Coppell Boot Camper of the Day

Wednesday, June 29th
 

Chantrell Lacy-  Way to go on the squat and press and plank ups.  You have come so far in your fitness in such a short amount of time.  Congratulations!

 

Highland Village AM Boot Camper of the Day

Tuesday, June 28th
 
Congrat Lara Korba!   

We just need to change your name to the "Energizer Bunny"!  This girl tore through the continuous 20's workout and still had enough left to push through, at a feverish pace, the last set of 40 second mountain climbers in the finisher.  Her energy was a definite inspiration and helped everyone get through the workout this morning.

Highland Village PM Boot Camper of the Day

Monday, June 27th

Congrats Aleya McGill!  With only a few weeks in, you doubled your weight and still had great form and high intensity on last night's workout.  Way to go!

 

Coppell Boot Camper of the Day

Monday, June 27th
 
Congrats Nichole Bentley! 
 

Nichole was on a mission this morning...demolished the workout working at level three!

Coppell Boot Camper of the Day

Friday, June 24th
 

Congrats Monica Dunlap!  She had great intensity the entire workout.  Her mountain climbers were amazingly quick and she handled the entire workout with her new 20 pounders.  Way to go Monica!

 

Highland Village PM Boot Campers of the Day

Thursday, June 23rd
 

Congrats to:

Kelli

Krystal

Amanda

Diane

Danny

Jennifer

Aleya

 

These girls did an absolutely fantastic job last night.  They all squatted lower, lunged lower, did plank ups faster and cranked out upper body twists until their abs cramped.  They are all most deserving of Boot Camper of the Day!

Highland Village AM Boot Camper of the Day

Thursday, June 23rd

Congrats Allison McAuliffe- Allison has progressed tremendously in just one week of boot camp.  Great improvement on your Plank ups and split squats.  Amazing job on our speed match and raise game during conditioning.  Way to go!

 

Coppell Boot Campers of the Day

Wednesday, June 22nd
 
Congrats to Chantrell Lacey, Demetrice Jasmin, Angela Harrington, and Carolyn Kulig

 

They all worked super hard on a challenging Tabata workout.  Everyone went up in weight.  Angie was handling the 20s for squat and press and each lady increased their speed when I speed matched them during finishers.  Way to go!

 

Summer Transformation Contest

No Sister Left Behind Summer Slimdown Contest

Register Now!

6-Week Team Transformation Contest
Registration June 22nd - July 2nd
July 9th - August 20th

July 9th, 7am - Before pictures and kickoff meeting

Daily - post your Fit Club Fast Track score on our digital accountability board (debuting next session)

Bi-Weekly- turn in your weight, measurements, and observations about the changes you see in your body

Weekly- Be eligible to win drawing for prizes. Earn a raffle ticket each time you attend class, post your accountability score, and more.

August 20th, 7am- After pictures and group celebration workout

August 27th - Winners Announced


What You Get:
Personalized Nutrition Approach
Cardio Workout Plans with Demonstration Videos
Chance to Win Weekly Prizes
Chance to Win Cash Prize for Best Team Transformation
Chance to Win Cash Prize for Best Individual Transformation
Plenty of Inspiration and Incentive to Do Your Best

Rules:
All contest pictures will be taken in a sports bra and mid thigh length shorts. Pictures will only be posted to Fit Club blog and Facebook Fan Page with permission.
Permission to post pictures is not required for participation or to be eligible for prizes.
Contest will be judged by Fit Club coaches and panel of anonymous judges.
Fit Club reserves the right to change dates and times of contest meetings and will make every effort to provide ample advance notice of such changes.

Top 5 Healthy Eating Shortcuts

Top 5 Healthy Eating Shortcuts
Help Me Get Lean!- I Don’t Cook & I Work Long Hours

Getting and staying lean can be a challenge for many women. If you don’t cook and have a relatively busy schedule, eating to support body transformation can seem impossible. Although eating to support body transformation is simple, it requires a bit of preparation and planning. Failing to plan meals is the most common busy woman body transformation mistake so I am sharing my top five Healthy Eating Shortcuts.

1. Rid your home, purse, car, and desk of junk food like starchy, sugary, high fat snacks.
You will eventually eat what you have in your possession no mater how good your intentions. This is especially true if you are on the go and pressed for time when it is time to eat. Since convenience is a driving factor for your food choices, make it inconvenient to eat unsupportively.

2. Stock your home, purse, car, and desk with healthy snacks.
Since you will eat what you have, make it convenient to eat healthy. Make sure you only have healthy, supportive food in your possession.

3. Buy supportive foods that require minimal preparation.
Think “done for you” when you go shopping. I am not advocating buying sodium laden frozen meals here. Instead, buy individual serving size yogurts, roasted chicken, sliced all natural deli meat, pre-washed bagged lettuce, cut veggies, etc. You will still need to put the components of the meal together but now you can prepare an entire day’s meals in about 10 minutes. You will pay slightly more for the convenience factor but at least you won’t skip meals or eat unhealthy selections because you ran out of time to prepare your food.

4. Become familiar with healthy options that you can buy on the go.
If you eat food prepared outside of your home more than twice per week, you will want to learn how to pick healthy options when dining out or picking up. Pick meals made mostly of grilled meat and vegetables. When you eat starches (ideally with your earlier meals rather than dinner when you are more likely to be sedentary), pick options like black beans or plain baked potatoes since these are less likely to be prepared with extra oil and butter. Speak up and ask for your items to be prepared without added oil or butter. Skip the cheese and croutons when you choose salads since most establishments give you servings that are more than one portion and use moderate amounts of clear salad dressing (think vinaigrettes instead of Ranch or Thousand Island).

5. Always carry water with you…and drink it!
It is very common to mistake thirst for hunger- especially when you are moving quickly from one appointment to the next. Always have a bottle of water with you (again making what you need convenient) and be sure to sip often. When it is empty, immediately refill or get another. You will be less likely to overeat and will feel refreshed and energized rather than feeling the lethargy commonly associated with dehydration.

Coppell Boot Camper of the Day

Monday, June 20th
 

Congrats Peggy....she came in and rocked the workout with great form!!!  didn't have to adjust anything!!!!

Highland Village PM Boot Campers of the Day

Thursday, June 16th

Congrats to the Mother/Daughter duo of Amanda and Diane who were fantastic tonight.  They attacked each round of each exercise during all four stations.  It was an overall impressive workout performed by all especially considering the intense heat they had to contend with.

Highland Village AM Boot Camper of the Day

Thursday, June 16th
 
Congrats Jaime Fechter!  Way to step up your game today Jaime.  Congrats on the 15# squat and press along with creating Level 4 for Plank Ups- single leg all the way.  Way to smoke it!

 

The entire class did exceptional work today!  Way to go Highland Village AM class.  Congrats Allison McMcCullen on a smoking hot day 2!

 

Coppell Boot Camper of the Day

Wednesday, June 15th
 

Congrats Jyoti Masurekar - Way to bump up your levels and weight for a challenging workout.  Nice job!

 

Highland Village PM Boot Campers of the Day

Monday, June 13th
 

Congrats to Aleya McGill & Tanya Beach!

 

Tanya was on fire for the entire workout.  Great intensity especially on the 5-Dot Drill. Way to go!

 

Aleya came in like a hurricane and rocked a very hard workout on her first day.  Way to work!

 

 

Fitness Model Midsection - Concita's Top 5 Tips

Top 5 Fitness Tips for a Fitness Model Midsection

The hallmark of a fit female is a lean, sleek midsection. It is the testament to consistent training and disciplined nutrition. No wonder it is the most desired aesthetic outcome of a fitness program and the number one goal new training clients list when starting their programs. Since most of us desire a lean mean, midsection (and some of us want a six pack too), I decided to share my top five fitness tips for a fitness model midsection.

Tip #1: Incorporate pressing weight overhead into your workouts.
Pressing weight overhead requires you to strongly contract your abdominal muscles to keep your body stable and prevent your back from hyperextending. Be sure to pick a weight that challenges you but isn’t so heavy that you lose proper form.

Tip #2: Lift heavy weights.
Lifting heavy weight whether you are curling, pulling, pressing, lunging or squatting will require abdominal muscle activity. When you move heavy weights, you will have to brace yourself by tightening your abdominal muscles to maintain a stable core while your extremities move to press or pull the weight. Again go with a weight that is challenging but light enough for you to control.

Tip #3: Include assymetric lifts or carries into your workouts.
When you press, pull, or carry weight on one side of the body, your abdominal muscles contract to provide the counterbalancing force that keeps you upright (rather than leaning to the side that is loaded). You can try some of your favorite traditional moves like overhead presses, lunges, or squats using an offset load (weight on one side). You are sure to feel the work your abs are doing and notice the increase in training intensity.

Tip #4: Incorporate exercises that target your transverse abdominis for a tight waistline.

Doing core stability and dynamic stability moves such as planks, side planks, planks with arm or leg lifts, rotate and reach side planks, and many more will train your transverse abdominis and help tighten your waistline. Your abdominals are a group of muscles that run in multiple directions. Many women mistakenly only train the rectus abdominis (six pack muscles that run vertically between the breast and hips) and wonder why there stomach never gets flatter. The transverse abdominis (TVA) is the only abdominal muscle that runs around your waist like a belt. Training this natural girdle will produce the coveted flat stomach. You contract this muscle by pulling your belly button in toward your spine without flexing your spine (bending your back). The exercises I mentioned above all train your TVA very well and help pull your stomach in rather than just creating the “bricks” that make up your six pack.

Tip #5: Do cardio interval training.

Cardio interval training is a training method that involves alternating bouts of high intensity exercise with bouts of low intensity exercise. This training style has been shown in studies to burn up to 9 times more body fat than traditional steady state cardio. In order to see the beautiful abdominal muscles you have built through proper training, you must shed the fat that covers them and cardio interval training will help get the job done.

Bonus Tip: Be sure to eat balanced meals with appropriate portions.
Even the most effective training plan will not deliver a lean midsection or six pack abs without the support of a proper nutrition plan. Concentrate on small, frequent meals of protein, produce, and unrefined starches in the proper portions (link to portion control article) to reveal your slim, sleek, midsection.

For free body transformation resources including my free reports, “3 Reasons Fitness Programs Fail, Is This Happening to You?”, “Top 5 Fat Burning Boot Camp Exercises”, and a three part Nutrition Crash Course, subscribe to my newsletter at www.GreatShapeFitClub.com.

Coppell Boot Camper of the Day

Monday, June 13th
 
Congrats Lucy ...killed her form!!! And she was encouraging Jotyi on the chest press bridges :) 

Highland Village PM Boot Campers of the Day

Thursday, June 9th
 

Congrats Vijaya, Rachael, Stephanie, Amanda, Diane, Kelli, Jenise, Jennifer! Everyone worked together and did an outstanding job tonight.  I couldn't single anyone out because there was phenomenal effort by all.

I do have to give a shout out to Jenise for coming to my rescue and getting a hold of a player last minute to plug the iPod into.

 

Highland Village AM Boot Camper of the Day

Thursday, June 9th
 

Nice job Sheryl Dorsey-  awesome job with your workout.  Way to raise the bar on the upper body twists.  Good job!

 

Coppell Boot Camper of the Day

Wednesday, June 8th
 
Congrats Carolyn Kulig- Way to go with killing your workout especially the finishers.  Keep up the good work!

 

Highland Village PM Boot Camper of the Day

Monday, June 6th
 

Congrats Rachel Akerberg-  Way to go with intensity and form.  Super impressive workout performance- especially for your first day!  Keep up the good work.

Highland Village AM Boot Camper of the Day

Tuesday, June 7th
 

Congrats Sheryl Dorsey triumphed in the challenge of getting her dumbbells all the way to the floor on her single leg deadlifts while keeping her chest up.  Great workout this morning from all the women!

Living Without the Cream - Part II

Living Without the Cream - Why I Had to Learn to Drink Black Coffee
Part II – What I Learned From Drinking Black Coffee

In Part I, I shared my decision to drink my coffee without cream for a while to increase my mental toughness and sharpen my discipline with regards to nutrition. As I mentioned in the first partof this article, most people who are on a body transformation journey have a “cream” in their lives- the food that doesn’t serve a purpose in the nutrition plan apart from pleasure. Because these small dietary crutches can be abused (i.e. over consumed) and lead to self sabotage, discovering and gaining control over your attachment to your “cream” is part of your journey to success. I am not suggesting that you eliminate all pleasurable food (and certainly not permanently) but simply that you gain awareness of your daily nutrition habits and be on guard for any self sabotage behaviors or budding food addiction.

Below are my lesson from my black coffee experiment. If you relate to any of them, I encourage you to conduct experiments of your own to gain the habits that will make your success with body transformation and other areas of your life inevitable.

What I Learned:

• Most people need a strong incentive, ideally behavioral, to stick to changes. If I were giving up cream to look better in a bathing suit this summer, it would have been easy to convince myself that I could produce that outcome without the sacrifice of drinking black coffee. However since my goal was to sharpen my discipline, mental toughness, and to become aware of or overcome any food addictions I may have, the only path to achieving that goal was to go through the process.

• Set a timeline for the experiment – being overly restrictive or restrictive longer than it takes to gain insight and control can backfire. I failed to set a timeline for my experiment and after more than a month, I started rebelling by introducing other dietary crutches. I reminded myself that I hadn’t given up cream forever, that my goal of the experiment had been accomplished, and that I could move on. When I reintroduced cream, I didn’t like it as much, didn’t over consume it and stopped eating the other foods I had introduced. This experience can also be related back to the first point. My incentive had been met so if for some reason the experiement needed to continue, I needed to identify the new incentive to continue with diligence.

• Inability to give up a certain type of food for short periods of time is food addiction and the best way to break the addiction is to abstain. Addicition is defined as the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming. Although it may be hard to reconcile an inability or unwillingness to give up nightly dessert, wine, or other nutritional practices with addiction- by definition this inability is addiction. At first I laughed at the thought of being addicted to coffee cream but I realized that when you crave, think about excessive, strongly desire, or have an inability to abstain from something (even if it is cream), it is time to gain control. I’ll be the first to admit that I was shocked to discover just how emotionally attached I was to having cream in my coffee- but not any more.

• Completely abstaining from a food for a period of time helps you gain perspective on how attached you were (or not) to the food. If you don’t miss it at all, you obviously weren’t attached to it and if it consumes an unusual amount of your thought time, you really were.

• You can reset your taste buds and nutritional preferences to be more supportive of your goal. Many people say they don’t like the taste of healthy food, black coffee, or water (due to the lack of added flavor and sweetness) but those taste preferences are learned and can be reset if you take the time to develop new habits.

• When you reintroduce the food you may find you don’t like it (or as much of it) the way you did before abstaining. My first cup of coffee with cream wasn’t as good as I had anticipated.

• Complete abstinence from a food that you struggle with consuming “in moderation” helps minimize draining internal dialogue and can improve your mood overall. Once you have already decided that the item is not an option in your nutrition plan, you eliminate the time spent deciding when to have it or how much of it to consume. You will eliminate thoughts like “should I have a bit more” or “should I save it for X event” as well as the guilt ridden thoughts like “I really shouldn’t have had so much” when you eventually get worn down my the internal debate and indulge.

• Being able to master your own behavior in one area builds confidence in your ability to match your behavior to your goals and carries over to other aspects of your life. You realize you are capable of removing things that stand between you and your goal and feel unstoppable.

I am sure some of you want to know if I will abstain from cream forever. Well the answer is… no. I reintroduced cream into my morning coffee and quite honestly it wasn’t as good as I remembered. Some days I have it and other days I actually desire a cup of black coffee. I think lasting change happens when you truly desire what benefits you most. I am happy to have completed my experiment and know that it will continue with other foods (and life behaviors). I look forward to truly desiring a fruit salad rather than my brownies so maybe abstaining from dessert will be my next experiment.

What is your cream? When do you plan on giving it up? For how long? Post below and I’ll support you through your personal experiment!

Portion Control Tips for Body Transformation

Staying in Control With Portion Control
Top 5 Tips to Avoid Overeating

If you have been following your nutrition and progressive training plan for some time and have either failed to lose body fat or your progress has stalled, it is more than likely time to get control of your portion control. Although I believe that counting calories is a tedious, unreliable approach to losing body fat, you can not successfully transform your body if you are overeating- even if you are overeating healthy foods. So assuming you have mastered the first two steps of my “eating hierarchy”- what to eat and when to eat, it is critical to learn how to recognize and stick to eating proper portions for body transformation success.

Before we discuss sticking to proper portions, let’s review portion sizes of our most common food groups. Generally speaking, a protein portion is the size of your palm without fingers. When following a fat loss nutrition plan, it is often advisable to enjoy protein portions that are slightly larger to maintain your muscle and to avoid under eating. A portion of fruit or starchy carbohydrates is about the size of a baseball or your fist. A handful of nuts (approximately 20 nuts) is a portion size. A serving of nut butter or oil is about the size of half of a golf ball or the tips of your thumb. Although you can enjoy unlimited amounts of green vegetables, you want to have at least a handful of cooked vegetables or two handfuls of raw leafy greens with your meals. For anything that comes in a package (which should be very few things in your nutrition program), you can follow what is listed on the package as one serving. Knowing proper portion sizes for each type of food will not help you successfully transform your body unless you actually apply the knowledge. Here are my top five tips for staying in control with portion control.

1. Eat frequently.

Eating every 2-4 hours will keep your energy even and your hunger in check. Going much longer will inevitably render you hungry and indiscriminate at your next meal.

2. Cook and/or store your food in single portion sizes.

Rather than cook an entire meatloaf, make meatloaf muffins. Rather than cooking a sweet potato casserole, make medium sized whole baked sweet potatoes. This approach makes it easier to stop after one portion because each portion will be a distinct piece of food rather than some of a much bigger amount. Take this approach a step further by storing your pre-cooked meals in single serving Tupperware dishes as well to avoid the temptation to grab more than a serving when the hunger hits.

3. Fill up with fiber and water.

Even when you know what should be one portion, it can be hard to stop at just one when your stomach feels empty after your meal. To fill in the gaps, be sure to eat vegetables with each meal, select higher fiber (at least 3 grams per serving) carbohydrate choices, and drink water before, during, and after your meal.

4. Eat slowly and with awareness.

Close the laptop, turn off the television and be in the moment when you eat. Take your time eating your food so that you can realize that you are full and stop eating before you feel stuffed.

5. When the meal is over- move on.

Rather than linger at the table or in the kitchen, move on to another activity when you are done eating. If for some reason, you can’t leave the area, remove your plate to signal the end of the meal and get a glass of water or unsweetened green tea to fill up more space in your stomach so that you aren’t tempted to go back for seconds or to munch on other snacks after your meal.

In summary, controlling your portions is as much about developing helpful dining habits as it is about nutrition knowledge. Practice these habits and you will be controlling your intake to drop body fat and tighten up in no time. Although the last two tips may seem insignificant, I have personally increased my nutrition compliance greatly by implementing these habits.