“Life Begins At The End Of Your Comfort Zone“

-Neale Donald Walsch

I find this quote to be so true,

I believe that life (Time) keeps on moving forward no matter what. I also believe that if one stays in his or her “Comfort Zone” you become stagnant and WILL be pasted by life. So take action NOW! Challenge yourself and start living!

And do it with a smile, it makes it more enjoyable!

What are your thoughts on this?

Here is an  extremely well written article from an old (not so old) colleague of mine. Not to mention a rational and intelligent person that I highly respect. I’m sure that many of us have shared the same experience. Way to go Alfred! 2 thumbs up on this one my friend

12 Business Lessons from Big Box Gyms By Alfred Ball

There are pivotal times in life when one decision alters your career path;. mine have been in 1994, 2000, 2007 and 2011. After twelve years of being involved with a larger multi-location fitness facility as an employee and vendor I moved my business to completely independent. Which oddly enough has opened more doors of opportunity. In 2000, I thought that working as a Personal Trainer who specialized in rehabilitation, such as Fitness World for a few years would help launch my career. I became one of their top selling Personal Trainers and a Group Fitness Manager during seven years of employment before negotiating a strategic alliance that became Lifemoves.  Before the merger Fitness World was a family run business with the original founder still very much involved. I am very grateful for the support I was given to open my own business within a business in 2007.  The idea was to test run a rehabilitation centre within a larger fitness centre with multiple locations however, this changed in December 2010.  Little did I know how long I would be involved with them or what I would learn.

As a group fitness instructor it took me one year to get new equipment for our programs.  When there are multiple layers to go through, sometimes there are road blocks that occur. These road blocks prevent organizations from thriving or taking advantage of competitive opportunities.  As a company grows make sure that your employees have enough freedom with guidance to see their own initiatives completed.  Evaluate each project on its own merits, but don’t take so long that opportunities are missed.

We always had to know our daily numbers which lead to our projected figures and monthly revenues. Those without a business sense weren’t sure why it was important. If you don’t know what your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are or where they at for a particular time period you are unable to make necessary strategic adjustments.  Over the last few years I have figured that there are specific indicators of our performance that leads to revenue. Our income statement is merely a reflection of the actions we took to execute our strategies.

Part of what makes people want to work or participate in a great environment is the people. With the merger the energy of the gym shifted from something that was really friendly and family oriented to something more corporate.  I want  Lifemoves’ clients and staff to be part of a family whom feel as though we are all working together to get people moving for life. As a business owner I still have to manage our KPIs.

A manager has specific tasks to accomplish throughout the day and things to look after. Leaders take initiative, coach and guide people to become better at what they do. New Personal Trainers would approach me for guidance even though I was not their manager because I took the time to help them improve their teaching and business skills. With the merger there is now more coaching happening.

Yup, People are Awesome!

Came across this video today and just wanted to share it with you. It just reinforces what I’ve been saying for years;

“Everything & Anything is possible, you just have to believe and put your mind to it”!

Enjoy the Video

Yesterday a client of mine and real good friend sent me a very inspiring piece of writing by Lucas G. Irwin an MBA and all natural pro fitness model out of Miami FL.  I thought it would be a great one to share with you. This is for all the times you’ve been criticised and nagged! 

Thank You GI!

Until next time my friends,

Cheers & Here’s to Health!

If you’re worried about gaining weight over the holidays you’re not alone.The average North American gains between 7 and 12 pounds over  holidays. But it doesn’t have to be so. By following these simple tips and tricks you can avoid the holiday weight gain that afflicts so many other people:

#1 Drink Water – and Lots of It. I know, I know! Not exciting but the simple reason this first tip comes back year after year is that it works! Here’s how it works: By keeping your body well hydrated it will delay the onset of hunger not to mention it also keeps your metabolism moving at a descent clip. Celebrities alike have known this little secret for a very long time.

#2 Second Rounds – Eliminate them. One of my client has had incredible success by doing just that. Not going for second servings, he was able to successfully eradicate 7 lbs from his body in just over 1 1/2 month. Remember, the more you eat, the more you want and it takes approximately 10 minutes for you body to feel full after eating.

#3 Don’t be a gluten – pace yourself. Following the above tip and the 10 minute theory, eat slowly, take the time to chew (my problem). By pacing yourself and enjoying the quality of food instead of the quantity your body will digest a lot easier and it will have time to respond to the fullness feeling.

#4 Increase your level of activities a little bit every day. Ok, It’s the Holiday season and everyone deserves to indulge in little treats here and there. Part of the fun of the holiday season is the amazing treats that are only around during that time and that’s all cool but make sure you make up for it elsewhere. Like by increasing your exercise. Remember, calories in Vs calories out. Now I’m not suggesting doubling your workout times till you drop, but by simply bringing-up the intensity  a little or adding an extra visit to your local gym per week.

#5 Avoid eating to late -The late eating rule still apply. Yes unfortunately  your body does not know it’s the holiday season and it will not burn-off all those late heavy meals in your sleep. So if you can avoid those late snacks and heavy meals you will be one step ahead of everyone for the New Year.

By applying these simple 5 tips, it will help you not to feel so crappy about what you’ve eaten and the way you’ve eaten during this Holiday season. It will also be allot easier to maintain your weight instead of falling for the old “catch-up game”.

Wishing you all a fantastic Holiday season and Yes I’m going to say it, the “BIG FAUX-PAS”

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all.

Cheers & Here’s to Health

“Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

    (Mark Twain)

Infinity Warrior is a Trade Mark of Agilispeed.com

Pizza declared as a vegetable by US Congress?? What??

Last week the US Congress passed a revised appropriation bill making it easier to count Pizza Sauce as one serving of vegetables. Pizza as a vegetable? But….?

Well… Not really! I think a little misinterpretation of what was actually written, has set off a slew of rash comments and  widespread outrage from consumer advocates. Here is what Sarah Kliff  form The Washington Post had to say and posted  early this morning.

“Let’s revisit the facts: Despite what one might expect from the headlines, if you scour the agriculture appropriations bill, referenced in numerous stories, you won’t find a single mention of the word “pizza,” or even “vegetable,” for that matter.

This is not a fight over pizza. It is, instead, a fight about tomato paste. Specifically, it’s a fight about how much of the product counts as one serving of vegetables.

Right now, tomato paste gets a sort of special treatment under school lunch regulations. Just “an eighth of a cup of tomato paste is credited with as much nutritional value as half a cup of vegetables,” my colleague Dina ElBoghdady explained last week.

The Obama administration guidelines, outlined in January, would have nixed tomato paste’s extra credit, counting a half cup as a half cup. “Under this proposal, schools would credit tomato paste and puree based on actual volume as served,” the regulation, published in the Federal Register on Jan. 13, 2011, explains. “Schools would not be allowed to credit a volume of fruits or vegetables that is more than the actual serving size.”

What happened this week was that Congress blocked that change: Tomato paste will continue to get outsized credit, with one-eighth of a cup essentially counted as something four times larger.

This makes it easier, and cheaper, for pizza manufacturers to produce a product that includes a serving of vegetables. But it by no means declares the pizza itself a vegetable. Schools lunches are still measured by federal regulations for calories (no more than one-third of daily recommended value) and fat content (less than 30 percent of the meal), which limits how much pizza students can be served. A cafeteria worker can’t just pile a slice of pizza on a plate and say she’s serving salad.

Back to the tomato paste controversy: Should a smaller serving of tomato paste have equal footing with a half-cup of other fruits and vegetables?

If you stack one-eighth of a cup of tomato paste up against a half-cup of some pretty common fruits and vegetables, the paste actually doesn’t do so badly. Here are nutrition facts for one-eighth of a cup of tomato paste (left) versus a half a cup of apples (right):

All told, the nutrition facts look really similar. Tomato paste does do a lot worse on sodium, but it also does much better in terms of calcium and potassium content. It also slightly edges out apples on dietary fiber, with a lower amount of sugar.

I tested out a few other comparisons, and they came out relatively close. You can see the results below.

Measuring fruit and vegetable servings by volume is a bit of an odd convention in the first place. When it comes to calories and nutrients, they’re really all over the map. A half-cup of avocado is quite nutritionally different from a half-cup of zucchini.

As for the half-cup of tomato paste at the center of this debate, it would no doubt have had more nutrients than an eighth-cup. Advocacy groups were disappointed to see the regulatory change blocked. More tomato paste would mean more pizza sauce, would mean more potassium and fiber. But the smaller serving, in strictly nutritional terms, looks a whole lot like the larger serving of some of the most common fruits and vegetables we consume.

Moreover, it’s far from clear how much this decision matters for what students actually eat. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture writes guidelines for what school meals should look like, few schools actually follow them. Just 20 percent of schools served meals that met federal guidelines for fat content, according to a 2007 USDA audit.”

(by Sarah Kliff Reporter The Washington Post)

Well, hope this clears the confusion on this issue. That’s it for now.

Chere’s & Here’s to Health.

Back on November 7th of this year I wrote about Americans being overweight by 68% and also wrote that Canadians were not that far behind. Well after a little research and digging here are the recent numbers for Canada. It’s interesting how they write that almost 45% of Canadian women aged 18 to 79 had a normal weight for their height as did 31% of men. Well, I guess that when Canadians write about themselves they stay reserved and polite! hahhah! Folks lets face it, once the color mask and the smoke and mirrors have been removed, this is how it should read: 69% of men and 55% of woman are overweight in Canada! Ok, maybe not 100% accurate as we do have the underweight crowd to account for, here are those numbers: 0.8% of men and 2.2% of woman are underweight. Oh.. hummmm.. I guess that does mean 69% of men and 55% of woman are overweight, except for a mere fraction, according to Stats Canada and a Canadian wide Health Measure Survey done between 2007 and 2009!

Here is a chart put together by Statistics Canada on this exact subject and it breaks down the age and gender from 2005 to 2010. You will see it is pretty alarming and I wasn’t so far off when I wrote my first article on this, just a few days ago. YES WE ARE GETTING CLOSE TO THE AMERICAN NATION in that regard!

So I ask the question again, where do you stand in those numbers? What are you doing in order to fight this obesity epidemic? Because yes, it is an epidemic when we pass the 50% mark and as you can see on the chart, it is not slowing down!

Together as Nation we can make a difference, we can make changes for our future and that does not mean our far future but our immediate future starting NOW! It is as simple as Taking action, ONE SMALL ACTION EVERY DAY, that’s it. Stop talking about it, stop thinking about it JUST START!!!. Take a step in the right direction. One step would be to download the FREE report on the right of this paragraph called “The Missing Piece”. Take your first action NOW! What are you waiting for?

Together we can make a healthier Nation for us and our children to enjoy for a very long time.

Until Next time,

Cheers & Here’s to Health.

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Here’s a fun way to burn 2000 calories, Just leave it to the Europeans! lol

At the end, the translation is: “We would get thinner easier, if it was more fun”

So put a little fun in your workouts, switch it around, chances are you will stick to it much longer.

Enjoy

(This was a commercial put together for a French water company called Contrex)