My favorite super healthy and guilt-free way to eat yogurt!

I really wanted to be able to talk about my favorite way to eat yogurt! Anyone who knows me, knows that for years I have been trying to find ways to be able to fit yogurt into my diet. I am very pro yogurt, but have never been able to choke it down, or justify eating the yogurt brands with tons of added sugars! It was a lose, lose either way for me. The reason I have tried so hard to incorporate it into my diet is because of the tons of nutritional benefits it has, not to mention its preventative tendencies against bacteria! Yogurt has a ton of healthy bacteria, which can help aid in digestion and it is packed with vitamins, and high in protein! I am very aware of labels when I buy products, and you should make yourself aware as well. Always check the ingredients list before buying anything you put into your body. Always steer away from yogurt that has sugar in the ingredients list. I will make a post on why sugar is our enemy on another day but for now, just try to find yogurt that has no more than 7 ingredients. This would be an ideal label, and this is is Danone yogurt labeled here. Ingredients include: Skim milk, cream, active bacterial cultures. That is it!

Now, as I stated above. I hate yogurt! haha, I just cannot stomach the flavor at all! That it why I wanted to share my favorite way to incorporate it into my diet: Smoothies! for starters smoothies are a great way to incorporate yogurt because you can mask the flavor with any fruit you would like! That is only part of the secret though, I love to make a large batch of my favorite smoothie, then I will pour it into small 8 oz tupperware containers and freeze them! My very own little frozen yogurts with tons of flavor and I know exactly what each one contains! My typical Smoothie would be: 

1 large banana

A handful of frozen strawberries

A handful of frozen mango chunks

1 cup of Danano yogurt

a few ice cubes

1/2 cup skim milk

2 scoops of total lean protein (completely optional)

Add all of the ingredients to the blender, blend it up, pour in containers and enjoy now or later! The purpose of putting them in small containers is to have several little snack sized portions of the frozen yogurt for after workout or just when your craving something sweet without all of the guilt! For anyone else who just dreads the taste of yogurt, but would like a clean way to eat it without adding tons of sugar to get it into your system, I definitely am recommending trying this! I hope this was helpful ;)

Burn several muscles at once with this squat!

This squat is so much fun and you will feel the burning in your thighs days after! It is a simple squat with a lateral leg raise to the left, another squat and a lateral leg raise to the right! I repeat this sequence as many times as I can until the burn is too much. I have added ankle weights for optimum muscle strength in the lateral leg raises and a 6lb medicine ball for some resistance in the squat! You can do it without the weights if its too much for you, but as it becomes easier I definitely recommend adding the weight and resistance! The squats are great for your glutes and quads of course, but this leg raise is really going to target those inner and outer thigh areas that are really hard to reach! TRY not to do this too quickly, feel the burn as you go in and out of each movement. I definitely worked up a good sweat at home with this one! Trying several different variations of squats are great because you don't want your muscle to get used to the same things. Changing it up will help target different areas, and push your muscle harder.