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While we were boxing, a Fitmate “Tina K” made a funny fitness comment while she was focus padding, she was day dreaming about chocolate.

On average our Fitmates burn between 450-750 calories so based on a 55 gram block of branded chocolate (mmmm, have they reduced the size from 60 grams???) containing 292 calories, this means that for our Fitmate, she will need to work hard for 45 minutes to burn off the chocolate bar.

Chocolate seems to be very popular theme with a Fitmate late year saying that after burning 800 calories during our bootcamp session, that he can now eat a mars bar.
Mmmm, sounds good in theory but why waste all of that hard work by putting back all those calories into the body plus the trans fats as well.

Well if you’re looking for chocolate you cannot beat Belgium, or even better still in Bruges where they have the most amazing selection. So how many squats and burpees will need to be performed if you went crazy in this shop?

Very funny fitness quote this morning about a Fitmate who went to the supermarket and deciding weather to buy the Godzilla style strawberries, her reaction was “eat mutant strawberries or starve” Meaning that there weren’t many other options available.

When we look at today’s strawberries, they are the big, steroid versions from California called the “Albion” which has a patent, “United States Patent PP16228″

I guess when it comes to production, a bigger strawberry means less strawberries per punnet, which means less picking labour and packing labour, less chances of damage while in transit.

The downside is that you have this mutant looking strawberry that has less taste than smaller varieties.

Unfortunately today’s typical strawberry cultivation techniques involve a lot of chemicals if you buy the non-organic variety. Strawberries are in the top 10 of fruit and vegetables most likely to contain pesticides and chemicals.

Consumer magazine, Choice did a study into strawberries in January 2008 and the results were very disturbing with a staggering 11% containing chemical residue above the accepted level as government by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand. Furthermore out of the 27 samples, 63% contained residues from more than one pesticide.

Some of the nasty chemicals included:
Boscalid
Captan
Carbaryl
Chlorpyrifos
Dimethoate
Endosulfan-beta
Iprodione
Pirimicarb
Pyrimethanil

While there are set “safe” limits of chemical residues, maximum residue limits (MRLs), there is some conjecture on whether even consuming these low levels of chemicals in quantity over a long period together with all the other food types containing other chemicals leads to the gradual poisoning of our bodies. Many of these chemicals are NOT removed through the bodies regular processes and build up over a period of time.

Recently a study in Europe has documented the link between phosphates and Parkinson’s disease study so it’s alarming to the extent we have exposure to these chemicals.

So the best thing is to go organic, better still pick your own strawberries with the season commencing in October as strawberries like the more temperate climates of 20º days and overnight temperatures of 10º.

Funny fitness quote this morning from our 7amer JT, who spoke about her husband who can’t cook but after watching a video on how to make coffee now producers an exceptional brew from a mini expreso machine.
It’s amazing how some of us can learn from what we see while others are more audio based. Unfortunately statistically, females still out number males when it comes to cooking meals at home for the family:((.

With all of the cooking shows on the TV at the moment, maybe JT’s hubby can watch Masterchef and get some inspiration, I have a few friends who have become involved in the whole Masterchef phenomenon.
Who would have thought 10 years ago that I would be going to mates house to catch up for a coffee and eating a cake that was made from a Masterchef recipe.

it’s amazing how the consumption of coffee has increased over the past 20 years with the classic business lunch and alcohol being replaced with “let catch up for a coffee”. While coffee is a stimulant that leeches calcium from your bones, like anything in life it’s about moderation.

Very funny fitness quote this morning at Boot camp from a Fitmate (KK) “The girls were right, morning people are hard core, there was no chatting at all! ….Down to business”

At our evening sessions, it’s very social with Fitmates catching up with other Fitmates about what they got up to on the weekend but with the 6amers, there’s no mucking around, it’s straight down to business:)).

That’s not to say the the evening Fitmates don’t get a great workout, it’s a little different when you are waking up at 5.30am or earlier to get to boot camp, every second of extra Zzzzz’s count in the morning. Fitmates arrive at 5.58am ready for the session while the evening crew like to spend the 15 minutes before boot camp unwinding from the days activities at the office before launching into the workout.

Come 7.00am, the 6amers are leaving boot camp to get home in time to get ready for work while the 6.30pmemers are going home to relax:))

It’s interesting though, whether you’re a morning or evening person generally determines your preferred exercise time unless of course work or family commitments make things a little trickier.

While asking about a Fitmate how she felt after Saturday’s boot camp session she replied “where there is pain there is gain”. The main point is we’re not talking about massive, bad sort of pain, that ligaments or muscles have been torn but rather the muscles have been challenged.

It’s all about recruiting more muscle fibres and stressing the muscle cell which leads to muscles adaptation or hypertrophy. The key element is to manage the volume of training and the intensity.

As our Fitmate commented, if there is muscle soreness there has been some muscle adaption, so it’s all about overloading the muscles and going leaving your comfort zone. Most importantly exercise within your safe limits, if you don’t have the muscle stabilisation to perform a single leg squat, it would be foolish to attempt a dynamic lunge, that is performing a lunge, jumping up and switching leg positions mid air.

Ultimately you wont to vary the type of exercises you are performing to stimulate a response from your muscles, how often have you heard that people run on a tread mill for 60 minutes at the same spped without any improvement in their fitness levels. Well you need to vary the intensity and volume of the exercise you are performing to see any changes.