World-Class Fitness in 100 Words:

From CrossFit.com:

• Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar.
• Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.
• Practice and train major lifts: deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch.
• Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes (don't miss this video), flips (I'll be posting a video soon of us doing this), splits, and holds.
• Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast.
• Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow.
• Routine is the enemy.
• Keep workouts short and intense.
• Regularly learn and play new sports.

Lots of good CrossFit videos here.

I owned an aerobics/fitness business for 17 years in Key West. Plus I ran 6 miles a day for about 15 years. Then I got married, had kids, started working a real job and got too busy to work out. Once I stopped and got fat and weak, I couldn't get myself motivated again. Unless I was going on stage, then I'd do Weight Watchers and the treadmill till I was skinny. Once the show was over... well, you notice there are rarely full-body shots of me on the blog.

Suddenly, I'm hot for exercising again. (Geez, I hope it lasts!!!) Going to the gym is ok, better than nothing and I can get a good workout there. But it bores the life outta me and it's expensive, especially since the boys have been interested in going. So I'm considering building a home gym. But I'm thinking, why bring all those same boring exercises home? I'm probably much less likely to do them here!

But this gym... I could get really excited having this gym in my house! Add a trampoline in the yard, and we are set. No more expensive than a commercial gym the first year, then practically free after that.

I'm working on it. First thing I'm going to do is hang a rope somewhere I can climb... that would be really cool. Brace yourself: full body shots coming any day now!

Comments

[Chuck]

Ah yes, another personal project we share (besides learning Spanish). On the weight front, I've got good news & bad news. The good news is that today I'm down about 6 pounds from my lifetime peak at the start of June. The bad news is that I probably put on around 10 pounds in the couple of months prior to that (stressing & pigging out over Spanish class).

I realized that probably the main missing ingredient for me was accountability--someone to hold me to it. (I've been reading fitness stuff for decades--easier & much more enjoyable than actually doing it--so I don't think lack of education was my main problem. And I belong to a gym, so that's no excuse. I've tried enlisting friends to hold me accountable (maybe 3 or 4 over the last many years) and every time it failed--they didn't really do the job. So I recently started looking for online personal trainers & such.

They're pretty cheap, but there were two promising-looking free sites I thought worth checking out first (free is free). I signed up about 3 weeks ago for SparkPeople.com and so far it's working. Really the main thing I find helpful there is posting a daily "Today I will..." message in one of the forums I've joined. Then I always come back and say whether or not I did it (and so far I'm sticking to small, manageable goals, mostly trying to build habits & consistency right now). For me, there's something about making a public promise that really drives me a heck of a lot more than a "promise" to myself. (The other free site that looked interesting is peertrainer.com).

SparkPeople appears to be about 99% female, but so far they're putting up with me. I even got nominated as "motivational member of the week" last week in the main "team" I'm part of!

The site also has a TON of information (in fact it can be somewhat overwhelming at first, and I'm not easily overwhelmed by computer stuff), but I'm fairly comfortable with it now.

Anyway, if you think an online support group might help you, check it out (and if you like it let me know and I'll ask one of the "SparkPower Team" leaders to send you an invite--it's a "private" team but somehow I got invited to join before I even knew anybody, which means they're not terribly picky!). And then you can see my first-ever blog (all 5 posts, so far).

...Chuck

[Leah]

Check out http://www.precisionnutrition.com/

I just started the 6 month Lean Coaching for Women program and absolutely LOVE it! Nothing less than a stellar program boiling down to 24/7 support at about 25 dollars a month.

That home gym is still pricier than where I go. Also check out the TRX system...can be had for less on Ebay (well, not considering shipping to CR). Here's a link!

http://www.fitnessanywhere.com/

[Saratica]

Congrats to the motivational member of the week!!! I've tried the online groups but can't stick with that. I like the tangible, face-to-face stinky gym. So far so good, but thank you both for the suggestions. I will keep them as a back up plan!