Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Why Eat Beans Daily?

Hi Motiv8ers,

Coach Ty here again.  Short Blog post today because the Motiv8 team and I have a ton of work to do for the New Indoor location.  But definitely wanted to get out a little Motiv8ion and tips to keep you focused on improving your diets since we are still in the April Fiber challenge. =)

So Crew, It has been raining a lot this week.  Which can De-Motiv8 you from wanting to get in your workout especially for the outdoor crew.   But just stay focused on your goals and if you do end up missing your Motiv8 SET then spend that time focusing on your diet and this post can help.

Topic for today is all about BEANS!!!  =)

So two weeks ago I posted some guidelines for the Fiber Challenge and I said eat at least one serving of beans every day to help you get your daily intake of fiber.  After suggesting that many of you responded back by saying that seemed like a lot.  Well check out the info below, and the video, about why Beans are so amazing.

Here we GO.   So you hear all the time that carbs are bad for you and you need to go on a low carb diet in order to loose weight.  Well you know now, through our blog posts, that this info is so wrong.  What you need to do is eat carbohydrates that don't spike your blood sugar.  Eat foods that are low on the Glycemic Index.  Whole plant foods with FIBER basically.  If you don't know what the glycemic index is please type it into google search real quick.  I'll get into more detail soon about the index.

But, basically what is one food that is low on the glycemic index, has tones of protein, and has a tone of fiber?  Beans of course!  All types of beans.  Check out the video below to learn why you want this food group in your diet every day.  It is only about 4 minutes long.

That second meal effect is pretty cool right?

Beans can even prevent high glycemic foods from effecting your blood sugar levels in a negative way.  But still pick the better choices like whole food grains, vegetables, fruits, and organic lean meats.  I eat about 1 to 3 serving of beans every day.  I rotate between black beans, lentils, garbanzo beans, White beans, and mung beans.  So bean up Crew.

Alright Motiv8ers that is all for now.  Stay strong, don't let the rain De-Motiv8 you, improve your diets every day, and lets become crazy strong together.  Stay strong with your food challenge and I can't wait to see you at our SETS!

Crew stay EPIC and Don't Forget to Be AWESOME!

Coach Ty Out!!!

 

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Why Track Your Progress?

Whats up Motiv8ers,

Coach Ty here again

So for the past couple of weeks we having been giving you tools to help you improve your diet and help you take control of your health.  

How has it been going so far?  Are you counting your fiber? Are you starting to make a few healthier food choices and have more real whole foods in your diet? Have you started feeling better and having more energy?

Post below with comments and questions.  Let us know how you have been doing.  Remember we are all in this together and if you have any questions more than likely someone else has that same question too.  So ask away so we can start helping each other.  Starting challenges on your own is hard but together we can be great.

Ok, lets talk about another tool that I have been working on with myself that I feel is so important in this whole process of improving yourself.


This Tool is a Journal!

Lets kick this off with first talking about your goals. How many goals have you accomplished so far since you started Motiv8?  Well many of us might not be able to answer that question because most of us just don't keep track of our progress.  Well yesterday we took the Fit Test and that is one way to track your progress but another way is to keep a journal.  Remember the more you plan and keep track of the more successful you will be.

I just finished this audio book called "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind" and my biggest take away was this.  

"What You Track Will Grow and Improve!"

Crew you can connect that phrase to so many things. Your budget, your diet, Your activity, Your productivity, your business income, your fitness etc.  If you don't track the important areas in your life how will you know what needs to improve or what changes you need to make.
 

With that Crew Your goal for today is too.....Find a place to Journal the information that is important to you so you can track your results and start growing.

Why you need a journal!?!?!?
 

As you make steps toward daily change document your experiences in a daily journal. By doing so you'll be able to look back on your Motiv8 experience and gain a clear understanding about which exercises and ideas worked for you, and which need more of your attention. Journaling is a good problem solving tool. It helps to provide valuable self-knowledge. We often examine ourselves "on the fly" but usually never devote time in order to get a clear assessment of the big picture of ourselves. Ask yourself where you want to go in your fitness/life journey. Spend time each day documenting the food you eat, the activities you're engaged in and what feelings or emotions are associated with those experiences. Remember, feelings lead to thoughts, thoughts lead to actions and your actions lead to the consequences that you are currently experiencing.

Select a convenient method to document your journey, one that is easy for you to get to each day. Whether it's a store bought journal, a blank piece of paper, a notebook, a word document, or an app on your iPhone, use what works best for you.


So Remember 'What You Track Will Grow.' If you don't track your progress you will still grow but you will more then likely not have a clear picture of the areas in your life that need work and need to improve.  So try your hardest to pay attention to what you do each day and lets start being GREAT together.

Crew Stay EPIC and Don't Forget to Be Awesome!

Coach Ty Out!
 




Monday, April 11, 2016

What Does Crew Really Mean?

Hi Motiv8ers,

Coach Ty Here.  Before I get into the EPICNESS that happened this weekend I want to ask you a quick question.

Do you ever wonder why I use the word CREW so much?  Do you know what that word actually means to me and to all of you?

About a year ago I was listening to the Rich Roll Podcast and his guest was one of the most inspiring energetic and EPIC people I have ever heard about.  Her name was Robin Arzon and it is because of her that I now use the phrase 'Epic Shit' all the time.  =)  She is all about EPIC.  She calls herself a SWEAT AMBASSADOR and if you ever want to get crazy Motiv8ed  then just check out that podcast. For real.

In the interview she was describing the running group that she was apart of and she called everyone in her group her CREW!  Then she went on to describe the bond they had and what crew really meant.  She said this....

'A Crew is a group of people that support each other and their bond to one another is as strong as family.  And they work their butts off to make their Crew PROUD and they will do everything they can to help each other be the strongest versions of themselves.'

That message was so powerful to me.  And I instantly said to myself that my new goal, with the people around me, is to make a CREW that has just as much passion and EPICNESS that I was hearing from Robin.

Have I accomplished that?  Absolutely!  Motiv8ers all of you are simple ridiculous.  Lets get into the Weekend and I'll show you what I am talking about!

Saturday we had a great workout with the Ramsey Crew and Pam from the Austin Trail Running Company came out to do a shoe preview.  Half way through the workout though it start raining on us.  Dang!  But that didn't stop this crew.  We just moved under the pavilion, changed the workout a little, and then carried on.  So GREAT and So EPIC!



Then on Sunday so many of you took on the Statesman Capitol 10k.  Many of you have been preparing for this race for months and yesterday was the day to see if all of your training had paid off.  AND IT DID!!  Everyone had a killer race and did what they had planned or better!  Which says that all the support and accountability that we have been giving each is working.  We are so Proud of all of you.  Check out some of the pics that I took this weekend at the race!
The pics below are some cool costumes I saw and the guy on the left was the true Motiv8er.  He was handing out donuts.  =)

 Crew anything is possible when you have amazing people backing you.  So today embrace your Motiv8 Crew and lets work together to help each other to become GREAT this week.  Oh and I know I left out a bunch of Motiv8ers in the pics above but when you see a Cap10k finisher give them a huge High Five!

P.S....Hey have you counted your FIBER today?  Motiv8ers don't forget about our Motiv8 Food Challenge.  Make those healthy choices and start making that change!

Crew Stay EPIC and Don't Forget to Be AWESOME!

Coach Ty Out!  Embrace your Crew!















Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Did You Count Your Fiber?

Hi Motiv8ers,

Coach Ty here again and I have one question for you....

Have you started counting your fiber yet?

Motiv8ers our fiber challenge is underway for April and I have already seen so many of you posting on facebook on how much fiber you are having each day and that is awesome!   Thank you for jumping into the challenge Motiv8ers.

In the future we will go into more detail about Calories, Protein, Fats, and Carbohydrates but for right now keep taking those small steps each day to counting just your fiber and trying to put more real whole plant based foods into your diet.  Just taking this first step in improving your diet will have such a huge impact on your life.  PROMISE!!

Ok now watch this short 3 minute video to learn just a little bit more about fiber and generate that Motiv8ion to jump in on the challenge.

Lastly Crew, before I let you go, I have a couple of food guidelines that I want you to try and do every day for the month of April while you are doing this challenge.

Fiber Guidelines and Habits to do Each Day!! 
  1. Make sure to drink plenty of water through out your day.  8 glasses at least.
  2. have at least 1 serving of legumes each day.  Legumes are lentils and all types of beans.  Most legumes have at least 7 to 8 grams of fiber per serving which will ensure you get your daily intake of fiber.
  3. Have at least 3 to 5 serving of any type of fruit every day.  I do recommend 5 to 10 serving but at least 3 to 5.  Make sure this fruit is the whole fruit.  Do not juice the fruit.  You can put the fruit into a smoothie but no juicing.  Juicing takes away the fiber
  4. Have at least two serving of a complex Carbohydrate.  This would be whole grains like Brown Rice, Barely, Oats, etc. and putting potatoes like sweet potatoes into this category is ok too.
  5. Make sure to have 2 to 3, or even more, servings of vegetables every day.  Now look sometimes vegetables can get a little expensive.  So if you are going to pick one type of vegetable to eat each day I would go with dark leafy greens.  You can make a green smoothie out of them.  =)  We have a blog post on Green Smoothies as well.  Check it out under the label Nutrition Tips.
 Crew taking small steps each day towards improving yourself will make a huge result in the long run. So start now with trying to incorporate some or all of the guidelines above. Every day re read the guidelines and do just a little bit more to help form those new healthy habits.  The above Guidelines are a start and once we have those habits down we will take the next step!  Remember 25 grams for Ladies and 38 grams for the Gentlemen. 

Crew start counting your fiber.  If you have questions post below or bug your Motiv8 Coach.

Keep Being EPIC and Don't Forget to Be AWESOME!

Coach Ty Out!








Monday, April 4, 2016

EPICNESS Has Been Brought!

Hi Motiv8ers,

Whats Up!?!?!? Hope you are having one awesome day.

Remember this, one thing that you can do daily to help generate Motiv8ion each morning is to have a goal notebook right by your bed and each morning when you wake up read those goals.  Remind yourself of what you are trying to accomplish each day and each week to generate that motiv8ion inside of you.  Remember the power plant doesn't have energy it generates energy.  Then go out and be one Force of EPICNESS!  =)

Crew this week start's Motiv8's First ever Food Challenge!  Have you started yet? If not check out the blog post below and get caught up on our FIBER challenge that is happening this month.  We are so excited for this and can't wait to see all of you get crazy healthy.

Next lets see what happened over the weekend with Motiv8!  I Hear it was pretty crazy.  =)

First, didn't get a pic, but Kaolin said the Ramsey Free Saturday SET killed it.  Thank you crew for showing your support, starting your week off right, and don't forget to invite your friends to the next one.

Then On Saturday Motiv8 Volunteered to work the start/finish aid station for the Hell Hills 50 mile trail race put on by Tejas Trails.  It was such an amazing experience and I can't tell all of you how much I appreciate you guys.  I love trail running and it was so important to me to give back to the community that I love so much and all of you made that happen.  Those Runners were so Motiv8ed by all of us.   It started at 5am and went to 8pm.  That is a crazy long day but the Motiv8 Volunteers hung in there and Motiv8ed everyone who ran through.  =)  Check out the pics.


Then EPIC Coach Joe took on the 50 miler on Saturday and really went for it.  The race was 3 loops of 16 miles and the first two loops were so rough for him. He fell down 3 times in the first 2 loops and he believes he might have actually broken his big toe on a stump in the first one.  He was not looking forward to the last loop but then Coach Vanessa jumped in and paced him for the last loop to help him pull off an amazing 2nd place overall.  That is crazy awesome.  Crew give him a huge shout out.

Sunday was just as crazy.  First many Motiv8ers went out to conquer the Rogue trail series first race The Maze.  It is a 10k or 30k out at Walnut Creek Park.  From the 6:45am and 8am Zilker SET we had Trish, Julia, Kathy,and Courtney.  From the Ramsey SET's we had Chris, Mary Ray, and Leslie.  Then from the 5pm Zilker SET you had Epic Paul Hudson.  Other Motiv8ers who we love so much are Krista and Steve.  Who are getting married shortly!!  =)



Big shout out to Leslie Elliot, from the 7:30a Ramsey SET, who got 5th overall in the 30k race.  So EPIC an so Proud of you.

Also on Sunday Coach Vanessa took a crew out to run the Cap10k course.  I think these guys are so ready for that race next Sunday.  Can't wait to see all of you conquer it.

  Also another huge shout to CHRIS FLORES from the 6:30am North SET.  This guy went out to tackle the Battle Frog obstacle Course Race.  It is said to be one of, if not the, hardest OCR out there.  He went out there and conquered it and didn't let anything stop him from accomplishing his goal.  Chris dude you are crazy EPIC.  North Crew give him one huge high five when you see him.

Lastly Motiv8ers I want to give out one last shout out to one Epic Motiv8er. Pauline Pauline Zamudio. Pauline set a goal for the month of March to do 2 Motiv8 workouts a day Monday through Thursday, that is 8 SETs, for the whole month. That is a huge commitment but she crushed her challenge. Not only did she crush it but she has gotten crazy strong over these past few weeks as well. Crew She is the perfect example of if you set a goal and get a support group to Motiv8 you you can accomplish anything. Motiv8ers give her a huge congrats.


Motiv8ers as you can see dreams are coming true and all of you are becoming stronger than you ever thought possible.  And we are doing it with one ridiculously strong community of amazing people.  Never did I ever think I would be given the chance to hang out with such great folks.  Crew thank you for being there to support each other and lets keep it up because I want to see some more EPIC SHIT Happen.  =)

Motiv8ers Stay EPIC and Don't Forget to Be AWESOME!

Coach Ty Out!!






Friday, April 1, 2016

Restricting Calories Restricts YOU!


I’m going to let you in on a little secret.


Diets (specifically calorie restriction diets) are designed for ONE reason, to make money on a simplified understanding of how the human body works.  Not only does restricting calories create multiple issues with the human body but it also is a reckless way to lose weight.


Let me explain from a food-as-a-resource perspective:  If you restrict ANYTHING you have two potential techniques available to you in using the restricted resource.  Those two techniques are:


Rationing Your Resource

OR

Limiting Range


If you ration your resource the biggest issue if you want to continue to accomplish the same things is adjusting the way you use your resource.  In the example of a car this means reducing your speed so you don’t burn as much fuel.  It may also mean avoiding hills so that the car doesn’t have to work as hard.  In any case, you end up not using your car to it’s full potential.  How does limiting food then allow you to burn more calories?  If you aren’t pushing your body to it’s full potential because you ration your food intake is it really able to burn the same amount of calories?  Of course it can’t, you EAT LESS calories but are also able to BURN LESS.






Now let’s say you limit your range.  Ok, you can use your car to it’s full potential but for how long?  Can you go the same amount of miles on ½ a tank of gas?  Of course you CAN’T!  So you can eat half the calories you should but you may be surprised that asking the same of your body and mind (brainpower also burns calories) for 16 hours per day just isn’t feasible.  The most common result is that your body and mind end up rationing FOR you.  This is manifested in multiple ways: feeling sluggish and losing strength, needing to take a nap, slowed metabolism, losing focus or critical thinking power all are the result of your input not matching your output.


Take a look at this amazing study from many, many years ago that illustrates this point perfectly.  If you are struggling with not just body goals but also mental and emotional ones you owe it to yourself to ready this study.  It reads like a horror movie!


The Minnesota Starvation Experiment



How did we get to a point in history where we lost the understanding of how simple fueling your body is?  DON’T ever STARVE yourself!  It is nothing more than self-torture and self-sabotage.  It may make sense from a simplified, unscientific, layperson’s perspective but if it didn’t work 60 years ago, it’s not going to work today!


Now THIS will blow your mind.  If you think that calorie counting is still the best way to estimate intake and output so you have an understanding of how much to eat and exercise, read this.  Your "fool-proof method" just may have a 25% margin of error!!!






So if starvation isn't the answer and tracking calories isn't the answer then what is???

The answer isn't as complicated as you think!  

We are challenging everyone to track their fiber intake in April for a very important reason.  Unhealthy food doesn't have fiber.  It's almost a universal law.  

The purpose of this month's challenge isn't to focus solely on your fiber intake but also what you are putting into your body to accumulate the appropriate AMOUNT of fiber.  You'll find over the next few weeks that eating fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains nets you the most fiber.  It also happens to be the best fuel for your body.  Not just because those foods contain health amounts of fat, protein and carbohydrates but also for the things they DON'T contain.  

Very real roadblocks to success such as free sugars, "junk carbs", trans fats, preservatives and additives that slow your metabolism and tell your body to store fat don't exist in a proper diet!  When your digestive tract isn't saddled with trying to process those things, you have more energy for the things you want to do.  You'll feel more energy, you'll be able to go harder in your workouts and you won't feel sluggish and run down!




Look for the next blog post where we’ll talk about another popular calorie restriction method “The Cleanse” and why it should be avoided.


Stay Fit,
Joe