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So, have you wasted the first half of the year or has it been a first half filled with accomplishemnets? I know in looking back at the first half of this year it has been so so. I have had big dreams fitness wise and I have had a tough time living up to them but in other areas of my life everything seems to be clicking together quite well.

Think back, or better yet look back at the goals that you set for yourself on New Years Day. We are exactly half way through the year and you should be almost half way to your goals. Whether you are there or not you can easily be honest with yourself in asking the following questions that you asked way back in January when it was cold out but you felt you had a bunch of big plans. Read the rest of this entry »

You never know where you are going if you did not benchmark where you started and know where you are today.

Tough to keep up woth that sentence but I have run into a couple of people over the last few days that are not sure if they are moving forward or not. One girl that I know says that her weight stays in a five pound range and she started working out a couple weeks ago and says she is at the high end of her five pound range. The other person was watching the X-Weighted TV show and wanted to know how they exactly did the testing at the beginning of the show.

So here is a few things to look at today that will help you in benchmarking your fitness goals.

Most people trying to change their habits and get in better shape have a few things that they care about, Weight, food intake, strength, flexibility, and fitness stamina. Read the rest of this entry »

Why do fat people stay fat? Sure we all know that there are a lot of people that lose weight and there are surely a lot of people that take diets seriously. Heck we even know that behind every get skinny for a buck plan there is someone that really does know how to stop people from getting fat by helping people lose weight in a healthy way.
So why are people still fat and getting fatter all the time?

Well there are several reasons that people have so much trouble keeping a healthy weight and I think that there are five key reasons why and how people can lose weight successfully and for good.

1. Fast food – We have been happy to eat fast food for many years now. People still talk with pride of the first Canadian McDonalds going up down the road where I grew up in Richmond BC. The trouble with fast food is everywhere. Serving sizes are way too big, the fat level is too high, there are far too many bready carbs. And the real problem with fast food? It is getting bigger and the hold that the big fast food companies have on kids with free toys means that even parents don’t have as much say as they should have. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is national Scrapbooking day and my wife is out on a 12 hour marathon scrapbooking session, my wife is a big scrapbooker. Having two kids to myself today will keep me busy although it is not really fitness related.

This morning started with my daughter going to gymnastics for her last time this Spring. We are home now and this afternoon we are going to go to the zoo, play, and have a picnic. Before leaving home of course we are going to have lunch and then a picnic at the zoo before having a BBQ at home tonight. Just as I posted earlier this week, I find it important to have picnics when we go anywhere as the added food with us means less purchased at the zoo.

Kids love picnics but of course left to their own devices we would be having pop and rice krispie squares for a picnic. Usually my son will pack me a coke and an apple and then I will through in some cutup veggies (celery, carrots and peppers) and some more fruit.

At a picnic I have no food. I have found over the last year or so that the castoffs from the kids are good. I expect to finish a couple of apples and a bunch of vegetables.

The kids will have the rice krispie squares, I don’t like them.

What gets you motivated to workout, or to eat well? I know that sometimes this is a struggle for me and if I create a habit that makes exercise a part of my day automatically then it will happen.

Today is a very snowy day in Calgary (how many times has that come up on this blog?) and I know that my normal daily schedule tomorrow is going to get thrown off. I like to get on my bike and ride to work but there is no way that I can ride in a foot of snow and will take the bus instead.

Eating is the same way. I have a plan in the morning of exactly what goes into my lunch bag and I know right now that I will be having oatmeal for breakfast, bringing an apple and orange for snacks as well as a coke and chocolate bar and I will be having chicken left over from tonights dinner Read the rest of this entry »

We need to all become more aware of this process and see where we fail. Plan, Execute, and Reflect. This three step process is very important so that you are not stuck just making the same mistakes over and over again.

Plan for Success

So what do you know about your next event, what do you need to do to make sure that you succeed? If your next even is a marathon or even a 10k or to lose 20 pounds then what can you glean from the past? What were your failings and strengths last time around and how can you leverage those strengths and minimize the effects of your weaknesses. Make sure that you have a plan and that you have a fallback in case you struggle with the plan. Read the rest of this entry »

I was reading a post at Tom Venutos blog which was a question from a guy in Scotland that says that all of his friends drink, and everyone in Scotland drinks a lot of alcohol and how can he change and entire country so that he can live a healthier lifestyle. Of course everyone just says “change your friends” but as much as this seems like the easy answer it is not an easy thing to do. Tom says to change yourself and let those changes influence your actions. Here is a quote.

Once you accept a new lifestyle to the point that it becomes your identity, you can’t go back. You can’t say to yourself “I am a bodybuilder” and mean it, right down to the deepest subconscious level, and then go out drinking every weekend - it is simply not congruent, and your nervous system will short circuit behaviors that might sabotage you as a bodybuilder.

And the same works in reverse. If your identity is, “I am a drinker,” you cannot fight the automatic behaviors that are generated as a result, because it’s subconscious mind you are working against and thats a fight you always lose in the long term.

Read the rest of this entry »

Now that it is College Basketball playoff time we get to see a lot of young kids interviewed after games and often they say things like “I gave it 100%” or “I left everything I had on the court” or my very unfavorite (as my daughter would say) “I gave it 110%”.

Gave it 110% eh? Well that does not even make sense but the reason thaqt people say that is that they want to stress that they had nothing left except what they did today. The fact is it is impossible to give your workouts, whether cardio or weight everything all of the time. You have off days and you have times when you are a bit tired or your diet is not quite there on a particular day.

To really make gains ion strength or losses in fat you need to go beyond your norm, beyond 90% and remember how these college athletes do things trying to get to the final 4. I have always been a believer that if I do a set of bench press the first few reps are useless for strength increases. The only reps that matter are the ones where you are pushing your already known strength limits and reaching to levels of strength where you have never been, the last couple of reps is where all of the muscle gets created to be needed next time. Read the rest of this entry »

Whenever we are aiming for a big change such as weight loss, we obviously need to change our lifestyle and eating habits. This is when we start making excuses. But you have to remember that excuses will take you nowhere. Excuses won’t help you to lose weight; diet and exercises will do. If you really want to lose weight, you need to be thoroughly disciplined. If you dig deeper into the kind of excuses you make, you will see that some of them are just baseless.

What you need to know is how to stop making excuses and reach your weight loss goal fast.

To save themselves from the rigors of diet and exercise, people tend to make various excuses. If you ask them to exercise, they will say that it is too boring and that they don’t feel comfortable doing it; still others will pronounce that they haven’t got any time for exercise because they have got to juggle with a family and a job. If you ask them to diet, they will say that they don’t have any time to cook those healthy meals or that it is too boring. Even though people want to lose weight, they don’t want to take the necessary action because of the fear of failure; hence the lame excuses. Read the rest of this entry »

With the rise in awareness about the different diseases associated with obesity, more and more people are trying to lose weight. People can lose weight in several different ways. There are weight loss programs created by professionals which individuals can join for a fee; then there are diet pills and supplements that claim to help people lose weight.

However, as a matter of fact, not all weight loss pills and supplements are that effective and it is hard to tell which ones would really work! A better option is to start losing weight through a healthy diet plan coupled with an effective exercise program.

First of all, you need to decide what you really want from your weight loss program. Do you just want to shed off a few pounds, or lose weight? Remember there is a difference of heaven and hell between losing weight and losing just a few pounds; the former will require an entirely different approach than the latter. Read the rest of this entry »