Congrats to Steve for winning the real food challenge over the last month. He came in to the month with the right attitude; he made a plan, recognized which foods were processed in his regular diet, eliminated them and stuck to it. I’m sure everyone can see his results but to state it clearly, he ended up losing a total of 14 pounds in the month of May, brought his body fat percentage down to a healthy range and not to mention ended up hitting a few personal bests on his lifts in the meantime. He looks much better and I’m sure feels it too and hopefully this will only be the beginning of his continued progress. Great work Steve, your membership fee for the month of June is free and I have a few small gifts for you next time you're in class. Steve might have seen the most improvement and shown the best effort but that doesn’t mean you all didn’t do great as well. A lot of you did really well and saw great results losing fat upwards of 8 to 10lbs in just a little over 4 weeks and I'm hoping some kind of routine or habit has been built so that you can continue this progress. If you're dropping that kind of weight in just one month of clean eating, which a lot of you did, I’m sure you can imagine what a few months or even a year would bring you. Your body is already trying to show you how it is supposed to feel, weigh and look by losing weight and re-compositioning itself in that short time so the only thing stopping it is the foods you are putting into it. Take what you learned and keep things going, you are wasting your time in the gym crushing yourself week after week if you aren’t going to be smart about how you fuel and refuel your body. Those of you that just keep losing the same 1 and 2 pounds every week, please stop lying to yourself, you’re not committing to consistency and you're not fooling anyone. Results take sacrifice and time and if you aren’t willing to give something up you will continue to stay the same. I've never loved the idea of these challenges and weight loss contests because a lot of the time people only do it for the time being and then let their results fall away at the end of the challenge but I did this in hopes that you would learn something and possibly jump start some people into the right direction. It was not a search for a quick fix or crash diet but more so a hope of helping you recognize that the quickest way to a healthy lifestyle is by just living a healthy lifestyle. It’s really just that simple and in most cases not about what you add to your routine but more about what you don’t and didn't include. It's easy to fall for the gimmicks but every person that stayed committed saw changes in a positive direction without any of them. They saw big improvements without all the hype. There's no need for overpriced caffeine pills to burn fat, or fancy shakes to build strength and believe it or not there’s no rush to become some final product or "Winner" so this shouldn't be seen as the end, you should be planning to continue doing things that you now know work. Workout and stay active through the day, only eat enough whole foods (plants and animals) to fuel your activities and not so much that you are storing fat, stay away from things that were created in a factory, and get your rest every night. If you do that, you are already there and in time you'll continue to see a progression of health. Don't start looking for new strategies or plans, you're already in it. For some of you this was the healthiest month you’ve had in years and it had nothing to do with adding new things and had everything to do with what you took away. This has always and will always be the way I direct my clients towards a healthy lifestyle. I believe that if we rely on external factors or temporary motivations to bring us our health then we are setting ourselves up to lose it just as easily. Health, fitness, strength and even maintaining a healthy body weight are lifelong pursuits and are lasting when approached that way. I’ve seen many excellent athletes come and go through fitness because they rely on external motivations to get or stay fit whether it’s the next event, the 8 week challenge, the big race, some type of match and even vanity. They’ll stay motivated and show excellent results until that external motivation is passed and then they fade out or lose interest and can’t seem to figure out how to get it back. That’s why it’s best and most importantly, lasting when we build our healthy lifestyle out of habit, interest and necessity. Learning along the way why we do what we do, what we like to do and how it makes us better in health and knowledge and longevity in life and fitness. All those events and goals are great and can be part of the journey but if they are the reason for the journey, your results are temporary. I’ve been involved in the progression of my health and fitness for quite a while now with no final destination in sight and simply because it’s what I enjoy and keeps me healthy and that is exactly why it is just that, a progression and never a peak. It’s not about an 8 weight cycle, there’s no prize at the end. This is just how you take care of your body for as long as we have it. Don’t try to rush towards goals and then give up when you do or don't hit them inside a made up time frame. Let your everyday actions be paths to constant goals, it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to get to them, doing the things that get you there during the process make it certain that when achieved they’ll be lasting because you earned them, learned something and built the right habits along the way. Learn how to eat right, for you. Ask questions, do research, try different foods, it’s all out there. Take interest in how well you’re moving your body and the different ways you feel when doing something, find what works. When you’re tired, rest. Assess everything based on what you see and feel working not on the things you hear about, read or are sold to believe and in time you’ll have real evidence to back your claims, know what works for you and prove your health and fitness with ever evolving results, congrats again to Steve and all of you that saw improvement this month and most importantly please, keep it going.
Class at 5PM Today
Conditioning:
Teams of 2 complete 5 rounds of:
Partner 1: Sprint 400M
Partner 2:
12 Deadlifts 225/155
As Many Hand Release Pushups as Possible until Partner Returns
Then switch
Score is total Pushups as a team
Strength:
Strict Press
7-7-5-5-5
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