, refresh you, and give you energy. 

Ingredients. Matter. Most. 

For those of you who have supported and followed all these years, I cannot thank or show enough appreciation. Spreading the word by mouth or sharing a post is my favorite form of showing your support! It's quick, easy, and literally takes the push of a button... well, maybe two. But that's beside that point.
I thank you a million times over, and I am so so excited to watch this grow, and to grow with it!

~ Miss Kay