April 30, 2013
The results are in … what’s the verdict?
Well, it’s done. I am closing the books on my experiment. The results have been … intriguing.
I decided to blog about my effort to lose the 10 pounds I brought back from a Walt Disney World vacation because I felt like so many people I know, especially women, tie their happiness and their self-worth to a number on the scale. I wanted to find out a few things:
1. Would a system of “Eat clean – drink water – burn calories” work to reduce my weight?
2. Which of those factors would be most influential in my day-to-day weight change?
3. How much would my weight fluctuate from one day to the next?
4. What kind of influence would my morning weigh-in have over my eating, water intake, exercise and attitude each day?
Exactly 24 hours after I started this experiment, I stepped on the scale and saw that five pounds had vanished overnight – from 145 to 140. Whaaa? How could that be? I certainly didn’t expend 17,500 calories in a day. The explanation? Lots of salty food, diminished fluids, and the cabin pressure on the plane ride home had contributed to my retaining lots and lots of water. One day at home, eating my normal diet and drinking plenty of water, flushed (literally) that excess fluid from my system.
After that initial drop, I fluctuated between 136 and 141 for the next 30 days. There didn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to gaining or losing a pound or two from day to day … maybe the only trends I noticed were that I tended not to lose weight if I hadn’t drank enough water the day before, and I also tended not to lose if I had eaten heavy or salty food late at night.
But I also would see gains of one or two pounds after days of eating sparkling clean and drinking plenty of H2O. Maybe that was muscle? Perhaps.
I came away from this experiment with two new realizations:
1. We
ighing yourself every day makes you crazy – and miserable.
At 6:30 a.m., seeing a loss of a pound or two gave my day a positive start. But this would sometimes backfire, as I’d have the opportunity to munch on a cookie or extra handful of crackers, and I’d think, “I can afford this.”
No loss, or a slight gain, only brought frustration. What was I doing wrong? I would renew my commitment to my regimen, but under a negative impetus. If I faced a choice during the day of healthy vs not, I wouldn’t choose based on my own well-being, but on whether I thought it would move the needle on the scale.
This is not what motivates me. Wearing clothes I’m happy in, seeing nice muscle definition, feeling energetic and strong – that’s what I want more of, and that’s what makes me work harder.
2. Blogging about your diet and exercise makes you hyper-aware of everything you eat and do.
I used caloriecount.about.com to look up the number of calories in my food and also to estimate the calories I burned with my activity. This was eye-opening – I hadn’t known that sesame oil was so calorie-rich, for example. But it was also a royal pain in the ass.
It did play a role in the choices I made, though. Should I eat that donut, knowing I’ll have to fess up to my readers?
And here was my other dilemma. I make a living as a fitness support coach, so I do feel like I should be walking the talk. But I’m also human, and part of me feels like my customers might relate to me better if they knew I was struggling with the same temptations. I decided to stay completely honest about my habits and how I felt about them. I hope those of you who’ve been following my progress have recognized some of the same habits and weaknesses in yourselves. You’re not alone!
So no, I did not ever see 10 pounds gone in the month of tracking my efforts. Am I happy with my nutrition and exercise over that month? Yes, very much so. Blogging helped me stay the course and keep myself accountable to my goal, however irrelevant that goal actually was.
Because the whole point of this experiment – the thesis I secretly wanted to prove – was that you should NEVER TRUST THE SCALE. The number of pounds you weigh is not a reliable indicator of your overall health and fitness. It can give you a general range to shoot for based on your height and body composition, but obsessing over 5 pounds one way or another just isn’t necessary unless you’re a high school wrestler.
What’s my next goal, then? I’ll take the advice I give my customers and coaches on my team: Don’t set a results-oriented goal. Set an action-oriented goal. Instead of saying, “I will lose X number of pounds” or “I will wear a size X,” I will keep working on increasing my water intake and gaining more muscle tone in my legs. I have to say – 135 or not, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been with my physique. And it would be an honor and an inspiration to help someone else get to where they can say the same.
April 21, 2013
Day 26: You win some, you lose some.
Starting weight: 138
Eat clean. I wish I could have eaten more throughout the day – had a fruit plate for breakfast, Shakeology for lunch, edamame for a snack and some fairly wholesome lasagna for dinner. With a couple of small slices of garlic bread.
But the highlight of my nutritional day – SHAKEOLOGY COOKIES! I used superhero-level restraint and only had 4.
Want the recipe?
1 cup chocolate Shakeology
1 cup dry oatmeal
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
Mix ingredients in a large bowl and roll into small balls. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.
Drink water. 😦 I need to find a way to increase my water intake. Any good suggestions?
Burn calories. I did HIIT 20 and Sculpt 30 today – a good combination of intense cardio and resistance. I also packed several trips’ worth of boxes and equipment to and from my car for a booth at a fundraiser fair today. I forgot to bring a chair, though. So I stood or strolled around for 5 hours. The fair was a total bust from a business standpoint, but at least I burned more calories than I would have if I’d stayed home. Oh wait – I would have spent that time sanding my floor, so nuts to that too.
Calories eaten (approximate): 1,823
How clean? (1=crap, 10=pure): 8
Water drank: 60-ish oz.
Calories burned (approximate): 2,520
Ending weight: 138
Want to join me on my quest to get back to 135? Post a comment!
April 7, 2013
Day 12: An insidious trap
Starting weight: 139
Eat clean. I knew today would be weird. Tom asked me to be the “runner” at his EMT class’s practical exam, which meant we’d be tied up from 7:30 a.m. to 3 or 4 in the afternoon.
We brought our shakes with us to get the day started. One of the college’s staff, Kristen, had brought water and snacks for the students, proctors and volunteers. This was a health occupations class, so she had health on her mind – she brought apples and trail mix and granola bars … as well as muffins, cookies and chips. I thought I started out pretty well, choosing an oatmeal/raisin cookie and a bag of apple slices before degenerating to a white chocolate/macadamia cookie, another oatmeal cookie, a bag of trail mix and a quarter of a poppyseed muffin. This was over the period of 9 hours that we were there.
Of course, we were starving by the time the test ended, and I had cash money in my pocket as my payment for helping out, so naturally where did we go? Subway. (I made sure they had plenty of steak.) I finished off my foot-long sandwich about 5 p.m., and actually didn’t have anything else to eat during the evening except a few almonds.
By the end of the night, I came to a realization: This is foolishness. I’ve set a goal and stated it publicly – I want to get back to the weight I was before our Walt Disney World trip. But I have comfortably settled into the insidious trap in which millions of us are ensnared: There are countless, constant small decisions we have to make if we want to reach a long-term goal, and if we can’t see immediate progress, instant results, we lose interest. The momentum vanishes and it’s far easier to trade what we want most for what we want right now.
Is there a free cookie sitting right there available for you to pick up and eat? You have two options: 1) Eat it. 2) Don’t eat it. Option 1 is easy, because cookies are delicious and eating them is an enjoyable experience. Option 2 is hard, because all our instincts and our past experience and the pleasure centers in our brain are chanting, “eat the cookie … eat the cookie,” and there is no immediate adverse effect conditioning us NOT to eat it. We won’t suddenly plump out like the Nutty Professor after one bite.
This is where fitness and weight loss transcends the battle for calories and enters the arena of personal growth. If you can develop the self-discipline to say, “No, I would really like to eat that cookie and enjoy its deliciousness for 30 seconds, but I have a bigger, more meaningful goal of shedding some excess fat, and eating that cookie will delay my achieving that goal,” then you are teaching yourself that it’s possible to have control in other areas of your life, too.
One of the best all-time illustrations of the crucial skill of self-control is what’s known as The Marshmallow Experiment. This was a series of studies at Stanford University in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The researchers would offer a child a choice between one marshmallow provided immediately, or TWO marshmallows if the child waited until the experimenter returned (after leaving the room for about 15 minutes). In follow-up studies, the researchers found that children who were able to wait longer for the better rewards tended to have better life outcomes – higher SAT scores, more college degrees and better health. That’s because they were good at making those choices that might not have been very gratifying at the moment, but that compounded for long-term success.
What if you’re the kid who gobbled up the first marshmallow right away? The great thing is that we can train ourselves to get better at self-control. Can you imagine someone who’s lived their entire life on a junk food diet abruptly announcing, “I’m going to eat vegan from now on!” and suddenly tossing out all the instant and packaged foods in their kitchen, going down to the farmers market and loading up on kale and tofu, spending the time to nutritionally plan their meals and then actually cooking them, and relishing for the rest of their life meals that aren’t deep-fried or pumped full of salt and sugar? Do you think they would be able to flip a switch and stare down a package of Oreos without breaking down and snarfing several at a time? Yeah no. Our psyches just don’t work that way.
But give them a chance to make some small, gradual changes – ones they can successfully control – and over time, their decision-making process does become habit. I even have a tool I use for people in just this situation: Their diets are terrible and they know they need to improve their eating, but if they tried to overhaul everything at once, they’d just fail miserably and feel worse than they did before. It’s called the 8-week Transition Diet, and it has you change one small thing about your eating habits a week at a time. It even lets you have cheat days so you can eat some old favorite foods and stay sane.
So how am I going to empower myself again to make the right choices and lock back in to my goal? Pretty simple, really. I’m just deciding to DO IT. That’s all. Just do what needs to be done. Skip the cookies, eat another apple instead.
Drink water. I brought my 16-oz. cup to the EMT test and intended to keep it handy so I could hydrate. Did I do this? No, I left it in Tom’s office with my jacket and purse. I did grab a bottle of water about midway through the day. Tried to make up for it once we got home, but I’m sure I only drank maybe 30 ounces. Boo.
Burn calories. I thought there might be a slight chance we’d get home early enough to do a Turbo Fire workout … but more likely was the scenario that we’d be too fried to think about it. Ding ding ding. At least I got PLENTY of walking in! My job was to go around to each of the six testing stations, collect the evaluation forms and bring them back to the official in charge of administering the test. The stations were set up in classrooms throughout Columbia Hall at Clatsop Community College – not a HUGE place, but making the rounds for several hours like this I probably logged a good two miles of walking.
DAILY TOTALS:
Calories eaten (approximate): 1,750
How clean? (1=crap, 10=pure): 5
Water drank: 30 oz.
Calories burned (approximate): 2,592
Ending weight: 139
Want to join me on my quest to get back to 135? Post a comment!
March 26, 2013
How long will it take me to lose 10 pounds?
I just got back from a week-long vacation to Walt Disney World with my husband. The trip was a reward I earned for helping a certain number of people with their health and fitness through Team Beachbody, and just about everything except the airfare was paid for. We stayed five nights in the Beach Club resort on the property, had a one-day training conference and three days in the parks, got our pictures taken with all sorts of characters, hobnobbed with the top coaches in the network, worked out with Shaun T and Leandro Carvalho, had an exclusive viewing area for the EPCOT fireworks show … in short, we got to experience the best that Disney and Beachbody had to offer – and that’s saying a LOT.
It’s fair to say we got our exercise in during those five days … besides the workouts, we logged miles of walking through the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. But our diet? … that’s a different story.
We did do our best to make good choices when choices were available. Instead of going to the restaurant for a carb-laden breakfast of waffles and syrup, we got fruit and yogurt parfaits from the hotel store. We drank water instead of soda. We chose fresh fruit as our side dish instead of fries.
BUT … there were times when we just plain splurged, like our dinner of gourmet burgers at the House of Blues, and a late-night dessert run at the Beaches & Cream soda shop. Then there were other times … when we had to eat something after 10 hours of being on a plane with only a dozen honey-roasted peanuts to tide us over, and the only option at 12:30 a.m. on the highway home was (shudder) a McDonald’s drive-thru. Quarter Pounder with cheese, fries and Diet Coke, down the hatch.
I had done a three-day Shakeology cleanse right before the trip, to put me in my best Beachbody mode, and weighed in at 135 pounds – my goal weight – upon finishing. I came home last night feeling sluggish from too much fat and sodium, dehydrated and bloated. Stepped on the scale this morning expecting the worst – but I hadn’t expected THIS MUCH worst.
TEN POUNDS.
Am I beating myself up over this? Hardly. In fact, I see this as the perfect opportunity to prove that YOU SHOULD NEVER TRUST THE SCALE. The number of pounds you weigh can fluctuate wildly from one day to the next, and I’ll guarantee you I did not pack on 10 pounds of fat over the past week. This is mostly water weight – retained because I didn’t hydrate well enough and the airplane cabin atmosphere was so dry I actually got a nosebleed.
So! I’m treating this as an experiment and inviting you to join me. I’m going to document my food and water intake as well as my exercise and other activity every day until I get back to 135. If you have 10 pounds or more you want to lose, comment here with your commitment and we’ll do it together. Who’s in?
September 24, 2012
The future’s so bright …
I’m not quite sure why my outlook is this particular shade of rose, but I’m going with it.
Maybe it’s because I can’t think of a downside to anything right now. I get to be a big part of helping the Astoria Marching Band put its show together this season (and it’s going to be EPIC). Our drum corps the Oregon Crusaders just made the move to the World Class division (also EPIC). I’m inspired by all the people who are getting healthy and fit because of conversations we’ve had about Beachbody programs. Kids are happy, things are good between the hubby and me … and I feel like I’m the healthiest I’ve been in my life.
OK, sure, there are a few pesky annoyances keeping me grounded. We’re in the middle of tearing out the ancient wallpaper in what’s going to become our office/studio, so everything that’s supposed to live in that room is piled right in our foyer. And our closet hanger bar fell down over the summer – we still haven’t fixed it, so all our clothes are either buried in a huge pile of garments and hangers or stored in the suitcases we took on tour! The dog is going deaf, the pig has aggression issues, and the cat has licked all the hair off her lower body.
Still.
One of the most profound things I’ve learned since I became a Beachbody coach is to embrace and even celebrate the downturns, because they can only mean that an upswing is on its way.
And I feel like everything I’m doing with my life right now has PURPOSE. I’m not just spinning my wheels, treading water, whatever the metaphor – I’m moving forward. All these things to which I’m dedicating my time aren’t just pieces of an economic puzzle, where I’m a minor link in the chain of supply and demand … they’re worthwhile, important causes that make an actual difference to people.
Whew! Sermon over. I hope I can spread some of this sunshine over the Interwebs to your computer (or phone, or iPad) screen. In the immortal (albeit egotistical!) words of Lina Lamont, “If we bring a little joy into your humdrum lives, it makes us feel as though our hard work ain’t been in vain for nothin’. Bless you all!”
July 6, 2012
Why Beachbody.
So.
Time to blog about this whole career change thing.
If you’re reading this via Facebook, you probably already know that I’ve been involved with Beachbody for a couple of years now. And if I were you, I’d be wondering a few things.
Such as: What would possess a seemingly intelligent, professional person to join a network marketing company? Or as I even jokingly called it myself at the start, a “pyramid scheme“?
And: What’s so great about Beachbody compared to all those other companies out there selling health shakes and supplements and such?
And: How can you make enough money doing fitness support coaching to quit a full-time job?
And: What do you actually DO?
If you’ve read this far, I’ll assume you’re genuinely interested in the answers. So I promise to give it to you straight. No sales pitch. Just my experiences and my “why.”
I’ll skip the first year, during which Tom and I started working out to Beachbody DVDs as customers. By the time we had gone through three different programs, some of them more than once, I was in the best shape I had ever been in. EVER. I was 40 years old and kicking myself for not treating my body like I should have for the past four decades.
At this time, I had been working at The Daily Astorian as the editor of Coast Weekend for about 6 ½ years. It was a job I had yearned for and trained for, and I was winning awards for page design and writing. I enjoyed being around intelligent people, I got to be creative, the hours were flexible, but the pay … well, frankly, it sucked. It was enough to cover the bulk of our mortgage payment (not even close to all of it) and it provided us health insurance and a 401k fund, but that was IT.
And it wasn’t going to improve. There were only two positions higher than mine in the newsroom – managing editor of the daily and deputy managing editor – and I didn’t want the stress of either of them. Sure, I could have gone to work as a cashier at Costco for almost twice what I was making at the paper, but job satisfaction is hard to give up. And the Coast Weekend gig allowed me the freedom to take off when I needed to pick up my kids or work a volunteer shift for a Band Boosters fundraiser, and the paper was more than generous in running stories that publicized my nonprofit groups.
But I had another career field I had begun to pursue on the side: composing and recording music for film and TV production. And the lure of that type of work was calling me like a siren song (a 30-second, digitally sampled siren song in mp3 format). I had the studio equipment and I knew I had the compositions in me … what I didn’t have was the experience to effectively record and polish my pieces so they’d be high enough quality for commercial use. I needed to be able to learn and experiment and work at it until the quality was there.
So I decided it was time to have a goal. My goal was to somehow make enough money by other means that I could give up my job at the paper and devote my time to composing.
There was just one problem. I had set a goal, but I had no idea of how I was going to reach it. I’d never learned the art of goal-setting – I had no plan and really didn’t know what steps to take. I was just stuck in the stage of hoping it would someday happen.
So here’s where my success with my Beachbody fitness programs merged with the rest of my life’s plans.
(This next part is all exposition so you understand how the Beachbody business works.)
Beachbody is the company that makes workout DVD programs such as P90X, Insanity and Turbo Fire, and a line of nutritional products as well. Whenever someone places an order on the Beachbody website or calls the number on an infomercial, they get assigned to a coach. Coaches are independent contractors whose job is to help these customers succeed with the programs they’ve just bought. Through a very smart database system, once a customer has been assigned to a coach, that coach then gets a commission off whatever future purchases that customer makes. So it’s in a coach’s best interest to make sure his or her customers are happy with their results, so they’ll continue to buy the products.
When Tom and I bought our very first program, Power 90, he got assigned to a coach in Texas named Julie Schulte. Julie immediately struck up a relationship with us. She friended us on Facebook, kept tabs on our fitness progress, shared her own experiences and helped us with questions we had. We felt like she really cared about our well-being and our success.
After having bought and finished two or three other programs (including P90X and Insanity), Julie encouraged us to think about becoming coaches ourselves. We were committed to improving our own fitness, and we were telling our friends about the results we were getting and recommending the programs to them. And that’s essentially what coaches do.
She explained a little about the income potential, and I thought it might be a good addition to my other sidelines of piano tuning and music lessons. But I was concerned about the amount of time it would require. I didn’t know if it would be better to wait until I had more time to devote to it … but thankfully Julie advised otherwise. If she hadn’t, I’d still be spinning my wheels, waiting for that magical break when everything would somehow change. (Such a thing doesn’t exist, by the way.)
So I took the plunge. I bought a new workout program (ChaLEAN Extreme) and Shakeology on Julie’s recommendation, and I signed up. It cost me a couple hundred bucks to get started, but the majority of that expense went toward my own health and fitness. And these days, the initial cost can actually be far less than that.
Shakeology arrived, and within three days I was sold for life. I felt like I had woken up out of a fog. Even though we had changed our eating habits for the better when we started Power 90, we still had a long way to go, and Shakeology was the most healthful thing I had ever put into my body. I started drinking it for breakfast, and my energy level shot up and stayed consistent throughout the day. No more midafternoon drowsiness, but also no jitters and no crash later on. I just felt GOOD. Alive, energetic – and thrilled to be looking forward to my workouts.
And wow, did the workouts WORK! ChaLEAN Extreme is a program that I have to say is geared toward women, but appropriate for everyone. It emphasizes weight training for better muscle tone and more efficient metabolism. You lift heavy and you lift slow. I got the sculpted shoulders and arms I’d always wanted. And yes, I got a girl-crush on Chalene Johnson, the trainer. (Well, who wouldn’t?)
Julie helped me set goals for my new business and showed me how to get started sharing Beachbody with people. I won’t lie – this was tough for me to grasp. I hate sales. I don’t like chit-chat. Just having to interact with people face-to-face exhausts me and I dread it.
But fortunately, Julie taught me that anyone can succeed at this business, no matter what their personality type. Beachbody is set up with plenty of tools I could use to engage people over e-mail or Facebook, and once that initial contact was made, I was fine with talking in person or over the phone. I kept my expectations low, and I didn’t have any illusions that I was going to get rich quick. That first order that came in, though – that was quite the thrill!
So I was making some commissions here and there, spreading the word and talking to people about the programs and the shakes. The other aspect of coaching lies in creating a team of your own – sponsoring other coaches and helping them build THEIR businesses. This is where the multi-level thing comes in. I earn small bonuses based on the order activity generated by the coaches I’ve signed, plus other coaches who’ve signed up after me with Julie or the coaches above her.
Like I said, I wasn’t exactly getting rich quick. I kept working at improving my people skills, and slowly, my paychecks started to grow. I began sponsoring other coaches and developing relationships with my customers … and this is where the surprise comes in: I was really enjoying myself. Me, the last person I would ever have dreamed of working in the fitness industry, much less a representative for a network marketing company.
And here’s why: One of the vital behaviors Beachbody stresses for success in this business is personal development. I was impressed early on that the company never insists you become a better salesperson. They just want you to become a better person, period. Improve yourself, and all your relationships improve – not only with your customers and your team of coaches, but also your spouse, family and friends. Who wouldn’t want that?
Julie recommended several books. She even sent me one on her own dime when I was feeling particularly discouraged. She put me in accountability groups with other coaches that developed our leadership skills. So many “lightbulb moments”! I learned keys to goal-setting and consistent action. I found out how to get past the obstacles I had put in my own way. Heck, I even improved our family budget using techniques I learned from these personal development books!
Because of all this, the future looks completely different now than it did three years ago. The switch has been flipped and I’m well on my way to accomplishing everything I ever figured I’d want.
So I think I’ve answered three of the questions I posed at the beginning of this novel. The last, “What makes Beachbody different?” is the crux of all of this.
Beachbody’s company motto is “Helping people achieve their goals and enjoy healthy, fulfilling lives.” In all my experiences with this company, as a customer and as a coach, they’ve been honest, they’ve been above-board, sincere, they’ve acted with integrity, and they’re unafraid to apologize when they make a mistake. They don’t promise you’ll make millions of dollars, and they don’t claim their products will magically make you thin and trim overnight. They DO promise that if you decide to commit to your goals, they can help you succeed.
Other multi-level companies selling health products are famous for incentives such as the “free BMW.” Know what Beachbody offers you if you reach certain benchmarks with your business? MORE PEOPLE TO HELP. I don’t know of any other company who rewards its reps with more customers. Remember how Julie was the coach Tom was assigned to? He was a free customer lead that she received. And now we’ve become part of her team that is helping her earn over six figures annually.
So that’s why I do this. I love being in shape. I love being 43 and still getting carded in bars. I love feeling this good. I love introducing people to this feeling – and I love being their go-to person when they need help or advice. I love seeing my own coaches get excited about their successes. I love being a part of a movement that is actually doing some good in this world by helping people be healthier and happier. I love the fact that it can only be done by HARD WORK and PERSISTENCE. I love the freedom of running my own business and the challenge of making it work – or else! And I love that I’m doing it alongside my husband, my kids are involved, and I have a fantastic tribe of like-minded people I can now call my friends.
Now, after reading this, if you want to write me off as an annoying network marketer, go ahead. Yes, I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, and it tastes a lot like Shakeology. I’m committed to helping people achieve their goals and lead healthy, fulfilling lives – and that includes my own.
September 5, 2011
What can you lose?
Is there a down side to eating clean and exercising?
Obviously there must be, or else we’d all be perfectly fit and healthy all the time. Let’s take a look at some of the common reasons we don’t all attain our ideal physiques:
1. It takes time.
2. It costs money.
3. Some medical conditions prevent people from exercising or eating certain foods.
4. The bodybuilder look isn’t for everyone.
5. People should have the right to eat what they want and do what they want, and not be discriminated against because of their size.
These are all valid points. But are they logical? Time for some analysis.
1. It takes time. Oh, we humans and our silly linear concept of time. Forget the clock for a minute (ha) and focus your energy on your priorities rather than your schedule. Think about what your goals are in life. Does everything on your daily calendar move you forward toward your goals? Or are you staying in one place, keeping busy but not gaining any ground? Think about rearranging your daily calendar so you can invest your time in the activities that will make a difference in your life. That may mean coming to some tough conclusions about big factors like your job or your relationship. It’s your life. Make it what you want it to be.
2. It costs money. Yeah, so does being tired and overweight. You can choose to spend $7 on a Whopper combo meal at Burger King or $7 on an apple, a handful of roasted almonds, a snack pack of baby carrots and hummus and a cup of lowfat yogurt. “That’s not enough food,” you say? Yes, it is. You’re just used to gorging until your stomach is full of sugar, grease and fat. There are ways to gradually change your eating (and shopping) habits a little at a time so you become used to healthier foods, and once your body adjusts, it will thank you with increased energy and less pudge. As for the monthly expense of going to a gym, invest in a good home workout program instead. You’ll save on membership fees, gas and the necessity of always having clean workout clothes.
3. Some medical conditions prevent people from exercising or eating certain foods. You may have limitations, but you can always do SOMETHING. Knees too weak to run? Try a meal replacement shake for a while so you can drop 20-30 pounds. One pound of weight lost equals four pounds of pressure off your knees per step. Have injuries? Work the rest of your body and keep eating clean. Allergies or digestive issues prevent you from getting all the nutrients you need? Do some homework and talk to a dietician about supplements. These things aren’t obstacles, they’re singularities.
4. The bodybuilder look isn’t for everyone. Thank goodness. I personally have always had a thing for guys with a little more meat on their bones. (No snickering, please.) We’re all built differently, but we can all achieve good muscle tone and low body fat … if we try. Good health is the goal, not the Mr. Universe title.
5. People should have the right to eat what they want and do what they want, and not be discriminated against because of their size. This in its broader scope is the great debate of our time. Personal choice versus what society (or the government) deems “best” for us. Understand this: It’s human nature to judge other people. Based on the culture we were raised in and our own conscious or programmed beliefs, we can’t help it. If we harbor the opinion that fat people are weak-willed or ignorant, we’re going to treat them differently than people we consider disciplined and high-achieving with their fitness. Whether that’s RIGHT or not is moot. The truth is that obesity and its related health conditions are overwhelmingly the main contributor to the health care crisis in America. If just 1 percent of the people classified as obese right now were to drop to within “normal” weight ranges, it would free up enough cash flow to SOLVE the entire health care dilemma. ONE PERCENT. Think of the added energy and productivity those people in that 1 percent would then contribute to the workforce. If you feel your affinity for junk food and personal comfort of lounging in your recliner is more of a priority than becoming your best, saving your own money and the nation’s on medical costs, having fun doing active things and setting a great example for your children, then YES, that is totally your right.
So. Take stock of your priorities, your goals and your present condition. Are you where you want to be? Do you need to make some changes? E-mail me at kstrecker1701@gmail.com if you want help.
June 25, 2011
We’re going to get America back in shape!
SO MUCH GREAT NEW STUFF!!!!
I just got back from a trip to Los Angeles for the 2011 Beachbody Coach Summit. Wow! What a blast! I tell ya, this company blows me away. The CEO, Carl Daikeler, his business partner Jon Congdon and all their senior executives are up on the stage at the Platinum Ballroom in the J.W. Marriott in jeans and sneakers talking about all the incredible new programs and products coming out, and mingling with all the attendees – then the next night everyone’s dressed like they’re at the Oscars and congratulating the top coaches who are earning in excess of $1 MILLION annually in this business.
(By the way, “this business” has only been around for about 4 years.)
So here’s the rundown on all the goodies coming your way from Beachbody in the next few months:
TROPICAL SHAKEOLOGY
The new flavor was finally unveiled! It’s pink like a strawberry milkshake and has flavors of mango and pineapple. Delicious! A great alternative to the chocolate and greenberry. Look for it to be available around the beginning of 2012.
P90X APP FOR IPHONE
P90Xers have been clamoring for this! Very soon you’ll be able to download an app for your iPhone that lets you track your weights and reps, post to Facebook and Twitter and log your workouts. The premium version will include app versions of all 12 workouts, with demonstrations of each exercise, so you can take your P90X with you wherever you go.
TAI CHI DVD PROGRAM
Dr. Mark Cheng developed this program that benefits ALL fitness levels, from professional athletes to people with mobility issues. Look for it soon!
NEW CONTEST
Currently, Beachbody has a daily giveaway for people who log their workouts into WOWY (the online workout calendar) and you can win iPods, digital cameras or cash. Sweet, huh? Well, it’s changing. Starting Aug. 1, you can sign a commitment to your fitness program and be eligible to win the DAILY $500 giveaway; then there will be monthly and quarterly prizes for the most impressive body transformations, and the grand prize winners (one male, one female) in May 2012 will win $100,000 each!!! Signup is free so message me if you want to play.
P90X2
Yes! It’s really happening! By popular demand, Tony Horton returns with P90X2, an even bigger, badder, awesomer workout! You can watch a preview here – you won’t believe some of these moves!
E-mail me to get on the notification list for when it comes out in Fall 2011.
Ending the trend of obesity
An analyst for the health care industry estimated that if just 1 percent of Americans changed their health for the better and took themselves out of the “overweight” category, the financial impact on our nation’s economy would solve our health care crisis.
ONE PERCENT.
Think of 100 people in your life you care about: family, friends, neighbors, coworkers … How many of them could be healthier? How many would be HAPPIER if they were healthier? If you were to talk to just ONE of these people, tell them what you know about Beachbody’s fitness and nutrition programs, offer to be there for them and help them succeed – think of the impact you could have!
This is Beachbody’s corporate mission: “To help people achieve their goals and enjoy healthy, fulfilling lives.” Can YOUR workplace say that?
(Plus, how can you NOT love a company that names its corporate meeting rooms after famous movie “dudes?” Our tour started in the Ferris Bueller room at 9 a.m.)
If you want to be a part of this life-changing business, e-mail me. Coach Summit 2012 is going to be in Las Vegas! See you there!
June 10, 2011
Help wanted
If you’re committed to improving your own fitness, would enjoy helping other people get in better shape and could handle making a second income, please contact me.
I’ve just had a spot open up in my coaching team and I need to fill it with someone who has definite goals for his or her life, and the self-motivation to do a few simple things every day that will make them happen.
Here’s what I DON’T need: Slackers. Hackers. Weasels. Whiners. Flakes. Fakes. Know-it-alls. Phonies. Posers. Hosers. Douchebags. Scumbags. Snobs. Slobs. And nut jobs.
The qualifications are reeeeeeally stringent: You must be breathing and have a pulse. And a computer. And you have to care about what you do. It matters not a whit what your body fat percentage is right now, how much you weigh, how many push-ups you can do or how you look in a swimsuit. Trust me. That doesn’t matter. The best coaches are the ones who are right in there with their customers on their fitness journeys.
Your duties will be to share Beachbody’s fitness and nutrition products with people who are looking to get healthier. There’s no “selling” involved. No quotas. No inventory. No transactions on your part. Just listening and helping.
Beachbody provides all the training, a 55,000-member support network, an online business center, four personalized websites, professional marketing tools that take all the pressure off you, and a multimillion-dollar advertising budget. People already know about the products: P90X, Insanity, Turbo Fire, Shakeology – once they know that you’re involved with Beachbody, THEY will come to YOU.
I can tell you from current personal experience: Beachbody is an amazingly generous company. Once you start to build your own team, Beachbody starts to SEND you customers who placed their orders over the phone or through the company’s main website. You get assigned as their support coach. Anything they subsequently order automatically earns you a commission.
Beachbody doesn’t HAVE to do this. They could easily keep the profits for the corporation. But they know that having a support coach is one of the most crucial factors for success in fitness, and they want their customers to succeed. In their business model, everyone wins.
Does it cost anything to get started? Only what you want to invest in your OWN fitness, nutrition and business. This is your chance to “be a product of the product” – to get in the best shape of your life.
If any of this has piqued your interest, then watch this video.
A Coaching Opportunity of a Lifetime
E-mail me or text me at (503) 791-6596 and tell me what aspect of the video struck you the most. That’s your job application.
(Hats off to those of you who dared to read Wednesday’s post (er, novel) about my recent medical experience. Sorry if I grossed anyone out. I thought about posting a photo but figured that just crossed the line …)
May 20, 2011
The art of setting goals
After more than a year in business as a Beachbody coach, what have been the biggest benefits?
In reverse order:
3. Extra income
1. Learning how to set goals
I count the goals thing as the most important because it’s a skill that applies to every aspect of life. I’ve used the techniques I’ve learned in improving my household budget, accomplishing projects at my day job, helping my kids get focused and teaching my young piano students how to practice.
Here are the fundamentals of setting goals – and achieving them:
- Identify your big dream. What is the overall thing you want to accomplish? Write it down. Better yet, post a picture of it somewhere to remind you of it daily.
- Make a plan. What needs to happen to make your dream a reality? Write down the steps in order. Turn obstacles into challenges that simply need to be overcome.
- Break it down.Look at the first step in your plan and figure out what you must to to accomplish it. Write down those smaller steps as your immediate goals.Why is it so crucial to write these things down? Because until you put your thoughts into a concrete form, they’re just thoughts in your head. If you speak them out loud, that helps, but they’re still temporary. When they become written words, they enter the real world permanently.
- Make your goals action-oriented, not achievement-oriented. Don’t say, “I’m going to lose 5 pounds.” You’re not always able to control how your body will respond to diet and exercise. What happens if you’re retaining water and you don’t meet that goal? Failure. Instead, say, “I’m going to exercise for 30 minutes each day and not eat any junk food for a week.” THAT you have control over. When you’ve met that goal, you’ll feel pride and confidence to tackle the next one.
- Start on the path. Even if you feel you’re not prepared, even if you think the timing’s not right, you won’t get anywhere if you don’t start. Begin working toward your goal right now and you’ll find that more things will go your way than you expect.
- Announce your plans. Any dream that’s truly important to you is one you should be excited and even proud to share with people. Let your friends and family know what you’re working toward and you’ll be amazed at the help and resources they’ll be willing to offer. Making your goals public is also a surefire way to hold yourself accountable to them.
- Stand tall. Ignore the small-minded people who have the bad manners to laugh or criticize. They’ll shut up when they see you’re serious.
Do you have a dream for your life? Post it in a comment and tell me how you’re going to accomplish it.
thehealthymuse 