How much is too much?

I hate to admit it but I love gossip mags. Sure I can blame it on my clients or even say I'm getting them for Nicole. The truth is they're damn entertaining. With the success of the Biggest Loser and other similar contest it seems as though every couple of months my gossip mags have the latest rash of fat loss stories from celebrities to the common every day folk. Some are very inspiring. I myself was at one time very overweight. I'm not the tallest of men and the day I joined the Navy in 1994 I was 204 lbs. Needless to say I was taunted from day one. Over the course of my time in the military I developed a love for fitness and made up my mind that when I got out I would pursue a carreer in the fitness industry. Now some 18 years later I weigh about 160 and am doing just that. What I knew I could bring to the table that other trainers couldn't was an empathy for those that struggled with weight loss.
So as I read these stories I ask myself "What is realistic?" I've heard a pound a day. A pound a week. Who's to say for sure. Your weight loss or lack there of will be directly related to 2 things . First the ammount of time and effort you put in. Second , the ammount of distractions you give up. Well we know what that first one means right. You need to workout. Be active at least an hour a day. That second one is the killer. "What do I need to give up?" I hear this all the time. "I know what I need to be doing." So if you know , than what is the problem? The reality is most people don't realy know. I have a line that I use with all my new clients. "There are 24 hours in a day . 168 hours in a week. I see you for 3 of those hours. A great deal of what your body is going to look like will depend on what you do with the other 165 hours." In other words: What you're doing is not working. Lets try something new.
So realisticly what can you expect to lose? Well it all depends on how much you give up. If you give up a large portion of your current counterproductive diet and replace it with healthy lowfat,low starched,low sugar meals in conjuction with 3-5 high intensity workouts a week, The sky is the limit. Well maybe not the sky , but deffinitely some clouds up there.
So here is my own personal little tidbits:


ditch the diet coke
stay away from anything fried.
green=lean
eat high fiber
drink 6 glasses of water a day
don't eat after 7pm
allways have breakfast
jog for 30seconds followed by a 45 sec to a min sprint 10 times
lift weights 4 times a week
stay away from alcohol 5 days out of the week.

The Birth of Bootcamps

When I first started personal training some 15 years ago, Body for Life was the big thing. It was the simplest of concepts. Get people into a competition to see who could lose th most body fat and gain the most muscle in the shortest ammount of time. Prizes were given away. Gym memeberships were sold. EAS and Muscle Media 2000 became a household name. We all in the fitness industry owe a bit of grattitude to Bill Phillips. You youngins don't know who he is? Look him up. Body for Life the book , written by Bill Phillips, stayed on the best seller list for a record 154 weeks!!!! A fitness book for God's sake. And to be quite honest it was a very simple fitness book. Nothing new here, he just broke it down into very easy to follow instructions. Now , most gyms have their own workout challenge. The biggest Loser is a hit TV show. So what is the current trend? Well about 11 years ago a very simple concept started picking up steam. Let's take the model of an aerobic class and apply it to a "blue collar" crowd. We'll model it after the millitary. And we'll call it ......wait for it.......Bootcamp. I started teaching my first civillian bootcamp in 2001. It was the year I started Austin Fitness Extreme. I started off small. When Austin Fitness Extreme launched in 2001 I was one of maybe 3 camps in Austin. There was a Navy Seal bootcamp and a marathon running group. Over the past 11 years around every corner is a bootcamp of some sort. They're running up hills,down hills,up stairs, down stairs,pushing ,pulling,lunging,squating and jumping everywhere. So how do you pick a good one. Hmmm. Pick mine! No seriously. Think about what you want to get out of it. A good bootcamp will constantly evolve, much like the fitness industry. When I started I need a schtick of some sort. I went out and bought 40 kettlebells. A small fortune at the time. However, I was the only bootcamp with them at the time. Now everyone has kettlebells. Since my early days I have added just about every mobile piece of fitness equipment known to man to make myself and my camp more marketable. Most good camps will have aerobic based days and anaerobic days. The concept is to get the best of both worlds and house them under the same roof. Bootcamps should build you up more than they break you down. Don't get me wrong they should be tough , but they should be very doable. Beware of the bootcamp instructor who probably can't do the workout he/she is dictating. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Also beware of any bootcamp that tries to sell you supplements. Like I said pick mine!!!!!!!!!

I need AGILITY

The agility ladder is on of my favorite pieces of tourture. I'vebeen using it for the last 6 years. I remember the first time someone put me through a training plan designed around the agility ladder. Needless to say I tossed my cookies. These days you can encorporate the agility ladder with pretty much any exercise routine. Remember the key here is to always try something new and always challenge yourself . Take John here. In his forties, runs his own company, dad,husband, and he kinda looks like the "Brawney Man". John needed some new ideas for working out outside the regular push/pull/squat routine, so I had him encorporate this with some good ole fashion high knee hurdles. You gotta love it. Not only did he do this several times but we mixed up variations of the exercises to keep his mind and body guessing. At the end of the workout John's heartrate was elevated which gave him the ability to burn more calories post workout. That's key here. Keep your body burning calories. The other key is to not consume bad calories afterwards. I am hoping John didn't make a trip to Burger King when this was done. Keep you're body hydrated. Seventy degrees in Texas during the winter can still be miserable if you don't have enough fluids in your system.

Sports Films

I love a good sports movie. There have been some amazing ones over the years. I think what makes a good sports movie is one in which you care about the characters. Lets see....... Rocky is an amazing sports movie , but when it comes down to it, it's a love story between Rocky and Andrian. In the end it doesn't matter if Rocky wins, you want Adrian to fall in love with him. That theme surrounds all the sequels. For all the boxing, Rocky is a love story. One of my other favorites is Hoosiers. I can't imagine living in Indiana or making high school basketball interesting, but from start to finish you care about the characters. Hoosiers is a movie about ,well.....transition...moving on.....overcoming the past. A coming of age film if you will. I challenge you to not love this film. The Program is a football film about ...........testosterone. It's a film for all of us who never played football in college but wishes we could have hung out with the team. You guys all wanted to be Joe Kane or Lattimer.
With all that said I hate mixed martial arts films. They are horrible. For the record if Kimbo Slice is in the film ....it sucks. Just sayin. The movie Warrior is amazing. Yes it is surrounded by the world of MMA, but man it's about family. Two brothers fighting in a tournament for two different reasons, but both trying to shake the shadows of the past. It's amazing. I almost cried..........but hell no I didn't. Instead I did 70 pushups and shadowboxed afterwards. Just like when I watched Rocky. Do yourself a favor ......watch it.