I’m not saying I don’t get scared, because there’s certain things we’re all afraid of.  But I’m not afraid of making a few mistakes because it means I’m taking action and I can at least course correct as I go.

Don’t get stuck like a deer in the headlights never taking action or too afraid of what might happen.  Mistakes can be as good a teacher as success is.

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually be afraid you will make one.  “Elbert Hubbard”

Do you think after nine years in one place growing a client base and a reputation as good Personal  Trainer was enough reason to stop me coming to Kiama?  I had no money, no clients, no reputation and not even somewhere definite to live yet!  Did I have my doubts?  Did I think I could be making a huge mistake?

Yes, but I did it anyway.  I’ve made some mistakes an I’ve also had some great successes too.  It’s all part of the ride. So go take action on your goals and don’t be afraid to make a mistake.

Top 10 Nutrition Habits

    1.  Eat every 2 – 3 hours

• Increases metabolism plus limits fat storage

• Eating more often means less calories at each meal

• Burns more calories when you eat more often

    2.  Eat protein at every meal

• Helps achieve a high overall level of protein consumption to maintain lean muscle tissue and maximise strength gains

• Its the most THERMOGENIC macro-nutrient – the body has to burn more calories to digest and metabolise it

• Generally the most filling macro-nutrient helping to satisfy hunger and blood sugar hormones so you won’t overeat

    3.  Eat veges at each meal

• Rich source of carbohydrates, energy, vitamins, minerals, fibre and antioxidants

• 5 serves a day is ecommended so the best way to do that consistently is to get into the habit of eating veges at every meal.

4.  Eat Veges and Fruit with any meal, high glycaemic carbs after exercise

• High GI foods such as bread, pasta etc do a good job replenishing muscle fuel stores after exercise but at other times their heavy carbohydrate load results in too much fat storage (carbs that aren’t needed for immediate energy are converted to fat and generally get stored around the midsection)

• All veges and most fruit are Low GI so the carbohydrate they contain are less likely to be converted to stored fat

  5.  Eat healthy fats daily

• Polyunsaturated fats found in fish, flaxseed, walnuts that contain those omega 3 fatty acids.  They create healthier cells.

• Monounsaturated fats found in olive oil, almonds, cashews and peanut butter.

Stay tuned next week for the next 5 Nutrition Habits

Anyways, enough about food but the story is going somewhere I promise!

The weekend got me thinking about my birthday and the topic of age.  It’s amazing how many people I talk to who ask for my help, advice, opinion on something related to health and fitness.  What’s even more amazing is the number of people that ask my advice but then ignore the information or tell me what they think is the solution.  Even more amazing still is that the supposed solution is either exactly what they’ve done already to get them to where they are (WTF?) or so counterproductive they’ll likely to be worse off than they are now.

That’s one thing about age which can be a real barrier to your Kiama Fitness success.

Each year that passes it’s very easy to get set in your ways, think you know all there is to know and get so swamped with being busy that you lose focus.  When you’re not focused, important things like exercising consistently improving your nutrition and getting adequate recovery can slip down the priority list.

You should know by now how important all these things are and it’s all a product of learning.

Learning something new about health & fitness has to be a priority.  As a Kiama Personal Trainer with 12 years experience, I sure as hell don’t know everything there is to know about health & fitness.  So when I share with you the importance of mindset, preparation and planning, exercise programming or a great easy way to get tasty, nutritious food on your plate, make sure you’re open to learning something new because the success of your Kiama Fitness program depends on it.  Age is no barrier.

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty”.  Henry Ford

People will take themselves out of being able to lift this amount of weight, run this distance, eat this amount of food, prepare this shopping list each week and guess what?

They’re exactly right!

As Henry Ford once said:

On the other hand though, the people that attack things with a positive mindset, confidence in themselves and their ability to overcome setbacks and get the job done, well Steve Jobs once said:

So today I want you to change your mindset.  I want you to embrace our Theme and Crush it with Confidence.  To help you get started, I’ve got a couple of images below that I hope you enjoy as much as I have.

Today I wanna share with you a cooking trick that will help you burn fat faster – Spice it Up!

Spices will not only boost the taste of your foods but also enhance your metabolic rate so that you burn fat all day long.

They’re quick and easy to add into your dishes and one of the best ways to make sure that you don’t experience dietary boredom.

So which spices should you focus on?

1.  Black Pepper

Sounds simple enough but this spice can offer up to 8% increase in your metabolic rate and will help you reduce symptoms of constipation and gas from you meals.

2.  Tumeric

An often forgotten spice, this one will help to lower your blood sugar so you don’t get strong food cravings.  This spice can acutally help to block fat gain so it’s definately one you want to make good use of.

3.  Cinnamon

A sweet spice that many people enjoy, it helps you to control blood sugar and will also give your immune system a strong boost.  It also promotes a healthy digestive system ensuing that you’re able to remove all the toxins from your body.

4.  Ginger

This spice is often used to combat nausea, but it too has metabolic boosting powers.  It works great in many recipes and will add an oriental flare to the dish.

5.  Garlic

One of the most commonly used spices, it helps detoxify the body so you’re burning fat as effectively as possible.  It also helps to loosen up fat to get it ready for fat burning.

6. Cayenne Pepper

Has reportedly given some people up to a 25% boost in metabolism so if there’s one spice you want to make good use of, this is it.  Adding this to a meal helps increse the number of calories you burn for hours after you’ve eaten.

7.  Chilli Powder

This one acts very similarly to cayenne pepper due to it’s capsaicin content providing you with a nice metabolic boost so you can burn calories all day.

As far as fat loss goes, these spices can’t be beaten.

Make sure you are not overlooking the power of spices.  Far too many people focus on what they can do to cut out foods from their diets, instead of taking that route, how about looking at what you can add in to see a faster overall rate of fat loss.

Source:  Metaboic Cooking, 2011

In an ever-changing industry like mine, it’s important to stay up to date with all the latest, exciting and effective information. I go to great lengths to do that and pas on the relevant, useful stuff to you. It’s really important too that the information covers key areas like Strength training, High intensity interval training, Recovery techniques, Nurtition, Confidence, Mindset  and several other areas that are critical to your success. I’ve always covered the exercise side of things with my clients, but more and more over the past 11 years as a Personal Trainer I have realised how much more help everyone needs in all the other areas. Nutrition for fat loss and performance. Recovery techniques to stay in peak condition. Confidence and mindset strategies to help people overcome self-sabotaging thoughts, it’s ALL critical to the success of your Kiama Fitness program!

It’s also very important to never assume that you “know it all” and not be open to new ideas or strategies for success. Like I said , I have been owrking full time as  a Personal Trainer in Kiama and the Illawarra for the past 12 years and I certainly don’t know all there is to know it all. It’s for that reason, and because I want to be the best I can be, that I’m constantly reading, learning and networking with the best in the fitness industry. Today I’ll be in Sydney with 20 of the top Fitness Professionals in NSW to share our knowledge and learn from each other.

So today’s Thursday Thought, from the book “Now is the Time” by Patrick Lindsay is:

Now is the time to…

Be curious

Knowledge won’t find us, we must find it.

Every day is a chance to learn something new.

Cast your net wide,

open your mind to the excitement of learning.

Curiosity keeps us young at heart and mind.

When we stop learning, we stop living.

“I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.” Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Learn to love intensity, not duration!

There is actually a tone of research that shows that steady-state aerobics doesen’t work for fat loss, and interval training does.  Let’s review some of it.

*  The landmark study on interval training pitted 20 weeks of endurance training against 15 weeks of interval training.  The energy cost of the endurance training equaled 28,661 calories, while the energy cost of the interval training came to 13,614 calories (less than half).  Yet the interval training group showed a nine times greater loss of fat than the endurance group.

*  In a study done in 2008, Australian researchers had 18 women perform 20 minutes of interval training three days a week: eight seconds of sprinting followed by 12 seconds of recovery.  The women lost an average of 5kg over 15 weeks, without dieting.  Similar groups performing 40 minutes of steady-state cycling three days a week actually gained a kilo of fat over the same period.

IT WORKS, BUT WHY?

One reason intervals are more effective is that they target more of your muscle.  During endurance exercise, you use a lot of slow-twitch muscle fibres and too few fast-twitch muscle fibres.  It’s those fast-twitch muscle fibres that give you firm muscles and fast-tracked results.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy heading out for a run occasionally, but I don’t do it for fat loss.  I do it because I enjoy it.  Think about this.  If you do a 30 minute walk at a steady-state, moderate pace, you’ll burn about 150 calories.  If you mix in eight 30-second sprints, you’ll burn closer to 200 calories.  But the biggest factor is that after an interval session, your metabolism can stay elevated for a full day, and you’ll end up burning two to three times the total calories you’d expect to burn through lover-intensity exercise.  That is the goal of our training programs at Oxygen.

It’s time to bury, for good, the myth that long, slow, steady-state cardio will burn fat.  No more spending hours and hours running long distances to burn fat.  Push your intensity up if you want to lose it!

Now, I know what you’re thinking – what about Saturday RUN SQUAD?  That’s longer distance steady state cardio.

Correct.

You can run because you like to run, but don’t run to accomplish your goal of losing fat.

Running is actually a very advanced exercise.  I mean it takes a pretty advanced exerciser to complete 1000 reps of a one legged  plyometric (jumping) exercise and they’d need to build up a good base level of strength.  Running for 1km is exactly that – 1000 reps of a plyometric exercise.  Running provides forces in the area of two to five times your body weight per foot contact.  So now we’re talking 1000 reps with two to five times your body weight on each rep.  Pretty advanced stuff hey?

Sixty five percent of all runners have to stop running and seek treatment due to overuse injuries.  But if someone has been working out consistently, building strength and is fit enough, then they can add some longer running sessions to their program.

“You can’t run to get fit, you need to be fit to run”  Diane Lee

Which brings me to my final point.  What is your goal?

If your goal is to complete an endurance event like City 2 Surf or Saddleback Smash, then by all means run.  Your training needs to include running, but you’d better make sure you’ve done some strength training too.  Over the next few months, we’ve got some great STRENGTH sessions for you at Oxygen that’ll get you ready for our City 2 Surf Saturday Training program.  In the meantime though, know that Interval Training is a smaller time commitment for better fat loss results and a stronger mental wellbeing.

Foam rolling is quickly becoming a staple in training programs worldwide. From elite athletes to weekend warriors, you can head into any of the best training facilities around and see people using a foam roller as part of their regimen. As with any new training modality, there are usually lots of questions regarding foam rolling or SMR (Self Myofascial Release) including:

• What are the benefits to be gained?
• Is it safe and effective?
• When is the most optimal time to do it?

The first question a fitness professional will often get though is “why am I doing this?”

If you’ve ever performed SMR on yourself, you know the first couple of times are generally quite uncomfortable! When you first start using a foam roller, you might not like it, because your muscles may feel a bit sore and the process may be a little tough to take the first few times becuase of knots or adhesions in your muscles. Keep in mind that if you do have some spots, this process will really help. Healthy tissue should not be painful, so if you have sore spots, it means you have adhesions or tightness that you need to get rid of. Your body will feel so much better when you’re using this tool consistently.

SMR offers many of the benefits of stretching and more. Muscles need to not only have strength but also optimal function through a full range of motion. While stretching will work to improve the length of the mscle, SMR and Massage work to cause increases in muscle length and the breakdown of soft tissue adhesions and scar tissue. There’s obviously overwhelmingly positive results to be gained from regular Massage Therapy, but from a financial and convenience point of view we can’t all be expected to do that on a frequent basis.

SMR on the foam roller offers an effective, inexpensive and convenient way to both reduce adhesion and scar tissue accumulation, and eliminate what’s already present on a daily basis. Just like stretching though or any other aspect of fitness for that matter, foam rolling doesnt yield marked inprovements overnight, you’ll need to be diligent and stck with it.

The following are some reasons you might want to include SMR/Foam Rolling Techniques into your training:

• Improved mobility and range of motion
• Reduction in scar tissue and ashesions
• Improved quality of movement
• Fill in the gaps between Deep Tissue Massage and Active Release Techniques from a Therapist

In the beginning you should go through the foam rolling rituals at least two days per week for about 10-15 minutes at a time. You may find it easier to make it a habit every night before you go to bed. Work on any given area for 1-2 minutes. If an area is particularly tight, spend longer on it. If an areas not as bad spend less time on it. The key is to spend the most time on the tightest tissues.

CLICK HERE FOR FOAM ROLLING RITUALS

As usual, it’s Anabolically supercharged, meaning it will activate all the right fat burning, muscle building hormones in your body so it’ll give you an energy boosting kickstart to your day that helps you achieve your health & fitness goals.  Plus it tastes great!

Dave’s Anabolic Blueberry Oatmeal

This great healthy receipe comes from Anabolic Cooking.

Another jewel of a fuel for ya!