December Class Schedule
November 30, 2010 by Jenny Neighbour · Leave a Comment
Join us for our final month of classes at our existing facility!
Soon, we will be offering our wonderful classes and programs in Ankeny churches and can’t wait to serve you there! If you belong to a church that would like to learn more about offering fitness classes or wellness programs, please give us a call. We would love to help you gets started!
December 2010 Class Descriptions
Why haven’t I lost any weight on the scale?
October 4, 2010 by Deb · Leave a Comment
I overheard a member today at the gym saying that they haven’t lost ANY weight and just couldn’t understand what they were doing wrong.
Anyway, it reminded me of conversations I have had with clients over the years. They will tell me how they’re feeling fitter, stronger, leaner, their clothes are looser and they are in a few notches on their belt. People have noticed and commented on how they are looking but all of this counts for nothing because the scales haven’t moved. (Sound familiar?)
My first reply is to get the scales moving you need to throw them out the window! Either that or understand that there is a lot of good things happening and that your weight (which measures everything, good and bad, muscle, fat, blood, bones, water, hair etc etc etc) on the scales isn’t the only measure that is important. In fact it can be one of the least important especially if it takes away from all of the other great changes you are making to your body and health.
So what I am trying to say is focus on the positives and don’t let small negatives ruin your mindset and motivation!
Have a great week,
Deb 
The Best Diet Tip EVER
June 16, 2010 by Deb · Leave a Comment
Today’s post is going to be short, sweet and to the point.
That said, it may be the most valuable piece of dietary advice that I could EVER give you.
You see, last night around 9:30 PM while watching TV my appetite started acting up and I began to have some pretty intense cravings.
A couple minutes later, I found myself in the kitchen rummaging through the fridge, cupboards, and pantry looking for something to satisfy my hunger (yes, I’m human and I deal with cravings, too).
After scoping out what was available, I ultimately ended up eating some sliced steak and big portion of spinach. (Thank God Carol’s Éclair dessert was all gone!)
Do you know what stopped me from downing a bowl of ice cream or reaching for a bag of potato chips last night?
Simple. These foods aren’t in my house.
Do you want to end your struggle with late night snacking (with the wrong foods) and increase your dietary adherence ten-fold? Then here it is, the best diet tip I could ever give you:
Keep your house free of anti-diet food.
Simply put, if it’s not available, it’s not a temptation.
Do you find that having “off-limits” foods lying around is screwing up your diet? Let me know your thoughts!
Train Hard & Expect Results,
Deb
“You Can’t Out Train A Bad Diet!”
November 14, 2009 by Deb · Leave a Comment
Let’s us look at a case scenario to make my point. Let’s call it the Pizza VS Cardio contest between Carol (other CPT at CT) and myself! I love this test because I’m the one getting to eat the pizza….sorry Carol!
So Carol jumps on a treadmill and cranks it up to the absolute maximum speed with a slight incline (without falling off) and starts sprinting.
While Carol is busting her butt at 12.0 MPH, killing herself to lose fat, I am standing beside her consuming a box of pizza.
After about 3 minutes, I have consumed 800 calories (half a pizza) and Carol has burned 42 calories!
Get what Carol and I have said a million times…..you CAN out eat ANY workout…….
Moral of the story is – you CAN NOT out train a bad diet!
Carol and I know this from personal experience folks….learn from us!!!!
No matter what program you are following….one fact remains the same; if you are trying to lose weight you MUST burn more calories than you take in PERIOD! Nothing magical about that…..just the cold hearted truth!
So, if you are trying to lose weight here are some basic rules to follow:
1. Don’t starve yourself….try reducing you calories by 250 calories a day. This won’t make you feel like you are being deprived and yet by the end of the week it adds up to 1,750 calories…that’s a half a pound of weight that you should lose at the end of the week!
2. Burn off 250 calories a day with exercise. Here again this won’t make you feel like a slave to the gym, but will give you an additional deficit of 1,750 calories so now you will have lost 1 pound by the end of the week!
Now, there are many other things I could list that would help you lose weight, but if you can just start by causing a caloric deficit by simply reducing input and by burning some off this will be a sure way to kick your weight loss into gear!
Remember consistency pays…..do these 2 simple things and each week you should lose 1 pound….in 1 years time you could be 52 pounds lighter!!! Get started TODAY! By the end of this year you could be down 6 pounds starting the New Year off RIGHT!
Train Hard & Expect Results,
Deb
How to Calculate Your Body Fat Percentage
May 6, 2009 by Deb · Leave a Comment
We use Body Fat % instead of BMI or your body weight to measure your success and I have found this formula to be pretty accurate to calculate body fat. They are within +/- 3% of the real value. All you will need is a tape measure, a piece of paper, pencil or pen and a calculator.”
A common response in our forum is that this is too complicated. Many of us estimate progress by the mirror, the belt or the tightness of the button on the jeans. This is also a great way to measure success but this will give you numbers that will KEEP you motivated when you see your success!
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CrossTrain-Testimonials-Food-Nutrition
April 8, 2009 by Jenny Neighbour · Leave a Comment
In order to be healthy or to lose weight, we must be aware of what we are putting in our mouth. What we EAT has a direct impact on our success when it comes to losing weight and in honoring the temple that God gave us. The CrossTrain food plan is simple. We promote eating from the 5-essential food groups MOST of the time and limiting foods that come from the categories of “fake” or “imitation”. In other words, we want to encourage eating as close to the way God intended us to eat as possible. Then, we limit the things in our diet such as sugar, caffeine, and high fat foods. With this approach to food consumption, we are eating to LIVE, instead of living to EAT! Our program is easy to follow and to stick with for life!
“Re-Solve” To Try Something NEW!
March 30, 2009 by Deb · Leave a Comment
By Deb Finnestad, Owner, CrossTrain Fitness 107 E. First St. Ankeny, IA 50021 515-965-3809
We are three months into 2009…..How are you coming on your New Year’s Resolutions? What does Resolution mean anyway?
res·o·lu·tion \ˌre-zə-ˈlü-shən\
1: the act or process of resolving.
As you can see the word resolution is derived from the word “Resolve” which literally means to solve again. And isn’t that exactly what happens? You solve the same problem again and again, year after year?
Are you one of the millions of Americans that has already “fallen off the wagon” by losing motivation, cheating on your diet, skipping workouts, and slipping back into old patterns?
It’s not too late…..you can Re-Commit and Re-focus on your goals!
One of the ways I would recommend that you try to achieve your goals is by getting out of your box and trying something NEW. Maybe you are a runner and you love to run for your workouts, but have you ever tried a weight lifting class? Or maybe you love to lift weights but you have never tried an aerobics’ class. Sometimes we can get stuck in a rut of doing the same thing over and over again because it’s comfortable. What would happen if you tried something new? Shake it up a bit!!
Think about it….our bodies are very smart; if we do the same thing over and over again our bodies can adjust and actually stop giving you the results that you are looking for. By adding new things to shake things up we can trick our body into reacting and giving us those results that we want. I recommend doing something for 8-12 weeks and then sit back down and re-plan your goals and again change what you are doing so you continue to reach your goals.
One of the best ways to change things up would be to try Circuit Training. Circuit training has many benefits. One is that is can be done in less than 30 minutes! Time is the number one reason I hear that people don’t workout or stick with their programs. Another benefit is that you are doing several different types of exercises. This will keep you from getting bored with your routine as well as keeping your body changing to help you achieve your goals. Circuit training allows you to do both strength training as well as cardiovascular exercises in one workout, again saving you time and adding variety!
Don’t “Re-Solve” to another year of not reaching your goals. Stay focused,
eat right, train hard, CHANGE things up and Expect Success!
See article in Ankeny Living
http://www.iowalivingmagazines.com/ankeny/pages/pdf/CVA_03AKLVP30.pdf
Information provided by Deb Finnestad, owner, CrossTrain Fitness, 107 E. 1st Ankeny. 515-965-3809
God’s Willpower and Losing Weight
February 23, 2009 by Luke Carlson · Leave a Comment
When it comes to health, we have allowed our primal thinking our will to align with the paths the world walks. If we continue to follow the path of our world and rely on our willpower, we will eventually fail.
In order to succeed, we must walk the path God lays before us while surrendering our will to Him. His path is a course we may find extremely difficult to follow! Why? We fear giving up the ways of the world because they feel good. We fear that following God will not be fun and may even be painful.
When we live by our will rather than God’s, we succumb to the bondages of food. We fear losing the instant gratification that our unhealthy nature seeks, but we fail to see how it slowly and certain ly destroys us. God may not instantly gratify us, but He will help us grow and mature, slowly and steadily, to experience greater joy and peace. We will never be able to attain this level of joy and peace unless we surrender to God’s will.
How do we surrender to God’s will? We recognize and acknowledge that we are weak compared to God. God desires for us to recognize our weaknesses so we will seek Him. As we seek and find God, we receive His power, finally discovering His resources to overcome our obsession with food. Paradoxically, we become stronger only when we become weaker. This is what we learned in 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10, “Each time He said, ‘my gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me. Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
When we define willpower as the power we receive when we align ourselves with God’s will a transformation will take place in us that will allow us to lose weight and so much more.
