Sunday, October 11, 2009

Holiday workout - and healthy snack

So, I always talk about not letting your motivation and fitness slip when we go away on holidays. It is so easy to slip in to our old routines of not working out.

I was away on my honeymoon, and despite travelling a lot, I still managed to work out 5-6 times in the 3 weeks. And not just little ones either, but full strong ones. But I also have shown 3 simple exercises that won't take long and that you can do anywhere. It just happened to be this one in Sydney with glorious sun-shine. Enjoy the view of the harbour.

I have also given a recipe for some healthy snacks that are easy to make, and will give you are great boost straight after your workout. So enjoy and keep the faith



Healthy bars: So easy to make, even adults will like them: 4 bars: 1/4 cup honey 1/4 cup cashewbutter or peanut butter 3/4 cup porridge oats chopped nuts or dried fruits Melt the honey and cashew butter until liquid, then add fruit and oats. Roll up until hardened. Flatten out on plate, put in fridge. For energy snack bar, add 1 scoop of whey protein powder



Saturday, October 3, 2009

Love, drive, and pure motivation

No gimmicks on this post.

Without love we are nothing. If we dont have love we don't get to have a great life.

Richard Branson once said "Enjoy life, you only get one!".

But if your life is one in a wheelchair because you have cerebral palsy you are not suppose to do much, right? Wrong.

Rick Hoyt has CP, but he also has the love of his dad Dick. And that love takes them on adventures together, and the pure motivation that Dick has to ensure his son has a life filled with love and quality goes beyond just the will to do something special.

I ask of you all just this.: Watch the video below. Get inspired, get motivation. If you do one thing today, let it be one of love or motivation. Ring a family member, a friend or someone you haven't spoken to in a while. Tell them how you are doing. Or you can make one change in your life, or do something good.

Take inspiration from the video, and keep the faith




Claus

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Pyramid of pain for super abs, bungee jumps and bootcamps

It has been a while, but I have been busy with training, getting ready for the wedding and running the bootcamps

Most of you will know that I am getting married on Saturday, and I am getting very excited now. I am lucky that I get to marry my best friend in Kate

Picture attached, you may start to sigh at this point at my loveliness...




On a more serious note, I am really in to getting ready for tough guy 2010. I need to train so hard for this. I have been talking to Jon Le Toq (he of world's toughest workouts fame), and I know this will be the toughest thing I have ever done

So this morning I did one of Jon's workouts:
The Pyramid of pain:
Kettelbell snatches
Burpees
Renegade dumbbell rows

I used 15Kg kettlebells, 10 Kgs's Dumbbells. I am not as tough as Jon.. Yet.....
The sets are as follows: 5,10,15,20,20,15,10,5 - thats what I did. Jon did a
bit more. See the video






As you all should know by now I am off to NZ for the honeymoon, I will do a bungeejump, again see the video below.



Adam will be running the bootcamps, every Tuesday at 19.00, we will do "pay as you go" for the last couple of months. Just turn up, have a great workout and pay 10 Euro on the spot

==> BOOTCAMP <==

Until Sep 14th, keep the faith and train safely. But above all else, enjoy life and have fun


Claus

Friday, July 24, 2009

Fasting for fatloss, especially women

I often wonder why you see couples together and the guy is looking fit, and the woman has "put on a few pounds". A friend of mine called Brad Pilon has written a very good piece about it

You can get his whole concept of fasting here : "Brad Pilon's eat stop eat"

Here is what Brad wrote:

"I’ve thought of about a million different ways to explain this…and the best I’ve come up with is a fictional story…

So here it goes.

Why "Brad Pilon's eat stop eat" works so well for women




Janet first met Kevin when they were in College.

Kevin was 6′2″ and 205 pounds. While he wasn’t an ‘athlete’ he worked out regularly and maintained a fairly muscular build for his height.

Janet was 5′6″ and 135 pounds. In her youth she was involved in just about every sport imaginable. From field hockey and soccer to swimming and dance, Janet was active, as a result she had the typical ‘fit’ and athletic body that other women her age hated her for having!

Janet didn’t really have a weight issue during college. Sure, her weight increased and hovered around 140 pounds by her senior year, but for the most part she had it under control.

That is until she and Kevin got married and moved in together.

They both lived very busy lives, balancing their new careers with trying to maintain some sort of social life.

As a result, both Kevin and Janet ate out a fair bit. Nothing extreme, maybe 2 or 3 times per week.

When they were at home Kevin cooked them relatively healthy meals, and they almost always ate breakfast and dinner together.

after 4 years of marriage, Kevin still weighed about 205 pounds. Sure, there wasn’t quite as much muscle, and he was a little ’softer’ around the stomach, but for the most part…not much had changed.

Janet on the other hand, hated her body.

Her once athletic build could now only be described at ‘thick’. She spent a great deal of time stressing over what she ate, making sure she ate enough protein, kept a close eye on her carbs and always took her fish oils pills.

Despite this, she was finding it a never ending battle to keep her weight below the dreaded 160 pound mark..but when work became stressful she could easily find herself in the mid 160’s.

Her breaking point was a couple days after last thanksgiving, when she actually weighed in with a night-time before-bed weight of 170 pounds.

To Janet this was devastating..and she was completely oblivious to why it was happening.

She had joined a gym, and even committed to going on nightly walks with Kevin, but to no avail.

Her friends said she ate too much sugar, but for the most part the meals that her and Kevin ate were very healthy.

She finally chalked it up to her metabolism. It simply must have slowed down.

It was probably all the stress at work..or maybe it was some rare hormonal thing she inhereted from her mother.

The truth?

Janet was putting on weight because she ate too much.

More specifically, she put on weight because she ate the same amount as Kevin.

They had the same size servings of almost everything they ate.

And since Kevin was (for the most part) maintaining a weight of around 200 pounds, and was just about as active as Janet, it meant that Janet was eating enough food to maintain a weight of…well..right around 200 pounds!

When they would go to the restaurant and order the same meal, Kevin didn’t get the ‘Big Guy’ serving size, while Janet got the ’slim girl’ serving size…both plates looked identical.

When Kevin made them healthy omelets, he didn’t make one for himself then a half an omelet for Janet, he simply made two omelets.

This is the plight of women.

Most serving sizes in restaurants are too big for the average man, let alone a woman who is 4 inches shorter and 40-60 pounds lighter.

And, for the most part, when we are at home we don’t ‘downsize’ the portion sizes for the smaller person.

Even if we tried, we generally end up at some middle ground that is still a little too much for an average sized woman.

This is why Eat Stop Eat works so well for so many women. It gives you a chance to play a little catch up. Or more correctly to play a little ‘fall behind’.

It allows you to eat at a restaurant without having to leave 1/3 of your food on your plate.

You can eat at home with your family without cutting your chicken breast in half and giving it to the dog.

It is a dietary custom/portion size equalizer.

Food for thought.

BP"

I would like to point out at this point that Brad has spent his whole life researching this, and he knows what he is talking about. I personally use his methods and his book, and I can tell you they work.

"Brad Pilon's eat stop eat"

Keep the faith




Claus

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Great healthy lunch for less than 2 Euro


One of the ethos's of our bootcamp ==>bootcamp<==, is that you have to have a healthy diet. We always maintain that you can not ever outrun, outsprint or outtrain a poor diet.

I do get a lot of questions about the cost of living healthy. Well, its not that expensive. I went to LIDL at lunch time to once again prove my point. The vegetables I picked up (pepper and tomato) were organic. Yes, LIDL do organic.

What I decided on was a Garlic and corriander wrap with Houmus, roast chicken, rocket, feta, pepper, and tomato. Wow, I am full after this and this is the lay out of it:

It cost me €2.04 for the actual food, and the it had 310 calories and 11.6 grams of fat (daily intake should be around 67 grams)

Now don't tell me you cant do this.

This is also good for losing general fat and boosting your metabolism

With our bootcamps we do individual mealplans, and this is one of the many recipe's we have here...

Keep the faith

==>bootcamp<==

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Losing weight and keeping fit on holidays

So I know its like 0720 AM on a Thursday morning, but I just need to get this one out.

I have so many people telling me " I know I let it slip when I was on holiday, just need to get back in to it" or "still trying to lose the fat from holidays"

Right, enough of the excuses people. Holidays are your time to relax, but that does not mean you should treat your body like crap and fill it with garbage. Nor does it mean you can not have a workout on holiday.

I have just come back from my holidays with my 2 girls, and we cycled every day (the girls loved it) and we jumped in the pool too. Even in the pool I got a workout with the girls. 2 of them hanging on my back while I played train and sprinted around the pool. Exercise should be fun, lets not forget that

I also did 1 big workout in a childrens playground after the children were in bed. It consisted of pull-ups (on the swing set), decline push ups (on the slide) and lots of squats and lunges. The finished off with sprints

Just some of the stuff we do at bootcamp

===> DUBLINS BEST BOOTCAMP <===

Foodwise I discovered why I was extremely lean as a young man. I ate fish nearly every day. Something I have started again, and I will give you the links later Guess what, I had ice cream too on my holiday. And beer... Shocking I know.

Now here is the shocking thing: I lost 2 lbs of weight in that week!!!!

A healthy balance of exercise, good food and a feelgood factor makes you maintain or lose body fat. Surprise surprise We have to realise that food is fuel for our body. It is not a bin. If we treat our body like a bin and fill it with rubbish, then it will behave like a bin. It will smell, and it will not have any functions other than a bin..

So, my new goal is to eat more fish now. I live in a big department complex near Phoenix Park, so it's not always easy to get fish.

But a good friend of mine at work got me the name of a guy who does home delivery. Shockingly he lives in the same complex as me. Small world. He brought me the nicest fish I have seen in a long time. All the portions were individually wrapped and the quality was so good. You should try this. His name is Shane, he works for his dad and you can contact him at terrygilesandsons@gmail.com

It will be worth your while.

I got the fish on Tuesday night after the bootcamp, and I actually made a really nice salmon dinner:



Get 2 salmon fillets or salmon steaks. About 150-200 grams each

Put them each in a piece of tin foil (big enough so that it can close up
like a parcel). A bit of rock salt (the rough big chunks), pepper and some
dill (can buy it in any supermarket cheap, comes in a glass jar where all
the herbs are). Add 3 cherry tomatoes cut in half to each parcel. Now
close it up

Put it in the oven at 220 degrees celcius for about 22-24 mins. With 7
mins to go, put on some veg and boil or steam it. Pick any you want. We
had leeks and peas, but cauliflower, carrots and broccoli is all good.

This was an incredible dinner, and so worth the while

I still offer individual meal plans for everyone at bootcamp, so if you are not there already come and join this exciting place


===> DUBLINS BEST BOOTCAMP <=== Keep the faith

Claus

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Healthy food is easy and cheap

I am amazed by the amount of people that complain about their shape, and then blame it on not being able to cook.

Well this one is easy. Tonight I had a really healthy omelette. It took me about 10 mins to make, and it is full of good stuff

3 eggs
chilli - chopped
A bit of onion - chopped
Mushroom
Spinach - finely chopped
1 slice of extra thin ham - chopped
A bit of milk
Pepper


All cooked in organic coconut oil, with a small bit of low fat cheese at the end

Now who can't cook that?

Has all the right ingredients in it, and it is very easy to make...

So get cooking.

For the real deal workout with us in the park, come to ===BOOTCAMP===





Keep the faith

Claus