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:
- 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:-)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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…
- 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!
