Personal Fitness Week

Happy Memo­r­ial Day!

We hope you have enjoyed your hol­i­day week­end, and that you enjoy this week off between boot camp ses­sions. Take this time to cre­ate your own per­sonal fit­ness week.

What are your per­sonal goals? Run faster? Do some inter­val runs on your own. Do all your push-ups on your toes? Prac­tice by try­ing dif­fer­ent types of push-ups: incline, dia­mond, decline. Look good in Andrew’s pho­tos? Focus on your form and smil­ing while exercising.

Need some work­out ideas? Check out our FB page all week →

See you on Tues­day, June 7th!

Surf’s Up!

Thanks to all of you who rode the waves with us this month! We were lucky that the rain stopped this morn­ing, and we weren’t surf­ing for real!

Because of your gen­eros­ity, we have now donated a total of $30,000 to Pied­mont Park Con­ser­vancy and our other high­lighted non-profits, such as Kate’s Club. Thanks for mak­ing all of this possible.

Please post your results and improve­ments from today’s PT test — we want to hear your suc­cess stories!

Come Hang 10 with us next month, start­ing Tues­day, June 7th!

The Benefits of Group Running

BY TRACY

My mom has started run­ning for the first time in her life in prepa­ra­tion for her first 5k. She calls me her “run­ning trainer” and asks me for advice on shoes, what her pace should be, rest­ing tech­niques (Gall-o-walking as I call it) and how to pre­pare men­tally for her first race. She finally entered and ran her first 5k a few weeks ago and was so proud of her­self! She took pic­tures along the way and sent me one of her­self at the fin­ish line.

Now she has dis­cov­ered a dif­fer­ent problem–motivation. She is start­ing to get bored with the same old rou­tine now that she doesn’t have the excite­ment of the race to moti­vate her. I had only one piece of advice for her: Find a run­ning group. In my opin­ion, run­ning with a group makes the expe­ri­ence less of a chore and more of a fun, social experience.

This arti­cle sums the ben­e­fits up perfectly:

Cre­ative Stim­u­la­tion: Run­ning is very ful­fill­ing in terms of cre­ative sat­is­fac­tion. Most of us at one point or other, should have expe­ri­enced bet­ter cre­ative impulses while walk­ing or run­ning. So many con­struc­tive thoughts, full of pos­i­tive energy and vibes crop up in an indi­vid­ual while run­ning. Run­ning is like mobile med­i­ta­tion. Group run­ning is good for facil­i­tat­ing fruit­ful inter­ac­tion. The enthu­si­asm of one able peer spreads across the rest of the group mem­bers, through a cas­cade effect. This enriches the col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence of the group lead­ing to a bet­ter outcome.

Boosts the Moti­va­tion: Another impor­tant ben­e­fit of group run­ning is the sort of moti­va­tion that it gen­er­ates. The very fact that some­body out there is wait­ing for you to join him/her makes you feel more respon­si­ble and pushes you for­ward. So, as far as pos­si­ble make it a point to take a fam­ily mem­ber or a friend along with you.

Enhanc­ing the Per­for­mance: Group run­ning involves friendly chats, which add to the ambi­ence of run­ning and the short friendly races, which boost the com­pet­i­tive spirit of the par­tic­i­pants. All these add to improved per­for­mance in the long run.

Ensures Career Ben­e­fits: It is not always in a golf course that deals are sealed, even run­ning offers viable occa­sion for ben­e­fi­cial inter­ac­tions. Tak­ing your team mem­bers or clients along with you is always help­ful in pro­mot­ing your pro­fes­sional inter­ests. Run­ning is arguably the best pro­fes­sional net­work tool.

Expands the Social Cir­cle: Run­ning is the most suit­able oppor­tu­nity for bring­ing together peo­ple with com­pat­i­ble mind­sets. Run­ning also helps in expand­ing your social cir­cle. There are some peo­ple who have actu­ally come across their prospec­tive close friends and even spouses while running.

Now that we are enter­ing into the Spring and Sum­mer sea­sons, we will be offer­ing a few group runs a month. Stay tuned to the blog and check your email for our next orga­nized group run!

Editor’s note: Join your fel­low BC4Cer, Emily Hawkins, at the upcom­ing gen­eR­ACE­tion 2011. It will be in Grant Park on Sat. May 21 and start at 8:15am.

Show your sup­port for Kate’s Club and Senior Cit­i­zens Ser­vices. The event is open to all fit­ness lev­els, with every­thing from a 2K fun run/walk to a Peachtree Road Race 10K qual­i­fier event.

After the race, Emily has invited all BC4Cers to be her guest at the annual Kate’s Club Fam­ily Pic­nic! Meet her in the large pavil­ions from 10-1pm for burg­ers, hot dogs and other snacks. Bring your fam­ily and friends to enjoy the music, face paint­ing, and games.

Go to www​.gen​er​ace​tion​.org to reg­is­ter or www​.scsatl​.org/​g​e​n​e​r​a​c​e​t​ion to learn more about the race.

Two Simple Rules for a Marvelous May

Con­grat­u­la­tions! You’ve com­pleted Day 1 of May boot camp. Only 15 (or 28 depend­ing how you’re count­ing) days to go…

Make the most of this month by fol­low­ing two sim­ple rules:
Log and Blog!

Log: You’ve prob­a­bly heard it hun­dreds of times: write your goals down. But do you know why this step is so impor­tant? When you put pen to paper you turn your thoughts into some­thing tan­gi­ble. That’s why we strongly encour­age you to use your log books. It’s part of the boot camp pro­gram because it works. Use your log books daily to keep track of your nutri­tional and fit­ness goals and accom­plish­ments. You will quickly see how the act of writ­ing these things down helps keep you motivated.

Blog: Have you ever heard that work­ing out in a group is one of the best ways to stay moti­vated? It’s true! Hav­ing peo­ple there along­side you to share in your expe­ri­ence and encour­age you along the way is often­times the dif­fer­ence between a suc­cess­ful exer­cise plan and one that tends to fiz­zle out over time. Share in your chal­lenges and your suc­cesses with your fel­low BC4Cers, and be sup­port­ive of their efforts as well by check­ing this blog after every workout.

You can also stay in touch with your fel­low BC4Cers via our Face­book page. Go ahead… go there and Like us today!

Read on to learn more about your log books…

We at BC4C would like you all to take a few moments and con­sider where and how you are get­ting the food you eat today.

• Do you plan to grab break­fast while hang­ing out your car window?
• Do you plan on grab­bing a hand­ful of M&M’s from your co-worker’s desk and call it a mid-morning snack?
• Do you plan to stand in line for lunch and order the fastest item that can be prepared?
• And do you plan to eat what ever is left on your child’s plate and con­sider your din­ner taken care of?

When we were in school we were forced to do a num­ber of sim­ple cal­cu­la­tions in order for us to add and sub­tract like sec­ond nature; the same prin­ci­pal applies for our nutri­tion journals.

We asked you to main­tain a jour­nal this month to keep track of how and what you eat — forc­ing you to refo­cus on your nutrition.

Log­ging your meals — though tedious like math — will help you devote some time and energy to plan out where and what you eat. We ask you to eat five meals a day — not three meals and two snacks — because each time you eat you should use it as an oppor­tu­nity to get in the nutri­ents you need. The five meals you eat should be the vehi­cles for you to obtain your 9 serv­ings of grains, 4 serv­ings of veg­eta­bles, 3 serv­ings of fruit, 2 serv­ings of dairy, and 5 serv­ings of pro­tein the USDA rec­om­mends we eat every day.

While using a nutri­tion jour­nal, we hope that when you walk out the door every morn­ing, you do so with a plan of how you will get the nutri­ents you need to stay active and healthy — which will even­tu­ally become sec­ond nature.

Tell us how you’re doing on Day 1. Leave a com­ment by click­ing the “Com­ments” link at the top of this post.

Log and Blog

Con­grat­u­la­tions! You’ve com­pleted Day 1 of April boot camp. Only 15 (or 25 depend­ing how you’re count­ing) days to go…

Make the most of this month by fol­low­ing two sim­ple rules: Log and Blog!

Log: You’ve prob­a­bly heard it hun­dreds of times: write your goals down. But do you know why this step is so impor­tant? When you put pen to paper you turn your thoughts into some­thing tan­gi­ble. That’s why we strongly encour­age you to use your log books. It’s part of the boot camp pro­gram because it works. Use your log books daily to keep track of your nutri­tional and fit­ness goals and accom­plish­ments. You will quickly see how the act of writ­ing these things down helps keep you motivated.

Blog: Have you ever heard that work­ing out in a group is one of the best ways to stay moti­vated? It’s true! Hav­ing peo­ple there along­side you to share in your expe­ri­ence and encour­age you along the way is often­times the dif­fer­ence between a suc­cess­ful exer­cise plan and one that tends to fiz­zle out over time. Share in your chal­lenges and your suc­cesses with your fel­low BC4Cers, and be sup­port­ive of their efforts as well by check­ing this blog after every workout.

You can also stay in touch with your fel­low BC4Cers via our Face­book page.

Read on to learn more about your log books…

We at BC4C would like you all to take a few moments and con­sider where and how you are get­ting the food you eat today.

• Do you plan to grab break­fast while hang­ing out your car window?
• Do you plan on grab­bing a hand­ful of M&M’s from your co-worker’s desk and call it a mid-morning snack?
• Do you plan to stand in line for lunch and order the fastest item that can be prepared?
• And do you plan to eat what ever is left on your child’s plate and con­sider your din­ner taken care of?

When we were in school we were forced to do a num­ber of sim­ple cal­cu­la­tions in order for us to add and sub­tract like sec­ond nature; the same prin­ci­pal applies for our nutri­tion journals.

We asked you to main­tain a jour­nal this month to keep track of how and what you eat — forc­ing you to refo­cus on your nutrition.

Log­ging your meals — though tedious like math — will help you devote some time and energy to plan out where and what you eat. We ask you to eat five meals a day — not three meals and two snacks — because each time you eat you should use it as an oppor­tu­nity to get in the nutri­ents you need. The five meals you eat should be the vehi­cles for you to obtain your 9 serv­ings of grains, 4 serv­ings of veg­eta­bles, 3 serv­ings of fruit, 2 serv­ings of dairy, and 5 serv­ings of pro­tein the USDA rec­om­mends we eat every day.

While using a nutri­tion jour­nal, we hope that when you walk out the door every morn­ing, you do so with a plan of how you will get the nutri­ents you need to stay active and healthy — which will even­tu­ally become sec­ond nature.

Tell us how you’re doing on Day 1. Leave a com­ment by click­ing the “Com­ments” link at the top of this post.