Reaching Out to Overcome PTSD

Reaching Out to Overcome PTSD

Irony? Tragic irony? Again?

I was on the phone last week with former U.S. Army 2nd Lieutenant Stacy Bare, PTSD sufferer, when unbeknownst to either of us, the former Navy Reservist Aaron Alexis, alleged PTSD sufferer, was shooting up the Washington Navy Yard. Thirteen dead (including Alexis) and at least that many wounded. 

The facts surrounding the Navy Yard murders are still too raw and fragmented, and in the wake of these incidents I generally subscribe to the military credo, "Never believe a straggler and rarely believe a casualty." But, in truth, I just cannot bring myself to write--again--about the oxymoron of our country's gun control policies. Words just get in the way of what I really want to say. For apparently Aaron Alexis had plans instead of hopes, and today I would rather write about hopes. 

Which is where Stacy Bare enters this story. Stacy has just returned from 11 days exploring Alaska's Arctic Circle, where in his role as the Sierra Club's Director of Outdoor Missions he accompanied two civilian guides and four OIF and OEF veterans on a journey that, with luck, will constitute continuing steps in healing their minds. Like Stacy, some of the vets that hiked through the Philip Smith Mountains of the mighty Brooks Range have been formally diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The rest remain undiagnosed but--shall we use the word--troubled. Every one of those men, however, is connected to the others by what Abraham Lincoln called "the mystic chords of memory." In most cases the memories are not good.

"These were all pretty bad-ass guys, Special Operators, 101st Airborne, like that," Stacy tells me. "The kind of vets, like a lot of vets, who get home from combat, see the challenges other vets are facing--whether it's PTSD or Traumatic Brain Injury, or just finding a damn job--and throw themselves headfirst into helping these other vets without really ever taking the time to see and work on the challenges they face themselves. To ask themselves, ‘Hey, what kind of help do I need?' And a trek like the Alaska hike allows them to not only recharge both their bodies and minds, but the nature of, well, nature itself lends itself to some serious introspection." 

That the 35-year-old Stacy Bare would be coordinating any expedition based on outdoor therapy for troubled veterans might seem, in retrospect, a bit of a stretch. Born and raised in South Dakota, Stacy graduated from Ole Miss's ROTC program in 2000 and began his Army career as an intelligence officer stationed in Germany and Sarajevo. Following our invasion of Iraq in 2003, he repeatedly applied for deployment Downrange. When the requests were denied he opted out of the service and signed on with "The Halo Trust," a nonprofit NGO that dismantles long-buried land mines. The work took him first to Angola--where the 6-foot-8, 265-pound Stacy fell ill and dropped to under 200 pounds--and, later, to the former Soviet state of Georgia.

In 2006 he was recalled off Ready Reserve and sent to Baghdad as an Army Civil Affairs team leader. You may recall 2006 as one of the most brutal years of the Iraqi civil war and the revolt against the occupying Americans. Stacy can tick off from memory the names of the dead and wounded from his Ready Reserve outfit. By the following year he was back in the States, working toward his Masters Degree in Urban Development at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also mightily messed up.

(Editor's note: This column was updated to remove a reference to Alexis using a semi-automatic rifle in the shooting. FBI Director James Comey has confirmed that Alexis used a shotgun.)

"I ended up living a pretty significant double life," he says. "I was a respectable grad student by day, but I also developed a major cocaine habit, and I was abusing alcohol. I didn't see any of those things as problematic at the time. But looking back on it, of course it was PTSD."

Stacy managed to earn his MBA, but over the next several years he bounced from job to job, still struggling with his addictions. Then, he remembers, "Ultimately one of my Army buddies got me out rock climbing. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, and that every veteran needs to do it."

An Outward Bound dog-sled expedition through northern Minnesota sponsored by the Sierra Club followed, and it was as if a light bulb went off over Stacy's head.

"By then I had gone sober with cocaine on my own," he says. "I was also enrolled in other programs for my PTSD, for my alcohol abuse, and the therapists helped a little. But I could never open up. There's not a lot of joy in those group-therapy rooms. Then I joined what they call a sober-active community, where a group of people get together and climb, or bike, or do jiu-jitso or yoga, with the unifying factor being that we're all sober. But it was really the outside expeditions that turned things around for me. After that I asked myself, 'How do I take this experience and utilize it to help other veterans?' "

Stacy and a partner attempted to start their own company in Colorado to sponsor wilderness expeditions for veterans finding difficulty adjusting to civilian life. But funding proved problematic. Finally, he recalls, "We realized that in order to get more veterans outside, we needed an organization with national reach." 

He went back to the Sierra Club, which hired him in 2011 to run its military veterans outdoor program. Funny thing is, the higher Stacy Bare rose through the ranks of the Sierra Club--he is now the director of all outdoor programs--the kookier the "fringies" got.

"It was always a hoot when some of my old Army buddies found out what I was doing," he says. "They'd call and say, ‘What are you doing working for that anti-American, New World Order outfit?' People would tell me that our national parks were the places where international troops were training and plotting with the United Nations to take over America.

"And then there was the other side, Sierra Club members calling to ask me to ask if I was infiltrating the organization in order to militarize it.

"Man oh man, there's fringies everywhere."Earlier this summer, before Stacy and his group departed for their trek through the Last Frontier, he mentioned that the ideal outcome of the Alaskan expedition, "would be for guys to continue to engage in their healing process. I want these vets to come away from this committed to continue to get outside because there's a foundational element to this healing process. I want them saying, ‘I want to go deeper into this and I want to lead my other veteran brothers and sisters out in the country.' I also want them to learn that our public lands are incredibly important. Not only are they helping me overcome my PTSD, but we all have to fight to keep those lands as they are for other veterans who also need that help."

So now that he's back, I naturally ask him if he met those goals.

"Oh, yeah," he says. "It was incredible. And it speaks to the heart of the role that outdoor therapy can play in the healing process. Why hiking in Alaska? Why ice climbing anywhere? Why white-water rafting? Hell, why just a walk in your local park? Because veterans have lived intense lives, and we have seen some things that are just awesome--and I don't mean awesome as either good or bad; just as in, ‘That is some awe-inspiring shit. I don't know what to do with it.'

"And then you come home from deployment and say, ‘Where is the excitement? Where is the thing that I really believe is worth fighting for?' You're a warrior one day and the next you're mowing your lawn or unplugging the toilet. For some that is enough. But not for every vet, including so many fighting the inner demons that are the residue of combat.

"I'm not knocking sitting in a circle in a room undergoing group therapy. That's helpful for a lot of folks.  But a big part of group therapy for PTSD sufferers is talking it out, and for a lot of vets like me, it's just so hard to open up, to learn to trust again. Well, what do you think happens at the end of the day on one of these expeditions? Being outdoors has taught me and so many other veterans how to open up. How to be vulnerable. How to trust people. As one of the guys said one night around the campfire, ‘It takes some time to learn to be comfortable in your own discomfort again.' Even I didn't realize how much I missed that. None of us had pushed ourselves this hard in a long time, since our deployments. We talked every night about achieving the things we dreamed about, and how to keep ourselves accountable to those dreams. To that end several of the guys want to keep doing this by becoming expedition leaders themselves. Trainers training t rainers, to in turn train more veterans to become trainers."

Stacy estimates that over the past year all Sierra Club activities tailored specifically for military veterans--from rigorous mountain climbs to fly-fishing expeditions to outdoor picnics--attracted some 3,000 former military servicemen and women and their families. "The year before," he says, "maybe we touched about 400 people. So the exponential effect, well, I wouldn't want to guess, but I can tell you that it's going to just keep becoming more and more significant."   

Which brings me full circle to Aaron Alexis and the Navy Yard slaughter. I can only wrap my mind around the senselessness with the old GI question: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

So instead, today I prefer to dwell on Stacy Bare, and his Alaska journey, and all the PTSD sufferers who do not succumb to their demons. To those who reach for a piton or a fishing rod or a kayak oar instead of an AR-15. It is a pity I must fool myself so.

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How Belly Fat Attacks

How Belly Fat Attacks

THE MAN ON THE OPERATING TABLE is UNDER IV sedation, facedown, circles drawn around the flabbiest parts of his body. He's painted with iodine and has two small holes punched through the soft skin of his lower back. Board-certified New York City plastic surgeon David Shafer, M.D., aligns the tip of a foot-long suction wand, called a cannula, with one of the holes. He carefully places it beneath the skin. It makes a slurping sound like a straw sucking at the bottom of a milkshake. For the next hour, Dr. Shafer will be hoovering adipose fat cells from the man's back, flanks, and stomach.

This is where men tend to collect the most fat, explains Dr. Shafer--above the waist and over the ab muscles. He reaches down to grab a handful of the loose flab on the man's torso. "This is what we call subcutaneous fat," he says. It's the soft stuff you feel when you pinch your own belly. Then Dr. Shafer sweeps his hand across the patient's midsection, the soft cavit y containing the intestines, kidneys, and liver. "And see how the gut swells outward? That's the visceral fat pushing from beneath the rectus muscles." That's the dangerous stuff.

When researchers in St. Louis tracked a group of liposuction patients after surgery, they found zero improvement in blood pressure, triglycerides, glucose tolerance, or HDL or LDL cholesterol profiles. The pale, gloppy fat that a patient pays to have removed isn't pretty, but its absence doesn't guarantee the health profile of a lean, fit person. That's because visceral fat, the kind that wraps around your organs and makes you unhealthy, is also the kind that liposuction can't reach. "There's no safe way to suck around the heart, kidney, and liver," says Dr. Shafer. "It's just too dangerous."

The more researchers learn about body fat, the more they've come to view it as a multi-faceted substance. In a sense, it's not unlike the fat in food. The artery-clogging trans fat in partially h ydrogenated margarine isn't the same as the heart-healthy monounsaturated fat in olive oil, right? Well, neither is the fat around your quads the same as the fat around your liver. In terms of its impact on your health, the amount of fat your body carries is less important than where your body stores it.

"It's still not completely understood, but fat behaves very differently on different parts of the body," says Dr. Shafer. The better your grasp of this concept, the better you'll understand the need to target your body's most dangerous fat. (Get the latest nutrition tips to lose your gut without starving. Sign up for the Men's Health Belly Off! newsletter.)

HIDDEN FAT FACT 1
Body fat saved your ancestors

Say you're a hungry caveman plodding along the tundra and you spot a 6-ton woolly mammoth wandering on the horizon. You wa nt an energy source that kicks into action immediately so you can chase and kill the beast. That's very likely the reason men store more upper-body fat than women do, says Fredrik Karpe, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Oxford. Men were the hunters. "Upper-body fat, including visceral fat, is a kind of fight-and-flight depot that both stores and releases energy very easily," he says.

It does this through a process called lipolysis, which breaks clumps of fat into fatty acids that your muscles can use as energy. In visceral fat, lipolysis occurs at an unusually high rate. It's an ongoing process of deconstruction and reconstruction that keeps your bloodstream flooded with fat. This high concentration of fat compounds can bog down your liver and jack up LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

The big problem today is that our bodies still hold on to visceral fat even though we're no longer starving cavemen. "Those fat depots ar e no longer useful," says Dr. Karpe. "It comes at a price to have such easily mobilized fat." But regular exercise can help neutralize those cardiovascular risks, says Dr. Karpe. When you put your muscles to work, they release enzymes that pluck circulating triglycerides from the blood and burn them off as fuel, which can help clear danger from your arteries.

HIDDEN FAT FACT 2
Body fat below the waist is not as dangerous

Visceral fat is a threat for another reason: It's highly susceptible to inflammation. "As the amount of stored fat increases, it triggers a cellular response designed to recruit immune cells," says Michael Schwartz, M.D., director of the diabetes and obesity center of excellence at the University of Washington. This leads to inflammation and can result in insulin resistance and a host of diseases associated with metabolic syndrome.

Fat below the waist behaves differently than visceral fat. "From an evolutiona ry standpoint, we believe that lower-body fat is intended as long-term storage. It's packed away, so it doesn't harm the rest of the body, and we use it as a last reserve," says Dr. Karpe. According to a 2010 review conducted by Dr. Karpe, below-the-belt fat produces fewer inflammatory compounds, which means less cardiovascular damage. This gives women a health advantage because they tend to store more fat in their lower bodies than men do. The fat women tend to carry on their hips? "That's one of the reasons we think women are more resistant to heart disease," Dr. Karpe says. For cutting-edge tips to lower your heart disease risk, follow these 5 New Tips to Help Your Heart.

HIDDEN FAT FACT 3
Body fat is far more than a calorie storage tank

Five or 10 years ago, researchers and physicians viewed fat merely as a storage system for energy--a soft balloon filled with calories. But they've since come to recognize it as an instrument that plays a critical role in your body's metabolic function. "Fat is the largest endocrine organ in the body," says David Piston, Ph.D., a professor of molecular physiology and biophysics at Vanderbilt University.

Even a 160-pound man with 13 percent body fat (that's a lean guy) has more than 20 pounds of fat. And that fat--or more specifically, the adipose cells that store fatty triglycerides and keep them out of the blood--is extremely important to his body's hormone regulation.

Consider leptin. This hormone is produced inside fat tissue, and without it you could theoretically eat until your stomach burst. Leptin regulates how responsive your body is to the "I'm full " signals coming from your stomach. The more fat cells you have, the more leptin you have circulating in your blood, so you'll feel full on less food. But while this important signal registers well in lean people, it seems to be ineffective in overweight people.

And that's just one of about 300 compounds coming from fat, says Dr. Karpe. Alas, not all of them are as benign as leptin. "When tissue is inflamed and overfilled with fat, it can pump out a lot of nasty stuff," he says. That "stuff" can hijack your appetite, reprogram your fat-storage mechanisms, contribute to conditions like arthritis, and drive your triglyceride levels to deadly heights.

The best way to cut inflammation? Yep, pack some physical activity into each day. Researchers at Appalachian State University recently determined that highly fit people who reported frequently engaging in moderate exercise such as cycling, swimming, or jogging had nearly 50 percent less C-reactive protein, a marker f or inflammation, in their blood than people who were unfit and rarely exercised.


HIDDEN FAT FACT 4
Visceral fat undermines your manhood

There's a concrete connection between testosterone and visceral fat, and it works in two ways, says Farid Saad, Ph.D., head of scientific affairs for Men's Healthcare at Bayer Pharma in Berlin, Germany.

First, inadequate testosterone levels direct muscle cells to turn into (or "differentiate" into) fat, and second, visceral fat produces substances that suppress testosterone production. So as the visceral bulge grows in your belly, testosterone drops, and your body is less likely to grow muscle. If the spiral goes unchecked, you can end up overweight with no motivation to change. "Men with testosterone deficiency are also quite low on energy," says Saad. "You can tell them a thousand times to exercise, and they won't do it."

According to Saad, short-term testosteron e supplements may be a viable solution. A 2012 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, for instance, found that men who received 20 weeks of testosterone supplementation gained fat-free, lean mass. "For men with deficiencies, 1 or 2 years of supplementation might completely break the cycle," says Saad. (Don't let this happen to you! Protect your sperm and hormones--that's What More Testosterone Can Do For You.)

HIDDEN FAT FACT 5
Skinny people are not immune

Low body fat is a pretty good indicator of health, but a dangerous clump of fat can still hide behind a flat belly. In a study published in Nature Genetics last year, researchers discovered a gene that causes those with it to carry less body fat than those without it. Surprisingly, though, people with that gene (especially men) had a higher ratio of visceral fat to subcutaneous fat. They also had higher triglycerides and lower HDL cholesterol--a risky combo that can contribute to heart disease.

What's more, it might take no more than a couple of ounces of some types of body fat to threaten your life. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have recently begun looking into a type of fat called perivascular fat, which clumps around the arteries leading into your heart. "For so long the dogma has been that all of the disease was coming from within the artery and traveling outward," says David Manka, Ph.D., lead researcher. "What we're showing is that the fat growing around these arteries is causing the disease on the inside. This perivascular fat tends to be loaded with inflammatory cells in a way that even visceral fat isn't."

You can't tell how much perivascular fat a man has by looking at him, so it's not easy to diagnose. And even though it may seem related to overall body fat, Manka's collaborato rs found plenty of perivascular fat on otherwise lean organ donors when they harvested samples. His team recently received government funding for further research into this heart flab, but in the meantime, eating smart and exercising are always good ideas even if you're at your ideal weight. "Perivascular fat seems very sensitive to changes in the nutritional state," he says. "Keep an eye on your overall fitness level. That's going to have a big impact."

 

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The Incredible 82-Day Speed Shred

The Incredible 82-Day Speed Shred

"I just saw my reflection in my pool of sweat," says B.J. Gaddour, C.S.C.S.

He pauses, then looks up and screams with excitement: "That's the first time that's happened!"

Gaddour might be playing with us, but there's enough sweat on the floor to make it believable. And he's not yet even finished with the 30-minute workout he's filming for Men's Health DeltaFIT: Speed Shred, our all-new 8-DVD fitness program that blasts fat, torches calories, and sculpts every muscle in your body.

As Gaddour pushes through every routine--there are 18 workouts in all--his passion for helping people get leaner and fitter than they ever thought possible seems to literally drip out of him. "That's not just sweat," he yells. "Those are change droplets."

And surely, he's right: They are change droplets. But did you ever thi nk of your sweat that way? Once you experience Men's Health DeltaFIT and Gaddour's Speed Shred program, it'll be impossible not to.

The New Way to Train

It's not every day we launch a fitness movement. In fact, we never have. But that's what we're doing with Men's Health DeltaFIT and the Speed Shred DVD program. So what is it, exactly? DeltaFIT is a fitness system based around "metabolic resistance training." The kind of intense, fast-paced training that lights your muscles on fire, torches fat, and skyrockets your endurance. The kind of training that makes you sweat buckets.

If it doesn't jump out at you, "Delta," or Δ, is a Greek letter that, in mathematics and science, is used as a symbol for "change." In the case of DeltaFIT, think: Change your body. Transform it. Make it look, perform, and feel better. The DeltaFIT mantra: "Make a change!"

And while "FIT" is seemingly obvious, it's also our acronym for Fast Intense Training. FIT is what makes change hap pen.

All of this positions Gaddour as the perfect leading man for our first DVD series. Change and intensity, it seems, are what he's all about.

At 29, Gaddour is known as a top Men's Health fitness adviser, and one of the most shredded guys you'll probably ever meet. As the saying goes, his abs have abs. And his biceps have biceps. But when he was in high school, Gaddour weighed 275 pounds and wore size 44 pants. Worse, he suffered from debilitating knee pain that made him feel like he "was 17 going on 77."

On a family cruise, he saw a photo of himself that inspired him to make a change. "I knew I was overweight," he says. "But for some reason, I had never seen myself as I really looked. That picture literally changed my life."

It's changed thousands of other lives, too. That's because Gaddour has become one of the world's leading metabolic training and fitness boot-camp experts. It's not just the workouts themselves that are so effective; it's the intensity that Gaddour brings to them when he coaches. "I consider every workout a fat-burning battle that gets you ready to conquer the 'fight' that is life," says Gaddour. "If you can get through these workouts, everything else you do in life will be easier."

But there's one other major reason Gaddour gets results: People love his workouts. "Through coaching thousands of fitness boot camps, I've learned that people simply get bored with conventional strength-training routines, no matter how well-designed or effective they are," says Gaddour. "Yet they often can't get enough of DeltaFIT-style metabolic workouts."

The Secret of DeltaFIT

You might call "metabolic resistance training" both an evolution and a fusion of a classic circuit workout and high-intensity interval training.

Like classic circuit training, you'll do one exercise, rest, and then do a different exercise. But unlike the typical circuit-training approach--which is often eight basic exercises that each target one major muscle group--you'll use athletic-based movements that work multiple muscles, from multiple directions. Movements like the one-arm burpee with a row, the dumbbell reverse lunge and swing, and the levitating pushup (all of which you'll find in Speed Shred). Yet these exercises are still organized in such way that they don't "compete" with each other.

A simple way to describe this is that you might do an upper-body exercise followed by a lower-body exercise. A s you'll see in Speed Shred, though, there are far more imaginative ways to use this strategy to create a routine. But the benefit: "By working more muscle in every exercise, you'll build greater total-body strength, while torching calories at a blistering pace," says Gaddour. 

What's more, instead of doing a prescribed number of repetitions for each exercise, you'll do every set for a specific period of time. "This is where the fusion of high-intensity interval training figures in," says Gaddour. For example, workouts in which you sprint hard for, say, 30 seconds, and then rest for 30 seconds.

For years, Men's Health has reported on the benefits of using these types of sprint intervals as way to efficiently burn calories, boost metabolism, and improve fitness levels. But there's just one problem: With sprinting --whether you're running or cycling--you're limited with how long you can perform the activity before having to stop. That's because you're fatiguing the same muscle group interval after interval, which ultimately leads to complete exhaustion. "While you burn a ton of calories per minute during these workouts, most people simply can't sustain an activity like this for longer than 10 minutes," says Gaddour. "That is, if they're truly working hard enough."

But what if you could do a high-intensity interval workout for 30 minutes? How many calories could you burn? What kind of change could you make? "A pretty amazing one," says Gaddour.

This is where combining a cutting-edge circuit with an interval-based approach creates a genius solution. Instead of doing a single mode of exercise for each sprint, just think of the exercises in your circuit as your "sprints."

Since the exercises are non-competing, you won't experience fatigue as fast, even though your h eart rate will go through the roof with every interval. And you can vary your work and rest periods--even eliminate rest periods altogether--depending on your goal.

The result: "You'll do more work at a higher intensity than with any other system," says Gaddour. "And yes, it trains every muscle, but the cardio effect is also unbelievable. You won't have to wear a heart rate monitor to know how hard you're working."

Perhaps most important, Gaddour says that people just like this fast-paced, timed-approach better than typical rep-counting. "There's not a minute wasted and there's nothing to think about; you just work and sweat," he says. "And when you're done, you feel like you've conquered the world. That feeling is what keeps you coming back."

And no doubt, that's the real secret of DeltaFIT--the real secret of change. Start creating your own change droplets today, with Gaddour's cutting-edge Speed Shred. With 18 workouts--and hundreds of cutting-edge exercises-- this plan will change the way you train forever. All to get you lean, ripped, and shredded!

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Is It Safe to Lift While Pregnant?

Is It Safe to Lift While Pregnant?

Why one woman is getting a lot of flack for her prenatal exercise routine Continue reading →

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Wednesdays Workout| Tone It Up Frisky Fall Challenge

Wednesdays Workout| Tone It Up Frisky Fall Challenge

 

It’s the start of a new season, my favourite one… Autumn! I love the chan ge in weather, the crisp cool mornings, the changing colours of the leaves, the cosy evenings in front of a fire, and all the cute accessories… hello gloves, hats, scarves and boots!

Anyways, although this post isn’t a single workout as it normally is, it’s a whole workout plan and schedule free for you for the next 6 weeks! The Tone It Up girls have embraced the change of season and created a new Frisky Fall Challenge for their followers. Their challenges are basically a workout plan and schedule to follow with free workouts and tips, and the option of paying for their nutritional guide. I haven’t bought the guide but do love their workouts. But what I love most is the community they create. Those who participate in Tone It Up very often have Instagram and Twitter accounts solely for Tone It Up purposes, they “check in” each time they do a workout; so take pictures of their run or calories burnt, and share the meals they’ve eaten for that day. By searching the official hashtag on either Instagram or Twitter you can meet thousands of girls who are all supporting each other; it’s very motivating!

I attempted their Bikini Series Challenge during the summer, but didn’t do fantastically, which is why I’m going to give it my all during the #FriskyFall Challenge. The challenge is for 6 weeks and runs from Monday just passed to Halloween… so we’ll all look great in our fancy dress costumes!

To follow the challenge Tone It Up say you are to complete each workout challenge they give- everyday; check-in once you have completed it; journal your nutrition; and workout in the morning at least 4 times a week.  To keep us motivated the Tone It Up girls also hand out prizes to those who continually check-in.

I’m very much aiming for progress not perfection. It’s always about taking baby steps for me, as if I tackle too much I become overwhelmed and unmotivated when I fail. So I have set my goals for the next 6 weeks with this in mind. My goals are;

• BootyCall Morning Workout at least 5 times a week
• Complete the #100ByHalloween Challenge- Run 100 miles by Halloween.
• Meal Prep every Sunday
• Each completely clean 5 days out of 7 (Massive goal for me, who very often grazes on snacks/ treats I shouldn’t)

I’m joining in on the challenge and I imagine loyal Tone It Up girl Jayne Becca will be also. If you fancy it please let me know and we can support each other! If you’re unsure, give the hashtags #FriskyFall #100ByHalloween #ToneItUp #TIU a search on Instagram or Twitter and see how motivating challenges and communities such as these can be!

I hope you take up the challenge. It’s only for 6 weeks… imagine how good you will feel and how amazing you will look after 6 weeks commitment to a new workout schedule!

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The Easy Way to Eat Less Candy

The Easy Way to Eat Less Candy

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The Fitness Class That Burns More Calories Than Cycling

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