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Are you stuck in a workout rut? Having a hard time breaking free to hit the gym? I am ready to help change your life!
I will come to your home when it works for you! I will teach you WORKOUTS THAT WORK so you can meet achievable, life changing goals we establish together. My goal isn't to make you reliant on a personal trainer for the rest of your life. My goal is to show you how to make several small changes in how you move, eat and think which will make huge changes in how you live for the rest of your life!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Extremism: It's Not Just Rachel

I've been asked several times my opinion on whether Rachel, the winner of Biggest Loser, is too thin. To recap she lost over 60% body fat plummeting from 260 lbs to 105 lbs for the finale.
Yes, she looks very thin. No, I don't think she epitomizes the way healthy looks. However, I want to thank her and the show for bringing to light a much larger issue...as a society we embrace extremism.
Much like extreme obesity makes for great television, so do extreme lifestyles, extreme addictions, extreme conditions where only the extremely knowledgeable can survive, extremely intense 8 year old football teams; just to throw out a few. And if that's not convincing enough, listen to commercials on the radio. Extreme dieting, extreme results, extreme fun...it doesn't take long to see a pattern. My new favorite commercial promises "high school skinny" in an extremely short period of time without changing your diet.
We live in a society where it's normal to exist on the outer limits of normal. Completely sedentary with a crap filled diet or extremely active and starving. It's not difficult to seek out people living on either end of the health spectrum, much like it appears Rachel on the Biggest Loser has done.
To be fair, many people, including my own family, have accused my love of CrossFit as being very extreme. The intense workouts, aches and pains, as well as competitions with several workouts in one day, make it difficult for me to argue with them. However, it's all balanced with healthy eating, supplements, work life and most importantly, my family life.
That's the key to living amongst all these extremes: strike a balance people! If you are extremely active, then your nutrition should be dense in protein, good fats, good carbohydrates and supplemented accordingly. If you are extremely inactive then you need to move! Not 100 burpees for time, but get out and walk. If you live to workout and that's all you ever do and talk about...well, you likely have very few friends and need to find other hobbies. Not to be cruel, but seriously, there's more to life than what you can bench press.
I hope that Rachel finds a healthy balance between nutrition and exercise as I hope the same for all my clients and class participants.  Because it's between those extremes we not only find "normal" but we can exist in a lifestyle that allows us to get the most out of every single day. And that, my friends, is extremely satisfying. :)

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