TurboFire/ChaLean Extreme 20 Week Hybrid!

My next Beachbody challenge - 20 weeks with Chalene Johnson! I am looking forward to starting another new program (after I complete Brazil Butt Lift - which I HIGHLY recommend by the way!). This should be quite the experience - heavy weight training along with intense cardio. What can I say? I'm addicted!

TurboFire/Chalean Extreme Hybrid

Your ABS are created in the KITCHEN! Really!

Sure, P90X and Insanity were important to my transformation, but I SWEAR it's the change in my eating habits that started in January that changed my body. I had been working out for YEARS, but until I understood CLEAN EATING, my body didn't change.

Don’t just track you’re the food you eat, track the INGREDIENTS of the foods you eat.

For example, my old diet included:

Instant oatmeal: whole grain rolled oats (with oat bran), sugar, artificial flavors, salt, calcium carbonate (a source of calcium), soy lecithin, guar gum, caramel color, niacinamide, vitamin a palmitate, reduced iron, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, thiamin mononitrate, folic acid.

Lean Cuisine: tortilla crusted alaska pollock (alaska pollock, enriched bleached flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, modified cornstarch, tortilla chips (yellow whole corn, vegetable oil {corn, soybean, and/or sunflower oil}), sugar, yellow corn flour, potassium chloride, white corn flour, salt, spices, dextrose, egg white, tomato powder, natural flavor, whey, maltodextrin, yeast, onion powder, leavening (sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium bicarbonate), soy flour, garlic powder, torula yeast, citric acid, corn oil. prefried in cottonseed and/or canola oil), blanched enriched long grain parboiled rice (water, rice, iron, niacin, thiamin mononitrate, folic acid), skim milk, corn, tomatillos, red peppers, water, chile peppers, onions, 2% or less of reduced fat cheddar cheese (cultured part-skim milk, salt, enzymes, annatto color), buttermilk powder, dehydrated sour cream (sour cream (cultured cream, nonfat milk)), modified cornstarch, salt, soybean oil, garlic puree, cultured whey, cilantro, jalapeno puree (jalapeno peppers, salt, acetic acid and calcium chloride), bleached wheat flour, sugar, potassium chloride, lactic acid, spices, calcium lactate

Quaker granola bar: whole grain rolled oats, brown rice syrup, crisp rice (rice, sugar, salt, malted barley flour), sugar, dried sweetened cranberry pieces (sugar, cranberries), semisweet chocolate chunks (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, salt, vanilla), almonds, peanuts, honey, sunflower oil, inulin, whole grain rolled barley, whole grain rolled wheat, molasses, soybean oil, water, glycerin, salt, vanilla, soy lecithin.

TOTAL ingredients: more than 100!

And that is just breakfast, lunch and a snack. Sure, my calorie intake was FINE, but my NUTRITIONAL intake was CRAP.

An example of clean eating and what my normal day looks like now:

Breakfast: Organic steel cut oatmeal, Honey, Almond milk
Snack: Almonds and raisins
Lunch: chicken, spinach, tomatoes, oil and vingar

TOTAL ingredients: 10 - See the difference???

Our bodies aren't meant to eat processed, chemicalized (is that a word?) "food". Diet sodas, fast food, convenience foods, and all that CRAP is horrible for our bodies. Eat clean and you WILL see changes!

P90X and Insanity Results UPDATE!

Doing the Little Things, Every Day

I'm reading a book called The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. It's an amazing book about life and I highly recommend EVERYONE read it. It's really about how the little decision we make every day shape our lives and can either lead you in a positive direction or a negative direction.

For example, when I committed to my health and fitness back in January, I made small, daily decisions that were easy to do, but just as east NOT to do. I stopped drinking a glass of wine every night. I changed my eating habits. And I exercised 6 days a week. But it would have been JUST as easy for me NOT to do any of those things.

If I had chosen NOT to do those things, would my life be dramatically different today? Not necessarily. I would still be out of shape and unhealthy, but it's not like I would have gained 200 pounds or had a heart attack (probably). Although that certainly does happen to people who maintain an unhealthy lifestyle for long periods of time, making little decisions every day to eat that fattening, processed, salty food and not take care of their bodies.

But when I DID make those decisions to change my lifestyle, did I see an IMMEDIATE change in my body or health? No. I just had to keep doing those small things every day with FAITH that what I was doing was going to transform my health and my body. I think that's why so many people give up so easily when they start a fitness program. They want OVERNIGHT results, and that's just NOT how it works.

So because I made those little decisions every day that were easy to do - I am now in the best shape of my life at 40 years old. What decisions do you want to make today to shape YOUR future?

You Don't Have Time to Work Out? Really???

I have had some fabulous results with my commitment to being fit and health since January. There isn't a day that goes by that someone at work or who I know personally says "Wow! You look great! What are you doing? I need to do what you are doing!" And I tell them "P90X and Insanity!" And more times than not, they say "Well, I don't have time for that" and that's the end of it.

Really? You don't have time? I hear this from people of all walks of life. Single, married, some have kids, some don't. Some work long shifts, some don't.

I have a full-time, Monday through Friday job and a part-time job as a Beachbody coach. I have two kids that I have to get to school every day by myself. Both are involved in after-school activities. I could easily say I don't have time too.

But when I decided to commit to P90X, pushing play 6 days as week, I meant it. I had to give up some things. I had to stop sitting on my computer playing Farmville. I had to give up some TV shows (as if my life isn't BETTER because I didn't watch the Bachelorette?) I had to pre-plan my meals. I had to shop and cook with those meals in mind.

When I decided that doing my workouts after work was taking too much time away from my kids, I changed my workout time to BEFORE work. I get up at 5am during the work week. Do I enjoy that? NO! But I'm committed to keeping up with my fitness AND my family. It's just not an option for me. I HAVE to work out. I HAVE to eat clean and healthy. That's it. And now I've stuck to it for 243 days. That's right - 243 days!!

No matter how busy your lives are, there are ways to find time to work out. You might have to make a few adjustments to your schedule or shorten your workouts, but not having enough time is not a legitimate excuse! Make exercising part of your routine!

And guess what? Not everyone has to do P90X or Insanity. There are other programs available. 10 Minute Trainer (by Tony Horton, same guy that does P90X) has given people FABULOUS results. Do you have 10 Minutes a day? It might be a good place to start to get into a routine, commit to being fit and healthy. And you never know. You might love it so much you do P90X next!

Workout Meditation or Distraction?

Someone on Facebook posted this quote the other day:

"Failure. Get comfortable with it. If you’re not failing, you’re not getting better. And if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse." In other words, make your workouts intense. Make them a challenge to YOU. If you aren't challenging yourself - if everything is easy or perfect - then you aren't doing yourself any favors.

Then I found the blog the quote came from and read further. This guy does CrossFit workouts, but of course it's true for anyone trying to maximize their fitness results.

"The people who get the most out of workouts are not the ones who complete them easily, or those who zone out halfway through in an effort to “just get through it.” If you ever find this to be the case during a workout, you’re missing the point."

"The bottom line is that fitness requires failure. Your body adapts to challenges it cannot meet in order to better prepare itself for the future. This process involves levels of fear and intensity that are typically uncomfortable, but absolutely necessary. If you’re not outside your comfort zone, you will not improve. And if you’re not trying to improve, what exactly are you doing?"

This really got me thinking about my own attitude lately with my workouts. I've been in the mindset to "let's just get this over with" or "I'm tired, I'm not going to work hard today" or "Hurry up, I want to be DONE". My workouts have been a distraction. But if this is my attitude, then why exactly am I wasting an hour of my day doing a half-a$$ed workout? Shouldn't I MAXIMIZE this time I'm taking to work on my fitness? Shouldn't I focus on what I'm doing and "BRING IT" and "DIG DEEPER" like Tony and Shaun T are always telling me?

So yesterday, I took this new attitude to heart doing P90X Legs & Back. I pushed HARD. I stayed FOCUSED on what I was doing. I didn't keep taking breaks to put dishes away in the kitchen or check my Facebook (YES, I've been known to do those things in the middle of a workout!) I decided to USE my hour to WORK MY BODY and it was AWESOME! I focused on FORM, I got DEEP in my lunges and squats. It almost felt like a meditation. It was great! I have not been so tired after a Legs and Back workout in a LONG time.

So how do you want to feel after your workout today?

The Science behind TurboFire®

On my list for next workout program (between that, BBL or Chalean Extreme) I can't decide!

Whenever you have one successful workout program, it's always hard to decide what to do next. When you have three, like Turbo Jam®, Turbo Kick®, and ChaLEAN Extreme® creator Chalene Johnson does, it can seem like an especially daunting task. But when Johnson's Fat Blaster workout (part of the Turbo Jam® Fat Burning Elite program) became a serendipitous hit, we knew it was time for Chalene to take things to the next level. That's how the idea for TurboFire® was born. The goal was to create a next-level fitness program that could be done by anyone and was easy to follow. Here's how we did it.

What is HIIT?

TurboFire is based around a concept called High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT. HIIT has been somewhat popular since the '90s, when a study suggested that you could burn up to 9 times more body fat using short but very high-intensity intervals than you could using old-school steady-state aerobic training. HIIT's popularity had been cultish, mainly because HIIT training had two perceived negatives associated with it. First, it's hard; as in full-bore, maxed-out cross-eyed hard. (The Tabata study from '96 forced subjects to 170% of VO2 max, or the maximum capacity for the body to transport and use oxygen during incremental exercise.) Second, it can only be effective when done in short cycles. But Chalene was intrigued with HIIT's time-efficient structure, which promised great results, so we decided to see if we could create a training program based around it.

The AfterBurn Effect
Our decision to focus on HIIT wasn't based on just one study. Additional studies have showed similar results, using variations of the HIIT protocol. A 2001 study concluded that HIIT training increases the resting metabolic rate (RMR) for the 24 hours following a workout due to excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, which explains how a short interval workout can have a longer-lasting effect on body composition change than a much longer cardio session.

We termed this phenomenon the AfterBurn Effect and began assembling a series of workouts that could maximize HIIT across many training platforms. Increases in post-exercise oxygen consumption are not unique to HIIT. No other style of training has HIIT's peak numbers, but they can be done for longer periods of time. There is science behind the saying "For every action, there is a reaction." All that intense HIIT training comes at a cost; the body breaks down quickly and it can't be sustained for very long.

Numerous studies were on the same page in showing that fitness gains made with HIIT training begin to plateau sometime after the third week. Therefore, the key to creating a fitness program using the HIIT modality required us to figure out how to either get the body to recover for another round of HIIT training as quickly as possible, or look at other training modalities that could work in conjunction with HIIT that also yielded results.

The Periodizational Approach
In basic terms, periodizational training means finding a way to alter training over time to maximize results; sort of like basic cross-training, but with a more well-defined plan. If you're familiar with Beachbody's fitness programs, you've seen this before. All our programs have a schedule that changes over time. The two factors that control how much change occurs are time and intensity. Essentially, over time everyone should alter their approach to training, and the fitter you are, the more your approach needs to change, to continually cause something called the adaptation response. For those of you who've done P90X®, the TurboFire schedule should look familiar.

But TurboFire, as Chalene says, "is not P90X for girls." It's a HIIT-focused training program, where all the other training is designed to prepare you to get the best results possible during your HIIT training phases. And while both P90X and TurboFire have a somewhat complex periodizational structure, their schedules are quite different. TurboFire combines both of the philosophies you'll hear Chalene espouse in her other programs, Turbo Jam and ChaLEAN Extreme.

Muscle Burns Fat®
The tagline from ChaLEAN Extreme, Muscle Burns Fat®, doesn't get chucked out the window just because we created some HIIT routines. The physiological principle that adding muscle to your frame increases your metabolism and leads to changes in body composition is valid, and you'll find that resistance work is a major component of TurboFire.

In ChaLEAN Extreme, you'll often hear Chalene say you should do resistance training three times per week for the rest of your life. It's not just talk, and TurboFire holds you to it. In fact, in an homage to the P90X tagline, Muscle Confusion™, as part of the TurboFire program, you'll receive a schedule for a hybrid program that combines ChaLEAN Extreme and TurboFire. When you combine the two programs, you get a periodizational schedule that'll keep challenging your body's adaptation response for nearly a year!

Advanced Cardio Conditioning
TurboFire, in fact, is not as much of a HIIT program as it is a Chalene program. Her workouts are unique, and TurboFire is very much an extension of her first Beachbody program, Turbo Jam, which was a home version of her health club training class, Turbo Kick. She termed her first vision of TurboFire "the next level of Turbo Kick," and that's pretty much what we've got here. The program has the look and feel of being in an exercise class at the gym—Chalene's preferred environment.

Chalene likes the class environment because "it's fun and provides motivation." But there's more than fun at the root of her classes. Cardio is an umbrella term that covers a lot of different styles of training, from easy aerobic to intense HIIT. No matter where between these extremes your workout falls, you're going to be targeting different human energy systems that have different physiological benefits. For the TurboFire system, Chalene created different cardio classes to make sure each of these energy systems were being targeted, to achieve an effect she calls Cardio Confusion, a play on words referencing P90X's Muscle Confusion.

Cardio Confusion is more than a slogan. The cardio phases of the TurboFire program combine different styles of interval training with recovery-oriented aerobic training to create a steady growth curve in your fitness levels. This accelerates your body's ability to get ready for your next round of HIIT, but it also takes advantage of the AfterBurn Effect by targeting different energy systems.

Recovery
Targeted recovery is not a by-product of TurboFire, but an essential part of the program. That you only get stronger at rest is a gym cliché that, as many do, holds a lot of truth. Active recovery helps your body grow strong much more quickly than does rest alone. All high-level training programs work better if they contain targeted rest and recovery phases. During these periods, you target the body's aerobic system, stabilizer muscles, and use techniques, which stretches out overworked muscle fibers and heals connective tissue microtrauma.

A program for one. A program for all.
It's often difficult to find one fitness program that would work for everyone, and it's generally not best to recommend that everyone do the same program, rather than steering each person toward the program that best fits their needs. Reality, though, has taught us that people often want to do what inspires them, whether it fits their ability level or not. Beachbody's high-level programs P90X and INSANITY® are meant to be "graduate" programs only; each comes with a fitness test that, if you can't complete it, recommends you do a lower-level program first instead. While our beginning-level customers should pay attention to this advice, and would usually get better results with an easier program, we've learned that they don't always do what we recommend.

With TurboFire, however, we've done our best to allow nearly anyone to attempt the program safely. In fact, we included a 2-month preparatory schedule for anyone who thinks they may not be ready for the rigors of HIIT training. Not only that, every move in the program comes with a modified version that almost anyone should be able to follow. Furthermore, Chalene recognized that some men can be rhythm-challenged, so she purposely made the choreography a lot easier to follow than it is in Turbo Jam and her health club classes.

Diet
The final element of the program is diet, another element where TurboFire has evolved beyond other Beachbody programs. TurboFire has gone in the opposite direction from P90X, which has a phased eating plan that some of our customers have found to be complex. Instead, TurboFire's diet has expanded on the Beachbody Step by Step Nutrition Guide and tried to give you a variety of different ways to alter your eating habits, with the same end purpose as our other plans: a balanced diet that fuels exercise recovery.

Essentially, the entire TurboFire program has a singular focus: that getting fit can be fun, and that eating healthy doesn't need to be a complex task. And while there's a lot of science behind what you'll see as you follow along, our goal was to make it as simple as the original Beachbody® tagline: Just Push Play.