Summer Love

This has definitely been the summer of love, both professionally and personally, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have been the recipient of so much positivity and support these last few month thanks to the lovely ladies of the Gun Club.

The Ladies Gun Club was started with a holistic approach in mind. We wanted to not only provide an opportunity for women to come and get a great workout without the distractions of a traditional gym, but also to provide a deeper level of support than one might get in a larger, less personal environment. The ladies who came to the gun club provided each other with genuine encouragement, support, and accountability. New friendships were made, and existing ones were deepened.



We all know it's work to put yourself and your health first,
and so every little bit of support helps.

LGC uses the TRX workout system most of the time, enabling the location to be super flexible, so we worked out in the fresh open air where we were able to enjoy misty mornings and the beautiful mountain scapes. There's nothing like the smell of an early morning in Carrier park (sans flooding of course!) 

On mornings when we worked out at Pack Square Park, as we finished, we got to see the rest of the town wake up, and there's just something really special about that.

There are so many memories from this summer! Who can forget the July 11th Birthday Bonus Class? When I pulled up to Pack Square Park, nobody was there and I worried that everybody had forgotten both the bonus class AND my birthday! Then, as if everybody had spilled out of a clown car nearby, all my girls (and some boys) came running over in head to toe costumes! Couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate my birthday.

And if this all wasn't enough, on July 27th, I got engaged to Camp Boswell, the guy of my dreams!

I can hardly wait to discover what this fall is going to bring, but for all the things I don't know, there is one thing I do: Asheville is beautiful when the leaves start turning, and we are going to be outside as much as possible.

Fueling Up, Pre & Post Workout

For those of you who work out first thing in the morning, it’s hard to know how to fuel up properly without eating too close to a workout. Honestly, when I get up for Ladies Gun Club in the morning, it’s rare that I wake up with enough time to do more than roll out of bed, get my gear on, and fill up a water bottle. The last thing I want to do is eat. By the time I start working out, though, I get hungry. Unfortunately, this means that as soon as the workout ends, I am ravenous and as quickly as I can get to a food source, stuff my face until I’m totally full. Not a great way to celebrate a good workout.

 

So what can you do before a workout to stave off ravenous hunger? One thing that works for me is eating half a banana right when I wake up. It’s just enough food to keep me from chowing down after the workout, but not so much that I feel sick while doing all that jumping around. Added bonus? Potassium is known for helping to prevent muscle cramps, and who doesn’t love that?

Post workout is a great time to fuel up with some healthy fats and proteins.

Kellie Davis, a fitness coach in Northern California, put a great list together of 50 Awesome Pre & Post-Workout Snacks

Have some good workout meals or snacks? Comment below to share!

More on Habits

OK, so you've made your list and you've identified a couple habits you want to kick, and a couple you want to start. Maybe you're asking yourself, "Now what?" To start, pat yourself on the back for thinking about it at all, and then take a little time to think about the sources of your bad habits. You know they're bad and you try to resist that snooze button/cigarette/extra scoop of ice cream, but some for some reason, continue to indulge. 

James Clear wrote a great article about where habits come from and why it's hard to replace them. He says, "You don't eliminate a bad habit, you replace it. Most of your bad habits are caused by two things...stress and boredom. Everything from biting your nails to overspending on a shopping spree...can be a simple response to stress and boredom...Bad habits address certain needs in your life and for that reason, you need to replace them with habits that satisfy that same need."

Now’s the time to think about that healthy habit you’d like to replace the bad habit with. Next time you get bored or stressed and want that cigarette, or that extra sweet, why not make yourself take a 10 minute walk first. Doing this does two things:

1.     It gives you some much needed exercise (albeit light exercise) and releases endorphins that help make you feel happier and less stressed.

2.     It takes your mind off the thing you’re wanting.

The hope is that after your walk you’ll either be distracted from the nasty habit or you’ll feel good enough that you don’t need to rely as much on superficial stress relievers.  Maybe instead of walking, you practice breathing exercises, or call a friend who’s providing you with some gentle accountability, or maybe you just even close your eyes for five minutes and think about something else. Whatever it is, just stick to it for a couple weeks and see if you don’t notice even minor changes in habits and behaviors.

No matter what, remember that the most important part of this is being gentle with yourself. The best way to sabotage a wellness plan is to put too much pressure on ourselves, so make a promise to yourself, right now, that you’re not going to become your own worst enemy. Good luck!

Don’t forget—Ladies Gun Club at Carrier Park bright and early. See you at 7! AND it's bring your dude Friday. Let's hear it for the boys!!!!

Those Nasty Habits...

At one time or another, we've all had that clarifying moment where we wake up one day and realize that we have been perpetuating a bad habit for far too long. We realize it, and think about doing things differently, and maybe we even do for a while, but more often than not, old habits die hard. Whether it's hitting the snooze button for an hour every morning and then having to rush to get out the door, skipping breakfast, or indulging in too much dessert after dinner, all of these habits are detrimental to overall health and well being.

If you find yourself perpetuating some bad habit--or maybe a few bad habits!--don't be too hard on yourself, because habits really are difficult to break. It's not because we're lazy or weak, and there's actually a lot of science out there about why we tend to fall into bad habits over and over again.

In March 2012, NPR put out a piece called, Habits: How They Form And How To Break Them which explains how habits form by discussing the psychological three part process. It says that "as soon as a behavior becomes automatic, the decision-making part of your brain goes into a sleep mode of sorts...."

"In fact, the brain starts working less and less," says Duhigg. "The brain can almost completely shut down. ... And this is a real advantage, because it means you have all of this mental activity you can devote to something else."

The idea is that we make things like eating healthy meals and exercising regularly the ones that become automatic rather than hitting the snooze button, which can actually make us more tired in the long run.

So what happens when you want to break an unhealthy habit and replace it with a healthy one? Create rewards for yourself for all those good habits you're trying to start. They can be little things, like promising yourself a coffee and healthy breakfast with friends immediately after finishing a work out. You could reward yourself for waking up with the first alarm by getting yourself some amazing body scrub to use in a long, hot, sense-awakening shower. Looking forward to those showers might be just what you need to get out of bed.

This week, try a little exercise to get those habits changed:
1. Choose one habit you'd like to change, and try to identify the reward you've been giving yourself that makes it difficult to stop indulging. Work on removing that reward.
2. Choose one healthy habit you'd like to begin, and a reward to go right along with it.

Starting off slow an easy is key. Be nice to yourself, and don't get too upset if you slip up once in a while, because we all do!

Good luck with all those habits, and feel free to comment below to talk with others about their habit progress.

Why Wake Early for Fitness?

As most of you know, Ladies Gun Club is held at 7 am three days a week, and when people hear what time it's held at, the first question they ask is usually, "Why so early?"

We all have our own reasons for getting up and getting going at different times, but some of us are inclined more toward the early morning than others. Before you sell yourself short and say, "But I'm not a morning person..." I assure you that I'm not naturally a morning person either, and a lot of the time, choosing to be feels totally counter-intuitive, but the benefits of working out early in the morning greatly outweigh the initial discomfort of rolling out of bed before I'm ready.

My reasons for working out early:
1. I like working out early because by the time I finish at 8 am, I still have time to enjoy a relaxing morning before beginning my work day. If it weren't for boot camp, I might just start making coffee at 8 or 9 and then next thing you know, it's time to get ready for work
2. I start the day with self care. Beginning the day by doing something really healthy and good for you that doesn't involve thinking about taking care of anybody else really sets a positive tone for the rest of the day. We all need a little 'me' time, but with kids and bosses and pets, it's difficult to prioritize without a goal that gives you a little accountability. Signing up and committing to something like boot camp definitely provides the accountability I need
3. No matter what I'm in the mood to eat, I know that I've jumpstarted my metabolism and that anything I eat will be put to better use than if I was just sitting around. You burn more calories and for longer after a workout with the LGC.

Boxing Scene's #5 reason for working out early is:
If you exercise at about the same time every morning, and ideally wake-up at about the same  time on a regular basis, your body's endocrine system and circadian rhythms adjust to that. Physiologically, some wonderful things begin to happen; A couple of hours *before* you awaken, your body begins to prepare for waking and exercise because it "knows" it's about to happen. Why? Because it "knows" you do the same thing just about everyday. You benefit from that in several ways

 TESTIMONIAL:
Ladies Gun Club is great because it creates easy to manage goals and accountability. Each boot camp is a month long with a week off in between and that works great for me because I am able to set a realistic and achievable goal for myself: work out 3 times a week at 7 am for 4 weeks. That's only 12 work outs. After a few weeks like this, I start to automatically wake up early and even if it's not a 'work out' morning, I have begun to think about the extra time I have before work as an opportunity to relax, spend time with the dog, or catch up on some reading--all things that make me happier and healthier.
                                                           --Ryan-Ashley Anderson

What are your reasons for working out early in the morning? Comment below to weigh in!

Referral Incentives!

Since Ladies Gun Club began last year, we have seen it grown so much, and it has all been because of your commitment to your own fitness, and willingness to spread the word. That being said, we would love to see it grow some more, so as a 'Thank you' to all of you who have talked about bootcamp, and to encourage you to continue to do so, we have created a new incentive program...

1 for 1: Get one friend to sign up for a bootcamp, and get one class free
2 for 2: Get two friends to sign up for a bootcamp, and get two classes free
3 for 3: Get a third friend to sign up, and get not only two bootcamps classes for free, but an additional, private, hour long personal training session with Teah (valued at $50/hr)! This is a great opportunity to really focus on problem areas and develop a plan of action for continued fitness and progress.

Have a friend who might be interested in joining but wants to check it out first before the next session? Bring them to tomorrow's FREE bonus class tomorrow morning at 7 am at Pack Square Park (by Splashville in front of the courthouse) to check it out!

Hope you had a great day off yesterday. See you bright and early!

Bittersweet

It's always a little bittersweet to come up on the end of a bootcamp series after a month of hard work and intentional fitness with an amazing group of ladies, but once again, we're nearing the end. This group has been particularly amazing, because they have shown up time and time again despite bad weather reports and a particularly wet Asheville. Part of the time this month we couldn't even use our usual Carrier Park location because the river had completely flooded it!

Looks like the sun is coming out just in time for our next Ladies Gun Club, which begins Monday, July 29 and runs through the month of August. If you're worried about getting off track between now and then, or just want to check it out without committing, check us out NEXT Wednesday, July 24, at Splashville in Pack Square Park downtown. Dudes, even though it's 'Ladies Gun Club,' we're making it guy friendly for August, so come on out and give it a try next week.

Why are we going Co-ed? Don't worry ladies! For those of you who really appreciate the ladies-only atmosphere, it's going to be coming back; we just want guys to have a chance to try it out so we can start working on a co-ed class.

If you plan on bringing a friend for the August series, or you're a new bootcamper, stay tuned because we'll be posting incentives for new folks as well as tried-and-true bootcampers on the blog!
Click HERE for pricing info.

Check out some snapshots of members and the beautiful mornings we've been working out in...