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

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.

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.

So I’m back from my holiday, refreshed and ready to go for another year. We had a fantastic time, we saw a lot of great things, spent many hours swimming and had loads of family bonding time with the little ones.

Now just because you are on holidays doesn’t mean you have to be lazy. In fact, I believe most of my clients were lazier than me over the last 2 weeks and I was the one on holidays! Hannah and I took alternate mornings to get our workouts in, so we each got a workout in every second day. Rain or shine!

The great thing about our location was that it was across the road from the beginning of Mooloolaba Beach. I enjoyed the 1.8km each direction run every workout. Every run I wore my shoes as I am in training for the next adventure race which is sure to involve beach running. I varied between soft sand running there and back. Ankle deep water running there and back. And probably my favourite was the day I ran all the way up the beach on the really soft sand and then I ran the whole 1.8km’s back in knee to thigh deep water. The locals looked at me like I was deranged, as I did have shoes on but I have never used my core so much whilst running. I could feel it burning whilst I tried to lift my legs out of the water with every stride. I highly recommend is for something different.

Every run was followed up with a short Crossfit workout either on the local pull up bars mixing various pull ups in with handstand push ups or down on the beach doing countdown workouts of squats, push ups etc incorporating out and in’s to the surf in between each set.

Look closely, Hannah snapped this one morning

At Byron bay, we put the kids in the sun tent and made the tent the base for the movement whilst the other person ran to a marker and back. It was a race for who got the most repetitions, so you had to move fast whether you were soft sand running or pushing, sitting, squatting etc.

The fact is, there is no excuse to be lazy, no matter where you are!

Not bad 12 weeks after baby No.2, you just gotta move!

Even bat'n'ball on the beach is movement

Great turn out this morning and a few good workouts to challege everyone!

A new system today with a non-stop rolling clock ensured everybody completed each challenge before starting the next one. I like it a lot!

Well the new year has arrived and I am sure a lot of you made New Years resolutions that included health and fitness.

So, what to do now?

I’ll give you a few suggestions to help you on your way.

1) Get a tape measure and measure your waistline on your belly button. Make sure the tape is straight so you get an accurate measurement. Just relax and don’t hold your tummy in.

If you have got someone who could do measurements for you, measure your hips at the widest part and your arm at the mid point between your shoulder and elbow.

Write these measurements down and re-measure at the start of every month this year. I want everybody to atleast measure their wasteline, it is not hard and it is a much beter indicator of weight loss than scales, which brings me to point 2.

2) Put your scales in the bin. I am serious, dispose of them forever. They are the stupidest indicator of weight loss if you are training correctly. Meaning if you are performing resistance exercises to strengthen muscles, bones and joint as well as speeding your metabolism and creating a more toned look. A number on a small metal box means nothing. How you look in the mirror means everything. What you weighed when you were 16 and not training properly and had a great natural metabolism means nothing now. How your clothes fit means everything now. Get it? How do you look, how do you feel, are your clothes tighter or looser on you?

3)  Clean up your diet today. Christmas and New Year are a notoriously bad time of year for eating and drinking, but they are over! I understand indulging during that period, but a few too many people are trying to hang on to it by carrying on the party food and drink.

Now is the time to get rid of all the junk food that is left in your cupboards and start the new year afresh. In February we will have SUGARFREEFEBRUARY but for now you should aim to give up all the sugar in your diet. This means no more alcohol, no junk food, no sweets. You get the idea. Your stomach will thank you for it!

4) Get back to training. It can be hard to get back into the swing of things after 2 weeks of leisure and bad diet, so my suggestion to you is to ignore the lazy little person who is sitting on your shoulder telling you to stay in bed every morning and drag your butt out to do some exercise.

I am going to bring it back to calories as I know you all have way too many in storage at the moment. 1 class = approximately 600 calories. Turn up to 1 class and burn 600, turn up to 3 and burn 1800 or turn up to 5 and burn 3000. 1kg of fat = 7700 calories.

It is not hard to figure out what is right and what is wrong, get back into the swing of training, clean up your diet today, measure yourself today so you can have something to work towards at the end of the month and throw your scales away so you don’t have any useless numbers messing with your head!

If 2009 was the year you thought about, 2010 is the year to do it!

Our first X-fitness class for the year and I think it was a great one to get everybody kickstarted!