About JJ Flizanes

JJ Flizanes is the Director of Invisible Fitness and was named Best Personal Trainer in Los Angeles for 2007 by Elite Traveler Magazine. She is the Amazon Best Selling Author of Fit 2 Love: How to Get Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually Fit to Attract the Love of Your Life as well as Knack Absolute Abs: Routines for a Fit and Firm Core. Featured in many national magazines such as Shape, Fitness, Muscle and Fitness HERS, Women’s Health, JJ has appeared on NBC, CBS, Fox 11 and KTLA. JJ’s passion is transforming women’s bodies and relationships through their fitness and self care routines. Learn more about Invisible Fitness' personal training, fitness coaching, corporate programs, workshops, and seminars at www.invisiblefitness.com. Check out her latest book at www.fit2love.info!

Quick Healthy Snacks for the Family

Quick and Healthy SnacksFor about six week now, my husband and I have been on an extremely healthy diet kick. We experiment with being Vegan for 3 weeks last November and loved how we felt. We started again at the end of March but have made a few adjustments to the Vegan diet so we could live with it longer like adding eggs and fish. I have been gluten free for almost 5 years and only this year has my husband starting asking for gluten free bread!
So have hope that if you want your kids to eat healthier- it has to start with you. Be the example you want them to model. Here are a few snack ideas that you can start experimenting with to see what works for your family. [Read more...]

The “in moderation” myth

JJ Flizanes In ModerationYou’ve heard it before: “everything in moderation”. Well maybe not so true.

I am going to compare food and the physical and biochemical response it has on your body with drugs. I don’t think most of us would tell an alcoholic “everything in moderation”, right? It’s actually very similar to food.

When you are attempting to create new habits, new relationships with food and a new, improved body, I am going to say that everything in moderation is not the best way to start. It might be the best way to BE but some healing has to occur in the body before that is successful.
Foods like gluten and sugar are inflammatory- your body craves them to keep the “addiction” going. Think of it like bacteria. Your body might not have the enzymes present to break down certain foods so your body is reacting to that like bacteria. The more you feed it, the more it grows (and the more you crave it). This cycle will continue and you will think you are an emotional eater because you have these strong, physical cravings. When actually it’s just your body responding to something you are unable to break down with ease. [Read more...]

How Dinner Can Determine Your Mood

How Dinner can determine your moodI am always looking for ways to communicate the very real facts that what you eat determine how you feel, your weight loss or gain, and more importantly your emotions and mood. At the end of last year, a good friend of mine (a McDonald’s eating mother of 2) posted an article on Facebook that was written by a mom titled “The gluten made her do it: How going gluten free saved my daughter’s mental health.” As a mother of two, this article got her attention. [Read more...]

LOVING YOUR BODY, LOVING YOURSELF

Loving Your Body, Loving YourselfIt’s that time again where people look at the beginning of the year and want to make changes in their body and weight. I have the privilege of working with my clients over the course of several years so I get to know them pretty well and witness their patterns and habits when it comes to eating and exercise.

Even before writing Fit 2 Love, I became very clear that the root of most of the struggle with emotional eating and lack of exercise comes from a lack of love for yourself. Without addressing this issue, your results will only be temporary. “ Lose Weight Fast!” “ Drop 10 pounds in 10 days!” – these are very exciting and marketable statements that emotionally hook you into buying the quick fix that often times provides you with results but with results you cannot sustain or live. [Read more...]

5 Steps to Making Effective Weight Loss Resolutions

Do you always make similar resolutions EVERY year? Do you wonder why you have to keep doing it year after year? Lasting change comes from 5 things:

  1. Beliefs
  2. Plan of action
  3. Tools
  4. Support
  5. Accountability

Most of us get gung-ho about New Years and say things like “I am going to lose 25 pounds in January” or something crazy like that. Is that possible? It might be but not for most people. But the bigger question is why do you keep making the same resolution every year? [Read more...]

Easy Homemade Kale Chips

kale chipsEver since I bought my first bag of kale chips at the store, I have been hooked! Love the cheesy flavor of the vegan, non dairy kale chips that appear in most health food stores. The issue becomes that they are not inexpensive and one can eat an entire bag as a meal. I have attempted to replicate my favorite brand’s cheesy version with my raw ingredients using dehydration AND baking to produce an adequate substitution with not much luck.

Read more on how to make easy homemade kale chips

5 Common Health and Weight Loss Questions

#1: Do you have to follow a particular diet to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle? I don’t “follow” a diet; all my choices are supported by the question “is it worth it?” I woman on scalehave been gluten free since 2008 and been dairy free off and on as well. Calories count but so does quality of the food you eat so we try to stay as organic, local and GMO free as we can.

Read more about common health and weight loss questions

Fun Facts About Your Amazing Body

I think we all take our bodies for granted from time to time. And as both a teaching and motivating tool, facts about your body are fun to post on the refrigerator, share with your family and friends.

 

Did you know that……?

 

 

  • Your brain triples in size between birth and adulthood until it weighs as much as the heart and lungs put together?

When is it time to move on?

In honor of my parents 42nd anniversary that happened recently, I want to address relationships and how to gauge when it’s time to move on. In Fit 2 Love, I talk about cleaning the slate with relationships of all kinds: friends, lovers, family, coworkers, etc. I don’t mean it to sound harsh like you’re literally “breaking up” with people in your life but as you grow and change, so do your relationships.

Your needs also change and sometimes the people in your life are not the right fit or are uninterested in meeting some of those needs because they do not share the same values and expectations as you. We’ve all heard the saying “People are in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime”. I think those are great categories.

Read more about when it is time to move on

How to Speed Up Your Metabolism

1. Eat more Protein at every meal especially breakfast:  For most women and men this would contain about 15-25 grams of protein in the meal. For example, 2 egg veggie omelette…or a smoothie made with one scoop of egg white or protein powder…or ½-1 cup of Cottage cheese or plain yogurt, ½ C. frozen berries with 1-2 Tbsp flax seed meal or walnuts would do the trick.

Read more about how to speed up your metabolism