Sometimes it’s not about how you look, it is often about how you feel.
And I was not feeling good.
I was Depressed, Anxious & Angry.
And had tried – what I thought – was everything.
Psychologists, Hypnotism, Acupuncture, Naturopathy you name it.
And they all had their rewards – in fact i still do the acupuncture – but none stopped the sinking feeling of depression.
So desperate was I to find a solution – that i found myself reading an ad on a supermarket wall – talking about hypnotism and how this man could cure, what seemed like all of what i felt. I was so desperate to feel better, I didn’t notice the rubbish in his front yard (yes – it was not an office, it was his home). I did not notice the dark dingy filthy state of his home. I did not notice that he was wearing dirty clothes and socks with thongs on. I still went inside and sat on the smelly sofa and answered his questions….
then .. It was like my heart got out of my chest and suddenly kicked me in the face.
GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! I made some excuse about leaving my iron on and ran out of there.
After a long discussion explaining this with my GP.. he basically threw the box of anti depressants at me.
I left, went home and started doing what most people my age do now .. i googled.
I googled my mood and how to help it. My Mood and why i felt like it. My mood and how it affects my mind. I googled what affects a persons state of mind….
As it turns out – all these feelings I had were all somehow related directly to my nutrition.
So – I chose I Nutrition over medication.
I will make mention, that mental health affects a LOT of people, and a lot of people will handle what they are going through very DIFFERENTLY.
This is my story – and how I have overcome what has kept me clouded for so long. And, I am proud of how I have overcome it – which is why I have chosen to share it, but would never expect that other people feeling the same MUST do what I have done.
Or that this is the only answer.
It was mine, and I have never looked back!
Who knew that eating certain proteins at certain times of the day will wake up the part of your brain that releases good hormones.
Who knew that eating white meat before bed can ensure that my body knows to release serotonin while I’m resting.
Who new that i needed to eat FAT. Good fats. Like a bag of macadamias to keep my brain working – not resting – working.
And that this would make me feel so much more alert and aware of what i needed and what I wanted to do this day – rather than sit on the lounge and watch Ellen…
So – I felt that good after 8 weeks on this new diet, that I decided to train for the INBA stage again, with a new body, great new friends and the best outlook on life i have had in a long time!
I feel the best I ever have and want everyone else to feel the same!! x
Looking for something tasty to cook up that tastes great and is healthy too? Check out our top five healthy recipes to help you decide what to cook.
This Mum’s Nutrition and Fitness Program Changes Her Life
As a busy working mum with 2 boys, I always felt like I had it all under control. Great family, nice house, new car .. I have always considered myself to be an actively fit person, doing a few cardio classes a week and always thought I ate well. Then last christmas I saw a photo of myself and felt deflated and depressed. I realised this mum’s nutrition and fitness program needed a shake up!
Something had to change, clearly what I was doing was not working. VIVA then stepped into my life! First thing we did was map out a plan for me to work towards an achievable goal.. This, along with a detailed I Nutrition program had me seeing changes as early as 2 weeks! Motivated by this, we introduced strength training and I cannot believe the changes I have made in just 12 weeks!!
I never thought I could feel and look like this! It’s like I am new and improved. Now I am stronger both physically & emotionally. What I have learnt is that its all about training smarter not harder – and you will see results! This has become my way of life and Ill never look back! VIVA all the way!
Karen is a mother of 2 from Kidman Park, since starting her fat loss journey at VIVA FITNESS, she has learnt about nutrition and how abs are created in the kitchen..
By following the I Nutrition Program, I dropped 6 kgs and built new muscles! I am so in love with my new body and how i am feeling.
I won’t ever turn back!
For 80% of the population, it’s not that we don’t have the time it’s the fact that we simply don’t make the effort!
But can we afford not to? Stats tell us no way! Recent research at the exercise sports science Australia conference in 2016 proved that in 2014/15 showed that double a number of people died from fitness related deaths compared to the combined total of those passing due to high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes-related illnesses. That’s Huge and makes it official more people are dying from not being fit than anything else!
So here is another idea of how to get active locally…
A minute away from Viva is Linear Park…
You can follow Linear Park from Lockley’s to Fulham Gardens all the way to the city and back
Can you recall taking the time out to go for a walk or to experience some of the beautiful surrounds in our local area? Did you perhaps ask yourself why haven’t I made the time to do this more often? Or perhaps tell yourself I need to do more of this?
Well, I have and that’s why this plays on the back of my mind to get outside on the weekends. In my case, I love to get out with the kids or with the dogs for a run and use Linear Park for all sorts of different exercise and activity.
So what can you do on a beautiful river? Here is a favorite of mine.
The ‘playground workout’
As mentioned in previous blogs I’d try to replicate the movements I would normally perform in my gym workout and personally, this would be more of an upper body day for me.
Try this for 3-4 sets of 6-8 reps
Use the playground slippery dip to get underneath and perform a body weight row (upper back and arms)
Alternate with a Push Up
You can do Chin Ups if able or 1 arm Body Weight Rows.
Try Dips on a bench and use the swings for Triceps Extensions. If you have done some training with your coach then we can easily modify your plan to work outdoors.
All of these exercises are on our ‘Ultimate Body Blitz’ website with videos and instruction on how to perform. http://www.ultimatebodyblitz.com.au
Option 2- Game Play
When I was a kid are used to go down to the football oval and kick goals. I would kick the footy, sprint after it and then walk back to kick another goal and repeat. It’s a bit of fun so why not do this with the kids and make it a family affair?
You could also do this with the dog by throwing a ball and then racing together. Obviously, you may not keep up, but its fun all the same and very rewarding to be with those that you love whilst exercising
So what will you do? Will you get outdoors and get creative? Will you try to be a fitter and healthier version of who you are today? I say go for it!
Soak in the fresh air, enjoy the trees, the water, the birdlife, and surrounds and get away from the noise, your desk and technology. Tell yourself “If it’s going to be it’s up to me” and make it happen!
Take a run outside a Henley Gym
It would be silly for me to say that coming to Viva Fitness is the only way to get fit and healthy if your looking for a Henley Gym!
The fact is Viva Fitness is a catalyst, (much like breakfast which is so powerful on starting a great day) as it starts you off on the right path towards the goal that you have in mind.
But sometimes we are stuck for time, want to go outdoors or perhaps find yourself with an opportunity!
Sometimes it’s nice to get out of the gym and exercise in the sunshine with the sand underfoot. Adelaide has some wonderful beaches and right next door to us here at Kidman Park is Henley Beach, Grange, Tennyson etc, which all provide nice sandy beaches with some quiet spots for you to get a little bit of privacy, whilst working out.
Obviously, there is running, walking, stretching and yoga poses if you are outside of the Henley Gym. However, for best effectiveness try to mimic or replicate a workout that you are already familiar with, as it will probably be safer as well as more effective.
This means that if you are following a full body program, for example, with squats, chin-ups, bench press and lunges then you could quite easily perform this style of session down at the beach with minimal apparatus. This way you are still practising those movements and getting a great workout. This will be very beneficial as hopefully, you can then get into the gym in the 2-5 days to perform a loaded variation of this program, which will then be far more likely to have progressed (since the last gym session) due to the fact that you have practised these movement patterns. Simply bump up the reps for the Squats and perhaps jump or hold the bottom position to add intensity, perform a Push up instead of a Bench Press and try walking lunges in the soft sand instead of a normal lunge. Chin Ups can be swapped for a superman if you know how or find a rock with some weight to it and perform overhead soccer throws with straight arms to hit the lats!
The fact is sometimes we all need a break from our current program and getting out and performing a variation can do wonders for the body and the mind. Re-energising your motivation and focus is important, and hopefully, on facing the next gym session you will feel renewed vigour and energy to really hit the gym and make progress with your fitness gains. Say you do hit the gym and your squats are up and you do an extra 2 chin-ups well right there you yourself have created positive feedback in a world swamped with criticism…. you solely have created your own positive reinforcement and are left with feelings of self-accomplishment, confidence, and positivity! When you focus on performance and not the scales then this is how you can feel upon each session! Who wouldn’t want that?
So next time you’re stuck for ideas, will you take hold of your fitness? Perhaps you won’t and be left with feelings of guilt, shame, and anxiousness…. Or perhaps you will cease the moment! Perhaps your visiting the beach with the kids or perhaps you only have 20 minutes after visiting a friend close by and decide to get to the beach and exercise your inner animal and feel the freedom of no constraints for 20 minutes of your day!… You perhaps will make it happen and manage ‘something instead of nothing’ and feel Empowered, Alive and Free!
This friends is living in the moment and this is what I and Viva mean by ‘Making it Happen’!
Yours in life and making it happen!
Dion
8 Weeks To Embrace The Grind Part 3
So it’s the final week, it’s fight time! I am fit, strong and ready to fight. But now the toughest week comes as I have to make weight first and I am currently 75.5kg but I need to hit the scales at 70.3kg. This is an easy and safe cut with water loading and carb depletion. Secondly I have to travel… I hate flying! I am scared of heights and I always manage to pick up a cold or something from the plane. As for the fight my mental game is strong I know I have put the hard yards in so that is something I don’t need to question.
Monday morning of fight week I wake up at 7:30am ready for work.This week’s eating plan is very different to a normal plan and I must stress this is not a long term thing. This is one week only to make weight without having to do a really hard weight cut in the sauna and salt bath the weigh in day like many fighters do. I have reduced sodium to nothing and I have also changed my BCAA’s to Humo Pro for this week, have cut protein shakes and all other supps other then carnatine.
Breakfast is 200grams of roo and my long black coffee.
Today over the course of the day I must drink 8L of water and I have been doing this since Saturday.
Work 8:30am-11:30am.
I do my final strength session for the fight prep with just my big lifts only keeping my strength movement but not stressing the body too much.
After training I have 150grams of chicken breast, and 1 cup of sweet potato and 1 cup broccoli.
Pre training meal is 200grams of my turkey mince that I make.
7:30-9pm MMA is revision on everything we have covered making sure it’s all in the memory bank for Saturday, 8 week’s worth of work revised rep after rep. All this worst case scenario stuff is sitting in my head well. Lets hope I don’t need it but if I do I’ll be ready.
Home time and after training I have 150grams of chicken breast, 1 cup of sweet potato and 1 cup broccoli. As you can see there is not much variety or fun in this week.
10:30pm bed time.
Day 2 Tuesday-Wake up at 7:30am. Today is my last day of water loading with 8L of water again.
Breakfast is 200grams of chicken mince.
8:30am I head to physio for a final tune up before we leave for the fight on Thursday. I’m making sure that I am in the best possible shape I can be after 8 weeks of strenuous work load.Now it’s time to work until 6pm. Food is nothing exciting again today, exactly the same as yesterday from here on.
Training is my final kick boxing Knock Out group session with Dion. We focus on short sharp rounds throwing maximal power with long recovery which really opens the lungs up.
It’s home time and as I start to pack all my gear for the trip away it gives me time to reflect on the weekend first and the previous several weekends. I had a wedding on the weekend and I have never felt so isolated in the way being that I couldn’t eat any of the food knowing I had to run to my car to eat my food that I prepared. My food was cold, it was freezing at the wedding but this is a sacrifice I have to make to do this sport. The several other weeks were driving my friends while they drink and enjoy as you can’t enjoy a meal out training for this because you don’t know what’s in the food. This Saturday I get to do what I have trained for and make all the sacrifice worth it.
Bed time and sleep isn’t the most fun while water loading. I try not drink anything two hours before bed but still I am woken more than usual to empty the bladder… fun times but as I cut fluid down the next few days I know I’ll miss the water.
Day 3 Wednesday-I wake up 8am. This is it the final day of any training before the fight. Time to make it happen! Today’s water is reduced to 2.5L.
Breakfast is 200grams of chicken breast.
Lunch is 200grams of kangaroo and 1 cup of broccoli.
Dinner is 200grams of raw tuna and 1 cup of broccoli.
It’s bland and low carb. This isn’t fun or enjoyable.
Training is pads with Dion. It’s short, sharp, fast rounds once again hitting with speed and power zoning in on everything that we have drilled.
Home and I’m chilling now, a night off to ensure I have good rest and give my body some time to recover before Saturday.
Sleep tonight is really good and I get a sleep in as the flight isn’t too early.
Day 4 Thursday-Its travel day, I’m up at 8:30am and get a lift to the airport. Before this I have 200grams of roo for breakfast and 250ml of water. Today’s water is a total of 1 liter which I’ll break up over four portions.
I’m sitting around chatting with coach Hughes having a laugh and talking about anything that isn’t to do with flying or fighting (mostly Batman since I am traveling with Batman himself!).
Flying to Melbourne I’m lucky enough to get a window seat. Seat 9A except for some reason this plane doesn’t have a window seat at 9A, not sure why but definitely gives us a laugh for the flight. We have a one hour stop over then onwards to Canberra. Luckily both flights ran on time, were smooth and all good.
We get picked up at the airport by Naomi a Brace employee and taken to our hotel. Success as it’s got two queen beds, it’s nice and the bonus is its right by a shopping centre and a gym with scales.
We head to the shops to get dinner and rehydration stuff for after the weigh in tomorrow.
Dinner tonight is a mixed greens salad with a tin of tuna.
Luckily there is a good movie on tonight called Legendary so sitting in the room I watch this as I fall asleep at about 9:30pm after an exhausting day.
Day 5 Friday-I wake up at 8am and head to the gym to check my weight 70.9kg, 600grams to go. We are getting picked up at 11am to head to weigh in at 11:30am. So I decide to leave it until 10:30am to check again. I go wrap myself up in warm blankets and chill.
So it’s 10:30am and I have 400grams to lose. I like the idea of doing a light work out to drop the weight and also to open the lungs up so I jump on the treadmill for 20 minutes and lose the 400grams doing a jog on level 12.
It’s time for the weigh in and we head to the venue. We are joined by a training partner Mike Turner and Dave DeConte. We are the first team at the weigh in so I jump up check myself on the official scales and I am 69.3kg so the gym scales are wrong and I dropped a kilo for nothing! Oh well lets start drinking so I have 500ml of coconut water. Now Paul my opponent arrives and I go have a chat with him and introduce myself. He is a nice guy and there is a good level of mutual respect.
Now they start the process we do a photo shoot, weigh in, square off and then a video promo. All the stuff you want to do while hungry and thirsty.
Anyway after this is done I eat my protein bar and continue my rehydration process with BCAA’s and coconut water plus snacking on some fruit.
About 1 hour after weigh in it’s time to eat so we travel into the city and find a café.
I have bacon, eggs, toast, mushroom, spinach and a fresh juice. Where has this been the last 8 weeks… so GOOD!
Over the course of the next six hours we continue to eat and rehydrate 600ml of fluid every hour. We get fresh beef Pho and then pasta and garlic bread for dinner.
Time for sleep and it feels good being full and hydrated again.
Day 6 Saturday-It’s fight day! I wake up at 8:30am and I am starving and it’s a great sign I have also filled back out to 76.8kg. I’m feeling full of energy and ready to fight (after eating more!).
Head to a Café close by and get a 4 egg omelet with bacon, mushrooms, spinach, onion, capsicum and cheese with toast and a short black.
Getting picked up to head to the venue at 11am and at 10:45am I quickly grab a big fresh juice and have some protein. Dion, Dave and Turner head to our hotel and the group of us go to the venue as a team (this may be an individual sport but with out friends, team mates and family you can’t do it).
One hour before the fight it’s time to get my hands wrapped by Dave. Then begins a full body warm up going through foam rolling, mobility and flexibility. Now it’s time for skills warm up and we drill striking counters, attacks then mix in some grappling exchanges. I like to get my heart rate up with a good sweat going before I fight.
We are told it’s time. Music starts my walk out song first and as always its ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ by Gun’s and Roses. I walk into the arena to Boo’s and remember I am fighting the home town hero but this doesn’t bother me. The thought that goes into my head is this crowd is going to be so disappointed in the next 10-20 minutes. I enter the cage and my coaches talk to me while Paul comes out to a huge applause. He enters the cage they introduce us, the ref calls us in and it’s time to fight.
The fight is all very calm and almost in slow motion. In my mind I only recall being kicked with one inside leg kick that I felt. The fight finishes with Paul throwing a punch and I shoulder roll away as Dion always drills with me and unfortunately his shoulder dislocates out. He taps and I win via TKO 51 seconds into the second round.
This isn’t the way you want to win a fight but I know I had done the damage landing heavy leg and body kicks, stopping his take down attempts, landing counter punches and a heavy head kick.
I am happy with my performance as I was only turning up the gears as the fight was over and considering I hadn’t fought in 18 months I got to shake out the ring rust, not take any damage and I know I can train again Monday. I followed the game plan exactly as my coaches had asked. My fitness was great in-between rounds I didn’t even need to sit down on the stool. I also didn’t have any adrenaline dump which is generally a factor in a fight or any form of competition. I have some things to work on which we will be focusing on during the next fight prep to make sure next time I am much sharper and even better prepared.
So I’m in to the semi finals where I will face another tough opponent Nurbolat Kuandyk on August 13 in Canberra.
An Adelaide Gym with a difference!
One of our favourite things about Viva Fitness is the community feeling that so many of our members rave about. We have members who have made new best friends, members who have fallen in love and members who now have a great workout buddy.
Even our little Viva Fitness creche kids have found new besties.
Not all gyms are created equal when it comes to that feeling of community that comes with building a local gym that is member, not money focussed.
A lot of our members are long terms members and they keep coming back year after year not just for the exercise equipment and classes but for catching up with friends, feeling part of a team and to have fun.
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” –Phil Jackson
We know that location and convenience are one of the key deciding factors in choosing a gym. If you want a local gym that is a bit different from the usual franchise gym, then Viva Fitness could be the gym for you.
Price is also something that we all need to take into account. There are loads of 24/7 gyms available in Adelaide. You have a huge range to choose from but when it comes to choosing a gym that you will be inspired to keep coming back to day after day, week after week, year after year you need to make sure you choose a gym that’s right for you.
I am sure many of us can count the amount of money we have wasted on gym memberships or fitness regimes that we have given up on half way through. Usually, the reason we give up is because it’s not sustainable.
I’m looking for a gym near me!
When we choose to make a life change we need to make sure that it fits within our lifestyle. We need to make sure we have people around us that keep us on track.
That’s what the Viva difference is all about. We are a family owned gym which means that each and every one of our members is special to us. We want to make sure that our members don’t just join but they make the most out of their membership.
Whether our members just want to come by once a week for a relaxed workout, or they come every day to reach their specific fitness goals we want to make sure that experience in the best one possible.
Our staff and our members are a part of our family, our members generally stay long term. Our members make friends with each other, and with our staff. We support each other.
So if you are looking for a gym where you can feel supported on your journey, a gym where it’s fun to come and workout, a gym where you are greeted by a friendly face. Choose Viva and support a local South Australian owned and operated gym. We consider ourselves one of Adelaide’s best gyms for long term success.
Viva Fitness has gym members from across Adelaide but many of our members hail from the Western Suburbs, including;
Kidman Park
Fulham
Fulham Gardens
Findon
Seaton
Grange
Henley Beach
Henley
Henley South
Joining a local community-minded gym is a great way to meet people from your local area!
“Great day at Viva Fitness today for my BlackBelt Fitness deadlift testing. I maxed out at 172.5kg. And I’m very happy with that! Thanks to all the coaches at Viva, who were all there today – for their support and especially my PT coach Jamie . Feels great to be feeling strong! Also well done to all the VIVA members who also smashed their PBs!”.
Way to go Ozzie!
* Disclaimer: Results reflect a dedicated fitness regime and may vary from person to person
