Hello and Welcome to our Fitmass Blog page. Here you’ll find all the information you need to know each week.
Here's what to do....
Make sure you have read our campaign ethos here. Working on this principle, we’d like you to simply move and eat consciously over the next 2-3 weeks (from 16th October - 6th November)
We will be recording the classes that you book into but, unless you do them live and are present in the Youtube comments, we can't be sure you have completed them so please can you add them into the FITMASS activity log which you will need to send to Caroline either via email - caroline@janewake.com or directly to Caroline on the whats app @Caroline Burns, Please see our FITMASS sample activity log below and how to use it below.
The more weeks we record, the more we can chart your movement patterns. So if you can back date to the 16th October, please do, but please don’t worry if you can’t. Theres still time if you start in November.
For the Nutritional aspect...
Protein. All we want you to do for the moment is start to think about this and also ask Nicola questions in the whats app chat. This will help her to plan a workshop based on your needs. Do you know if you are getting enough protein? How can you include protein in your breakfast? On the go? What if you skip meals?
We also want to know what else interests you - one very topical subject is intermittent fasting - does this work, how and should you be doing it? This is something we will be looking into.
And what about everything else? Peri/Menopause symptoms and nutrition is also something that Nicola and I wish to look at - are you interested and how? Please put these types of questions into the whats app chat.
Here’s a few words from Nicola…..
"Hi everyone! Very excited about this challenge. Just popping on here to encourage everyone to let me know any questions you’d like me to address in the nutrition workshop ! I can’t promise I’ll be able to address them all but I’ll give it a go!
To get you thinking here are some prompts:
1) what is the single biggest nutrition issue you are struggling with ?
2) what is your motivation for improving your nutrition? 3)What do you believe will happen if you don’t succeed (worst case scenario)
4) what do you hope will happen if you do succeed?
5) what are the biggest obstacles you face that keep you from getting results?
6) if you could put the thing you want the most for your health into a single sentence, what would it be?
Plus any other questions you have around protein.
If any of this seems to personal to post on here feel free to just PM me your questions. I won’t share the questions, but will use them to shape the content of the workshop.
I’m very impressed with all the exercise achievements so far! You’re all inspiring me!
Nicola - Registered Dietitian and Health Coach."
To note - these are big subject areas! And we can't promise to tackle them all in the time we’ve got but this is an ongoing project and we hope to continue to develop it as much as we can - we believe in taking small steps in order to reach big goals!
Each class contains a different rating on the following modalities...
Resistance. Pilates will carry some resistance points, but you’ll get more from The Fit Circle and Barefoot workouts and most from Strong.
Intervals. We include high intensity intervals into our Release Revive and Rev it up, Pilates Flow with HIITS, Fit Circle and Barefoot classes. Try to include some of these into your repertoire - we will be explaining what these do and how in a workshop soon.
Stretch. Pilates will carry all your stretch points. We'd like to note here that this also stands for mindfulness, breath and inner focus. It's more than just a stretch!
Endurance. To gain endurance points you need to be doing longer classes such as The Full Plates Flow or Express Pilates Flow and also classes like Barefoot and Mamafit. We also want you to include in your Endurance points OUTDOOR activity too. This can be any walking, running or outside activity such as cycling, skating, hiking or swimming that last for a minimum of 50 minutes. These can be somewhat hard to high in intensity and must be continuous - so at least 5 on an RPE scale - that stands for rate of perceived exertion (workshop coming soon to explain this!) or around 65% HR max training. This is where you feel you are getting out of breath, sweaty and feel challenged.
UPDATE!
We are now going to also include 2 new aspects. This will enable you to record all of your movement outdoors. Please note we can not include or analyse other classes or activities, outside of our timetable for anything other than the endurance component. The following however enables you to add anything that is working towards longer endurance exercise, plus Activities of Daily Living thats an important part of your overall health and wellness. PLEASE NOTE! You don't have to add all this in! If for example you are fairly confident that you are already getting in lots of ADL's each day (the aim is to be moderately active, 60 mins daily) you don't have to record this down. If you struggle with this though, it's worth monitoring. Also if you are doing our classes LIVE and participating in the Youtube chat, most days of the week, all you have to do is let Caroline know if there's anything additional you want recorded like an endurance activity or ADL's. Please note if you are not attending a class live, you will still need to let Caroline know when you've completed a class. There is no competition here - it's about us seeing where you are at and working on improving factors that will make a difference to you - See my notes below on Motivation to help you with this. If you are starting from scratch you may want to record every little bit you can! If you have any questions on this - let me know and I'll address it in a zoom meeting next week.
Endurance build. This can include any outdoor movement that takes you into your training zone (see Endurance above) for at least 20 minutes. Think of this as your contribution to endurance - as well as having numerous other health benefits but its the longer endurance that we want to work towards for some unique benefits too!
ADL. - Activities of Daily Living. This is any moderate activity from walking to housework or generally moving around in your job - including being a Mum! ADLs are well reported for their huge benefits in every day wellness so we want to be able to include these. We should all be aiming to move moderately for an hour per day. This contributes to our over all calorie expenditure as well as having many other benefits. ADL's are vitally important for anyone starting out. If you struggle to move generally daily then you should try to monitor this. If you find ADL's easy and know you are doing more than enough, then you don't need to record them.
How to record total activity....
I have created this table which I'll send out to everyone via email and on whats app. It's a google word doc so easy to use either on your phone or lap top. We are working from Saturday as the beginning of a week. This is because Christmas day is a Saturday! You can start recording from 16th, 23rd, 30th Oct, 6th Nov or later. Please submit your completed table to caroline, either on email or via a DM on whats app from Friday , i.e. the end of each week. I will run a workshop during this time, explaining each exercise mode, exactly what they do and how to make the most of it.
From next week (week beginning 1st November)
I will set up some zoom sessions to help you with this. In the meantime, if you have any questions please put them into the whats app chat. Bear with us over this week if we don’t get back straight away - we are all on holiday!
Caroline is collating all that you do and putting it into a personalised profile. We will start to feed this back to you and discuss so you can use it as a motivational tool as well as a way to tweak your movement and find the right balance for you.
A last word on MOTIVATION!
Motivation is an emotive thing! I am very much in the school of empowering you to move not because I’ve told you too! But because you want to and because you can see and feel the difference it brings.
On that basis here are some things to think about that can help you to move more and in the right way for you….
Try to ditch weight loss goals and focus more on the health benefits to be gained from reducing belly fat, increasing bone density, being stronger, getting more sleep etc etc .
Try to think of your reasons WHY, keep these in your thoughts while you are moving, these are personal to you and should always act as a positive motivator. If your reasons WHY have any negative connotations you need to really think about whether they deserve a place in your mind - this is when motivational tools become de-motivational tools! So keep them in check and throw out the ones that you know aren't working for you.
Movement, Mindfulness and Eating Well Matter - they matter on so many levels, most of all they reduce disease and enable you to live a fuller, longer and more active and contented life. The next couple of weeks are all about really looking into why they matter to you so that you can make them a permanent fixture in your life.
We will discuss this and more next week.
Over and out for now.