I love watching the Olympics. It always makes me cry!

What is astounding to me is the dedication these athletes have for their craft. Most of them train 6 days a week, 5 hours a day for years, just a chance to be the best at their chosen field. (And here I am trying to convince some gals to train minimum 3 times a week …and even that’s a tough sell sometimes!)

Now I know what you’re going to say: these athletes don’t have to work, and they have most things tended to for them.

No and no. Read their stories, you’ll see. Most of them are the you’s and me’s living on the same street. They work, play, get injured, over-eat, but they have an incredible inner burning desire to achieve the highest level of performance with their precious bodies. 

What does it come down to? It’s simple, really.

The main thrust: You have to want it really, really bad. You have to have an unending focus that carries you for years. You don’t make excuses, and you see time as precious, almost your foe. You ahve to see food as fuel, and time as finite. Age is something you work against, and you know that yesterday’s training is adding into the pool of potential today…and on it goes.

As I train for my own little Figure competition this fall, I’m doing my own mini version of an Olympics…I train 60-90 minutes a day on weights, always re-assessing, always trying to do one better. I do 1-2 hours of cardio. I measure and weigh all my food. I pay strict attention to supplements, and I try to keep my stress to a minimum. I pose, I walk, I flex, and I envision the stage, the lights, the crowd, every night. And my eating is exceptional. Really exceptional. I have to manage injuries, over-training, immune system lulls, and hormone fluctuations. All the while, I run a full-time training business, I tend to my special needs son, my hubby, my 4 animals and my acre-homestead. 

It’s all about what you want, and what you’re willing to do to get it. You have to learn to compromise on certain things  – like making time to train or not having that glass of wine at night – to ensure you can get there, and to make yourself proud. I think what makes me acutely aware of it all is my son who has no use of his arms and legs, and my own experience of living in a body that was immersed in pain for years, and I could find no way out for a very long time. It makes you appreciate things more.

I gotta go…my favourite part of the Olympics is on, when we see the winners on the podium, and their faces just light up like candles as their names are called one by one…

It always makes me cry!

Karen

Sports Supplements Seminar: Want to know what kind of Sports Supplements you should be taking? Join me at Lifestyles Select in Sidney, BC on Tuesday,  July 31st from 5:30-6:30 for Women and Sports Supplements: What we need and why! Handouts included! $10 fee. RSVP to karen@mccoyfitness.ca! Only 10 seats!

Last week, I lectured to a group of at-risk youth from the Spectrum Youth Project / Job Search Program in Victoria, BC (pictured below)

WIth this group, I always teach the importance of clean eating first and foremost (exercise can wait…for now), but many are resistant to giving anything up. But at the end of 2 days of lecturing, the message remains: you’ve gotta give something up to get something else… you’ve gotta learn to compromise with your eating. 

Participants always lament whenI say cheese is fattening, late night eating is a no-no, you gotta watch the carbs, and oh, that alcohol adds up…somewhere. “But I love cheese…I love my beer…I can’t live without sandwiches….”. The choice is always there, but if we don’t change something up, then nothing can shift.

Life is all about choices. It’s also in how you look at things. Lean people make compromises all the time…painful at first, but eventually these become a new eating lifestyle, and this newer version takes over. Then the results follow: more energy, nicer fitting clothes, and these rewards far outweigh what you had to give up. 

Life is a compromise…you can’t spend your entire paycheck on designer clothes every week or you couldn’t pay your rent or mortgage, right? It’s the same with food: determine what you want, then make just one compromise and see how it goes.

Start somewhere. View compromise as a trade-off to a healthy life. Pretty soon the compromise will be a distant memory and you will see it as simply the best thing you ever did. But remember the golden rule: If you keep doing what you’re doing, you get what you get: you will look and feel the way you do now. But if you change it up, compromise on something, let something go, then you’ll shift toward being lean, energized, and healthy for life!

It’s really as simple as that!

Karen

Sports Supplements Seminar: Want to know what kind of Sports Supplements you should be taking? Join me at Lifestyles Select in Sidney, BC on Tuesday,  July 31st from 5:30-6:30 for Women and Sports Supplements: What we need and why! Handouts included! $10 fee. RSVP to karen@mccoyfitness.ca! Only 10 seats!

Yesterday, my son and I walked into town for our daily excursion, a 6 km walk. Along the way, we met a lady out walking. “Good for you,” she said, “Walking is my chosen exercise, I do it every day.” Hmmm…I thought.

Then just last week, I saw a former training client at lunch, and he announced that he had found the perfect exercise regime for him: walking. “I try to do about 7 km a day,” he said. “No more gym stuff for me.”

I recall another lady that was quizzing me about the need for formal training. “I get enough exercise chasing after my grandkids,” she said. “I don’t need anything more.” Yes you do. Really, think about it.

See here’s the thing (and I’ll probably get tons of emails for this….), walking is not exercise. Walking, in my books, is an activity. Exercise is when we train our bodies in a structured environment to attain a higher level of fitness and health. Activity, is, well, the other stuff that we’re supposed to do on a regular basis, like, well, walking.

See here’s the rub: when we look at walking as something out of the ordinary, then we’re saying that the norm is to be sedentary, when in fact, walking (and moving in general) is supposed to be the norm. And other things, like cutting the lawn, power washing or spring cleaning…these too are norms, things we are supposed to do in our daily lives.

Yes, I think walking is very worthwhile, and I do it every day with my dog (good thing about having a dog!), but I don’t factor that into my daily exercise regime. After our 6 km walk, I still did my 30 minutes of high impact cardio, then a 45 minute gym routine. Now I know not everyone is into physique training like me, but you don’t have to be. I always say, change your thinking, change your body…and your life. 

See you on the walking path!

Karen

PS – NEW CLASS!: I’m teaching a NEW Women on Weights class at PAK Fitness (formerly the Bodybarn). This class, and my regular Lift n’ Lose at Panorama are the only 2 group classes I’m teaching in 2012, limited seats, so sign up soon! September is closer than you think! CLICK HERE!

In Buddhism, they say the root of all suffering is attachment.

I had created an attachment to Tristan’s future. I had believed that my son would live a ‘normal’ life, but with his living now with a degenerative disease, I have to alter my expectations of his life, his future. I have to let go of all the things we often take for granted and replace them with a new reality, a new normal….

I ask myself several important questions – “What if we were all wheelchair-bound by 12 years old? What if we all lived no longer than 21 years of age? How would ‘normal’ look then?” Through asking these questions, I am starting to experience a break from traditional thought. I am beginning to see with fresh eyes. I am beginning to recreate a different vision for Tristan’s future, but fear and sadness engulf me.

This letting go process continues to be a long, hard lesson. I want to hold on tight, to control the outcome and to make it right, the way it’s supposed to be. But I know that with every little bit of letting go, it frees up room at the other end for something else, something better, to move in.

But I cannot let go. I’m afraid to let go……

Excerpt from One Rep at a Time: An athlete and mother reveals the secrets to creating inner power and serenity.

 Available on Amazon.com and at Tanners, Munro Books, Russel Books and Bolen. Includes the 8-week BLISS Body Makeover Program FREE.  

When I take on a new client, I always ask what their goals are. Usually it’s the same thing: to lose weight and look and feel better. While I write down what they’re saying, more importantly, I’m making mental notes about how they’re sitting and other subtle clues, because I’ve learned that a person’s story is written in their bodies. Usually the subtle physical cues tell another story, a deeper story about self.

Ask yourself this: what do you really feel about exercise and clean eating? A lot of us would rather hit the snooze button, or bite into a warm cinnamon bun: the thought of training just looks like another to-do item in an already busy day. Is this true for you, or is this what you have come to believe is true for you?

Have you ever said one of the following?

– I hate to exercise.
– I’ve tried to lose weight before and it’s never worked.
– I don’t have the time.
– I don’t have the genetics.
– She was born with that body.
– I don’t have the money.

These are just stories you tell yourself, and you need to ask why…..can you turn it around? How can we dismember our old beliefs and update our Belief Map?

I’ve got a few tried and true tools I’ve used for years with my clients, but I first had to learn them myself. My life was full of excuses and roadblocks, but I honestly didn’t see them as that. But the truth was there, in the 30-40 extra pounds I carried!…

Excerpt from One Rep at a Time, available on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and at local bookstores on Vancouver Island. Includes the 8-week BLISS Body Makeover Program FREE (videos, workout cards, how to find your working weight, living in tune with the day and seasonal cycles, clean eating tips and recipes and more!) It’s the perfect summer training program! Full email support from Karen with purchase!

OK, I’ve had it with all the ‘before and after’ photos…I say we shift our focus and use a different approach.

I’m all for seeing women lose the excess weight, but in my view, we’ve become obsessed with before and after photos. I say we need to see more before and way-later photos…

See, I’ll probably be lambasted for saying this, but it’s easy to lose the weight: It’s usually harder to keep it off and continue to transform our bodies…

Yeah, that’s what I’d like to see them called – transformation photos, and they can only be called so if the model has continued to transform her body over time…

You will find some before and after photos on my site, but not many (and that’s only to appease people wanting to see before and after’s). I prefer progress pictures of my gals years later, as they continue to shape and tone those lovely bodies of theirs: tighter triceps, higher glutes, fuller biceps, a tighter mid-section.

See, that’s what weight training is truly about – moving things about, re-shaping, re-structuring. And that’s why I prefer on-going transformations as we witness a body being carved and shaped over time into a magnificent work of art. Becoming a smaller version of a once-big person is fine for a while, and its a great short-term goal, but once the weight is lost, then the transformation must continue onward for life!

Diets will shrink you, but weight training will transform you! After all, life is a journey, not simply a destination.

Check out these 3 women who continue to shape and mold their physiques over time, and who just get better with age! And that’s what life is all about! CHECK IT OUT! 

karen 

PS: My Best Shape Challenges are done for the summer, but they resume in September! For more info, check them out…they got these women up and running, and they can do the same for you! Limited seats! Sign up starts NOW!

10-Week Challenge
12-Week Advanced Challenge

I’m still amazed some people don’t ‘get’ what I do…guess that’s what I get for stepping outside the traditional training box and creating my own model!

My vision was simple: to offer quality programs to anyone anywhere in the world, ensuring it’s affordable and ensuring it stays personal over the Internet! 

And it’s growing!  Between my two Best Shape Challenges and my monthly Healthy Living Program, I now have women in 9 countries partaking in the programs!

Regardless of what program you do and with whom, never stop. Training  and staying healthy are the greatest acts of self-love you can do!

Yep, I’ve decided: I’m heading back to the competition stage in November, at the tender age of 51.

After coaching thousands of women on the benefits of fitness and on creating concrete, workable goals to get you there, I’ve decided to take my own medicine and head into competition again…..

Doing a competition is the ultimate motivator. When you have to get up on stage in a teensy-weensy bikini in front of 500+ people, believe me, you’re going to stay on track with your training and eating! And I’ve seen it with dozens of women over the years who have trained with me, then gone the ultimate step and competed. Regardless of their placing, they all walked away changed women for life.

It all kinda started with the 10 Week Challenge which I created in 2010, in which I pulled from my years of training and some competition stuff, and we transformed how they train, ate, and thought about life.  Then they wanted more, so I created the 12-Week Advanced Challenge where I went deeper into competition-style stuff. We’re in Week 3 now, and everyone’s loving the process!

Then last week I helped a former Challenger winner – Deanna Pfeifer – with her posing, and it all came rushing back to me: I wanted to head back to the stage one last time.

What awaits me? I have no idea. I haven’t competed in 18 years, and back then, I was in bodybuilding (that’s all there was back then) and I did ok at that, winning the Overall Alberta Provincials. 

Now I am heading into Figure, and I have to start over again, at the novice level. I don’t get to take any of my national standings with me because I’ve switched categories, but I’m not interested in body building anymore…this 5’2″ 115 pound gal just can’t compete against the likes of those ever-muscular women and the additives they often take to get there. To me, it’s always been about health, dedication and excellence.

Never mind what they say about the sport of physique building, it’s one of the toughest sports I know, but also one that builds health on all levels, and helps us older gals stay shapely and strong well into old age, long after our counterparts are complaining about how their bodies have changed with age, how shifting hormones results in extra weight, and how beauty and grace is wasted on the young.

Don’t buy into it. Train heavy, eat clean and have goals.  Always strive for more. Never give up!

Watch for The Real McCoy video series to see how I train and prepare for competition, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get the bug too!!

karen

We all have that one stubborn bodypart that just won’t seem to improve. Is it your butt? Your triceps? Abs?

How to work a stubborn bodypart? Reps, sets and weights aside, this is what you have to do first and foremost, in order for you to see any improvement! Check out my YouTube video.
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PS – Don’t forget that my 10-Week Challenge sign up closes in 5 days! I have 3 spots left! Get in shape for summer (I won’t be running another one until fall!).

“Karen, I can’t tell you how amazing I feel and how much my life has changed 🙂 I’ve lost 12lbs and gained habits that I will have forever! Thank you so much for all your support, you’re an inspiration!” – Kurstie Somner, recent graduate of the 10-Week Best Shape of Your Life Challenge!