Mind Over Body

Getting to that next level of fitness can be challenging. Whether your a beginner, elite or someone in between.

Pushing your body to the next level requires commitment to nutrition, consistent workouts and one other important link in the puzzle.

YOUR MIND!

The Power of the Mind is so critical it cannot be over-stated. I get a lot of questions about how to lose weight, get faster, stronger and healthier. What I realized throughout my eleven years as a fitness professional is that the reason most people cannot lose the weight, or get themselves up at 5 am to workout, or to push themselves to that next level is because they have something that is called...

"Stinkin thinkin"

Too many people have these negative thoughts in their head that it limits the body from producing the physical result that you are after!

Remember this "What your mind can believe, you can achieve"

It is so important to visualize the end result that you are after. This is because the subconscience cannot differentiate what is visualized in the mind and what is real.

So if you are constantly thinking that your body is lean, that you can workout hard for as long as you want to, that your losing fat every day and you picture what your body will look like, then your subconscience mind will already think its real and you will eventually get to your goal!

The mind is the most powerful human muscle in the body! So use it to its fullest potential!

The End of the Year Fitness Resolution

End of the year resolution? Don't you mean New year's resolution?

Well actually,no.

Now that we have officially ended Thanksgiving (Both in the United States and in Canada) people tend to start swinging into the holiday season pretty quickly. Well maybe for the gentlemen out there they wait till December 24th! But generally speaking most people start to prepare for the holiday season mid to late December.

So what do most people do for the holiday season? Are there more responsibilities and stress at the Holidays? Are you having more parties then usual?? Yes! (Especially those work parties, where you get to see your Boss looped, which makes it so much more fun!)

Seriously thou, the point of all of this is that usually there is so much more stress and responsibilities during the holiday season that we end up NOT WORKING OUT ANYMORE! Which is not the right thing to do.

Going to the gym actually relieves stress and helps boost your immune system! So really now is not the time to kick the workouts to the curb.

What you must do is have a "End of the Year Fitness Resolution" You must resolve that you will stick to your current workout strategy no matter what!

This way you will have ample energy to get all the shopping and baking done and still have enough energy to go to a few holiday socials :)

Working out also decreases stress, which there is plenty of during the holiday season which as you are well aware of.

So this year really plan to stick with a workout program through the holiday season!

The best time to workout during the holiday season? In the morning as soon as you get up! This way you will rev up your bodies metabolic rate, and kick start the day by having an amazing workout!

We hope you begin a "Year End Fitness Resolution" this year!

Stay Healthy!

Trevor
Founder
The Canada StairClimbing Association
1-877-51-CLIMB

Get yourself into PEAK STATE!

Good day everyone!

Today I want to share with you some insights on staying motivated in and outside of the gym. How you can instantly keep yourself on track and in the right state of mind so that you can achieve all your fitness goals!

This blog is not about goal setting, or writing what you want to accomplish down on paper. What I want to talk about is your actual mind-body connection and how you can change your physiology instantly so that you can become super focused and stay on track!

Many people have a tough time sticking to a workout routine. They either do not get the results they are after, or find going to the gym a chore. There are lots of other rationalizations or justifications that people will use, and they usually are centered around the concept of time. i.e - do not have enough time to exercise.

This can all be overcome by actually changing our physiology (The way we function)
Changing our physiology is really fairly simple, but demands a good amount of concentration. When applied correctly we can get ourselves to do ANYTHING! Especially working out!

First close your eyes! I want you to go back and remember a time when you were doing something you loved to do. It could be anything: visiting a friend, going for a walk with the dog, going for a hike, or maybe it was going for coffee.

I want you to try to remember what it felt like to do this certain task. Try to remember the feelings that are associated with the task. Did you feel copious amounts of pleasure? What were the things that you were doing an saying to yourself that made it so easy to complete?

As you are thinking back do you feel your state change? Do you feel your physiology change?? If you really enjoyed the task that you are thinking about then I hypothosis that your physiology is changing!

You are getting yourself into "Peak State"

Peak state simply refers to changing your bodies physiology to a very high level.

In order to follow through on your fitness goals, you must get your mind and body into peak states. You must feel pleasure when going to the gym, not pain, and you must be able to do this on a continuous basis.

First you must have do and say things that actually get you into a peak state.

For myself its music. Once I have my earphones in my head, I am lost in my own little world. There have been many times in the gym when I just start dancing and moving with the music in my head. Of course to the curious observer this seems very absurd, however I am getting myself into peak state.

Another thing that gets me into peak state is a quick 2-3 minutes of visualizations. I train every morning at 5:30 am. My routine is always the same. Get up, change into my clothes, Drink Green tea, have a protein shake, then sit for 2-3 minutes with my eyes closed and actually visualize myself getting stronger, climbing stairs faster, having more speed and more agility in the gym, losing the body fat and feeling fantastic. Two to three minutes is enough to get me pumped and ready to fly out the door.

This process is very powerful! As the saying goes, where the mind goes the body will follow.

One last suggestion is to find something that works for YOU! You may need to experiment and find out what really excited you and makes you want to work out. Maybe its a picture of your kids and the the thought of you not being here because you didn't take care of yourself will push you to the gym. Or maybe you need to do something physical like jump up and down and scream, I am lean mean fat burning machine! As silly as you may look...it works! It absolutely works!

If your an avid person who is working out, why don't you share some of your tips and ideas on how to get into a peak state for working out, so others can benefit from your experience! Leave your comments below! Thanks!

Till next time!!

Trevor Folgering
Founder
The Canada StairClimbing Association
1-877-51-CLIMB

Three Months From The 2011 Regina Stair Climb For Shelter

Well this event is just over three months away and I hope that you have started training for it even if its on the stepper at the gym. You really do not need to do any stair climbing for this event but it would help.

For information regarding training for a stair race WITHOUT climbing stairs, check out out other blog entries.

For those of you who want to start training for this event on actual stairs we have a stair climbing meet up group that meets every Sunday night at 5:00 and Wednesday night at 5:30. The cost is really inexpensive; a yearly membership to the Canada StairClimbing Association. The cost is only 45.00. If you do not want to purchase a membership it is 20.00 a climb with a minimum of a five climb sign up.

To purchase a membership please go here

To register for the 2011 Regina Stair Climb For Shelter go here

The Race promises to be an exciting event, filled with entertainment for audience members viewing the race and great prizes for participants climbing the stairs.

For further information regarding the race and all the details please visit our events page

Please also follow us on facebook and hit the LIKE buttons as well :)

Here are our facebook pages:

The 2011 Regina Stair Climb For Shelter Community

And:

The Canada StairClimbing Association

Please support this wonderful Charity that helps fight for women who are in abusive relationships. Come down on March 13th 2011 and climb some stairs for an amazing charity!

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us

Trevor@stairclimbcanada.com

or by Phone

1-877-51-CLIMB

Hope to see you soon!

Pursue Your Dreams..

Canada's Food Guide, Fresh or Fowl????

Canada's Food Guide teaches us to eat healthy! Or does it?? There has been a lot of debate about The Canada's Food Guide over the past decade, and rightly so. In this blog I will discuss and explain why Canada's Food Guide may not be the best option for you in order to get your body to a healthy state!

(Dieticians, please accept my apologies what you will read I KNOW you will not agree with it.)

Reading the Food Rainbow, What does it all Mean?

Yes that colorful rainbow! How wonderful! Here is what the Canada's Food Guide tells us:

Depending on your age and gender you should be eating 8-10 servings of fruits and vegetables, 3-8 servings of Grain products, 2-4 servings of milk and Alternatives and 1-3 servings of Meat and Alternatives.

Ok in my opinion and in a lot of other health professionals opinions this is really backwards thinking in nutrition.

First the positive:

Vegetables are first on the list! Yes, vegetables are important! They are choked full of vitamins/minerals and are of low calorie composition. However in my opinion that is not the number of food choice on the list.

Meats and Alternatives should be on the top of the list. WHY? Fist and foremost Protein in meats and alternatives are extremely complex for the body to break down speeding up the metabolic processes of the body. It takes 9 calories to break down 1 gram of protein and 4 calories to break down a carbohydrate. So gram for gram protein in its leanest form is what you need to be focusing on.

In addition protein is the building blocks for all active tissue in the body. The more active tissue you have (muscle) the better your body performs and the higher your metabolic rate goes (Metabolism = all chemical reactions in the body)

I would put Meat and alt as 6-8 servings per day!

Next: Fruits and Vegetables. Great! Eat as many vegetables as you want. Do you know that 16 cups of lettuce is equal to 1 cup of Pasta in terms of calories! You can never go wrong with combining a salad and a chicken breast together, along with Feta cheese, and some olives you have the perfect meal!!

Grain Products: Do you realize that we have been told stay away from fat! Fat is bad and will make you fat! Well we did that and our society got even FATTER!! Answer to this is that in lowering our consumption of fats we increased our consumption of grains! Grains, breads and cereals etc should be limited in the diet. Your body has a overabundance of stored carbohydrates in the muscle and liver. Your body can run very well if you limit your carbohydrate intake and increase your healthy fat intake and protein intake! As a society we EAT TOO MANY CARBOHYDRATES!!!

Milk and Alternatives: Get rid of this category PLEASE!!! Do you realize that we are the only mammal to drink other mammals milk???? Milk is NOT good for the body no matter in what form. First many people are lactose intolerant, they lack the correct enzyme to break down milk, which should give you the first clue that milk is no good. Second milk is pure SUGAR, and very little protein. SUGAR makes us fat. hmmmm are you seeing the connection?? In addition they have SOY listed on the food guide!! SOY actually increases estrogen levels in both men and women! Increasing estrogen levels leads to CANCER!!! In my opinion we have been bombarded by advertising that milk "does a body good" when in fact it has been making us overweight, sluggish, fat and in some cases sick. Stop drinking MILK!!!!

Fats - Its unfortunate that they do not have an official category for Fats. Fats in the right form actually help the body shed weight, lower bad cholestrol levels increase good cholestrol levels and also can help you become mentally sharper and have more focus in the day!! The key is to actually eat the right fats and decrease the fats that the body does not need. Here is some news to, your body NEEDS saturated fats, but in small amounts! You can have whole eggs! I have 6 whole eggs a day and my cholestrol is excellent! I have eaten bags of cashews and nuts at a time and have NEVER gained an ounce of fat.

There are food that heal and foods that kill! I hope I have outlined why it is important not to stick with the Canada's Food Guide and how you can better make choices that will serve your health instead of destroying it.

Yesterday I showed you a video of what exactly it means to have a weak core! Remember the jello cube which represented a weak core???

Well become a member now and see a dynamite exercise that will help improve your core strength and your upper body strength all in one simple move!! (Ok its not THAT simple!)

Become a member NOW!

Trevor Folgering
Founder
The Canada StairClimbing Association
1-877-51-CLIMB
www.stairclimbcanada.com