15 March, 2012 by Categories :
Weekly Challenges
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Weekly Challenge March 15th 2012

Weekly workouts are short and to be done as quickly as possible with perfect form.  Add in with your normal workouts or do on their own for a quick blast to burn calories and fat!

 

Froggers 50

Bikes 50

50 mule kicks 25 per leg

Complete 4 rounds fast as possible

12 August, 2011 by Categories :
Inspiration
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Testimonial by Emily

I just wanted to say thank you SO much for the amazing classes I’ve been fortunate to attend….The classes have been amazing and even though very tough, I have enjoyed every minute of it. I can’t believe how much I actually like working out in your classes!!!!! I also realIy enjoyed your positive attitude and optimism! I am hoping to rejoin again in October…when I return from my trip.
- Emily
1 May, 2011 by Categories :
Inspiration
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What inspires people to start working out?

A recent reader poll asked “How did you get started in fitness?” And here are the
answers:
 62% said they wanted to lose fat
 27% said they wanted to be more energetic
 42% said they wanted to feel healthier
 44% said they wanted to look sexier
 25% said they were tired of feeling frumpy
 37% said they wanted to feel more confident
 46% said that they wanted to build muscle
 5% other

11 December, 2009 by Categories :
Charity
Ecstatic Grooves
Events
Schedule
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Get your Groove on this holiday season!

Sunday December 20th
4pm – 530pm
Fitness Fanatix
Mississauga

Join us and experience a new way to think about how we move our bodies. In a world telling us to follow suit, it is time to break free, explore our individual uniqueness and embrace our inner funky selves! Groove classes are fitness classes for the mind, body and soul. Participants (Groovers) are guided through active movements that promote self-expression and creativity – Groovin’ is exploring movement to great music to make your body feel good and to create vibrant health in your body. Classes infuse positive mind and body-image messaging and inspire participants to connect to their SELF. In discovering your body and how it wants to move and express, you will reveal a new attitude can permeate into all areas of your life, opening us up to a whole new way of being, a unique way of being, YOUR way.

Bring a non perishable food to be donated to the local fire hall food bank.

Email sandra@bootcampgoddess.com to register today.

Come celebrate the joys of the season and all you are!

Sandra O’Brien
bootcampgoddess.com
416.706.6378

25 November, 2009 by Categories :
health
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Why you must learn about Leptin if you want to lose fat

Strategic overeating during this holiday season can allow you to enjoy your holiday parties without sacrificing all of the calorie-rich foods, and when done right, can even help you get leaner instead of fatter this holiday season.

When you purchase Cheat Your Way Thin Meal Plan, you also get a Restaurant Guide, Joel dissects the menus of more than 75 popular restaurants, providing you with a detailed list of CYWT approved meals and options at each. And remember that the entire system including all of the other bonuses is 52%-off until this Thursday night…

Cheat Your Way Thin

To explain a little more about the hormonal response inside your body and how strategic overeating can actually help you to lose more fat, Joel asked me to include this detailed article for you below. Check it out:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Most Important Hormone You’ve Never Heard Of
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Joel Marion, CISSN, NSCA-CPT

LEPTI-WHA??

It’s name is Leptin (derived from the Greek word leptos, meaning “thin”), and it’s without a doubt the most important hormone you probably never heard of.

You see, leptin was only first discovered just over 10 years ago, and as far as weight loss is concerned, that’s extremely recent.

Leptin’s function? To communicate your nutritional status to your body and brain.
Leptin levels are mediated by two things. One is your level of body fat. All else being equal, people with higher levels of body fat will have higher leptin levels than those with lower levels of body fat and vice versa.

Because leptin is secreted by fat cells, it makes sense that under normal conditions there is a direct correlation between leptin levels and the amount of fat you are carrying.

Unfortunately, when you’re attempting to lose fat and begin to restrict calories, conditions are anything but “normal” and the body responds accordingly by lowering leptin levels.

This is because the second mediator of blood leptin levels is your calorie intake. Lower your calorie intake and leptin will fall, independent of body fat.

So, yes, you can be overweight and still suffer from low leptin levels – just go on a diet.

So what happens when leptin levels fall and why the heck does it matter?

Again, under normal conditions leptin levels are normal and the brain gets the signal loud and clear that nutrition intake is adequate. Metabolism is high and the internal environment of the body is one very conducive to fat burning.

Until you start dieting.

Go on a diet and leptin levels quickly plummet (by 50% or more after only one week), sending a signal to the body that you’re semi-starved and not consuming enough calories.

This puts the breaks on metabolism and creates a hormonal environment extremely conducive to fat storage. Thyroid hormones (hormones extremely important to metabolism) respond by taking a dive and the abdominal fat-storing stress hormone cortisol skyrockets measurably.

HELLO belly fat.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the appetite stimulating hormones ghrelin, neuropeptide-Y, and anandamide all hop on board to make your life even more miserable.

You don’t have to remember any of those names, just remember that when leptin drops, you get seriously hungry.

Despite having a pretty good reason for its reaction, it’s pretty ironic that our bodies are primed for fat loss at every other time except when we are trying to burn fat.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could maintain high leptin levels and a body primed for fat burning while dieting? It would seemingly solve all of our problems.

But in order to do this, we’d have to somehow keep leptin levels high as we attempt to lose those extra pounds.

“HOW ABOUT “SUPPLEMENTING” WITH LEPTIN?”

A couple of problems here: First, leptin is a protein based hormone, which means that it can not be taken orally (otherwise, it would simply be digested). So that rules out a leptin pill.

This leaves the method of “supplemental” leptin administration to injection. And leptin injections DO indeed work, reversing the metabolic adaptations to dieting and “starvation” even while continuing to restrict calories.

In 1996, Ahima et al. used leptin injections to reverse starvation-induced neuroendrocrine adaptations in mice.

“Well, that’s nice and all, but I’m human.” Point taken; research with rodents doesn’t always correlate to similar findings in humans, however…

In 1999, Heymsfield et al. performed a double-blind placebo controlled study analyzing weight loss over a 24-week period in 73 obese humans. Subjects either injected daily with leptin or a placebo (i.e. bogus alternative). At the end of the 24-week period, the leptin group lost significantly more weight than the placebo and a higher percentage of fat vs. muscle.

In 2002, Rosenbaum et al. administered low-dose leptin to subjects (male and female) who had dieted to a 10% decrease in body weight. During the diet period, thyroid hormone levels, 24-hr energy expenditure, and other metabolic markers substantially decreased. The result of the leptin replacement therapy?

“All of these endocrine changes were reversed…”Thyroid output and daily calorie burn increased back to pre-diet levels.

In 2003, Fogteloo et al. showed that leptin injections “tended to reduce the decline of energy expenditure associated with energy restriction, whereas the tendency of energy intake to increase back to baseline levels in placebo-treated subjects was largely prevented in subjects treated with leptin.”

Yeah, that’s a mouthful. Let me put in simple terms: not only did the leptin group experience less of a decline in metabolism, but they were also less hungry, allowing them to more easily stick to the prescribed diet.

In 2004, Welt et al. reported that leptin given to a group of women with thyroid disorder immediately raised circulating concentrations of the thyroid hormones T3 and T4.

In 2005, Rosenbaum and company were at it again, again showing that energy expenditure and circulating concentrations of T3 and T4 all returned to pre-weight-loss levels with regular leptin injections.

So, as theorized, keeping leptin levels high during a diet does indeed solve our dilemma by avoiding the negative metabolic (and perhaps behavioral) adaptations that calorie restriction perpetuates.

The problem?

Daily leptin injections are far too expensive, costing thousands and thousands of dollars per week. So, we can pretty much forget about supplemental leptin as a solution (which is probably moot anyway considering that not too many people are going to voluntarily plunge a needle into their skin daily).

A REAL Solution

Now that we know that leptin injections aren’t going to save us, let’s talk about the possibility of manipulating your body’s natural leptin production.

And I’ve got good news – this can indeed be done, and without involving needles or thousands of dollars. In fact, we’ll swap the injections and mounds of cash out for two things I can guarantee you’re absolutely going to love: more calories and more carbs.

We know that leptin levels decrease by about 50% after only one week of dieting, but fortunately, it doesn’t take nearly that long for leptin to bump back up with a substantial increase in caloric intake.

In fact, research has shown that it only takes about 12-24 hours.

So, the answer to the fat loss catch-22? Strategic high-calorie, high-carb CHEATING.

By strategically cheating with high calorie foods (and yes, even stuff like pizza, ice cream, wings, cookies, burgers, fries, etc), you can give leptin and metabolism a major boost mid-diet which sets you up for plenty of subsequent fat loss when you resume your reduced calorie eating regimen.

This means greater net fat loss week after week, and ultimately, a much more realistic, maintainable way to bring you to the body you truly want and deserve.

So what’s so special about carbs?

Well, leptin, carbohydrate and insulin have been shown to have very strong ties.

Calories alone don’t get the job done, as research shows that overfeeding on protein and fat has little effect on leptin.

In order to get a strong leptin response from overfeeding, there needs to be plenty of carbs in the mix. In fact, the relationship is SO strong that research conducted by Boden et al. at the Temple University School of Medicine shows that leptin levels will not fall even in response to all-out fasting so long as insulin and blood sugar are maintained via IV drip. That’s CRAZY.

Because of this carbohydrate/insulin-leptin relationship, it makes sense that foods combining both carbs and fat (like pizza, burgers, cookies, ice cream, etc) work best for reversing the negative adaptations caused by dieting because of the BIG-TIME insulin response they produce.

THIS is why strategic cheating with your favorite foods is so powerful. THIS is why you truly can use your favorite foods to lose fat faster than you ever could with restrictive dieting. THIS is freedom.

Essentially, it’s everything “typical” dieting isn’t.

With regular dieting, come week two, you’re screwed.

With strategic cheating, you can literally use ANY food you want to *ensure* that you never go a single day without a body primed for fat loss.

The cheat or not to cheat? I think the choice is clear.
——-

Make sure to grab a copy of Joel’s CYWT Thin Holiday edition for 52%-off until the end of Thursday. Remember that if you order today, you also get the CYWT Restaurant Guide which details CYWT approved meals at over 75 popular restaurants. Grab your copy here:

Cheat Your Way Thin

Enjoy! and Start looking and feeling your very best!

Be well,
13 November, 2009 by Categories :
Workout of the Month
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Workout of the Month – November 2009

50 Jump rope ( with or without rope)
26 Cross Mountain Climbers
Wall Squat 60 Seconds or 50 squats
Perform all three exercises. Rest 20 seconds.  Repeat 4 times.

12 November, 2009 by Categories :
health
Inspiration
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BootcampGoddess Women Rock!

Congrats to every one of you who made the decision to show up to camp regularly, on time and ready to rock!! I strongly encourage you to book an appt at the end of every session to get measured.  It’s a great tool to see if what you are doing is working, if your food choices support your efforts at camp.

For the record 10 women were measured.  These are the overall results:
#lb of muscle gained  25.5
#lb of fat lost  34
#of inches lost 74.75

Here are the highlights of those results!! Man you guys inspire me !!

Sabrina – lost 10lb fat, gained 9lb lean mass, lost a massive 16.74 inches overall and 8% body fat.  It is worth noting if we were only to look at what the scale said, her results would be she lost one pound in six weeks.  Clearly the number on the scale is not what is important nor does it tell the entire picture.

Iesha – lost 12lb fat, gained 6.5lb lean mass, lost 12.25 inches overall.

Cheryl – lost 14.25 inches and gained 4lb lean mass.

Magdi – lost 11.75 inches overall and 4.6 lbs

Jennifer T – gained 4lb lean mass

Lindsay – lost 7lb and 3.75 inches

Allison – lost 3.75 inches overall

Melanie P – lost 3.25 inches overall

Each of these women are at different and varied stages of their fat loss journey.  Each has given herself the gift of dedication, and increased health and energy.

What are you doing to ensure you do not become a holiday
stat of gaining 7lbs over the holiday season?

Register today and be the hottest gift under that tree! Nothing but a
big red ribbon and your birthday suit…hohoho! Tis the season :)

www.bootcampgoddess.com
416.706.6378

30 October, 2009 by Categories :
health
(0) Comment

Special Offer for Last Bootcamp Goddess Session of 2009!

New Session starting Monday November 9th .  See website for location and schedule.

We are coming into the time of year when most people put on fat. It starts with Halloween, moves into US Thanksgiving/Football season, then the 4 weeks of Christmas parties, overeating and drinking,  Make a decision now not to be a statistic.

Register now for the November 9th session. Surround yourself with supportive women who have the same goals and challenges you face. There is safety and support in numbers !



SPECIAL WHEN YOU JOIN WITH A FRIEND: If you are new to Bootcamp Goddess or have been away from bootcamp for a while now is the time to give it another try and get sexy for the holiday season! When you join with a friend, you receive 50% off  the current session!! Share the savings with your friend or keep the entire 50% savings for yourself! You can look hot, feel energized and lean this holiday season but you must take action now…thinking about it won’t cut it! Offer expires Friday November 6th 2009

Limited space available in all camps.