Autism Fitness and Right Fit Fitness is coming soon to Get Fit NH!

We hope to accomplish three things for those living with autism:

1. Help professionals  working in schools throughout the state to be better equipped to bring fitness programming to those with autism;
2. Empower parents to make use of the Autism Fitness approach;
3. Our new division, Right Fit Fitness, will formulate and provide appropriate fitness programming for adults on the autism spectrum.

How will we do this?

• November 2, 2019: Try This @ Home workshop: This workshop is for PARENTS and CAREGIVERS of those on the spectrum; You will learn how you can use the principles of Autism Fitness to set up a fitness program at home. In addition, we will discuss the importance of your sharing this approach with the professionals who work with your school age child: gym teachers, physical therapists, etc. and urge those professionals to sign up for the weekend in January (see below) so they can better serve the autism population they work with. Sign up here.
• January 18 and 19, 2020: Autism Fitness Level 1 Certification with AF founder Eric Chessen: This is two days of hands on, intensive training for fitness professionals and educators and offers Continuing Education credits for both. Sign up here.
• Fall 2019: Our own program, Right Fit Fitness, will be meant for adults on the autism spectrum and will consist of hour long one on one training with a certified Autism Fitness Professional. As our program grows, we hope to eventually have our athletes working in dyads and then small groups with the hope of establishing a community for them like we have here in our Get Fit NH family.

If you have not seen the heart felt message from Mae Lynn, the heart of Right Fit Fitness, then do yourself a favor and check it out here

It is no surprise that we are most often our worst critics.  Many of us battle the negative voice in our head that says “we aren’t good enough”.  That inner voice may lead you to believe that you are weak or a failure and will never achieve your goal.  

How do we fight the negative voices?  I believe that you have to acknowledge the negative thoughts and label them for what they are.  Rather than getting stuck in the thought process, acknowledge it and ask yourself if it is truth.  If your inner voice is telling you that you are weak, take a minute to assess the validity of the statement.  Have you made positive changes in you life? Are you more consistent with training or making better nutrition choices?  Those all require strength and therefore discounts the statement “you are weak”.

When attempting to remove negative thoughts, it is important to replace them with something positive.  Otherwise, the negative thoughts will just creep back into the empty space. There may be times in life when it might be more challenging to find the positive so keep it simple.  Celebrate and focus on even the small victories.

You are in control of your thoughts and whether they are negative or positive.  It takes time and practice but you can retrain your brain. We are here for you and always happy to remind you of the positives.  One Get Fit NH Family member reached out through email and shared her struggles and negative thoughts with us. I was so proud of her for acknowledging her struggling and letting us come along side of her.  She vented and vowed not to get stuck in the current thought process. We are in this together!

-Coach Erin

Our 4th annual Show up, Step up and Stick it up Challenge is coming up and this year has a new twist! We run this challenge to keep you honest as we head into a challenging time of year. The fall brings on back to school, sports and that leads us into the holidays and before you know it here comes January and we are motivated to get back on the wagon. 

But imagine how wonderful it would be if you never had to fall off the wagon! Imagine if you had some extra motivation (on top of your coach) to keep you going and keep you honest...

Well imagine no more! This challenge is for you and here is how it works:

Show up: There are 59 total training chances between the September 9th and December 20th to make it into training. To complete the show up portion we are asking that you make it a certain amount in that time being:

• 4 Training Days People: 50 Days
• 3 Training Days People: 40 Days
• 2 Training Days People: 25 Days

Step up: The Fit3D! On the backside of the card there will be a monthly spot to hit up the Fit3D. You want to talk about keeping you honest? Nothing better than the good ole "truth booth" to keep you on pace. The average weight gain between October and December is TEN POUNDS! It is a lot of work to get those pounds off so let's not fall into that category. We will help keep you honest.

Stick it up: This will also be a monthly spot on the backside of your card. This is for the goals board. Each month we put up a goals board. We strive for this to be apart of our culture and this will help you build that habit and keep you working toward the bigger picture. Each month you will need a coach to initial that verifying that you did in face "stick it up"

Share It: This is the NEW TWIST for this year! On the Back side of the card a new box will be added for you to share it that needs to be completed once a month. Here are some ways you could get this box checked off:

• Bring a friend to a fun friday or charity training
• Share a Get Fit NH video on social media
• Check in that you trained on Facebook
• Refer a friend to come train with us.
• Anyway you can share the greatness and fun we have and show proof to a coach

If you fill up your card with the needed amount of attendance checks, 4 (Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec) step ups, stick it ups, and share it ups then your card will go into the magic prize jar. We will pick THREE cards to win mega awesome prizes. 

1st card pulled earns- $300

2nd card pulled earns- $100

3rd card pulled earns- $50

We look forward to kicking this challenge off and finishing this year out strong! Let's make it happen,

The Get Fit NH Team

I feel so terrible bringing up FALL already! It always amazes me how fast summer zips by us. Halloween stuff is already out in stores- YUCK! With that, I just wanted to remind everyone that as summer comes to a close the traffic in the gym starts to pick back up. Schedules and routines start to become just that again which means many of you return the classes you were registered to all along. Summer time allows us room for a lot of flexibility. Fall, winter and spring...not so much!

While this is a great "problem" to have, I would ask that you please do your very best to attend the class you are registered to. ESPECIALLY avoiding 6:10AM and 4:15PM! Those classes tend to get way over crowded with drop ins and folk who we did not account for. We want to be sure that EVERYONE gets quality the coaching they love and deserve. We understand that schedule changes happen, we  just ask that if you are not registered to 6:10 or 4:15 that you avoid that unless asking a coach.

We are happy to put you on a waiting list if you find your schedule changing. Ask as soon as you know because if I am being honest those lists are lengthy!

As always, we appreciate you and your choice to train with us. Look, I shot this video so you can see for yourself that this is totally a friendly reminder (which will start me with crazy eyes! Awkward!)

We have had an INSANE amount of fun handing out prizes over the last several months as we have kicked off a consistent referral challenge. So far we have given away a paddle board to Anne,  Nike ID shoes to Eric, a $200 gift card to EMS to Melissa and a $50 gift card to Under Armor to Melanie! When you share the good word, we reward you! Not only does EVERYONE get $50 just for referring to us, but now on top of that their name is added to a drawing to win some pretty cool stuff.

In August and September if you refer to us you will get your $50 cash and you will also get your name in a drawing to win a FREE night at Adventure Suites, Red Jacket Inn OR Great Wolf Lodge. I have stayed at all three of these hotels and they are SUPER fun for the family or with friends. 

Check out this video- at the end I'll give you some tips to get your friends in here! 

This is in some ways a follow-up blog to my why Wednesday video.  What does the phrase “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” mean?  It means that doing things to prevent a problem or issue in small parts preventatively is a lot easier than trying to make major changes after an issue has arisen.  As an example think of a credit card, an ounce of prevention would be things like using your credit card sparingly and paying it off monthly, or at least in a timely fashion.  Which is much much easier, and more manageable, than continually charging things you aren’t able to afford at the moment to a credit card and then trying to pay off high amounts of credit card debt.  For anyone that has experienced this you know how unbelievably difficult it can be.  

The same is true of the body, very simply the best way to stay active and moving, is to….you guessed it, stay active and moving, training, ect.  It's a lot easier to maintain an active lifestyle for 10 years, than it is letting yourself become sedentary for ten years and try to rewind the clock.  Realistically you could probably maintain a relative level of fitness and mobility with just being physically active for 15-20 minutes a day in a pinch.  That seems a lot less daunting than being 10 years older and trying to train 6 days a week to make up for lost time.  

With all that being said I fully realize that this is a hard thing to picture, this is maybe our most difficult thing as coaches to convey because people tend to have trouble understanding something they have yet to experience.  Myself included, it’s very hard to consider back pain prevention (most often hip mobility) as a priority, until you hurt your back. Pressing overhead doesn’t seem like a big deal right now, until you have to do months of PT and waiting for your frozen shoulder symptoms to go away.  This is just something you have to trust me/us on. Keep yourself healthy now, to be able to hold up when things get challenging down the road, the reverse is EXPONENTIALLY harder.

Many years ago, when I was at a training conference I first learned of the word “Sawubona”. It is an African Zulu greeting that means “I see you”. In Western culture, we often say “Hi, how are you?” but so often people never wait for the others response. In contrast, Sawubona means “I see you and you are important to me and I value you”.

Recently during a training, I asked a Get Fit NH Family member “how are you doing?” Her
response was “I am here”. I told her “that is a step in the right direction!” I knew from
previous conversations she has been under a lot of stress for various reasons. I did not take it lightly that she made it to training. I know it was an achievement. For some of you, training is just part of your day, no questions asked and that is fantastic! For others, it is a struggle just to walk through the doors. I want you all to know that we never take it for granted when you make it to training! We love “seeing” you! You are so much more than just a body working out. While we may not greet you with “Sawubona”, we see you and you are all incredibly important to us. Your value is beyond measure! When you are a part of the Get Fit NH Family it means you are seen and valued! Thank you for not only training with us but also sharing your lives with us.

-Coach Erin