Dear Diary...

Feel like the only person that hurts after a workout? Trust me you are not alone. Every person that puts effort into their workout will feel it - even personal trainers who often have personal trainers of their own to push them hard! This was sent to me by a friend and still makes me laugh so I thought I would share - 

Dear Diet Diary

As a Christmas present this year, my daughter, Cresley [what a thoughtful darling] bought for me a week of personal training at the local health club. Although I am still in reasonable shape since being a high school cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try.

I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Juan Antonio [ooh what a name] who identified himself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear. My daughter seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started. The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.

Monday

Started my day at 6:00 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Juan Antonio waiting for me.   He is something of a Greek god: he has curly hair, dancing eyes and a dazzling white smile. Yippee!

Juan Antonio gave me a tour and showed me the machines. I enjoyed watching the skilful way in which he conducted his aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring! Juan Antonio [call me Tony by now] was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my stomach was already aching from holding it in the whole time he was around. This is going to be a FABULOUS week!   My New Year resolutions will be easy.

Tuesday

I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out of the door. Tony made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air. Later he put weights on it. My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made the full mile. Tony’s rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT! It’s a whole new life for me.

Wednesday

The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was OK as long as I didn’t try to steer or stop. Tony was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members. His voice is a little too perky for early in the morning; and when he scolds, he gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying. My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Tony put me on the stair ‘monster’. Why the hell would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Tony told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. He said some other garbage too.

Thursday

Tony was waiting for me with his vampire-like teeth exposed as his thin, cruel lips were back in a full snarl. I couldn’t help being a half an hour late; it took me that long to tie my shoes. That man then took me to work out with dumbbells. When he was not looking, I ran and hid in the restroom. He sent a skinny woman to find me. Then, as punishment, he put me on the rowing machine - which I sank.

Friday

I hate that man, Toady or whatever his name is, more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. He is a stupid, skinny, anaemic, anorexic little bighead. If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat him with it. Toady wanted me to work on my triceps. I don’t have any triceps! And if you don’t want dents in the floor, don’t hand me the flippin’ barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich. The treadmill flung me off and I landed on the health and nutritionteacher. Why couldn’t it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director?

Saturday

That person, that Toady, left a message on my answering machine in his grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing him made me want to smash the machine with my planner. However, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching eleven straight hours of the Weather Channel.

Sunday

I’m having the Church bus collect me up so I can go to services today and thank God that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my daughter Cresley [the cruel, whingeing creep] will choose a gift for me that is fun: like root canal treatment or a hysterectomy. I still say if God had wanted me to bend over, he would have sprinkled the floor with diamonds!

Get some attitude!

NEWS!! Womens cardio boxing group fitness sessions 

Launching September 1st - 

Tuesdays at 7pm at Seaford K7 School Gym, Jane Street, Port Noarlunga South. 

Strictly limited to 15 places so call today to register!! $10 for each weekly class 

The first week will be half price to anyone that pre-registers so call us today on 0405 942124 to secure your spot - register friends for the discounted price too!

Boxing is a fantastic way to work out stress while burning a serious amount of calories. It is a great all over body workout and is one of the fastest way to get tones arms.

Get a little attitude and have some fun!!

Want to lose weight? Stop dieting!!

Recently I was asked to be featured in an article for my local paper the Adelaide Advertiser. They were running a story on yo-yo dieting and were looking for a 'success story' so I bravely put my hand up to have my before and after weights published for all to see!

During the interview I was asked a question that I have been asked by plenty of people over the last year - how did I lose the weight? I have been asked this question by numerous friends all wanting to know if I took some magical pill to melt the fat or followed some wonderful diet plan that would melt those kilos away. The answer always sounds so easy - eat less move more and stop dieting!

For over 20 years I followed just about every 'diet' going, and made quite a few up myself along the way too! I have been seduced by those ads informing me just one pill a day will melt away the fat to reveal a bikini clad body just like the model on TV. I have blamed my metabolism for being too slow (nothing to do with the large quantities of crap food going into my body) and could write a book on 'Excuses not to exercise' which I am sure would become an instant best seller...

The way that I lost weight is simple - I stopped dieting. Every diet I have ever tried has made me miserable and food obsessed. They all focus on what you CANNOT eat which, of course, makes you want it soooo bad! Most of them do not even offer a balanced diet - one such diet I tried 'the heart smart diet' allowed only boiled eggs, tomatoes and red meat. Lost weight but felt so ill all of the time it just wasn't worth it. And that is how the cycles of diets work - you stick at them a while and lose weight, you get bored/tired/hungry so stop the 'diet' and the weight goes back on, normally with a couple of added kilos just for the hell of it to make you feel even worse than before you started. Then another 'diet' comes along full of sweet promises and so the cycle continues.

Rather than try another diet this time I decided to change my life - nothing radical, simply switch to better foods and start exercising. Out went white bread in came Soy & Linseed bread, our went sweets as snacks in came fruit, out went skipping meals then stuffing my intake of calories in one hit at night, in came regular smaller meals with  snacks in between. I even have the odd takeaway if I fancy it - just not 4 times a week!

And out went wasted hours of Facebook, watching TV and moving as little as possible, and in came hitting the gym a few times a week. It sounds easy but it works! So if you want to lose weight - stop dieting and get a healthier lifestyle and the changes will happen.

Adelaide Advertiser Article

Just do it....

My mantra in life over the last 12 months - well JFDI to be precise (Google it!!)

Any time that things seemed to hard, any time I thought I couldn't do something - this is what I would say over and over in my head.

One of the hardest days for me had to be the first class I took at my local gym. Seems easy doesn't it? Go down the gym, walk through those studio doors and enjoy a class. I wish it had been that easy for me! For some unknown obscure reason my brain spent nearly six months telling my body that I had no hope of ever completing one of those classes....

I would visit the gym regularly spending time in the cardio and weights sections without worry but when it came to walking through those doors - NO WAY!!! 

Don't get me wrong it isn't that I didn't want to join in - the music pumping, great instructors motivating everyone to work just that little bit harder, the smiles at the end of the class as everyone made their way out. I wanted to be one of them more than anything. I would stand there peering in trying to take that step but always walked away back to the cardio section.

I have done a lot of self analysing over the last 18 months and looking back it seems so silly the reasons for not doing it but at the time the feelings were so strong. NO WAY could someone as big as me do a class like that, NO WAY could my body be pushed that hard, NO WAY could I move that fast, NO WAY would someone like me fit in with all the fit thin people. 

I don't know what changed that Friday morning. Seeing a class about to start I made my way to peer through the door but instead found myself walking back to the reception area to get a ticket for the class. I told the voice chanting NO WAY in my head to shut the hell up and scurried to the back of the class. It wasn't pretty, certainly wasn't easy but I did do it. And I kept doing it. I became completely hooked on the Les Mills classes and tried them all out and regularly show up for Body Combat, Body Attack, Body Vive, Body Step and Body Pump.

Now the only voice in my head it the one screaming JFDI as I push myself as hard as I can which is so much better than NO WAY!!

I was asked today why I became a personal trainer and the answer is simple - to teach people how to shut up the negative voices in their heads and discover just how much they can do :-)

Starting with a bang!

Been a really busy couple of weeks since finishing with the Australian Institute of Fitness in Adelaide. I got the text this week that my certs were ready to collect so everything feels very real now. Now on to sorting out my registration with Fitness Australia and getting my insurance in place.

The Facebook page is slowly growing and today the main website for the Boost Fitness launched - www.boostfitness.com.au so check it out when you have a minute


And the news keep getting better - starting from July 8th I will offering PT services from Genesis Fitness Health Club in Noarlunga so things are really starting with a bang!


Check out our website for some launch promotions and watch this space for some healthy tips and tricks for a healthier you...

Mid Life Crisis or a new healthy attitude?

Last year I turned 40. It didn't bother me - probably thanks to a wealth of media promoting that 40 is the new 20 and we all turn into sexy cougar type women when we hit this magical number! 

The old me

What did bother me last year was ME. I have always struggled with my weight and enough was enough. My 30's were spent on one diet or another always chasing a 'thinner' me and never catching her. There was no way I was going to spend my 40's wasting so much energy chasing dreams - it was time to actually do something once and for all!

As a busy mum running a web design company from home, as well as helping out my husband with his business paperwork, time is precious so every minute had to count. I signed up to an online food diary to record my food and joined a new gym opening locally. Over the next few months I really surprised myself - I actually stuck to it 100% and it worked! I was dropping kilo's and dress sizes and didn't constantly feel like I wanted to gnaw my own arm off thanks to eating proper healthy food rather than being on a 'diet'.

I even started to venture into the gym studios to take part in some of the Les Mills classes. It was hard to start with - no exercise for about 20 years and being hugely overweight didn't make life in the gym easy to start with. What did surprise me is how quickly I became fitter and how hard I could push my body. 

January 2010 saw me in the 'morbidly obese' BMI category and in plus size clothes that definitely were not designed for sexy cougar type 40 year olds!! One year on and I had lost 40kg and wearing skinny jeans in a size 12!

The new me

My healthier lifestyle is here to stay and I still have some to lose but know it will come off and stay off. I have learned to love exercise so much that I went back to 'school' for 2 months to retrain to help out other like me lose weight. at the Australian Institute of Fitness I gained my cert 3 and cert 4 qualifications in Health & Fitness and graduated as a Master trainer.

Boost Fitness is my way of staying fit and healthy while showing that exercise can be fun and does work! Last year I was the master of excuses of why I couldn't work out - I wasn't fit enough, couldn't get gym gear in my size, was too fat to go the gym (yep used that one a few times!), was confident enough to stand with all the skinny people working out, would look stupid trying to exercise, had no time etc etc. I can guarantee if you come up with an excuse I have used it first!

The main thing that I have learned and the first thing I want to pass on is that you can do it, you can push your body to work hard no matter what your age or size and your body will love you for it! More energy, more confidence, feeling healthier, feeling younger are all worth the work...