Hi and welcome to another week,
Cheers to everyone who came along to train with us at Round 1 last week – it was week#1 of the Summer Slam so the gym often appeared to be chaos three-ways with classes going, people completing their challenges and people in the power racks completing their individual strength workouts. Now – everything generally seemed to be working/running OK but I would ask everyone to have a bit of consideration for those around them AND to understand than no matter what, the classes have priority when it comes to the equipment. I know it might suck a bit if you have come in specifically to do a challenge or to use a squat rack – but space and equipment is not unlimited and there are going to be times when you need to be flexible with your training plans. Just keep a smile on your face and remember that getting your training done is important – but exactly WHAT you do today is not life and death…relax, think for a moment and get on with whatever there IS room to get on with! It is going to be OK! J
Week#1 of a food challenge – and apologies to the non-challenge peeps out there ‘cos today is going to be a lot about the challenge, the food and getting our collective acts together – is always a fun time. What quickly happens (to me anyway) is the little ‘I eat pretty healthy’ story I have been telling myself gets pretty quickly debunked as all of the lazy habits I have been falling into come straight to the surface.
Habit 1 for me. Somehow, someway my semi regular over-night oats has developed a honey obsession. And if we are out of honey, it is replaced by maple syrup. How did this even happen? How did this ever happen? Why am I putting honey on my oats? I don’t need it – the berries and stuff I stick in there are delicious…but there you go. Honey is in my oats. That has got to stop.
Habit 2 for me. The rise of the Peanut butter and jam sandwich. To be fair, I pretty much grew up eating these – or peanut butter and honey! – and they got me through 10000 school days and training sessions during my teenage years. The problem with them is – and this is true of all ‘lifetime habits’ – once I have had one for two or three days in a row, I am back eating them again. And they are quick, easy and filling. And if I ‘forget’ to make a lunch box (AKA make a subconscious decision just to have a pbj sanger instead!) then I am back eating them 5 days each week in no time. And then I am eating them even if I DO have lunch as well.
Habit 3 for me. The sugar and sweeteners in EVERYTHING. They are in my kim chee, my sauerkraut, they are in my tomato paste, they are in what seems like every ‘EXTRA’ thing I stick into anything I cook. Somehow when the challenges are on I manage to go without all of ‘that’ but in between times, boy does it creep up on you. I buy a FitAid from the gym every couple of days and despite the ‘Paleo Friendly’ claims on the can, somehow there is stevia in them and I have no idea how that ticks a paleo box! Yes, it is DERIVED from a plant, but I am feeling that is a pretty long bow right now! What else? Oh yeah – my afternoon protein shake is also stuffed with sugar…what is going on?!!!
Habit 4 for me. L-O-L-L-I-E-S. Damn there are a lot of lollies in my life. On my desk right now are 3x bags of chocolate liquorice and 2 bags of red frogs. I know there are another 2x packets of chocolate liquorice in the fridge – nominally ‘waiting’ for the challenge to be over. I know I eat some red frogs and liquorice on the weekends, but I am having some pretty worrying thoughts about exactly how many of them I am actually eating. Based on the back log of product accumulated in just ONE WEEK I suppose it is no wonder my recent body scan history has shown a lot of ‘muscle down, fat % up’ type outcomes.
Habit 5 for me. If I have a beer on Thursday, well, that’s when the “weekend” starts. I don’t tend to drink ‘too’ much – but I have noticed that recently I have gotten into the habit of having a beer or two on Thursday night. And that then means I have the green light to drink again on Friday, Saturday and Sunday…not good! Not good at all. I have already used one of my cheat days (I had a function last Friday that involved a few beers – but not too many I am happy to say!) but somehow those Friday beers had me looking forward to a beer on Saturday night…and I wasn’t doing anything more energetic than laying on the couch watching T.V. Pretty sure it isn’t supposed to be that way and I need to grab a hold of this habit as well.
So – that’s what I have identified about myself in a few short days: honey, PBJ’s, condiments and additives, lollies and beer have all been part of my week way (way) too regularly. I know this is why we do these challenges – to get a bit of a reality check and get everything ‘back on track’ – but, for someone who “eats pretty healthy” week # 1 has been a week of surprising discoveries and head shaking! On a positive side, I have gotten through it and hopefully by the end of the challenge all of these ‘sometimes’ foods are back to being eaten some of the time!
See you in the gym,
Michael.
P.S. We are planning a Fundraising Day on Saturday November 11th to raise funds for M.S. This is the fundraising being done by Kirei and her team of intrepid cyclists who will be heading off on a bike ride of some unspeakable distance later in November. We will have some raffles etc to run but the main focus of the day will be a WARRIOR WORKOUT which we will be chasing some participation ‘donations’ for as well as a ‘Train the Trainer’ session where ‘the people’ will have the opportunity to ‘Train the Trainers’. The plan at this time is that you can BID to ‘Train the Trainer’ via silent auction – and not only are syndicates allowed, they are encouraged!
Gym Update #1 – SUMMER SLAM (October Challenge) is HERE
Summer SLAM is GO – and all the details are UP on the website and you can read all about it HERE!
I have covered a fair bit of stuff relating to the challenge up at the top of today’s blog so I don’t really want to repeat myself over and again – but I would encourage EVERYONE to join the Facebook group (it is HERE!) and to join the conversations, share your food, your challenge times (and struggles)…the more engaged you can get the more easily you will find yourself to November 5th without losing your mind!
SO – my new speed ball swivels have arrived and I am looking forward (lol) to putting them up in the next few days. I feel like I have been battling with speed ball swivels since opening the gym back in 2010 – my favourite ‘type’ of swivel are one piece, plastic and – as most people would have noticed – break on a pretty regular basis. I have gone away from them in recent years with a new steel swivel type but even those have started playing up – they seem to ‘thread’ internally which is what is causing a couple of the speed balls to bounce all over the place at the moment.
Anyway, I have been playing around with a few different models and have got hold of some new (and ridiculously expensive! L ) split level swivels and will be installing five of them this week…so let’s see how they go!
I have a new (and hopefully) long-term new model of speedballs about to be delivered as well (end of next week I think!) so this little refurb will be done pretty soon!
I have been teasing this for a few weeks now but the registration link for the ‘Developing Athletes Program’ will be going up this Wednesday. So for everyone who has said that they 100% want one of the spots and to 100% put their names down, well…the rubber is about to hit the road.
There are only 8x spots available – the program isn’t going to work effectively if there are more people than that – and based on interest expressed to this point it will fill up pretty quickly. Hopefully it is a success and we get to run it again after Christmas, but, well – I guess you never know! One last update is that there is a complete ‘Program Guide’ which has been written to help guide the kids through AND to be used as a reference post- program.
I guess this is the first ‘contained’ program we have run since the ‘Squat Therapy’ program and I would like to think everyone is a little bit excited about what might be achieved!
Just to add a little bit more information to the above, here is what it is going to look like:
– 3x sessions per week for 6-weeks (each session around 60 minutes).
– Session times: Tuesday (5pm), Thursday (5pm) and Saturday (8:30am)
– Cost: $180 (which includes gym membership for the duration of the program)
– Maximum of 8x participants.
Man I love this – particularly point number #1!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUA2nZ684uA
I get approximately 1000 questions about supplements each week and whilst there is for sure a place for them, they aren’t step number one in kicking off a health program.
We know this can be a daunting time. You’re probably wondering if we really are the right fit for each other. And it’s OK! Many people before you, have felt the same, and that’s why we want to offer you something special – our $29 Health Check.
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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