Fab Fit Squad

I just landed in Vegas, the temperature is a balmy 101. I know that say its a dry heat, but it still hotter than Hades out there, I’m not complaining because I do love the heat. Actually as I sit here and type I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt and a jacket as the hotel likes to keep it like Antarctica. But I digress… So the actual competition doesn’t start until tomorrow, but today was weigh in for the bench press.. Which in my mind is the scariest part of this whole competition, you need to bench press 60% of your body weight for 50 reps, my goal weight to lift is 75 pds.  I got on the scale in my house and my unofficial weight had me 4 pounds below the top end of my weight class SWEET!!!. This morning at 8am — after flying 5 hours I get on the scale I’m 5 POUNDS heavier than I was at home, are you SHITTING ME!!! I retained that much water from flying or someone had their foot on the scale! (more…)

Memorial Day weekend is upon us and we all have visions of summer vacations dancing in our head.  Already this weekend, I’ve heard so what are your summer vacation plans. Which is funny because this morning I was watching one of my favorite shows Sunday Morning on CBS and they were discussing the concept of vacation. We all know as Americans vacations is a dirty word, in fact in these tough economic times how many of you have forgone your vacations so that it wouldn’t look like you weren’t a hard worker. I’m SO guilty of that. Instead of taking a 1 full week, I’ll take a long weekend so that I won’t miss THAT much work, but guess what we are only fooling ourselves.  The question they posed on the program is vacation a perk or a necessity.

I think vacation is a necessity. Personally I love to plan a vacation a few months in advance so it gives me something to look forward. I like thinking about  how am I going to spend my downtime.  When I’m not on vacation, I am a very structured person and my calendar rules my life and vacation is one of the few times that I wake and decided what am I going to do today. It could range from just sitting on my butt and being catered to or something active if the moment feels right, but hey I just follow my intuition.

It’s also one of the few times that get to spend a lot of time with my husband. For two people who live together we don’t get spend enough quality time together. Yes, after 8 years of marriage I still enjoy spending time with him. LOL. Back to the topic.

Bottom-line, I think if you work hard you deserve some well earned downtime and should be respected for knowing when you need to unplug.  When I say unplug, I mean UNPLUG — no email, voice-mail, nothing but enjoying yourself.  If you are doing any of those things you run the risk of seeing or hearing something that may cause you to be sucked back into the world of work. Remember you deserve and EARNED the downtime. I know when I get back from vacation, I’m more relaxed and focused and can’t wait for the next one.

This year, I’m taking a quick trip to Florida, then heading to Vegas for a competition and Block Island.  What are you vacation plans this year? You earned!!! Now plan it.

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Staycation

Today is my 2nd day of the get happy challenge.  This week, I am to find 3 things to be happy about each day. At first I thought how simple is that, well not so simple. It really forces you to really think about your day versus just letting life happen around you. As I write this, and I am thinking about my day starting when my alarm clock went out at 5:00am until I got of the bus and started walking home.

My 3 happy things:

1. I was able to do 5 pull ups PAIN FREE!!! You see, I suffered an elbow injury back in October and its been slow to heal or I’ve just be impatient. Okay I have been impatient! Until today, I haven’t been able to do any pulling exercises since October.  I’m a pretty active person and it been hard not to be able to do anything I wanted.
2. I was able to provide great advice to a colleague.  She came to me because she trusted and valued you, my opinion.

Day 1 of the challenge

1. How do I stay in shape? I LOVE variety. During the off-season I will workout 4-5 times per week and each day I like to do something different. For cardio workouts I will do the elliptical, stairmaster, kettlebell workouts or run outside if its nice. Also I like stringing intense bodyweight workouts together to create great interval cardio and strength training workouts. I lift 3 times a week by doing a full body workout including core training. Every 4 weeks I mix up my strength training workouts to keep my body guessing.
2. What is my fitness philosophy? I believe anyone can get fit and you don’t’ need to spend hours at the gym. Working out alone isn’t going to give you the body that you want. You need to watch what you eat. 80% of my weight results come from my diet. Also you need to commit, the perfect body doesn’t come without hard work! If you are willing to be in the work like I said anyone can get fit!
3. Supplements? Just say no!! Most women only need a good multivitamin and calcium. All weight loss supplementation should come from a good diet! Like I stated its commitment. Your perfect body does not come in a bottle!! You earn your perfect body with hard work! If you feel that you need to take something, please seek medical advice from a medical doctor.
4. How long do I work with clients? I love introducing people to fitness and helping them meet their fitness goals. I want to be clients to be independent so feel that they can workout on their own without my assistance.
5. How many times a week do I work with clients? I let me clients make that determination. When you are a beginner exercisers some need that extra push and want to workout 2xs/week while other just want a weekly touchbase to help them stay on track.
6. Why did I become a personal trainer?Like many of you I had a 40 plus hour a week job, I flew 100k miles per year, eating out 80% of my meals. Guess what I gained weight. Although worked out when I could I couldn’t get a handle on my weight. Then I meet a great personal trainer who become my mentor, Mike D’Angelo. Each training session was like a learning session , I asked him a million questions during our workouts that he said why didn’t I become a trainer. So here I am.  Taking my passion and turning it into a career.

So, at least 3 times a week I do a high intensity cardio workout.  I run intervals  either straight sprints  or hills on treadmill at my gym.  I love working out, but interval training is not something that I like to do, but since I am getting ready for a show (we’ll talk about that later), interval training is the only way I am going to lean out.

I’m bumped up, got my favorite songs loaded on my pod, I’m 15 minutes into my run on a 10% incline I’m about to do a fast sprint decline and my treadmill gets STUCK!! I couldn’t get it off a 9 /12% incline.

Have you ever got stuck?  What did you do, did you just stop?
So instead of getting a boo boo lip, I just hopped on the treadmill next to me.

It’s 40 days and 12 hours until I compete in the Fitness America Show in Las Vegas; it’s time to put the pedal to the medal, if I plan to come home with some hardware!