July 2011 Nutrition Challenge

 

No food from a bag or box for this month's challenge

Last month we finished up our six months of nutrition challenges with the Forest Vance Training Community Cookbook (for more details about that – and if you’re interested in ordering a copy – click here).

The monthly nutrition challenges were a hit – so we’re going to keep them going! The goal will be to focus on building the same foundation of good eating habits – we’ll just take some slightly different approaches and techniques to reach the same end goals.

This month’s challenge: no food from a bag or box

Pre-packaged and processed foods like chips, crackers, breakfast cereals, candy and the like should be removed from your diet. These foods contain preservatives and chemicals that are unlikely to be good for your body – and they also contain trans fats, excess sugars, and too many calories.

Bread, oatmeal, pasta, etc. should be whole grain and high fiber versions. The less ingredients the better.

Good luck with the challenge and have a great week!

Forest

P.S. Our monthly nutrition challenges are just a small part of our Sacramento, CA personal training and boot camp programs … we’re currently offering our ‘test-a-trainer’ program (a trial session at our facility), so it’s a great time to come check us out! Call (916) 273 9366 or leave a message here to set up your trial session today.

Get A Flat Stomach WITHOUT Hundreds Of Crunches And Sit Ups

Six pack abs. A flat stomach. A toned mid section. Everybody wants ABS –

Here’s the problem, though: most folks think that hundreds of situps and crunches per day is the answer. Not only is this approach ineffective, it can also destroy your neck and back.

The BIGGEST factor in getting the flat stomach you desire? Your diet. You have abs already, believe it or not – the trick is losing the layer of body fat that’s covering them up 🙂 Here’s an article I recently wrote if you need some help in that area – it’s an example of what I do to keep my body fat at a reasonable level year-round – and more importantly, it’s a do-able plan you can stick with for the long term:

Forest’s Fat Loss Diet Plan

Secondly, you need to focus on training your abs RIGHT way. This means sticking to metabolism-boosting high intensity workouts that work your entire body while also working your abs.

Here’s an awesome article by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer and
author of best-seller The Truth about Six Pack Abs, that gives you a great example of what I’m talking about (click the link below to check it out):

3 Best Ab Exercises That Aren’t Ab Exercises

In summary, the two most important factors when it comes to getting that flat stomach you’re after are 1) a clean diet and 2) a properly structured training plan. I hope the two resources provided in this article help you reach your flat belly goals. Keep training hard and talk to you soon!

Forest

P.S. I have a fitness presentation for groups that I’ve been working on for the last few months on this very topic – and I’d like to ask for your help in getting the word out!

In the presentation, I cover the same info I just did in this article – plus, I actually take everyone through a short five minute ab circuit (it’s a bit of an ‘active’ presentation 🙂 ). I also raffle off a couple of free two-week trial passes to my boot camp at the end of the presentation and give everyone in attendance an opportunity to book a free trial session …

IF you might be interested in hosting a talk like this for your employees, organization, etc., OR you know anyone who would, your help would be much appreciated … contact me via email or phone and we’ll get something set up! It’s a totally free presentation for your group, and it helps me get get some public speaking practice and the word out about my program. Thanks in advance!

The Forest Vance Training Community Cookbook

Healthy eating on a consistent basis is hard enough … being creative and keeping meals and food choices interesting can, at times, seem almost impossible.

A few weeks ago, I thought it’d be a great idea to have clients, friends, email list subscribers, etc. send in their own healthy recipes, and then put together all these recipes into a ‘community cookbook’.

Now, the Forest Vance Training Community Cookbook is complete!

If you sent in at least one recipe, you should have already received an email with your copy of the cookbook. If you didn’t for some reason, please let me know – but also please make sure to check your email first 🙂

For anyone who didn’t contribute for whatever reason but would still like a copy, I’ve set things up with a print-on-demand service where you can order a nicely formatted, bookstore-quality copy of the cookbook for the cost of printing ($6.40) – click the link below for more info and to order:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/forest-vance-training-community-cookbook/16269058

Thanks and talk soon –

Forest Vance
Owner and head trainer, Forest Vance Training, Inc. Sacramento personal training, fitness boot camps and kettlebell instruction

3 Big Benefits Of Regular Massage Therapy

It always surprises me when I talk with training clients of mine – folks that live active lifestyles and train hard on a consistent basis – and they tell me they’ve never had a massage!

Why am I surprised? It’s because massage therapy provides so many benefits, especially if you’re working out hard to reach your fitness goals. Here are three ways massage therapy can help you:

1. Stress reduction

Stress can accumulate in our bodies in various ways, including neck, shoulder and back pain. Massage therapy identifies those areas and helps reduce muscle tension, as well as the overall level of stress and tension in the body.

2. Pain relief

People with temporary and chronic pain alike can benefit from massage. Different massage styles can help to relieve different kinds of pain experienced. Massage can even benefit those suffering from anxiety and depression.

3. Improved flexibility + mobility

This is the #1 reason I recommend folks work with a massage therapist – and here’s why:

Repetitive movement patterns – whether resulting from sitting frozen in a chair all day or doing the same movement over and over again in a specific sport, like swinging a golf club or tennis racket – can result in muscle inflammation. This inflamation can lead to muscle spasms, which can cause adhesions to form in certain muscle groups. These adhesions result in altered neuromusclular control and muscle imbalances, which equals pain, injury, and all kinds of bad stuff …

Massage is a great way to help you get out those adhesions, improve flexiblity and mobility, and start moving and feeling better right away!

Stress reduction, pain relief, and improved flexibility/mobility are three big benefits of regular massage. If you’re one of those folks who’s never gotten a massage, you’re missing out!

Thanks for reading and talk soon –

Forest

P.S. Local massage therapist and owner of Greenhaven-Pocket area Massage Flow Alvin Kinser will be offering FREE chair massage Tuesday and Thursday nights over the next two weeks at the Land Park training studio! He’ll be available immediately after normally scheduled boot camp classes, from 7:15 to about 7:45 pm. I know there’s a lot of initial interest in this offer, so space is limited – make sure to show up early and/or drop us a note to let us know you’d like to reserve a spot!

July 2011 Challenge Workout Results

The final results are in for July’s challenge – here’s the workout one more time in case you missed it:

  • 10 Push Ups (knees for gals, standard for guys)
  • 20 KB Swings
  • 30 Lunges (30 total … your choice of lunge type – forward, backward, walking, etc.)
  • 40 Cross Body Mountain Climbers (one knee-to-elbow move = one rep)
  • 50 Body Weight Squats

Do as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes

And the results:

GV 6.0
AG 5.4
MW 5.0
AT 4.4
LA 4.4
KG 4.3
NG 4.3
SP 4.3
CA 4.0
MW 4.0
MB 3.4
JG 3.4
BK 3.2

Great job guys (everyone who completed the same challenge workout from three months ago beat their initial score!)

Forest

July 2011 Challenge Workout

What better way to kick off your post-holiday week than with the July Challenge Workout? Here’s the challenge for this month (it’s the same as April’s workout):

  • 10 Push Ups (knees for gals, standard for guys)
  • 20 KB Swings
  • 30 Lunges (30 total … your choice of lunge type – forward, backward, walking, etc.)
  • 40 Cross Body Mountain Climbers (one knee-to-elbow move = one rep)
  • 50 Body Weight Squats

Do as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes

Good luck! Results will be posted at the end of the week.

P.S. For more info about our downtown Sacramento, CA – area fitness boot camps (and to schedule a trial session), call us at (916) 273 7366 or contact us by clicking here

Community Cookbook Submission Deadline Extended; Special Holiday Group/Boot Camp Schedule

Hope your week is off to a great start – I just have two quick things I’d like to bring to your attention:

1. I know there are some of you who wanted to contribute to the community cookbook project that haven’t gotten the chance to yet … so I’m extending the deadline to get your recipe in to Tuesday night, the 28th of June, 11:59 pm PST. We have 14 recipes so far … we just need 6 more to get our original goal of 20! Let’s rally and get it done!

Also very important: Please submit your recipe (s) to my assistant via email at this address: fvtraininfo (at) gmail (dot) com – NOT my personal email address. Thank you.


2. The group training/boot camp schedule for the upcoming July 4th holiday weekend will be as follows:

Saturday, July 2nd

9am boot camp @ Land Park (NO 8am boot camp, 9am boot camp ONLY)

Monday, July 4th

8am boot camp @ Land Park (NO 5:30pm or 6:30pm regularly scheduled boot camps on the 4th of July)

9am group class @ Anytime Fitness in East Sac (15 mins. earlier than normal time)

 

That’s it for now – have a great workout week and talk to you soon!

Forest Vance, MS, CPT, RKC

Forest Vance Training Community Cookbook (you’re invited to contribute)

Healthy eating is a topic on the top of almost everyone’s mind that’s involved in any kind of fitness program.

And I know that a lot of you make a daily effort to eat healthy and have inventive recipes you use to help you do it.

Enter the Forest Vance Training community cookbook!

Here are the details:

  • Anyone who is interested will contribute (at least one) healthy recipe. It can be as short or as long as you like; it can be for a snack, or meal, even for blender drink – anything you like and you think others could benefit from. Please submit your recipe (s) to my assistant via email at this address: fvtraininfo (at) gmail (dot) com – and please be patient and know that we’ll be receiving a lot of emails, so it may take a day or two to email you back and let you know that we’ve gotten your recipe.
  • I will take all the healthy recipes that I get and have them compiled and nicely formatted into a community cookbook! And everyone who contributes gets a free copy!

I want to give you guys fair time and fair warning to get your recipes in; on the other hand I can’t let the project stretch out forever – so the deadline to submit your recipe(s) will be the end of this week, Sunday, June 26 at 11:59 PM.

Again, contribute at least one recipe to the new Forest Vance Training community cookbook, and you’ll get (likely) dozens of new recipes to add to your healthy eating reptoire! Just email your healthy recipe to fvtraininfo (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank you so much for contributing in advance and talk you soon –

Forest Vance

Owner and head trainer, Forest Vance Training Inc.