The road to Tri-Fitness....comes to an end

 It has taken me weeks to write this post, not because I didn't want to share my journey with my readers or explain to you how hard learning to let go has been for me...I actually just could not find the words to express truly how I felt. So I will do my best...

This year has been filled with change and learnings for me. When I decided to train for Tri-Fitness 2013, I was so motivated to take on this huge goal despite the fact that I had given birth 8 weeks prior to our first training session. Despite having a newborn, I was genuinely excited to jump out of bed at 5am for training because I had a goal! Over the course of 12 weeks I trained intensely, learned to diet down while breast feeding and sacrificed a lot of headspace thinking about competing. To make a long story short..I woke up one Sunday morning 10 weeks away from the competition, knowing in my heart that I was done. There were many factors that played into this decision but the ones that really weighed heavy on my heart were my family,health and friendships. 

I had started to feel so depleted from training and the diet that I was no longer able to be present for what others were going through.  One of the things I love is bringing encouragement and inspiration into people's lives. The meal plan I had chosen to follow was not the right one for me due to everything that was happening with my body. Breast feeding,hormones,Hypo-Thyroid, late night mother shifts ect.  I started to pull away from friendships only due to the fact that I didn't have the energy for them. When you stop doing the things you love, your passion and daily enjoyment for life starts to fizzle. I was fizzling.

 Anyone who has trained for competition or a fitness goal knows there is a lot of sacrifice in all areas of your life. And anyone who knows me knows I love having a full plate with tons going on. I love to train hard and I do make sacrifices to meet my fitness goals...It's what I love.  But all things need to be done in moderation and with a healthy attitude. Due to my crazy schedule of being a new mom, running after a two year old and getting to the gym every day to hit the weights, I started to realize there was little room for balance. Now all you moms out there who have trained for a competition 12 weeks post baby, my hat is off to you.  Here goes honesty...It was not the right time or the right decision for my family. I was holding unto two huge goals very tightly. Being the best mom/wife I could be for my family or training for my first competition. I realized I need to loosen the grip and let one goal rest until I was ready to pick it back up. Making this decision was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I faced my ego, my fears of what others would think and something I hate most of all, letting goals go.

What have I learned? There are so many learnings out of this experience, some of them very personal and others you will see in my new training styles. I learned who I want to be as a motivator and coach. I decided to take a nutrition course and some practical personal training courses to improve my training and better serve my clients.  The reason I became a trainer and started a blog was to inspire people to greatness and motivate them to overcome the obstacles on the road to health. Pushing yourself to a unhealthy point just to say you completed something is damaging not only to your mental state but also your physical health. Make healthy decisions that have longevity and realize that goals do change and it's ok.  Will I ever compete? I do believe competing can be done in a healthy manner and I believe you should never say never. I will continue to live a life full of passion and love for health and fitness! 

"Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value."
- Albert Einstein

 Thank you to everyone for your support, encouragement and love!

and good luck to all the 2013 Tri Fitness competitors!

Vancouver and clean eating peanut butter candy bars

This past week our little family traveled to the wonderful city of Vancouver for a little get away (Daddy was working out of town and we tagged along.) This weekend was filled with more learnings then I can list tonight because I'm completely exhausted from the laughter and the challenges I faced while traveling with these two handsome little men this weekend. Once I get my life organized again tomorrow (tonight the only thing on my list is a hot bath) I will share with you some of the highlights of this past weekend. Until then, lets talk food! One of the things I hate is when I get home from an amazing weekend of adventures is feeling like junk because I have done nothing but eat out and am so off track with my normal diet.  This trip I decided to make all of our own snacks and we got a hotel room with a kitchen so I could make us most of our meals. I loved it! I came back this week feeling great and knowing I had not lost any of my hard work to the travelers food diet.  My friend Natalie recently gave me the most amazing peanut butter bar recipe that I have to share with you guys! I made a huge batch of these before we left and they were one of my saviours over the weekend.  I've already made them a couple times and a couple different ways. I have listed both ways below.

Enjoy~~*

1 cup natural peanut butter

1 cup of honey

1 cup of oats

1 cup chopped dried apricots

half cup walnuts

half cup almonds

Melt all items together, place on wax paper and freeze

2nd Option

Remove the oats from the recipe 

only add 3/4 cup honey

melt dark chocolate over top 

freeze

and you have the most amazing candy bars!

YUM!

Fashion Fridays

 Have great weekend everyone!

McCarthy-Toque-Volcom-Cardigan-H&M-T-shirt-Joefresh-Jeans-Joefresh-Shoes-Chucks

 

Bennett-Cardigan-H&M-Onsie- (Gifted) Threadless-Jeggings-Joefresh-Slips-Joefresh

4 Months 

 

I ROLLED OVER TODAY! 

HIIT training

Monday HIIT workout-Hill sprints with McCarthy

Wednesday HIIT workout, Stairs with Bennett

What is HIIT training and why should you add it to our workouts?!

A HIIT session consists of a warm up period of exercise, followed by three to ten repetitions of high intensity exercise, separated by medium intensity exercise for recovery, and ending with a period of cool down exercise. The high intensity exercise should be done at near maximum intensity. The medium exercise should be about 50% intensity. The number of repetitions and length of each depends on the exercise, but may be as little as three repetitions with just 20 seconds of intense exercise.

There is no specific formula to HIIT. Depending on your level of cardiovascular development, the moderate-level intensity can be as slow as walking. The original protocol set a 2:1 ratio of work to recovery periods, for example, 30–40 seconds of hard sprinting alternated with 15–20 seconds of jogging or walking.

The entire HIIT session may last between ten and thirty minutes, meaning that it is considered to be an excellent way to maximize a workout that is limited on time.

• HIIT trains and conditions both your anaerobic and aerobic energy systems. You train your anaerobic system with brief, all-out efforts, like when you have to push to make it up a hill, sprint the last few hundred yards of a distance race, or run and hide from your spouse after saying the wrong thing.
• HIIT increases the amount of calories you burn during your exercise session and afterward because it increases the length of time it takes your body to recover from each exercise session.
• HIIT causes metabolic adaptations that enable you to use more fat as fuel under a variety of conditions. This will improve your athletic endurance as well as your fat-burning potential.
• HIIT appears to limit muscle loss that can occur with weight loss, in comparison to traditional steady-state cardio exercise of longer duration.
• To get the benefits HIIT, you need to push yourself past the upper end of your aerobic zone and allow your body to replenish your anaerobic energy system during the recovery intervals.

This is my new favourite type of workout, because it gets the job done and you're not spending hours in the gym. Who really has time for that anyways? One of my favourite fitness experts is Joe Donnelly . His workout's will kick your butt, change the way you view weight training. And he's always posting articles that will challange the traditional way of training. Here is one of his most recent posts on HIIT. Life is to short to waste our time on crazy low carb diets and old school ways of training. Lets eat food, be happy and live healthy lives!

Here is a example of some of my HIIT workouts!

Rowing 5x hard 200 meters,30 second rest in between 

Sprinting fast up step mill 45 seconds, slow 30-45 seconds 8-10x

Rowing and skipping 5x rowing with 100x skipping in between

Stepmill fast run up step mill45 seconds,slow 30-45 seconds,8-10x

Thank you Angelique, for kicking my butt with this new program!

I've recently been working with Angelique Kronebusch on some new styles of training. I'm excited to share my learnings,progress and pain with all of you! 

Enjoy~~*

Maybe my most important post to date...

Do you ever wonder why the majority of competitors/ fitness models gain so much weight in the few days after a show? Women often 20-25 pounds? Or maybe you dieted hard for a vacation/wedding etc and right after you immediately gained the weight back and it then took months to then lose it again??

I am going to try to break this down as simple as possible as it pertains to EVERYONE. 

Your metabolic rate (metabolism) is he single and only factor that determines fat loss. Not caloric deficit, not doing endless hours of cardio. Without metabolism you are dead in the water. You could ea no carbs/ fats, finish each day in a 500 calorie deficit, doing 2 hours of cardio, but with no metabolic or low metabolic rate you cannot and will not lose bodyfat.

Now lets examine why and how metabolic rate becomes damaged. Things that damage metabolic rate

1) Doing constant steady state/low intensity cardio (spin class, walking on treadmill, stairmaster, eliptical, etc etc) You lose the fat burning component of steady state cardio very quickly. I will never understand why competitors do 2 cardio sessions per day when they are not getting a fat burning effect, but rather just eating up muscle and reducing metabolism.
2) Restricting calories too much. More specifically not having enough fats and good carbs in your diet.
3) Not understanding the math behind what you are doing. If you are eating 1200 calories per day and burning 500-1000 in your workouts you are damaging your metabolic rate.
4) Finishing everyday at caloric deficit will damage metabolic rate. this is why carb cycling has become so popular. It allows for support of metabolic rate thusly preventing the damage.

Things that build metabolic rate

1) Lifting weights, building muscle. High intensity lifting. Women i cannot stress this enough. You need to lift hard, heavy and often. You dont get bulky from lifting weights, you get bulky from the cupcakes you eat. Adding muscle adds to metabolic rate, more specifically the more muscle you have the more calories your body burns
2) HIIT cardio. High intensity interval training. This is the only type of cardio the body does no adapt to. It supports metabolic rate as well as has the fat burning component.
3) Getting enough quality calories. You need to eat to lose fat. You need to eat to build muscle. You starve yourself, you starve your fat loss ability.

The majority of competitors and so called professional coaches are fools. Their science is wrong. They prescribe you these low calorie diets with endless amounts of cardio and the minute your show ends you gain back tons of weight, they then tell you its because you binged too much. Wrong wrong wrong. Complete bullshit. What really happened was that during your dieting process you constantly chipped away at your metabolism. So for example lets say a healthy adult female burns 1500 calories per day without any exercise. Most competitors by the time of their show have damaged their metabolic rate so much that their BMR may be as low as 2-300 calories per day. So the minute the show is over and you eat a few normal meals, while not doing the double cardio sessions your body immediately gains bodyfat and fast. A normal healthy person would have their metabolism to keep them in check.

Here is a perfect example. Most of you know my GF is 2-time World Bikini Champion Chady Dunmore. Shes well known for being lean and photoshoot ready year round. How? Does she do cardio everyday? Is her diet super strict? Nope. She simply doesnt follow the bullshit above. She goes by truth not myth. She eats a well balanced diet of around 2000 calories per day. She lifts hard and heavy 4-5 days per week with almost no cardio. Last year when she competed in the world championships she did nothing more to her weekly routine mentioned above than simply add 1-2 intense HIIT sessions per week and stop cheat meals 3 weeks out. She stepped on stage at a ripped 132. Flash forward 4 weeks after her show. She had many many cheat meals. We spent a week in Mexico for her bday eating whatever we wanted, consuming a few tropical alcoholic beverages, doing zero cardio and got in a few lifting sessions. She came back from Mexico at around 135 and id suspect the 3 pounds she gained was nothing more than some water retention from the salty foods and glycogen in her muscles from excessive yummy carbs. Why did she not rebound like so many?? HER HIGH METABOLISM KEPT THE WEIGHT GAIN AT BAY!!!

Follow science not myth people. Protect yourself. For more information on this video from a true man of science Dr. Layne Norton please watch this video and subscribe to his channel
http://youtu.be/QHHzie6XRGk


Hope this helped and opened some eyes.

Thanks-JD
www.joeydfitness.com

Baked yams and moments to cherish

There are some moments that I just want to stop the clock and hold onto. McCarthy's conversations with Troy (Daddy) is one of them. McCarthy is currently going through a stage that consist of him wanting to have chat times with Daddy where they just talk about life! By life I mean the daily happenings of a two year old...Trucks, diggers, what happened on Toopy and Binoo that day, and how the clouds look like giant underpants...  Regardless of what the subject is, it's talked about with animation, excitement and more detail then you would expect out of a two year old.  These are the moments I never want to be busy to take in, too tired to notice or too wrapped up in my own stuff to realize that these moments, right here right now, are most important.  Lately my focus on life, health, and fitness can be summed up by the word "Nurture" .

Nurture means to help grow and provide sustenance.

To nurture someone is to provide all the needs, not just food, that one would grow up to be a meaningful part of a community .  

Nurture means to to protect and provide all the elements to becoming a healthy grown substance.

To nurture means to cherish..

These are the moments I cherish...

Nurture your body with this fantastic Yam recipe!

I made these this weekend and paired them with fig-topped salmon. 

This recipe is not only healthy, it is loaded with flavour and nutrition! 

Enjoy ~~*

ingredients:

2 yams , lightly pricked all over with a fork

1/4 cup of coconut butter

2 tbsp of almond milk

2 cloves of garlic , minced

1/2 cup of feta 

1 tbsp minced thyme

salt and pepper to taste

Garnish:

chopped pecans

and feta

1- Preheat oven to 375

2-Place yams on baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes or until soft.

3-Once yams are cooled enough to handle, slice in half and carefully scoop out flesh. 

4-Begin mashing warm sweet potatoes with coconut butter, almond milk and garlic till smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Scoop or pipe yams back into skins.

5- Top with feta and pecans

6-Bake yams for another 10-15 minutes 

Enjoy~~*