Atlanta Fitness Coach: A Blog about Weight-Loss, Nutrition and the T-Tapp Workout

Here's the Secret!!!! Are You Ready???

NOW YOU KNOW!!!  I hope you share it with everyone you care about!!!

Get a Killer Lean Body in Just Minutes a Day!!!

You know I am a rabid T-Tapper. I've been doing T-Tapp for 9 years now and in that time I've seen people achieve the most amazing physical and emotional transformations.

Yet I'm always researching and keeping up with the newest studies so I can bring you cutting edge new products and services all designed to enhance your life. My research has led me to a Physician named Al Sears,MD. Dr. Sears has credentials as long as my arm. He is a true humanitarian who walks his talk. His nutritionals are second to none. More on that in another post.

What I wanted to share today is his PACE Workout. PACE stands for Progressive Accelerating Cardio-pulmonary Exertion. YIKES!!! Fancy way of saying interval training. But there is a little more to it than that.

I've been incorporating many of his principles into our T-Tapp routine and the results are evident. Many of us are wearing heart rate monitors and are finding that, by making sure to do two sets of hoe downs throughout the workout we are able to get our heart rate into the super zone. This is allowing us to get the muscle sculpting, lymph pumping benefits of t-tapp with the heart rate training and subsequent fat blasting of the PACE.

What do I mean by "results are evident"? Well, in two weeks of incorporating more PACE into my T-Tapp, I've lost an additional 1.5% body fat!!!   And I haven't changed anything else. The Tappers in class are telling me they are getting stronger and their pants are getting looser!!!

Gotta love it. Remember the Doublemint Twins?? Two Two Two workout in ONE!!! With triple the results. If you'd like more info on PACE, click HERE.

How to Maintain Your Motivation.

We tend to yo-yo when we begin a program in a negative emotional state and we want to reduce the anxiety that we are feeling because of it.  We believe we are in a crisis and we want to improve that situation.  For example, maybe you went to your Doctor and they told you your blood pressure is out of control or you got on the scale and you came face to face with that number.

You got upset and vowed to take back control.  But the focus is on relieving that crisis.  So you begin a new program of diet and exercise.  A few weeks later your blood pressure is coming down and/or your pants are feeling a little looser.  The anxiety is being relieved.  So you stop being as vigilant.  "A glass of wine every night isn't going to hurt anything." we say to ourselves.

And before you know it, we're right back to where we started. 

If you are ready for lasting change, the first thing that must change is your focus! 

What is it you really want?  If you aren't clear about what you want, do not begin a program.  It's like going on a road trip without having any destination in mind.  Do you leave your house with the intention of not going to Los Angeles?  This is what happens when you start a program with the intention of not having a blood pressure problem or not having to face that scale again.

Instead...focus on what you want.  Make that your constant focus.  When you keep that in mind, all the choices you are presented with each day become much easier to make because you know where you are going!

It's the second week of January! I did all the workouts last week I had committed to in writing. And my derriere was kind of sore by saturday night!



I got out my Tempo Lower Body DVD and did the full 60 minutes. Oh my gosh! That workout kicked my butt! I love that it doesn't matter how much you've been doing T-Tapp, if you go to your max you continue to get amazing results.



For this week, I've commited to wearing my heart rate monitor. I want to see how high my heart rate goes during a workout. This morning we did an advanced T-Tapp workout in class. I got it up to 136 during hoe downs. I've been adding alot more hoe downs during the workout to keep it more like interval training.



The latest sutdies are proving interval training to be the very best way to get heart and lung healthy, as well as to burn more fat.



More on that soon!



Happy Monday!

We're BACK!!!

January bootie call Audio!  Click HERE!

It seems like everyone I've talked to over the last couple of weeks made a conscious decision to throw caution to the wind and just eat and drink themselves through December.  Maybe the stress of the year had something to do with it.  Or maybe we all needed to prove to ourselves that excess truly does make us feel crappy.

So I sent out a challenge in my newsletter to anyone who wanted to join me in a January Bootie Call!!! 

I started mine yesterday by being brave and hopping on my tanita body fat analyzer and finding out exactly where my weight and body fat % was.  I then took measurements around my "areas of concern".  I wrote down my results and then also wrote down my goals.  From there, I broke down my goal into daily action steps.  

I had decided to do the Take Shape For Life 5 & 1 nutrition program for at least a week.  And yesterday I stuck to the program.  I had decided to do my T-Tapp 4 days in a row.  I know...easy for me because I'm teaching it 4 days in a row. We did a great workout yesterday.  I drank my water and took all my supplements.

Here are a few things I found interesting about getting back on track. 

1. I REALLY didn't want to get on my scale.  I didn't want to know.  How often do we allow ourselves to be in denial about our current state of health.  Monitoring is a huge tool to long-term weight management.  And I can see why. 
2. Today I feel good about myself.  I feel like I have taken control back over my health and that is translating into how I'm showing up in the rest of my life.
3. I realized how grateful I am to have these effective tools to go back to when I need to recommit to my health.  Remember when it was the beginning of January and you really wanted to feel good again but didn't have a clue what to do?  So we just decided to stop eating or "cut back".  That always lasted until around 4:00 in the afternoon and we got so hungry we ran into the kitchen and ate whatever we could find. 
4. I realized I was excited about getting back into my health routine.  I wanted to get back to my healthy food and consistent exercise.  I was ready!
5. It's all a mind set.  When I make a decision and then put that decision into a written game plan, I  stick to it.  If I just say I'm going to lose a few pounds and don't put together a written plan, it doesn't happen.

I hope you'll join me and write down your own January Bootie Call. 

WARNING!!!!  Only do it if you are ready to do what it takes to achieve your goals.  If you aren't ready and the idea of it leaves you feeling stressed out (and NOT excited) please don't do it.  Wait until you really are ready.  Otherwise you will reinforce your failure programming and use it as one more thing that didn't work. 

 

Girlfriends are one of the truly divine gifts we are given. I have two girlfriends that I consider to be "sisters". I met one through the other so I'm the new friend in the triangle. And normally 3 girls don't play well together.



But our friendship has withstood that known myth. We play very well together. My friends are incredibly interesting (mainly because they are interested in the same things I am. LOL!), talented and caring. There is never a dull moment in any of our lives and it's a blast to get together and share all the varied experiences.



One of my friends met her husband at her high school reunion. Carried on a long-distance love affair. She ran off and married him. All fine and good except he lives in Philly. Not fair. He took her away from us.



Luckily he did learn early on to share. And this weekend he shared her with us.



So as I start my week, I'm filled to the brim with awesome girlfriend juju. Not to mention all the rich food and wine. My cup runneth over.



My hope for you is much good girlfriend time. There is simply nothing that can take it's place and it heps us navigate through the river of life.

T-Tapp - The Anti-Aging Workout!

I've gone to the T-Tapp Annual Retreat for 5 years now.  It's one of my favorite things to do.  I get to see my T-Tapp friends and family that I hadn't seen since the last retreat.  We eat, drink, carry on with not too much reckless abandon.  And we Tapp for hours a day.  Ahhh...Renee heaven!

I went again this year and had a blast!  I always get major "ah ha's" at the retreats.  And this year was no exception.  Two super major 'ah ha's"!!!!  The first was how incredibly anti-aging T-Tapp is.  Is it possible that each year tappers look better and younger than the year before?  I'm not kidding. 

Let's take our fearless and brilliant leader Teresa.  There are those of us who have the original Total Workout videos. (There were no DVD's back then)  Those videos were done over ten years ago.  Look at Teresa then and look at her now!  She looks like she hasn't aged a day since those videos.  Her body is even more beautiful (if that's possible) than when she first released TW.  if you haven't actually met Teresa, just look at her more recent DVD's.  Critter Crunch will prove what I'm saying. 

I realize that's Teresa.  But because of her workout, all of us tappers who have been doing the workout for a while look amazing.  Take Head Trainer Lani.  Oh my gosh!  Lani's transformation has been fantastic to watch.  Lani looks 10 years younger now than when I originally met her.  And Lani was teaching other fitness programs before finding T-Tapp. 

I'm only mentioning those two women because many of you are familiar with them.  But there wasn't one Tapper there that didn't look years younger than their age if they have been tapping for a while.  No wonder Nicholas Perricone put 12 pages of T-Tapp in his most recent book 7 Secrets to Beauty, Health and Longevity. 

I believe the anti-aging aspect is due, in part, to it's incredible ability to pump the lymphatic system.  This allows us to detoxify our bodies while accessing and circulating fat.  We know it relieves inflammation and inflammation is a huge cause of aging. 

If you are looking for a way to tighten and tone your body and create a younger, healthier YOU, you owe it to yourself to check out this workout.  Click HERE to go directly to the T-Tapp site.

 I bet you are now wondering what the second "ah ha" was.  Stay tuned.  I'll blog about that next.
  

How Do You Measure "Success" ?

When people come to me to assist them on their weight loss journey, I'm sure they don't quite realize it IS a journey.  And we come to the starting line of the journey with our own set of maps as to where we want to go.

The first question I always ask is "what do you want?"  "To lose weight!" is the common answer.  But that's kind of like saying you want a million dollars.  What will that million dollars allow you to have and/or do?  Buy a new house, send your children to ivy league schools, have time freedom?

What do you want from your weight loss accomplishment?  Do you want to feel good about yourself?  Do you want to feel attractive? Do you want to have tons of energy and be able to do more physical activities? 

Don't you wonder why you can start a "diet" and "be good" on it for a while and then go right back to doing what you were doing before?  I believe one reason is because we don't take the time to do the hard work at the beginning.  And the hard work is getting REALLY clear on what it is you want.  Then stay focused on that. 

Once you've gotten really clear on what you want, it's time to ask yourself how you are going to measure your success?  Remember you are on a journey.  And during the journey you will be stopping along the way to pick the daisies.

The daisies can be valuable learnings that allow us to understand ourselves better.  I have one client who isn't at her goal weight, but she is learning about herself and the way she uses food to not deal with a grief situation.  Her realization about something that was hidden to her is a great success!  No, the scale isn't dropping quickly. But she's having great success in becoming aware of her automatic reaction mechanisms to tough personal situations.

If you are thinking about starting your own health program, I urge you to do the heavy lifting up-front.  Get clear on what you want.  And decide how you want to measure your successes.

Getting to your destination is sweet.  But the journey is where the juice is! 

Sobering New Statistics on the Cost of Obesity!

Yesterday on one of the news channels the top story was about the rising cost of health care.  The study by government scientists and the nonprofit research group RTI International found that medical spending for an obese American averages $1,400 more a year than for someone of healthful weight. They also found that overall obesity-related health care spending has reached nearly $150 billion a year, roughly double what it was a decade ago!!!!  (So much for "your Take Shape program and/or your T-Tapp classes and DVD's costs too much" argument)

The report also found the rate of obesity increased nationally by 70 percent over the past decade, and it echoed previous findings that more than half of Americans are either overweight or obese. That makes them prone to diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other ailments that are driving U.S. health care costs into the stratosphere.

These are incredibly sobering facts.  And we all know it's true.  All we have to do is look around us.  This isn't just a problem of vanity or looking good in our size 8 jeans.  This is part of our economic crisis.  And it requires solutions of global proportion.

Here's an interesting fact.  On that same news channel, during the same hour as these new statistics are being released, the "news" people did a segment on preparing the perfect key lime pie.  It wasn't just key lime pie.  It also had a chocolate fudge topping.  I'm sure that was to entice the entire female population who is convinced chocolate is it's own food group.  And who will tell you about how it's a great source of anti-oxidants.

But unfortunately we have learned that statistics don't change behavior.  People change behavior.  And the start of a behavior change is getting clear on what YOU want.  Do you WANT to be part of this national statistic?  Or do you want to be one of the people who WANT optimal health in their life?

Key lime pie with fudge topping and a side of diabetes?  Or a "lean and green" meal and energy to spare?  In any given moment it's our choice.

What will your choice be today?

How Much Happiness Will You Allow?

I was just at the Take Shape National Convention and it was awesome.  One of the events was a workshop with Brian Biro.  Brian is an incredible motivator and speaker.  His workshop was the highlight of the convention for me.  At the end of his session, he had everyone in the room (close to 500 people!!!) break a board with one hand.

Breaking a board with one hand is a brilliant metaphor for creating success in your life.  It's about making a decision to achieve a committed goal, overlooking the obstacles and maintaining piercing focus on the end result.  Then following through on that commitment and breaking through to your success.

Before we actually broke our boards, we were instructed to write on the board an X and over the X write what it is we wanted to breakthrough.  What is holding us back from having what we want in life.  WOW!  That's a big question, isn't it?  Getting real enough with ourselves to state what our biggest fear is.  Because that is what is holding each of us back from having what we most want.

It's not our circumstances.  It's our faulty programming that tells us we can't and proves itself correct.  I realized for me, it was not allowing myself the incredible happiness that exists all around me.  It almost feels too overwhelming and I get afraid that it will be taken away.  The one thing about fear is it isn't logical!!!! It simply IS!  And when examined, it is like smoke that disappears with the wind.

On the other side, we were to write what we would get by overcoming that obstacle.  And who in our lives would be positively aaffected.  Because we don't live in a bubble.  We affect everyone we come in contact with.  When we change, we affect change in those around us.  How cool is that?

I wanted to allow myself to feel and to celebrate all the joy and happiness in my world.  Guess what? I broke that board the very first time I tried and I didn't even feel anything!  It was quite an experience and experiences change people.  I was changed.  And in turn, I have affected change in all of you who are around me.

Let's all allow ourselves to feel and celebrate the joy that is there everyday in all our lives.  It doesn't have to show up "BIG".  I feel the most joy from all the little things in life.  Like looking at my daughters face or getting an email from a friend.  Or my morning cup of coffee.  Or getting into bed at night knowing I lived a full and happy day.

Let's celebrate!