Holiday Or Home Workout – Equipment Free!

By Kat | December 30, 2011

This post from Body Incredible’s sister blog Woman Incredible is so useful at this time of year that I wanted to share it over here and make sure you don’t miss out! It’s all about how to workout at home or on holidays even with zero equipment.

The Ultimate Holiday or Home Workout

I had a great response to my quick but super-tough hotel gym workouts last week (see Part 2 here, and you can click through to Part 1 from that page if you choose), but it did bring up a certain point from reader Bec.

What if you’re on holidays, or perhaps even wanting to whip up a bit of a home workout, and you have ZERO equipment and yet are filled with the desire to pump out some blood, sweat and tears? Hmmmm … well as much asI do say you don’t necessarily need to keep up the training regime whilst on your preciously limited holiday time, I do completely understand that urge that sometimes comes on to really feel you’ve earned your dinner out in advance!

Beating Belly Fat This Christmas!

By Kat | December 21, 2011

Today’s post is a guest post by fellow Poliquin coach Daine McDonald, Director of Clean Health in Sydney.

This is an article that both the Biggest Loser and the Australian media refused to put up – despite the Biggest Loser initially commissioning the article!

Here is what they told Daine -

“I’m really interested in what you’ve written, but I’m afraid to say I can’t publish it all. To be honest, I was expecting an article around exercise only, but I realise I should have specifically stated this in my brief.

The thing is the dietary policy here is based on the Australian Dietary Guidelines. That means a strictly low-fat message. It’s all through our diet programs and recipes.

Our editorial policy is not to deviate from the Dietary Guidelines because (a) they’re adopted by the Australian Dietitians Association and (b) we don’t want to confuse our members. It’s one message at all times.

I would be sacked if I published an article advising our members to eat full-fat dairy! What you say about alcohol also goes against our preferred position, unfortunately.”

how to beat belly fat this christmas!

Every week I get asked my gym members, friends, family and clients what they can do to avoid packing on some extra padding during the Christmas season. Should I be eating this? What if I ate this instead of that? What type of exercise should I do and when? You get the picture!

Well in the spirit of Christmas I figured it best to share my top 3 tips on how you can avoid the dreaded holiday bulge!

Fitness Secrets for Women Over 40

By Kat | December 9, 2011

Today’s post is a guest post by Shawna Kaminski, a female fat loss enthusiast and the creator of Female Fat Loss Over Forty. Shawna is a woman in her late forties with two teenaged children. She understands the challenges that women face as they approach their forties and into menopause. She was a school teacher for 20 years and has turned her passion to educate towards women. She works with hundreds of women in her fitness boot camps and uses her camps as a ‘soup kitchen’ to test workouts and solutions to help women look and feel their best. She wanted to help ladies that couldn’t get to her boot camp and so created an online fitness and coaching program.

Female Fat Loss Over Forty!

As a woman in my forties, I can relate to many challenges that others in my age group face. What’s a woman to do when her waistline seems to expand even with exercise and watching nutrition? Unfortunately there isn’t a ‘magic formula’ but there is hope. It’s not possible to lose fat from specific target areas (unless you want to resort to pricey surgical procedures). However, you can tighten trouble spots with specific exercises. In addition, by losing body fat, your trouble areas will improve, giving you the look that you desire. It’s very common for women in their 40’s to gain weight around the mid-section, specifically; their tummies and behinds, resulting in a thicker waist and wider hips. I would like to share a few ‘secrets’ with you that you can use to tap into the fountain of youth. It’s possible to feel better than you did in your thirties, look your best and have extra energy.

GET RID OF YOUR TREADMILL!

Yes, it’s true! Please stop the long, slow monotonous treadmill (or any cardio machine) sessions. Just get rid of your treadmill to make more room in your house and your life for some really effective and inexpensive fat burning exercise. Your body is all you need. The secret is replacing your long drawn out cardio sessions with short high intensity interval training sessions. You can do this with a few simple body weight exercises such as the squat jump, jumping jack or stationary sprint.

Here is a great example of a fat burning exercise that you can add to your day without sacrificing time and space. The squat jump. (You can modify the movement to match your fitness level by reducing the height of the jump and the depth of the squat). It’s very simple to start the program. Start with 20 seconds of squat jumps, followed by a 10 second recovery time. Try to do 10 total sets (or for 5 minutes). Then you can rest for one minute. as your body adapts and your fitness level increases, you can try to increase your time by another 5 minutes. In 10 minutes at this pace you will burn a ton of calories. But remember, this isn’t a slow, easy pace. You are trying to train at a high intensity level and so you need to ensure you’re breathing hard and keeping your heart rate up there. Read More »

Posted in energy and vitality, exercise, fat loss, motivation | Tagged burn fat, eat fat lose fat, fat loss, functional fitness, goals, motivation, success, weight loss | Leave a comment

Ever wondered how celebrities stay in shape?

By Kat | November 26, 2011

Did you realise I’ve written close to 300 blog posts in the past few years? Rather than having to sort your way through all of them I thought I’d share with you two of the more popular posts I’ve written, both on how to achieve a celebrity body!

Those Legs Are AMAZING: And Here’s How To Achieve Them

Have you ever seen a more perfectly sculpted pair of legs? Carrie Underwood (of American Idol fame) has the sort of definition and tone that most women only dream about. And she’s clearly worked hard to get them – so we can hardly blame her for showing them off, can we?

Don’t imagine for a second that owning a pair of pins like this is out of your reach. A few minutes on Google will tell you that Carrie was 2 sizes heavier than this when competing in Idol and has only recently displayed such a lean physique. Of course we can assume she already had the groundwork in place – muscle like that doesn’t come from body fat loss alone. Want to start laying the steps for your own incredibly defined legs? Here’s what you need to do: Read More »

Posted in exercise, fat loss, nutrition | Tagged celebrity body, fat loss, get lean, great legs, Lose Weight, nutrition | Leave a comment

Breaking The Rules

By Kat | November 18, 2011

Do you have rules about how you live your life? I do. Or at least, I have had a lot of the time.

Eat this
Don’t eat that
Follow set workout nutrition rules
Go to bed or get up at a certain time
Identify your top priority for the day, and do it first
Follow a set program for training
Eat at set times
Clear out your inbox daily, or at least get it below 10 emails

I’m kind of sick of it all. I guess rules have their place in a busy life; help us to maintain some order amongst the chaos of trying to be, do and have it all. But seriously – when every single day of every single week starts to become automated, haven’t we actually lost the quest for balanced and happy living and just found ourselves victims of some kind of robot-like quest to never have to think for ourselves or in the moment?

And correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the point of it all, well, to be able to enjoy our lives and live with freedom? I don’t know about you, but freedom to me does NOT denote the daily prioritisation and planning of every element of my life.

How do you break the rules and stay in control?

Here is what I think life – and getting/staying in shape – should be about:

Learning new things; trying new things – but not doing them or continuing with them purely because you ‘should’
Listening to your body about what to eat, and when to eat. Never assuming that what works for someone else will work for you, no matter who said so. Never assuming that you ‘have to’ follow any given rule. Not being afraid to eat real food – yes even fats – but also not being afraid to skip a meal here and there.
Eating food that makes you feel good psychologically as well as physically
Doing training that makes you feel strong, powerful, alive. Recognising that sometimes you do have to just start in order to get into that feeling but also recognising that if you’re continually doing workouts that you feel you should be doing rather than that make you feel amazing then perhaps it’s time to try something new
Not missing sleep to do things you ‘should’, unless through experience you learn that the way you feel from doing these things is worth it
Never doing anything unless it is worth it to YOU. This doesn’t mean being selfish. But find the reason for your actions; don’t do things just because you should

It really all comes back to that nasty little ‘s’ word, doesn’t it.

If, like me, you’ve found yourself caught up in living the life you should live and a little off track from living the life you’d love to live than I urge you to stop and remember that life is NOW. This is it; this is your chance to be, do and have what you dream of. And if what you’re doing right now isn’t working for you, if it isn’t making you happy, if it doesn’t fit in with your values, your ideals, if it’s not what you really and truly consider important.

Then for heavens sake stop. And think about what does matter. What does make you feel most alive. Most yourself. Most on fire.

And do more of that. Today. Even for just a few minutes.

And remember -

Life is Now. Press Play.

Kat

Posted in healthy lifestyle tips, motivation, productivity | Tagged achievement, goals, happiness, motivation, resolutions, success | 6 Comments

Why People Don’t Get Results Anymore (and how to not be one of them)

By Kat | November 11, 2011

Do you ever feel as though you’re constantly trying to bring back the past? To get back to that life when things were seemingly so effortless, where just going to the gym every few days with your mates and saying no to the odd drink here and there were enough to keep you in pretty good shape?

That life where when work was finished for the day it was, well, finished, and where your biggest financial worry was finding the right outfit for Friday night.

Ah to be back in those days of bliss.

The saying goes we should learn from the past and whilst I believe that applies fully to some things in life (saving your tax money if you’re self-employed, buying Christmas presents in October, not staying out all night the night before something important) I also believe it’s taught us to have false hope when it comes to fat loss, being in shape and being healthy.

Remember when you didn’t focus on fat loss?

At least once a month I have a client tell me that they probably just need to start running again or maybe they should try an all-shake diet – because that’s how they used to stay lean.

And hey – I’m as guilty as anyone out there. I think back over my own health & fitness journey and it’s true that I did get very ‘skinny’ with running. With umpteen hours of cardio per day and minimal weights. With a high whole-grain, low-fat diet.

It’s also true that I was in my early twenties at the time, had pretty much no stress aside from part-time gym instructing and the occasional Uni class, got loads of sleep and had loads of play/down time as well.

And all that aside, I’m pretty sure I was not actually lean – just tiny and skinny. An important difference

The truth? I hesitate to say it gets harder as you get older, not because of the cliche and not because I don’t think it’s true, but just because I hate to wrap the whole thing up so negatively.

Trust me – there’s nothing worse than believing it’s all too hard to make it all truly just get harder and harder. It’s something I’ve personally experienced this year.

I guess it doesn’t have to be about it all being harder, but it definitely is about being smarter.

Assuming that simply dropping a few pieces of toast here and there or increasing your exercise will get you ‘there’ is nothing but a fantasy, and unfortunately all too many people are learning this the hard way. And yes, it’s not necessarily fair. And yes, there are people out there who do get results that way.

You might know one of them and secretly hate them just a tiny bit. Hey – that’s life and it is what it is. There’s no point questioning or getting worked up about it.

So let’s talk about being smart.

It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be, because when all is said and done being in great shape simply requires you to eat, live, move and breathe as your body is designed to. That’s pretty simply, isn’t it?

Of course it’s not necessarily easy

If you look at it the other way, being in great shape is a complicated weave of sourcing all organic and minimally processed food, avoiding things you are intolerant to, ensuring your liver, kidneys, gallbladdar, pancreas are doing what they are supposed to be doing, balancing the right amount of heavy lifting with sweat training, getting enough sleep, just the right amount of stress, plenty of downtime or play, avoiding toxicity as much as humanly possible … um, brown paper bag anyone?

Here’s the thing.

You don’t have to be a genius at human or even your own physiology, and nor do you necessarily need to embark on an endless journey of testing, poking, measuring and prodding. I’m not saying it can’t help.

But the very very first thing you do need to do? You just gotta let go! You just have to let go of the past and the idea that what used to work is what you need now.

Because if I can tell you one thing for sure it’s that nobody gets results when their mind is firmly stuck on what used to work and why it’s not working now.

It simply doesn’t happen and it ignores the very real fact that just as your financial situation, your job situation and heck even what outfit to wear on a Friday night have changed, so too have your physical needs. ‘You’ are a different you to the you of last year, last week, even yesterday.

So (and I know it’s hard; I battle constantly to do this) try and relaaaaaaaax a little. Go with the flow a bit more. Be willing to test new things, even if they seem opposite to all that you believe or that’s worked for you in the past.

And if you want to know the things that I believe are first and foremost in importance, then scroll to the bottom of this post. It’s a small list and one that I could easily add to. But it’s a great start for most of us.

Remember -

Life is Now. Press Play.

Kat

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