Kat’s Chats

Hi All!

A day in the life of Kat is very busy as usual – but very productive of course 🙂

My latest passion is audiobooks – I love them. I can listen to a book every few days – it’s so much faster than getting through reading books – although I love that too, I find listening while I walk and commute fantastic. I’m learning and growing so much. HIGHLY recommend www.audible.com – one of the best (cheap!) investments I’ve ever made – and anything by Jim Rohn or Brian Tracy is amazing, they are like my Godfathers/mentors.

I’m also into listening podcasts; just wish I had more time in the day to listen to all the great content out there!

Training –

This week my training steps up a level. I’ve been doing cardio every day and weights every night, now it’s time to add in another cardio session and it’s time to hit the machines for a shock to my body and something different. I don’t generally use cardio machines as they bore me to tears. I much prefer outdoor running and body weight circuits, but with the right motivation and music, I’m determined not to let the machines beat me. I’m out to conquer them!

On Saturday I did an hour at the gym – steep incline hill walking, stepper and X-trainer, plus recumbent bike; I hate that you don’t burn many calories on the bike or get your heart rate up – and I hate sitting down at the gym, but I got a really good Quad burn which is what I need! My upper body is getting lean but my legs are lagging behind – as usual. 1000’s of walking lunges are helping, but hopefully this extra cardio will be the deal clincher. I talk to my legs often – as though I’m a Sargeant Major and they are my soldiers (Come on girls, push yourselves harder!!) 😉

This week I take my calorie output up by 2,000, my high rep leg workouts up to 800 reps per session (700 last week) and will be training heavier on my upper body to try and get as much muscle on my shoulders and lats as I can (anything to create the illusion my waist is smaller helps!)

Nutrition –

Nutrition this week is stricter. Taking the berries out of my morning shake so now it’s protein powder, barley grass, cinnamon, wheat bran and spinach. And lots of ice. Still very yummy! Cutting fruit out except post morning workout.

Now having oats 1x a day (in the form of a muffin with stevia and egg white powder – great texture!!), and the rest of the day is chicken breast, egg whites, turkey breast, lean mince (less than 5% fat 2x a week), salmon 2x a week and loooooooad of my best friends – vegetables! I’m up to 7-9 serves of veges per day now. They keep me full and satisfied – mentally and physically!! I’ve been researching new quick vege recipes and coming up with some great ways to make them more interesting 🙂 Veges are a major KEY to fat loss!

Well done…

to all my ‘Improvement challenge’ Personal Training clients – there are some fabulous results with everyone pushing their limits in the following disciplines –

1 minute box jumps
Pull ups
30 second Inverted Rows
1 minute press ups
1 minute sit ups
1 legged Plank
5 minute Treadmill distance
Sit and reach test
Swiss ball balancing – with ball throws and bicep curls!

Everyone is going for it and it’s great to see how much a bit of ‘healthy competition’ can help us strive to better ourselves 🙂

I’m also doing a lot more nutrition coaching online which is fantastic, technology is brilliant!

‘Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail’
Harold R. McAlindon

Until next time, keep pushing your limits! We all place WAY too many ourselves – dare to have a day where you make no excuses!

Kat

Kat’s Chats – Training and cooking fun

Friday already! The week’s are flying by!

It’s been a busy week at the gym.

For the next few weeks, I’m running a small challenge with my clients – the ‘Bodyweight 200 challenge’
See – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvz8yckjLLo

It’s a fun way to test your muscle endurance and there’s a bit of healthy competition going on! My goal is to get everyone doing it in under 13 minutes.

I’m also testing a lot of my client’s P.B’s (Personal bests) and aiming to get people squatting and benching with their best effort. I’ll post some pics soon.

I have had a GREAT week of training!

Monday – Legs were still smoked from Friday’s heavy session of my P.B on the squat (80kg, 4 sets) so I did some cardio during the day to loosen up, then at night trained with Hani – Chest and arms.

I hit a P.B of 50kg on the bench press for 5 reps – WOOHOO! Have never done near that weight before, and what a feeling! I was Soooooooooooooo very very happy.  I love love love love feeling the strongest I’ve been. Totally love it. Can you tell I’m excited about this?
Ok there was slight ‘finger-tip’ help for the last 2 reps, but apparently it was ‘all me’ (you can never be sure).
I usually jump up and say “Did you help me much??” and hopefully get a “Not at all!” 😉

Tuesday I got to bed at 1am but managed to get up at 5.30am and get to the gym for a 7.30am kick-boxing class. I loved it!
It’s a new class at the gym, similar to Les Mills Body Combat. The instructor is a Capoeira teacher at LA Fitness, Bayswater. I’ve recently got a new client who I’m training to get fitter for Capoeira so it was great to talk to him about what’s involved and try some of the moves myself. I like the basic dance moves, very graceful. Some of the hand walk stuff is SO tricky!
Check out this clip for an advanced version. It’s a beautiful way to move your body!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwG7JwXtUSI&feature=related

Wednesday – Did a back workout at lunchtime which I really feel now! Spent 5-10 minutes rolling on the foam roller at lunchtime today to ease some tension (although it’s a really nice sore of course). Then at night I did high rep/endurance legs consisting of –

– 20 mins on the power plate – mainly single leg squats, lunging combinations, jumps on top, runs on top, glute squeezes etc.
– Walking lunges – 150 (6 sets of 25)
– Jumps onto the bench – 100 (4 sets of 25)
– Squats on the swiss ball (did 40 in a row and actually could have easily kept going but got bored!)
– Single leg press

My legs were like jelly, walking up the escalators at the train stations afterwards was a laugh!

Last night was shoulders and abs, I did a lot of heavy 1 arm work and kettle-bells. I love the power stuff. Plus weighted crunches of all variety. It hurts to laugh today 🙂

This morning I did heavy legs again – my favourite! Bulgarian lunges and step ups with the olympic bar loaded up, wwwhhhooooooohhhh…. Quads were on fire! 🙂 🙂

My whole body feels quite spent but lovely and achy, with training hard twice a day, late nights and early mornings, so I’m looking forward to a quiet weekend.Have been unwinding a lot on the foam roller so I can recover quicker. Was nearly in tears doing my I.T bands this morning.

I’m cooking for my flatmates on Saturday (they groaned when they heard it’s going to be healthy, but I’m going to prove to them that healthy can be yum!)

Food is on track although it’s quite a bit, I feel I need the extra calories at the moment with trying to put on more muscle. It’s all clean food. Haven’t touched any packet food all week, just fresh and homemade from my big cook up on Sunday – Stir-fries, soups etc. Actually, I’ve had some wholegrain rye bran crackers but they’re 100% natural – with nut butter – delish!

I bought some flaxseed meal which I’ve been sprinkling on my porridge, I like the texture for a change and it’s keeping me fuller a bit longer as I’m normally hungry 2 hours after porridge but it’s lasting me about 2.5-3 hours now.
Need to cut down on coffee, had 5 yesterday – oops, but normally it’s 2 a day max. when I’m not having such long days, and have been having herbal tea at night.

I’ll finish with a great quote –

“I’m not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat.”
Michael Jordan

Until next time, stay sharp, positive and focused on your goals 🙂

Happy Valentines Day for Sunday! I hope you will be celebrating love (single, in love or otherwise!)

Kat

Want better results?

How do I get better results?

Here’s your Action plan!….

*DEMAND MORE from your body. When you’re grinding that bike or gunning up that hill – If your lungs scream at you, tell them to shut up!
Can you go higher?
Deeper? …  Harder? … Longer?
What limits are you placing on yourself? Are they genuine or are they just excuses?

Do you want to walk out of each session feeling like you’ve done your very best?
Only you know when that is…

*Remember – Pain is temporary – Quitting is forever. You don’t want any regrets.
Think back to what your goals were when you started your particular program. Are you on track? EVERY WORKOUT COUNTS! Each time you stop yourself short – whether it’s 1 bad attitude day, 1 workout, 1 rep, 1 min – you’re 1 step behind in your goal. Make every moment an opportunity to use wisely and not waste it!

Calculate what % of your time you’re devoting to your health and fitness.
We all have 168 hours in our week to ‘spend’. How are you spending your 168? Is there any way you can sneak an extra hour or 2 in of activity somewhere?
Your mind will straight away come up with excuses why not to do things. Otherwise, you’d be doing them now. Get creative. Turn off the voice of doubt and starting thinking WHAT IF. Why not see how far you can go? Is it really that impossible?

Consider – Adding a 30 min brisk walk 3 mornings a week would rev your metabolism up for the day, give you some additional and probably well needed ‘you time’ and add up to an additional 6 hours of cardio in a month, just by making a simple and ‘do-able’ change in your lifestyle. Can you just for a minute take some time to really be honest with yourself. Adopt some WHY NOT thinking!

What have you been putting off?
When are you going to do it?
If not now, when?
Why not see what you can become or how much you can grow?

*Find at least 3 pictures from a magazine or the Internet that you will look at daily to help reinforce your goals.

Print out and put in at least 2 places – e.g. fridge, wallet, bedroom wall.

PICTURES ARE POWERFUL! This one task can literally change your thinking when you’re deciding what actions to take.
Focus on physiques that you would like to look like, or people that are doing things you’d like to do.

Every morning when I wake up, I look at a page of pictures I have stuck on the wall by my bed – they are of fantastic women sweating, boxing, running up hills and pumping weights – and they all look strong and toned. It makes me hurry to strap my Ipod on and head out for my run.

Enjoying your life through having the best health you can is a great reward for disciplined and consistent effort.

It pays off in numerous ways!

You feel energised, strong, alive and ready to take on the challenges of life!

Goals!

Big Goals, Little Goals!

You may have big goals you are working towards (If not, I hope you will start thinking of some!)

Big picture goals of how we want to be, keep our lives interesting, satisfying, focused and fun!

But how about the small day to day goals?
We don’t only need big picture goals of where we want to get to, but habits or ‘mini goals’ that we are working on daily.
You’ll often hear me call them ‘tasks’. Although they are still goals, weekly mini-goals should be small – and for good reason.

Small works. Small can be rescheduled, reorganised and easily resumed. Small builds early success and lots of momentum.

Something as small as substituting food choices or an extra cardio session a week can make a huge positive impact.

Your daily and weekly tasks should work within the lifestyle you’re dealing with.
Yes, your lifestyle is going to have to change as you move towards your goals. But healthy change starts in bits and pieces.

Your life is what it is. Ideal or not, that’s your starting point and what you have to deal with.
You’ll be a lot happier – and a lot saner – if you work with your existing lifestyle instead of against it.
Ignoring realities of your daily life just invites failure and frustration.

Small changes are barely noticed.

Every day, whether you think so or not, you’re faced with small opportunities to make healthy choices and build healthy habits, to make changes that you may not even notice. You have the chance now to get good at recognising those small windows of opportunity.

Millions of people hope to change their body. Only a few actually prepare for it. They treat it like a game, setting out and hoping it’ll all work out. No wonder the dieting failure rate hovers near 95%.

Any time you’ve reached a meaningful goal, it was because you were ready for it. It didn’t just happen or fall in your lap. If it did, that’s more good fortune than goal achievement.

The difference between hoping something will happen and making it happen is preparation. Not too many people gain a great body through luck or good fortune, so you’ll probably have to rely on preparation.

Here are some strategies you can start right now to be more prepared:

* Think 10-15 Minutes. We’re all faced with little blocks of time throughout the day that could be put to better use. See how many you can fill up with short bursts of physical activity. For example, if you’re early for an appointment, go for a walk instead of reading a magazine.

* Take healthy snacks to work. When the munchies come calling, you won’t need to run to the snack box or nearest cafe.

* Pack a gym bag and keep it in your car, at the office, or by your front door – for use on a moments notice.

* Smart Substitutions. Don’t be afraid to ask cafes or restaurants to make things exactly how you want them. It’s your body and your choice! Rather than removing something from your life, think about the best thing you can have instead.

Here are some of the substitutions I’ve made part of my life over the years –
– From Flat white/latte to long black (it took time to get used to but eventually you do!)
– Sandwiches to salads
– Lollies to protein bars
– Beer to Vodka, soda and fresh limes (still not ideal, but less bloating and your body will process it easier)
– Bread to sweet potato (you can fill it with almost anything!)
– Pasta to brown rice
– Snacking on crackers to snacking on raw veges

I don’t even fathom eating pasta or drinking beer or a host of other things any more that I used to do and not even think about. These things are just no longer part of my life. It’s not hard – because I’ve found suitable substitutions.

Some more ideas –

* Leave healthy snacks throughout your house, your office and even your car. You don’t want to be caught out being forced to make a choice between bad and worse.

* When you cook, make a big batch and save some for later. Freeze in bulk when you have time such as on the weekend.

* Combine Goals. Works especially well with social or family goals. See if there’s someone who can join you for a walk, make a healthy dinner together, or meet you at the gym for a class to make sure you turn up.

* Plan Ahead. Every program could benefit from a little forethought…

A few of these substitutions every day and you’ve got a great head start!

Something as important as your health deserves some concentration…

Yours in health and fitness,

Kat