My client Kassie and her amazing transformation!

Normally I don’t do this, but I asked Kassie for her permission to share her results here on my blog. This woman has worked her butt off with me, figuratively AND literally, for the past three and a half months.

Much like myself when I started, Kassie had no pictures of herself at her largest size. The photo you see there on the left isn’t even a true reflection of how far she had come, because she didn’t have a recent photo to utilize. Kassie came to me after having given birth to two babies over a period of 15 months, and she really wanted to get serious about her
weight loss journey.

Kassie started with me for my March Bikini Bootcamp, stuck with me through my April 11427194_399142830271762_4385147215304082693_nBikini Bootcamp, and then went on to participate (and WIN) my May Step Challenge. She has also been participating in my June Biggest Loser challenge, and has continued to lose weight!! Since starting with me back in March, Kassie has lost a total of 48 pounds, and she shows no sign of stopping anytime soon!

As the winner of my May Step Challenge, Kassie took home the 21 Day Fix Extreme fitness and nutrition program. She is in her first week of that program, and I cannot wait to see how she makes out with this challenge. I could not be happier to have such a dedicated and positive person to work with, and I am really proud of Kassie for everything that she has accomplished.

If you could benefit from a support system and a place where you can be held accountable turn to for motivation, you are welcome to join my FREE Health and Fitness group! We do monthly challenges, and we are actually in the process of voting right now for the theme of July. Head over and request to join if you would like to kickstart your own health and fitness challenge!

Interest VS Commitment

I have been running challenges in my free health and fitness group for the past three months, and I’ve noticed a common theme. It is really unfortunate, but what I have noticed is a steady decline in participants over time. I keep a spreadsheet for each week with a record of participants and their results for the week, and each week of a program I see fewer and fewer names on that list. The very first time I did a challenge, it was almost overwhelming with the amount of people that were interested in participating. At the end of the month, we had less than HALF of the original participants still in the group.

“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in something, you do it only when it’s convenient. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.” ― Kenneth H. Blanchard

With my latest challenge, I had a decent number of people demonstrate interest. However, when it came time to follow through, I’ve only had a few people stick to their commitment. We live in a world where it is easy to make commitments over Facebook, and even easier to blow off those commitments just as fast as you make them. I wanted to make this post for anyone that demonstrated interest in any of my challenges, but failed to follow through – or even just anyone in general who has committed and failed to follow through on any health and fitness journey.

If you made that initial commitment, you need to know that there was a REASON. On some level, you felt as though getting involved in health and fitness could help you or improve your life in some way. Maybe you’ve read my story, and it inspired you to want to do something for yourself. Maybe you’ve been feeling down because you’ve put on some weight. Whatever the case may be, there was a reason that you felt compelled to participate in a health and fitness challenge.

If this sounds at all familiar, I challenge YOU to start thinking about your reason. Dig deep, and try to figure out your internal struggles that may have been driving your desire to participate in a health and fitness challenge. If you can figure out your “why”, you can begin to use that as motivation to follow through on your commitment to health and fitness.

Biggest Loser Challenge

If you follow my blog, you may already be aware of this. If you are new to my blog – Welcome! For those of you that don’t already know, I have been hosting special challenges for the people in my free health and fitness group every month for the past 3 months.

One of my Bikini Bootcamp ladies lost 29 POUNDS while she was participating in my March and April challenges. I’ve also had a lot of people tell me how much that they have been enjoying the May Step Challenge. Everyone enjoys different things, so I want to shake things up a bit again and do something a little different.

My challenges are always FREE to be a part of – however, I do expect a time and effort commitment. If I am going to invest my time and energy into coaching you, I want you to put the time and effort into yourself through your workouts and nutrition. This is for people who are SERIOUS about making a positive change in their life, and who want to take CONTROL of the direction that their life is headed.

Instead of having people do workouts that I put together, which is what I did in the bootcamps, I will be having everyone access the 30 Day Free Trial of our Beachbody On Demand platform. I am actually using this myself right now, and I am loving it. This way nobody is stuck doing any particular type of workout – you can pick and choose from hundreds of different workouts and design your own plan. If you like structure and having a set schedule to follow, you can choose to follow a particular program schedule; or you can try what we coaches like to call a “hybrid”, which is a schedule consisting of two or more different programs. That is something that we can work out together before the start date.

If this sounds like something that you would be interested in, please notify me via email at hfmxj@stu.ca with the subject line “Biggest Loser”. We will begin this challenge on June 1st, so get your name in ASAP!

I am super excited to see this through, and I can’t wait to coach you along your journey :)

Couch to 5K

I don’t know about anyone else, but I always thought that I just didn’t have it in me to be a runner. It didn’t happen often, but once in a while I’d be having a good day and I’d be full of energy, so I’d decide to go for a run. One time I was so hopped up on energy after a kickboxing workout that I ran almost all the way to the bottom of my street (and my street is actually pretty long lol), only to turn around and realize that the only reason I made it all the way to the bottom without stopping was because it was all downhill. Let’s just say the trek back up took twice as long, and most of it was NOT spent running lol.

I also have this issue where sometimes cardio would cause me so much trouble with my breathing that my throat would get this burning sensation and it would feel as though my throat was closing off. Because of bad experiences like the one above, and the breathing difficulties, I decided that I just sucked at running and I focused my efforts on other forms of exercise. After working out for a while with my Beachbody programs, I decided to give running another shot. What I discovered was that I actually CAN run, it was just that I was out of shape before. I am guessing that this is the case for the vast majority of people out there that say they could never run!

I have decided to start the Couch to 5K program because I would really love to improve upon my running skills. Today marked the start of my 7 week program, and I would love to invite all of you out there reading this to join me. Even if you think “well, I’d like to… but, I don’t think I could do it”, I want you to give it a shot. You only have to commit to three workouts a week, and for the first few weeks it is just 20 minute workouts! It is not all running either! To condition your body for running, you actually would be doing walking and jogging intervals to build yourself up for longer runs. Over time the runs will get longer, and the walking intervals will get shorter.

aaaaa

Click Here if you are interested in joining me on this journey, and request to join my FREE Health and Fitness group. This is where we will be discussing all things related to the challenge, plus it is where you’ll find access to a wide range of health and fitness information. I hope to see you in the group!

Please don’t pass up on this out of fear – because I truly believe that you can do it.

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Why you should NOT weigh yourself daily

Hey everyone, I want you all to take a look at this photo. That is a block of muscle versus the exact same amount of weight in fat. Even though they both weigh the same, you will see that the fat is twice as big (or more!) as the block of muscle. Honestly, you need to get the number on the scale out of your mind and not let that drive you crazy! I know from experience that doing that can be hard, but when it comes to fitness you need to know that muscle is denser than fat.

You can be shrinking in size as you put on muscle while your weight stays the same! Muscle burns through fat even after your workout, so you can be burning fat even as you sleep if you have been putting on muscle. What is important to know is that you could stay the same on the scale for a week or so, or just drop down by 1 pound, even though you are working out regularly. This can be super discouraging for people, because you expect to see changes fast! Changes ARE happening though, it just takes some time for you to notice. You need to lay the groundwork first by working out regularly and building up muscle. Once you’ve done that, you will gain momentum and your progress will start to really show!

This is why I usually tell my clients to focus on photos as a judge of progress instead of weight, because the photos don’t lie. Measurements can also be good to determine if you’re losing inches. It is good to weigh yourself once a week or every couple of weeks, but don’t fall into the trap of trying to weigh yourself every day. Our weight fluctuates throughout the day and from one day to the next, so if you get into the habit of weighing yourself every day you will likely get discouraged. Instead space it out some and do it once in a while so that you are more likely to have some positive results to note.

Click Here if you would like to start putting on some muscle definition and tone up to help your body burn more fat. I have a couple of programs that have been specifically designed for this purpose, and I am sure we could find one that would be perfect for your individual goals and needs. Once you’ve created your FREE account you can click the Contact Your Coach button and we can discuss options :)