Weight Loss and Sacrifice

As I reflect back over my weight loss journe in 2006, when I lost 40kgs, and my observations of other peoples journeys, it occurs to me that if you really want to lose a significant amount of weight, more than anything else, it requires sacrifice. Forget motivation, motivation is here one day and gone the next. You have to decide that you want to lose weight MORE than anything else in your life. Yes, ANYTHING.

Knowing how much weight you have to lose, you can estimate how long it should take you if you stick to the plan. Then for this period of time, you have to be prepared to prioritise the plan over everything else. For example, yes, I mean it has to be more important than the kids. Whaat - nothing is more important than my children you say. But for this period of time, you have to be able to, and prepared to, make the tough choices in this area if needed. It may come down to a choice between watching your child's sport one morning or getting your own exercise in. Yes, obviously you try every other avenue first, but if there are no other alternatives, are you prepared to make this sacrifice? Remember its a short term sacrifice with huge long term gains for your children. It also has to be more important than work. But I have to work you say. Yes, you have to work. When I started my job as Community Health Director I agreed that I would give it 110% DURING WORK HOURS but I also told my boss that I would have to leave work at 5pm each day for my gym classes. He had no problem with this, lets face it a fit, and active employee is far more efficient than a sluggish overworked one. So when the going gets tough at work and you are faced with the decision of working back late, or hitting the gym - can you make the tough call? Is weight loss really the most important thing to you? If its not and you have more than a few kilo's to lose, you're not giving yourself a fair go. It also has to be more important than food. Fairly obvious you say? Make sure you mean it. When it comes to a choice (repeatedly) between the chocolate cake and mums famous potato bake at the family birthday party vs weight loss in this specified weight loss time, can you make the hard decision and sacrifice the social expectations?

It is worthwhile negotiating these planned sacrifices in advance with a relevant "other". For example I negotiated going to the gym every night after work with my husband until I reached goal weight. It was a big sacrifice for all of us - it meant travelling to work every day in separate cars, and either having tea later every night or him cooking. But we agreed it had to happen. Once I reached my goal, we renegotiated the frequency of the gym and bought more equipment for home use and dropped it back to a couple of times a week.

So do you want this more than any thing else, and are you prepared to make the sacrifice? The proof is, of course, in the pudding.

Planning for Success

Failing to plan is a sure fire plan for failure, when it comes to fitness and achieving the body of your dreams. As someone who has lost a lot of weight, one of the things I learned is that having a few "good days" where you do all the right things, followed by a few "bad days" will never result in the change you want, as they cancel each other out, and your results will show ups and downs and generally just running around in circles Weight loss, fat loss, improved performance all come down to many, many consistent good days, with only the very occasional hiccup.

So how do you do this? All the motivation and desire in the world wont help you if you dont do the hard yards. Its all in the planning. If you don't plan your meals in advance - what happens? Time runs short, or you are caught out somewhere, you take an easy option and before you know it, you've blown your nutrition goals for the day. If you don't plan your exercise schedule, all the excuses in the world come into play.

Try a planning commitment measure over the next week. Each night give yourself a score out of 10.

Nutrition: You should be eating 5 meals/day (or 3 normal meals and 2 snacks). Score yourself 1 point for every meal that you ate as planned.

Exercise - score yourself up to 2 points for this - 1 point if you did the exercise planned - 2 points if you did it with the appropriate intensity. (ie you might have planned to walk for 1/2 hour, did it but didn't walk as fast as you should have=1)

Water - score 2 points for drinking 6 cups (1 point for 3 cups)

Planning - score 1 point if you made sure everything was planned the night before.

Tally it up each day to give yourself a score out of 10. Do you achieve 10/10 each day? If not - there's a clear reason why you are not achieving what you want - look at the areas you are falling down in, and challenge yourself to change this.

Feel free to comment on your scores in the comments section below - I'd love to know how you are going.

Shaking Up The Weight Loss Tree

Ever got frustrated with your weight refusing to budge? The first temptation is to eat less, however if you eat too little your metabolism drops making it even harder to lose, and will cause you problems later with maintenance. So the next thought is to increase your exercise. But what if you cant (you're already exercising twice day, or you're injured and your options are limited)? The key is to do something different. If you keep eating the same things and doing the same exercises, you can only expect the same outcomes. Your body eventually adapts.

So if you're exercising once a day, try going to morning and night for a couple of weeks, your second session might only be a walk but it helps to rev your metabolism. Or change what exercise you are doing, eg add weights, or start running or take on a new class) Or try eating differently. Eat smaller meals more often (5 -6 small meals) ensuring you have a lean protein source at every meal (eg chicken, fish, tuna, salmon, egg white). You might like to follow Lindy Olsen's 7 rules that have created her award winning fitness body.

But just keep shaking up your routine, keep re-challenging your body in new ways, and soon you will be over your latest hurdle.

The Interesting Thing About Fat Loss

Congratulations to all on the challengers this week and especially to those on our leader podium. Well done

The really interesting thing in calculating these statistics each week, is how much weight loss, DOES NOT play a role in reducing body fat estimations (note I'm saying estimations as this is a predictive measure that makes assumptions about your body).
Some have lost weight, only to find their body fat has risen slightly, and others, like Brenda, haven't lost any weight, but because their measurements continue to drop, so does the body fat %.
Your weight is so incredibly influenced by how much fluid you are carrying, as well as muscle etc, that you can get significant variations (1-2 kgs) that are relatively meaningless. Measurements from the tape measure are a much more reliable predictor of gaining fitness, strength, reduced fat mass, increased lean mass and great shape!
Of course, as some have already seen, its hard to measure reliably also. So the key then is to look at the trend over time, which is what we are doing. Dont focus on a one week slip up - you may have just measured wrongly. Look at what is happening to your measurements over time. If they keep going down (eg waist measurement) you are making fantastic gains, (including dropping clothes sizes) regardless of what the scales say.
My final word to you all is - who can knock Lisa B off her winning perch? I have it on good authority that she is having a big weekend at Clipsal - so this week is your big chance. Go hard and be good.

HiiT - The Express Check Out for fitness and fat burning!

HiiT Class - The Express Check Out for fitness and fat burning.

38 minutes and you are done.

High Intensity Interval Training (HiiT) is the fastest way to burn fat and and build explosive power for peak athletic performance.This is not an aerobics style workout (more boot camp style), no coordination required

Suitable for men and women,

6 pm Wednesdays Crystal Brook Fitness Centre. What have you got to lose?

Worried you're not fit enough? It doesn't matter. The exercise is in 30 sec intervals, if you can't manage 30, do 15 and have a slightly longer rest interval, or drop to every second jump or do it without the jump, there are lots of options. Then each week see if you can manage more than the last. Also included is a 3 minute Cross Fit round (WOD), changed monthly. Watch your general strength and fitness soar!

To celebrate and promote the start of HiiT - I am offering free body fat testing (skinfold method) is available from 5 pm this Wed. Use it to measure your progress or just to see how you are going. First in first served. 6 - 8 people max.

Insanity AKA HiiT

What we know: Track stars have amazing bodies. What former 400-meter hurdler Shaun Thompson knows: how you can get one! The trainer, aka Shaun T., designed Insanity, a 10-disc DVD series ($120; BeachBody.com), so successful that it turned a word for lunacy into a synonym for sculpted. The magic behind the routine comes from plyometrics: explosive, full-body exercises that rev your heart rate and ratchet up metabolism to torch megacalories and build lean muscle. (Excerpt from SELF)


But you don't have to spend all these dollars or do it alone, because this program is replicated in the newest class at the Crystal Brook Fitness Centre
HiiT - High Intensity Interval Training.
Starts Wednesday at 6pm

Blogging 101

So you're new to blogging (yes this is a blog, and when you are on it its called blogging). Here's an explanation and a few tips:

A blog is like an online journal - it keeps a chronological record of thoughts and information. It can be public (available to everyone) or private (you have to join to see/comment). Only authors (in this case myself) can put new things up.

But - there are things you can do. Note the comments section at the bottom of every post - its a bit like facebook, click on the work "comment" and you can make a comment. Tell me what you think about what I've said, like/dislike, interested/not, challenge the information or provide links to more. Then you can have a conversation with people from anywhere about it.

You can find any post by looking at the Blog Archive section on the left, towards the bottom. All the posts are listed and stored by date, listed by name. So if the info you're looking for isn't at the top of the page, look here. Or try the search bar above it

This "side bar" also has other information -just scroll down the page to see it. Information about upcoming events are here, links to information, and all sorts of other weird and wonderful things as I put them up there. You can also become a "follower" - (look for this box on the side bar). If you join up to this, when new posts go up (like this one) you get an email to tell you.

If you want to tell me something privately, rather than leaving a comment that everyone will see, go to the About Me section (right at the bottom of the sidebar) click here and access my email address (which you can also just click on)

I've decided to put fitness information on here, rather than bits and pieces on facebook, as this way its all together and here permanently for people to search for if you're ever interested, and you dont have to be on facebook to see it. If you'd like to see information about a particular topic - just let me know - drop me a comment or an email - after all you know how to do both now!

What's Cross Fit?

Check out these You Tube videos for a sample of what might be in the new HiiT class!

Fitness comes to Reebok

CrossFit and the Empire State Building

Attention All Footballers (or anyone else serious about their fitness)

Put 25th Feb in your diary now, as the gym session that will kick start your training for the season and give you the edge against your competitors. High Intensity Interval Training ( HiiT) starts that night at the Crystal Brook Fitness Centre. It is NOT aerobics, you do NOT have to be coordinated, but it is hard core, high intensity fitness and power training. It is not for the faint hearted. Its interval training using a variety of strength and power based exercises used in boot camps, cross fit and plyometrics (think jumping lunges).

6.OOpm Wed 25, smash it out in just 45 mins!

2012 Leaning Out Challenge

Time to stand up and be accountable. Are you planning on leaning out this year? Do it your way, what ever your plans are, but use this comp to provide you with the commitment to follow through. Each Monday morning, you send me your weight and waist, hips and neck measurements. I'll throw the details into the calculator and reply with your current body fat %, and compare it to last week. After all its a drop in body fat that makes you look better, more toned, more shapely, and this can happen without a drop on the scales. I'll post who the top three leaders are for the week and you'll have someone to chase. You may have plans to get in shape, but this will hold you to them. Commit now, msg me that you are in!

HIIT is coming to Crystal Brook

What will put speed in your runs, height in your jumps and raise your fitness to a whole new level? HiiT (High Intensity Interval Training) will, and its coming soon on a Wednesday night at the Crystal Brook Fitness Centre. Short bursts of explosive movements (plyometrics) using body weight as resistance provides high intensity training that is guaranteed to burn fat and increased fitness quicker than any other form of training. This is not for beginners, nor the faint hearted, but if you are serious about making changes to your fitness, skills and body shape, this is for you.

And although there is music to motivate you, this is not aerobics and you don't have to be coordinated. It is much more along the lines of cross fit training and is suitable for men and women.

Cant wait to get it started. What do you think, are you interested? I'm putting the music tracks together at the moment - do you have any favorite high intensity songs?