challengeworkouts.com

Let’s ‘Scope! (with Periscope)

Look what’s new on the block!

Periscope is a new form of social media that I’ve started using. You can learn more about it here: www.Periscope.tv. It’s a way to do LIVE streaming video so that I can connect with you in REAL time and you can join in to comment, ask questions and show love in the form of ♡♡♡’s. (You tap your device’s screen to do this).

You can join Periscope and never have to do a live broadcast yourself, but you can enjoy video broadcasts of those people that you follow. It’s a great way to connect and get to know the ‘real’ person. The videos are raw and unedited and you never know what will happen on them so that’s the fun part. Search for me and follow @ChallengeWorkouts

You’ll be notified anytime I do a broadcast. If you miss the broadcast, the replay is available for 24 hours.

I can see how to use Periscope for lots of things like coaching. Say for example, you have sore knees and you can’t figure out why, if you and I did a Periscope together, I could watch you squat LIVE and give immediate feedback. Even if you’re on the other side of the world…cool stuff.

As an aside, I’ll be opening my VIP coaching up pretty soon and will have limited spots available. If you’re like to be the first to be notified, CLICK HERE.

<=====Now if you want to get in on the Periscope action. Just go to the App Store and look for it to download to your smart phone or tablet. (And be sure to follow me!)

I downloaded the video from yesterday’s scope and loaded it up for you to You Tube so that you’d see what it looks like, but you’ll miss all the Periscope comments/heart action when you view it on You Tube. You’ll see that it’s pretty ‘raw’ – no edits, no filters, just me giving you fitness tips – this time on how to sexify your upper body and core with ONE move.

Here’s the video in Periscope (it will only be available until 11 am MST Saturday, July 25/15): Click HERE.

I also decided that I’d do a ‘follow along’ video for you on Periscope as an experiment. It was my day off, but I wanted to try this out and once I got started, well, you know the rest….lots of you tuned in – for the rest of you – you’ll see a follow along video in the Periscope replay here. (This one will be available until 2:30 pm MST Sat. Jauly 25/15).

This time I used Screenflow to record the video on Periscope so that you’ll see exactly how it will look on the Periscope replay.

This was a bit of a disaster as you can see, but it was great fun and it’s a good workout for you to do in only 10 minutes. You can choose to follow along with me in the video, or just use the idea to do your own workout at home:

100 Burpees in 10 Minutes

Set your timer for 1 minute repeats.

Do 10 burpees in the first minute and rest in any remaining time you have until the minute is up. Repeat for 10 rounds.

Modify – Your first minute is the ‘test’ minute. Do burpees (or whatever modification you’d like to use like a burpee walk-out or full body extension). Count your reps until you get to 45 seconds. Rest for 15 seconds. Then repeat this number for the remaining 9 sets.

Intensify – This is the same as the way to modify – count how many reps you get in the first minute (up to 45 seconds so you’ll have a bit of rest in round 1). Then repeat that 9 more times. You could also do one of the cool burpee variations that I did in the video (floppy/hand release burpee, burpee get up, double jump burpee, handstand burpee)

So now you need to do three things:

Download Periscope to your device.
Follow me, Challenge Workouts and stay tuned for other Periscope broadcasts (and give me lots of ♡♡♡’s!)
Do this burpee follow along workout =)
Use cool things like Periscope with me to get in the BEST shape possible! Get on the early notification for my VIP Coaching group HERE.

Posted in Q and A | No Comments »

Just For the Girls (Over 40)

Have you met my alter ego?

As some of you may already know, I have multiple personalities…(So you really don’t need another trainer…kidding!)

My first blog is called Female Fat Loss Over 40 and it caters to women (obviously) over 40. I started this blog to help many of my local fitness boot campers who needed some support when they weren’t in boot camp. This blog provides a ton of information with workouts, nutrition, hormone related articles, etc.

It was a fun gig to work on until I was inspired to start THIS Challenge Workouts blog.

To be honest, I felt like I didn’t always resonate with the wonderful ladies on my Female Fat Loss Over 40 blog. Some of whom would be celebrating doing their first full push up (a major accomplishment!). I figured they must look at me like I have two heads when I post a video of, say myself doing 50 pull ups in under 5 minutes. I mean, that’s just a mis-fit right? So I had a conundrum. I didn’t want to stop working on my female fat loss blog, but I didn’t want to alienate the ladies either.

So I started this Challenge Workouts gig and I soon found an awesome woman to help me with the Female Fat Loss Over 40 blog. She is Lisa Bullock from down under, I’m sure you’ve seen her on this blog, in my emails or on my Facebook page before. She’s kick in the pants fun, but more importantly, she’s a long time trainer, in her 40’s and has a passion to help women.

It’s the perfect fit. So if you ever visit my alter-ego blog, you’ll meet super star biz partner, Lisa B =)

Now, I wanted to share a workout from the Female Fat Loss Over 40 program for you. If you’re ‘not quite ready’ for some of the challenges in the Challenge Workout series, or if you just want a little more variety, you’ll love these follow along videos. I filmed them with some of my local clients, (real women!) and some of my offline trainers.

Here’s the workout:

Get Off the Treadmill!

This is a great alternative to a workout on the treadmill (although if you’re a treadmill addict, I have you covered! Click here!).

Try this 5 exercise circuit:

10 burpees (or alternatives)
10 renegade rows
10 per leg mountain climbers
10 reverse lunges
10 prisoner squats

Repeat this circuit as many times as you can in 10, 12, 15 or 20 minutes depending on your fitness level or how much time you have.

*Remember the 10 minute rule: If you don’t feel like training, give yourself just 10 minutes to sweat. When the timer goes off at 10 minutes, you’ll either pack it in having raised your metabolism with a little movement, or more likely, you’ll finish your workout and feel great!

I thought I’d throw in this video that I did with fitness friend, Dawn Sylvester…(I’ll have her on the blog coming up soon.)

She asks me what are my top tips for fat loss for women over 40.

To summarize, here are my tips from the video:

1. Ditch the steady state cardio. Cardio is NOT the answer to a lean and sexy body. Add HIIT or high intensity interval training to your workouts. Increase intensity and shorten the workouts. There’s no sense in running a marathon or jumping on the tread mill for 30 min or an hour when you can get better benefits from a sweaty 20 min workout.

2. Strengthen the body with resistance training to add lean muscle. This increases resting metabolic rate to keep your metabolism fired up and this adds lots of sexy shape.

3. Although we never got to this because we were SO hot in the Az sun, this is an important tip: Avoid the ‘see food’ diet. Sadly, your abs are made in the kitchen and no amount of working out or ‘cardio’ will give you the desired results. You don’t need to starve yourself, but you can’t eat with reckless abandon. Decrease starchy carbs, increase lean proteins and healthy fats, avoid liquid calories – it’s not rocket science.

You’ll find a lot of answers to a tanking metabolism, an expanding waist line with manageable workouts in ‘Female Fat Loss Over 40‘

It’s my ‘alter -ego’ 🙂

You’ll sweat with me while you do the follow along workouts in your living room. Workouts are short and sweet but you’ll get lasting results!

Posted in Workouts | No Comments »

Get a Life

This post is a little out of the ordinary…it will swing around to fitness (sort of) but it will take the long road. It’s a personal post that you can feel free to skip over, but if you read it, you’ll get a little insight into my head (and the heads of others with a similar disposition).

Recently, someone suggested to me that I need to ‘get a life’…

Well, to be truthful, the words were ‘you need to get a hobby’, but with bruised feelings, my interpretation was that I needed to ‘get a life’.

Being the introverted thinker that I am, I figured I needed to consider the comment carefully before reacting. After all, the comment came from a good friend with good intentions; maybe there was some truth to it.

’So, what’s considered a hobby?’ I asked my friend.

The answer was that it had to be something:

Unrelated to work
I enjoy doing
I do on the regular
I was passionate about
And it HAD TO BE SOCIAL

There are plenty of things I enjoy doing, but this description of a ‘hobby’ didn’t sit well with me…

First off, let me tackle the ‘social’ criteria of what she considered a hobby. And let me tell you something about me (and all the introverts out there)….

Sometimes an introvert looks at an extrovert and wonders, ‘I don’t seem to enjoy the constant company of others… maybe there’s something wrong with me.’

Similarly, sometimes an extrovert looks at an introvert and thinks, ‘She spends a lot of time alone. What’s wrong with her?’

Extroverts sometimes want to fix introverts thinking that they must be lonely or unhappy spending time alone.

They don’t understand our need to have mental space and think. They don’t know how exhausting it is for an introvert to be around others. This isn’t a slight about the company of others (necessarily); it’s just that this is how introverts are energized.

Being alone and doing solitary things energize introverts.

Being around others and doing social things energize extroverts. In fact, extroverts may tend to climb a wall when given too much alone time. They feel most alive in a crowd.

Neither introvert or extrovert is better nor worse, it just is.

For an extrovert to tell an introvert that they need to ‘be more social’ is like an introvert telling an extrovert to ‘think more’.

Once I had squared this away, my friend’s comment didn’t sting as much. My extroverted friend may have just overlooked my need to do solitary things to feel more energized.

For me, happiness is a good book, a dog walk and time to write. These are things I enjoy on the regular. Yes, they may seem boring as h#ll to others, but probably another introvert would understand.

The other thing I do on the regular with passion is train.

My well-meaning friend discounted training as a hobby – ‘Nope, she said, that’s like brushing your teeth, just a necessity of life. Plus it’s your work so it’s doubly discounted’.

Ouch.

Okay, I understand her point. Many people find fitness to be a chore, something to mark off the ‘to do’ list and thankfully add to the ‘to done’ list a minimum of three times a week.

That is NOT me, and my guess, since you’re on my blog and you’ve read thus far, is that this might not be you either.

People like us live for fitness and health related stuff.

I’m a geek for learning new training techniques, talking ‘fitness shop’, buying fitness gear, discovering new fitness adventures.

When my friend told me that fitness wasn’t my hobby, I suppose she was right…

Fitness is my life.

My whole life has revolved around it. I started as a five year old doing sporty things (competitive swimming at the time). I continued in all things sport related from then on. All the jobs I did as a young adult involved sport. I chose a degree in college (kinesiology) and a career (teaching) because I wanted to encourage others to love movement too. Finally I gave up a teaching career to start a fitness business because I felt compelled to help others in their fitness journey.

Now I get to LIVE my passion, my ‘hobby’ of fitness full time to actually make a living ‘doing fitness’.

She was right. Fitness is not my ‘hobby’.

I feel like sometimes those that don’t enjoy their work need a hobby. They can’t wait until 5 pm or the weekend to do something that they love.

But what if I can’t wait until Monday morning to get up and crack my laptop to write a workout plan? Or plan a fitness boot camp program for my local clients? Or talk about what others are doing for their workout and share what I’m doing?

What if I feel pressured to ‘be social’ on a weekend when I’m really just excited to launch an online coaching program? Or videotape follow-along workouts for you?

After much thought, I decided that I could agree with my friend just a little…sometimes I tend to get immersed a little too deeply in my ‘hobby’ (or I work too much as she’d say) and it’s good for me to actually get out more.

You see, I live in a funny world; someone in a more traditional job may not understand this.

The world is remarkably small with the Internet. I find that with this online business, some of my best friends are all over the world. While this can be exciting for travel, come Friday night, it’s more difficult to plan an outing.

For example, my publishing partner, Lisa Bullock is in Melbourne, Australia. We had a weekly Skype date on Wednesday afternoons for two years before actually meeting in person. I brought Lisa into my business to help manage content for my alter ego – Female Fat Loss Over 40.

When we finally met face to face, we were fast friends. (You can see the way we’re helping women with all things fitness here: www.FemaleFatLossSolutions.com)

In addition to Lisa, I often meet and work with other fitness pros ‘online’ through mutual introductions long before we shake hands in person.

I have opportunity to travel to cool places and hang out with these people from all over. While I love this aspect of my life, I sometimes wish I could do more local hanging out with the company of these like-minded fitness friends.

Fortunately I have some good local friends too. To be completely honest though, I’m not the kind of person with hundreds of them. I’m the typical introvert who tends to have just a few close friends.

My point (and I’m sure there is one here)…is that everyone is a little different and that’s okay. We all find satisfaction in different ways. It’s great to have a passion and it doesn’t matter whether it’s manifested through your work or with a hobby or maybe both. I may be a whole lot different from friend, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I feel very fortunate to be able to share my fitness passion with you. Thank you for your continued support with reading my emails and blog posts.

Do you have any thoughts on the matter?

What are you passionate about? Do you have a hobby? I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.

Posted in Mind Set | No Comments »

Do ONE Simple Thing ==> Lose the Flub

It’s easier that you may think to lose a little flub…more on that in a moment.

Today I’m hitting the road to drive west to go help my Dad move into a retirement home. He’s doing pretty well recovering from his stroke in January. He’s tired of cooking and cleaning for himself though and I think this will be a good move for him.

Back to the flub…Losing it requires just a little ‘thinking’. That is, you need to put some effort into your nutrition if you want to be healthy. ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’ where your fat loss is concerned.

Here are a few simple tips to get you started. Don’t be concerned that it’s not the beginning of the month or a Monday.

Seriously, JUST START, even on a Saturday…

I hear so many people say they’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin where their nutrition is concerned.

So, just begin somewhere.

Maybe it’s only with ONE tip. That’s fine. Implement it, then you can slowly improve your eating by adding more of these suggestions later on.

Here are a few tips (just pick one to start if that’s all you can handle):

* Don’t throw in the towel – If you have a bad meal or snack, don’t sabotage the entire day, just make the next meal or snack better. So if/when you fall into a vat of ice cream (or pasta or ‘fill in the blank’), don’t continue to dwell there. Just hit the reset button.

*Plan your menu. To make your life easy, pick one day to organize your nutrition for the week so you know what you’ll eat when. It makes all the difference and things fall into place much better this way. You can choose a few recipes and plan out your basic meals. When making a recipe, plan to double it so that you’ll have left overs for lunches.

*Stock up. Buy groceries based on your plan. Don’t go to the store hungry and stick with your list.

*Prep. Take an hour or two to get your kitchen organized and food ready to prepare. It’s so much easier to choose veggies in your lunches, for salads and stir fries if they’re pre-chopped. You’ll save money and time while contributing to your health. A Sunday is a perfect day to do this if you have a traditional type week.

*Treat? Stick to the 80/20 rule where you’ll eat clean 80% of the time but you’ll also allow yourself a PLANNED treat. It’s important to take a mental break and relax your eating ‘rules’ to simply enjoy a treat every week. By planning when you’ll treat yourself, it helps you ‘stay the course’ when temptation hits you.

Here’s a bit more direction:

*Include protein.

You’ll want protein with every meal or snack for it’s stabilizing effect on blood sugar. You may want to consider a quality protein powder as well as any of these choices:

-chicken 21 Da
-turkey
-fish
-lean red meat
-tempeh
-edamame
-black beans, red beans, navy beans, white beans
-protein powder

-eggs

-hemp seeds

*Eat a ton of veggies.

You pretty much can eat an unlimited amount of veggies. Variety is the spice of life so eat to your heart’s content.

-kale

-swiss chard
-spinach
-collard greens
-dandelion greens
-parsley, mint, basil or other fresh herbs
-cucumber, celery, sugar snaps or other crunchy veggies
-tomatoes
-carrots
-mushrooms
-sugar snap peas
-onions
-garlic
-broccoli

*Eat fat to get lean

Don’t be afraid to eat healthy fats.

-avocado

-nuts
-chia seeds
-coconut oil
-coconut milk
-olive oil
-olives

*Carbs are not the devil

Choose low glycemic carbs in moderation.

-Fruit: apples, oranges, bananas, apricots, peaches, pears, grapes, kiwi, mango, watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, rhubarb, plum, pineapple, papaya, grapefruit, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, cranberries, cherries

-Plain Greek Yogurt

-Sprouted grain bread (Ezekiel bread), rice bread, spelt bread)

-Other Grains: barley, basmati, quinoa, sprouted grain tortilla wraps  (Ezekiel wraps), Oatmeal, oat bran, Wild rice, brown rice, Pasta – Spelt pasta, rice pasta, or sprouted grain pasta (Ezekiel brand)
If you need more direction, check out the 21 Day Challenge Diet plan.

When you grab my ‘21 Day Challenge Diet plan‘ you’ll get direction on what to eat at home and a ‘Choose It and Lose It‘ restaurant guide so you know what to eat on the go.

It’s all part of my ’21 Day Challenge Diet’ plan that will have you dropping up to 14 pounds sensibly in 21 days.

My beta test group participants got fantastic results in a short time, take a look at Cris and Katherine:

Grab the ’21 Day Challenge Diet’ today and get the BONUS ‘Choose It and Lose It’ restaurant guide too.

Get the best 21-day plan EVER

Okay, time to hit the road…have a great day.

PS. Use the coupon code JustStart to get 30% off.

Posted in Healthy Eating | No Comments »

Less Exercise => MORE Results

Tell the truth….do you do ‘cardio’?

Before my kids, I did a few physique shows. I fared pretty well ending up at the National level here in Canada despite the fact that training for fat loss was different than it is now. Back in the day, I did a lot of traditional steady state cardio to help me get lean. It meant HOURS of pedaling a stationary bike and pumping the stair climber. This was just how it was done – I wasn’t alone in how I trained.

I wish I would have known then what I know now. It would have saved me a ton of time and I’d have gotten MUCH leaner. Take a look at this 2008 study:

If you wedge a 30-60 second burst of intense cardio between your sets of weight training you can achieve nearly TENFOLD greater fat loss.

Here’s proof:

Research from W. Jackson Davis and colleagues at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the University of California at Berkley, looked at this issue in a September 2008 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

They compared the results of 28 women divided into two groups:

Group #1 worked out with weights followed by cardiovascular exercise on a treadmill.

Group #2 did an equal volume of weight training and equal amounts of cardiovascular exercise… only this time they wedged the cardiovascular exercise in-between their sets of resistance training.

After 11 weeks, group #2 outperformed group #1 with significantly MORE progress in all areas:

– 82% greater improvement in muscle gains
– 35% greater improvement in lower body strength
– 52% greater improvement in lower body endurance
– 143% greater improvement in upper body flexibility
– 28% greater improvement in lower body flexibility
– 991% greater loss in fat mass

Pretty incredible: nearly a ten-fold greater loss.

It IS possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time so your workouts don’t have to be marathon long. I look at my physique now and see that I can maintain a level of body fat with virtually NO cardio, certainly NO steady state cardio and my workouts are easily done in 30 minutes (or less!).

Reality: lack of time is the #1 objection most folks have for not training. Do you ever just not have time to fit in a workout? Imagine if you could get your workout DONE in less than 30 minutes?

Sometimes you just don’t have access to equipment as well. I used to think I needed a full on gym to workout. Not so…

Below you’ll find a few examples of the kind of workout you can do anywhere to drop fat and gain muscle. These are my ‘go-to’ style workouts that I do a few times a week, no matter if I’m on holiday or if it’s my normal work-a-day life. They incorporate principles from the study above, what I like to call M2A training – Muscle Metabolism Acceleration.

Now M2A is all about the ‘after burn’. That is, creating a metabolic fire during your workout that stays with you so that you burn MORE calories long after your workout is done. When you train with this sort of intensity, you get the results you’re after.

Get Er Done Anywhere

10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 reps of:

Burpees
Pull ups (alternatives: hanging leg raise or wall sit stick up)
Squats
Spider crawls
Push ups

Do It Dock Workout

45 seconds of work/10 seconds recovery

Jump rope
Push ups
Prisoner Squat
Burpee
Plank

5 rounds

(Un) Lucky 7 AMRAP

Do 7 of each exercise for 15-20 min

Jacks
Prisoner squats
Burpees
Alt side lunges (per side)
Push ups
Skaters (per side)
Spider crawl (per side)

Hella Hills

(Find a good hill) Sprint up hill, walk/jog return – 10 rounds

*I did 10 pull ups on the edge of a walkway at the bottom between hill sprints, but you can do anything – a 30 sec plank, 10 push ups, whatever your space allows or your heart desires 😉

Don’t be fooled into thinking you have to get to some ‘magical’ target heart rate, or ‘put in time’ doing cardio to get lean. In fact, you’ll be surprised at how LITTLE time it takes to lose your belly fat when you’re doing the right workouts.

I’d love to help you.

I can train right beside you HERE. These are follow along workouts that use the M2A principle. You’ll find workouts and a lot more so that you’ll invest LESS THAN 30 MINUTES per day and get MORE of the results you’re looking for. ===>

Now, if all you want to do is BODYWEIGHT workouts, like the ones in this post, I put together a special bundle just for you.

I know that sometimes ALL you have is your bodyweight and a bit of space so I have you covered with this Challenge Workout Bodyweight Bundle where you’ll get 29 bodyweight workouts from various programs that I pulled together just for you. You’ll get workouts from my Fat Loss Challenge (with BONUS video follow alongs), a bodyweight Challenge Complex plan, 10 bodyweight Challenge Burpee workouts and 7 more ‘No Excuses’ bodyweight Challenge Workouts to top it off.

<====This is a no fluff plan for no fluff workouts – just you, your body and a lotta sweat 🙂

Grab the Challenge Workouts Bodyweight Bundle for only $12 (available for a limited time)

Posted in Workouts | 2 Comments »

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