Home Bootcamp - use your house to kick your own butt

Here's a teaser from my most recent iVillage Column. Go to iVillage Canada to see the whole thing!

Most people wouldn’t look at the usual things we have in our homes as tools for getting us fit and strong. I want to open your mind to the possibilities of working out in your own home without any investment in equipment. All you need is some great motivational tunes to crank and some self-discipline.

The exercise is the home bootcamp circuit include:

1) Stair running

2) Kitchen counter tricep push-ups

3) Chair butt raises

4) Broom stick over head squats

5)Cleaning the floor planks

For full descriptions, reps and pictures, click here and work it. I'm making it so easy for you to exercise it hurts.

Recipe for Metabolism Repair

If I had to choose one word that would summarize my approach to repairing and kick-starting my clients' metabolisms it would be CONSISTENCY.

If you've ever been a person trapped in the weight loss weight gain trap or the exercise on and off wagon, a major cause of a sluggish metabolism is in the fact your body has been shocked too many times out of it's optimal rhythms and can't predict what's coming.

So here's what you can start doing now to repair your metabolism and start stabilizing your weight:

1) Pay attention to your sleep issues and start getting help to improve your
bio-rhythms. Start to create some routine around your sleep habits if you
don't have them. Focus on trying to create as much routine around eating times as well.

2) Focus on strength training to build lean body mass and your ability to
metabolize sugars instead of store them. Muscle fibres needs glycogen (i.e. sugars) to survive so more gets stored in lean tissue then gets stored as
fat.

3) Start your day with protein and ensure you have at least 20 grams of
protein at every meal. This will help to level off sugar peeks and big
drops.

4) Make sure you include lots of fibre in the form of veggies to slow down
digestion and make meals last longer.

5) If you're a binge eater in any way, this is going to continually mess up
your metabolism. Start looking at your food addiction issues and try to
level off your extremes wherever possible. Instead of a week of binging try
to limit the amount of time you go off the rails.

6) Stop the cardio overeating cycle. If you find you're turning to cardio
as a way to work off yesterday's food guilt, you are not actually working
towards balance. You will never catch up but instead get stuck in a nasty
cycle of guilt and self punishment.

It takes time and many months of consistently trying to tackle the six
things above. But these things are really the only way you're going to kick
start your metabolism and start leveling off your yo-yo-ing.

Hang tough.

Focus on little improvements over the long term and one day you'll wake up
in a smaller pant size and have to go spend loads of cash on a gorgeous new
wardrobe and maybe even a skimpy bikini!

The Winston Churchill Workout

I love it when my dear clients bring articles for me to read, knowing that I will enjoy them. Coleen brought this in for me. Having co-authored a book (Working on the Ball), I learned a lot about the negative impact of sitting for prolonged periods of time. Much of my energy coaching clients is put into undoing the negative effects on the body which include poor posture, tight muscles, obesity and other impacts from living a sedentary lifestyle.

The Globe and Mail published an article earlier this week titled "The Winston Churchill Workout". Here's a little excerpt.

Winston Churchill took to smoking cigars at age 20, appropriately enough in Cuba, during the Spanish-Cuban War in 1895. He never stopped. For the rest of his life, he smoked as religiously as he drank. When asked, toward the end of his life, to explain his longevity, he named the two vices he regarded more as rites. Smoke good cigars, he said, and drink fine brandy. He died at 90. Although British censors now airbrush his cigar from historic Second World War photographs, Churchill could yet become a posthumous model for healthy habits and long lives.

In his time, he was celebrated as much for his literary achievements – 77 volumes, thousands of speeches and essays – as for his statesmanship. (He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.) Remarkably, using a wood lectern attached to a wall in his study at Chartwell, his beloved manor home in Kent, he wrote and dictated much of this work standing up, often striding about the room, as one historian put it, “in a cloud of cigar smoke.” He regarded writing as a physical as well as an intellectual exercise. But he frequently combined it with bricklaying and grounds work: “200 bricks and 200 words a day.”

Churchill’s example now appears relevant again because of the remarkable findings of James Levine, a medical researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. For the past five years, Dr. Levine has sought the answer to a simple question: Why do some people, who consume the same calories as other people and who exercise the same, gain more weight than those people? The answer, as revealed in a series of experiments using highly sensitive motion sensors to track subjects’ moment-by-moment movements: The people who didn’t put on weight moved more than the people who did.

I really don't sit still very much in my day. However, many of my clients sit all day. In fact, most people in Canada sit most of their day. Even though it may seem like a tall order, people really should be taking a break from their zombie screens every 20 minutes. You can't think as well when you sit for too long as well. Hello, circulation to the brain? Blood pools in our lower legs when we sit for prolonged periods. I could go on and on.

My great friend and co-author Sarah Robichaud, just got another book published in the US. Yay for her! Check out her book. Great ideas for getting more active at work without hitting the gym.
99 Things Women Wish They Knew Before - Getting Fit Without Hitting the Gym: Your guide to avoiding costly memberships with no results



Sitting still, in other words, is highly dangerous to your health. Your muscles instantly relax when you sit. Your calorie-burn rate falls (to one calorie a minute). Your risk of obesity rises. Your risk of death increases. Quoting other current research, Mr. Vlahos reports that men who sit for six hours a day, in their off-work hours, have a 20-per-cent higher risk of premature death than men who sit for three hours. For every incremental hour of TV-watching a day, people increase their risk of premature death by 11 per cent.

Crunch Free Core Workout

Here is a link to the latest article I wrote for iVillage Canada and a little teaser...

My seven year old has been the photographer for my articles. She's has quite the eye ;)

As a teenager in the late 80s I was doing very high impact classes and I remember doing crunches endlessly. Twenty years later, core training has evolved, and I want to catch you all up on why crunches are a thing of the past. (read more)

In addition to what was discussed about proper core training in my article, I have to say one of the best ways to measure a personal trainer's expertise in dealing with back injuries/issues is whether or not s/he has someone doing crunches. I have fixed many backs. Even today, one of my clients who couldn't even get up and down off the ground or pick up her kids due to back problems came in today and reported she could sit for a full hour meditation without pain. If you experience lower back pain while exercising, don't ignore it. It's your body telling you something isn't right.

Enjoy the article!!!!

5 ways to exercise with your kids

I have the amazing opportunity to be the iVillage Canada fitness editor which just launched today! Congratulations to all the hard working people who got it up and running beautifully.

My first installment is an article ""5 ways to exercise with your kids". Check it out and get you and your little peeps moving too. Afterall, it's all about DO AS I SAY AND AS I DO!!! Show your kids the path towards health by getting off your butt and leaving it behind.

Follow this link to the iVillage Canada article. I've provided 5 fun and creative ways to help you and your family get healthier.

Follow this link to the iVillage Canada Passion Project and find out why I found fitness and what passion means to me.

Complaint Free Monday - Take Two: Monday May 2nd

I started Complaint Free Monday because I fell into a negative pattern of griping about little things. I thought I could do better at being grateful for what I have. I was complaining all the time about the weather (trying so hard not to right now with all the rain!!!).

I believe it takes strong intention followed up by concrete behaviour to change ourselves and our outlooks on our lives and our experience in the world. People who have great lives work at it. I'm not afraid of work. I just need some structure. Thus, Complaint Free Mondays, next one tomorrow May 2nd on Election Day. I forgot I'm getting a cavity filled tomorrow. I always whine at the dentist like "Give me more freezing! I can feel something" or "Are you going to be done soon?".

But really? I want to look back on my life before my last breath and not regret missing out on all the good stuff because I had my eye on things that weren't important or petty. That would just be horrible. I also know that paths we take all the time get well worn. The more we follow a path of thinking, the more likely we will again and again. It's just plain habit. Breaking habits takes conscious practice!

Read the below description of negative thinking patterns. If you think you tend to fall into one or more of these categories of thinking on a regular basis, maybe it's time to make a conscious choice to take a different path. I'm also a strong believer in psychotherapy for being a very positive choice for making change in our lives and our relationships.

The following descriptions of negative thinking is taken from MayoClinic.com "Positive Thinking: Reduce Stress, Enjoy Life More"

1) Filtering. You magnify the negative aspects of a situation and filter out all of the positive ones. For example, say you had a great day at work. You completed your tasks ahead of time and were complimented for doing a speedy and thorough job. But you forgot one minor step. That evening, you focus only on your oversight and forget about the compliments you received.

2) Personalizing. When something bad occurs, you automatically blame yourself. For example, you hear that an evening out with friends is canceled, and you assume that the change in plans is because no one wanted to be around you.

3) Catastrophizing. You automatically anticipate the worst. You refuse to go out with friends for fear that you'll make a fool of yourself. Or one change in your daily routine leads you to think the entire day will be a disaster.

4) Polarizing. You see things only as either good or bad, black or white. There is no middle ground. You feel that you have to be perfect or that you're a total failure.