My first post on nutrition! Like I said in my last post, March is nutrition month and I have some posts planned for each Monday. Unfortunately last Monday I didn't post because I was so exhausted from training all weekend so this is a little late. Oh well, better late then never! :)
Today I wanted to share resources with you all on nutrition. My own knowledge on the topic is mediocre at best so I feel like it's important to have good resources to go to. It seems like every day I'm hearing about a new type of diet or superfood or supernutrient and it all just gets to be overwhelming. What should you believe?
So here is a list of the resources I go to on a regular to semi-regular basis:
Charles Poliquin: According to his website.. "Charles Poliquin is one of the most accomplished strength coaches in the
world. He has designed workouts for Olympic medalists in 17 different
sports, world record holders in 10 different sports, and professional
athletes in the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, and UK Premier League. He has
lectured or consulted for a variety of high-profile organizations such
as the US Secret Service, Walt Disney Corporation and the World Swimming
Congress." He has fantastic articles and blog posts on all health and fitness topics but I particularly enjoy his nutrition articles. Nutrition Articles | Supplements Articles
Precision Nutrition: I absolutely love Precision Nutrition. I hope to one day get certified by them but for now I have been using their free tools online. They also write lots of articles and have different mini courses you can take for free. They break things down very well so that it is easy to make the changes you need to make. I particularly like that they promote making small habitual changes slowly that way you don't become overwhelmed with a whole new diet. It's about taking baby steps.
Dietitians of Canada: I only recently stumbled on this website when looking for this month's theme but after doing some looking around, this is another one I will be going to frequently. For nutrition month alone they have a bunch of great tools. Fact sheet 1 | Fact sheet 2 | Fact sheet 3 | Videos
Everything You Need To Know About Fat Loss: I just started reading this book at the recommendation of my mentor at work and I can already say it's going to be a goody. I actually got a pdf copy of it since it is really hard to find a hard copy to buy and I am not a digital book kind of girl. It has started off with just breaking down what carbs, fats and protein are and why they are essential in our diet. I have a feeling this is going to be a very, very "regular person" friendly book and would highly recommend it to anyone that is seriously interested in making changes in their life.
OhSheGlows: And last but not least there is OhSheGlows. This site is run a Canadian girl, Angela Liddon. She is a food guru that also happens to be vegan. I am constantly referring my clients to her website because not only are here recipes amazing but you can always make them non-vegan by using regular eggs, cow dairy, and adding meat if that's how you roll. Some of my all time favs are blueberry banana pie overnight oats, lightened-up sundried tomato and basil pesto pasta, and red lentil and squash curry stew.
Well that's it for my regular tools and resources. If you have any nutrition related questions please post them in the comments section as I will be doing a Q&A for the last Monday of the month.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
March is Nutrition Month!
I have been putting some more effort and thought into my blog and decided I wanted to come up with some kind of monthly theme. Something healthy and fitness related that I can talk about one time a week. I'm also hoping that this will help me get into the routine of blogging more regularly since as you can tell, I'm currently pretty sporadic.
After a quick google search I found out that March is considered nutrition month by the Dieticians of Canada. So why not have that as our first theme? For the next 4 Mondays I will be blogging about anything nutrition related that I can get my hands on. I am not a nutritionist or dietician so please take my advice with a grain of salt and consult with your doctor before making any major changes in your diet. I will make an effort to back up anything I talk about with sources online though.
Here's to a month filled with nutrition tips, recipes, diet plans and hopefully some great conversation in the comments section! :)
After a quick google search I found out that March is considered nutrition month by the Dieticians of Canada. So why not have that as our first theme? For the next 4 Mondays I will be blogging about anything nutrition related that I can get my hands on. I am not a nutritionist or dietician so please take my advice with a grain of salt and consult with your doctor before making any major changes in your diet. I will make an effort to back up anything I talk about with sources online though.
Here's to a month filled with nutrition tips, recipes, diet plans and hopefully some great conversation in the comments section! :)
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Managing Commitments
It seems that I have a tendency to take on too many things at once. Probably won't ever change but I'm finally straddling down and figuring out what I can and cannot handle. Unfortunately, the bikini/fitness competition is one of those things that I cannot handle right now for a few (I think really good) reasons.
1. Matt and I are searching for an apartment for March or April. Everything that is involved with moving is becoming quite a bit to deal with. And since we go back and forth from my parent's house to his parent's house every two weeks we don't exactly have a stable lifestyle or our own kitchen. Which makes it very, very hard to diet for the competition.
2. I am studying to become a level 2 trainer at work. Currently I am a level 1. Along with this promotion comes reading a very large and dry fitness book and about 12-15 fitness related articles, an exam and a practical exam with my boss's boss. Definitely want to impress him here so I'm putting a lot of my spare time into preparing.
3. I got accepted to the Les Mills Instructor program for Bodyflow. If you haven't heard of Bodyflow it is a Les Mills group exercise class that combines yoga, pilates and tai chi. And the certification process is pretty intense. I already completed and passed my try outs for the program. Now I am awaiting my materials to study for the 2 day course (first weekend in March). After that weekend I get paired up with a certified instructor and I shadow/teach classes with them for 3 months. At the end of the 3 months I have to video tape myself teaching a full class, send it to head office and they determine whether or not I am ready to be an instructor and take on my own classes.
So, as you can see, the next 3-4 months is going to be busy, busy, busy. I have all of this plus training my clients, finding a few new ones once I become level 2, spending time with Matt and try to be a bit social with friends and family. I do intend to do a lot more research and talk about competitions in the future (even plan on going to the NSABBA one) but for now I'll be chatting about all of the above and whatever else comes to mind. I do plan on competing next year though. :)
1. Matt and I are searching for an apartment for March or April. Everything that is involved with moving is becoming quite a bit to deal with. And since we go back and forth from my parent's house to his parent's house every two weeks we don't exactly have a stable lifestyle or our own kitchen. Which makes it very, very hard to diet for the competition.
2. I am studying to become a level 2 trainer at work. Currently I am a level 1. Along with this promotion comes reading a very large and dry fitness book and about 12-15 fitness related articles, an exam and a practical exam with my boss's boss. Definitely want to impress him here so I'm putting a lot of my spare time into preparing.
3. I got accepted to the Les Mills Instructor program for Bodyflow. If you haven't heard of Bodyflow it is a Les Mills group exercise class that combines yoga, pilates and tai chi. And the certification process is pretty intense. I already completed and passed my try outs for the program. Now I am awaiting my materials to study for the 2 day course (first weekend in March). After that weekend I get paired up with a certified instructor and I shadow/teach classes with them for 3 months. At the end of the 3 months I have to video tape myself teaching a full class, send it to head office and they determine whether or not I am ready to be an instructor and take on my own classes.
So, as you can see, the next 3-4 months is going to be busy, busy, busy. I have all of this plus training my clients, finding a few new ones once I become level 2, spending time with Matt and try to be a bit social with friends and family. I do intend to do a lot more research and talk about competitions in the future (even plan on going to the NSABBA one) but for now I'll be chatting about all of the above and whatever else comes to mind. I do plan on competing next year though. :)
Friday, December 14, 2012
The search for a coach begins
I've decided I need help with this competition. I have been doing
research but haven't been able to find much useful information online.
Therefore I am on the market for a coach. I just want to have someone
tell me where I should be focusing on for my training, show me how to
walk/pose on stage and help me with outfits/jewelry selection. The
problem is I don't want to go broke because of this.
I've thought about hiring someone locally to make my suit for me out of material that I pick out but I have no idea how much that would cost. I've also thought about what colours, accessories, etc would work best for me. I think I want to stay true to who I am and be a little bit different on stage. I'm not much of a glam kind of girl so all of the sparkles, sequins, jewels, and stuff don't really suit me. I'm thinking instead of big blingy bracelets I might wear mala beads. And instead of wearing big, sparkly earrings I might wear some kind of feather earring. Or put feathers in my hair. Maybe a tie dye suit would really pop on stage? These are all things I want to talk to a coach about.
So if anyone knows someone that has competed before in the Halifax area please let me know as I'd love to ask them to be my coach.
On a training note I started doing German volume training (GVT) the other day. It's the basic build that a lot of body builders use of 10 sets of 10 reps. From the research I've done so far it seems to be the best way to put on muscle mass in a short period of time. I feel like I need to work a bit more on my glute muscles and on my upper body muscles. So I'll be doing this training regimen for the next few weeks and then with the guidance of a coach hopefully go into my burn/cut phase after Christmas. Starting to definitely feel the time crunch.....
I've thought about hiring someone locally to make my suit for me out of material that I pick out but I have no idea how much that would cost. I've also thought about what colours, accessories, etc would work best for me. I think I want to stay true to who I am and be a little bit different on stage. I'm not much of a glam kind of girl so all of the sparkles, sequins, jewels, and stuff don't really suit me. I'm thinking instead of big blingy bracelets I might wear mala beads. And instead of wearing big, sparkly earrings I might wear some kind of feather earring. Or put feathers in my hair. Maybe a tie dye suit would really pop on stage? These are all things I want to talk to a coach about.
So if anyone knows someone that has competed before in the Halifax area please let me know as I'd love to ask them to be my coach.
On a training note I started doing German volume training (GVT) the other day. It's the basic build that a lot of body builders use of 10 sets of 10 reps. From the research I've done so far it seems to be the best way to put on muscle mass in a short period of time. I feel like I need to work a bit more on my glute muscles and on my upper body muscles. So I'll be doing this training regimen for the next few weeks and then with the guidance of a coach hopefully go into my burn/cut phase after Christmas. Starting to definitely feel the time crunch.....
Sunday, December 9, 2012
It's been a while...
As the title states, it's been a while since my last post. So much has happened since August so here's a quick recap:
The new job is amazing. I have been learning SO much about personal training and training in general in just 3 months and can't wait to continue my learning. I will admit that getting clients has been difficult but people just keep telling me to persevere and it'll come with time. Here's hoping :)
What I really wanted to focus on talking about over the next few months is the bikini competition and prepping for it. I have been trying to do research on the specifics of competing, what type of training is recommended, dieting, model walks, suits, etc but I haven't been able to find one source that goes into detail about all of these things. Therefore I figure I might as well journal about this process so that other people can learn from my experience. There will be some aspects that will be different than most other competitors like the fact that I'm vegan. Although I have found some interesting information on body building as a vegan on veganbodybuilding.com. If you haven't been there, you should definitely check it out.
Anyway, don't want to jump too far ahead of myself in the first post. I would love to make this a daily thing but we'll see if that actually happens. Life gets in the way sometimes but I promise to do my best :)
- Got laid off from my corporate office job.
- Enjoyed the last two weeks of summer not having to work.
- Got hired as a personal trainer at a local gym.
- Decided to compete in a bikini model competition in 2013.
The new job is amazing. I have been learning SO much about personal training and training in general in just 3 months and can't wait to continue my learning. I will admit that getting clients has been difficult but people just keep telling me to persevere and it'll come with time. Here's hoping :)
What I really wanted to focus on talking about over the next few months is the bikini competition and prepping for it. I have been trying to do research on the specifics of competing, what type of training is recommended, dieting, model walks, suits, etc but I haven't been able to find one source that goes into detail about all of these things. Therefore I figure I might as well journal about this process so that other people can learn from my experience. There will be some aspects that will be different than most other competitors like the fact that I'm vegan. Although I have found some interesting information on body building as a vegan on veganbodybuilding.com. If you haven't been there, you should definitely check it out.
Anyway, don't want to jump too far ahead of myself in the first post. I would love to make this a daily thing but we'll see if that actually happens. Life gets in the way sometimes but I promise to do my best :)
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