Review: Jillian Michaels' "Maximise Your Life" Event

Mimi here!

Been a bit absent of late...my apologies! Work and general life has been very hectic, but oor Weesse has been keeping you all entertained with some FABBY blog posts #siblinglove. 

So, it's true...I am a gym nut. I love me some exercise. I also love ANYTHING to do with health and nutrition. I am *that* person you see in the supermarket reading the back of the box/packet/tin of everything I pick up. I am *that* person who checks MyFitnessPal before lunch to see what of my options are the most nutritious. and yes, I am *that* person who knows the calorie and nutritional content of many a food off the top of her head! 

*Not me, but it could be. Image from http://www.sheknows.com/

So, if there is ever a weight loss/exercise/transformative programme on TV, you can bet I'll be watching it. I am a huge fan of the USA version of The Biggest Loser, and any other fan will tell you that the most exciting part of that show is ANYTHING involving either of the main trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels. Which leads me nicely onto an event I attended with fellow Kennedy Cupcake Carol on Sunday night!

Jillian Michaels, is one of the world's leading health and wellness experts. Her "Maximimise Your Life" tour has come to the UK for the first time ever...and I was at the first show in Glasgow! Her website states that "In this intimate and uniquely personal experience, Jillian shows you how to harness your potential, kick-start your goals and live an exceptional life, sharing her keys to health, success and happiness. No hype, no false promises: just results". 

Carol and I were both really looking forward to this event. I knew JM mainly from The Biggest Loser (but also from her really quite brilliant workout video 30 Day Shred) whereas Carol knew her mainly from her videos. for anyone that doesn't know much about JM, she has an infamous no nonsense approach to health and fitness. Don't expect any (no pun intended) sugar-coated advice. This is real. Hard. Stuff. And...it works. 

Carol and I went for a GORGEOUS yet quick dinner at La Rotunda, just next to the "Armadillo" venue in Glasgow. Carol opted for a salad with red onion relish and baked goat's cheese, while I chose pan fried fillet of salmon, Mediterranean veg and baby potatoes. I did take pictures but I think we all know what a salad and some salmon looks like. If not you've clearly not been for dinner at my house #staplediet. 

The event doors were opening at 6:30pm, so Carol and I scoffed our 1 course and made may to the venue.

 

HOWEVER for whatever reason the doors didn't technically open at 6:30pm. Or 7pm. Or 7:30pm. No joke. Unfortunately we were waiting in the foyer for quite some time, lamenting our starters we could have had but didn't. When it comes to food, I MOURN for the meals I have missed out on!

ANYWAYS, after being seating in our original seats, we were kindly offered seats closer to the front due to the event not being sold out. RESULT. The talk eventually started at 8:10pm (which, to be honest was a bit late) but we were seated and we were excited about what the event would hold.

What followed was a 2 hour long talk split into 3 main sections:

• Food
• Exercise
• The Self

Being interested in health and being a fitness instructor, and Carol being a Personal Trainer, there was a lot of the first 2 sections that was already known to use. HOWEVER there were a few tit-bits that were actually extremely useful to us. The final section of the talk was extremely insightful in how to motivate, visualise goals and make them a reality. What follows below is a sort of whistle-stop tour of the main details I took from it, and what I think we could all use in our daily lives. I have applied everything I have written to weight loss and health, but the tips in the third section can be applied to ANY goal you might have in life. 

1. Fuel your body and mind. Eat real food...and if you want a treat? Make sure it's only 20% of the time. Know what to AVOID. Jillian also gave us a list of 10 Additives to AVOID. You can find them, and other tools, at http://www.jillianmichaelslive.com/myl-tools/. (There are obviously more detailed nutritional approaches to take if you need to but I'm not a nutritionist so will not be giving out that advice). 

Jillian highlighted that those interested in losing fat would benefit from knowing a few key figures (you can get calculators for the first 2 by Googling them):

• What is your BMR (the calories your body burns just LIVING)
• What is your AMR (the calories your body burns LIVING and WORKING)
• Know what calorie level you SHOULDN'T go under (men = 1600, women 1200) 

Provided you don't go below your lower calorie limit, if you ensure you have a 500 calorie per day deficit (through reducing food and through exercise), this should lead to a 1lb weight loss per week. If you don't wanna lose weight, don't go above your AMR. It's all in the math (which for me is a bummer because I still use my fingers to count). 

Got that? GOOD. 

2. Next on the list is to move. Doesn't have to be much. Just get your heart rate up. Get a sweat on. Go for a brisk walk. Run up and down your stairs. Do star jumps. Walk your dog. Dance in your pants in the house. COME TO A ZUMBA FITNESS CLASS (totes not biased). She gave us some other sums about calculating your the beats per minute your heart should reach for fat burn. These can be found quite easily by Googling something like "target heart rate for exercise". 

Got that? GREAT.

3. Lastly, we discussed goals and self improvement. Jillian proposed that if getting "healthy" is so easy...then why is it so HARD?! If losing weight is just 500 calorie deficit per day for 1lb weight loss per week while avoiding 10 main additives  then WHY do 95% of those who lose weight gain it back? It's not like people don't want to lose weight. Have you ever said or felt any of these things?:

"I'll start exercising once I'm fitter." 

"I'll go to the gym / a class once I'm smaller." 

"I'll feel better about myself once I've got healthier".

Fitter. Healthier. Smaller.

****What does that even MEAN?***** What does health, fitness or size even look like? 

Jillian encouraged us to be specific about our goals and to manage them in chunks. It was more productive to have a larger goal with smaller milestones, than 1 single massive overarching goal upon which you rested on all your hopes and dreams. Day by day, minute by minute results that you can congratulate yourself on when you reach them. Give your intentions some PERSPECTIVE and some ACTION. Ensure that every choice you make every day is CONTRIBUTING towards those goals.

So if we have all these small and large goals, why is it so hard to us to attain any goal and maintain that success? 

The answer? FEAR. "What if I fail? What if it doesn't work? What if I feel worse? What if it's too hard?" Or, sometimes, more scarily...WHAT IF I SUCCEED?

It is never a question of CAN you do it, it was a question of WILL you. 

If you need motivation-Look inside of yourself. Look at your specific goals. LIVE THEM in your head. Same with your moments of hesitation. About to make a decision that isn't going to get you to your goal? LIVE IT. Stop and THINK about it. LIVE IT in that moment before you live it for real. Breathe. Make a different decision. Then do a happy dance cause you rock.

And if you do something you regret? If you fail? If it doesn't work? Learn from it. Get back up. Do it again, but differently. You did something, you learned from it, you moved on. HOW GOOD ARE YOU?

NONE OF THIS will do you any good unless you truly believe you deserve to reach your goals. Don't go on a mission to get healthy because you're "not good enough" as you are. Because you "need to be better". Do it BECAUSE you ARE good enough and you deserve to live a better life than one filled with discontent, illness, aches, pains, money worries, anxiety, feelings of guilt, inadequacy, WHATEVER. Enlist the help of a friend, someone you trust, or someone else with similar goals. Congratulate each other. Encourage each other. LIFT each other. And importantly, lift yourselves.But no one can believe in you if you don't believe in yourself. 

Got that? FABULOUS.

Ooft. Anybody else squished under the sheer WEIGHT or the awesomeness in that advice?

Anyways, Carol and I left the event feeling positively motivated. So much so that I have been following Jillian's nutritional advice and it's working for me. We got the (later than expected due to the later than expected start time) train home with scores of Slipknot fans (nope, Slipknot fans are not generally really into their kale, Pilates and motivational speaking...the band were playing next door in the Hydro). 

I suppose the only potential challenge particularly to the advice contained within the third section of the talk is, well, how REALISTIC is all this? We can't ALL be skinny billionnaires. We can't all give up our "mundane" jobs (speak for yourself, I like mine!) and become Martha Stewart-esque characters who go about driving top of the range cars bought  via our successful business selling books on knitting, working from home (part-time) in our 5 bedroom detatched beach house with our 3 perfect kids, our significant other and a labrador, taking long weekends doing downward dogs at sunrise. We have bills to pay. Doctors appointments to make. Tax returns to fill. Meals to cook. Sinks to unblock. Traffic to sit in. Arguments to have. Tears to cry. Necessary evils of life. 

I don't really think that's what it's about though. You can still hate your job and be earning shed loads of cash. You can LOVE your job and be earning buttons. I think the main message was that success looks very different for everyone, and whatever your "success" looks like, whatever that photo finish is, you have to run with it and make the choices to get there. Nothing happens by accident, and we are just about exactly where we have chosen to be in life, with the exception of those unfortunate tragedies that occur in our family and personal lives and are genuinely out with our control.

Now, what choice will you make next?