More than just willpower is at play here... Credit: Camera Eye Photography

How do we like to celebrate our birthday? Um, by giving you lots of free goodies—like this class! Check out all of the special four-year birthday posts and huge giveaways here.

So many of us think that we could live a healthy lifestyle if only we had “more willpower.” But, you know what, I’m going to give you some tough love: that’s B.S. But not because of the reasons why you think it is. See, willpower is a misunderstood critter, and when you begin to understand it for what it really is, you can begin to harness it. And, people, that is where the magic is.

Interested in learning more? I’ll be doing a free 30-minute talk to help you understand what willpower really is and how it does—and doesn’t—work. Then I’ll share the secret of what does work when it comes to changing for the healthier! It takes some focus and a tiny bit of change, but once you know how to work it, girl, you can do anything. So join me!

The Truth About Willpower and How to Harness It to Get Healthy

Time: 8 p.m. EST
Date: Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Cost: Free
How to register: http://www.learnitlive.com/invite/class/2172/The-Truth-About-Willpower-%97-And-How-to-Harness-It-to-Get-Healthy

And if you can’t make Tuesday’s live class, no worries! There will be a recording available after the talk for you to check out. And be sure to tell your friends—the more the merrier! —Jenn

This giveaway is part of our FBG Birthday Week celebration! Check out all of the special four-year birthday posts and huge giveaways here!

Wholly moley, it’s a guacamole giveaway! And not just any giveaway. It’s a big guac giveaway. In fact, in celebration of our fourth birthday, Wholly Guacamole is giving away a free YEAR of the green stuff. Yep, one lucky U.S. reader is going to get 24 free-product coupons that work for all Wholly products (so if guac isn’t your thing, you can get 100 percent avocado or its fresh salsa), along with some Wholly Guacamole swag.

Now, we don’t have to tell you how delicious guac is or how amazingly good for you avocado is, but we will. Because it bears repeating: IT IS AWESOME AND DELICIOUS. And you want to win it, right?

Simply tell a friend about this giveaway and then leave a comment below with who you told and how (via Twitter, Facebook, email, phone, snail mail, face-to-face, whatev), and we’ll select a lucky U.S. winner in about a week. And get those healthy chips ready (which you can win here, too!)…someone is going to be wholly spoiled! —Jenn

Protein pancakes are a great way to use your egg whites!

The following is a post sponsored by Egg Beaters. For our sponsored post policy, click here.

We may keep the lid on the junk in the trunk, but we certainly can’t keep a lid on the fact that we love eggs, especially egg whites. And instead of having the mess and inconvenience of cracking eggs, we’re big fans of  Egg Beaters 100% Egg Whites here at FBG HQ. A lean and high-quality protein source with no cholesterol or fat, a serving of them has 25 calories and five grams of protein. Talk about a nutritional home run! And if you thought egg whites were only to be used in omelets and scrambled eggs, think again. Egg whites are great in a number of recipes and dishes, including the below!

5 Fun Ways to Use Egg Whites

1. Protein pancakes. There are a ton of protein pancake recipes out there, but we love this one, and with each serving, you get nine grams of protein. Want to bump it up? Double the amount of egg whites called for. You’ll end up with thinner, more crepe-like pancakes, but you’ll get double the protein! And we promise they’re just as tasty.

2. Smoothies. Forgo the unnatural powders and go with Egg Beaters 100% Egg Whites in your smoothies! The egg whites in them are pasteurized, so they’re safe to eat raw, and unlike many protein powders, they don’t really have a taste. So you can easily mix them with your favorite fruits and veggies for a healthy and filling start to your day. Try this raspberry smoothie recipe to get you up and going in the a.m.!

3. In the microwave—with cheese. It may seem too good to be true, but it’s not. You can make deliciously cheesy eggs in the microwave, in like five minutes. Yea, it’s pretty life changing. See how to make them here, and we recommend getting creative by experimenting with veggies, salsas and dips in your microwaved egg whites!

4. Baking. It’s easy to bake low-fat desserts when you have egg whites! Don’t believe us? Check out the amazing variety of recipes to choose from. White Cake with Berries and Cream…Blueberry-Lemon Coffee Cake…Strawberry Shortcake—the deliciousness goes on and on.

5. “Fried” anything. Like that crispy or fried flavor on chicken or fries? Instead of coating with full eggs, use egg whites! Doing so cuts calories and makes for a light and crunchy batter, no matter if you’re breading or not. Try them in this Sweet Potato Fries recipe—you will not be disappointed.

Now tell us, what’s your favorite way to eat egg whites? Be sure to follow Egg Beaters on Facebook for more fab ideas! —Jenn

This post is part of our FBG Birthday Week celebration! Check out all of the special four-year birthday posts and huge giveaways here!

Yesterday we gave you the 2012 Fitties! And today? Well, it’s time for the healthy food version of that—the Noshies! Now this is the third year we’ve recognized foods and culinary-related books, gizmos, gadgets and peeps for their awesomeness (our first birthday we just looped them all into the Fitties), and we like to think that as we’ve gotten older and wiser (read: eaten more goodies), we’ve made even more informed picks. But as you’ll see, we still have our sense of humor. Eat these up,  yum!

This chocolate tea deserves a Noshie!

Noshies: Drinks

Best protein powder: You always hear about the importance of having a balance of “carbs, fats and proteins,” but this stuff takes the guess work out of how much of each totally out of the equation. Love!

Best natural protein source that’s not a powder: You can put these in your smoothies because they’re pasteurized! Brill!

Best dessert in a cup: Chocolate tea. Yes, you read that right. And it’s wonderful.

Best bacteria that you actually want to ingest: Whether you’re brave enough to make it yourself or buy it, Kombucha tea is a bit of an acquired taste, but we love it nonetheless.

Best new milk: Original Good Karma Flax Milk, how did it take us so long to find you?

Best water: This water-filtration system takes the bad stuff out, and then puts the good back in!

Social interaction makes working out way more fun! Credit By: CrossFit Fever

This week FBG is celebrating its four-year birthday! Dang, we’re old. To help with the festivities, this week each FBG is focusing on the number “four,” too, by answering the question is: What four things could you not live (and be healthy) without?

And I’m back to the island again. I have no problems listing the top four things that keep me healthy as a horse. What I do find problematic is the amount of folks who assume I’m just a natural health freak without any kryptonite to speak of. They think it always comes easy; that I’m always perky and “on” but, truth be told, I can be a lazy-ass bumpkin if you give me the right television show and caramel snack. (Makes me hella thankful for the things below!)

4 Things I Couldn’t Be Healthy Without

1. My boyfriend/trainer. So I’m way too sensitive about relationship dynamics to say this dude completes me or any of that hoo-haw, but I can say without hesitation that he’s the best darn health pusher I’ve got. The dude just can’t sit still! If we go to the beach, there’s no laying out and relaxing…oh no! We have to be moving and active; we have to play football and be wild. On the weekends, he wants to hike/run like a banshee up crazy-hard hills like Runyon Canyon. A girl like me can’t miss gym days. I wouldn’t survive his energy without them!

2. FBG: I’m all about practicing what I preach. The minute I put that darn FBG sticker on my car and started telling folks I wrote for a health and fitness blog, I had to step up. I swear, wearing FBG clothes does the same thing to me, too! I put on a shirt that says I’m “keeping a lid on the junk in my trunk” and BOOM! I’m ready to play. It’s a great way to remain accountable, that’s for sure. Even on the laziest of days, I still have to woman-up because there’s always some crazy-cool class coming down the pipeline that I have to be physically ready for.

3. Insoles for my running shoes. Back in my marathon training days, I caught a nasty case of tendinitis. In order for me to keep training, I had to meet with a foot doc and get some lovely orthotics that now keep the shooting pains on the top of my foot at bay. Gotta love that someone has my feet’s back…metaphorically speaking, that is.

4. My work’s free gym. This is one that surprised me when it popped into my head. Looking back, I sucked at working out before there was a gym readily available to me. I could come up with excuse after excuse when I had little bitty weights in my room or a gym in my apartment complex. It was never enough. I needed people around to motivate me. When my work’s gym first opened, I signed up for classes. (I was still intimidated by gym equipment at that point.) Then I started talking with the folks who worked in the gym and listened to their advice and recommendations…Now I go in and lift weights with the dudes and take classes whenever they pop up. I love working out around people. It gives me energy, compels me to push harder if I’m feeling competitive and keeps me sane. I need to talk lots…or I go batty! Hard to do when you’re trying to do bicep curls in your lonesome living room.

If I had a cookbook full of healthy recipes that would be on my list for sure, too! Crossing my fingers I get my hands on a good one before FBG turns five! What about you? What four people, places or things have put the heal in your healthy?  —Tish

A true Fit Bottomed Girl, Mia Hamm!

This post is part of our FBG Birthday Week celebration! Check out all of the special four-year birthday posts and huge giveaways here!

When deciding on whom to name Fit Bottomed Girl of the Year for 2012, we knew it had to be someone who was strong, smart, focused, real and super-duper inspiring. Heck, she has to be able to hold her on in a room of Dara Torres, Ruby Gettinger and Stacy Lewis—which is no easy feat (those women rock!). While there were many candidates on our radar this year, only one stood out as someone we all truly wanted to be like: Mia Hamm.

Mia is widely recognized as the world’s best all-around women’s soccer player. In Atlanta at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, she lead her team to the gold medal, and in 1999 she helped the U.S. win the Women’s World Cup. In April of 1999, Nike named the largest building on its corporate campus after her. In addition to being super-awesome at soccer, she gives much of her free time to charitable causes and strives, in anything she does, to promote women’s athletics, the sport of soccer, and a feeling of confidence and sense of purpose in young people.

Um, yeah. A Fit Bottomed Girl through and through. We recently got to chat with Mia, as she’s been working with the Grain Foods Foundation, to virtually give her the FBG of the Year title and to find out more about what she’s up to these days, her workouts, her diet and her top tips. Although we gave her an honor, we were certainly honored to be in her presence…

Yeah, we totally geeked out that she accepted it. Now tell us, do you find Mia as inspiring as we do? Did she motivate you to play soccer or just become more of a bad-ass? What’s your favorite Mia moment? Do tell! —Jenn 

Note: The color of your winnings may change slightly, but it'll be cute—promise!

This giveaway is part of our FBG Birthday Week celebration! Check out all of the special four-year birthday posts and huge giveaways here!

So you know how much we LOVED adidas’ new summer line? Well, we’re giving some of it away in celebration of our four-year birthday! Yay! Although we didn’t have a chance to try the specific ClimaPower items from adidas in today’s giveaway, they feature the same cool technology and look and sound just as awesome.

One random lucky U.S. reader will win a complete ClimaPower training outfit in her size, including a pair of shorts, tank and supportive sports bra. Meant to keep you cool and focused on your workout—not your sweaty clothes—the ClimaPower pieces are designed with your ultimate performance in mind. Believe us. You. Will. Love.

Want to win it? Leave us a comment with what your favorite post on FBG was from the past year and why, and we’ll select a random U.S. reader to win in about a week! Best of luck! —Jenn

Give me a walkable neighborhood, and I'm happy! Credit: Cubosh

This week FBG is celebrating its four-year birthday! Dang, we’re old. To help with the festivities, this week each FBG is focusing on the number “four” by answering the question: What four things could you not live (and be healthy) without?

Like Jenn said, you can just assume that my favorite healthy foods go without saying. I’m not givin’ those suckers up! In addition to those? Well, here you go!

4 Things I Couldn’t Be Healthy Without

1. Workout DVDs. I’ve already professed my love for the workout DVD. They’re just so convenient, versatile and you can get any type of workout you want. It helps that we get so many DVDs to review, but I had a growing collection even before this site came into existence!

2. Zumba. I love my Zumba. I love most group exercises classes, really, but Zumba has proven to be the most fun for me.

3. My family. What’s more motivating than trying to be healthy for your kids? And what’s more fun than going to the park together or running around the backyard? Or having your toddler request more broccoli? Seriously.

4. My walkable neighborhood. Sure, I could be healthy without my neighborhood, but it sure helps! I love being able to walk to run almost all of my errands and pack the kiddos up for strolls around the neighborhood. Pretty houses, a cute downtown, parks within walking distance. Ahhh…

What healthy items could you not give up? —Erin

This post is part of our FBG Birthday Week celebration! Check out all of the special four-year birthday posts and huge giveaways here!

There are the Oscars, the Emmys, the Tonys—and even MTV’s Golden Popcorn awards. But when it comes to fitness, what’s the best of the best? While we may not be able to do a big-time awards show, we think that the following products are uber fabulous, can’t-live-without-’em stuff from the past 365 days. So, please, sit back and enjoy the 2012 Fitties!

Fitties: Apparel

Best tank: So good you’ll want 12 of them, the adidas TECHFIT Tank is exactly what you want in a workout top: airy, light, breathable, flattering and cute.

Best sports bra: Don’t flinch at the price of the Shock Absorber Sports Bra. It’s worth every penny. You’ll want to wear and wash and wear and wash and wear and, well, you get the idea.

Best line to feel oh-so pretty in: With ruffles and ruching, you’ll feel like a fit goddess in KiraGrace.

Go ahead and buy 12 of these. They're that good.

Best tights for winter: How Mizuno makes these running tights both light-weight and warm is beyond us, but they rock.

Best fitness sunglasses that don’t look like fitness sunglasses: These sunglasses are flattering, comfortable, pretty and work at keeping your peepers protected. Great to rock during your run—and after.

Best toning capris: Fila’s Space Dye Toning Restistance Tight Capris are not only flattering, they feel good. And the feathered grey look? Just another thing we’re smitten with.

Best hoodie: It’s soft, bright and water-proof. We need not say more.

Best running shorts: Not too short, not too long and with no wedgies, these $30 running shorts are a home run.

This giveaway is part of our FBG Birthday Week celebration! Check out all of the special four-year birthday posts and huge giveaways here!

We’re kicking off our first Four-Year Birthday giveaway with a bang. A bean bang! (Pun intended.) One of our favorite snacks evah (they got a Noshie in 2011!), these little single-serving bags of Beanitos Bean Chips boast 6 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber and have just 175 calories. They’re also gluten-free, non-GMO and come in snackable flavors like BBQ and Cheddar Cheese. Not to mention that they’re delicious. Like, really delicious.

In celebration of our birfday, Beanitos is giving FIVE lucky U.S. readers a case of these new single-serving chips in a mix of tasty flavors. A case! To enter, simply leave a comment telling us why you looove beans. Want another entry? Tweet @FitBottomedGirl, use the hashtag #FBGBirthday and tell us why you simply must win some Beanitos! We’ll select three winners from the comments and two from Twitter in about a week!

Ready to munch and crunch? Get to commenting and Tweeting—and good luck! —Jenn