We spent a good deal of time in England working on sixpackforgirls.com and putting the finishing touches on the fantastic physique challenge which was due to start soon after we returned. Soon after touch down back in SA it was back to work getting everything done. Finishing off the new FiCX maxIMPACT Sculpt program the 10 girls would be following during the challenge.

We were both very excited about the program which is very comprehensive and incorporates every aspect of what the 10 chosen girls would need to achieve above average result during the ten weeks of the challenge from nutrition and training to the mental side of getting and keeping your life together.

The challenge is unique in that it offers no prize but gives the girls far more than they could have anticipated. By the end they would be able to ‘go it alone’ with the experience they gained using the FiCX maxIMPACT program but beyond that we added coaching. We would coach the girls through the 10 weeks and offer solutions to any problems they may have along the way.

The ten girls we chose we believe have what it takes to go hard for ten weeks and embody the principles of FiCX – FOCUS/iNTENSITY/COMPLIANCE/EXCELLENCE the four cornerstones of any quality program.

How is it going so far? See for yourself. The website sixpackforgirls.com is available for anyone to see and the girls have their own blog space in which they document their own journeys. They are all getting phenominal results and it is really gratifying to see that the amount of work we put into the program is really paying dividends.

We are so excited about the results and the massive increase in global traffic to sixpackforgirls.com that Sarah and I are re-branding our 12 year old Health and Fitness business and training, local and distance using the FiCX principles.

Sarah has been very creative with our new web address using one of the many new domain extensions that are available now. Our new website is www.FiCX.me and anyone looking for help will send mail to please@FiCX.me Brilliant.

Sarah and I are both totally committed to health and fitness and helping others find their way to healthy living. I have been a health and fitness professional for over twelve years and Sarah is studying for a CPT qualification right now. The guiding principles of both our lives is:
1) Purpose. Have a very good reason to get up in the morning.
2) Give to others. Happiness comes from helping others to find their way and this is what has helped me to create my own happiness and deep satisfaction with what I do.
3) Health and fitness. I wouldn’t be here following my life threatening surfing accident if it weren’t for my own level of upper body strength at the time.

So as we move forward into 2012 we both have a great deal to be grateful for and look forward to and we are both super excited about FiCX Fitness and watching it grow whilst helping others do the same.

Talking of growing. I left South Africa at around 10% body fat weighing about 200lbs (90kgs) and whilst not paying attention I returned a good few kilograms heavier. I had a wonderful time, let my body rest completely for a month apart from walking the dogs for a couple of hours and am now back in the gym with a plan ‘ FiCX maxIMPACT lean ‘ of course. English food and beer is not conducive to maintaining a lean healthy body but I am happy to say that I am not at all fussed about it since I know exactly what to do to get back to where I was a short while ago. In fact even leaner than I was.

I am so looking forward to helping as many people as possible this year while improving the quality of my own life. Set goals, make a workable plan and make every day a step towards the finish line.

Let’s all commit to finishing the year healthier, fitter and stronger than we started it. Before we know it we’ll be saying the same thing about 2012 from an exciting new 2013. From a happy South African/English snowman reflecting the two countries Sarah and I both live in.

I wrote about him before Christmas but was thrilled to be able to support and watch him complete his first Xterra triathlon yesterday. He placed in the 60′s out of over 400 entrants in a time of 2 hours. He is now more motivated than ever to get even fitter and actually be competitive. As you can see from the picture he is not a small lad. At about 6ft 2ins and 231 lbs he looks like he could be a pro rugby player so it is even more inspiring that he can compete at triathlon, generally a much smaller mans sport.

This is what he looked like 9 months ago.

and this is what he looked like crossing the finishing line yesterday.

DEVLIN – you are my hero dude.

Christmas means something to everyone – for some it is time to celebrate the birth of Christ;  to others, holiday time at the end of a long year and to a lot of people mixed thoughts and feelings.

On one hand it is a time to make merry, drink and eat as much as they can and have a really fun time; on the other, it means pretending that the t-shirt they are wearing on the beach is there to stop sunburn.

Then January – a time for regret and wondering how to shed the extra 10lbs gained with turkey and Christmas pudding.

There is a solution to that dilemma…. actually a man with a solution, a highly respected global Health and Fitness Professional who, a few years ago, came up with the brilliant idea of getting into better shape than you were before the holidays.

Tom Venuto said “The best way EVER invented to avoid holiday weight gain is not only to set a real goal – to set goals “scientifically” – but to set up an accountability, social support and reward system to make sure you follow through and achieve that goal.”

The third  Burn the Fat Holiday Challenge is open for registration and having successfully competed myself I can tell you, for certain, it is not that difficult.

Once you get your mind around not eating mince pies and Christmas cake for the week before, and a month after the holidays. it is actually hugely empowering to know exactly when you are going to allow yourself free meals and drinks – and you can, with the rest of the time  eating clean and exercising according to your plan.

After years of hard work, trial and error,  Tom Venuto has created and perfected such a system.

He’s already done the set up work for you, and not only that, his system has now been proven two years in a row (this is it’s third year), so we KNOW this works.

If you’re curious, want to transform your body, and win an all-expenses paid trip to Maui then check out this link:

BURN THE FAT HOLIDAY CHALLENGE

You can thank me in January!

Devlin Palm grew up in a small town in the Kwa-Zulu Natal midlands in South Africa. As a youngster he was a national BMX champion and then as a  big strong healthy lad growing up threatened to play top class rugby until he suffered a back injury at school. This curtailed his rugby career but Devlin joined the South African Police and became a dog handler. Health and fitness were part of what he did….you don’t go round chasing after a ‘baddies’ with a very fit german shepherd unless you are pretty fit yourself.

Devlin left the Police after choosing a long term career in business and that’s where the trouble began. Business lunches, team building shindigs, parties etc slowly but surely turned him from an athlete into a …… well you judge for yourself.

At 155kgs (341 lbs) Devlin hit rock bottom. ” If I don’t get myself out of this hole I am going to die.” Devlin has a beautiful wife and two gorgeous children and he came to a point of realisation that his life and the wellbeing of his family was actually at stake.  The time bomb was ticking and was about to explode.

The journey began. Devlin told me that the first thing he realised was that he had to get to bed a whole lot earlier in order to get up very early to train. He started walking on the treadmill, nearly collapsing after the first five minutes but day by day he got stronger until he was able to run. When he was able to run he began mountain biking, and then adding weight training to his routine. He started eating properly and controlling his portion sizes. Alcohol took a back seat.

Slowly, painstakingly he began to see results. As time went by the scale became a friend and not the enemy it once once was,  his garage became his laboratory, his gym.

Over time the old Devlin began to re-emerge and I began to see the spark of life, the old  glint in his eye.

Many months have gone by, about ten in all, and I have watched him change bit by bit, piece by painstaking piece, but the transformation is just about complete. The athlete is back. Devlin is now ‘racing’ mountain bikes and is planning the odd 10k or two.

I went to a barbeque or Braai as we call it here in South Africa yesterday and on a beautiful summer day Devlin, who has a gorgeous swimming pool, appeared in baggies sporting a smile as big as the sun he was standing under and I think it’s pretty obvious why.

My smile was just as big as Devlins and I was just as happy as he was….why….well you see, Devlin is my nephew. A fantastic side effect of all this is that Jackie his wife has also lost about 10kgs/20lbs along the way.

Incredible achievement Dev, I am super proud of you.

It’s never to late to begin making healthy changes to your life. Start today, don’t let one more day go by. You never know when being in good shape could save your life.

This is where I am going…

SEVEN PERCENT AT 62 – Let’s ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

17 weeks and some days to my best ever.

I’m talking about my best ever as being 7% because that’s what I believe I am capable of and have never been there before; even when I am in recharge mode I’m still going forward.

It’s a bit like a bodybuilding contest time line which consists of bulking, cutting, competing and chilling until the next time, although not to that degree.

I have competed a few times over the last couple of years with rest periods in between but I have never quite achieved what I really wanted to. So here it is.

I really have a burning desire to move my body fat down to a genuine 7% and I have given myself until 10th December to do it. It’s about 17 weeks and some change and I am totally and absolutely committed to this project. Just to add some spice to the game one of my  clients and I  have  challenged each other  to be in the best shape BF’ wise by that date and there is a little incentive to keep us interested, but that’s only important to he and I and is part of the game.

For me the real benefit apart from the obvious will be reinforcing a very healthy, fit lifestyle and being strong enough to work very hard in the gym to get there. Nutrition and training wise at 61 now, building muscle has to be approached cautiously and overtraining is easily acheived.  I’ll be doing some experimenting along the way to keep my body and mind fresh and to give myself every opportunity to reach my goal which I honestly believe I will.

Pop in and check out my progress every now and again leaving comments please.

Experience has shown me how quickly time flies so don’t leave it too long for a visit.

It’ll be interesting to see how close I get to my visualisation picture as above.

“I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet”.

In a surfing accident in 2008 I flirted with death for a while and emerged alive with…let’s call them limitations and I could probably have been forgiven for wallowing in a long pity party, but this story is not about me. It is about someone far more courageous, tenanacious and gracious than I could ever be.

Sometime ago quite ‘serendipitously’ I met an amazing woman who had experienced the harshest of life’s realities. I was mightily inspired by her and wanted to introduce her to my readers. Now I generally don’t have a problem with content. I sit down at my computer and start writing but this time was different. I knew what I wanted to say but just couldn’t get the words out the way I wanted to…almost as if I had developed a speech impediment with my fingers. You know what I mean.

I determined to persevere because I really wanted to share with the world the real meaning of courage. The kind  that this remarkable young woman displays daily.  I went into her blog as I have done often and it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. Tracy in one blog post explained  far better than I ever could what it means to be her.

My new friend Tracy Todd lives in a beautiful part of South Africa close to a place called God’s Window and this is briefly her story:

For those of you who don’t know… almost 13 years ago, at the age of 28, I was left totally paralyzed from the neck down after a tragic car accident.  I often feel as if I have lived two lives. I guess, in a sense, I have.  At the time of the accident I was happily married and mom to a 10-month-old son.  I was a young, active and independent woman.  I was a talented sportswoman and had a promising career in Education.  My perfect world was shattered on that fateful Easter Monday, 13th April 1998.

Amazingly, it is still, after all this time, the small things – the things that most people take for granted – that I miss the most in life.  I woke up this morning with this prayer in my heart…

Dear Lord

If only YOU gave me back the use of my arms – I don’t need my legs – for just 24 hours I would…

I would wrap my arms around my 12-year-old son and hold him to me tightly.

I would squeeze his cheeks between my hands and kiss him all over his face.

I would play with his hair and hold his hand in mine.

I would hug him for the entire 24-hour period if he would allow me to – but you know what boys are like at this age – hugs and kisses from Mom must be restricted!

I would wipe my tears of joy and blow my nose holding tissues in both hands.

I would hug all my family and friends.

I would put my arm around all the special people, who have been so good to me, to thank them for their ongoing love, care and support.

I would linger in a hot bubble bath and wash my own hair and cleanse my face.

I would brush my teeth on my own.

I would dress myself.

I would apply my own makeup.

I would blowdry and style my hair in my own way.

I would go out into the garden and dig into the soil with my bare hands and fingers.

I would pick my roses, hold them to my nose and sniff their divine scent.

I would eat all the ribs I could and savour each bite.

Then I would pick the bits of meat out of my teeth with a toothpick.

I would brush my teeth and floss them again.

I would hold a steaming cup of coffee to my lips with both hands and sip it slowly. Or, maybe a tall glass of bubbly.

I would slam the door of my bedroom shut so that I could just be alone even if it were for just a few minutes.

I would open the door and slam it shut again!  This would be a great physical release for so many pent up emotions.  The hardest thing to come to terms with has been my total loss of privacy and independence.

I would hold a pen in my hand and sign my name on a piece of paper 100 times.

I would handwrite a letter to my son so that he can never forget what his mom’s handwriting looked like and always read how special he is and how much I love him.

I would pat my dogs, stroke their fur and hug them.

I would play with their ears, hold their snouts in both hands and place their wet noses on my cheek. Then I would contentedly wipe their slobber off my face.

I would put my hair behind my ears and take it out again.

I would scratch my head and rub my nose.

I would hug my son again.  And again.

I would clap my hands for joy and put my hands together as I pray to YOU to thank YOU for the many Angels and blessings YOU have brought into my life.

I would…  The list is endless!

AMEN

I share this prayer with all of you… NOT to solicit any sympathy or pity. I hate pity! I share my prayer in the hopes of reminding you to STOP for a moment… THINK of all your blessings… APPRECIATE what you can do… SEE the beauty in your life, your heart and that of others… and truly LIVE.

Take NOTHING for granted.

Tracy….you are my Hero.

Deep in everybody’s soul is a GIANT screaming to be let out. ALL of us are destined for greatness and we all feel it bubbling around deep inside but we just don’t know what it is.

WE HAVE TO SEARCH for it.

How do we do that? By Listening.

There is so much chatter going on in our heads at any one time that it is really difficult to distinguish what we should be listening to and what we shouldn’t. I found a great way quite by accident…hmm, or maybe by design… to take time every day to do this without it cutting into all the busyness of our normal day.

Driving to the gym a while back in the black and cold early morning I switched on talk show radio as I normally do. About 10 secs in after listening to the announcers nasally consdescending tone I wondered where I could go next. At that time of the day their is not much to listen to and impulsively I punched the off button on my steering wheel.

It suddenly hit me …. Listen to the conversation inside my own head…..so I did. What a revelation.

If you want to know who you really are and what you are up to listen to yourself talking to you. I am a happy, well adjusted, focussed man with a ‘personal mission statement’ to last me for the rest of my life. I consider myself a generous, caring, giving person with a heart for others, but boy did I get a wake up call.

Conversation:

” I am so sick of people jumping red lights, one of these days one of these guys is going to be coming at me. People just completely ignore traffic rules these days it’s ridiculous. Wow, people out begging on streetcorners this early, why doesn’t the government do something about this it’s pathetic. Man if I hit another pothole I’m going to claim against the municipality for damage to my my car, why can’t they fix these darn things.”

I suddenly realised that this self talk was setting up my state of mind for the day and I didn’t like it.

Since that day I have become adept at listening to myself and each morning it has become habitual to be my own DJ of my own morning radio station and directing my own chatter in a positive meaningful way that will have me getting to the end of my day satisfied that I made a difference.

It has worked so well for me that I have added a second session just before I go to sleep and it has become habitual and constructive.

Try it for yourself, it’ll really make a difference to your life because although we cannot control potholes and bad drivers we can control what we put into our minds…in fact it’s the ONLY thing we can control.

…..but it’s not easy.

1. Set a goal
2. Create a nutrition plan
3. Set out a training program
4. write down your action steps
5. put affirmations everywhere
6. Begin

Put one step in front of the other and you will eventually reach your goal.

So WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

Why is it that soooo many people either do not set health goals or they do but fail to achieve them. If you look at the above list it is really not rocket science, it’s actually a very simple process.

Business follows the very same process and if you started your own business and put every cent of your money, your wife’s money, the kids college fund and the money from your piggy bank into it what do you think would happen. You would stand a better chance of making it than reaching your health and fitness goal.

WHY?

Because there is nothing at stake.

You risk the extreme wrath of your wife, family and friends if you blow every cent of your hard saved money on a business venture that fails thus you will do everything it takes to make it work. If you blow your training program either no one knows or actually no one cares. So you blew another one.

Over at www.healthymacdonalds.com we made it public.  Sarah and I have a competition going on to see who can put on the most muscle and lose the most fat first. The site is a light hearted dig at a certain FF Joint as well but thats not the point. The point is ….there is something at stake.

Both Sarah and I are very active in the global world of health and fitness, we mean business. How would it look if people reading this in over 105 countries around the world went to www.healthymacdonalds.com and saw that we hadn’t made an entry for a couple of weeks after saying that we would. Our credibility would be down the tubes. Obviously we are not going to let that happen and the spin off is…we reach health goals that we set for ourselves.

Find yourself a ‘GOOD ENOUGH’ reason for wanting to change and then put it out there where it counts. Make it public, VERY PUBLIC and the daily action steps which are part of the plan will become part of your daily life.

Go do it….NOW.

I often think about the way I view  my health and fitness in relation to that of my children. My younger kids love sport and both play school A team hockey and club hockey as well.

I have sorted gym membership for them given them eating and training plans and check that they are spending regular time in the gym. My 16 year old son left his training log in my car yesterday and I was very pleased to see that he is committed to documenting his training and sports events, to the point of recognising in the comments section that documenting progress is essential.

So far so good, but I was really impressed when I saw a dad in the gym with his little one, maybe three years old, under a bar doing bench press. Before I sense howls of protest,  dad obviously knows what he is doing and is very careful with what he does with the youngster.

More importantly he is instilling a sense of ‘fitness lifestyle’ which is better than any material gift we could give our kids. We all have a responsibility to our children and essentially are responsible for their health and fitness and the younger we start with them the better our relationship will be and easier it will be to maintain the  lifetsyle against all the pressures of the world we live in today.

For me personally, I train with my twenty three year old daughter and I can certainly attest to the quality of my relationship with her as a direct result  not only from a physical viewpoint but a mental and emotional one as well.

If you have children you have the responsibility….don’t tell them, show them..LET’S GET MOVING.

The planet and the people who live on it is in crisis. Anybody who is not aware of that has no access to international media and lives in the middle of no where whether by choice or not so we could exclude them. From what? you ask.

From taking responsibility for whats happening. Especially if you believe that ‘thoughts become things’ and if you don’t  let me remind you that not a single thing that we use, wear, eat, drive, read would be around if someone hadn’t thought of it first. When a thought is put out into the atmsophere things start happening.

So from there we move onto ‘collective consciousness’ meaning  if a collective of people think something in particular there is going to be a shift in the Universe towards those thoughts.

From there we go to …..well you see where I’m going with this?

Each one of us has a responsibility for our thoughts not only to ourselves but to everyone else. For now let’s forget about everyone else and focus on our own thoughts.

What would happen if instead of thinking ‘The world is in turmoil and it’s only going to get worse, the petrol price is crazy, China’s carbon footprint is out of control, What is Gaddafi thinking, America have already lost too many human beings in the name of ‘protecting our country’ Tsunami’s in Japan, Earthquakes in New Zealand, floods in Australia, financial crisis world wide. I mean ‘I might as well shoot myself now’.  OR NOT.

It’s easy to let these things get completely out of control unless….we control what we think.  Generally speaking, we have no control over all of these things, except for what we think about them. The only thing we can control is what we put into our minds. The great thing about that is you have a choice about how your life looks, from the inside.

Back to collective consciousness, controversial or not I reckon if we all thoughts ‘better’ thoughts we would all be a heck of a lot better off.

South Africa has a terrible reputation for violence especially here in Johannesburg where I live. Murder capital of the world. How has that reputation been propagated. Of course, the news media. Now since I dont read the papers or listen to the news I dont agree with that. I havn’t seen any violence, been hijacked, or been murdered so in MY experience it doesn’t exist. Rude taxi drivers with shocking driving skills. Again my attitude reflects MY truth….I am polite to them realising the way they drive is out of my control, and they are polite to me. That’s how things work.

All of this sound simplistic, maybe so but shouldn’t we all change our thinking and at least test the theory.

Or… shake your head reading this and mutter to yourself that I’m smoking my socks, whilst the latest violence in the paper makes you even more nervous about heading out of your front door come monday morning to a job you hate.

Have an awesome weekend.