Our walk for the YWCA Encore Program was a fantastic success! We couldn’t have asked for a better turnout. We had over 50 walkers, and managed to raise $605 for the program, which is an enormous help to these guys.

The Encore Program provides a support group and gentle exercise program for women who are recovering from breast cancer. I often go out and do some guest speaking with these groups, and they are always a wonderful, welcoming bunch of women. We always manage to have a good laugh!

We couldn’t have asked for better weather for our walk. It ended up being about 25 degrees, sunny, and perfect for a 10km stroll from Glenelg to West Beach and back. We were supported by National Foods, who kindly donated a stack of Feel Good Iced Coffees for our walkers.

On behalf of the Fitgirls crew, I would sincerely like to thank our sponsors, our walkers, and especially the Encore people for the wonderful work that they do.

-Carly

There is something so motivating about working out with a bunch of other people. I see more amazing transformations from people who come to me as part of a group, whether it be with their sister, their Mum, their best friend. Take my clients Luci and Taryn for example (step-Mum and step-daughter). Both have lost over 10kg, and maintained this loss for many months now. During their weight loss phase, every week, consistently, they both lost somewhere in the vicinity of half a kilo. They never missed their home workouts, they shopped together, cooked together, ate together. They travelled the journey together.

They had each other for support, motivation and encouragement. And they had each other when times got tough.

Our first ever Booty Camp started last week. I can’t believe the changes I seeing in these women already! Their strength has improved, they are doing more push ups, holding longer planks and running further than they were a week and a half ago. They are training (hard!) three times a week. Together. They have each other to provide a little friendly competition, banter, shared groans when the body hurts. They are all in the boat together, and through teamwork, they are achieving their own individual goals.

Here are some great pics from our training session last Saturday at Glenelg. What a beautiful morning to train!

I am being attacked by the Hunger Monster on an hourly basis! The increased exercise has ramped up my metabolism, which has turned me in a food-craving lunatic.

I’m not one to cope well with hunger. I get quickly agitated, I can’t concentrate and when I feel like I need food, I need it NOW. Not in 5 minutes, or half an hour…now!

I wonder if it is a genetic flaw that I am so hungry?! I’ve been a hungry girl for as long as I can remember. I was a chubby kid because I could eat a man-sized meal. And that’s why now, everything I eat is monitored, and portion-controlled. Otherwise I would just have my head in the pantry all day.

I love that feeling of fullness. Not being stuffed, but that content, happy fullness that comes after eating a decent-sized meal. It sustains me, and it means I don’t have to think about food for at least another hour or so

Is it lunch time yet?!

I watched the first episode of The Biggest Loser last night. Apart from Hayley Lewis being completely terrible (looks great, sounds awful), I was again disappointed to see that the show has not developed any level of integrity or honesty into it’s format.

14kg lost in a week? It’s not possible.

Each kilo of fat that we store on our bodies is worth about 9000 calories. So to LOSE that 1 teeny tiny kilo, we need to have a DEFICIT, that’s right, of 9000 calories.

For the sake of this exercise let’s imagine we have a client called Julie. Julie is 35 years old, average height and weighs 150kg. Julie consumes the very minimum amount of daily calories recommended for a woman – 1200. Over the course of a week, Julie would therefore consume 8400 calories (and she’d be starving).

Now, let’s take into consideration Julie’s BMR (basal metabolic rate – the amount of calories burnt over the course of a day, not including exercise). A 35 year old woman of average height, who weighs 150kg would have a BMR of 2227. This means Julie would naturally burn 2227 calories a day, (even if she is sedentary) through bodily processes like a beating heart, maintenance of body temperature, breathing etc.

So without any exercise, Julie naturally burns 15,600 calories a week.

So far, we have a deficit of 8400 calories (in) minus 15600 calories (out) = 7,200. Not even a kilo of fat would be lost!

Now let’s say we make Julie do 2 hours of exercise a day. This exercise would need to be relatively low-impact because she is very overweight. So, 2 hours of light aerobics per day would burn 1520 calories, or 10,640 calories a week.

Keep in mind that 14 hours of exercise a week is ALOT in anyone’s book. And almost unachievable for someone of that weight (she’d be starving AND exhausted).

Lets re-calculate to include the exercise Julie is doing.

8400 calories (food) minus 15600 calories (BMR) minus 10,460 (exercise) = 17,660 calories deficit.

A deficit of 17,660 cals equates to just under 2kg of fat lost in one week. And that’s with a very low-cal diet and a stack of exercise.

Can you see why 14kg in one week is physically impossible?!?! I tell you, this show makes my job very difficult indeed.

And if you’re wondering what my calorie deficit needs to be (and I’ve worked it out just this morning)….. To lose 6kg of fat by my competition on July 10th, I need to have a deficit of 337 calories a day. Basically, if I eat 1330 cals a day and burn off 400 cals a day through exercise, then taking into account my BMR of 1270, I should lose exactly 6kg in 160 days if I follow the formula. I’ll let you know how I get on!!

I don’t use the Fitgirls studio to do my weights. For some reason, I need to go somewhere neutral, where no one knows me, where I can escape the phone, the emails and the courier, and simply…train. The nice thing about going to another gym is that Scott gets to come with me, which means I get to perve on him and his biceps as he trains . And you thought I was engaged to him for his personality – pfff!

So anyway, there I was yesterday, pedalling away on the stationery bike, when 3 chicks in their mid-30′s jumped on the bikes next to me. Now I have to admire these girls for forming their own little workout group, leaving their kiddies with the hubby, and having a girlie night at the gym (which is better than the pub I figure). I had inconveniently left my earphones at home and was unfortunate enough to be privy to their conversation (and the terrible gum music – Kylie Minogue – worst workout music ever).

Now, I try not to be one to judge, especially since I understand that not everyone has the nutrition knowledge I do. But honestly, you would think these girls live in a cave. They were loudly and proudly discussing how fabulously their shake diets were going. Yep, Kate Morgan had won these middle-aged, semi-overweight girls over. They’d been shaking it up for a week and a half. That’s a week and a half of muscle loss, fluid loss and bone loss. And maybe a smidge of fat loss. But nothing like the fat they’re about to put on when they realise a woman cannot sustain herself (or keep her sanity) when living on a calorie-depleted diet of fluids.

I couldn’t sit there and listen to these poor brain-washed girls. I had to get up and walk away. And I couldn’t even give them a business card! (The gym has cameras, dammit, and I just know they’d catch me out trying to drum up business!).

The experience left me frustrated and angry. Kate Morgan and the like has a lot to answer for.

Note to self: take earphones to the gym!

Here was are at Day 5, 600g lighter than Monday and feeling pretty good.

It’s nearing Friday afternoon, which spells one word for me. Actually two. Sauvignon Blanc. After spending 8 years slaving away as a sales rep in the media industry (and not enjoying a second of it mind you), I became very used to the Friday afternoon tipple. It was the only thing the sales department had to look forward to after a hard, tiring, competitive, emotionally draining week.

What’s funny is that I don’t think about the not-so-healthy-grape-juice at any other time. Mondays, nope. Sundays, nope. Not even after a long, tiring weekday at work. I’d rather have a protein shake. But give me a Friday arvo at 5pm, and I’m crawling the walls for it. And this my friends, is not what we call addiction, it’s what we call habit.

A bad one.

Breaking a habit is harder than it sounds. But as the great Tom Venuto (of Body for Life fame) would say, you can’t break a habit by creating a vacuum. In other words, you can’t stop doing something, without replacing it with something else. Ex-smokers often turn to coffee (another stimulant). Ex-coffee addicts often turn to diet colas (another way to get caffeine). Nothing like replacing a bad habit with a bad habit eh?!

The challenge comes in replacing a bad habit with a good one. So yes, today I will be going without my Savvy B come 5pm. But I’m not just going to go cold turkey here. I need to replace the glass-to-mouth-action with something. So tonight I’m going to try something different, but still enjoyable. Scott is working late and it might be an opportune time to hire a dvd I’ve been hanging out to see (a chick flick of course – usually banned in the house when Mr Macho is at home). And I’m going to chill out on the couch and enjoy. Of course, I’m not implying that I’m going to turn into a socially inept hermit here, but I’m going to start thinking of enjoyable ways to spend a Friday night without the toxicity.

But what I’m really going to enjoy is the lack of headache tomorrow. And the sluggishness that comes after a couple of vinos and a late night. I’ll be gym-ready by 7am tomorrow, ready to give the quads a(nother) thrashing. It’s in the small decisions, these small changes in habit, that we create a better, more fulfilling life.

What are the habits that are holding you back, and how can you change/replace them with something better?

How often do I hear the old saying….”but I don’t have time to exercise”!. I work exclusively with women and it baffles me that women so often put everything else in their lives before their own good health. What could possibly be more important? How can there not be enough time to prepare healthy meal, or take a walk, or have a massage? I suppose the next question is, do you have time to be ill?

At Fitgirls we work with many breast cancer survivors and it surprises me to see how many of these women have forsaken their own health post-cancer, to tend to the needs of their family, their friends and their work. They have been through an extraordinary, frightening, lonely journey with cancer. They have survived, they are in remission. But still, their health comes last. Why?

Surely it would make more sense to take on an exercise program to build muscle, metabolism, fitness, bone density, heart health and mental strength? Surely it would make sense to eat well, buy healthy, cancer-fighting foods and prepare healthy meals. Wouldn’t the small amount of time it would take to do these things be worth it?

There is no such thing as not enough time. There is just not enough focus on priority, and on what is really important.

Without your health, what do you have?

-Carly

Now that the weather has improved, it’s a great time to do some outdoor exercise. Eat a light dinner, bath the kids, leave hubby in front of the telly, pull on the sneakers and get out in the fresh air.

We can all walk at a reasonable pace, but there’s no reason why we can’t start to add a little jogging here and there. Not only will it take your fitness to the next level, but it will burn some extra fat, just in time for summer! Here is an eight week BEGINNER’S running program. It starts slowly, but increases the intensity over time so that you are running for 30 minutes straight. And anyone who can run for a solid 30 minutes is FIT in my books!

WEEK 1: Mon, Wed & Fri
Walk 10 minutes to begin and end each 30-minute session. Alternate between walking and running for the middle 10 minutes, starting the week with running segments of a minute or less and working up to 2 minute segments.
Goal by week’s end: 2 minute running segments.

WEEK 2: Mon, Wed & Fri
Walk 8 minutes to begin and end each 30-minute session. Alternate between walking and running for the middle 14 minutes, starting the week with running segments of 2 minutes and working up to 4 minute segments.
Goal by week’s end: 4 minute running segments.

WEEK 3: Mon, Wed & Fri
Walk 5 minutes to begin and end each 30-minute session. Alternate between walking and running for the middle 20 minutes, starting the week with running segments of 4 minutes and working up to 6 minute segments.
Goal by week’s end: 6 minute running segments.

WEEK 4: Mon, Wed & Fri
Walk a minutes to begin. Run 7 minutes. Walk until rested. Run 7 minutes. Walk the rest of the 30 minutes. As the week progresses, extend the running segments by 1 minute at a time, aiming for 10 minute runs by the end of the week.
Goal by week’s end: 2 x 10 minute running segments.

WEEK 5: Mon, Wed & Fri
Walk 3 minutes to begin. Run 12 minutes. Then repeat. By the end of the week walk 3 minutes, run 15 minutes, walk until rested, then run the rest of the session.
Goal by week’s end: a 15 minute running segment.

WEEK 6: Mon, Wed & Fri
Walk 5 minutes to begin and end the workout. Run the 20 minutes in the middle.
Goal by week’s end: 20 minutes of continuous running.

WEEK 7: Mon, Wed & Fri
Walk 3 minutes to begin and end the workout. Run the 24 minutes in the middle.
Goal by week’s end: 24 minutes of continuous running.

WEEK 7: Mon, Wed & Fri
Walk only a block or so to limber up your body then proceed to run slowly for the full 30 minutes, walking only if and when you need to.
Goal by week’s end: 30 minutes of continuous running.

Stay tuned for an intermediate running program, which I will post in about 8 weeks! In the meantime, tell us how you find the program by leaving a comment.