Nutritional Seminar

Need a kick-start with your healthy eating? I seem to have fallen off the good eating wagon, but am starting in ernest today to be good again! I will be at this seminar to see if Kyle can motivate me to stay on track. Hope to see you there.

Hey Everyone,

I'm running a an info-packed nutrition seminar.

Next Sunday June 6th, 11 am, at Bang Fitness

It's everything you need to know to get started:
- What to eat
- When
- How much
- The key to health, energy, and weight loss
- other stuff like eating on the run
- you receive handouts of the info

This would cost you $100-$200 in session but our seminar is ONLY $75

We're trying to make nutrition as accessible as possible to the members. This is the most economical way to provide this information.

Existing packaged clients can come for free.

Hope to see you there!

Kyle Byron
Nutritionist
BSc Human Nutrition (Hons.)
Certified Personal Trainer
BA (Hons.)
416.459.9956www.kylebyronnutrition.com
Expertise and support make results easy

Search for Kyle Byron Nutrition on Facebook - "like" it for free info!

Dirty Foods

check out this article if you want to know the 10  dirtiest foods you may be eating?

15 Seconds Of Tabata Fame!!

Click here to see the video segment of Jane and I on Global TV last night.
Bear in mind I sweat like a man - totally gross I know! I possess a healthy hydration system :)
It was so much fun to do, and hopefully it will highlight a few of the benefits of incorporating metabolic training into your resistance training schedule.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Sweat and Grunting on Global TV

My fellow fitness colleague Jane Clapp from Urbanfitt, invited me to her studio last week to take part in a Tabata style class.  Along with 10 or so other victims clients we embarked on a crazy workout that left all of us ready to hit the deck in a puddle of sweat.  It was so much fun, but bloody hard work.

The reason for my invite was because Jane was being interviewed by Global TV Health Watch for a segment on Tabata and how it can be incorporated into your workout.

As a follow up to the workout, Global came to my house yesterday to interview myself with the kids, to demonstrate how I, as a busy parent, can manage to juggle raising the kids, working from home, doing my blog and still fit in workouts.

It was lots of fun, my kids who were nervous at first really loved the idea of being on camera, my oldest boy now thinks he is famous!!

This will be aired tonight on Global News around 6.15 - 6.45pm.  Check it out and if you miss it I will post the online version tomorrow.  I don't have cable unfortunately, so I won't see it until the following day either!!

I will be around Dewson School Friday at 4pm if anybody wants autographs :)  (snigger snigger!)

Thanks Jane for the invite - you rock!!

Jamie Oliver

I love Jamie Oliver, its not because he is British and convincing the rest of the world that we do eat good food in the UK. I love him because of his values and his genuine concerns for the welfare of us all, kids especially.  I have most of his cookbooks and refer to them often.  And guess what if you have an iPhone, he has a great new app for 20 Minute Meals .

Check it out, looks great!

A Print a day

A non-fitness related post today, but still relevant to me as a graphic designer. After celebrating both my boys birthdays this last week, I should look to start writing up the thank you cards.  Maybe I will check out some of the free stationery on this website. The artist has some great designs to download and print, plus for those of you who are into Photoshop there are some great brush designs to download, I love this one.

Parkour with some crazy milfs and one filf

written by Jane Clapp of Urbanfitt

Last night, despite being totally exhausted and having to start work at 7am today and finish tonight at 8:30 while I should have been getting some beauty sleep for a big media interview tonight, I joined some awesome tough and fun peeps for my first parkour class at The Monkey Vault.
 What is Parkour? I didn't know exactly until last night. This is taken from Wikipedia:
 "In September 2009, American Parkour began a community effort to define parkour. They invited the entire community to post their personal definition of parkour. It was edited into the final version by a committee of American Parkour employees and people outside of American Parkour to ensure that it was truly a community effort. Their result:

Parkour is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one's path by adapting one's movements to the environment.
 * Parkour requires... consistent, disciplined training with an emphasis on functional strength, physical conditioning, balance, creativity, fluidity, control, precision, spatial awareness, and looking beyond the traditional use of objects.
* Parkour movements typically include... running, jumping, vaulting, climbing, balancing, and quadrupedal movement. Movements from other physical disciplines are often incorporated, but acrobatics or tricking alone do not constitute parkour.
* Parkour training focuses on... safety, longevity, personal responsibility, and self-improvement. It discourages reckless behavior, showing off, and dangerous stunts.
* Parkour practitioners value... community, humility, positive collaboration, sharing of knowledge, and the importance of play in human life, while demonstrating respect for all people, places, and spaces.
 —American Parkour Community Definition"

 First of all just let me say, I'm a big believer in finding one's MOJO however possible. If you read the description of what Monkey Vault does, it's right up the MOJO mastering alley.
 "This centre is a place for movement. Parkour, Art Du Deplacement, Freerunning, Street Acrobatics, whatever you want to call what you do, the base of each remains the same. Each requires discipline, each requires proper training. That's why this place exists. That's why the people inside it train so passionately. This place was created to inspire others to reach newer and higher levels, push people past their previous boundaries, and allow them to prove to themselves what they are made of. We all have monkeys inside us, but as we grow older this feeling, this passion for movement dies away. It shouldn`t. Come play with us, let us help you revive it."

I was freaked out as Amanda can attest to. I'm like "I don't want to break a limb. I have to be all good for tomorrow."

Last night I went to bed bruised, elated and a little tipsy after a glass of vino with the parkour mamas. We jumped, we flipped, we crawled down stairs face first and we did things we never thought we could. We LOVED it.

Here are some samples of what we did. Check it out!

We ran right into hard objects and jumped over them. This is me.

We threw our bodies through metal ladders feet first. Here's Amanda and Ali mastering this.

We scaled walls. Here's Randy, Amanda and Ali.

We finished with an obstacle course and climbed railings and jumped into a pile of foam. Here's me and Mandy doing it.

Here's a great picture of Randy mid air.

Then we ended the night with chuckles and snacks and all agree it was hard to sleep last night after all that good clean fun. Thanks Dan. You really showed us all a good time.

Yay for Parkour!

Underground Yoga

Everything is going underground here in Toronto, it seems to be the cool new thing to not know where you will be eating until an hour before you leave the house, armed only with a password and a savage hunger.  Well it seems now that the yoga community have joined this mysterious society in the form of Yoga Happenings.

Using social media systems like Twitter and Facebook, yogis from around the city will find out just one or 2 hours in advance where the yoga class will be held.  Its aim is to target all levels from novice to advanced, hoping encourage yoga enthusiasts to lose ties with their regular instructors, schedule and venue, to try something new.

One of the creators is JP from Octopus Garden Yoga, who I have practised with on numerous occasions.  I think the idea of this society is exciting, but not sure if being spontaneous and being a yogi really work - I can imagine it being a little stressful, but hope I am proved wrong

image from dentisttx.com.

How To Keep Kids Active.

My son's are both celebrating their birthdays this week, the oldest will be 7 and the youngest 3.


For the 7 year olds party, he decided that he wanted a soccer and hockey theme. We all went to the local park and 12 kids played both sports stopping only for pizza and cake.  It was great to see the passion and excitement they all got from playing sports and it made me think how easy it really is to keep your kids active, providing you keep things light-hearted and interesting.


Here are two great articles giving ideas of how to keep kids moving, revisiting some of your old playground games, involving yourself in their activities and making things FUN!!!


10 ways to de-sissify your kids.
Revisit the Playground by Nick Grantham (who happens to be one of the best strength coaches in the UK) 


Recently The Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) and ParticipACTION released new guidelines for the amount of exercise kids need each day, 90 minutes per day - Active Healthy Kids Canada suggested only 12 per cent of young Canadians actually meet the current recommendation.



image from soggyfruit.files.wordpress.com

National Bike To Work Week

Now that the good weather is upon us, its a great chance to pump up your tyres for Bike To Work Week.  We are lucky here in Toronto that there are some bike lanes (not enough though!) that make commuting through the city not to challenging.  I have a bike seat attached to mine, so I can sling my 3 year old on board and we cycle all over the place.

I have tried to get my husband to cycle to his place of work, but he comes up with so many reasons why he can't or won't, probably similar to the ones here - where you will also find answers to those poor excuses.

here is a map of Toronto's cycle paths and a link to the facebook page.

So saddle up and crank up that cadence.

short sport skirts

I love this product, my friend at the gym wears one of these skirts and they look so stylish, yet are so practical.  The Canadian Outlet, currently has a 50% sale on, so check it out for some great bargains.


The philosophy of the the company is that fitness can be fashionable, flattering and most of all functional.  The women who created the product are busy mothers, who also run marathons.  They claim these skirts are great for  5k, marathon, ultra-marathon or ironman triathlon or our own everyday "ironmom" triathlon: run, school & soccer. 



The skirts are made with a special sweat-wicking fabrics, our runner tested, high performance running skirts are very comfortable.  Unlike shorts, there is nothing to bunch between the legs.  These skirts are made without any interior seams that could cause rubbing and chaffing of your unmentionables (ouch!).  The running skirt and attached brief stays put in all the right places...the skirt doesn't flip up and the briefs don't ride up (no, your bum doesn't show).   The athletic skirt is made with compression shorts with longer inseams that stay put and don't ride up when you workout.


Nobody said you couldn't look good while you exercised :)

I'm Leaving Home To Join The Circus!!

Well I did leave home for an hour last night to go to circus school.  

In an attempt to try out some new and fun fitness activities to compliment all these hard workouts I am doing, I decided to give trapeze and silks a try.  My two friends, Ali and Mandy and I  all went to Upside Downside Circus, ran by Zoe Gould for an introductory class.

After a warm-up Zoe had us straight on the trapeze, doing a few tricks, then onto the silks (which are actually not silk, but a two-way stretch polyester - which makes them very bouncy!).  We had such a brilliant time, it was so much fun. We surprised ourselves by how well we did, we expected bigger failure I think.  And I highly recommend you trying something fun like this too, it made us feel young and daft, like big kids!

Here are a few photos to give you an idea of how this introduction class went:

This was called a birds nest, it felt great!

 Mandy doing the splits on trapeze

Ali hanging around in the silks

this was called sleeping beauty or a corpse (you decide!)

Finally we ended the class learning how to climb the silks, we were all pretty intimidated by it, but managed to get our heads around it. It was so much fun climbing to the top of the room!  I fear now that our days out with the kids in the park will never be the same - WATCH OUT MONKEY BARS, HERE WE COME!!

Greek Yoghurt

image from wholefoods.com

One of the few things I really missed when I left the UK was the yoghurt. It is so creamy and rich, whereas the stuff here in North America seems so bitter and watery (that is unless you use the 10% fat variety!)

Then to my delight a friend told me that the stores are now stocking greek yoghurt with 0% fat!! Have you tried it before? Its pretty easy to get hold of in the UK, but here its flying off the shop shelves like gold-dust.  Currently the only variety I have found here is Liberte, hopefully the other brands will follow soon.

 It is delicious to eat, with so many health benefits that you should make this a staple in your fridge.

benefits:
- almost double the protein of regular yoghurt (20g per cup)
- lower in carbs (9g per cup, compared to 14g in plain yoghurt)
- greek yoghurt is triply strained to remove more of the whey, making it thicker and creamer
- contains about 50% less sodium than conventional yoghurt.

disadvantages:
- due to the triple straining process, greek yoghurt contains 2-3 times less calcium.


My favourite way to eat it, is to simply add some honey and walnuts with a handful of blueberries.
Sooo yummy!!

Fitlosophy E-Newsletter

I have signed up for a great monthly newsletter from the Fitbook people.  Receive the fitlosophy e-newsletter for fitness + nutrition tips, special fitbooker-only promos, product announcements, recipes, and more. Just enter your email in the top right hand corner of the homepage.

7 Reasons To Love Citrus

1. It was Mothers Day here in North America yesterday, and to my surprise my husband and kids bought be a beautiful necklace from Citrus Silver, etched with both my boys names.  The jewellery sold on this website is so unique and well made, you will love it.
2. Citrus fruits are rich in vitamin C content, acidic content and are good sources of minerals, carbohydrates and fibers.
3. They also contain essential nutrients like calcium, copper, folate, potassium, magnesium, niacin and vitamin B6 required for the proper functioning of the body.
4. Grab an orange, these have been attributed to a wide array of phytonutrients that function as antioxidants, including flavanones, anthocyanins, polyphenols, and vitamin C.
5. Citrus peel contains beneficial compounds such as polymethosxylated flavones (PMFs) and d-limonene that have been found to lower cholesterol, balance blood sugar, and activate liver detoxification. 
6. In Chinese cuisine, orange peel is often served as an accompaniment to red meat. The reason for this is that, according to Chinese medicine, orange peel aids in digestion of rich, fatty foods. 
7. Most people link oranges to vitamin C, but they are also high in folate. Folate is believed to play a role in the creation of serotonin -- the brain's happy chemical. 

So grab yourself an orange today or maybe grab yourself some silver Citrus instead!

Food tracking - there's an App for that.

Research over the past few years has shown how important it is to track your goals to achieve success.  I have previously written about Fitbook which is an awesome product.  Then a friend highlighted this iPhone app to me and I thought it was worth sharing.




Here's what FoodTracker contains:

• - Track all the major food groups so nothing is left out
• - Set goals for each food group
• - Clear definitions on serving sizes so there's no confusion
• - Charts and visual indicators of your goals and progress
• - A full history of your entire food intake
• - Beautiful graphics with a clean and simple style

I like the fact there is a water tracker as I personally find it tough to consume enough H2O.
Now all thats left to do is go and get myself an iPhone!

Judy, where have you been?

Its been a while since we have heard from Judy on my blog, and also a while since I have met up with Judy to find out how she is doing in her fat-loss program.  A few of my readers have been enquiring on her progress, so here is an update she sent me today.


I'm proud to say that I completed the Sporting Life 10k race for kids with cancer on Sunday May 2nd.  I honestly wasn't sure whether I was actually going to do it or not and decided that morning at 5am that I would go.  I was fighting two ear infections and a sinus infection on top of that.  I really don't enjoy jogging and had one 3 mile practice run about two weeks before the day of the 10k race.  I was not prepared.  However, I did complete it in 1.001mins without stopping the whole way.  Hurray for me!!!!!!  

I'm still going to the gym at least 3 days a week and have started riding my bike with the kids.  That means one on the seat attached to my bike and the other in the trailer behind.  It's a good load.    

My downfall is my eating and it's not what I'm eating (I eat right foods) it's how much I eat.  Not enough sometimes.  I have to make a conscious effort of eating every three hours and drinking.  I haven't weighed myself and the measuring tape tells me that things haven't really changed since the last time we measured me.  I have to get back to work.  I desperately need to lose this tire around my waist by July.  We are planning a trip to Greece and I WANT to look my best!  Amanda you probably feel like you're beating a dead horse.     


Over the next week or so I will meet up with Judy and try to get her back on track.  It is pretty common to lose focus along the way, so hopefully with a new workout plan, re-enforcement of the using the journal and the incentive too look good on holiday, she will start to see more improvements. 


After all I think we are owed some new photos, maybe bikini shots from Greece?

Is 13 Too Young To Climb Everest?

Anybody who knows anything about me knows that I have always wanted to climb Everest - even if I could just get to Base Camp on Everest I would be a happy bunny.  I still hold onto that dream, but seriously after having 2 kids, I am just worried that I might die on that almighty mountain - to date over 200 people have died, with 120 corpses still remaining.  I still want the challenge of climbing one of the biggies, but know it will be one with a more impressive mortality record.

Jordan Romero is only 13 and already plans to scale Everest with his parents. They have had no experience climbing the tallest mountain in the world, and do not even plan to use a specialist team to guide them, simply hiring sherpas to help them on their way.  The mountaineering community is disputing whether this is just a publicity stunt and if Jordan (and his parents) really understand the risks that lie ahead of them.

click here to read the full article.

Most people have heard of Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, the mountaineer who was part of the 1996 expedition that took 8 lives. Definitely a book worth reading, but particularly as it highlights the extreme dangers of the climb. Another book which I would recommend  is Where The Mountain Casts Its Shadow by Maria Coffey, who herself is a mountaineering widow, she talks about the lives of the people left behind when tragedy like this strikes.

Get More Upbeat With A Drumstick

I am a total nightmare when it comes to eating chicken, I will only eat the breast meat, and it must not have any skin or bones on it.  Which is a real shame because the dark meat in chicken is so beneficial for you.


If you find your energy flagging, you may be lacking zinc and iron.  Chix thighs or drumsticks are the best way of getting both. The dark meat in poultry is lower in fat than red meat, yet has all the iron, zinc and Vit B you need to keep moving along.


I often bake a batch of chicken legs for my kids, especially if they have friends are popping over for dinner.  Click after the jump for a simple recipe that all the family will love.

Giveaway Winners.

The 2 lucky winners of Alyson Schafer's book, Honey I Wrecked The Kids, are Niel and Patricia.

Please drop me an email and let me know your mailing addresses.

Congrats!!