Day 1 ~ 31 Day Challenge

Keeping it pretty straightforward to start.
(But read the whole post!)

• 10 wide leg squats
• 30 second plank left side
• 10 pushups
• 30 second plank right side
• 100 star jumps
• Repeat x 4.

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Hi everyone, 5 Minute Fitness has been the focus of some seriously messed up hackers, so I've killed the site completely, changed hosts, and am rebuilding....bigger and better than before!

I'll be uploading all my previous posts and content over the next few days, so please be patient. I'm still here and not going anywhere, and hope you'll stick around, too!

Please contact me at info@5minutefitness.com.au or call 1300 35 10 54.

Thanks for your support.

Eve

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Which will you choose, the hard or soft option?

Points to anyone who can tell me the song with those lyrics...without the assistance of Dr Google.

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These are both me. Hard to believe I was the gaunt person on the left. Even harder to believe that I liked looking like that....and that was my 'ideal weight' for a long time; even recently. But 'ideal' doesn't necessarily mean wise or healthy. In fact, our 'ideal' can sometimes be downright unhealthy and dangerous.

I had some big health issues last year, including an extremely badly damaged ankle that kept me sidelined from just about any exercise for an entire year. I was too scared to even do upper body work, because carrying the extra weights in my hands put pressure through my foot and almost brought me to tears.

So there was that, and then the rest of my body started going haywire. Random, unexplained pains, bloating, headaches, lethargy, an unexplained painful lump on my collar bone, and a whole range of other things the doctors never defined, despite having every test under the sun. And my weight increased and I felt like there was absolutely nothing I could do about it - when all the tests say 'normal', but you know something's not right, it's a difficult place to be.

Without getting right down into my dungeons of 'why', I now know why. All the physiological stuff was caused by emotional 'stuff'. As a surface explanation, my ankle wasn't healing because my life wasn't going where I needed, I couldn't hold much weight in one hand, because the pain in my collar bone felt like I was literally being weighed down. The stomach pains? Well, I wasn't listening to my gut instincts. I know that now.

I've let some things go and in clearing my head, my body is starting to heal.My weight is getting back to what I feel is a healthy place for me to be, the lump in my collar bone is going and the pain is almost gone, and I have done some long, tough hill runs the last couple of weeks, with no pain in my foot.

Throughout last year, I thought I wanted to get back to somewhere close to the weight I was in the left hand photo. My 'ideal' weight. My ideal *healthy* weight is somewhere in between where I'm at now and that photo and I'll get there, because I'm dedicated to me. How do I know that...and how am I comfortable with it? Because I'm clearing all the shit out of my head.

I'm thinking about health, not image.

I'm thinking about myself, not what anyone else wants.

I'm thinking about what is going to keep me well, and not catch every flu going around when Winter comes.

I'm thinking about my inner image of me, not what the world would have me believe I need to be, if I paid it attention.

And I wasn't really happy at the time of that photo anyway. 'Skinny' doesn't create 'happy'.

'Happy' creates wellness, mentally and physically. Of course it's not easy. If it were, we'd all be our ideal healthy weight. But as well as physically, we can carry around with us so much mental shit that unless we first get rid of that, we face an uphill battle with our physical body.

I saw this image earlier this week and I have to share it, because it makes an interesting point for all women (and men!) to note. On the site I saw this image, the claim was made that they're all the same weight. Not size. Weight. Now, whether or not they're all actually the weight the site specified is not really relevant. The point is for the average person, body image, body shape, body size really doesn't have much to do with what's on the scales. It has to do with what's in our heads.

I've been the fat girl. I've been the skinny girl.

Now I'm the ME girl and that's exactly who I should be.

Who are you? Who is the real you? What mental weight can you lose in order to be all you're meant to be, in the best possible physical package you can be....for YOU?

It's not about the scales.

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I need to give some people a big plug.

Those of you who know me have watched me go through, to various degrees, some traumatic circumstances in the last 18 months. Life has been largely unbalanced, and it's caused me to review, revise, release and renew.

I try to keep myself as open as possible with regard to who I am as a person, because I believe being transparent with who you are is important, especially because of the intimacies of personal training and the mindset shifts that go along with what we do. If I'm not open with you, how can I expect the same from you?

That said, there are things which have happened over the last 18 months that don't require repeating here for me to share my message. The fact is, my life, my business, my health, my emotions and my 'self' have all been knocked around quite significantly and nothing has been aligned. In that state, you simply can't progress anything.

I thought it all culminated a few weeks ago when I walked away from a relationship I didn't think would end. Sometimes you have to do what's necessary, even if it's not what you want. But that wasn't the last of it. Over Easter, my website was hacked and I thought I'd lost everything. I knew the signficance of it at the time; that it was another sign that I needed to release some things and start over. I created a new website just in case this one couldn't be restored....and I needed to focus on a solution, rather than what I appeared to have lost.

This week, two people have helped me to start to turn the negativity around and start over.

The first is Michael Phipps. He recovered and restored this website of mine in less time than it took for me to call my webhosting company, explain that I'd been hacked, and have them tell me it would take a week to fix. I found him via referral through a friend on Facebook and he did the work for me without any money upfront and on a bit of a cyber handshake. I like that; it's the way I like to work, and I believe in working with that level of integrity and trust. I appreciate and am extremely grateful for his help. If you need an IT guy/developer, contact him at www.michaelphipps.com!

The second is my friend Roy Bristow, who is one of my favourite people, for a variety of reasons; not the least of which is he can make me laugh till my abs hurt and I cry (in a good way). I wish he had a website, because I'd tell you all to go there and book a healing session with him. Roy's the first person I called this week to help me ground myself again. He's an intuitive healer and whether you're open to things that cannot be scientifically explained or not, the work he did with me this week has already made an impact. It's easy to be skeptical about intuitive healers and the like, but I can tell you this...within less than a couple of minutes of working on me (cutting cords and aura work), he brought up something very significant that happened in my life a long time ago, that I've told very few people and had never discussed with him. If I had required convincing before then, that sealed it for me. I'm not going to get into the specifics of what he's done for me, or what continued healing will do for me, because everyone has their own path. For example, I use crystals to aid healing. Others may feel more comfortable with different methods. Roy's business is Readings Aura Healings and I encourage you, if you're looking for clarity, or healing, to get in touch with him. For bookings, call 0450 064 686.

We all have our journeys in life and our paths can become difficult and hard to travel. Whether the Universe hits you in the face with a sign (like having your website hacked) or you make the change yourself (walking away from a relationship that is damaging you), you'll be provided with people or situations that can help you rebuild. We do that as trainers - help rebuild you. We, all of us, just need to recognise who and when to ask for help...and ask for help.

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What doesn’t work?

If you’re on a “health kick” or trying to lose some body fat then you’ve probably realised that cardio alone really isn’t working. Well you don’t need to feel bamboozled, because that’s what should happen. You see…Whilst you are performing cardio, you burn a moderate amount of calories, however the second you stop running or swimming or cycling, whatever, you stop burning those calories. I will say this: If you were to do 2 or 3 hours of cardio a day, wearing yourself out and making your self unhealthy and exhausted, you would probably burn fat. However there is a much faster, more efficient and healthy way!

What does work?

So, what works…? To find this out we first need to discuss what you want. Well what you really want is something that speeds up your metabolism and calorie burning and keeps it going all day long. Something that burns an insane amount of calories and keeps that up all day. Well that’s where resistance cardio and weight lifting come in. Challenging and putting strain on your muscles really is a positive move for your health or fitness routine. When you are actually training with weights you are burning more calories than you could possibly burn with any cardio, in fact it’s almost double the amount of normal cardio. Furthermore it speeds up your calorie burning and metabolism for the rest of the day, and the next one, and the next one..etc…

What should you do then? Well working with weights has commonly been associated with big muscular bodybuilding, on the contrary it really isn’t just about building muscle. By lifting weights you certainly won’t build a huge buff body instantly, especially if you are a lady you can make sure you keep your delicate figure and lose even more fat by utilising weights. Short, heavy lifts with low rest periods are the best idea for losing fat. These circuits of different compound exercises really stimulate your central nervous system, kicking your body into action. Furthermore they’re sure to burn an insane amount of calories in a tiny amount of time. Go for about 5 to 10 minutes of intense work and then have a break before repeating the circuit 3-4 times.

Now, you may be wondering why I have just completely slated regular cardio and talked up weight training. Well it’s for no reason other than what works. The inefficiency of cardio really makes it a time waster if you are trying to lose fat fast. On the other hand, you should always get “exercise” such as taking walks or bike rides, but that’s really just for your general health, wellbeing and mental state. For what really makes a difference in fat loss you need to put your muscles under strain and resistance. If you are just moving your body (which you do every day anyway) then your muscles aren’t stimulated enough to deprive your body of energy.

Make a difference, use weight.

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You may have heard this 100 times or you may never have heard it at all, that doesn’t really bother me. What is bothering is the fact that you have to be here reading this article, because in an ideal scenario you would have previously been successful in losing all of the weight that you want. There are probably many reasons for your current lack of success, many of which are really quite obvious - but ones that you have failed to address. That’s the cold hard truth!

One of the major myths around losing fat is that if you eat nothing and exercise you will lose fat. Well that may happen, but it will happen incredibly slowly, by which time you will have suffered an extremely painful starvation death. However, there are many healthier and easier ways to lose fat – and subscribing to an extremely low calorie diet is not one of those ways.

The system in your body that is designed to deal with the fat loss and holding on to fat is the metabolic system. Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. If you eat nothing and just exercise, your body goes in to what is commonly known as starvation mode. It thinks that it is not getting enough energy so it holds onto that stubborn body fat for a rainy day. To convince your metabolism thoroughly enough that you don’t need it you need to eat fat! And you need to eat in general a healthy diet.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “healthy diet” a thousand times but why would anyone give up on a winning policy and that I’m afraid, is one! You see the trick is to eat the right kinds of foods. There has been millions of dollars spent on research in to what kind of foods allow you to lose the most weight the fastest. The result is as simple as eating a lot of vegetables along with healthy fats and proteins. In addition, there are some really easy basic rules like cut out the amount of saturated fat you have, but eat lots of unsaturated fat, this fat will tend not to stay in your body, and will also assist with the removal of the stubborn body fat that you already have. This really isn’t as difficult as it sounds; just eat the right kinds of foods and make sure you get in some well needed exercise, including walking. Movement is key.

Furthermore to your metabolism, you need to stay hydrated; water retention and lack of water are equally troublesome when it comes to achieving fat loss goals. Well eating very little and especially drinking very little can cause a lot of water retention as you’re not hydrating your body thoroughly enough. This can give you that bloated puffy feeling and drastically add to your weight. The moral of the story, if you want to lose weight (specifically, body fat), continue eating more and drink a lot of water! It’s so simple but so many people choose to utterly ignore it and go about their day-to-day starvation diets as if it’s something to be proud of.

Achieve the body that you really want, and deserve, by going about it in an easily managed, healthy way.

Just to finish I would like to talk about the difference between not eating and fasting. You can effectively fast for fast loss to achieve a calorific deficit more easily and therefore lose more fat. This needs to be done in a controlled fashion and combined with a structured exercise regime. But just not eating is bad for your health and can lead to serious illness.

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Something I hear a lot is "I should...". We all say it about any number of things.

I should exercise more.
I should eat better food.
I should walk more.
I should be nicer to myself.
I should not care so much about what others think of me.

The problem is we attach so much guilt to the word 'should'. We beat ourselves up if we didn't do something we 'should'. We dwell on all the things we 'should' do.

What if you changed that one word to something else? How much difference can one word make? Well, you tell me...

I should could exercise more.
I should could eat better food.
I should could walk more.
I should could be nicer to myself.
I should could not care so much about what others think of me.

All those things now seem more possible!

Stop attaching guilt to the things you tell yourself and start assuming all those things are possible.

Just try replacing should with could. It could just work!

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Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Yes, we do! 5 Minute Fitness is now on YouTube. Our channel is 5MinFit.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of working with personal trainer, Siobhan Macleod, who graciously gave up her time to demonstrate a whole lot of individual bodyweight exercises. I had a lot of fun working with Siobhan, and over the next few weeks, we'll add more bodyweight work, and incorporate some equipment, too.

We'll also be producing short workout videos, some of which will be available for viewing on our channel, and others that will be available for subscribers only.

In addition, I'm working on a range of eguides to educate, motivate and encourage, as well as step by step guides to lose fat, get fit and be healthy. There really will be something for everyone! Make sure you subscribe to my blog by clicking the button at the top right of the page, so you're always kept up to date with our information and products.

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Ever get to the end of your rope and wonder what the heck's going to happen next, and what you're going to do with it, because there isn't one more frayed strand of rope for you to grab?

I've been in that place the last few weeks. Sometimes, in our lives, we experience test over test over test; you don't get a chance to deal with the first one effectively before you get smacked in the face by the next. Overwhelm is a static place and certainly not a comfortable one, either!

It's very easy to lose sight of your goals and wonder if 'it' is really worth it, whatever 'it' is. My 'it' has been a multitude of things these past few weeks.

The problem is that we start to gaslight ourselves; we start telling ourselves that we are the problem, not the circumstance or circumstances. It can be hard to separate the two, and humans have a tendency to blend them and either take it out on themselves, or others, rather than taking stock and working on overcoming the circumstance.

If you don't like your circumstance, do one of two things; change your circumstance, or change your behaviour and attitude towards it.

This, too, applies to your health and fitness. What are you telling yourself about yourself that's stopping you reach your goals? What is it about your circumstances that you can change, or change your attitude towards, to make them easier to to deal with. It's easy to say, "Well, this is how it is and it's far too hard for me to do anything about it, so I'll sit here in misery". The other side of misery is pleasure, so go there! As the saying goes, "it doesn't matter how far down the path you've travelled, you can still turn around".

Get yourself out of that crap place in which you've found comfort. Stop fooling yourself that such 'comfort' makes you feel good. It's pain! You don't want to look that way. You don't want to live that way. You don't want to tell yourself that life is out of control. Focus. Regroup. Ask for support and acknowledge that change can be made. But it's up to you.

Just get out there and do it. You're worth it.

Right in the middle of me dealing with my 'stuff' this week, I received an email to apply for a job in a place a long way away. I always consider these things, because, hey, I have an online business, so 'location' is not crucial. Later on that same day, I made an unexpected connection with a person who has been such a welcome relief and distraction, that the stuff and circumstance feel lighter. It doesn't mean they've gone away, but it does mean I have a renewed way of looking at things and I just pulled myself a notch or two away from the end of the rope.

You can do this, too. Your health is up to you and it's within you to find solutions, or be patient enough (and aware enough) to notice them when they appear. Hold on. Even when you're going backwards, it doesn't necesarily mean it's a bad thing. Consider it regrouping, and use that bit of energy to hold on. You never know, the lift you need might be right around the corner.

If your fitness is suffering because you're stuck in 'overwhelm' feel free to contact me. Together, we can move you away from the end of your rope and towards feeling better.

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Twas the month after Christmas,
and all through the house,
Nothing would fit me,
not even a blouse.

The dips that I'd nibbled,
the champagne that I'd taste
At the Christmas parties
had gone to my waist.

When I got on the scales
there arose such a number!
When I walked to the store
(less a walk than a lumber),

I'd remember the marvellous meals I'd prepared;
The gravies, potatoes and beef nicely rared,
The wine and the rum balls, the puddings and cheese
And the way I'd never said, "No thank you, please."

As I dressed myself in my fat pants and shirt
And prepared once again to do battle with dirt...
I said to myself, as I only can,
"You can't spend all Summer, disguised as a man."

So, away with the last of the smoked salmon dip.
Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip.
Every last bit of food that I like must be banished
Till all the additional kilos have vanished.

I won't eat that ice-cream, not even a lick.
I'll just have to chew on a celery stick.
I won't have hot bread, or chocolate, or pie.
I'll munch on a carrot and quietly cry.

I'm hungry, I'm lonesome, and life is a bore...
But isn't that what January is for?
Unable to giggle, no longer a riot.
Happy New Year to all, and to all a good diet.

Sometimes, we hide our pain in humour, like the above poem, which is funny and true. But being fit and healthy does not mean you have to be hungry, lonesome or lead a boring life.

Do you really want to go another year of not hitting your potential?

How many more days of quiet desperation are you willing to have?

If you do nothing....who will you be letting down?

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1 x gym membership you'll stop using within 6-8 weeks = avg $75/month x 12!
3 x group PT per week = at least $300/month
2 x 1hr PT sessions per week = at least $560/month
A different workout every day, plus weekly coaching & nutrition = $197/month.
You do the maths...! $197 special only till 15 Jan 2012 unless sold out.

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This, in my opinion, is a truly horrendous photo. Sweat, wrinkles, dark circles under the eyes, grey hairs, a much overdue colour. It also says, "This is me". And it's me, this morning, doing what I tell my clients to do - just get out there and do it.

Ever since I hurt my ankle, I've had a fear of damaging it again, so I've been super apprehensive about getting back to exercising properly. There was a while there when I could barely even lift a weight to do upper body exercise, because the weight of holding a dumbell put more pressure on my ankle and my leg hurt too much to push through the pain.

Life puts us in interesting circumstances sometimes. For a long time now, all I've been saying is I wish I could do hill sprints. It's crazy the things you wish for when you can't do the basics you've always done. Apparently, the Universe was keeping notes, because lo and behold, there's a walking path right next to the house I moved into two weeks ago - with a nasty incline!

The white wall is my house. Yes, it's that close.

I'm like everyone else. I can make excuses like the best of them! In fact, I'm sure some of mine are 'better'. 😉 Silly, huh? Thanks to pesky auto-immune issues, I'm energetic for 2.5-3 hours at a time. After that, if I don't sleep, I just tend to go through the motions a bit, unless I a) take drugs, b) am really interested in something and am concentrating hard. The majority of how I get through most days is based on mental will - I do it coz I have to do it. I have no choice. (Perhaps another blog post in that - removing choices mean you have to take action...)

A couple of days ago, I ran this path a couple of times, just to see how my ankle coped, and the result was pleasing. I felt I could have done more, but I thought I'd quit while I was ahead.

This morning, I was determined to do more. I ran that bitch path 7 times up and back, in less than ten minutes. I'd had my heart set on ten and I wanted to stop at 5, so 7 was a compromise I could mentally handle. I won't beat myself up because I didn't do ten. Where I'm at now is miles ahead of where I was a month ago. And there's a lesson in that for everyone!

I reminded myself that it's a good feeling to have; knowing you've achieved something you couldn't see yourself doing even a short time earlier. I'm not scared to exercise and to put pressure on my ankle. I trust myself enough to know that I can get the results I want and I'm not kidding myself into thinking it's all going to happen overnight.

Too often, we don't allow ourselves to simply trust ourselves and trust the process - and it is a process.

It took a while getting you to where you are and sometimes it takes a while getting to where you want to be. What matters is that you keep going. Educate your mind, move your body. You don't always get the results you want, you get the results you work to achieve.

For the sake of even more disclosure, this is me in all my sweaty glory this morning. This is also the kind of 'during' photo I want to see from my clients. But I don't expect anything from you that I won't do myself, so this is me showing you what I want you to show me.

Just wait till we're doing the workouts! Nobody ever said the 5 minutes would be easy! 😉

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It took me ages, but I finally chose someone. I had no idea it would be as hard as it was and I found myself getting quite stressed about it. Someone told me there's a program where you assign people numbers and it works out the winner for you. Would have been easy, but I wouldn't have felt right about doing it that way.

What surprised me most about the entries was that just about everyone has the same issues; at home, kids and family to look after, working (in the home or out - or both), getting into a rut in life and just not taking the time to look after themselves...or at least feeling like they just can't find the time. Those things, let alone anything else, made me realise just how important it is to be in a position to feel as though you're doing all you can for yourself as much as you do for your family.

One entry touched me most because she said, "I hate myself. I’m embarrassed for my kids...." The thought that someone feels so strongly in the negative about themselves that they're willing to admit it out loud is, on the one hand very sad, but on the other it shows me she's really ready to make some changes.

So, the winner is:

Jodie Daniel

But the entries impressed me so much I want to give something to everyone. I'm launching two new eguides in January. The first is a leg workouts book called "5 Minutes to Fabulous Legs". The second is an A to Z of foods and nutrients, plus recipes on each, called "Alphabet Soup".

Everyone who entered will get a copy of each of these for free.

Thank you to everyone who participated. I'm proud of you all for sharing your stories with me and I look forward to working with you in 2012.

Eve x

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