“A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.”

– Tom Landry

The Rock Your Jeans Kickoff Event is on 9/13.

I’m doing it, are you? I’m doing it because I want to lead by example (BTF core value # 6) and drop a little body fat. The only way this is going to happen is by being held accountable for my nutrition. Yes, I am going to have my nutrition viewed weekly by one of the BTF coaches.

My training mindset is clear with the 100 workout challenge. I’ve done 38 gym sessions since July 1st and put in extra work outside of the gym. That part of the equation is covered.

I can’t say the same about my diet. It was going well until my birthday two weeks ago. Since then it’s been a slippery slope and I’m already using the fact that I’m heading to south Florida this weekend to fish (drink beer and drag bait if they aint biting) as an excuse for not getting my nutrition back on track. I haven’t gained weight, but I feel completely different than I did a few weeks back when I was eating much better. I’m no different from you. Life comes at us and can derail our efforts pretty quickly.

How has your nutrition been since the last challenge?

What about during the summer?

How do you think your nutrition during the holidays is going to go when you don’t go in with healthy habits?

60 days between Labor Day and Thanksgiving is an opportune time to focus on your nutrition and fitness.

Every one of us falls into one of these categories on why we need this challenge:

• You would love to be 1-2 sizes smaller. I have some leather ass-less chaps I need to fit just right for Halloween. There you go. Hold on to that image.

 

• Making sure we don’t slide backwards on previously earned results. Do you remember how good you felt passing on the serving of bread? Or when you put on a pair of pants one morning and they were loose? Didn’t it feel good when you stepped on that scale and saw a lower number? That took effort and determination. Don’t waste the work.

 

• Going into the holiday season with momentum and healthy habits in place.

 

• Accountability and camaraderie. We are humans. We are designed to interact and be part of a community. When we work together, supporting each other, we all win.

What about the nutrition plan?

You will receive a new packet. The information and plan will be based off two main principles:

• Calories
• Protein

It will probably be the simplest plan yet. Is it some magical new plan? No.

Are you currently following past plans? It’s not the plan, it’s the action!

This year, we will have an additional form of motivation – a cash prize! Call it the icing on the cake for one individual. Feeling awesome and good about yourself is the actual cake.

In order to be eligible for the cash prize, you’ll need to follow these requirements

(We highly encourage you to do the challenge regardless.)

1. Follow the guidelines provided in the Rock Your Jeans nutrition plan.
2. Minimum of 24 gym sessions during the 60-day challenge, monitored with the MYZONE® belt. If you don’t currently own one, you’ll have to purchase one – $60 for the belt. This monitor has a helpful app where you can connect with other gym members and use that as motivation to track your workouts and challenge yourself at the gym. This is a fantastic tool and can help you increase your effort levels at the gym and at home.
3. Write a review on the Breakthrough Fitness business Facebook page.
4. Have your nutrition viewed by a BTF staff member once weekly in person. Either bring in your phone and share your nutrition logging (via your preferred app) or bring in whatever item (i.e.:journal etc) you are using to track your food. We want you all to reach out to staff and share your food tracking in person. We will not be tracking and sending emails or messages like we did for the muffin top challenge. Instead, we want to have a person to person conversation about your food and tracking.
5. Bring in a pair of jeans that are 1-2 sizes smaller than you are now. We will take before and after pictures at the gym. Before pictures will simply be you holding up the pair of jeans you want to rock. (No awkward, half-dressed before pictures.) Your after picture will be you wearing and “rocking” your jeans! We will hang your jeans up on the gym walls for daily motivation!

Call Us For More Details – 407-542-5910

Enjoy the Labor Day weekend!

Keep moving,

Coach Dom

 

An old mentor of mine posted this on his Instagram and I thought I would share….

A guy is walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are steep and he can’t get out.

A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, “Hey you. Can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, “Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me get out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

Then a friend walks by, “Hey Joe, it’s me. Can you help me out of this hole?” And the friend jumps down into the hole. The guy says, Are you stupid? Now we’re both stuck down in this hole.”

The friend replies, “Yeah, but I’ve been in this hole before and I know the way out.”

Keep Moving,

Coach Dom

I’m in the business of fitness because I like to see people happy. When we can help someone upgrade their life through fitness, happiness is always present. Lifting weights and challenging myself physically has always been my happy place. The gym was my sanctuary until it wasn’t.

The Dark Year

There has only been one period in my life where I didn’t do some form of training. I forgotten how important the gym was to me. During this period, I disliked where I lived (Lake Worth aka Lake Worthless, FL), I didn’t enjoy my job (I was selling real estate during the boom) and I was in a relationship that was going nowhere. This manifested into a slight case of depression. I was sleeping in every morning (even though the night before I gave myself pep talks on getting into the office early, making calls and getting business) and staying up late living a life of unhappiness.

During a night out with friends, pictures were taken and there was a guy with thick shoulders and a chubby face in the photos. Upon further inspection that guy was me! I officially was chubby Dom. That picture made me realize the one constant I always had in my life was missing. I needed to get back to the gym!

Find your happy place

Getting back to training didn’t miraculously change things around. What it did do was get my mind right. Once my mind was right I was able to have the courage to admit I failed and that I was not happy. The rest of the story just involved taking action to get back to happy.

The gym has always been my refuge. Yours might be a running trail, a pool or a yoga mat. As long as it makes you happy is all that matters. Find your happy place.

Keep moving,

Coach Dom

 

 

I was in a recent conversation with two of my trainers, Rebecca and Angelica, about body acceptance. We thought it would be a good topic for an article. I would have no problem writing about the topic, but since the majority of our members are women, I thought a female perspective would be a nice change. So, I asked Angelica if she wanted to be our guest writer for the week.

When I read this, I immediately thought of my daughter…..

Accept yourself, love yourself

Ladies, The Beatles sang it best, “All you need is LOVE”……but a great handbag and shoes make life so much more fun!

Dear younger me…

Picture yourself (yes, I sound like Sophia from Golden Girls) in the shoes of the little girl you once were.  When times were innocent, carefree and your biggest worry was about what toy to play with next.  Think back when that little, energetic girl loved to draw, create, dance, play outside, ride her bike, pick flowers and chase butterflies. Now picture yourself talking to that little girl as she is growing up, maturing through her awkward teen years into young adulthood. Now as a woman.  What would you say to her?

Would you fill her head with self-doubt, criticism, comparison to others, negativity, loathing?  Would you tell her to give up or that she isn’t good enough? 

No, you would not.  You’d tell her how amazing she is NOW and everyday.  You’d tell her that she could do anything she sets her mind too. You’d tell her that times will get rough, but that she will persevere because she is capable and strong. 

You’d tell her she is beautiful both inside and out and encourage her to be kind to herself and others. You’d hug her, love her through all her ups and downs, cheer her on and console her when needed.

You’d tell her she has to learn to take care of herself and learn when to ask for help from others.  Along the way, you’d remind her of all her accomplishments, how far she has come and how much further she can go. You’d tell her to never stop trying or believing in herself.

You are wonderful!

So now what would that little girl say to you?  She’d say she loves you.  She’d tell you to wear that bathing suit because it’s your favorite color blue and your eyes look pretty when you wear it. 

She’d tell you to wear that sleeveless, flowery dress because you love tulips and daisies. She’d tell you how amazing your strong arms are and beg you to throw her up in the air or push her in a swing. 

She’d tell you how strong your legs are and challenge you to a race. A race, which of course, you would let her win.

She’d ask you to show her how to make great-grandma’s peanut butter cookies because they are simply delicious. 

She’d proudly remind you that you’ve come so far in life, endured so much and encourage you to continue to take care of yourself the way you took care of her.

She’d challenge you to reach those goals and keep working at them.  She will admire you without words and make you realize how important you are to her and so many.

You are blessed to be here today. You are in charge of your life and health. We need to be kind to ourselves and that little girl that still lives within us.  We need to love every bit of ourselves and accept our bodies in their current state. Your health and fitness goals will not be reached until you breathe positive vibes and love for yourself. 

That little girl loves you and wants that for you.  She already thinks you’re pretty damn awesome the way you are. She wants to see you happy, healthy and strong.

Keep moving,

Coach Angelica

Lunch should just be a meal in the middle of the day to keep us energized and focused. Depending on your work environment lunch can be a metabolism smouldering, blood-sugar spiking, naptime at your desk taking, artery clogging, muffin top materializing, pants unbuttoning, chicken parm you taste so good, bad decision.

Workplace War Zone

The workplace is like a war zone for us, the few and proud who are trying to eat well and live healthy. You walk in the front door and wonder if Big Sal is going to keep his consecutive streak of showing up with donuts going. Yep, he did!  Then there are the candy bowls that are like IED’s (improvised explosive devices) for your diet. Oh, what’s that?  It’s someone’s birthday again today.  Wippty-doo!  Let’s go and celebrate another grown ass man’s birthday with sweets. I haven’t even got to the worse culprit of all – Lunch!

The Drawer of Menus

The drawer has all the usual suspects: Italian, Chinese, subs, burritos, barbecue and various restaurants. Everyday the drawer gets opened and someone makes the food run. The only person safe is the person (who from day one) brought their own lunch. The person that has it the toughest is the one trying to make a change. When you try to break out of the lunch group, you’ll get ridiculed, teased and made to feel like an outsider. The crabs in a bucket syndrome.

Crabs in a Bucket Syndrome – When a bunch of crabs are placed in a bucket, none of them will get out. As one crab tries to climb out of the bucket, another crab will reach up and pull them down.

How to Succeed at work when no one else cares

Step 1 – Realizing nobody cares.

Your health and fitness is your own personal responsibility. Your co-workers (who do not care about making a change) will hate the fact that you are trying. Your success will make them even more angry. Don’t take it personal. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.

Step 2 – Partner up with the co-worker who has already been making the choices you want to make.

You need an ally. More importantly, this person can be a mentor or someone to lean on for advice and accountability. This person may not exist in your workplace. I’m sure someone else wants to make the same changes, they are just nervous to start. Find that person and form a team.

Step 3 – Bring your own lunch.

Leftovers of last night’s dinner work well. A salad with protein is great too. If you have an office with a good break room, maybe a smoothie. Lunch shouldn’t be a huge ordeal.

Step 4 – Stand up for yourself.

Make it clear to your co-workers what you are doing. Most will respect your decisions if you put it out there. Your actions will dictate what happens next. If your actions do the talking, I bet you’ll end up with a few people interested in what you are doing. Success often leads to a leadership position. Be ready for it and embrace it.

Step 5 – Get out of the building.

I don’t know how long you get for lunch. If you get an hour, eat your food and then go for a walk. I know you have deadlines and work to do. The work isn’t going anywhere. That thirty minute walk will be the best part of your workday. You’ll burn some calories, loosen up the joints and relax the mind.

The workplace dilemma can be a real struggle. I have had members drop substantial weight and improve their health and fitness by tackling this one challenge. It won’t be easy, but if you truly have a desire to change, then it’s necessary.

Keep moving,

Coach Dom

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We’ve all seen a gym advertisement where one of the bullet points is State-of-the-Art equipment. Some of you might have a state-of-the-art treadmill, elliptical or universal machine at your house. Hell, you might even have an entire fitness room with a variety of equipment. Some of you might even be using this stuff, while others have a state-of-the-art place to hang clothes.

The right tool for the job

Builders of stuff and men and women that fix things use this saying. We’ve all heard it. In fitness, we are inundated with tools.  At one time, barbells reigned supreme. Before that, it was whatever nature provided – rocks, logs, trees, rugged terrain and our own bodyweight (the ultimate free weight). Then dumbbells and kettlebells. Then machines were invented to replicate all the movements everyone was already doing. Throw in your ab coasters, thigh masters, shake weights and the hundreds of other gimmicks and that’s a lot of tools.

What is the right tool then coach?

All of them! Except the shake weight. Seriously, everything has its place and can help you. It all boils down to the big question- What are you trying to accomplish?

Tools for general health and fitness 

Your tool bag can be like a magic hat filled with all types of goodies. If you are looking to lose fat, build some muscle and condition the body all the tools can help, but none are necessary. Tools can be cool and keep your training fun. They also don’t do a damn thing without intensity, consistency and desire.

Here is an example of one exercise with multiple training tools.

What tools do you use for a specific event?

Depends on the event. Never forget one of the golden rules of exercise – The law of specificity aka You get what you train.

If you are training to be a ninja warrior, you better be spending most of your time utilizing your bodyweight. You would place a heavy emphasis on grip strength and pulling strength (back, arms and torso training).

If you are entering a lumberjack competition, you better be chopping down trees as part of your training. I think you get the point. This scene from Dodgeball drives home the point of specific training.

Is this useful?

You should ask yourself this question every time you learn a new move with a new tool. Learning new moves with different training equipment can be fun, but it should only stay in your program if it’s useful.

People have built great physiques with just their bodyweight, while others have relied on machines or barbells. It all works if you push yourself with appropriate intensity and effort done consistently. Find what works well for you and do that religiously. Prior to doing the stuff you like (or on separate days), do the stuff you know is important but suck at. Stretching comes to mind. Do it until you don’t suck at it anymore.

Keep moving,

Coach Dom

Last week, I discussed how we can give our metabolism a boost through exercise. Here were the key points:

• Spend time building muscle –  Muscle requires a constant supply of energy. A lean, muscular body burn calories more efficiently and effectively.
• Maximize your training time by adding high intensity intervals or circuits into your training – The key word here is maximize. If you can burn 500 calories in a 30 minute steady bike ride or burn 500 calories doing 15 minutes of bike intervals (very hard, slower, very hard, slower…) and get the same fat burning response, which would you do? I like to do stuff that requires less time.
• Do as much physical movement as possible – Lift weights, run, bike…..every little bit of movement helps.

Exercise will help us build muscle, burn calories and change our bodies’ hormonal environment which can change how we process food.

Exercise is only part of the equation

Me and the masses of good trainers have all said, “You won’t out-train bad nutrition.”  Exercise is very important, but your diet is the game changer when it comes to your goals. It doesn’t matter if your goals are performance based, fat loss or building muscle. Your nutrition needs to match your goals.

Do you have a goal?

Facts

• To build muscle, we need all the food groups. Protein, fats, and carbs. Calorie intake needs to match your goal.
• What and when you eat have a great affect on your performance. That’s performance in a sport, in the gym or sitting at your desk working on an important project. If you are an athlete or very active, you’ll need more calories and carbs to match your goal then someone who only trains moderately.
• Fat loss requires controlling calories, less carbs and the right amount of protein to preserve muscle. Through tracking success and failures, we can find the personal sweet spot that works best for us.
  • Consistency is the only way you will find your sweet spot. “For one does not obtain and maintain results without consistent learning through experiences.” – Domfucius

Your most important meals of the day

If you take fitness serious or have recently embarked on taking fitness seriously, breakfast is crucial no matter the goal. The food you consume before, during and after your workout is also critical for maximizing our goals. There’s that word again, maximize.

Breakfast of Champions

There is tons of research on why breakfast is important. There are also diets and programs that say it’s not important and all that matters is total calories. Find me a bodybuilder, an athlete or very fit individual and I bet the vast majority eat breakfast. In my opinion, it should not be skipped.

Remember we need all food groups to build muscle. All food groups are important to provide us sustainable fuel and keep us full. Here are three great breakfast options:

• Oatmeal with protein powder, berries and walnuts.  That’s high-fiber quality carbs, protein and good fats. All the food groups.
• Eggs and a slice of 100% whole wheat toast or half an english muffin with natural, no sugar or salt-added nut butter. Again, all the food groups.
• Smoothie – Almond milk, protein powder, 1/2 banana, berries and spinach. Wash down a couple fish oil pills. Again, all the food groups.

How much should you eat? Enough. Eat enough to stay full for 3-4 hours. Eat enough to match your goals. If you workout first thing in the morning, eat a meal like this right after.

Workout Nutrition

Nutrient timing around your workout can help, but it isn’t magic. The first step is to make sure you have the basics in place – consuming the right foods and the right amounts to match your goals. Now we can give a brief breakdown of workout nutrition.

Pre-workout nutrition: 1-3 hours prior to your training session

The objective:

• Fuel the workout
• Enhance performance
• Save muscle
• Boost recovery

Protein will help preserve muscle, boost recovery and provide muscle building capabilities.

Carbs provide immediate energy and help promote insulin which helps prevent protein breakdown.

During-workout Nutrition

The goals are the same as pre-workout nutrition. The best thing you can do during a workout is drink water throughout the session. Dehydration negatively affects performance.

Post-workout Nutrition

The goals are:

• Recover
• Replenish
• Build muscle
• Preparation for the next workout session

Protein after a workout stops the breakdown of muscle and starts the rebuilding process. This leads to new muscle or maintenance of muscle.

Carbs control insulin sensitivity (this is good) and replenish muscle glycogen and liver glycogen storage. Replenishing these stored carbs are essential for building muscle and losing fat.

Find what works best for you

I can provide guidelines like this, but ultimately you need to learn through experience. The duration of your training sessions, what kind of exercise you are doing and your goals impact your food consumption. Don’t forget to look at the whole picture. Your evening workout might have sucked because you didn’t have a protein/carb meal 1-3 hours before. It also could have sucked because you were up binge watching “Orange is the New Black” and only got four hours of sleep.

• Fuel your day with breakfast (If you train first thing in morning, then breakfast is fuel and recovery.)
• Eat a well-balanced meal 1-3 hours before your training session. How close to your workout will determine the size of the meal.
• Follow up your workout with a recovery shake or a meal of protein and carbs as close to your workout as possible.
• Fill in the gaps to sustain energy and satisfy hunger. Don’t snack just to snack. Are you hungry between breakfast and your next meal? Then eat something that sustains you until your next real meal.

Do these four things repeatedly and consistently – day in and day out. Once mastered, feel free to try different approaches and/or supplementation.

Keep moving,

Coach Dom

 

We’ve all seen the advertisements for products and gyms that say something like, “torch 1,000 calories in 30 minutes doing our top secret workout that we will reveal for a one-time price of $97.” Yeah, I know.  Somewhere along the way calorie burn became an obsession. I’m here to tell you calories burned through physical movement shouldn’t be your priority when training. Your number one priority should be building muscle.

Metabolism

The chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life. These chemical processes are:

Anabolic – The building of tissues. Muscle, bone, etc.

Catabolic – The breakdown of tissues.

Both require energy. The rate at which these processes occur are measured in calories per a unit of time – usually a daily amount.

Daily caloric burn consists of three components:

Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)– The amount of calories you burn for normal function.

Diet-induced thermogenesis – Digesting food and converting it into a usable form of energy for the body requires energy. Huh? The body burns calories digesting food.

Physical activity – Any and all movement throughout the day.

 

 

Boost Your Metabolism

As you can see in the pie chart, RMR makes up 70% of our daily calorie burn. Exercise makes up 20-30%. Exercise is easily the most adjustable component. The more you do, the more you burn. However, most of us do not have unlimited time to exercise. This is why it’s so important to do the type of training that provides the biggest bang for the buck.

Strength Training and Interval Training

• Muscle mass increases RMR. Men, on average, have greater muscle mass and lower body fat percentage than women. The greater muscle mass we carry as men allows for a greater RMR.  There is only one way to build lean, dense muscle and that’s by lifting weights aka strength training. Women you must lift weights! More importantly they should by heavier than your purse.
• Exercise intensity effects how long it takes the body to recover, which results in more Exercise Post-Oxygen Consumption (EPOC).

What the hell is EPOC?

EPOC is the amount of oxygen needed to restore your body to it’s normal state after exercise. EPOC is also known as the “Afterburn,” which sounds way cooler. During this post-workout period, your body needs oxygen to help:

• Produce ATP (energy at cellular level) to replenish the ATP lost during exercise.
• Promote muscle glycogen (stored energy reserves in muscle).
• Work in conjunction with protein to rebuild muscle.
• Restore body temperature to resting levels.

Circuit training or intense interval training places a heavy demand on the energy pathways, leading to a greater EPOC.

EPOC is so important because most of us only train for an hour a day. It’s crucial to have the body burning calories the other 23 hours of the day. Strength training and intense circuit training can create an afterburn affect for up to 24 hours after the session.

The takeaway

• Build muscle through strength training to increase your Resting Metabolic Rate.
• Do high intensity circuit/interval training to create an “Afterburn” that boosts the metabolism the rest of the day. These should be stand alone workouts and short finishers at the end of your strength training sessions.
• Move as much as possible – jog, bike ride, swim, take the stairs, walk around the office, wash the car, mow the grass, make love.
• Eat enough protein, carbs and fats to match your goals (tune in next week because this will be the blog topic).

Keep moving,

Coach Dom

 

 

Yesterday while giving a potential new member a tour of Breakthrough Fitness she asked, “How will I do cardio? I don’t see any elliptical machines or treadmills?” This led to a more in-depth conversation about what she was currently doing with her fitness. Here was her normal routine at the YMCA:

• 30 minutes on elliptical or treadmill.
• Brief flirtation with some of the weight machines.
• Leave.

Does this format look familiar? It’s pretty common. It also leads to frustration because it doesn’t produce results. When you aren’t getting results or seeing some kind of progress, you stop trying.

Time is the biggest excuse for not exercising. Congratulations if you are blocking out a few hours a week to do physical work. All we need to do now is maximize your commitment.

Take a new approach

This picture shows you a an example of a full body training session that one of our clients is currently doing as part of their program.

In 30 minutes this client would have completed:

• The warm up (highlighted) – The warm up alone will have your cardiovascular system and respiratory system working to keep up with the muscular demand.
  • Push ups get the upper body ready.
  • WGS (world’s greatest stretch) This is what Mark Verstegen called it and that’s who I learned it from. Call it what you want, but make sure you do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEgV4WnpCpU
    
  • Calisthenics (jumping jacks involve every joint from ankle to shoulders) and gets the heart pumping blood faster.
  • Goblet squats take care of the leg muscles.
  • Mini-band walks activate the butt and hip muscles.

• Three sets of A1,A2,A3 – Emphasis is on the legs
  • Walking lunges with a barbell overhead – We know lunges to be a leg exercise. By placing a barbell overhead the shoulder and upper back region gets heavily into the mix. What do you think has to work really hard at keeping you vertical and stable? Your entire midsection from the front wrapped around to the spine.
  • Kettlebell swings – After doing walking lunges for about 20 yards, pick up a kettlebell and do 25 swings. Let me know if your “cardio” isn’t being challenged.
  • Now we need to let the legs rest for a little bit before we do another set of each exercise. Instead of sitting around for a couple minutes you could hang from a pull up bar. Your arms  and shoulders can get a little work in while we emphasize the legs.

• Four sets of B1 and B2- Upper body emphasis
  • Incline Bench Press – works out the chest, shoulders and triceps (back of the arm).
  • Seated rows – Works the muscles of the back and biceps (front of arm).

The remainder of this workout would take another 20-30 minutes

What do you think will produce better results?

30 minutes of walking or jogging on a treadmill vs. 30 minutes of everything I just described.

Save your slow cardio for another day

When most people think “cardio” they think long and slow. Usually it’s done on a treadmill, bike, elliptical or outside jogging. Slow cardio has it’s place in a well-rounded training program. Here is how I like to use it:

• Slow cardio is perfect for days between your more intense training sessions.
• It’s a good way to get your dog some exercise.
• A great way to chat with a friend and burn calories at the same time.
• Done alone first thing in the morning, so you can visualize and mentally prepare for the day.
• Great for after family obligations in the evening to organize your thoughts and your day.

Conditioning

Cardio, endurance, conditioning, whatever. We all need it. It can be part of your strength training or done as a finisher after your strength training. It’s also fantastic as a stand alone training session a couple times a week. Just make sure you are doing a little across the entire spectrum. On one end of the spectrum would be walking or slow jogging. On the other end is sled pushing. Get creative. I recently did this in my backyard for 15 minutes:

• Sprints across the low end of my pool until I was breathing heavy. I call it a sprint, but running in chest high water goes slow. Just pump the arms and legs hard.
  
• Swam the length of the pool 5x (haven’t swam laps in years and my pool is your normal backyard 1980 constructed pool).
• Walking lunges around the pool.
• Jumping jacks approximately 30 seconds.
• Laid on steps and soaked up some rays.
• Repeated sequence a few more times.

It aint rocket science. Do some stuff, let the heart rate come down a little and do some more stuff. When that gets easy do the stuff for longer, some other way or rest less.

See you at the gym!

Keep moving,

Coach Dom

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Summer is the toughest time of the year to keep a routine. A lack of routine leads to a relaxed mindset when it comes to fitness. When our fitness mindset becomes too relaxed, exercise and good nutrition take a back seat. The backsliding begins….

I’m passionate about what we do here at Breakthrough Fitness. I take pride in helping our clients change their lives through fitness. I know what has to happen for results to take place. I know how difficult it can be to commit to doing physical work 3-4 times per week. I know cutting out processed foods and eating more protein is a challenge. I know how hard it is to keep a positive mindset when people around you don’t care about your goals and effort towards change. This is why I get really disappointed when someone earns amazing results and then backslides a few months later to where they once were.

Fitness Boundaries

I recently made some dietary changes geared towards lowering my cholesterol.

• Oatmeal 4-5x per week.
• High dose of fish oil.
• Less carbs.

I ended up dropping 6lbs in a few months and  besides lowering my cholesterol, I feel really good. Six pounds isn’t a substantial amount of weight, but I feel a lot different at 185 than 191. I now have a new boundary – I will not allow myself to go above 190 again.

Fitness boundaries are necessary if you want to keep your results or gainz. You made a lot of changes to get those results. The boundaries on drinking, eating and exercise need to move a little closer together.

This summer I want you to work on moving the boundaries closer together. You don’t need to overhaul your lifestyle. Maybe you rent a beach house every year for a family vacation. You could make a boundary that the fridge and pantry for the week gets stocked with fruits, cheeses, nuts and healthy snacks instead of the usual chips, pretzels and dips. You can marinate and grill local shrimp and fish instead of hot dogs.

Throughout our entire lives we have to draw lines in the sand and make a stance on important decisions. Your health and wellness is your responsibility. Draw a line and stand firm.

Enjoy the summer and don’t forget to keep moving!

Coach Dom