Try to plan your meals with the foods you enjoy. If you do not like tuna, do not force yourself to eat it. You will never stay consistent if you are dreading what you have to eat. Eat your meals slowly while sitting down. Too many of us eat on the run, standing in the kitchen or in the car. We do not give our bodies the chance to tell our brains we are satisfied and as you know, if you are not satisfied, you might over eat.
There are going to be days that you might “fall off the band wagon.” For example, you might eat a high fat meal or over eat at dinner. If this happens, do not give up- just get right back on your eating plan the next day and your body will not be affected. If you thrown in the towel, that is where you get into trouble. If you make a mistake at work, you don’t just quit your job – you correct it and move forward. Remember, quitters never win and winners never quit.

Here are some tips to follow if body fat loss is your goal:
• Have your food steamed, baked, broiled or roasted.
• Eliminate any rich, thick sauces and soups such as bernaise, hollandaise, alfredos and sauces (marinara is a better choice).
• Remove skin and fat from chicken.
• Eliminate butter all together.
• Eat smaller portions- more often- never stuff yourself.
• Share dessert- do not eat the whole thing by yourself!
• Learn to just have a taste- if it is a food you cannot resist, stay away from it all together.
• Chew gum while baking- especially during the holidays.
• Ask for your salad dressing on the side- dip your fork in for taste.
• Do not go out to dinner starved- this will lead you to over eat. Drink water before your meals.

Schedule a free consultation if you would like more information on PerFit’s exclusive and revolutionary nutritional programs with guaranteed results! We tailor a meal plan (And a shopping list!) just for you with the foods you enjoy eating.

After 10 weeks of dedication, Maria Hartwich was the unanimous winner of the Ballarat “Your Best Body” contest, claiming over $2,400 in prizes. Maria lost over 15kgs of fat and saw her quality of life improve drastically as a result.

Local fitness/weight loss expert and creator of the contest, Julian Gaylor of PerFit Health and Wellness says that Maria’s transformation is great inspiration and motivation to others. “Maria’s transformation is testament to how regular exercise and sensible eating is all you need to see great changes in the body. Dangerous weight loss pills and extreme dieting is never the answer”.

Gaylor’s Your Best Body Challenge is part of the fitness and weight loss contest phenomenon started by the hit TV show, The Biggest Loser.  “That show really focused the nation’s attention on the benefits of participating in a contest, guided by certified personal trainers, in terms of the motivation and accountability necessary for success,” explains Gaylor. “It’s difficult to lose weight on your own. Anyone who’s tried and struggled knows that – and unfortunately, that’s the majority.”

All entries were judged by Gaylor, his staff and all sponsors. Both Perfit Health and Wellness and major sponsor Gems and Jewels have generously awarded Maria $1,000 gift certificates while Jeanswest , Skin Ski and Surf and Salon Boji have kindly given Maria a new look to go with her new body.  “It’s definitely a town effort,” says Gaylor, “we couldn’t do this without a lot of help.  We’re all very grateful for the way this challenge is being received and look forward to helping a lot of folk lose weight and get into great shape in the near future.”

Visit www.YourBestBodyBallarat.com.au to see the winners before and after pictures.

Games involved the “Egg on Medicine Ball” races and water balloon throwing. We also had the drawing of the eagerly awaited “Train the Trainer” contest. Congrats to Scott & Tanya, Dean and Mark & Jess for winning a 1 hour session to train the trainers!

• Get a head start on your holiday fitness

In the few weeks leading up to the holidays, you should really try and ramp up the exercise to give you somewhat of a head start before the festivities hit. Not only will it get you into the routine of exercising, you will be fitter and healthier than usual which means you will have more “breathing space” of sorts to indulge during the holidays.

Secondly, if you really focus on proper exercise and eating well right now, you will be in good habits when things may get a little difficult.

• Don’t get too stressed out! Enjoy yourself!

When it all boils down, the holidays are a time to be happy and relax a little. If you worry too much about exercise and eating right you won’t enjoy yourself during this period. You need to accept the fact that your diet and exercise habits might not be perfect over this period and not to stress about it. In a month’s time when you are back into the swing of it all, it will just be a distant memory. Being mentally relaxed is also a big part of your health and wellbeing so stressing out over missing a session or eating too much every now and then won’t help at all.

• Have a break from work, not exercise

Sure, the holiday period is a time for relaxing and taking it easy but don’t let your exercise routine suffer too much. If you currently exercise 3-4 times a week and all of a sudden drop off to 1 or even 0 sessions each week, not only will your progress slow but you’ll probably find yourself going backwards.

As nice as it is to sleep in and then “veg” out all day, getting to the gym or even exercising outside for 30-60 mins 3 days a week will go a long way to helping you maintain your health and fitness levels. Did you know that exercising for an hour 3 times a week is less than 2% of your whole week? Its not the much at all, is it ?You’ll also get more out of the day as you’ll be more energetic. However if you feel the need to snooze afterwards….at least you’ve earned it!

• Christmas Day survival guide

Christmas day can be worse than other parties as it’s usually an all day event!  Here are some quick pointers to help you out.

-          If you eat from a smaller plate you will not eat as much as in your mind will still be eating a full plate (or two….or three!).

-          Eat lean meats such as turkey and chicken instead of pork and ham.

-          Cut back on the trimmings such as gravy and other sauces.

-          Instead of snoozing on the couch, participate in the game of backyard cricket or whatever game the family is into. If there is no game going, start one!

• Improvise on vacation

If the gym is your soul outlet for exercise, when you go away during the holidays you may be limited as to what you can do so it’s time to improvise. Getting outdoors and doing some cardio work such as running, cycling or swimming can be a great change of pace. You can still get a good resistance work out in without machines and free weights. You can do body weight exercises such as push ups, squats, dips, lunges, chin ups etc. If you have advanced to a point where you need more resistance you could fill a backpack and put it on your back while doing these exercises. You can also use suitcases and bags as makeshift weights and dumbbells. You’re only limited by your imagination!

If you are interested in getting some ideas for exercise programs you can do over the holidays when you are away, getting involved in our men’s only or women’s only boot camps may be just what you need. You will learn some great exercises that don’t require a lot of equipment to help maintain your fitness while not in the gym.  Check them out at www.BallaratBootCamps.com

• Don’t let the parties poop your progress

I’m all for letting my hair down and having fun at Christmas parties. It is the silly season after all isn’t it? The problem comes when you have multiple BIG parties where you over indulge on the alcohol and nibbles. It’s quite easy to consume 3-4 times your daily calorie allowance at one party (that’s not including the rest of the day’s food either!). Let’s put that into perspective- Let’s say you had 3 big parties where you really let yourself go. You would have consumed up to, or even more than 12 days worth of calories (most probably coming from sugar and saturated fat). Hypothetically (PLEASE DON’T DO THIS) you would have to not eat for the next 12 days just to counteract the damage.

To minimise the effects of these parties, make sure to exercise earlier in the day. You should also eat a good meal before going to the party. This will mean you have already filled up on good food and won’t be nibbling on junk at the party. You should also plan to only have 1 or 2 big parties and pace yourself or don’t drink at all at the others. Not only will your body thank you, but you will save money and chances are you won’t be the one doing something embarrassing!

I hope you all have a relaxing holiday period and this article will help you to maintain your health and fitness over this time. If you have any questions or would like some help in other areas, feel free to book a consultation at the top of the page!

• Have specific goals.

I have mentioned this in a previous article but I’m mentioning it again because its so damn important. It’s so much easier to push yourself when you have a goal in mind. It gives you some purpose and direction. You know there is something great that is waiting for you at the end of your journey. If you don’t have a goal, get one!

• Turn the main goal into a “goal journey”

It’s always great to have long term goals such as waiting to lose 20kg of body fat or to squat another 60kg but sometimes these goals are just too distant. The accomplishment of these goals can be months or even years away, so it’s easy to lose motivation .The best thing to do is to break the one big goal into multiple smaller goals which I call a “goal journey”. If your aim is to lose 20kg of body fat, instead make it into 4 goals of 5kg or any other increment. You could have 20 goals of 1kg if need be. Once you reach the first goal, you feel good about yourself as there is the feeling of accomplishment. Chances are you’ll be even more motivated for the next goal as you’ve proven to yourself that its possible when you break it down into baby steps!

• Personal training

If you are really finding it hard to push yourself or struggle for direction when training, a personal trainer can be the perfect injection of motivation. They’ll push you to the limits you didn’t think was possible, all the while making sure you are exercising safely. Having someone there to encourage you to go that little bit heavier, longer or faster can really make the difference between success and failure.

Personal trainers can also help you set realistic goals and help you track them through various methods such as measureing body fat percetage and performance in the gym. It will keep you accountable as you’ve made an appointment you HAVE to go to as no one likes wasting money.

• Have pictures

Did you know that being able to visibly see something can help you to understand and comprehend it 400% better than just writing it down (you do write down your goals?….. don’t you?).  If there is an ideal body type you are looking to achieve, try and find a picture of it and put it somewhere where you will see it constantly. This might be at your desk, on the back of the toilet door or even on fridge door so you see it when feel like snacking!

With picture up, you will constantly be reminded of your goals and it will help you to stay motivated. If you are trying to get back to a body shape you used to have, keep a picture of your old (soon to be new) body to remind you how could you can/will look if you keep at it. You can even take pictures of yourself every month and see the gradual changes. This in itself is like a goal journey.

• Training partner

Having a training partner can be great as you can help to push each other and keep each other accountable. If you agree to meet someone at the gym at a certain time, you will feel guilty if you don’t turn up. You’ll be letting both you and him/her down. Its good to have a training partner who is around the same fitness level as you, but it’s even better if they are slightly fitter and motivated. You always want to surround yourself with people who will pull you up, not drag you down.

• A new program

Training can get stale and stagnant if you keep the same program for too long. As you keep doing the same training program over and over, the progressions you make will start to slow and you may get to the point where you plateau!  This is dangerous for your motivation and attitude towards fitness as you may be disheartened at the lack of results and stop training all together !

• Have a rest week

As I write this I am currently having a rest week. I have one every 8-12 weeks. The last week or so I’ve had sore and aching joints and my energy levels in the gym have not been great. These are signs that its time for a break.  It allows my body to rest and get rid of any niggling injuries. Dont worry about losing all of your gains in your rest week. Sometimes I even come back stronger as my body is fully rested and fresh. By the end of a rest week, I’m itching to get back into it again.

If you would like some more information on how PerFit Health and Wellness can help you with your goals, visit www.perfit.com.au and book in for a free consultation to find out about our training packages.

Yours in good health and wellness,

Julian Gaylor

Owner of PerFit Health and Wellness

Some weight loss clients have been advised to drink 2 cups of coffee in the morning before a workout to help reduce body fat. How this works is that the client will awake with an empty stomach, drink the 2 cups of coffee and proceed to workout. The caffeine in the coffee will boost their endurance by prolonging fatigue and help the client burn just body fat. What many people do wrong is they eat a meal right before a workout, usually high carbohydrates or no meal at all and wonder why they crash during a workout. Unfortunately, you will only maintain your current weight and body fat instead of tapping into your excess body fat storage.

Some other benefits to drinking coffee are:
• improvements to long term memory

• stimulates the bowels

• natural diuretic
Of course, plenty of clear liquids should be taken in to flush out toxins no matter how much coffee is consumed.
The only proven negative effect of coffee is that unfiltered coffee beans have compounds that could possibly
raise your blood cholesterol as much as 20 points. Basically, stay away from coffee made in a French press. Many people claim the flavor is better but obviously not healthy for the body. Therefore, drink only
filtered coffee!!

A couple of tidbits of information about caffeine:

• 1 shot of espresso has less caffeine than regular coffee

• 1 cup of tea has more caffeine than regular coffee

• 1 cup of coffee can enhance your alertness

So, go ahead and have a java jolt and enjoy! Take advantage of the benefits a hot cup of coffee can do for you. One short, skinny latte to go could add amazing results to your life!!

Coffee: Go Ahead and Have a Java Jolt!

1. You don’t have a specific goal

We all go to the gym for a reason. Common reasons include “To lose weight”, “To get fitter/stronger” or “To build more muscle”. If you are serious about getting results, these goals are not specific enough. Give yourself a deadline.  For example, if your aim is to change your body weight, make it specific by saying “I want to gain/lose ×kgs in the next 6 weeks”

2. You don’t keep a training journal

A training journal is your roadmap to results. If you don’t keep one, you don’t know where you’re going or how fast you are getting there. A training journal can be a program sheet written up by a trainer or your own gym diary. You need to fill this out every session. Write down what exercises you did, how many sets, reps and the weight lifted. For cardio sessions, depending on the machine you use, write down the time, speed , distance , incline or resistance. Because you are documenting your sessions, you know exactly what you have done in each workout and therefore, can try and improve each session.

3. You undo all your good work by not eating well

So many people sweat it out in the gym and give it their all but then go and sabotage themselves by eating badly. The most common problem is with those trying lose weight. If you come to the gym and work hard, but then leave the gym only to continue on with your poor diet, sure the exercise might help a little but if you are still making poor nutritional choices and eating WAY too much, chances are your weight will stay the same or even continue to rise! The worst part is, not only do some people not change their diet, but because they are working so hard in the gym they feel the need to reward themselves with a little treat in the form of fast food, chocolate, cake, alcohol etc. Chances are this “little treat” is a calorie bomb which has more calories than they actually burn in the gym (possibly in the whole week!) which more than counteracts all the hard work they do in the gym.

4. You’re doing the same workout you were doing 2 months ago

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result- It’s an old adage that’s been beaten to death but is still relevant. You may not realise it but our bodies are smart and lazy machines. If you do the same exercises repeatedly, the body will find the most efficient way of completing them. This is bad news because it means when our bodies become more efficient it will be harder to lose weight or gain muscle, strength, and cardiovascular fitness.  Keep your body guessing by starting a new program or even doing your program in the opposite order.  If you do 30 mins on the treadmill, do 25 mins at a higher speed or use a different machine altogether!

5. You’re not consistent with your training

It’s not about what you do SOME of the time, it’s what you do MOST of the time. Missing a rare session here and there is OK but when you start to miss sessions every week, you are seriously hindering your ability to make progress. Let’s do some quick math here- There are twenty-four hours in a day. Yes? OK, so if there are seven days in a week that’s a total of one hundred and sixty-eight hours. Still following? Good.  Doing three- one hour session a week is a whopping 1.78% of your whole week. Is that too much to spare?

6. You’re exercising too much

Here’s the opposite of #5. They say too much of a good thing can be bad for you. Exercise is no different. Training too hard, too often can actually hinder your ability to make progress. When training in the gym, you put your body under a lot of stress (good stress). When weightlifting you actually damage your muscles and make micro-tears in them. When you are resting, the muscles repair and rebuild bigger and stronger so in actual fact, you don’t get bigger and stronger in the gym, you get bigger and stronger when you are resting. This means if you don’t rest enough, you don’t give your muscles enough time to repair and recover which leaves you prone to injury and can make you smaller and weaker! Even when you train different body parts each day, it still taxes your body as a whole so it still needs time to recover.

The same can be said for cardio training. When putting in a hard cardio session, it taxes your whole body. Among other things, your immune system becomes suppressed as all your body’s resources are trying to help you recover from the intense exercise. This really isn’t a big problem as your body returns to its normal state after time but if you continually put your body under intense stress and don’t allow for sufficient recovery time, you will gradually run yourself into the ground and exercise will become less productive and less enjoyable! I even take a whole week off from training every 8- 12 weeks. I find I come back more motivated and stronger as I’ve let my body fully rest and recover!

7. You’re not pushing yourself hard enough

As with everything in life, if you want to truly succeed you need to get out of your comfort zone. It’s no different in the gym. If you want to see results, you must challenge your body and give it a reason to change! Now with that said, I don’t want you to train so hard that you are at the point of literal exhaustion. That’s just dangerous and actually has adverse effects on your body. Chances are when you think you are working your hardest, you are actually nowhere near your maximum potential. The reason you think you couldn’t possibly put anymore effort in is because you’ve never tried to! Next time you are exercising, put the treadmill up an extra 0.5km/h or go for another 30 seconds. When weight training and you think you’re done try squeezing another one or two reps out. Dig deep! You might surprise yourself.

8. You’re weightlifting with your ego, not your brain.

Ever notice that the biggest guys in the gym or those with the best muscle tone don’t lift the heaviest weights? That’s because they lift smart and target the right muscles. In general, most people who lift weights do so with the intention of improving their lean muscle mass. Unfortunately, it is an all too frequent occurrence that people let their ego get in the way and get caught up in worrying more about the amount of weight they are lifting rather than the technique they use. When lifting with bad technique you usually bring other muscles into the movement which then takes all the stress off the desired muscles. For example, if someone is doing a bicep curl with too much weight, they will usually swing their upper body and bring the shoulders into the movement. This means that the muscles in the back and the deltoids (shoulder muscles) are doing a lot of the work rather than the biceps.

You’ll get better results lifting a lighter weight with good form that really targets the desired muscles than a heavier weight with bad form. Remember- it’s not how much you lift, it’s how much you look like you can lift!

If you have any questions about this article or would like some help in other areas, feel free to schedule a free consultation at the top of the page- Kind Regards, Julian

I’ve got BIG NEWS!

Here’s the fastest way to your best body:

www.YourBestBodyBallarat.com.au

I’m not kidding. Take a look right now, you’ll be glad
you did.

Here’s the scoop…

I’m running a contest. It’s called the “Your Best Body
10-Week Challenge.” And it’s free for everyone to
participate. But don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s
not valuable. This is the fastest way to lose weight,
drop dress or pants sizes, transform your body and
look and feel better than you have in years…in just
10 short weeks.

If thats not enough enticement, there will be prizes…BIG
PRIZES. Along with PerFit, local Ballarat businesses have
donated over $3,000 worth of amazing prizes for the winners

There’s just something about contests/challenges like
“Your Biggest Loser” and others that really get folks
motivated to do more and be more, faster than they
would otherwise.

This is a great way to challenge yourself, with our
help, and it won’t cost you a cent (just a small, one-
time $10 donation to The Ballarat Cancer Research Center,
a great local Charity here in Ballarat).

I’m doing this to get more local folks the help they
need to get the body they want…and to raise much
needed funds for The Ballarat Cancer Research Center
So it’s a winner all the way around.

Take a look here for all the details, and to get my
“Your Best Body Challenge 10-Week Transformation Guide”
free. The Guide contains all the info about the
Challenge…AND…a complete 10-week exercise and
nutrition program for you to follow with or without our
help.

Just go here:

www.YourBestBodyBallarat.com.au

To your health, fitness and best body,
Julian Gaylor
PerFit Health and Wellness

P.S. Even if you’re not interested, I’d greatly
appreciate it if you’d forward this to all your
friends, family an co-workers in the area. They’ll
appreciate you giving them the “head’s up!

2009 PerFit Christmas  Party