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Twitter can be scary, but not at a party with your friends all over the world! Fit2B is throwing a twitter party today at 9:30pmET (6:30 p.m. PDT) and it will be 30 fast minutes of fun and prizes and silly questions about the core! All you do is get on twitter at the right time, follow me @fit2bmama and my twitter-pro assistant Dee @disneyinatweet and then search for #fit2b and/or #nomorecrunches and we’ll be there!!!

winners! winners! winners!

No party is complete with games and prizes, and we had a ton! My own children “helped” select the winners by calling out random numbers between 1-41 (since we got 41 comments on this blog) I simply went down this list of prizes, wrote down the numbers they called out, and lined them up with names! I’m announcing them on twitter and facebook today 5/2/13 and you have a week to claim your prizes with the creators.

MomBodFitness has graciously donated a FitSplint! WINNER: COMMENT #31 – TINA T.

I’m contributing some Isagenix goodies (chocolates & greens) that I love for cleansing my inner core and herbal detoxifying. WINNER: COMMENT #10 – LORI M.

Fit2B on Your Skin will be giving a sample of our NEW tummy formula for the skin that puckers when a diastasis heals. WINNER: COMMENT #30 – KIM F.

Natural Kiss is donating an all-natural herbal 4 oz. bug repellant… I chose this item. I hate bugs. WINNER: COMMENT #7 – MELINDA

Book Giveaway from Author, Lanaya Gore – Title: “Laying Down the Rails for Children: A Habit-Training Companion.” If you are a homeschooler and love Charlotte Mason, you’ll love Lanaya! WINNER: COMMENT #41 – KATIE K.

Herbal deodorant from Blessed in Homemaking! I use this and it’s awesome!!! WINNER: COMMENT #20 – BREANNA

Fit2B is also giving away ONE ultimate homemakers bundle that includes 2 months free to Fit2B! WINNER: COMMENT #2 – KRISTIN

AND ONE MORE!!! Author, Carey Jane Clark is giving away your choice of a digital or print copy of her novel, After the Snow Falls. WINNER: COMMENT #3 – LANAYA

Thank you everyone for making our first twitter party a huge success! You can still see some of it by going HERE to see all the hype!

Thank you for reading the Fit2Blog today! What are your thoughts about what you read? Please leave a reply or a question, and be sure you’re taking advantage of our amazing TummySafe™ workouts!

I never tire of talking about abs and bellies and diatasis, but how about I take a mini break and give you a peek into my current life? Six months ago, my family ditched city life in Portlandia, sold our .16-acre lot and 1,700 sq. ft. bungalow, and moved to a 1,400 sq.ft. “fixer upper” a 7-acre farm in rural Washington State. For my husband, moving to the country has always meant goats… and eating lots of peaches. He and I both grew up on farms, so moving to the country has felt like coming home.

My man and our girl with one of our cats and chihuaha Charlie.

So yesterday, after mending fences and watching umpteen videos about milking and caring for goats, we purchased two from a local farmer: Daphne and Persephone. They are cross Alpine/Nubian and likely both pregnant. We brought them home in the back of our minivan, and the more docile Daphne went peacefully into the barn, lulling me into the false belief that all was well and I could let down my guard. Hindsight: she probably didn’t fight much because she was engorged and didn’t care to run. But “Persy” on the other hand… let just say that fitness and farm life collided in a big way when she pulled a U-turn in the barn, drug my daughter for a couple feet (thank the Lord she let go) and then took off down our quarter-mile driveway.

This is my girl holding a baby bunny she rescued from our cats and released back into the wild. She’s drafting a book about it… um, not sure why it’s sideways.

Have you ever experienced a surreal moment where you’re trying to decide if what you’re chasing is worth it? There I am sprinting after that stupid (smart) goat, leaving my kids bawling as I holler back at them to go home and stay there! And I’m wondering if I give up, go back and get the van and my littles, or keep running. I took a belly breath, told myself “tummy tight” and kept running.

That wretch went right out onto the main road! Cars were swerving because our drive is on a blind corner. It’s a blessing that no wrecks happened. So there we are, this little nanny goat and me running up the yellow line on a rural road. One driver rolled down his window and yelled, “At least yer in shape!” Another driver rolled down her window and said, “I know a good vet if this doesn’t turn out good!” That energized me again to run a bit faster.

Me and Persy in the back of a good samaritan’s truck.

Finally, once enough cars had slowed and realized my predicament, a few drivers responded to my wildly flapping arms and cries for help, and they wedged their vehicles sideways in the road and jumped out to help me catch the beast. She was so fast that I was still a few car-lengths back watching them chase her round and round their rigs! Oy! That same driver ended up being a lovely bartender who offered us (me and the goat) a ride back to the house after we caught Persy. She took this pic of me and Percy in the back of her truck and texted me later to say I’m fondly known at the Sportsman Bar & Grill in Ridgefield as “The Goat Lady.” Awesome.

This flock lived in our tiny backyard in the city, but they LOVE the farm life! Meet Trudy, Sparkles and Blacky!

That’s how this blog was started: because I posted this status on our Facebook fan page last night: Don’t let my “gentle” workout style fool you. I haven’t done any sprint training in YEARS, yet today I sprinted across a field, over a fence, and a quarter-mile down a country road to catch a blasted goat that got loose! We stopped traffic. Someone muttered, “Well at least yer in shape!” Funny thing was that I was in workout gear and crocs. Should I post a picture of me and the goat hitching a ride home in the back of someone’s truck? #farmGIRLfitness #realMOMrealFITceo #girlsGONEcountry

Peek down at the bottom of this page to see who’s on Fit2B right now!

So these are some snapshots of my life. It’s real. It ain’t rich. We are clawing for an existence in this world just like each of our members. Fit2B Studio has been raised up from scratch over the past three years, and while our videos are top notch and I look real “purdy” in them, as my husband would say, there is real dirt under my nails and real brambles in my fields and an iron-stained utility sink in my unfinished kitchen and a certain smell in my son’s bedroom and I spilled the fresh milk from the goat this morning… And I’m okay with that. Because this is my life. And it is beautiful <3 Thank you for reading!

Thank you for reading the Fit2Blog today! What are your thoughts about what you read? Please leave a reply or a question, and be sure you’re taking advantage of our amazing TummySafe™ workouts!

Christmas is such a special occasion that several other bloggers and myself have teamed up to offer an iPad mini to one fortunate individual!!!

The iPad Mini Christmas Giveaway is presented in appreciation of you. We are so thankful for the time you spend with us, the thoughtful comments you share, and the encouragement you’ve given. We couldn’t do it without you.

You can view the iPad mini features here.

Grab a cup of tea, pull up a chair, and send in as many entries as you like using the Raffle-copter form below. There are many blogs you can “like” or “follow” to gain entries, and you can take your time doing it.

*Please note that comments left on this post are NOT counted as entries; you must enter through the Rafflecopter form below.*

This giveaway will run from today, Wednesday, November 28, until December 5. It’s open to everyone and one winner will receive an iPad mini, plus either an $80 iTunes gift card, or $80.00 cash to put towards accessories for the Mini iPad!

The winner’s name will be displayed on this post after the giveaway ends.

Have fun!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for reading the Fit2Blog today! What are your thoughts about what you read? Please leave a reply or a question, and be sure you’re taking advantage of our amazing TummySafe™ workouts!

It all started with one member’s post in our private facebook forum when she wrote, “My husband and I are going to start F2B90 starting Nov 1st. A Fit2B 90-day challenge. Complete with before and after photos, weights, and measurements.” Thirty-seven comments later, almost 10 other gals had jumped on board, and now they’ve banded together to blog, share pictures, support each other’s progress. It’s a little odd to watch my members creating their own community, but it’s exactly what I’ve always dreamed of: Moms from all over the world opening up to each other as they endeavor to not only flatten their abs and lose some weight but – most importantly – become stronger mothers and members of their neighborhoods.

Even though I’m commenting and liking on their posts, and I’m designing some motivational emails for them, I feel like I’m sitting back and watching all of them support each other, offer encouragement, and now they’ve even created their own Fit2B blogging link up! You can read their posts at these sites…

My Simple American Life … she’s got some great screen shots of my older videos. Ack! LOL

 Becky Jesse’s Blog… a shy mama who gets brave and shares real numbers for the first time

House Full of Munchkins … a working mom of 7 kids! I’ve only got two and need a padded room!

 This Mama’s Madness… whose #1 rule for the 90-day challenge is to “Be real.” I can handle that!

The Vitamin-C complex … who is also the artist behind our very own Fit2B Molly comic

However, I think that what really mobilized this self-made group was an early post one Day #1 by a mama who wrote, “Well, day one of the challenge is done. Definitely didn’t go quite as planned. My Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer today. I am so very thankful that it is early stage and will hopefully be easily treated. So, that changed our plans a bit on the exercise front for the day. Lots of tears, and some laughter as we talked about they new chapter in our lives. My husband and I both weighed in – me at 144 and him at 199. We did the All Ab II workout together and my goal is to do at least one video daily. I’m excited to try some of the calming ones as we move through the treatment path with my Mom.” And then another mom responded to her…

“I almost didn’t exercise today and was in a mopey mood, but I saw what other people did today and that gave me the push to go out. To be honest … it was your post. I was like “well heck I’m being depressed for nothing. If she can workout on a day like this, then I totally can!”

My comment to all that: “Finding time to take care of your health on the day of your mom’s diagnosis is giving cancer a punch in the gut. Exercise fights cancer. You are fighting with your mother, standing beside her, each time you make her little girl take care of the body she labored to birth all those years ago. You honored her today and you claimed health and healing for your whole family. And if you can do it today – today of all days – you can do it ANY day, girl! YOU ROCK!!!!”

Of course, the feedback I’m getting is so precious, too! I’m learning which workouts need more notes on the pages, and which ones need to be refilmed, and which ones are the favorites. This comment made my day: “Did Chair yoga today and drank 6 glasses of water! “beginning” pic coming soon… Loved what Beth Learn said in the video…”don’t feel bad if you are not where you think you should be, you are doing more than you were 10 minutes ago!” So grateful to this lady for all her help and encouragement!”

Awwww *blush* Okay, anyway if you’re a member who wants in on the action, just go to THIS LINK and request to join. Sorry, members only! If you want to sample a workout, sign up for my newsletter over on the right

Thank you for reading the Fit2Blog today! What are your thoughts about what you read? Please leave a reply or a question, and be sure you’re taking advantage of our amazing TummySafe™ workouts!

Our April, 2012 trip to Montana

Montana is a place of rugged beauty and stark contrasts: Immaculate Escalades with cattle-grill-guards parked next to beat-up Subarus still displaying blood stains from last year’s hunting season; the sharp cut of the Mission Mountains against the rolling plains; the dirt on the faces of beautiful children out playing in the fields; the poverty of shanty houses with luxury homes in the hills above; waking up to cows in our front yard… Not something that happens in our home town! My son claimed that red truck as his own…

On several mornings I was able to make oatmeal with rehydrated fruit on the woodstove. We used local honey as a sweetener.

It’s very exciting to have running water. You can see the 5-gallon tub we’ve been hauling water with. On this trip, my husband finished attaching the drain to the drain-field he dug on the last trip. The water is powered by batteries stored under the house which are in turn powered by our solar panel. He installed a switch under the sink, so can save energy when we don’t need water. No hot water yet…

The kids spent a lot of time on their grandparents organic farm just down the hill. My husbands parents raise much of their own food: gardening, raising cows and chickens and turkeys, and harvesting herbs that grow locally. They rarely go to town and get what they can’t grow from Azure Standard.

I guess you want to see a picture of The Shabin. It’s the lovely 12×20 2-level shabby blue shed that we’ve turned into a cabin. Here it is right before we left. We have to board it up to keep out the rats and … passers by. You can ready my other blog about Montana and The Shabin by CLICKING HERE

Here are more cows. It was calving season, and the field across from us was full of mamas and babies. Funny story: the cows would always gather at the fence and moo and beller at the farmer’s grey pickup truck as he loaded hay for them. Then they’d run along behind him as he drove the hay onto the field. Well, we also had a grey truck with us, and I made the mistake of coming by the field at feeding time. I thought they were going to stampede me! As soon as they realized I wasn’t driving the right truck, they went mooing and lumbering back to the other side of the field. Silly cows!

As I mentioned, my MIL raises chickens but not really for food. She adores them, especially silkies. This little puffball followed her everywhere. She made me sear I wouldn’t put a picture of her online, so I settled for my daughter holding “Angel” the chicken.

Here’s a close up shot… Like I said, she’s a fluffy little thing. You can barely see her beak!  

And here’s me, myself … Showing the sign my parents had made (I know you can’t really see it) … But it says welcome! And our friends certainly are!

I’d be honored to hear your comments or see this pinned. Thanks! Wait, here is one of my favorite pictures of the bluebird bus I can see from my kitchen window. Yes, it’s parked in the field, listing into a ditch. I’m not sure why someone in the family parked it there…

Thank you for reading the Fit2Blog today! What are your thoughts about what you read? Please leave a reply or a question, and be sure you’re taking advantage of our amazing TummySafe™ workouts!

Yes, that’s me. I’m wishing myself a happy birthday. I’m 33 today and I’m so excited for the coming year of my life. Here are some of my favorite pics from the past year

That’s me: The minivan mama with my two kids smiling behind me!

A cute shot of my kiddos playing at my daughter’s school playground

Getting recertified was necessary this year, although I won’t be going through AFAA again because they are WAY behind on diastasis awareness and prevention. They’re still teaching crunches, and their educational videos are from the 90′s!

I have no idea why this picture is sideways… but I still love it!

I’m leapfrogging over my boy’s go car!

My husband took the picture above, and here he is…

He’s cutting a new hole for our stairway light and vacuuming the dust at the same time and balancing on a precarious scaffold that he built himself. Love this man!

And here’s my little man who put himself to bed early in his Spiderman outfit!

Speaking of sleep, here’s what I look like in the morning. Now, what other fitness expert do you know who gets this real with her mamas?

Here’s some more reality for you. My daughter brought home lice nits from her 1st grade class back in September. We all showed solidarity, wrapping our heads in saran wrap after mucking our hair up with mayo and tea tree oil. It worked! 

No fitness blog is complete without pictures of the family pet! Here is our cat, Lily Unu, more commonly called “Kiddle Little.” She’s laying on one of my own hand-made crocheted rugs that I fashion out of t-shirt yarn. She says, “I could do yoga here all day.”

I love this one! Me and my life-long best friend, Karyn, coat shopping in the Hawthorne District. 

I have so many more pictures of my fit family and happy life that I could post, but I have to run and enjoy my birthday with my hubby and some friends. Here’s to a great year of ministering in the fitness world, continuing to raise awareness about safe exercises for diastasis prevention and treatment, and being THERE for my kids as they grow up!  Love, Bethany!

Thank you for reading the Fit2Blog today! What are your thoughts about what you read? Please leave a reply or a question, and be sure you’re taking advantage of our amazing TummySafe™ workouts!

Hauling & Trucking, Medical Transcription Source and Makobi Scribe Present New Year’s Resolution Blog Carnival. My New Year’s Resolutions are to drink tea before coffee each day, spend every Sunday off the computer, and live my life on PURPOSE! Leave a comment for each activity below to WIN THREE FREE MONTHS of membership to Fit2B Studio AND a free copy of our workout dvd entitled “Fit2B You”… See details of entry below!

1. Mandatory entry: Leave a comment after you sign up for our email newsletter to the right. After you confirm your email, you will be directed to a free yoga “Warrior Workout” which is suitable for most fitness levels.

2. Leave a comment stating that you’ve “liked” our facebook page with whatever account you like it.

3. Leave a comment stating that you’ve followed us on twitter via @fit2bmama or @Fit2b_Us

Winner will be chosen at random and notified via email on January 11th. An address will be requested for the express purpose of mailing the dvd to you. Membership will include all priviledges afforded to regular members.

HASHTAG: #happynewyear

Thank you for reading the Fit2Blog today! What are your thoughts about what you read? Please leave a reply or a question, and be sure you’re taking advantage of our amazing TummySafe™ workouts!

We launched our facebook fitness page just shortly before we launched Fit2B Studio. The name “Fit to Be Us” is based on our domain name. We wanted a dot-com name, but we couldn’t afford one at the time. When fit2b.us popped up as a possibility, and we said it out loud to each other, we instantly loved it! You decide you are “fit to be us.” Anyone can be “fit to be us.” As a human race, there are no exclusions; anyone can get into better shape. Some pages use a lot of ads to build their fan base, and we did a minimal amount of that, but we would rather build by word of mouth and pure reputation. If you like us, like us!

We did a giveaway to celebrate our 1,000th facebook fan. We posted a particular status as soon as we got to 1,000 likes. People who liked that status were entered into a drawing. The above link takes you to a video showing my son saying congratulations and trying to read the winning numbers. I have a video of him actually doing the drawing, but it took way too long and made the file too large, so we had to condense it to the best part. So congratulations to…

Tara of Epidavros Center for Wellbeing who won a small tub of our luxurious organic “YoCoCo Mint Creme” body butter!

Jessica Mar of MomVantage who won a free DVD!

Michelle Brown who won 3 free months of membership to Fit2B Studio!

By the way, my nails were done yesterday by LaFleur Nails & Spa. They just launched their own facebook page, so go give them a like if you live in the Portland, Oregon area

Thank you for reading the Fit2Blog today! What are your thoughts about what you read? Please leave a reply or a question, and be sure you’re taking advantage of our amazing TummySafe™ workouts!

It’s a rap about organic food stores. It will leave you laughing and wordless, and it tells you where I’m at.

If you have no idea why I have deviated from my usual fitness rantings, you need to know about something special that happens on twitter on Wednesdays. Well, two things really. One is “Wordless Wednesdays” and “where in the world are you?” I decided to combine them this week with a video that will leave you wordless – laughing, but wordless. Plus, it will show you a piece of my culture. I don’t live in California, but we have a few of these stores nearby, and this is so utterly realistic.

Thank you for reading the Fit2Blog today! What are your thoughts about what you read? Please leave a reply or a question, and be sure you’re taking advantage of our amazing TummySafe™ workouts!

Trees have always known how to get their message to millions of social network users. Since the dawn of creation, trees have set a standard that every blog writer and product seller and business owner should emulate. Take the ancient tree in my neighbor’s backyard for example:

As one of the oldest trees in our neighborhood, its trunk is at least 5 feet in diameter, and it produces millions of seeds every year to blow on the wind like snow, networking its legacy to hundreds if not thousands of locations. It’s branches hang over onto our garage and into our yard, and we don’t really appreciate the drifts and piles it bestows on us, especially not when the seeds end up in my kitchen, in my laundry, in my shoes, in my bed …

But the tree pays no mind to my complaints. It just waits for the best time to give wing to its messages by the millions, hoping that a few will take root, that it will produce something that will last. It doesn’t stop. Year after year, it goes through its cycles of dormancy, leafing, seeding … and we who are closest to it might not appreciate how its seeds get caught in our lives, but someone far away might need a wee tree seedling, might need the shade, the oxygen, the connection with creation that comes from my neighbor’s backyard tree. The tree that began as a seed itself and whose seed babies now flock onto my windshield wipers where they wait like anxious children at the fair to be flipped into the air as I fly down the freeway.

I would hope that the people closest to me aren’t sick of my seed dropping as I constantly work to provide for my family via various entrepreneurial endeavors. I’m a fitness chick, an editor, and more. Tweeting and blogging and chatting about my passions comes as naturally to me as the old tree dropping her seeds. I’m not trying to bury people. I’m just hoping that my desire to help others with my particular brand of pilates and yoga, and my faith-filled fitness blogs, and my bumbling bits of wellness advice are carried on the waves of the web, rooting where they are most needed and where they will be appreciated.

By the way, what kind of tree is this anyway? I have no idea! But I am grateful for the analogy about social networking that it inspired. Now I must go help my daughter sweep …

Thank you for reading the Fit2Blog today! What are your thoughts about what you read? Please leave a reply or a question, and be sure you’re taking advantage of our amazing TummySafe™ workouts!