Getting Started: The "Clarity of Intent Methodology"

Many people start fitness or diet programs without making the proper commitment to achieve the changes they intended. Our approach starts with a basic rule; its called "Clarity of Intent". You must be clear, open and honest with yourself about your intent for starting any program, fitness or otherwise. If you have "clarity of intent", then its all about strategy and execution. Our proven methodology for gaining clarity of intent and driving execution will be the difference you need to achieve your goals.
Keep reading to learn about the “Clarity of Intent” process and complete your “Pyramid to Results” worksheet. This will get you on your way to achieving success.

Clarity of Intent Methodology
The Clary of Intent methodology starts by being open and honest with yourself about your intent for starting any program, fitness or otherwise. If you have "clarity of intent", then achieving results relies on a sound strategy and execution.

To define a strategy for execution, you must create an environment for success. This starts by understanding the “Pyramid to Results”. At the foundation of the “Pyramid” is your goal. Builtupon it are the Roles & Relationships that are present in the environment in which you are executing. These roles and relationships are critical in achieving the results you intend.

Complete Your Pyramid to Results Guide: Step 1 - The Goal

Define your goal for why you are beginning this program.

You must be open, honest and realistic in this step.

Defining the goal will help you understand and accept the commitment you must undertake to achieve the goal.

Many people set goals that are either unrealistic or do not align with the level of commitment they are willing to or can realistaclly make.

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Example:
My goal is to lose 20 lbs before summer and develop better eating habits to help me maintain my new weight and body. I want to be and overall healthier person to support an active lifestyle.

Complete Your Pyramid to Results Guide: Step 2 - Roles

Define the role of yourself, your coach/trainer, spouse and anyone else that plays a part directly or indirectly in achieving your goal. Understanding the roles and openly communicating with others about their role is important to create the support structure you need to achieve the results you intend.

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Example:

I am ultimately responsible for reaching the goals that I set for myself. My Coach and family will play a supporting role in my progress toward achieving the goal.

Complete Your Pyramid to Results Guide: Step 3 Relationships

Examine the relationships, both positive and negative that could impact your ability to achieve your goal. Understanding the relationships between people, diet, smoking, work, everyday life events, etc. is necessary to removing potential obstacles that stand between you and your goals . This process will also identify supportive relationships that exist so you can leverage them in reaching your goals and achieving success.

Example:
My current eating habits will not support reaching the goal that I have established. I must change these in a positive way and will use my relationship with my fitness coach to make this change. My current work schedule does not allow me to exercise on a regular basis. I must create more time in the morning to exercise by waking up one hour earlier.

Complete Your Pyramid to Results Guide: Step 4 - Results

Example:
Target results of my commitment are to lose 2 pounds per week to reach my goal of losing 20lbs. by June. I will keep a diet and exercise journal and set a weekly weigh in schedule to track progress.

Define realistic short term and long term results on the path to your goal. Create milestones and track progress towards them on a regular basis. Understanding your progress at regular intervals will help you make necessary adjustments in your program. It will also validate the success of your hard work or motivate your to work harder if necessary should you fall behind your milestone targets. You will increase your chances of success by incorporating regular check points to track progress into your program.

P90x Part Deux

After a few months of "tasting" some new programs, ChaLean, Turbo Jam, CrossFit and a few others, I am going back to the tried and true P90x. Not that the others were not fun and a good change for me, but just flat out were not that challenging. I think completing P90x once in addition to my other physical activities (softball, golf, tennis, chasing the kids around) and a pretty strict diet regime has gotten my body ready for anything. I may have to go native on a desert island somewhere to really find a grind, but we will see. I am tinkering with some modifications to P90x this time around and will hopefully find some new methods to share with you to make your programs even more challenging for you. Stay tuned.

Greg
Day 2 Round 2 Shoulder & Arms (done)

Nutrition Simplified - Shakein' things up with Shakeology

Team,



Now that summer is in full swing, I hope you are showing off the results you have achieved at the beach, pool or just around the house. Maintaing your new body with a supporting nutrition plan is extremely important. Simplifying your diet is the easiest way to make sure you are getting the nutrition you need and not cheating yourself and comprimising your results. If you are a food drone like me, it gets pretty easy to simplify your diet to a few key "clean" items and be done with it; but I realize many folks would reject the idea of eating beans, chicken and roasted veggies for breakfast lunch and dinner and everything in between...Enter Shakeology from Beachbody. For a meal replacement option, I have never seen a more complete option from a nutirent profile perspective.



Shakeology is a daily addition to your nutrition plans that offers a wide array of nutrients on top of protein.Because of the was Shakeology is formulated, one shake pretty much covers your body's normal daily requirement for vitamins and minerals.



We have the chocolate and I have to say its not the best tasting meal replacement shake I have used. But, when you consider all of the natural, nutrient packed ingredients and the fact that there is no added sugar or taste modifiers, its actually pretty good. Its has great benefits other than the nurtient and metabolism kicking benefits. It crushes cravings as its high fiber contents makes you feel full for quite a long while.

Fight Gone Bad, Was Not So Bad

The fight went on as scheduled and was not too bad. My buddy Will - (Marine Officer/freshly minted Law Degree holder) did it with me. Its a challenging workout that will get your heart pumping and your sweat flowing. I am sure I will feel it worse tomorrow. At the end I realized that the ball we were using was 8 lbs. lighter than it was supposed to be (should have been 20lbs.)...... So we decided to push things a bit and we added the following to the work out.
Bench press 45Lb. bar 100 reps
Bench press 45lb. bar with 5 lbs. plates 50 reps
P90X Ab Ripper (Ted joined us for this one a cried like a girl!, sorry Ted)

Give it a try on a day when you need to shake things up.
Turbo Jammin' it tomorrow for some fat burning fun.
Official start of beach season is Monday so get moving!

Happy Fighting!
MLBB

Get ready for the beach and try something new tomorrow.. I am doing this CrossFit Workout

Fight Gone Bad - See CrossFit Video
The Fight Gone Bad workout consists of five exercises, performed for one minute each, with one-minute breaks given after all exercises have been completed. This grueling five-station rotation is then repeated three times per person.
The CrossFit workout will be ‘Fight Gone Bad’. In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. This event calls for 3 rounds. The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of ‘rotate,’ the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point. The stations are:
Wall-ball, 8 ft target (Reps)
Deadlift high-pull (Reps)
Box jump (Reps)
Push-press (Reps)
Row (Calories)
The four divisions are:
Class A: Standard Men = 75 lb PP and High Pull, 20lb Wall Ball and 20in Box
Class B: Modified Men/Standard Women = 55 lb PP and High Pull, 14lb Wall Ball and 20in Box
Class C: Intermediate = 35 lb PP and High Pull, 8lb Wall Ball and 20in Box (step ups are okay)
Class D: Beginner/Kids = 15lb PP and High Pull, 4lb Wall Ball (can be lowered 2in from standard height) and 10in Box

I will post my score and how bad I am hurting after I get back from the ER =)

Pray for me!
MLBB

Changing things up for the home stretch

Hey Team,

The home stretch is here. Next week is the official start of summer. Pools and beaches will be in full swing and hopefully all your hard work has paid off. For me, I am looking at this as a chance to start something new.
I am officially changing my core program to Turbo Jam as I focus on getting as lean as possible and cutting up for the beach season. In addition to starting Turbo Jam, I am going to put a laser focus on clean eating. I have been eating pretty clean for about 90% of my meals, but have not been paying too close attention to portion sizes. This brings up a point for you to remember. Just because you are eating clean, you can easily sabotage your results by not using appropriate portion sizes or meal timing. Crack out your Eating Clean Diet book and brush up on portion sizes for carbs and proteins to ensure you get back on track.
If you are trying to get rid of that last bit of stubborn fat, I recommend reading this interview with Tom Venuto and follow up by reading part 2. There are a tremendous amount of secrets to losing body fat and this guy is one of the best straight talkers out there.

Get Serious, Get Results, try something new and check out Turbo Jam

MLBB

Do you know what you are eating today? No, uh oh!

Team,
As we all know, a key component needed to get the body you want is a clean diet and a regimented eating schedule. 4-6 small nutrient packed clean meals a day about 2.5-3 hours apart is a key to a fat burning, lean body. To be as clean as you can with each of your meals takes planning and preparation. As a kid my father would drill into us the 6 Ps; Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Never has this be more applicable.
If you do not know what you are going to eat for your next meal right now, you are not effectively "meal planning". The key to staying on track with your dietary plan is to plan at least each days meals in advance, or know that where and when you will eat next will offer the correct foods you need to stay on plan.
Example: My post workout meal does not vary much from day to day, but I always make sure before heading to the gym that I have a lean, easy digestible protein and a complex carbohydrate ready to go as soon as I get home. Meal 1 planned! For meal 2 I know I will be at my desk or in a meeting at work, so everyday I put a piece of fruit and some nuts (or protein shake) in my bag and have it at the ready 3 hours later. Meal 2, in the bag! Now meal 3 is where I "wing it" (sort of) each day, but with little risk that I am going to blow my clean eating habits. The cafeteria at work has a great salad bar that I know will provide healthy choices of proteins, vegetables, fruits, etc. and I can easily control my portion sizes. Provided I have good insight into how food items are prepared, I can make good choices and avoid the crappy stuff that is of course always available. Funny how the longest lines seem to always be for the crappy stuff.... Meal 4 is easy too cause I usually split up my salad from the cafeteria in half, eat half at lunch, then the other half a few hours later. So, as long as I make good choices at lunch I am good for meal 4. Meal 5 & 6 are dinner and a light snack before bed time always with the same protein carbohydrate balance.
So what's the point? The point is, if you get in the habit of always having good foods with you are available when you need to eat, it makes it easier to stay on track. Not having food or a plan for what you are going to eat next leads to making bad choices or settling for foods that will sabotage your plans to reach your goals.
Planning effectively starts at the grocery store. Do your best to stay in the outside aisle of the store where the fruits, veggies and proteins are and away from the inner aisles that are jam packed with endless shelves of processed foods. Get yourself a good lunch bag that can keep your food fresh and ready to eat when you need it. Start a fruit bowl in your area at work and get others involved to keep healthy choices around you at all times.
You have made the commitment to planning your workouts, now do the same for your diet. Remember the 6Ps and that exercise is only half (or maybe less) the battle.
Happy Eating!
Main Line Beach Body

SHOCK THE SYSTEM Part Duex

In considering all the ways I could advise you to modify your workouts and shake things up, I quickly realized the best way to accelerate my point is to show you the most extreme thing I have ever tried to shock my system; so here it is. (this is not for the meek!)

One of the fastest growing grass roots exercise approaches in the world is call CrossFit. A buddy of mine told me about it last year. He told me about this video he saw of an extreme workout that was being done by 3 girls and said this will kick the crap out of the P90X stuff you do. You know what, he was right!!! It did kick my ass, hard. But, like anything else, as I incorporated this workout into my regime, I got better at it and eventually my body adapted to be able to finish the workout without loosing my lunch! The cool thing about CrossFit is, they literally have hundreds of exercise demo videos that you can watch to try new stuff every day.

Now, I do not advise that you jump right in and try to do these workouts. My point is, when trying to modify your current program, think outside the box (damn, I hate that saying!). Research new ways to move your body and challenge it. The same old tired cardio and weight routines are not the only way to get in shape. For some, they only yield short term results and quickly become boring and un-motivating. So for today, check out the CrossFit stuff and if I have not said it enough, look at the programs that Beachbody offers. These are not your everyday workouts and will help you bust through motivational and physical plateaus.

If you want to try the CrossFit workouts, PLEASE, do not do it without understanding their intent, philosophy and physicality of them in addition to the preparation needed to perform the movements demonstrated in the videos. What I do advise it to read about CrossFit, view some of the videos and understand the underlying concept of it all. Then, try to incorporate one or two basic movements into your routine.

More to come on this topic soon.
Happy Training.
Greg