2010 Joy & Thanks

Wow. What a year for Body By Jess Fitness. I am in awe.
This year has been successful in ways I could not anticipate. It has been the single best year for Body By Jess Fitness for many reasons. I wish I could individually highlight each client I had the pleasure of working with this year. I want each of you to know how much I truly LOVE and APPRECIATE every bit of energy and sweat you share with me. Body By Jess Fitness is nothing without YOU.

Body By Jess Fitness started out as a little personal training business almost 3 years ago. Those of you who came to me for one-on-one personal training deserve recognition and major props for training under my watchful eye with nowhere to hide. You can’t hide in the back of the class in a 1:1 session. Thank you for never saying no, for always trusting me and for helping me count when I forget how. 1:1 training is where Body By Jess Fitness began and the relationships I’ve developed over the years with you, my 1:1 friends, mean a lot to me. I feel so blessed to enjoy the time we spend together. I truly love being a part of your life.
Body By Jess Fitness classes have long been a part of the program, but they have evolved to an entirely different level this year. My Bootcamp Classes have grown so tremendously, I have since added in Power Kick, Zumba and Core Strength. What’s most impressive is that we always have new members joining weekly. Additionally, many folks in the Bootcamp classes started out with a skeptical eye and a barfy belly, not sure if they could tolerate boot camp workouts. Look how many of you have survived?!?! You have all become stronger and fitter. It’s getting to the point that I wouldn’t want to workout beside some of you, cause you might beat me at my own game. Thank you for pushing yourself and those around you. Boot Camps classes fuel me and my own workouts. Your dripping sweat, spraying spit and crinkled up faces of pain, I mean pleasure, make my day, everyday!  As I type this sentence, I can’t help but get a little teary.  Owning my own Fitness Business has changed my life and the lives of many others.  Having such a strong passion for fitness and health has brought me where I am today and my goals are to keep striving to stay up on the latest fitness trends, newest educational information and classes and to always keep my clients focused, motivated and determined with fun & enthusiastic classes and or 1:1 training. 
The emails and phone calls I receive as people explain their struggles with food and weight and self image absolutely tear at my heart strings. Each of you have reminded me exactly why I do what I do. I can’t tell you how much joy I feel for your successes this year. In addition to looking simply fabulous, you are all standing taller, smiling wider and carrying yourselves with more honor and pride. I am humbled by the commitment you made to yourself and to Body By Jess Fitness this year. Thank you for being incredibly brave, embracing this program and showing yourself who’s boss. Know that you inspire me everyday.
Thank you to each one of you for sharing a little bit of yourself with me. It is a privilege and honor to be a part of your life and your health. It is a job I take very seriously. Each of you have made me a better trainer this year. Thank you for making my little baby, Body By Jess Fitness, the Little Engine that Could Not Be Stopped this year.

Sincerley, Jess

Why diets NEVER WORK!

A “diet” is any severe restriction of food or calories that’s temporary. Most conventional diet programs call for extremely low calories: 800-1200 or less for women and 1500-1800 or less for men.

Any time you restrict calories drastically like this, you will lose weight.

The major issues with this are:  

First, the weight loss from very low calorie dieting almost never lasts; over 90% of the people who lose weight on conventional diet programs can’t keep it off. The second problem is that most of the weight you lose from low calorie dieting is muscle, not fat.

Statistics prove that diets never work in the long term. If they did work, then how do you explain the huge obesity problem today? And why is it getting worse?

According to the National Institute of Health, there are over 100 million overweight people in the United States. That’s 55% of the adult population! Over 20% of U.S. adults are clinically obese, which means they are at risk for one or more of over 30 health problems that are associated with excess body fat.

Despite the fact that there are more diet programs and weight loss products

available than ever before, obesity has continued to rise. The Center for Disease Control recently announced that the number of people in the United States who are clinically obese (at least 30% over their ideal body weight) increased from one in eight in 1991 to nearly one in five in 1999.

There’s a valid scientific reason why most diets fail dismally. Most people make the classic mistake of trying to “starve” the fat with strict diets. However, because the human body has a complex and infallible series of defense mechanisms to protect you from starvation, it’s physiologically impossible to permanently lose fat with very low calorie diets. As soon as your body senses a food shortage, these defense mechanisms start to kick in. The human body is simply too “smart” for the restrictive very low calorie diet approach to ever work.

So with this information I want you to do some research on yourself.  Try to figure out if your body fuels itself from healthy fats or healthy carbs?  Figure out your BMR by doing the following:  (Pretty approximate)

Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X ht in cm) - (6.8 X age in years)

Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 X wt in kg) + (1.8 X ht in cm) - (4.7 X age in years)

Note: 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters

1 kilogram = 2.2 lbs.
From here calculate your calories lost through exercise and figure out howmany calories you need to be eating everyday to lose a pound a week.  3500 calories = one pound.

For example:  If you had a BMR of 1300 calories and you excercised 3 days a week at approximately 500 calories a workout, then you would have a loss of 1500 calories a week via excercise.  In order to lose one pound you need to be in a loss of 3500 calories, so you need another 2000 calorie deficit.  I would recommend adding in another day or two of excercise to create another 500-1000 calorie loss to total 2500 calorie deficit and then I would decrease calories from there.  So if my BMR was 1300 I would need to cut approx 145 calories a day to get that extra 1000 calorie loss a week to create one pound loss each week. 

Forking out the extra bucks at the grocery store!

What is your health worth?  You always hear the saying "You are what you eat".  Most people would rather ignore this statement and eat whatever they want or "diet" whenever they want on a low carb, high protein, low fat, etc....plan!  Each one of our bodies needs healthy whole & clean foods. 

When you’re at the grocery store I want you to think to yourself when buying your items on your list.  Ask yourself, is $1 more per pound worth losing 11% fat when purchasing my lean ground beef?  Is spending the extra money worth the benefits of your health?  I know eating clean and healthy can be more expensive and in today's economy there isn't a whole lot of extra money to be spent in extra areas.  Just think about this one thought.....if you can spend $3 on a coffee, $5 on a quick fast food lunch, $15 on high blood pressure or cholesterol prescription, then ask yourself... what is my health worth?

I want to challenge you to check out your nutritional labels on your food items and recipes when cooking.  Try to make recipes with clean, lean & fresh ingredients.  Try to purchase then leanest meats possible, the heartiest breads, the fresh ground peanut butters or almond butters, the whole wheat pasta's, brown rice's, etc....
Try to have fun & be creative with your meal preparation.  Make it a chore and a challenge to buy clean and eat clean so that you can lead a clean and healthy life!  More than one third of U.S. adults—more than 72 million people—and 16% of U.S. children are obese.  30% of children aged 2-19 are considered overweight or obese and it has been estimated than 1 in 3 children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime!
You have full control of your body and what you put into it! 
What can you do to change your ways of eating and grocery shopping to help you and your family eat their way to a healthier lifestyle?

Who do you spend the most time with?

Think about who you spend the most time with. How do they influence you? Do they push you to be a better person? Do they hold you back from your goals and dreams? If you’re surrounded by active, healthy people you’ll be active and healthy. If you’re surrounded my couch potatoes, you’re more likely to kick back and relax, right?
As we wrap up 2010, think about who in your life inspires you and pushes you to be better. Think about who the bad apples are in your life. Get rid of the bad apples. Instead of making resolutions to lose 10 pounds, make resolutions about who you’re going to spend your time with. Time is an increasingly valuable commodity. Why would you waste your time with people who are wasting time. Find people who fill you up and make you better. Learn from them. Emulate them. Grow with them. If these people help you to be healthier and happier, you’ll likely lose that 10 pounds.

Why Boot Camp blows your workouts out of the water!

Body By Jess

I’ve been running Bootcamp style classes for many years now. My current Indoor Boot Camp/Group Exercise Classes in Canby are booming. I guess you could say Body By Jess Fitness is a trend setter. A friend sent me a great article from USA Today last week. It was about fitness trends for 2011. At the top of the list: BOOT CAMP! Why did Boot Camp come in at the top? Because it is simply the best way to burn calories in the shortest amount of time. This is partly because group exercise makes you work harder to keep up with your classmates. It’s partly because Boot Camp exercises and drills tend to be full body exercises that burn a ton of calories and use many muscle groups at once (hello, so much bang for your buck!) It’s also because Boot Camp uses high intensity intervals to light a fire under your metabolism and help you burn calories around the clock. In the USA Today article they compared calories burned in 45 minutes of vigorous weight lifting vs. 45 minutes of walking (at 3.5 mph) vs. 45 minutes of Boot Camp. Here’s the results:

Weight Lifting: 357 calories burned

Walking: 226 calories burned

Boot Camp: 476 calories burned

*results based on a 175 pound person

I can tell you right now, that the average Boot Camper will continue to burn another 100-300 calories in the 24-48 hours following Boot Camp. You do not get this kind of afterburn with weight lifting or walking. So, really your choice of exercise is obvious now, right?!

“Do not be average.” Why? The average person gains 5-8 pounds during the holidays. Is that really what you want for yourself over the next 8 weeks. I mean, as you are right now, you’d probably like to lose 5-8 pounds. Who wouldn’t?? So are you going to be average and add *another* 5-8 pounds to your body this holiday season? Or are you going to be above average and start your New Year’s Resolution right now. If you start now you could LOSE the weight the average person GAINS over the holidays. How’s that for a Happy Holiday gift?!

So, my challenge to you is to come check out Body By Jess Fitness Indoor Group Exercise Classes/Boot Camp. See if it’s for you. Heck, you can come for free to try it out. So, you have nothing to lose, well, except a few pounds that you’d be happy to say good bye to . . . .