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One of the best parts of being a coach is watching clients have those “ah-ha” moments, when a lightbulb turns on and they find the will to make a change. Deb took that step 10 years ago and has not only reached her weight loss goal but is also controlling her cholesterol without medication for the first time in 25 years.
“I started at Get Fit 10 years ago because I had just moved to New Hampshire and was out of shape and gained a lot of weight,” Deb said. “My jeans were so tight they barely zipped. My eating was out of control.”
Before joining Get Fit NH I had been on cholesterol medication for 25 years. Two years ago I was taken off of Lipitor. Prior to joining Get Fit my eating was out of control and really did not hop on the band wagon seriously until 2018.”
Deb participated in several of our nutrition challenges and a year ago was able to maintain those habits as her new lifestyle. In the last year, Deb has lost 50 pounds. She said the benefits have been more than just fitting in to smaller jeans. She recently ran her fastest 5K, feels great, sleeps better and has a lot more energy.
“I am in the smallest size clothes in 25 years and feeling proud,.”
It’s been a pleasure to watch Deb transform her body physically, gain incredible strength and achieve goals that are only dreams to most women in their 50’s. But “can’t” is not in her vocabulary. That is why in her 50’s she has lost 50 pounds, run two marathons, countless half marathons, 10Ks and 5Ks. That is why she can deadlift her bodyweight, do push-ups, front planks and squats. Deb is an inspiration to women who continuously tell themselves they cannot do something. With the right mindset and support system, Rosenthal shows it’s possible to make other people’s dreams become your goals.
“If I can do it, you can too”
Motivation is great…when you have it! Motivation is defined as the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way. What motivates you to come to training? One may say, “I want to lose weight”. That is a great reason to come to training but what happens when life gets in the way and you face unexpected challenges? Will the desire to lose weight be enough to keep you moving forward? You will be more successful if you have strategies in place for overcoming obstacles.
It is important that you also have a “why”. What is your “why” for coming to training? I believe it needs to come from deep within you and be so strong that it will push you through those days when “I want to lose weight” won’t cut it. If I am being completely transparent, I will tell you, “I want to lose weight and be strong, so I am not in constant pain with my Fibromyalgia and be confident in my own skin”. That gets me out of bed when the pain tempts me to go back to sleep!
A plan is key. My plan is to train 4 days a week and I am being held accountable for that. I want to encourage you to make a plan and act on that, not on whether or not you feel motivated. Obstacles will arise and sometimes our plans need to be adjusted but please do not abandon your plan! You and your goals matter too much! If you need help with a setting a plan and sticking to it we are here to help! We are in this together!
-Coach Erin
"I would rather see someone consistently train 4 times a week at 60-70 percent intensity for the long term over 4 times a week at 100 percent intensity and burn out in the first week"
This is something I tell people all the time because I think it is so important to understand. In society there is the BIG all or nothing mentality that makes achieving goals very challenging. We decided that we want to get healthier, start working out, eating better, all at once. Now don't get me wrong this is an awesome thing to do for your health, but trying to change all of this at the same time is an overwhelming thing to do for most people. What we see far too often is people trying to make a large change all at once and either burnout or don't see the changes they want instantly and stop all together. The truth people don't want to hear in health and fitness is most goals you want take time, and most of the time longer than you think. Due to that fact of things needing time we get frustrated and burnt out from making some drastic changes.
My advice to these people is to start small and be consistent with the small changes you make! If your first step is starting in the gym than make sure you can consistently go. Building strength, losing fat, and gaining cardiovascular endurance takes time! If you go into the gym working out at your max effort every single day your body won't be able to handle the workload you are putting it through. It's great if you make it through a week or two working at max effort but what happens if by doing so you burn your body out or get an overuse injury and now have to take three weeks off of the gym? The better way I would look at it is to train by how your body feels. Most days you will probably train at 70% effort, some days being a little less and some being more when you feel good. But if training this way allows you to consistently train 4 day a week for 6 months your body will respond better by the consistent work than the overly intense work.
So remember if you have a day where your body doesn't feel its best or the energy is down that is ok! Train how you body is feeling that day and remember any workout is better for your body than no workout! Some days may not be your best training session but for each of those days I bet you have days that are your best day! It's a give and take!
Keep Making It Happen!
-Coach Brian
If you have been in training recently you have probably noticed we have been doing the Turkish Get Up a lot. I have also seen a couple people asking why we have been doing it so much so I thought I would take the time to write a blog about it!
If you know me than you know I am a huge fan of the kettlebell and all training around it. Even more so the Turkish Get Up is one of my favorite movements with a kettlebell because it is so universal to use. I have used variations of the Turkish Get Up as a warm up, as my main training, and for a cool down, making it a very useful movement in my bag of exercises.
So now that I have talked over my personal love for the movement lets break down why it is such a good movement! If you were to break down the movement piece by piece I would say there are 9 fantastic benefits and health factors it offers being:
If you look at that list you will see that the Turkish Get Up is challenge your entire body in a way most other exercises simply cannot by themselves. This movement is also great because it gives you direct feedback with imbalances in the body. You can see right away which side is stronger and during what parts of the movement are harder for you. You can take that information and use it to help strengthen and address the imbalances which will help overall health!
When the Turkish Get-Up is loaded, to what you consider heavy, you will develop ridiculous strength. Heavy get-ups improve your strength in many ways, but one of the most important ways is by teaching the important skill of “linkage” while eliminating strength “leakage.”
According to physical therapist Gray Cook, “Stabilizers are what give you the mechanical advantage to be stronger.” Heavy Turkish get-ups improve your stabilizers, which will improve your linkage, and simply put, more linkage equals more strength.
Hopefully this helped talk about why we do the Turkish Get Ups and all the cool benefits we get doing them!
Keep Making It Happen!
-Coach Brian
Some of you may have seen my Why Wednesday a couple weeks ago about this topic, but I wanted to go back into it because I do think it's so important. In reading a book to help myself out recently I realized how much I was allowing myself to become a victim of my circumstances. Or more accurately allowing myself the excuse because of things that were happening to me. I think one of the biggest examples of this is my relationship with food. That is the main reason I am writing this blog and using this example. When something bad happened or I had a rough day the first thing I would do is use food. So what I was saying is “I’m a victim of my day so I can have this”.
Another example that many of you might be able to understand as well is the “If it's in the house I’m going to eat it”. I remember getting legitimately angry at people for bringing things home that I could have because I would eat them. Again what am I saying? “You are victimizing me by bringing that stuff here” which gives me the excuse to mow down on it. Coming to that realization has helped me immensely because if there is one thing I never want to be considered it is a “victim”.
Don’t misunderstand me, you do not have control over everything that happens in your life. You’re going to have to deal with crabby people, difficult work associates or customers. No one has complete control over the things that happen in their life. What you DO have 100% control over is how you respond to those scenarios, are you going to allow yourself to be a victim of your circumstance? Or are you going to decide to still fight, be positive, stay strong. To realize that you can choose whether or not you allow yourself to be a victim, or not allow yourself to be puts you in control.
-Coach Adam