What an awesome way to start the week guys! Thanks for making this morning a great class!

Last Saturday saw the final event on the Aroc adventure racing calendar and what a race it was!

We had every type of terrain you could ask for and we had 4 awesome teams participating.

Fitta Bodies 1 - Myself, Matt, Jack

Fitta Bodies 1.555^ - Darrin, Adam, Nelius

Fitta Bodies - Scott, Pat, Sprat

Last Minute Fitta Bodies - Rachel, Jason, Danielle

We started off in the sand dunes at Stockton Beach finding checkpoints attached to flags waving in the distance before heading into the biking sections where we found ourselves riding along the sand at One Mile Beach. Such an awesome thing to do and I can’t think of another opportunity I will have to do it either. Part way along the beach we had to pick up our bikes for some coasteering along the rocks. The rest of the mountain biking trails were pretty sandy, so we found ourselves pushing the bikes almost as much as pedaling them!

We then did some more coasteering and even had a quick swim out to a check point in a rock pool just off shore before heading back to the bikes and making our way to the kayaks at Fingal Bay. We battled the huge swells to cross the bay, dragged the kayaks on shore and did a massive coasteering section. Pretty gnarly too if you ask me, right on the edge all the way.

When we got back to the kayaks, the tide was so low that everybody was carrying their kayaks to the next checkpoint rather than paddling them, so we took a handle each and jogged it the 500m or so. Those babies aren’t light either!

It was onto our final beach run of about 1.5km’s and then we pedaled our bikes to the finish line.

Woo Hoo, we came in 3 hours and 28 mins in 29th place out of 178 teams. Not bad, but we were on track to make it much better than that before our silly mistakes…I’ll explain below.

So where did we go wrong?

We rode straight past CP16, when we got to CP17, we realised and had to ride back. There’s 5 mins atleast.

On the way to CP20, Jack got a massive calf cramp. I have never seen a man scream like this before, his calf pulled up into a ball. So Matt was holding his leg up, I was trying to massage it when a guy came along and quote unquote said “stand back, I’m a massage therapist” As funny as the quote is, he did an awesome job and it was so nice of him to stop and help out. Let’s say another 10 mins lost there.

We completely missed CP25, so we had to go back for that one as well. There’s another 5 mins.

So we know that at CP16 we were in about 12th place and guess what, if we took 20 mins off our time, we would have come in at 12th place…

But, we had a ball!

Well done to team 2 for coming in 3 hours and 33 mins in 38th place! Awesome, must have been that 3 hour, 35km training session we did last weekend!

Awesome result for Team 1.555^ coming in  4 hours and 6 mins in 89th place. They had a goal to come within 1 hour of my team and smashed that by coming in 38 mins after us, well done!

Last minute Fitta Bodies is so named because they only entered 2 days before the event, after entries had closed, but thankfully Alina allowed us 1 more entry into the race. They had a some navigational problems around CP’s 24 and 25 which set them right back and they ended up coming in 4 hours 48 mins in 145th place. They were tracking really well prior to that CP stuff up too!

Other memorable moments of the race…

Matt copping his bike in the jaw whilst carrying it over the rocks

Jack’s turet type outburst when he was cramping up

Of course the quote of the day “Stand back I’m a massage therapist”

Adam, Darrin and Nelius capsizing their kayak in the huge swells

The heavy downpour of rain soon after we all finished the race which saw about 50 people huddle under the Red Bull tent and then the flooded ground to get back to the car

And after it is all said and done, there is always enough energy to overhead squat something at a random location…

So who’s joining us for the next adventure race? It’s time to do something with your new fitness levels!

Awesome workout this morning, everyone really put their best efforts in!

I won’t put names beside donations, but you can see when your amount is posted.

$754 + $50 + $30 + $10 + $100 + $70 + $150

Keep them coming people!

Firstly, I would like to congratulate everybody on a great effort. I can see big differences in a lot of people.

Your comments on the blog are really inspirational for others, so please keep them coming. If you have got something to share that you think will help others along the way to better health, please post it up for everyone to see.

So just via enrollments, we raised $754 and whilst I am disappointed that people caved during the month, I am super excited to see how much we raised via misdemeanours and sponsors.

Please donate your money, send me the receipt and I will put the tally up for everyone to see.

I hope that from this month you will have made a few changes to your eating habits. Below are the things I would love to see you take away from this month into the future;

Alcohol only on special occasions and no more than once a week

Cakes and sweets only on special occasions and no more than once a week

No sugar in your caffeine

Only multigrain bread

No soft drink ever

Cut right down on white potato

Cut right down on white rice

If you can cover those bases, you are doing alright!

Once again, well done everyone, please post your results and your experience for others to see and get inspired by for next time.

OK guys, we are now into the last week of SUGARFREEFEBRUAREE.

There have only been 2 people making confessions and only 2 people making their praises of the program. I am positive that many of you need to make confessions and many more of you have some great things to say about how you are feeling this month.

So, let’s hear it!

And by all reports, the amount raised for Haiti is growing with all the slip ups I am hearing about.

Good luck with week 4:)

My first X-Fitness workout since my holiday, I hope you enjoyed it!

Wow, this sugar free month has flown by, there are only 11 days to go!

As most of you know, I have been on holidays and as such have not been taking part in the sugar free festival. The difference is that I have been living sugar free almost everyday since NOSUGARVEMBER started with the exception of 4 days.

What I noticed when I was on holiday is that I didn’t want sugar as much. I am a self confessed chocolate and donut addict. Our cupboards have been full of chocolate since Christmas and our intention was always to take it on holidays with us to eat. We had a biscuit or two and realised we didn’t actually want it, so we threw them out. Now bear in mind, we were not being strict at all, we gave ourselves free passes to eat whatever we wanted on the holiday, but we actually didn’t want it. About a week into the holiday when the chocolate had just been sitting there staring at us with no desire to eat it, we just threw everything out as it didn’t even taste the same to us anymore. I went to the shop to get some donuts as I have been hanging out for some since my birthday last year and guess what… all that anticipation and I didn’t enjoy them that much. Normally my favourite sweet treat ended up a huge disappointment.

So you’ve just got to stick with it to kick those cravings and habits.

Now since I’ve been back, I have heard many mixed comments, mostly just in passing, but I would love to hear what you have got to say here on the blog so that others can read and might associate with it.

I’ll just tell you some of the comments and make of them what you will.

“I’m struggling big time”

“I have found it really hard and haven’t been as strict as I was in November”

“I’ve lost 5kg’s”

“I didn’t know I couldn’t eat white bread”

“I’m really struggling with the alcohol” and same person “I feel so much better without drinking alcohol”

“I’ve lost another 2kg’s”

“I’m struggling with the alcohol” and same person “I don’t think I want to drink again, I feel so much better, it stops you feeling depressed”

That’s all I can think of at the moment, I am sure there were more though, mostly about how much they are struggling with no alcohol. Is it not scary to think you cannot give up alcohol for 28 days? I haven’t ever harped about alcohol much, but let me just say that alcohol is a toxin in the body. It is really bad for you and it affects your organs and your sanity. If you feel you cannot give it up for 28 days, then you need to give it up for 28 days, for your own sake!

One more thing, I hear a lot about people wanting to eat after dinner and asking what they can eat if they can’t eat dessert. It is not necessary, you just ate dinner! It is a habit that you can get out of.

It is time to take responsibility for your own actions, if you want to lose weight, you have to be a bit uncomfortable. You might have to skip dessert and you will have to drag your butt out of bed in the morning. Far too many people want life handed to them on a platter and they spend their whole lives waiting for it. Good luck if that’s you, you’re best to resign yourself to a life of mediocrity and whinging right now.

Enjoy the next 11 days of sugar freedom and yes, I am back on the sugar free wagon now too:)

So The Biggest Loser is back. I know this because so many people tell me what a fantastic show it is. I respond by telling them what a terrible show it is and then I have to go on to explain my comment, so here it is again for everyone.

Why I have issues with The Biggest Loser;

Take a group of morbidly obese individuals who clearly have emotional issues and throw them into a reality TV show that is sure to get everyone bitching and fighting and hating each other. Now that’s real healthy for their self esteem!

Take a group of morbidly obese individuals who clearly have not exercised for many years and smash them for hours on end day in day out and starve them. Now that’s real healthy for their long term health.

Make sure they all lose ridiculous amounts of weight, far more than any person in the real world could lose and broadcast it on TV every night of the week. Think about the message that is sending out to the person who is struggling to lose a few kilos because they don’t have 5 hours a day to train and have all their food prepared for them. All of a sudden, people all over the world are losing faith in their exercise and eating plans because of these hopped up over inflated results.

What about when they talk about how they can’t lose weight. They have tried everything in the past. Everything? Exercise and eat less? I’m sorry, but what is it that they do on this show other than exercise and eat less? It must be the magic of television that makes them lose the weight, because they’ve already tried exercising and eating less, just not on television and not for a huge amount of prize money.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife was unfortunately watching it when I got home and it was the section where they offer them immunity to eat a ridiculous amount of food. Now this is by far the biggest issue I have with the show. The girl on there had just eaten over 4000 calories of sweets simply so she was guaranteed to be on television for another 7 days. Clearly she didn’t do it because she wanted another week of expert coaching, because she was going to spend the next couple of days just burning off the junk that she ate. Nope, she just wanted to have her face on TV for 7 more days.

What sort education is that giving these people? Eat all this junk and you can stay on the show. I know the following point would not make for good TV, but shouldn’t the ones who don’t lose enough weight stay so they can be helped by the experts for longer? No, because they don’t care about health, they only care about ratings.

If you are truly inspired by this show and you think it is so good because it helps people and shows what we are all capable of if we put our minds to it, then please do not watch this show because that is not what it does, instead please tune into either “You are what you eat” or “Diet doctors”. These shows take obese unhealthy individuals and give them a whole body assessment, inside and out and they make changes in their diet and lifestyle to improve every aspect of their body and health, not just drop unrealistic amounts of weight. It is almost always quality advice that you could follow at home.

Please feel free to leave me your comments, I would love to hear what you have to say on this issue.