R.E.S.T

 

So it’s ‘wellbeing’ month at work and my company have quite a few seminars and workshops going on. This week I completed something called a ‘Boomerang Life Balance Questionnaire’ which measures your mental and physical health. I scored highest on my diet and exercise and lowest on my body, sleep and relaxation.

You would think that my lifestyle would mean that I am taking good care of my body, and to be fair I am, but the one thing I am really neglecting is recovery and sleep- which is paramount when it comes to exercise as this is the ONLY opportunity where your body is at complete rest and is able to fully recover and repair itself.

R-ecover E-nergise S-leep T-rain

Recover - Allow your body to adequately refresh itself in order to deliver the same output (if not more) for its required use.

Energise: You will see a MAJOR difference in your physical and mental wellbeing. A renewed energy will allow you to avoid burning out and should help maintain your enthusiasm and fitness goals.

Sleep: Sleep aids recovery and can enhance exercise performance.  Taking at least one day to catch up on sleep will benefit your training more than pushing your body for another workout with a lack of sleep. The majority of your Growth Hormone, which is a highly anabolic substance, is released during sleep. Getting enough sleep provides you with the energy and focus you need to see you through an intense workout. It also provides the optimum anabolic environment for your muscles to recover and grow.

Train: Training is what we all strive for so why not prep your body to train at its best, by simply giving it what it demands...REST!!!

 

So I’m going to take my own advice and get some more rest and I suggest you do too.

G

Just Geens Funday Footage

Check out some of the highlights from Just Geens Funday  

Enjoy x

#MonthsOfShredding

 

So we had #MonthOfMadness and now we have #MonthsOfShredding. I say months because I don’t know realistically how long it will take, but I’m aiming for the end of the year to see some sort of difference.

As usual, me and my squad @bigboatstrainingroom and @jan885 are trying to see how much body fat we can lose in the next couple months  .

Fitness wise, I know I’ve got that area covered. I won’t be making many changes to my regime. I currently do constant steady runs and interval training. The constant steady run helps me stay in my fat burning zone, and the interval training shocks my body and prevents my cardio from being boring. For those that don’t know what interval training is, it is the best and fastest way to lose weight. It’s more about intensity rather than duration. With interval training you alternate periods of high-intensity exercises with low-intensity recovery periods and this increases fitness and burns more calories over a short period of time. I’ll still be doing my constant steady runs alongside my interval training to help me stay in my fat burning zone.

For example of interval training if you’re running outside or on a treadmill is:

• 30 seconds sprint/30 seconds recover

• 1 minute sprint/1 minute recover

• 2 minutes fast jog sprint/2 minutes recover

To make it harder you could make your recovery time lower:

• 30 seconds sprint/20 seconds recover

• 1 minute sprint/30 seconds recover

• 2 minutes fast jog sprint/1 minute recover

This can be done with any type of cardio –even with swimming. There is no hard and fast rule about how long your workout and recovery time should be. However, I always make my recover time less because it makes it that much harder. There are loads of other ways to do interval training and this is just one of them, but either way I hope you get the jist.

My main focus these next couple of months is nutrition! There is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to my eating. I'm aiming to reduce my daily calorie intake and before you get the wrong idea, this does not mean that I will be starving myself and eating less food. It just means that I'm going to be eating the same amount but I’ll be opting for lower calorie foods.

How am I going to do this? Well I'm going to increase my fruit and veg intake, but i'm going to be focusing on increasing my veg more than my fruit. This is because fruits tend to be higher in sugar and too much sugar can turn into fat-which is the opposite of what i'm trying to achieve. 

By opting for lower calorie foods I will be eating the same amount and saving myself some calories- and this is without even changing the quantity of food I've eaten.

Here's a list of some low calorie foods I will be looking to eat more of :

• Asparagus

• Broccoli

• Carrots

• Celery

• Spinach

• Kale

• Mushrooms

• Grapefruit

• Kiwi

• Cabbage

• Olives

• Apple

• Blueberries

• Goji berries

I haven’t set a target of how much body fat I want to lose but i’ll keep you posted every month.

See you in four weeks

G 

11 August 2013-Just Geens Funday

Sunday 11^th August 2013 will always be a special day for me, why? Well, it’s the day I actually saw the fruits of my labour. I teamed up with my good friend Christopher and put on an event called ‘Just Geens Funday’.

The reason for the event? Well, my fitness journey had been going strong for over a year and I wanted to do something that would bring everyone together and show them that being active isn’t boring and strenuous, its actually quite fun. So I thought what better way to do it than a fun day.

To my surprise the day was such a success. So many things tried to go wrong at the last minute, but thanks to my brilliant team of friends and family, everything worked out in the end.

For those of you who didn’t come all I can say is, you missed out on a wicked day. We had DJ Neptizzle and DJ Jammy D on the ones and twos and photography taken by Samuel Falusi.

On the day we had a mixture of activities from a football tournament to different types of races, table tennis, an azonto fitness aerobics class and tug of war.

The football tournament was so intense it was like watching the championship league. It was that intense that several people left injured lol (you guys take football too serious).

The food was delicious. The BBQ menu was a mixture of foods from chicken, burgers, hot dogs, sweet potato wedges, grilled plantain, quinao salad, potato salad, coleslaw, salad, prawn skewers, corn on the cob and fruit salad. I was worried that a lot of people would be disappointed as there wasn’t any rice but I guess the substitutes made up for it lol. Despite the long queue, for the BBQ I think everything went quite well.

We also had some brilliant cakes made by Cakes By Kels…all cake lovers need to try her red velvet cheese cake- its to die for!!!

The Azonto Fitness aerobics session was a breath of fresh air. The session was about 15 minutes long and was taken by KwaksAzontoFitness. Azonto fitness is basically body movements from the Azonto Dance which originated from Ghana. The dance routine was pretty straight forward and it was such a fun learning experience. For more information on Azonto Fitness Click Here.

During the run up to the event, one of the problems I found was encouraging girls to come on the day. I know a lot of females thought it was going to be an instagram showdown, name and shame fitness level kinda of event, but it was far from that. The girls got so involved that they even managed to beat the guys SEVERAL TIMES at tug of war. We even had certain guys switching teams because the girls were so good. 

It was all a beautiful experience and I am really overwhelmed with the positive feedback I’ve received from the event!

The weird thing is, when I started my fitness journey it was all about me me me! I was not doing it to benefit anyone else and it was all about my personal gain. I was just a girl who liked posting gym pictures on instagram, but I soon came to realise that I was beginning to inspire those around me without even realising it.

So much has happened within the last year and all I can do is give all the glory and thanks to God. As Proverbs 19:21 says “Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails”. If anyone was to ask me a couple of years ago if I’d be a fitness enthusiast, organising fitness charity events I would have laughed…but several years later I’m here now on a journey I never thought I would be on, doing what I think the Lord has purposed me to do.

It just goes to show that it’s never too late to do anything you want as long as you put your mind to it.

I would like to thank all those who came and those that couldn’t come but still showed support, it really means a lot to me. Thank you for embarking on this journey with me and I promise to keep working hard to bring you something bigger and better next year.

G