The New Home of the Work It! Blog

We've moved the blog to a new place that will allow for more options and creativity.  Please visit:

http://www.BrynAthynWorkoutStudio.com/blog

The Spaces In Between

Wahoo, I'm feeling like this week is going to be good!  If you are having a rough start to your day, I recommend this... Fake it until you make it.  It works really.  I picked up on that little line from the fitness blog community.  When you are having a tough day and find yourself kicking rocks in the parking lot, just stop and smile.  I know, sounds stupid... but a smile can do a lot for your mood.  Focus on happy things and your thoughts will start to brighten.  I am all about creating muscles here, but not wrinkles.  It takes more muscle for you to frown, but smiling keeps those wrinkles away.  You chose your path :)

I think why I have an ear to ear grin on my face is because of this monster...

Yup yup my fellow BAWS enthusiasts.  Time to Work It!  That is a perfect contraption for pull ups, dead hangs, abs workouts, the list is long...

Also, some PVC pipe.  I am excited to have this tool handy because it helps with correcting your form while learning specific exercises, stretching and back therapy.

Alright, I read a pretty inspiring quote this morning and I would like to share if you are so inclined to read.

The Spaces in Between

"There's no need to speak the truth-  just put a stop to your opinions!"

Life is filled with antonyms... highs and lows, hard and soft, loud and quiet, good and bad, etc...

When the good is good, we ride that wave on a major endorphin high, soaking up all the positive feelings until the water breaks back away from the sand.  We often always know what to do when life is going the way you want. However, when there is silence, no waves and just sand... our minds start to work very hard to make something out of nothing.  We perceive silence as rejection almost immediately  and create a very unhealthy relationship with our own confidence and mind.  

For instance... how many times have you been in a relationship (best friend, mother, lover, etc) and you have a wonderful experience with them.  However, as time goes on... you do not hear from them and start to worry.  Days and days pass on and then you find yourself wondering if they are mad at you.. have you done something wrong to upset them?  Then you start to get mad at them!  You start making up stories in your mind and create a whole imaginary scenario in your head.  Instead, we should take that time to sit in silence and appreciate what good you have for them and take a breath.  Most likely, they are busy or are taking time from themselves.  Try to call them after a while and ask how they are feeling.

Have you been trying to lose weight, step on the scale and be positively reinforced from your healthy behaviors with a one pound weight loss every week?  Then all of a sudden you hit a plateau for a month or see a two pound weight gain?  Times like these, you should sit in your silence, remind yourself that you are doing everything right and not down a whole bag of cookies in your gone-haywire thoughts.  Continue on the higher road and do not beat yourself up.  Your weight will come off naturally again when you trust yourself and follow the best health regime for you.  

Having your thoughts marinade in a negative thought provoking environment does nothing for your mental health or who you are.  Every person experiences the loneliness with just the sand, but that wave does come back... in a wild and awesome ride.  When you assume things, you only wind up making an ass out of you and me.  Great line (assume... Ass U Me).  When things are bad, quiet, or low... sit in silence, do not act out and take the higher road.  Thats when you learn and grow.

Have an awesome Monday! 

Team Paleo Partridge!

 Hi, Everyone!  Sorry I have been MIA all weekend...  I feel like time is traveling as fast as light and there is not enough hours in the day to pack everything I would like in.  I bet you can all relate to some degree.

This morning, I woke up to my Dad making one awesome announcement to the family!  "Time to go Paleo!"  I almost wet myself I was so excited.  Do you all remember the blog post I wrote on what I am up against on a daily basis in the kitchen?  Every time I would open the fridge or cabinets, I would see some form of sugar or grain staring at me...  Talk about self discipline!  Anyway, I just finished a really educational book called The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf.  He goes into great depth describing what grains and sugar do to your body.  I passed it on to my Dad after I finished and I guess you know why he made this wise decision for himself.  Since my Mom knows she will have to start food shopping differently, she will start to ween towards a paleo lifestyle as well.  Ugh, my heart is singing!

Tonight, my Dad and I walked in to the kitchen (from an afternoon of building pull up bars at BAWS!!) and found my Mom cooking wild salmon with a pecan and rosemary crumble and a citrus coconut stir fry.  Yesss, I have died and gone to heaven.  I apologize for the dark picture, but my iphoto is not cooperating right now.

Please excuse me as I have some dishes to wash and some laundry to fold.  Oh, the leftover not-so-fun weekend things you push off until the very end.  Meh.  Anyway, have a relaxing Sunday night and get some shut eye.  Monday blues are no fun... bust through the morning with a well rested attitude!

'Night ;)

Go big or go home

Howdy, y'all ... and Friday!

Last night I got home and I felt like my stomach was going to eats its spleen I was so hangry!  I decided to go big or go home and threw together a beast of a salad.  My mom had a trough of leftover salad from their dinner so I threw pork chops and sauteed apples and onions on it.  I know, sounds weird, but I swear my mouth still has those strong and awesome flavors in it (yes, I brush my teeth).

Yuuup.

This morning I woke up and made an egg with 3 oz of chicken and about 5 walnuts.

Insert a trip to Trader Joe's, work work work, a coffee break and a pilates class

I ran home to eat a 3oz turkey burger, carrot and celery sticks with 1 tbsp almond flax butter and baby heirloom tomatoes with basil on top.  So random like my dinner last night, but it worked.

Tonight I will most likely have chicken sausage with roasted red peppers.

I am thrilled its Friday.  I am hoping the weather stays this perfect.  I am so excited to tell you all that the new blog is still in the making, but will soon be up!  Things take a little longer than expected, ya know?! In the mean time, if you have any topics you would like me to discuss on the blog... email me and I will do a reader's request.  You will remain anonymous of course.  

julie@brynathynworkoutstudio.com

Have a kick booty day and remember... If you don't like something about yourself... go big or go home.  Change it or  stop complaining!

High Intensity Visual

Mmm hmmm...  That's what Work It! looks like :)   

I am one schweaty mess!

This is a visual pertaining to the previous article about how to keep yourself young and your muscles and bones in tact.  You have to hit the weights and cardio hard!  High intensity training baby!  Try it out or come to BAWS to get your daily dose in.

The power to Age well... Reader's Request

Good morning, everyone!  Such a gorg day out huh? I'm loving it.

So, one of my faithful BAWS members asked me to read over an article that was written exceptionally well by a semi-local fitness instructor, Kelly Knueppel.  The article captures some scientifically sound information and displays it well for the next fitness enthusiast, but I felt I should write a review about it in more laymans terms.  The article is found directly below. You can read that first if you wish or skip straight down to my gig.  Enjoy.

THE POWER TO AGE WELL by Kelly Knueppel

How would you like to have the power to dictate how you age? Did you know that loss of strength, mobility and functionality are not an inevitable part of aging? One of the greatest threats to your long term quality of life is the steady loss of lean body mass. and you can reverse this! Your lean mass is made up of muscle and bone. Muscle loss is called sarcopenia and bone loss is called osteoporosis. These conditions are related because muscles generate the mechanical stress required to keep bones healthy. Sarcopenia often begins around age 30 in industrialized nations and starts with the loss of the fast-twitch muscle fibers.  These are the larger fibers, the ones that fire fast and produce the most force. We lose them first because we stop doing the things that use them first. For decades, we have been told to emphasize cardiovascular exercise like walking, jogging and biking. These activities are completely slow-twitch fiber dominant. This trend has been devastating to human muscle function and has drastically affected how we age.

Fat gain accompanies muscle loss because muscle burns calories. Increasing body fat levels, together with loss of bone density, declining energy, negative changes in cholesterol and wrinkling skin are all a part of "somatopause" or "middle aged spread." Somatopause is directly related to declining levels of human growth hormone (HGH), which drop off quite dramatically after age 30 without intervention. HGH is essential for bone and organ growth, tissue repair, healing, muscle growth, brain function, energy, endurance and metabolism. The longer you can keep high levels of growth hormone, the longer you can experience vitality.

The two activities that stimulate both the FT fibers and HGH are anaerobic (not aerobic) in nature. These two activities are weight training and interval training.  Unfortunately, women have also been misinformed about how to weight train. The hormonal response from lifting light weights for high repetition sets is essentially the same as jogging and actually promotes muscle break-down as well as fat storage in the belly. Such workouts actually speed muscle loss because the stimulus used is insufficient to promote growth.  When you lift heavier, you secrete the hormones cortisol, epinephrine, growth hormone, testosterone and lactic acid. This combination works together to make you leaner, stronger and "younger". Lifting heavy preserves the fast-twitch muscle fibers that allow you to move well, catch a fall and keep strong bones. Another way to stimulate HGH and fast-twitch muscle fiber is to trade your endurance type cardio for more intense "bursts" of effort. For example,  instead of jogging, you could warm up and then run up a hill repeatedly. This change will dramatically improve your cardiovascular fitness and fat-burning capabilities in a fraction of the time. As little as 30 seconds of high-intensity exercise, can spike levels of HGH by a whopping 530% to help you build lean muscle and burn fat. Related Canadian research reveals that exercisers doing just four 30 second sprints three times a week for 2 weeks doubled their endurance in exercise tests and ramped up their mitochondria activity by 38%, meaning their muscles and cells could use more oxygen and burn more calories.

Julie's take on The Power To Age Well.

As we age, many people start to see a decrease in their everyday functional movements (walking, sitting, bending over, getting down to play with the kids on the floor, etc), strength and flexibility.  Many people can start to notice this as early as 30 years old.  If you notice, I say "many people."  That is not all people because those who are not experiencing this have a tight fitness routine and are exercising properly.  Those who have been on the right fitness track have been protecting two vital things in their body that help prevent aching knees and backs and deteriorating everyday functionality.  What are those two things?  Bones and muscles.  Some may say, well... I run 5 miles everyday or I lift weights twice a week so my muscle and bones are great.  Well, yes, they are good, but not great.  You see, we have slow twitch muscle fibers and fast twitch muscle fibers in our muscles.  The fast twitch muscle fibers are your larger muscles and create the most force in your body, speed up your metabolism and keep you looking lean, tight and keep the adipose tissue (fat) off of your body.  You can keep your body in check by doing short burst of interval training (tabatas!) and heavy lifting.  No, women.. you won't get big!    Slow twitch muscle fibers hit your smaller muscles and are correlated with longer and slow cardiovascular routines.  This type of exercise can eventually start to eat away at your muscles and then affect your bones since muscles act as a protective shield to your bones.  When we do not tap into the higher intensity of exercise, it is also easier for our bodies to hang onto fat and the more body fat we have, the more sluggish we get and the more our muscles and bones deteriorate.  Then our Human Growth Hormones starts to be affected.  HGH is essential for organ and bone repair, healing, brain function, energy, metabolism... the list goes on.  Once our HGH decreases in its ability to function we develop sagging skin, a weak body, and loss of energy.  

Basically, what we are both saying here is when you work out, work out HARD and FAST!  Interval training and circuit training is the way to go people!  

WORK IT!

June Evaluation

Hey Hey Hey!  

I am welcoming June first with open arms.  I love June.  You see, June is my birthday month.  I usually look at my birthday just like how the world looks at January 1st.  Its a new year and a new me!  I typically re-evaluate where my life is and how I am feeling emotionally, physically and spiritually more at the turn of my birth date than at any other time of year.  

I have been reflecting all morning and I am happy to say I have definitely grown a whole lot in this past year.  It has not been easy (at times I wanted to give up), but knowing what I went through and where I am today would make me travel that journey 20 times over :)  

Emotionally, I am in a great place.  I have had the upmost amazing pleasure to get to know the members at BAWS.  You guys have positively impacted my life in such a short amount of time and have helped me grow.  I have been finally been able to create my dream.  To many, this may seem like it has been a short process for me because I am young, but I have been chomping at the bit to have my own studio for 12 years now.  I have been teased with having my own studio a couple of times and things fell through which only made me want it more.   I once would question the big man upstairs, doubt myself and have negative self talk.  I believe you are given rough patches in your life to make you stronger, fight for what you believe and to get to the good life.  I am well aware I will have some more rough patches ahead of me, but for right now, life is sweet and I love to be able to share my life, knowledge and experiences with all of you!  

Physically, I am always pushing my limits and trying new exercises or messing around with my diet.  I am thrilled to be doing pilates more as I can tell a huge difference in my core strength and ahem..butt..ahem.  I have also come across a real cool community and exercise style that focus on functional movements.  It is called Crossfit.  I was certified in September and feel it has given me more knowledge and background to help all of you in BAWS.  I only want more out of myself.  I am going to stick to the paleo lifestyle because I feel my body responds awesome to this and I feel wonderful when I don't eat sugar.  I definitely have to tighten the reigns on the eating, but that is one of my goals for the year ;)

Spiritually, I have found that where I am today is exactly where I should be.  I am not a day late and a dollar short.  I am not one foot in the door and one foot out.  I am going to be okay.  I am strong and I have been given all the tools I am suppose to have to shine.  I have realized that sometimes you find yourself stuck on a little raft in the middle of the ocean with only half of your rescue bag.  Someone wants to see how you bad you want to survive and how well you devise your plan, work it, and conquer with out giving up.  I have learned to not quit.  It gets you no where, fast.

My goals for my new year:

1.  Believe in myself

2.  Stop beating myself up for little things that really don't matter in life

3.  Focus hard on BAWS

4.  Continue eating Paleo with less slip ups

5. Continue learning

I'll shut up now ;)

Breakfast was an egg, chicken and a small handful of walnuts

Lunch was avocado, a turkey burger and kale chips

Dinner will be two small orange peppers stuffed with tuna fish

I also have a chocolate protein pudding waiting for me when I get home from Yoga!

Do you have goals for the month of June??