Hi and welcome to another week,
Hope everyone is off to a flying start on the Crazy 88 Challenge. I know for me that I have somehow managed to squeeze myself through SIX (6!!) classes which is at least two more than I thought I would be able to manage during week#1. I am feeling pretty happy with myself for managing to ‘Get it Done’ despite what was a pretty crazy workload. I even managed to get back into the gym on a couple of occasions post-7:30pm (not bad when you start work at 4:45am!) to get some strength work done…if I can stay positive and keep it up, I am hopeful of getting some great results on my ‘post-challenge’ InBody Scan!
I wanted to talk a little bit about ‘getting results’ when it comes to the challenge (specifically) and the gym in general this week. And for anyone who has been reading this for a while knows, that means the semi-regular lecture about laying off the alcohol and earning your carbs is just around the corner. Hopefully it isn’t going to be quite as ‘boring’ as all that but if you get the feeling as you are reading this that you have ‘heard it all before’, well, there is every chance that you have. For me, the way to achieving successful (and sustainable) weight loss consists of two (2) really simple steps. Stop eating stuff that is bad for you is step 1 – make sure you are eating stuff that is good for you is step 2!
I know that all sounds obvious but that is because it IS obvious. If you are eating chocolate or donuts, pizza and other fast foods and drinking alcohol and soft-drink whilst you SAY that you are trying to lose some weight – STOP IT. Just STOP. I know you read in Mens/Womens Health that you can have these things ‘in moderation’ but no-one ever seems to quite define exactly what moderation is. When you hear the word ‘moderation’ it might be worth reminding yourself that one persons version of gluttony (or alcoholism!) might be another’s view of moderation! Who knows what ‘moderation’ really means? I think it is important to note that FIRST comes achieving our weight loss goal/target (or at least one of the ‘steps along the way’ to our target) and THEN comes the ‘treats in moderation’. Up until that moment – don’t do it. Just don’t. You are training too hard at the gym every day to sabotage yourself by eating things that you just KNOW aren’t helping you achieve the things you say that you want.
To keep the cycle of “DON’T” going for just a moment or two longer, please also remember that whilst my very short list of junk food above was filled with the ‘obvious’ “BAD FOODS”, as anyone who has seen ‘That Sugar Film’ will attest, there are a heap of pre-packaged things that you might THINK are healthy that really aren’t. I am talking about muesli bars, diet yoghurts, diet soft-drinks, breakfast cereals etc. The list goes on. Don’t let yourself be tricked – read the labels, understand exactly what it is you are eating and remember that if you are trying to make a change to your body composition that you are going to have to make a change to the foods you eat – it is likely that your breakfast cereal and mid-morning muffin are just going to have to go! If you are eating things that you think might not be great for you – STOP. Go and check the food labels – if it turns out that everything is ‘awesome’ then ‘go for it’. If the product contains sweeteners that you weren’t expecting to find and know that you don’t need, well, the answer is pretty simple – DON’T EAT IT!
The second and last rule is to eat stuff that IS good for you. For me this becomes easiest when I implement the ‘If it wasn’t swimming, walking, flying or growing, I am not going to eat it’ rule. Or – as one of our members put it a couple of weeks back, “If I can’t think about what I am eating and ‘see it’ as a living thing, then I don’t eat it”. It makes it easy. I can imagine what a salmon looks like so I can eat that. I can’t imagine what a ‘sorbitol’ is (it is in a common brand of muesli and muesli bars) so I don’t eat that/them (it comes from corn syrup apparently and is another form of sugar). For me, this means that my meals end up as being fresh cooked meat and veggies with an occasional serve of rice.
This also means I don’t do ‘meal replacement’ stuff. For breakfast I have food. For lunch I have food. For dinner I have food. Eating stuff that you know is good for you means you actually have to EAT. Don’t skip breakfast and wonder why you are looking for snacks mid-afternoon – you have to actually eat something. I am not necessarily in the ‘breakfast is the most important meal’ group (they are all important) but I do understand that if you eat dinner at 7pm and your next meal is breakfast, making that meal a good one would make a bit of sense. Even if you jump up early and have breakfast at 6am (I know a lot of 5am and 6am gym-goers eat AFTER their session) that would be 11 hours since your last ‘proper’ meal. A shake and a coffee is not going to get it done. If you want good results, you have to eat good stuff! (Check the ‘Link of the Week’ for an easy breakfast muffin recipe!).
So there you have it. Stop eating bad stuff. Start eating good stuff. And don’t worry, I know that isn’t the final part of the puzzle for anyone (portion sizes anyone?) and I doubly know that this really simple approach wont be the solution for ‘everyone’…but it is a really, really good start. Give it a try. Stick with it for the duration of the challenge and see what progress you can achieve.
Good luck,
See you in the gym,
Michael.
As mentioned at the top, our next challenge (Crazy 88) is underway. The requirements are:
20x Classes between Monday, August 3rd and Sunday August 30th.
Completion of Eighty Eight (8) reps of each of EIGHT (8) different exercises.
We are now one week in and whilst it would be DIFFICULT to finish if you were to start now, it would still be POSSIBLE, So if you do want to have a go, it is not too late (yet)…though with every day that passes it gets a tougher challenge.
There are no real ‘tricks’ to this challenge – there are 20 classes to complete (in 28 days) and a few extras to get done. The only rule with the extras is that once you start work on the ‘88’ you must FINISH them. You don’t (for example) need to do 88 pushups in a row – but once you start your 88 you need to finish ALL of them before you can move on. You might do sets of 10, sets of 5 or sets of 2 – it doesn’t matter, as long as they are DONE. The eight exercises involved will be announced on the morning of August 3rd via FACEBOOK (and of course they are on the sign-off sheets).
Finishing the challenge will get you a Round 1 ‘Get it Done’ t-shirt…when you sign up you will also receive access to a Body Scan which you can use either as a ‘Get started’ motivator or as a post-challenge reference point.
The cost of the ‘Crazy 88’ Challenge is $25 and you can sign up either at Reception or via the following web-link:
Crazy 88 Challenge Registration
For anyone who has already signed up – your sheets (and scan vouchers) are available from reception!
We will be pushing ahead with BB#2 and it will kick off immediately upon the conclusion of BB#1. The structure of the program will be similar but different – each day will consist of 2x program streams. Stream 1 will be for those people just getting started and will (for example) include a linear progression similar to the one that we followed for nine-weeks in the current program. Stream 2 will be more focussed on the supportive exercises etc that we are all doing now in the ‘back end’ of BB#1.
Other elements of the program – classes, conditioning, stretching and pre-hab – will be largely unchanged.
Costs will be pretty straight-forward:
– $99 for new participants.
– $49 for anyone continuing on the training pathway who participated in BB#1.
As with BB#1, these prices include monthly Body Scans for participants.
Registration links will be included in the blog next SUNDAY (August 16th).
We will be receiving our next order of Bag Mitts and MMA gloves sometime in the next couple of weeks. The new MMA glove design (no thumb) really is amazing so if you are a fan of that style of glove, given them a go – we only have red in stock right now (black ones on the way) and at $30 they are available at a really good price. Just on the pricing thing, I would encourage you to have a bit of a look around at pricing for these gloves elsewhere – the prices we offer these leather mma gloves for really is pretty amazing.
Our ever popular bag mitts will be back in stock as well – including some limited edition purple/white and blue/canary yellow colours for all of you Freo and West Coast fans. I have seen the colour mock-ups and they look amazing…excited about them being on the shelves. I tried to get some red-white-blue ones as well for all of us Bulldog supporters however the manufacturer said to me that due to the high demand for those colours they are unavailable.
Just a quick status update on the Hylete gear. I have a small range of attire in so far (t’s, singlets and crops – these are like ¾ pants for girls) and am slowly adding to the range. I would like to think that the first ‘for sale’ gear will go on the shelves towards the end of this month – just organising some screen printing etc at the moment so that at least some of the gear in the shelves says ‘Round 1’ as well as ‘Hylete’.
Costs will be around the $35 mark for t’s and singlets whilst the crops should be available for about $65.
Week 11 has been published and our linear progression is in the rear-view mirror. The week ahead is a pretty tough one and you will see some more ‘max rep’ efforts as the week progresses. Remember, MAX should be as many as you can do – not as many as you can do before it feels really unpleasant. In essence, when you do a MAX effort you should ‘FAIL’ – you shouldn’t be able to rack the bar at the end of your set.
On September 19th Corey Gaidzionis is hosting an ‘Adults Only’ Quiz Night to raise funds for his latest ‘Ride to Conquer Cancer’ event. Tix are $25 per person – tables of EIGHT (8) people. The event will be held at the Success Regional Sporting Facility (which is just south of the gym on Hammond Rd) and will kick off from 7pm.
If you are interested in getting a table together/getting along, please contact Corey on ‘conquercancer2015@gmail.com’.
A clear winner in the tipping this week with Ben Coates correctly picking all NINE (9) winners and getting the 2-point bonus that applies to that achievement. He was followed by a host of tipsters on EIGHT (8) selections – including current leader Paul O’Connor as well as both Michelle and Clint who are currently 2nd and 3rd. Paul has a 3 point lead with just 4 weeks to go.
There were some pretty amazing scores this week. ‘Magpieman’ (Dale) cracked 2300, whilst ‘NeverNeverLand’ (Ash) and ‘Juddys Allstars’ (Justin) only just missed out on the same milestone.
Next week is the first week of finals and the fixtures will be as follows:
2nd Chance Finals:
1st vs 4th – Justin vs Michael.
2nd vs 3rd – Dale vs (reigning premier) Kim.
Eimination Finals:
5th vs 8th – Ash vs Lloyd
6th vs 7th – Travis vs Rocco.
Well done to everyone who had a go this year but missed out on a spot in the top 8!
A pretty simple link this week – some egg muffins that you can make on the weekend and eat for breakfast all week long!
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Let’s work out together to see if we’re the right fit. Just hit the button below to let me know if you’re ready to see what’s included.
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