Achieve Your Dream Body
Note: This blog post is written by Henrik Thinggaard Christensen of MoveYou, you can read more about Henrik here. Henrik`s website is not in english yet, but until it is, you can always send him an e-mail, you`ll find it on his website.
One of the questions, I’m often asked as personal trainer and holistic lifestyle coach, from my clients are, which results they can expect in such a personal training sessions?
How many pounds will I lose?
Do you think I can get my lean body and flat stomach back as it was 5 years ago or before pregnancy?
I feel tired and stressed, can this help?
The answer is YES, you can get the flat stomach, and your desired slim body back (even if you never had it) and you will surely experience increased energy, profits and wellness.
I have discovered, that the great secret to success is that no matter what your goal is (including weight loss, flat stomach, firm thighs, increased energy, wellness and profits, healthy lifestyle, avoiding stress) it always comes back to your willingness and responsibility for a healthy lifestyle.
A short time ago, I heard Paul Chek `s (which is one of my mentors) definition of what health is, which is the best and most telling definition, I ever have heard.
Health = willingness to take responsibility for yourself
It means, if a person wishes the flat stomach and sleek body back, the person must start to focus to achieve the best and lasting results, which means taking responsibility and live a healthier lifestyle, with all the factors that covers.
“So you should not lose weight to be healthy, however you will lose weight when you are healthy!
It was exactly what one of my clients did, Lene a lady mid forties. She came with a burning desire to lose 6 kg, and turn back time 10 years, when she had a stronger body, more energy and wellness.
When I met Lene first time, she was training 4-5 hours per week, mainly spinning and running, although it was her clear approach to weight loss, how she could get even more training hours in the program, because she (and many others) was proved that more training would boost the weight loss.
Fortunately I got her convinced that we should use a little more holistic approach to the project, and instead of only focusing on weight loss, we should focus on improving her lifestyle to an increased health, which would provide a much healthier and longer-term weight loss.
We started seting some goals and making a plan for the course, so we always had something to go after. While we talked about the importance of her thougths of herself and others. Lene had “struggled” with the extra pounds in a few years now, she was really tired of her body and was convinced that it would never succeed her to get her body back, which is absolutely not a proper mindset for success. Instead we got Lene convinced that, yes of course, it would succeed and she would start to visualize herself as the person she wanted to be (instead of the person she did not want to be) with a sleek, strong and “young” body.
Something which I soon discovered by Lene, and who happens to right many people, was that she had a very rapid and shallow chest breathing, which leads to chronic stress, lack of energy and often tension in the neck with headaches as a result. Lene had an exercise where she, 2 x 5 min. a day, had to be proved on his breathing with deep breathing in through the nose, down in the stomach and out through the mouth.
Of course her diet was also an important part of the program, and Lene was surprised that she actually got to eat more than she did before we started. We removed pasta, rice, white bread, sugar and fruit juice from her diet, and instead she should eat meat, fish, poultry, nuts, lots of fruits and vegetables. Lene thought it was most difficult to do without pasta and white bread, but fortunately after a week, she did not miss it anymore. Fruit juices, limonade and coffee was replaced with 6 to 8 glasses of water a day and green tea.
We started to cut spinning down to once a week, and instead introduce functional strength training three times a week with exercises as squat, lunges, pull ups, ball exercises, cable exercises and extent exercises. Strength is a very effective form of training when it comes to weight loss because it increases metabolism and burning fat.
The last thing that we introduced to the lifestyle differences of Lene, was to ensure that she got the rest and restitution, which she needed. I advised Lene to go to bed at last 22.30, because the sleep we get before midnight is very important to “rebuild” the body after the day’s activities. You could say that the hours you sleep before midnight count double. Lene received some extent exercises, which she had to do daily, which also works very relaxing and rethink the body.
The outcome of the process of 6 weeks:
Lene lost 6 kg and 21 cm around the waist, hip and thighs. She says “I have it much better than before, with a much higher self-esteem. I have a beautiful body position right now and I feel much stronger. And then it should also be mentioned that the back problems, I have had since my youth, yes they are largely gone now. ”
And now, remember to post a comment to this blog post (and not be a lazy guy not doing it), what I will like to now is:
- What is your body and health goal?
- What is your most important question when it comes to achieve your goal?
Hello Henrik
Thanks for this inspiring article about health, its definitely a area, I have to work on..
1. My first goal is just to increase my energy and cut off the extra kg`s.. I`ll have a long time ago sat peace with the way things are, I`m not going to be super slim and I don`t want to either, I love food to much..
I`ll just want to cut off a few and increase the energy, I have a bad habit of sleeping during the days, when I`m free of work, I just feel tired.
2. To have someone to train with, I need someone to keep me up to our appointments and I think it will be much more fun to do the exercise with someone else as well.
And it have to be fun, or I`ll quit it right away…
I look forward to read more articles from you Henrik…
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