A few days ago I got an email from a propective client.

Here’s the message I received:

“Hi Kristen,

I just read your story online and am interested in talking to you about joining your boot camp. I have literally been working my ass off the last year trying to get in shape and have seen some results, but not enough to keep me motivated to keep at it. I feel like I spend hours at the gym and have found it nearly impossible to drop the weight and get the muscle tone that I want too. And now, I feel like I am hitting a plateau. What should I do?”

I remember being at a point when I also felt this way and was almost ready to give up until I met my trainer. She made me realize that there is more to it than just putting on gym clothes one day and deciding you are going to start working out.

Now, whenever I hear from a new client who expresses frustration with working out for hours a day and not seeing results, the first thing I have to know from them is what does it mean to them personally to see results? What does your vision of your perfect body and health looks like?

Because if you don’t know what it means to you personally to get results, you will never know if you have gotten there… And that is a pretty frustrating existence!  You will never feel like you are getting anywhere if you don’t know where you want to go.

So the first 3 things you have to ask yourself are:

1) What are my fitness goals?

2) Why are these important to me?

3) What would the positive changes in my life be after I achieve these goals?

Because that’s what we’re REALLY talking about in “feeling good” and being happy about your fitness results.

My guess is you probably don’t have as much clarity in this realm as you would truly benefit from having.

So allow yourself to take time in giving this more thought. Try to do this without other distractions going on.

And know that it is okay if these change once you get going. Because they will. That is why it is good to re-visit your goals regularly to make sure you never feel like you are sinking into a plateau.

In my experience working with hundreds of new clients, people will be really amped up in the beginning, but tend to forget why they wanted to get fit in the first place if they do not re visit their goals on a regular basis. Sometimes they start with the goal of weight loss and then realize they like how good it feels to be strong. In that moment, re-writing your goals can be extremely beneficial. When you do this, you can keep yourself excited and focused while you are working out all of the time.

Now, that you know what you want, how do you really keep from hitting a plateau?

So now that you have taken a step back to figure out what it is that you really want from your health and fitness, it is time to set yourself up for success. In my opinion, no one has done this better than our 2011-12 Member of the Year Nominees. (head on over and vote for your favorite success story when you get a chance.)

They have not only given themselves a target to shoot for, but they have realized that fitness isn’t a month long endeavor.  Fitness is forever, should encompass all elements that make up a well – rounded program and takes ongoing work.

When people feel like they are hitting a plateau it is usually because of 1 of 5 reasons:

1) They did not re-visit or even develop goals in the first place

2) They got complacent during their workouts and just went through the motions without much effort instead of going to the gym with the mind set to give it their all

3) They forgot that working out is only a small piece of the puzzle. Lifestyle and nutrition account for nearly 80%.

4) They started only focusing on 1 aspect of their workouts  (stretching but not the cardio, cardio but not the strength, strength but not the mobility work, etc.)

5) They stopped pushing themselves because they got bored (which usually comes down to the fact that they do not remember why they wanted to workout in the first place).

Bottom line is that it all comes down to having a clear vision. Once you clear this up everything you do will be heading in the same direction as what you ultimately want…

I know that most people have trouble figuring this stuff out on their own so don’t be ashamed if you have never thought about your “fitness wish list”. To help you clear things up for yourself, we are inviting you to a HUGE and FREE event Tuesday March 6th at 7pm (at the Sports Basement in Potrero) called “Make 2012 Your Best Year Ever!”

All we ask is that you bring a small $10 donation that will benefit the Boys & Girls Club of San Francisco. Make sure to go here to read all about it and sign up here.

We will have 2 motivational speakers that will be revealing ground breaking ways to make yourself healthier, stay fit for life, and re-develop your mind set to be successful long term… Space is limited so make sure you get on our VIP list today!

I completely understand where his wife is coming from. She loves him and just want the best for him. She remembers how his energy used to be higher, he was fit and eating healthy. All of a sudden after a knee surgery, he had to stop working out. And over the years he completely lost his drive to get back into his healthy habits, even after his knee healed.

But, unfortunately, as much as I wanted to make things right and convince him to join our programs, there was nothing I could do to sway his opinion about getting fit again either. He simply didn’t realize he had a problem and wasn’t ready to change at that point.

If this had happened previous to my understanding about the ‘Stages of Change’ model, I probably would have blamed myself for not making him a believer that our programs could help him.

Now I know he just wasn’t ready to change and that is okay.

It is tough for us to learn that when a people we care about are not ready to change themselves, we have to lay off a bit. And putting the the pressure on is not helpful in motivating them to make a change any sooner.

So what can we do to help people we love when what they are doing could be detrimental to their lives?

The truth is, they know exactly what they to do to be healthy.  They probably know that eating well and exercising will help them get feel better again. But if they do not want to change, or do not realize that there is a problem, we have to step off a bit until they make the decision for themselves that changing is a good idea.

In the “Stages of Change Model” By Prochaska and DiClemente, the change process and strategies to help anyone along in making any change is defined. Knowing where you or someone you want to help are personally  in this cycle can help you to know how to coach others in a way that will help them realize that change is necessary and possible.

6 Stages of Change:

1. Pre – Contemplation – This is the entry point to the process of change. A person is not even considering the possibility of changing and does not even see themselves as having a problem in the first place. The best thing to do in this stage for yourself and others is to not Force change upon someone (which is our natural instinct to help kicking in). We must help the person raise their awareness gently that their current behaviors may have a bad impact on their health later in life. Being too persistent in this stage can often make people shy away from the possibility of changing completely. Raising doubts in their minds and increasing perception of the risk of their current behaviors can help move them along to the second stage where change becomes a possibility.
2. Contemplation – The best way to describe contemplation is Ambivalence. One day you want to change, the next day you don’t. Most of the time you don’t want to change because you do not believe that it is actually possible for you to do so. The more I learn about change, the more I understand that change is a skill that can be learned as long as you put in the effort to make it happen. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is more difficult. But the point is that it is always possible. The best thing we can do to help others in this stage is to strengthen the belief that they are in fact capable of making change happen. They may just need to learn the skills required to make their specific change occur.
3. Preparation – The number 1 mistake most people make with their change efforts is not spending enough time in this stage before taking action. In the preparation stage, we have come to an understanding that change needs to occur. We make our own decision that we must do something about the problem and will either make the choice to to move into action or with inappropriate interactions with others, flip back into the contemplation stage. In this stage, we must decide the best and easiest course of action to take to start moving forward with the change process. We also must spend time in this stage preparing for situations that may swing us back the contemplation stage. (I did a great post about how to prepare to make changes that stick. You can read this here.)
4. Action – This is where we are actually taking steps to make our change occur. If it is to get healthy, we are getting in our workouts, making healthy choices nutritionally, going to sleep 1 hour earlier, etc. The goal here is to continue to take steps necessary for the change we want to make.
5. Maintenance – The changed behavior is now becoming habitual. Working out and eating right are now second nature and are starting to feel easy. The best thing we can do in this stage is to continue to create strategies that make it easy for us to maintain the changes we made and provide ourselves with the necessary accountability to prevent relapses of old behaviors.
6. Relapse and Recycle or Termination – This is where we have considered our old habit corrected or we revert back to the original problem behavior. The most important thing to understand is that this is Normal and expected when we are trying to change something we have been struggling with for years and to not feel defeated or demoralized if we go back to square one. Again, this is normal, we are only human. The biggest goal here is to renew the process of remembering why we wanted to make a change in the first place, our personal reasons for making it happen and re-engaging in our new behaviors to make the change occur.

This Stages of Change Model has been astronomical in helping me as a coach to develop an understanding of where my clients are in each stage and the best course of action I can take that will help them make decisions that will better their lives.

Remember, that you cannot make decisions for other people. If they are not ready to change, there is not much you can do to make them change but you can raise their awareness without sounding too pushy. And the Ultimate Predictor of Success for anyone who comes to the realization that they want to change is their level of Persistence and Willingness to continue working through the stages of change will aid them to continue moving forward with their change efforts.

I understand because I spent 7 years dealing with my own terrible neck and upper back pain and working out was not making me feel better. I loved dancing, it was something I did all the time, but even that was making me feel much worse.

After 7 years of trying massage, physical therapy, chiropractic care, acupuncture, ART, the pain never went away and I honestly felt like nothing would ever help me until I discovered what pain actually is, where it lives, and why I was in pain. If you currently suffer from any type of pain that either won’t go away, or keeps coming back, read on.

What is Pain and Where Does it Live?

Definition – “Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage.”

The more research I do on the subject, the more I understand that pain is an action signal which lives in the BRAIN and tells you that something is wrong. The confusing part is that it could be signaling anything that is wrong in the body! It also doesn’t necessarily mean that you have something wrong where you feel the pain.

The cool part is that it means that you may not be broken or injured, you may just need to discover exercise drills that will make your pain go away.

Let me elaborate:

Your brain has actual movement maps for Everything that you do. From walking, to running, to sitting, etc. And if you think about a baby, they do not have maps developed yet. Over the years as we grow up, start working in an office and stop moving as much, our movement maps become blurred. It’s almost like spilling coffee on the map you are using to get somewhere. Because our maps get blurry, we have less coordination and start compensating and using poor movement patterns frequently. So, most pain begins due to of lack of movement or repetitive and damaging movement patterns.

Here is an equation for you:

Better Movement = Better Movement Maps

Better Movement Maps = Less Pain:

Why Was I in Pain?

I was in pain for 6 years because I, like most people had some glitches in my movement map. After I went to my first Z Health seminar, and learned some movement drills to clear up my map, my pain went away.

Now, I still have to keep the drills up but they don’t take long for me to do and they make me feel 100 times better! It is empowering to know I can take care of my own pain.

What Are the Things You can Do?

First, come check out my “Starting out Right Pain and Injury Free” seminar today in San Jose and Tuesday in San Francisco at My Gym (901 Minnesota Street at 7:15pm).

Second, if you have any sort of persisting pain, send us an email and we will see if we can help you out! iluvmybodyfitness@gmail.com

Last, check out the video below. Really interesting story about how my friend Ken (a Z Health Master Trainer) got out, in and back out again of shoulder pain.

Enjoy!

I have heard this type of story many times and I used to think that maybe people just lacked the will to change. But I recently read a great book which addresses the subject of will power and the psychology and planning that is necessary behind your change efforts, especially when it comes to losing weight.  This book is called “Change Anything” by Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan and Switzler. This book completely changed my opinions on how to make a change and I told my friend to give the strategies a try with his mom.

They argue that if you feel stuck at a specific weight, and living in a body you are not especially happy with, it is rarely because you lack the will power for things to be different. Think about that. You’ve undoubtedly felt lost and out of control in certain situations and reflected upon them by thinking that you did not have will power.  And it just isn’t true.

We are all taught from a young age that all we have to do is ‘put our mind to it’ and we can make things change that we want in life. The problem is that no one ever teaches you about how to do that. And most of the time when you are finding it hard to change an aspect of your life, it is because you are outnumbered by 6 sources of influence that you must address before changes can occur and stick…

Source 1: Love What You Hate

If you are ever to succeed at making a change you’ll have to think about creative ways to make the right diet choices enjoyable for you. For example, figure out what you love about eating healthy food and exercising regularly. Maybe it is how energized this makes you feel or how much thinner you will look over time. Focus on the positives of what you have to change and making good choices will eventually become second nature.

Source 2: Do What You Can’t

If change is taking too much will and effort,  you probably need to develop the skill to create and sustain change. Developing the skills to change actually plays a crucial role in creating and sustaining changes in your life.  Try to focus on making a deliberate effort to master the skills you personally need to make changes easy and permanent. To make changes to your diet you can practice the skill of eating smaller portions at meal time or learning the skill of chewing your food completely to eat slower so you become fuller faster.

Sources 3 and 4: Turn Accomplices into Friends **

Few people are aware of how many others are involved in undermining their efforts to make a change through enabling and encouraging bad diet choices. So, if you want to change a behavior, one of the best things you can do is have a conversation with a few ‘accomplices’ (people that surround you on a regular basis who are not helping with your change efforts) and turn them into ‘friends’ who support your efforts. For instance, talking to the person who does the cooking in your household or does the grocery shopping and asking them to purchase healthier foods for the house can increase your success rate by 40%.

Source 5: Invert the Economy

Bad habits are cheap. And you can actually bribe yourself to change! Give yourself a goal to accomplish by a certain date and if you do not, make yourself donate money to a political organization you hate and have a friend make you stick to this promise. This alone can help you make significant efforts to achieve your goals.

Source 6: Control Your Space

We’re blind to the hundreds of ways our environment controls us. Our surroundings powerfully control what we think, how we feel and act. If you want to take control of your diet, you have to identify your current habits and then take control of your surroundings.

To do this, think about the answers to the following 6 questions:

1. Who do you eat with
2. What do you eat
3. When do you eat
4. Where do you eat
5. Why do you eat
6. How do you eat

Planning to overcome your personal 6 Sources of Influence and working with the challenging circumstances that present themselves on a regular basis will make you a much stronger person over time and will help your diet changes actually stick! It does take more effort initially but after you’ve put the work in you will be surprised at how easy it will be to overcome these for the long term.

Our challengers have been doing great getting their workouts in and Boot Camp is packed! Now it’s time to start addressing the issue that holds most people back from their ideal figure…. Nutrition.

Tomorrow night (Tuesday Jan 17th) at 7:15pm (901 Minnesota St),  we will have one of my favorite speakers, Audra Baker come to talk about Nutritional Myths and how most people have weight loss resistance and don’t even know it. If you feel like you have tried Everything and your weight is not budging, it is highly possible there is something going on in your body that is holding you back and I’m sure you are ready to take care of it once and for all! Audra has a plan that has helped over 45 of our boot campers lose at least 10 lbs of fat in the first 30 days. It is called her Clean and Lean Nutrition Plan.

Our instructor Missy Bunch and her boyfriend decided to to change their diets when she first joined our team back in August. Missy wanted to share her story and results with you all today about her experience taking part in Audra’s Clean and Lean Nutrition Plan:

Missy’s Story

Clean and Lean?! That sounds like dance move! Well let me tell you what the Clean and Lean challenge really is (although I do wish it was a dance move). My experience with the 30day Clean and Lean challenge provided by Kristen Nolan and Audra Baker was in a period of my life where I knew I wanted to change something about my diet. I had no idea what it is was, I just heard the words clean & challenge in the same sentence and said, what is that? I want that, I am doing it no matter WHAT it is. I have tried everything! Pills, shakes, powders, south beach diet, Adkins, you name it.  I ate “pretty well” and I ate healthy…so I thought.

Before this challenge I didn’t REALLY know what food was. I know it sounds funny, but I had no idea what I was doing to my body. I didn’t know what gluten was and what the craze was about. I didn’t know I was sensitive to dairy. I also didn’t know how FUN it would be to eat healthy and cook for my boyfriend and myself.

The knowledge and education that I received from the weekly coaching calls were SO beneficial to my life and I will forever be grateful for the information I received. The first couple weeks were interesting. I had headaches, I was lazy and doing everything “right.”  Little did I know that I was severely addicted to sugar and caffeine. I mean who isn’t?? I never knew how important water was either. I mean you always hear it, “ drink a lot of fluids” and I never knew why my mom always told me that. Well there is a reason! And there are plenty of reasons SHE didn’t even know of. Water actually impacts the cell production in your face. So if you are dehydrated you literally will not have the “glow” you would if you were hydrated fully. Water is also vital to transporting essential nutrients and vitamins throughout your body. (Much like a fed ex truck) And of course, water cleans your body of waste. There is a laundry list of benefits but those were a couple that really woke me up from my dehydrated slumber!

As far as results? I am 4’ 11” and lost 7 pounds and for my small stature this is a BIG deal. My boyfriend lost 16 pounds in 3 ½ weeks by committing to this challenge. My boyfriend had been dealing with stomach issues for the past 16 years of his life and THREE days after the challenge the stomach pain and bloating was GONE. It took this challenge to realize that he was extremely sensitive to gluten and had no idea his entire life. He had lived with it so long that being uncomfortable, gaseous and in pain was normal. This challenge literally changed his life. We have never had more energy in our entire lives and never lost weight so quickly by just buying fresh produce more often, removing a couple types of food that are detrimental to the human body and drinking a ton of water. The 30 day challenge was easy, interesting and most of all it was FUN.

Here’s the thing folks, it’s NEVER the “right” time to change old habits and dedicate yourself to the body you want. You actually have to choose the life you want and the body you want. Someday is NOT listed on the calendar, there’s only Monday-Sunday.

To eat clean and lean really means to eat how the human body was designed to, to go back to before fast foods and processed foods that take 3 years to expire. It means to take out all the ingredients you can’ t pronounce and EAT REAL FOOD. You’re a real person right? So eating real food makes sense…

If you all want to come out and learn more about our Clean and Lean Nutrition Plan, get out to 901 Minnesota street tomorrow night at 7:15pm! See you all then!

I am trying to get some down time in after an amazing “Your Best Body Challenge” launch this past Saturday. Over 65 people came to support the event and between the San Francisco and San Jose Challenge launches, we raised $3500 for the Boys & Girls Club. It feels really good to pay it forward after all the support I have received from people in my life to start my business. This challenge gets bigger and bigger every year and every year we change people’s lives and I am thrilled with the progress of challengers that stick through the 8 weeks. If you are one of our challengers or even if you are motivated to kick start your new plan this year, here are some tips to keep yourself committed:

1. Write it Down – I won’t spend too much time on this because I know I have been talking about it for a while. But seriously, how do you know when you’ve been successful if you have no idea where you want to go in the first place? Writing down your goals (what you want to accomplish) and motivation for accomplishing them (the reason why) helps you reap the rewards of being successful! Every time you make some headway towards a goal, give yourself some positive reinforcement – a massage, a spa treatment, a nice necklace – whatever makes you happy! Just not a cookie:-)
2. Surround Yourself With People who are Positive Influences on You – Being around a group of motivated folks is contagious (in a good way). When you surround yourself with others who are excited about where they are going in life and are also working towards accomplishing goals, it is easy to become influenced to keep going with your personal goals. Think about it, if your friends are constantly inviting you to the meet them at the gym or go out for a healthy meal, you would be way more likely to engage in this behavior. If your friends are only interested in sitting around, watching TV and drinking beers (which is absolutely cool from time to time but not all the time), you will be more likely to engage to do this yourself which won’t help you get the inches off.
3. Exercise with well rounded (full body) workouts with cardio at least 3 times a week. My favorite exercises are ones that involve your entire body, keep your heart rate up, and keep you moving. Of course, you have to make sure that you know how to do each move separately before you put your full body exercises together. This is why we use techniques from Z Health in our warm up and sometimes throughout the workout. The techniques teach you how to isolate different body parts so that when you get to the bigger movements you are less likely to get injured and more likely to feel the appropriate muscles working in the exercise. You can come and learn more about this at our Community Lecture “Starting out Right Pain and Injury Free” January 31st at My Gym – 901 Minnesota St at 7:15pm.
4. Speaking of injuries, be mindful of your exercise form all the time. I cannot emphasize this enough. I told our boot campers yesterday at orientation that I recently heard a staggering statistic that 70% of people are injured within their first 6 weeks of working out, usually from going beyond their limits. This is why big corporate gyms have to have a huge membership base coming in all the time. They know that 70% of their clients will stop working out within 6 weeks time! My best suggestion to avoid getting injured is to have a professional coach watching over you. Trust me when I say that I actually did not feel this way until about 7 years ago when I hired a professional coach to fight my own personal weight loss battle. I had been dancing my entire life (for 15 years) and thought that I knew everything about working out. Turns out I was dead wrong. And the more you practice bad form, the more you become really good at exercising with poor form. This is usually what leads to injury…
5. Remember that Nutrition is 80% of the Battle. Really??? Yes! Trust me, I wish all it took was a good, tough workout to get you lean. I would probably be a millionaire by this point. But, it is not true. And whoever told you that all you had to do to lose weight was to workout everyday was lying to you.  My great friend Nutrition Educator Audra Baker will be talking all about Nutrition for health and weight loss Tuesday January 17th at My Gym (901 Minnesota St) at 7:15pm. I highly suggest coming to her lecture to learn how to overcome weight loss resistance and learn how to Eat Clean to Get Lean. Now, on the other had, I can’t deny that working out definetly helps to lose fat weight instead of muscle weight. If you’ve ever heard the term “skinny fat,” you know what I mean. People who don’t workout will lose their lean muscle mass along with the fat. And that does not create the nice toned look we all like to have.

Alright, best of luck to everyone! We can’t wait to see what happens in the next 8 weeks! And if you haven’t checked out our YBB Photos from our Launch Event, go to our Facebook Page to see them today!

In 2011 We Added a Ton of Inclusions to Our Programs for our existing Members:

• Added  8 more boot camp classes a week. We had 7 classes per week and are now up to 60 Unlimited access classes a month!
• Added a Members only website with done-for-you tools. Our members site has over 25 free downloads for nutrition, workouts, recipes, grocery lists, flexibility, cardio, travel workouts, etc and 10 videos so far to aid in supporting your progress.
• Sought out quality Services from the San Francisco community and built relationships with them. Now they are willing to give our members discounts on their services: we have a chiropractor (Custom Chiropractic), acupuncturist (Wood Tiger Acupuncture), photographer (Stuart Locklear Photography), hair stylist (Dekko Salon), and a life coach (Coach Kenji) who all offer discounts to I Luv My Body Fitness members..
• Added 2 new and highly qualified instructors who are the best I have ever worked with: Missy and John and trained them on our protocols
• Integrated Z Health knowledge I’ve gained to our fitness programs through spending tens of thousands of $$ on top notch education that only 8 other trainers in all of SF are now qualified to use.
• Started client care phone calls and optional monthly accountability calls to help our members remain more motivated.

It was a good year!

My business coaches are always helping me to make improvements in our customer experience and have been encouraging me to reveal a solid Mission Statement and Business Core Values to our clients. I finally took their advice in December and put together a list of all our Core Values.

Since it is the beginning of a new year, I wanted to start this year off right and share all of them with you today. All of our core values are based upon our Mission Statement and Company Vision. Each person that works for my company will live and breath these, I know Missy and John already do:

Our Company Mission Statement
I Luv My Body Fitness’ Mission is to create a community of enthusiastic clients and coaches who are focused on life long fitness, health and nutrition. We will empower our clients with the accountability and motivation they need to achieve any health and fitness goal and have fun in the process!

Our Company Core Values
Each staff member is responsible for taking on these core values and living by them to make ours and our customer’s experience memorable and amazing. We want to exude these qualities in everything we do:

1. Over-deliver in every aspect of our program to each of our clients AND each other.

• Help every client learn and succeed.
• Go above and beyond in everything we do.

2. Offer Professional and Well Rounded Services

• Our classes and training runs on time.
• Programs make people look and feel better.
• We Combine all aspects of a well rounded fitness plan into our client’s experience.

3. Integrity – Practice what we preach

• Services are based upon our past experiences with what works for our clients.
• We never offer anything we don’t believe 100% in.

4. Constant Learning and Self Development

• Develop and expand our knowledge base through earning certifications from credible organizations, training with top people in the industry, and reading.
• We share our ideas with each other and work on being better every day.

5. Build Community, Welcoming and Fun Atmosphere

• Help clients to have fun during class while working hard.
• Hold community events and challenges to get to know each other.
• Laugh a lot!

6. Constant Improvement in Our Services

• Be flexible and change to make our program better.

7. Life Long Health and Fitness

• Our goal is to keep each and every client for life.
• Programing safe and effective workouts is top of mind for every session.
• Members leave every class better than when they came!
• Help everyone experience constant improving, learning and development.

8. Communication

• We voice all questions and concerns to each other and ask our clients to do the same.
• Recognizing concerns early on can fix everything.

9. Quality

• Our products and services are top notch and our prices reflect that.
• We put a lot of thought and hard work into everything we do.

What you can expect from our program in 2012:

We have already set the stage to make this a huge year for I Luv My Body Fitness and our clients. If you are an Active Client of ours, you have all received Holiday cards stating the name of your team leader who will be responsible for helping you remain on track outside of the classroom. So if you need additional support, let them know immediately. They will be calling you each month to see how your program is going.

Our YBB Challenge starts this Saturday and here are all the things our Active Members who make their donation and everyone signed up for our “Committed to Win Option” will be getting to be successful in this challenge:

1. Opportunity to Sign up for Top Notch Body Fat Testing (I am running the tests this week on Tues and Thurs night, sign up here today and beat the rush to reserve your time slot! 2 tests (before and after) is only $40!
2. 4 Weekly Meal Plans with corresponding grocery lists
3. Access to our New Online Meal Journaling program AND Weekly calls to review your status with your team leader
4. Weekly Weigh Ins (Mondays Before or after class) And recordings to show your progress
5. 2 Group Hikes with our team
6. 3 Community Lectures
7. Huge Awards Ceremony at the end
8. First place winner has a Chance to win prize package valued at $2800!

We can’t wait to see you all Saturday!

All the best and Happy 2012!

xo,

Kristen

First we had Ashley Campisi. Ashley has been with us for 1 year now (Happy Anniversary Ashley!). She is now down 42 lbs and 17 inches and has brought her sister on board to join us in her program. We gave her a set of interview questions so you could hear her story. (Make sure you read till the end because if you want results like Ashley you will want to see what we have in store for you Kicking off January 7th!)

Why did you join I Luv My Body Fitness Boot Camps?
I joined I Luv My Body Fitness Boot Camp because I was in a serious rut with my workout routine and needed a change. I have always been active, enjoyed playing sports and have been consistently exercising for years but I wasn’t seeing any real results with the cardio based routine I was on. I also know that, for me, having the accountability that comes with attending a class and keeping up with the other members is the thing that really helps maximize workouts. I had done circuit training based classes in the past and knew I wanted to try a boot camp but decided to try I Luv My Body Fitness because of the positive reviews I saw on Yelp. I Luv My Body was praised for its challenging classes, friendly and dedicated staff and comfortable environment, all things I quickly found to be true and, I think, all things that set this boot camp apart from others.

What is your favorite part about boot camp?
My favorite part of boot camp is the variety of routines and exercises implemented in each class. Every class is something different which keeps me engaged, both physically and mentally. Boredom is definitely not a factor in these workouts which makes coming to class 3-4 nights a week extremely easy and enjoyable. In addition to keeping classes creative, it has been great to be exposed to such a wide range of exercises. I find myself writing down routines I find particularly challenging but gratifying and trying to work them into my own fitness routine when I can’t make class or when it’s an off day. It has been great to learn so many new exercises and gain a deeper understanding of how to approach my diet and exercise routine in a way that’s really going to yield the best results.

What results have you seen since joining?
I have seen incredible results in weight loss, enhanced muscle tone and increased level of overall health in the past year. Since joining last January I have lost 42 pounds and 17 total inches. I’ve learned how to exercise and eat to maximize healthy weight loss and how to change my life to fit these healthy habits. Beyond the weight loss numbers, the biggest result I’ve seen since joining was just how doable it is to completely overall your diet and exercise habits while still enjoying food and fun with friends. Working with Kristen to develop strategies for continuing to lose weight while still being able to go out with friends has been paramount in my ability to sustain my fitness and nutrition plan while still doing all the things I love.

What would you say to someone who is thinking about joining our fitness program?
I would advise them to think seriously about their fitness goals and try to determine what it’s going to take to achieve them. If it’s something you feel you’re able to do on your own, then great! But I think for most people, elevating your health and fitness takes some level of learning. Learning about nutrition and exercise but also learning about your personal habits and what has impaired your progress in the past. By changing how you think, it opens more doors to what you’re able to achieve and I have personally found that the I Luv My Body Program is a great place to learn those lessons and change your life for the better.

While I was there I did some brainstorming with a couple of their most successful clients. We chatted about things they were doing to stay in shape throughout the holiday season. They shared some great tips with me that I wanted to pass along to you, so enjoy!

12 Ways to Avoid Holiday Binging:

1) Plan out your month – Put all parties you have been invited to in your calendar and plan your weekly menu around them. This way you can spread your caloric intake throughout the week and not overload on carbs or sugar 2+ days in a row. Recording your parties on a calendar makes it easier for you to see where you will want to splurge a little. Plan eat clean around the event.

2) Keep your exercise consistent – It is so much harder to put something bad in your mouth when you know how hard you just worked to keep your waistline slim. You will end up making better choices to avoid participating in additional hard workouts.

3) Make your shopping trips a workout – take the stairs when you can and park your car farther away than normal. Challenge yourself by carrying heavy bags. The more movement you get, the more calories you burn.

4) Don’t feel like all efforts are lost – if you do eat a little more than you should at your office holiday party, don’t feel like all your efforts have been lost! This can be extremely de-motivating and is another reason why planning out your month is so important.

5) Practice a 2 drink maximum – The influx of alcohol in your diet can really add up around the holidays. Drink slowly and cut yourself off after 2 max! Also, if you are going to drink, try to stick with red wine, gin or vodka with soda water and don’t use sugary mixers.

6) Shift your mindset to maintain your weight around the Holidays and not feel pressured to lose weight.- Save that for our Janurary “Your Best body Challenge” (more info coming soon! It’s going to be bigger than ever and a great way to get back in shape!)

7) Do something active with your friends and family – enjoy winter activities like the ice skating rink downtown or taking a day trip to Tahoe for some fun in the snow.

Write out your New Years goals so you are all set to go on Jan 1.  Start to think about how you will make good changes in your life to stay healthy in the new year.  Writing this out early will program your mindset to be health focused so you will avoid over eating.

9) Do some winter cleaning and decorating -  Getting your house festive for the season can be a great workout – lifting trees, boxes of decorations, climbing up and down ladders to put up lights – all of these can provide a great day of activity.

10) Don’t let yourself get to the “super crazy hungry Point” – make sure your meals are well rounded so you won’t be tempted by the bowls of candy and cookies at the office.

11) Keep yourself occupied – work can get slow during the holidays but if it does try not let yourself get bored. Go on a walk, start planning out your new year, make more time for you so you won’t be tempted by the office snacks.

12) Just say yes! Don’t deprive yourself all the time. Holidays are a time for food, friends and fun. It is not worth isolating yourself over. Practice Portion control and enjoy everything in moderation.

Bonus Tip!! – Think about any health goal you would like to achieve by the end of 2011 (remember this does not have to be weight loss related). It could be anything – doing 5 more push ups, taking a long hike, getting to workouts 3 times a week every week this month- If you write this down and stay focused on it, you will be less likely to over eat around the holidays.