A Fall to Remember

Can’t believe this is going to be our last collective blog post…this has been an awesome challenge for all of us and we definitely got a lot more out of it than we had expected. It has helped jump start our fitness routine and realize how important it is to put our health first. We also had the opportunity to be surrounded by amazing women – all the Healthworks fitness instructors – who are great role models. Women of all ages, physiques, those who are pregnant and new mothers…they make our excuses for not working out seem lame! Being healthy is more than what the number on the scale says. And lets not forget the endless benefits of weight training (thanks Monika!).

Team SuperWomen

Posture Practice

At BURN with David we were doing different types of exercise that required us to have a straight back. We soon discovered that none of us had proper posture. David worked with us using a large wooden pole to act as a guide to show us how we should be standing and how our spine should look. Then he had us doing planks and rows in the correct position. We all felt a little awkward learning how to stand up again. He spend time with us after our class had ended to answer all our questions about technique and why our posture was so bad. We learned that over time we have taught ourselves these incorrect methods to compensate for a weak core. I think we were able to correct it with him because of all the core work we have been doing over the past few weeks with our Fiona’s Challenge bootcamps. It was a very tough workout as I’m sure most of you know since I think almost every team has been doing the BURN classes. I was so happy to have Lauren, Allie and Patricia there to help keep me going and push myself as hard as I could go.

When I got to work the next morning I tried to practice sitting up straight and tall, shoulders back but not arching my back. It will take a little while to get used to but I think in the long run it will be much better for my back.

Go Lunch Bunch

Dark Chocolate Taste Test!

What’s a Girl to Do When Her Trainer Tells Her to Avoid Sugar?

Cheat and eat it anyway?

NO, silly! Instead, my family did a dark chocolate taste test to see how high of a cacao percentage we could tolerate while still enjoying the chocolate. We sampled three different brands all with different percentages:
Valrhona 71% Cacao Le Noir Amer, Equal Exchange 80% Cacao Organic Panama Extra Dark Chocolate, and Godiva 85% Cacao Extra Dark Santo Domingo Chocolate.

I was excited to try the Valrhona bar because this brand is considered by many chefs be the finest chocolate in the world. It contains no added fat or butter oil, resulting in less calories than most chocolate–woo hoo! The Valrhona 71% Cacao bar is made of refined blending of selected cocoa beans from the Trinitarios and Criollos origins, enhancing their rich flavors and redwood colors. This sweet bitterness reveals a fruity and floral taste, with exceptional long lasting aromas.
The Results: This chocolate was definitely the sweetest, but not by much. My sense is that once you develop a tollerance for a certain cacao threshold (let’s say 80%), the lesser percentages don’t seem that much different (and so why not just eat 80%). The disappointing part about this chocolate was that it lacked even the slightest bit of creaminess. In fact, it was chalky and dry. I wonder if I bought an old bar. Boo!

Equal Exchange’s 80% Cacao Organic bar is the darkest they sell. Unlike many high cacao content bars that are dominated by a bitter or sour note, this bar is perfectly balanced in a way that allows the true chocolate flavor of the Panamanian beans to shine. It’s vegan (yay, Jake!) and gluten-free, too!

The Results: WINNER! This bar was delicious. It’s dark, very dark, but it was creamy enough and did not have a bitter taste. I could eat a couple squares of this and be satisfied without ruining all the hard work put in at the gym. I also can tell when I am eating this organic product that it is of high quality–it held it’s own again two very reputable brands, which is pretty cool!

The Godiva bar is made from the darkest chocolate in the range — 85% cacao from the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo. It’s a robust dark chocolate with hints of spicy, berry top notes. Smoothest of textures. It delivers a densely complex dark chocolate.

The Results: While this bar did live up to its “smoothest of textures” claim, it was way too “densely complex” in flavor that I found it to be pretty bitter. I would not recommend this bar to another gal with a sweet tooth, although I would be interested in revisiting this bar after restricting my sugar intake even more (perhaps a week without sugar or fruit).

My next chocolate tasting will include 80% only from different brands.
What have other people been doing to stave off sugar cravings?
-Lauren, the Lunch Bunch

Thank you Healthworks!

What a month, thanks Healthworks!

Fiona’s challenge proved to be a great way to meet people with shared interests, experience an above average women’s health club, and jump start getting our bodies back into shape!  Being a part of “Team Superwomen” was great since day one.  We were girls from unique backgrounds with different personal goals.  Toning and strength building proved to be what we needed most and what we worked hardest on over the course of the month.  As you can see in this pic, I do in fact have a bump of a bicep which is very exciting to say the least!  I blame Monika (I mean thank;)) for her challenging workouts.  I’m leaving this challenge with a few thoughts floating through my head….

1. Working out with a camaraderie of ladies can be fun and challenging at the same time, while also improving the chances of maintaining the motivation to work out.

2. Just like we’re told…increasing muscle mass does in fact burn calories, which has helped with my weight maintenance and an improved lean muscle to fat muscle ratio.

3. Drop-in and other classes make it very manageable for a busy working woman to get the biggest “bang for her buck” by getting a really great full body workout in a limited amount of time.

4. A healthy, balanced diet (making sure to get enough protein) provides long lasting energy that you truly can’t get if you don’t watch what you eat.

5. The “Viper” is definitely my most favorite piece of workout equipment ever, and can be used for strength building in most muscle groups.

6.Healthworks is a fabulous place for any female that is looking for a health club for all fitness levels, an opportunity to meet women with shared interests, a place to get your butt kicked, and a workout facility that can feel more like a spa if you let it.

Congratulations “Team Superwomen” on completing a fun, yet challenging month in “Fiona’s Challenge”.  And thank you to Healthworks, and Monika, for making this possible!

Marissa Starin

“You’ve lost weight”

I just had an interesting encounter at a gas station near my work…I walk inside to pay the cashier and he looks at me and says, “You’ve lost weight”.  After staring back at him blankly while thinking that’s an odd thing to say, my first reaction was to ask him if he thought I was fat before!?!?  Instead, I thanked him for noticing, briefly told him about the new workouts I’ve been doing and went on my way.

Allie T.

Final reflections from Helpless Helpers

I have truly enjoyed the experience of Fiona’s challenge. I loved collaborating with others to achieve overall improvement while also working on myself and personal goals. We were all incredibly supportive of each others goals and pushed one another toward success. Sayida was an incredible trainer and helped me figure out specific strategies and routines to use to achieve my goals. Overall, I have enjoyed this experience and would recommend to anyone in the future.
-Courtney

Through participating in Fiona’s Challenge I have learned that it is important to celebrate every small victory. Every inch and every pound lost needs to be celebrated because it’s only through these seemingly small victories that you get to the bigger gains you want.

-Elizabeth

I am so sad Fiona’s challenge is over. It was overall a great experience! When our team was assigned a 6 am workout time, I have to say I was initially pretty annoyed as I have always been a post work workout person. However, I challenged myself this past month to wake up early before work to work out a couple of times a week. I now realize how I love working out before work and get it over with! Starting this new routine,getting great training from a wonderful trainer (thanks Saydia!) and spending time working out with friends has all been a great experience! I am so glad I was given this opportunity!
-Julie

I have learned that finding your inner strength is critical for achieving success both as an individual and as part of a team. I had a personal goal to get my nutrition under control during this challenge. I always thought since I am already a small person there is no need to worry about what I eat. I looked hard at this component during the challenge and in the end found my inner strength to make a significant gain personally with nutrition. I thank my team mates and Sayida for giving me the motivation to achieve this goal.
-Jocelyn

TRX rocks!

Thoroughly enjoyed the TRX drop-in class! It’s a different form of weight training, in that you are using your own body weight. It is also particularly challenging because not only are you targeting specific muscle groups with certain exercises, but you are working on all of your stability muscles as well. You can also make it easy or hard, depending on how much of your body weight you decide to take on. Here’s a short video for those of you who have never taken a class…would highly recommend it!

Sana

Team SuperWomen

Helpless Helpers: Journey through the weeks

Double dose of Monika ;)

So I decided to take Monika’s most challenging bootcamp a day after our last Fiona bootcamp. What a treat!…slightly painful but definitely worth it. One of the reasons why I decided to participate in Fiona’s Challenge was because I found myself reaching a plateau (besides the fact that I never thought our team would get picked). ‘So what the heck…it’s worth a try right?’ I thought. The road that followed was full of surprises. Our team did get picked and I found out what was keeping me back. In our first bootcamp, Monika said the number one thing that she disliked was when people underestimated themselves. And that was my problem exactly. I was stuck in my comfort zone and thought that I wasn’t capable of doing any better. To tell you the truth, I was a little intimidated by the thought of bootcamp (especially with Monika!). I have been watching her teaching bootcamp from the sidelines for quite a while now, and never thought I could do the things they were doing. At the end, I surprised myself and now have some more faith in my abilities. And I have learnt to work outside my comfort zone. Even though I sort of looked like this at the end of the bootcamp, I felt amazing:

And I will leave you with one of Monika’s facebook posts:

Sana

Team SuperWomen

WE MADE IT THROUGH!!!!

After four weeks of working out, I am surprised that I am sad to see it end.  At first, I joined the challenge to get motivated to start getting back into shape.  I realized that with my hectic schedule and with my friends being members at other gyms, it was difficult to keep myself energized to keep working out on my own.  Although I did not know any of my group members, I felt the need to pull my weight for the success of the groups goals.  I did my best to make it to the bootcamps and get to the gym at least four times a week.  On week three, I ended up getting really sick with pneumonia and bronchitis, which made it really hard to get to the gym.  I felt that I was letting my group down by not checking in and missing my bootcamp for the week.  I also felt that I may fall back into old patterns of neglecting my workouts after missing so many days of the gym.  After four weeks, I realized that I have the strength to keep motivated and focused and I am proud of my accomplishments.  I am grateful to my group and to my trainer for keeping me on target and pushing me to do my best.  This has been an amazing experience and the thing that I take away from this experience is that I need to not be so hard on myself when life gets a little off course and also believe that I will always find my way back to it is that I want to accomplish!  GO TEAM SUPERWOMEN!!!!!!!!!!!

Alyson