Monday, October 17, 2011 at 9:20PM Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 10:02PM SAVE THE DATE: Dr. Wendy & Dr. Kevin's Next IDFA workshop will be Saturday September 17 from 12-4:00 pm. More details about Give-Away's are coming. To reserve your spot early, call us!
Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 9:59PM Bodybuilding, Figure & Fitness Model Championships
• IDFA Pro Qualifier
LOCATION:
Mount Royal University Leacock Theatre
4825 Mount Royal Gate SW
Calgary, AB
TIMES & PRICES:
2:30pm – IDFA Western Canada Classic NOVICE Championships (Judging and Awards) - $40.00
6:30pm – IDFA Western Canada Classic OPEN & MASTERS Championships (Judging and Awards) - $40.00
TICKETS
ONLINE: http://www.mtroyal.ca/tickets or https://tickets.mtroyal.ca
PHONE: 403.440.7770
IN PERSON: Tickets can be purchased at the box office on day of show
DIVISIONS:
Men's Bodybuilding: Novice, Masters, Open*
Women's Fitness Model: Novice, Open*
Women's Figure: Novice, Masters, Open*
*Open Overall Champion will earn and IDFA Pro Card
Western Canada Classic Winners Win Free Entry to the IDFA World Championships & Pro U!
All class winners will be awarded FREE entry to compete in the IDFA World Championships & Pro Universe on November 5 in Toronto, Canada.
Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 9:55PM Here's a success story from Paul Martens who placed 2nd in the Virgin Radio (Calgary) 12 week Health to Wealth $10,000 contest!
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Having just turned 39 years old late 2010, I had been struggling with my weight for years. I had let 50 pounds of body weight crawl onto my body. I had gone through a divorce and used video games as an escape, to take my mind off my troubles. The computer chair attached lifestyle became my body's undoing. Kraft dinner, Pizza, burgers, fries and a coke were everyday meals it became a real problem as the weight poured on and I couldn't go a day without taking at least 2 antacid pills. I became tired sluggish, my memory was failing me, it was like I was going through life in a fog as my performance in real life dropped at work as well.
I decided to lose the weight last year but I tried to change one thing at a time. Diet change, I ate 600-800 calories a day, boy did that only make the fog and sluggishness worse. Now I only wanted to stay in the chair further eroding my metabolism, no energy for moving around at all, let alone exercise. I was totally starving myself and I didn’t know it. I had no motivation, no energy, and when I tried to exercise and with that came massive headaches every single time I tried to workout with the lack of food it was debilitating. Clearly the weight gain, poor diet, lack of sleep and video gaming had hijacked my life and I needed to take control. I knew I had to put it all together.
The New Year came and I committed myself. I quit video games cold turkey, got my body composition and pictures taken for the Health to Wealth challenge the first day it was available to register at 7am on January 10th, signed up for additional sessions with my personal trainer, and perhaps most importantly scheduled an appointment with Dr. Kevin Ashby. Little did I know THIS WAS THE TURNING POINT. Kevin created a schedule that outlined exactly what to eat at what time of day and streamlined when I was supposed to exercise.
I won’t lie, the first few weeks were hard following his food schedule, eating certain amounts at certain times but honestly the food plan got easy!! I just kept following the plan. The weight was melting off at a predetermined weekly rate and the centimetres were coming off! This constant improvement was feeding on itself and steamrolled to an unbelievable change in only 12 weeks. Everyone I knew was complimenting me on how much younger and better I looked even 6 weeks into the challenge after losing 27 pounds at the halfway point. I was being stopped all the time by people I know, asking me what I did and how I lost all the weight and I was more than happy to exuberantly tell them. The thing is after 6 weeks the routine became EASY!! This is the single most important thing I could tell people. It became second nature to eat healthy, to exercise, and to sleep proper hours, my health was improving exponentially and I was only halfway done. Everyone needs to know this. It gets easier as you go and it propels itself. It was a self feeding machine.
By 12 weeks, the end of the challenge I HAD BLOWN PAST MY WEIGHT LOSS GOAL of 190 pounds. My weight had dropped from 230 pounds to 180 pounds over 22% of my weight and my body fat percentage had dropped from 24% to 11%. My pant size had gone from 38 to 32.
I used to finish a workout before the weight loss and I would be done, finished, tired the rest of the day. 50 pounds lighter and everything is easier. 12 weeks ago I was running 50 pounds heavier! I pick up my 50 pound daughter and I think ``No way, I used to weigh this much more, why did I let that happen! `` I have renewed vigour and focus at work and at home and this is just the beginning of my transformation. I am going to keep up the healthy changes I have made. I have already set new expectations and objectives for myself while maintaining and improving my new self. I am determined to do something I have never done before in my life, in the 40th year of my life I am going to run a sub 3 hour marathon with the proper training, nutrition and rest. I have asked Dr. Ashby to create another plan to take me to 8% body fat and to accomplish this goal. I have no doubt with his guidance I will accomplish my goal.
Now whenever someone comes up to me and compliments me and then asks how I did it, I enthusiastically tell them every step of my journey and try to motivate them to do it for themselves. Nothing would make me happier than if my story helped someone else’s transformation and I hope I can inspire someone to begin their journey as well.
Thank you Dr Kevin Ashby, my daughter Jayde and my friends who all encouraged and supported me through my transformation!
Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 9:51PM http://brendasblog.tumblr.com/post/4056037443/tips-and-tricks-nutrition
Before I can get to the good stuff I need to remind you, I am not a nutritionist, not a trainer, and don’t speak for World Health. Anything in this blog is my opinion or based on my experience.
We know that eating fast food is not good for us. Bacon, fried chicken (hmm, I haven’t eaten craving foods in so long I am having trouble coming up with examples), muffins, breakfast sandwiches, specialty coffees, soft drinks, diet soft drinks, burritos, chicken pot pie, sausage, chips, ice cream, cookies, treats (ahh, its coming back to me now). These foods and beverages are either loaded with fats, sugars, just plain grease, or have no nutrient value (in my opinion).
Now let’s say you have been behaving but you are still not losing weight. Have you been behaving, or do you just think you have been behaving? I’ll just have a couple of treats (today), and tomorrow I’ll have a speciality coffee, and the next day, oh one cookie won’t hurt. Hmmm, don’t think I want to do the caloric math.
Step one – awareness. Track everything that goes into your mouth. Candies, drinks, coffees with cream, juice, everything. Count how many nuts. Track it all. There is a cool tool at www.fitday.com that allows you to track your calories in, calories out. You can buy the software or use their free online tool. I don’t plan on counting calories my whole life, but I do need to be aware of what I eat and in what portions.
Okay, so you know what not to eat and you are tracking your food intake but still you are not able to lose more weight. You are getting frustrated to the point of going back to your bad habits because, after all, if you are working hard, behaving yourself and still not losing weight, what is the point?!
I wanted to restrict calories but I needed enough energy to keep going in my workouts. I also worried about staying healthy. How do you restrict calories without endangering your health? Well, that’s where a gentleman named Dr. Kevin Ashby comes into the picture. Someone I know gave me his number so I called him up and made an appointment. I went into his office and saw pictures of him and his wife posing in some sort of fitness competition. (Just read on their website they are known as “Canada’s Fittest Couple”. Glad I didn’t know that when I booked my appointment. ) Great, this guy is going to understand a person who has spent most of their life sitting on the couch (that would be sarcasm). Well, surprisingly, that didn’t seem to be an issue. You have to remember, in front of people like Dr. Ashby or my trainer, I still feel like I am 260 pounds. So here I am, once again, sitting in front of a fit dude telling him I want to be thinner, fitter, and that I will do what is necessary to accomplish that goal. And Dr. Ashby? How did he respond? He proceeded to tell me how to accomplish my goal. It was that simple. I check in with him on a regular basis. He adjusts what I am doing, in consultation with me, and I follow his instructions. He’ll ask me questions like “how do you feel about cottage cheese?”. Now if I said to him, hate it, can’t eat it, I fully believe he would adjust my plan to avoid cottage cheese. In my instance, the man knows his stuff and so when he asks how I feel about cottage cheese, my response is simply “I’m sensing I’ll be liking it?”
So is he my magical cure? No. He is a person very knowledgeable in both nutrition and fitness and so the ideal person to assist me in not only reaching my more immediate weight loss goal (immediate meaning over the period of several months), but more importantly my long term goal of maintaining my weight loss for the rest of my life. As I told Dr. Ashby, I gave away all my “fat clothes” (everything size 14 and above), gaining the weight back is not an option. Another great thing about Dr. Ashby is he is more than happy to work with your trainer so you have a team helping you get healthy, instead of competing professionals.
Now Dr. Ashby’s clinic (I’ll call it a clinic) isn’t just about nutrition. He’s a chiropractor, and he has a team that provide the following services: Chiropractic, Physiotherapy, Massage Therapy, Traditional Chinese Medicine/Acupuncture (that’s something I will check out in the future), Custom Orthotics (hmm, that’s good to know), Nutritional Counselling, and Fitness.
I have a massage therapist, holistic nutritionist and physiotherapist each of whom I found before I was introduced to Endurance on 8th and I remain loyal to those people and will likely tell you about them at some future point but I really like the concept of being able to see all of those professionals under one roof. And I like that they are willing to work with my trainers and with each other. I have had medical professionals who don’t understand trainers, or have experienced what I like to call “wannabe trainers” and so have a very low opinion of my trainers without even taking the time to get to know them. My trainers are willing to speak with my medical professionals; are happy to work with them for my ultimate better health. It is nice that Endurance on 8th is willing to work with my trainers as part of my team of medical professionals helping me be a healthier person.