Last week I took a break and headed up to QLD to relax and as usual, when I am away from work and I have a few minutes to myself, I usually observe all the people around me. It got me thinking about something and everywhere I looked, I had my theory cemented.

“Everybody can change their life with just a few changes of thinking and a few changes of action.”

I see so many people who’s life is heading in one direction and you just know that they are not happy, but maybe they just don’t know how to change it.

I also know so many people who have been on that unhappy road and they have made changes and their life has changed for the better.

I am not just talking about being overweight, but this would be the main one that comes to mind due to my occupation. I am also talking about being in bad relationships or bad jobs, having bad habits, having no hobbies or interests etc etc, anything that is bringing you down.

When I was away, I got up early each morning and did a workout down by the beach. I did this because I enjoy it and rarely get the luxury of exercising in the early morning when I am working. When I got in the lift each day to head out, there was usually at least 1 person in the lift and believe it or not, they were usually overweight. But not just overweight, they looked generally miserable. They also looked somewhat embarrassed when Hannah I got into the lift.

Now maybe they feel stuck. Staying the same is easy, but it is sucking the life out of them. Making a change is hard, often very hard, but the rewards can be huge.

I also went to a water park and as you know, there is no easy way to cover up there. But what I found was that so many people were embarrassed by their own skin, that they would wear a shirt or even more clothes than just a shirt over the top of their swimmers.

Again, I am sure these people feel stuck. I mean honestly, who is happy and comfortable being overweight, feeling sluggish and embarrassed by their own skin?

I just want to say that it is never too late to make a change. Sometimes making the smallest change can have a domino effect and you will make another change without even thinking about it and then another and yet another until 12 months later, you stop and think and realise that you are not the same person you were. Things in your life are better. Things are more enjoyable etc etc.

I am not saying being thinner is the be all and end all, even though it may lengthen your life and improve your quality of life whilst you are here, but what I am saying is that making one change, usually leads to another.

I’d like to give you some examples. Totally random of course

You’re stuck in a job you hate which doesn’t allow any time for the gym or to eat correctly and you’re in a relationship that is just not right and you’re hanging out because you are comfortable, even though you are unhappy. So one day, you say thats it, I’m done. You quit your job and start looking for a new one that is in a new industry. Something that will bring a spark back to your life. Something you are passionate about. You end your relationship. Let’s face it, it wasn’t going anywhere anyway. You were only hanging out until something better came along, but with the state of mind you were in, nothing better was ever going to come along. You get right into your fitness and eat healthily. All of a sudden you have less burdens. You may be lonely for a while, but now that you are a happier person, working in an industry you enjoy, looking better than ever because you are so fit and healthy and then you find a person who is equally fit and healthy and happy. You are now in a happy relationship because you feel good about your self. 2 years later, you can’t even remember that person who was unhappy in both work, relationship & life and unhealthy and embarrassed to look in the mirror. But, had you not made those couple of changes, 2 years later you could be even deeper stuck in the unhappiness… you would be a totally different person…

or

Maybe you’ve been overweight and unfit for as long as you can remember. Everyone around you is unfit, so why change. But then one day, you say enough is enough. It may be hard and you are going to make a change. You start exercising regularly. You start eating healthy. The weight falls off. You gain self confidence. You start to help others around you because you realise it was not as hard as you had once thought. You want  others to know it is just a few small changes and the domino’s roll. Does losing the weight along make you more confident? The answer is probably YES, but let’s just say no for the sake of argument. So what does make you more confident? Could it be that you now have gym buddies? You’re stronger? You have a hobby? Your social circle has expanded? You can now take up other hobbies because you feel able to do it, where once you felt physically inadequate. How about this…Now that you are happier with your own skin, even though you were in what you thought was a good relationship already, you and your partner are now happier than ever! If you love yourself more, you can love others more too! You don’t always need a new relationship, you may just need to be a happier person to be a better partner!

Does any part of either of those examples sound familiar? I have loads more stories, but I think you get it.

On my way home in the car, I heard a segment on the radio about how much weight you have lost when your partner dumped you. Most of the callers were female whose partners had cheated on them and they all had lost anywhere from 15 to 40kg’s and they all said how amazing they felt and how they rubbed it into their partners faces whenever they saw them. they made comments like now he realises what he lost. My immediate thoughts were “why didn’t you lose the weight when you were together so that he was still physically attracted to you and didn’t even consider cheating on you?”  ”Why is it better to rub it into his face that you have lost weight now that you have broken up instead trying to look after yourself while you were together?

During this same segment, a guy rang up who had been dumped when he was 19 years old. After the breakup, he lost 40kg’s. He said it was a turning point in his life and he was so grateful that she dumped him. He said he is a totally different person now. I want to imagine where he might be if she hadn’t dumped him, because at 19, weighing 117kg’s is not good and I am sure he had some pretty bad habits that may or may not have led to an unhealthy and unhappy adult. In this case, it is the may not! Awesome!

I got told today of a very successful businessman who constantly ate business lunches and dinners always containing alcohol. He recently had a little change of heart and decide he needed to lose weight. By changing what he eats on the business lunches and dinners and by cutting alcohol out of his diet and exercising regularly, he has lost 40kg’s. Do you think he might inspire others around him to do the same. It’s not rocket science!

I saw a guy on the news the other night who was a former skinhead. He had tattoos all over his face. He has recently had a change of heart and is no longer a racist and had decided to have all of the tattoos removed form his face. $35,000 later, he looks like a new man. Could his life have become any different? All he did was change his way of thinking!

So if you are unhappy, for any reason, it is never too hard to make a change, and remember, once you make one change, other things will start to happen! No one needs to be unhappy. Life is short, you better make the most of it. Sooner rather than later!

So many of my clients have made changes in their health and fitness and in turn they have changed many other parts of their personalities and their lives so please help someone else out and let them know it is never too late to make a change!

And please be honest. It is very easy to pretend to be happy with what you have got because it may seem difficult to change, but you can only lie to yourself for so long before the truth needs to come out.

Just a quick note to let you all know that Stepping Stone House is having another fundraising event at Gazebo Building this year.

Last year – we had the casino theme – this year its a Halloween theme – and one may choose to “dress up” or go in “black tie” or “cocktail” each to their own really! Glamour Versus Halloween!

Please feel free to pass around to friends – family – work colleagues!

Its a cracker of a venue – the views are amazing!     The venue is a 360 degree round pent house – with once again amazing views!

Its great value – finger food – all you can drink ( alcohol and non alcoholic – alcohol is generally beer / wine / bubbles) – Halloween Candy Bar – and we are still hopeful for some kind of “entertainment” such as Tarot readings etc – BUT most importantly a good ole laugh with your friends!    Not to mention that it is all for a great cause – and its Tax Deductible.

More information on Stepping Stone House can be found on www.steppingstonehouse.com <http://www.steppingstonehouse.com>  - which will list and detail all the Aims and Purpose of Stepping Stone House.     It is an amazing charity – that receives no government funding or support – and relies heavily on the generosity and kindness of People!    Stepping Stone House continuously seek corporate sponsorship – this could be in the form of “charity of the Year’ or maybe a coffee morning donation to assist with purchase of school uniforms / books / dental fees etc – not to mention that Christmas is coming and all young people will need to receive from Santa! / attendance at fundraising events – organisation of fundraising events – personal donations – or maybe you have a skill that when volunteered to Stepping Stone House would be so beneficial.

Note:     Stepping Stone House has been in existence for 22 years!
Maybe this fundraising party – is the ideal way to celebrate a birthday – a celebration – celrbation of life and freindships  - have a girls night out – have a boys night out – have a “parents” night out – have an office party – get your work place donation / charity board to come along with employees – and the list goes on!
Thanking you

Cheers

Finn

Over the past year or so I have posted a bit of info about Paleo eating and we have had a 30 day challenge which went well and everybody saw the benefits.
Here is a link to some of the feedback I received after the challenge. It is all very inspiring to others to try it and even though a lot of people didn’t continue to eat 100% Paleo, they all got something out of it and most of them eat predominantly Paleo foods most of the time.

But, I know that Paleo eating is not for everybody. It can be a little restrictive, so I thought I would tell you about the way of eating I am recommending if Paleo is not your thing. Having said that, if Paleo is your thing then eating in Zone ratios with Paleo food is the best!!

I recommend you buy “The Paleo Solution” by Robb Wolf which will help you with food choices. You will benefit from eating predominantly Paleo foods.

SUGAR

We have also run several “no sugar” challenges which are fantastic. I believe it is in everybody’s best interest to cut as much sugar from your diet as possible, both for weight loss and health.

Here is a link to a couple of my older articles about sugar. Please read these before reading on with this article;

Is sugar making you sick?

Is sugar making you fat?

Now, there is nothing amazingly bad about sugar, it has the same calorie content as any other carb or protein, so it is not going to make you fatter than eating anything else based on the food (sugar) itself alone or the calories it contains, but the problem with sugar is what it does to your hormones. When your blood sugar levels rise, your body pumps out insulin to bring the blood sugar levels back to normal. Insulin is a storage hormone and it is necessary to our survival, hence why we have it in our body, but what is bad for us is the levels we produce when we have sugar and cause rises in blood sugar. Insulin is related to a whole range of health issues, number 1 being type 2 diabetes, but I am not going into here, I am going to focus mainly on its effect on weight loss.

As I said, insulin is a storage hormone, so when it is present in your body, you will store fat. Eat sugar, store more fat. That’s the simplest way of putting it and really all you need to know. Once you know that, you realistically should be saying “ far out, how can I have less insulin pumping through my body?”

Well, don’t eat any carbs and you won’t, but that’s not possible. Our body needs carbs. Carbs fuel our muscles and most importantly, our brain.

So what to do?

EAT BALANCED MEALS!

I know what you’re thinking, I already eat balanced meals. I have weetbix, fruit, yogurt and coffee for breakfast. Then I have a wholegrain sandwich with salad, a piece of fruit and another coffee for lunch. At night I eat pasta, but with a tomato sauce, no creamy sauces for me, they make you fat. I also have a 200g steak and some veggies. Sometimes for dessert I will just have a piece of fruit or some yogurt. If I’m feeling naughty I’ll have a piece of chocolate. See, all balanced! I just don’t understand why I can’t lose weight…

A balanced meal will consist of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. The ideal balance shown to exhibit weight loss is 40:30:30

This means 40% of your calories will come from Carbohydrates

30% will come from Protein

30% will come from fat

That doesn’t mean you eat as much fat as what you do protein, because fat has more than twice as many calories per gram that protein has. There are 9 calories per gram of fat and 4 calories per gram of protein.

So if I wanted a meal that would be 300 calories, I would get 120 cals from carbs, 90 from protein and 90 from fat

Translate this to calories and you get 30g carbs, 22g protein and 10g fat. Simple!

What you will also notice is that this is an almost perfect 3,2,1.

Now looking at your current diet above, you only ate protein at night and it was way too much. The rest of the day was carbs, balanced with more carbs and topped off with more carbs.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking again. This is one of those high protein diets right?

Wrong! Just to reiterate, 40:30:30. Or a 300 calorie meal would be 30g carbs, 22g protein and 10g fat. Doesn’t sound too high protein to me…

WHY EAT BALANCED MEALS?

Because food affects your hormones and weight loss is dependant upon your hormones!

When you eat carbs, your blood sugar levels will rise. The rise will depend on how good or bad the carbs were, or how high or low they were on the glycemic index. The higher and more bad they are, the more insulin will be released.

A lot of research over the past few years is showing that abdominal fat is related to insulin. Some people are more sensitive to it than others.

It is not only carbs that will increase insulin, but too many calories at each meal can stimulate insulin too.

Insulin is a storage hormone, it stores fat and our body needs it, it just doesn’t need that much of it!

When you increase your insulin your levels, you will not burn fat for hours after that. Any workout will burn carbohydrates, which will help them not to be stored as fat, but it doesn’t do much for the fat that is already there.

There is a hormone in protein called glucagon. Glucagon is a mobilisation hormone. It tells the body to release carbohydrate to the liver to make blood sugar to feed the brain.

This is why we need to balance the carbs and protein, so that the hormones are also balanced.

Fat has a couple of uses, it helps to slow the entry rate of carbs to the blood stream helping to reduce the impact on insulin levels and it contains a hormone called eicosanoids. Eicosanoids are a master hormone that help keep other hormones under control.

So that is why we eat balanced meals!

ARE YOU SURE THIS IS NOT HIGH PROTEIN?

This is not high protein, it is moderate protein, don’t be confused that this is high protein just because I want you to eat protein at every meal.

Most people eat high carbs, low protein. This is helping to balance it out a little.

How much protein would you eat at night?

An average female would need approximately 90g. The average male would need 120g, maybe 150g depending on size and goals.

Now if your current protein portion size at night is 200 – 250g, you now have 100 – 150g of protein up your sleeve to spread throughout the day. Make sense?

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FATS?

Fats are actually the trickiest thing, because we need to get fat at every meal, but there are limited good fats. You’ve got avocado, nuts, olive oil, flaxseed oil. So you need to plan accordingly, maybe you have olive oil on all your salads, maybe you have avocado with meats, maybe you have nuts with a snack or if you have a meal that lacked the other fats. Remember to count the fat you cook with if you are cooking a stirfry etc. but, cooking fat should be kept to a minimum.

Lets look at nuts as a very common snack food. How many nuts do you eat as a snack? Honestly!

Well, I need you to eat 6 for the average female and 9 – 12 for the average male. So if you have 20 once a day, I am asking you to eat 6 nuts 3 times a day. Get it? Can you also see from this that you may be consuming too many nuts at the moment?

BUT WHAT CARBS SHOULD I EAT

Realistically on Zone, you can eat any carbs you want, but the worse the quality of the carb, the less you can have of it. So if you want a filling meal, you should be choosing good quality carbs.

The main thing we are looking at with the carbs is the glycemic index and the impact that food will have on insulin levels. So, something like bread or potato or rice that is high on the glycemic index, you can only have a small amount. Example, an average females portion of pasta would be ½ cup with a tomato sauce. No other carbs. Lets think about how that would look on the plate and how filling it would be. Not very appealing to the eyes and not very filling.

Lets think of something like stir fried vegetable with oyster sauce. An average female could have 1 cup broccoli, 1 cup cauliflower, 1 cup green beans, 1 cup capsicum.

Now put that on a plate with your protein and see how satisfying and appetising that meal is.

OK, OK, SO NOW WHAT?

Well I think this rant has gone on for long enough, I have given you the why’s, I will give you the how’s in the next post. Here it is – Eating balanced meals for weight loss Part 2

Please go and buy “A week in the Zone” by Dr Barry Sears. This book will lay it all out for you and is a very informative easy read.

Any questions at all, please post in the comments section because your question is probably the same as what somebody else is thinking and I can answer everyone together.

Recently I have been receiving regular updates from the Health blog of Dr Barry Sears, the founder of the Zone diet. I call it the Zone diet, but I prefer to think of it as eating in the Zone, the word diet has so many stigmas attached to it, and rightly so!

The Zone diet simply means balancing your protein, carbs and fats at every meal. It also shows you how big or small your portions should be at each meal. It has easy to read charts to reference portions sizes for protein, carbs and fat.

It is by no means a fad diet and by no means a high protein diet. The proportions that zone recommends are 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 30% fat. It is basically structured balanced eating. Something most of us don’t do (regardless of what we think we do).

Eating in the Zone simply means eating within a zone that keeps your blood sugar levels stable without spikes, thus reducing the amount of insulin circulating in the body and keeping inflammation in the body to a minimum. Inflammation is responsible for most health issues in our bodies along with increased weight gain.

It is a much easier approach to weight loss and inflammation reduction than Paleo eating, but when you get a handle on portion control, you should look to switch the majority of your eating to Paleo foods to get the best results for your health and weight loss.

So anyway, the reason for this post is to share with you some of the better updates I have received from Dr Sears Health blog.

I have been posting them regularly on the Fitta Bodies facebook page, but here they are for all of you to read through at your leisure. They are quite short and concise with loads of relevant info.

Enjoy!

Click on these links to read the full article;

Eat like our paleolithic ancestors
No excuses, eat your breakfast
The secret of blueberries
Coffee and diabetes
Polyphenols make probiotics work better
Blame weight gain on the brain
What’s the story on chocolate
New food trends may be dysfunctional
The latest useless fad diet
Gastric banding – admitting failure
Mythologies in treating childhood obesity
Good and Bad carbohydrates
Fish oil and fat loss
Where does fat go
The demise of the mediterranean diet

To stay up to date the easiest with all of my updates, simply join the facebook page here.

I have designed a whole bunch of clothes through a website called Spreadshirt. This is the best option for my clothing because we can have a wide variety as opposed to me getting one design printed at a graphic designer and not knowing what size or styles anyone actually wants.

On this website, you can browse all the items, choose the colour you like and the size you like. Perfect.

There are some great quotes that I got from all of you months ago and I am excited to see you all wearing some new Fitta Bodies gear next time I see you.

Here are a  few instructions that will help you have a smooth ride through the clothing store, so follow the step by step instructions below.

1. Follow this link to the clothing store http://266984.spreadshirt.com

2. You can either scroll through all of the clothes, or select a category to refine your search

3. When you find an article you like, click on “details”

4. In the “details” section you can select the colour you like. Almost every article of clothing has been set in either white or black. White clothes only come in white. Black clothes can be changed to any colour they have available  except white. This is why I set a white and black version of each item.

5. In the “details” section, you can select your size. There is a sizing chart which will help you decide which size to choose.

6. Order your product.

I have no affiliation with the company Spreadshirt. I have simply used their website as it is a great way to give you all access to loads of great designs of Fitta Bodies clothes. If there are any problems with your order, I cannot accept any responsibility, as I have no communication with them except for using their platform for clothing design. All printing, invoicing and delivery are completely out of my control and are in no way associated with Fitta Bodies personal Training.

Thanks everyone!

I have asked all of the participants to fill in a survey on what they thought about the paleo way of eating so you can all see how beneficial it is.

I am going to post some of the feedback forms I get back so you can see how different it was for each individual.

Now even though I said it was an idividual experience, there were a few things that were constant through everyone’s experiences.

Firstly, everyone lost bodyfat.

Secondly, everyone felt much less bloated.

Thirdly, everyone had more energy.

Now I’m no genius, but those 3 things sound pretty important to me. How about you? Could you benefit from losing bodyfat, felling more energised and felling less bloated?

On the down side, everybody found it hard to eat out with friends. I agree and I say let yourself go sometimes. Eat this way 90% of the time and enjoy those foods you miss 10% of the time.

I’ll leave it at that and let you read through the forms for yourself.

Oh, one more thing. Does anyone know where I make my living? Yep, thats right, training. Do you hear me preaching about my training? No. Do you know why? Because you all already trust me about your training and you are getting amazingly fit and strong.

So why all the talk about eating better? I’m not making any money off it. You’re already training with me, so I’m not getting any new business from it. Because I care about you and I want you to lose weight and feel great! No ulterior motive, just me wanting you to be the best you can be.

Those who take all of my advice seem to flourish. Those who don’t, seem to flounder. No exaggeration, I have a group of people who get it and they get amazing results.

When  you’re ready to be leaner and healthier, give up the grains and dairy for 30 days and then make an informed decision about how you will move forward after that.

Classes go ahead rain, hail or shine.

The worst thing that can happen is that you get wet, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

It is extremely rare that we will get rained on heavily. By rarely, I mean approximately 5 times a year.

It is a little more common to get lightly rained upon and this only means about 10 – 20 times a year. Now that isn’t bad when we have approximately 250 classes a year.

Now I do have to say that more often than not, people don’t turn up because they think it is raining and we don’t even get a drop. They often don’t believe me until the others in the class back me up.

So the moral to that story is to always come. If it happens to really pour down, you can always turn back, but I am being honest when I say it rarely pours on us. When it does, it is pretty memorable!

All the panic for this week has resulted in no rain for the first 45 mins of Monday’s class with a light mist of rain at 6:45am. Then on Tuesday, it was clear with no sign of rain. So please don’t pay too much attention to the weather report. Just get out of bed and get down there.

Your goals don’t change when the weather gets bad, so you can spend many a morning in bed thinking about training and the weather, all the while getting no closer to your goals, or you can get out of bed and do it and get closer to your goals.

In the very rare instances that the weather is really horrible, I have my studio down the road on Anzac Pde Kensington, so we can head in there, but we always meet at the park to confirm it really is bad and wait for everyone to head there together. This option is totally at my discretion and is by no means a guaranteed option for rain.

You’ve signed up for outdoor training and that is what we do. It is no different to any other bootcamp or outdoor group training company, everyone trains rain, hail or shine.

This was one of those memorable days!

For any female who has ever wondered if CrossFit is the model that will get them results, this video says it all.

Enjoy!

A story of transformation.

Please note that the Sunday has been changed to 10am to 12pm and the book signing has been changed to Sunday night.

You can do one day or the other, you don’t have to do both to qualify for the free books. We just have to get 10 people to qualify.

I have got 6 people, so we need 4 more and I need to book in by tomorrow (Thursday) morning at the latest.

I don’t want you to all think it is all about how to run barefoot. It is going to be about how to run properly and if you can run properly, you can run barefoot. So if you would like to learn how to run more efficiently and reduce your risk of injury, then spend the $30 and come along on either Saturday or Sunday morning, or $50 for both.

Email me asap if you are keen.

Barefoot Ted McDonald (or BFT), a veteran ultra-runner and one of the pioneers of the barefoot running movement, is coming to Australia to hold a series of talks and workshops from March 10 – 14. Barefoot Inc <http://www.barefootinc.com.au/> , tour sponsor and Australian distributor of barefoot performance footwear, Vibram FiveFingers, is offering trainers like yourself a series of exclusive offers to extend to your clients to promote the tour.
BFT is one of central characters in Born to Run, the best seller by Christopher McDougall. The novel tells the story of the 2006 Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon in which BFT, Scott Jurek and two other ultra-marathon runners raced against the reclusive Tarahumara, indigenous people of northern Mexico who are celebrated for their long-distance running abilities. Hollywood actor and barefoot running enthusiast, Matthew McConaughey, will star as BFT in an upcoming film based on the novel.
Training barefoot has, in recent times, gained widespread popularity amongst runners who are tired of techno-centric running shoes. Barefoot converts maintain that adopting a more natural foot-strike and running form has helped them break out of the cycle of recurring injury.
Schedule of tour events during BFT’s visit includes:
•                Thursday 10th March 7 to 9pm – An evening with Barefoot Ted: Talk, Q & A and book signing. Venue: Pomegranate, 238 Henderson Rd, Alexandria Cost: $25
•                Friday 11th March 12.30 to 1.30 – Barefoot run with Ted around the Domain (meet at Top end of Martin Place) Cost: $5 charity donation to NSW Rural Fire Service
•                Saturday 12th March – Introduction to barefoot/pose running workshop 10am – 12pm (+ run with Ted after) Venue: McKay Oval, Centennial Park Cost: $30 (or $50 for both days)
•                Sunday 13th March – Barefoot trail running workshop 3pm to 5pm (+ run with Ted after) Venue: McKay Oval, Centennial Park Cost: $30 (or $50 for both days)
Exclusive offers for trainers and their clients:
•                Book into either workshop (Saturday or Sunday) and receive entry to the Thursday 10th March Talk, Q & A and book signing for free.
•                Vibram FiveFingers Classics (valued at $159) for $95 for people who register to attend an event.
•                Trainers who secure 10 people to attend either the trail running workshop or the barefoot/pose running workshop for two days receive 10 copies of Born to Run – signed and “foot printed” by Barefoot Ted.