FitBit: 5 Reasons to Wear One!

As a student, professional, and advocate for the fields of exercise science and public health, I am always looking for new ways to make living healthier better. This Christmas, I found one of the best new devices yet: The Fitbit Flex. Not only is it a convenient bracelet to wear around your wrist, it provides a plethora of knowledge and feedback to encourage and change behavior. Below are my top 5 reasons for getting a FitBit!

           

All 5 dots light up = goal is reached!

Documentation: Time and time again through my course of studying at GW, I have heard throughout my social and behavioral theory courses that tracking behaviors can lead to behavior change such as keeping a food diary to lose weight. In a randomized controlled environment this is great news, however, none of us live in that world. And how many of us actually know the true quantity of our daily physical activity? Speaking from experience, I cannot tell you how many random little notebooks I have lying around with about 4 days of workouts and food logged in them, followed by empty pages. Another thing I have learned in school, people have a tendency to over estimate their physical activity. I think this trend speaks for itself.

The FitBit flex takes the guesswork and estimation out of it all! Strap on this cute bracelet in the morning, and let it do the rest. Once you set up your FitBit, you have a portal all to yourself that keeps a record of your daily activity including steps, miles walked, a graph of intensity of your activity, and calories burned based on your height and weight.  Because it has the ability to sync up wirelessly with your computer, it takes the nuisance out of writing everything down. Simply log in, and you can find out the deets. Not only this but you can look back at previous days and weeks to compare.

Customization: The tiny device is your personal assistant for health and fitness. It comes preset to 10,000 steps a day as a goal, but you can change this according to your personal goals. As mentioned above, the FitBit tracks how many calories you have burned, but if you are interested in taking tracking a step further, it has a food log function where you can also account for calories consumed. One of my favorite features of the FitBit is the ability to use it as an alarm clock.  Monday through Friday, my wrist vibrates at six in the morning, waking me up for the day! As cheesy as this sounds, it actually motivates me at that point! It’s not some annoying alarm clock saying get up, but instead it’s a soft vibration that reminds me, “Kel! It’s time to move J”

Don’t forget the fashion sense too J. You can switch out your band colors to match your wardrobe! My next purchase is going to be the pink and black bands!

Gratification: Who doesn’t love positive feedback? And we all know that exercising and eating clean one day will not allow us to physically see the results. However, FitBit does! Through out the day, as you get closer to your goal, more dots light up on your bracelet screen. Once you reach your goal, your bracelet will vibrate letting you know that you’ve reached it! I remember one day during my first week of wearing it, I was stressed because I didn’t make it to the gym. However, working in DC provides a lot of walking. Knowing that I wouldn’t have time to get to the gym, I created a standing desk at work, with hopes of getting in more steps that day. Lone behold, by 6pm my wrist was vibrating! Despite not getting in a sweat session, I realized how little changes can make a big difference throughout a day, and over a long span of time (similar to fat loss, physique transformation, mindset shifts etc.)

Motivation: It is pretty amazing, the power of those little dots! Last week I was traveling from DC to Indianapolis. Lugging around two bags in the snowy weather is a workout on it’s own. To add in a little bit more of one, I refused to stand on the escalators. I didn’t care how heavy my bags were I wanted those dots to light up J! The dots get me excited to take the stairs, they are like bonus points right there! I don’t mind running errands at work, they equate with more steps, which means more dots!

Competition: FitBit allows you to have fun with tracking. You can link your FitBit profile to others for a friendly competition and some motivation. This is a great way to help friends and family members get active!

FitBit can also serve as a little competition with yourself.  Every week I open an email from FitBit congratulating or encouraging me on my performance. It also lets me know what my highest and lowest days are for the week. My eyes are always drawn to the low day, I usually try to figure out what happen and make up my mind to beat it.

If you haven’t already, take a look at www.fitbit.com , it will be one of the best devices you can have to help you reach your health and fitness goals. Find me on fitbit kmvfitness@gmail.com and we can workout together!

Until later, shoot me a tweet with your fitbit name www.twitter.com/kelleyvargo ,

Xo,

Kel

She's 56, What's Your Excuse?

A few months a go there was a huge controversy over the text on a fitness photo of a mother, Maria Kang, and her three children, as shown below. Frankly, she inspired me. After three kids and still having that banging physique – you go girl! Not to mention the work of the photographer, Mike Byerly, it was a great shot.

Maria Kang and her children.

Flash forward to yesterday, when I was teaching my 9am Metabolic Effect class at The George Washington University. As I surveyed the room to take attendance (it’s a for credit course), I took note of the one participant in the front row. She comes to class religiously, and she is not a student. She is Dr. Loretta DiPietro, a 56-year-old mother of two, professor, department chair, who is involved in just about every campus initiative, the GW club field hockey coach (who plays as well), works at the USDA, and still makes it a priority to come to my class every week.

Loretta DePietro at her Metabolic Effect workout.

As we approached our one-minute sprint, I pointed to Loretta and barked to my class (in good fun), “Do Not Let This Woman Beat You In Burpees!” They all knew I was kidding (partially J ) but they love working out with her. She brings an aura and an inspiration to the classroom. These students are in their late teens and early twenties; they look up to their elder with respect and conviction. Conviction that they too can live a healthy and active lifestyle, no matter how old they are.

Loretta could easily be a member of the “VC”, as JillColeman has taught me (Victim Club) stating a myriad of reasons (or excuses) why she doesn’t have the time to workout. Trust me, if anyone has a million reasons to say how busy they are, this woman does. But she doesn’t have a single one, not even her age: 56. She is not a personal trainer for her career and she doesn’t spend hours at the gym. She gets in her 30-minute high intensity Metabolic Effect workout and then heads to the office.

Why do I bring this up?

One, for inspiration.  I look at Loretta and have a role model for my life at that age. I am turning 29 tomorrow, this woman has 27-years on me!

Two, our actions speak louder than words. As much as we say want something, if we don’t make it a priority it will not get done. (Even for me, keeping up with my blog – I say I want one, but I struggle with writing consistently). This holds true for anything, not just getting to the gym. It could be a career you’ve dreamed about, a vacation you’ve wanted, that blog you’ve wanted to create.

Three, age is a number. Yes the body ages, but that doesn’t mean it has to stop you from moving. Find your niche for exercise and get it done. Use age as a privilege, your experiences in life give you greater insight and knowledge.

Let’s channel the Loretta in us, and make living healthy a life long process.

As always, I love hearing from you! Tweet me @KelleyVargo.

Xo,

Kel

ALERT: TO GET FIT, LEAVE THE GYM!

So lately I have been slacking a bit on #lifting. Don't get me wrong I love to lift but while on a two-week vacation, one traveling and the other in the Florida Keys I gave my body a rest. Normally, I would feel horrible about missing an ENTIRE TWO WEEKS at the gym. After all, wouldn’t I look like a beached whale at the end of the trip?

Well let me tell you a secret: you won’t look like one ;) In fact, when I did return from vacation and got back to work, I kept receiving comments, “Kel it looks like you’ve lost weight” or “Kel, you look good.” The reason I mention these comments is because prior to my return I was a little hesitant about my physique. After all, the most strenuous workouts I completed were leisure walks with my family! Talk about an amazing, restorative workout, seriously! .

 

My mom and sister walking on the Seven Mile Bridge in Marathon, Florida

The hiatus from the dumbbells and drone of the treadmill were bitter sweet. The second I let go of my guilt it was just sweet. “What? Kelley are you cra-cra -- you are a fitness professional – your job is to live and breathe the gym?!” The fact of the matter is I am human too, and honestly, a break feels great once in a while! In fact, I venture to say it is NEEDED, yes A BREAK FROM GYM ROUTINES IS NEEDED TO GET FITTER!

How can this be? Haven’t you lost strength? Haven’t you lost endurance? Yes, a little. But within a week I was back to doing my sprints up to 10.5 MPH and hitting the moderately heavy dumbbells. I know my strength will get back, and be even stronger. But what are ten, maybe twenty times more durable now is my intrinsic motivation and my own satisfaction of getting in a good day at the gym. I am back to a place of loving it again.

A little sweaty after sprints J!

In closing, I wanted to share the leg workout I completed yesterday (post interval training) We will just call this one Lactic Acid Legs! Inspired by fitness gurus Mike Davies & Jill Coleman, after jumping off of the treadmill I through this puppy together:

LACTIC ACID LEGS

•         You will need at least one, up to three sets of dumbbells & a bench or box to step on
•         Do as many rounds as you can in 25 minutes
•     And an “ BRING IT ON” mindset J

Your tools for magic!

EXERCISE	REPS	WEIGHT
Alternating lunges	12 each leg	Heavy
Bulgarian split squats	13 each leg	Medium
Single leg hip raises (on your back, one leg in air and raise hip – rest weight on hips)	14 each leg	Light to medium
Single leg step up w/ squat at the bottom (when you return to floor)	15 each leg	None to light
Dumbbell deep squats (elbows to knees)	16 total	Medium to heavy
Wide stance deadlifts (dumbbells go down outside of leg – not in front)	17 total

Looking forward to an amazing 2014. Share with me what you do to restore your intrinsic motivation and success on your fitness endeavors on twitter @kelleyvargo or on facebook.

Have an amazing day!

Xo,

Kel

4 Must Know Tips to Get Your Six Pack

 I can honestly say (and maybe not the best training I have done) but I did not do any isolated ab work for my first few figure competitions and placed 1^st and 5^th (not too bad). The reality of it is your diet and weight training has a far greater impact on your washboard than any number of sit-ups, crunches, or hours on the “Ab blaster.”

 Let’s cut out the fluff and get to bottom of this…

1    Everyone has a six-pack. It;s true, you really do. If you were to strip away the layers of adipose tissue you would see a nice rectus abdominis (stomach muscle) that has that definition you hope to see in the mirror.

2 Sits ups will not get you a six-pack.Yes sit-ups will help strengthen your abdominus muscles (that is if you do them correctly – do not strain your neck!) but the reality is they aren’t doing anything to bring those muscles into visability. Think about it for a second. How many times have you seen the guy at the gym who has that tire around his waste doing sit ups everyday but nothing looks different? Sure hisstomach muscles might be in great shape endurance wise and utilize oxygen efficiently but do they look any different? Nope.  This is not to say you cannot do sit ups on your quest for your washboard, but it is saying if you only run and do sit-ups, you will not be washing your clothes anytime soon.

3 Abs are made in the kitchen. Okay, I know, I can be really cheesy but let’s face it, whoever coined this term was a genius in my eyes!  It’s true. Remember what we said about the tire?  In order to make this go away, we must alter our nutrition. Nutrition is about 80-90% of the task when it comes to optimizing our physique and performance. Start by replacing major starches such as bread, cereals, rice and pasta with vegetables, lean protein, and complex carbohydrates such as brown rice or quinoa.  To big of a jump? Cut out the soda, and stop drinking your calories!

4 A complete weight lifting routine will be  “bringin’ sexy “abs” back.” Yup, that’s it Justin Timberlake can help you get through a sweat sesh to get those abs. The reality of it is, you are training your core while you are training other body parts. This is especially when performing large movements such as squats, lunges, pull-ups, & push-ups. Of course like any fine-tuning you can do some isolation ab exercises to chisel them out a little bit, but the bulk of getting those ridges will be achieved through heavy total body lifting.

And there you have it, the quick and dirty on getting your six-pack to show. It’s not easy (let’s be serious if it was everyone would have one), but it’s not impossible! And next time you’re in the kitchen as yourself, will I be able to use my washboard if I eat this? J

Until next time, remember Abs are made in the kitchen and eat your lean protein!

Kel

Master Your Mind with Dr.Jump, Shawn Myszka

If you haven’t been able to pick up on the theme of these articles, they all tie in an element of the mind. Whether it’s making it a point to go to the gym, choosing a salad over a sandwich or doing one thing you fear a day, all of these endeavors involve the psyche. One man who has mastered his own mind, and now is consistently helping others master their own is Shawn Myszka. Former bodybuilder and now known as Dr. Jump, Shawn is a strength and conditioning expert working with NFL players in Minnesota.

Now you might be saying what does an NFL coach have in common with me? The truth is a lot. Not only are we interested in our health, but if we can take something away from Shawn about the power of the mind, we are closer to becoming our best. I am constantly motivated and inspired when speaking with Shawn and I hope after reading this article you are as well! Let’s talk to Shawn!

KV: Being an elite athlete takes a lot of work. Reflecting on your training and eating now vs when you were competing, how do they differ?

SM: My life and the day-to-day of it is drastically different these days. During my bodybuilding days, everything was laid-out. I ate the same things at the same times each day (no matter what day it was…Christmas, Thanksgiving, my b-day, etc). I napped from 1:30-2:30pm each day. I did cardio to start the day at 7am. I trained at night from 7-9pm. I meditated from 5:30-6:30pm. It’s just the way it all was. I was a machine. Now, there is not very much structure nor could there be. Depending on the time of the year (like during NFL training camp/season preparation), I may be working 14-16 hours days.

Because of this, even though I try to take care of myself and my body as much as possible, I only get to train 1-3 times a week. I honestly don’t do any resistance training anymore on a frequent basis. Instead, I perform movement-based training so I am fully and physically prepared to be able to sufficiently demonstrate exercises/drills to my NFL players. That said, I could still get under a squat bar loaded with 4 plates on each side and rep it out…the function of my training (movement-based) has allowed me to keep a great deal of my former structure (muscle and strength qualities). My nutrition has changed significantly as well. There are days where I am busy training athletes from very early in the morning till very late at night with little to no break all day long. So, on those days I may get to consume nothing but meal replacement shakes and energy drinks (sorry I am not sorry!). Then there are other days, like right now when I am traveling to go from training camp to training camp, where I have to eat a lot while on the road. None of that would’ve led to as successful of results when I was competing but it’s the nature of the beast now and it still allows me to achieve the goals for my lifestyle because those are much different now as well.

KV: How would you say your mindset has changed from your days of bodybuilding to where you are today?

SM: You know, most people find it odd when they hear that my mindset really hasn’t changed all that much from my bodybuilding days till now. There is good reason for this. Any success that I ever achieved in any aspect of my life can be traced back to the way that my mind ticks. When people find out that I used to be a pretty big dude (5’6” and 275lb in the offseason constitutes as big right?), they automatically think that I must really like the way that muscle looks, etc. That’s not what bodybuilding ever was for me.

Instead, I just always wanted to be the best at whatever I could. I just happened to have a high aptitude for the sport of bodybuilding from a very early age because of what it required from participants. But my mentality is what made me. It’s the reason I was able to go a handful of years without a single cheat meal and the reason I was able to gut-check through injuries that would’ve sidelined most human beings. Thus, it (i.e. the activity) could’ve been chess or knitting or whatever…I was just always committed to going all-in with it if I was going to do it. Thus, when I retired from the sport I just devoted the same type of passion and energy into different avenues. This is the reason why I now apply myself with deliberate effort and intention on a daily basis to my current craft of producing the most masterful athletes in the National Football League. 

KV: Now having the opportunity to work with professional athletes, what is a fundamental mental training component you instill in them in terms of a successful mindset? Are there any similarities between the average person and the professional athlete in terms of the mind?

SM: I have found that among the 1,696 athletes playing professional football (53 on each team among 32 teams), there really is very little difference in their physical characteristics compared to one another. Instead, the thing that often allows the best to be better than the rest is the substance that lies between the ears and inside the chest.

Unfortunately, pro athletes are as susceptible as the rest of us to the negative self-talk that can ensue if we choose to listen to the outside world or just look for short-term gratification from any initial achievement steps being taken. They (the pro athletes) just happen to be able hide it a little better than others through their supreme confidence (otherwise known as swag).

That all said there are definitely similarities between the average person and the pro athlete when it comes to mindset. At least there needs to be if we are all going to be able to fully realize our goals and aspirations. On the surface, the average pro athlete may appear to be wired completely different mentally. Though it is true that they hit the sperm lottery when it comes to their physical capabilities, they often have the same mental barriers that they must overcome (as I alluded to above). Fortunately, we can all do something about developing a champion mental set. I work to instill this in them from the start. Our very first training session isn’t typically physical at all. Instead, he and I sit down and talk through who it is that he wants to be…without limitation. We are trying to remove every SINGLE limit off of him and out of his mind. Being realistic is the fastest way to mediocrity. Thus, I want to know everything he wants to achieve in his life in the sport (and sometimes outside of the sport as well). This is where one’s passion and energy is going to come from…his (or her) purpose. People with that level of passion have the opportunity to change their world. So I encourage them to verbalize these sometimes outlandish goals for their lives. They are only outlandish for those that don’t have any business achieving greatness in the world.

KV: Can you tell us a little bit about your morning, when you wake up, what is the first thing you think and do?

SM: This is a great question because I firmly believe as though people can significantly impact the outcome of their entire day based on the outlook that they start their day with. I also believe that an attitude of gratitude is the only one to have if we want to appreciate our current life situation as well as attract more great things into our lives. Thus, it may sound odd, but I start each day by first being grateful for me waking for that day, everything that I am on this given day, and everything that the new day will bring. I notice that if I go without doing this, I won’t have the mindset required to keep things in perspective as the day unfolds in front of me. I then go to reminding myself who it is that I am and what it is that I want to achieve (not for that day but for my greater overall vision). I will go as far as telling myself, for example, “today I will make the best players in the NFL even better. I have a unique opportunity in front of me to impact the world.” This all happens before breakfast so by the time I hit the road I am ready to conquer the day.

KV: If you were to give us one piece of advice regarding the power of the mind, what would that be?

SM: No matter how I answer this question it is going to seem like it is filled with nothing but clichés of sunshine and rainbows. But I have found (not only in my own personal life but also with my athletes) that there really is no way to overestimate the power of our minds and what we are truly capable of if we tap into it by possessing the optimal mental attitude. Thus, my own piece of advice is to never underestimate what you are truly capable of! You will need to truly see with your unique vision what it is that you want and you can have anything that you foresee in this life. You will need extreme, unwavering faith and belief that this can come true no matter what the outside world is showing you or what others are telling you. You will need to continue following the path of your vision and belief with total commitment even if you may fail temporarily at times. And when you reach and achieve what it is that you set out for, you can and should be proud but never ungrateful as well as never content for you should realize that it is part of something bigger for not only your life but for others as well.

On that note, never underestimate yourself! Get out there an take a step toward your dream today!

Have an amazing day! See you tomorrow,

Kel