Crossfit Nation ~ Another Level Fitness LLC

10 ways to improve your well-being

1.  Smile more often.  It releases endorphins, lowers blood pressure, changes your mood, makes you more attractive, and is very contagious!

2. Eat a salad everyday.  Watchout for those salad dressings though.  Best bet simple olive oil and vinegar.

3. Make working out part of your daily routine.  Fit everything else in.  Once it's a habit you will miss it when you miss it!!

4. Grow a garden.  If you don't have a yard grow your veggies in pots.  Get your family involved.

5. Take walks by yourself in nature and just listen.

6. Connect with old friends.

7. Quit drinking soda.  It's trully one of the worst things you can put in your body!!  Especially diet sodas!

8. Practice random acts of kindness.  It always feels good to help someone out.  If we all worked together imagine what this world could be!!!

9. Push you limits.  A little fear helps you to see yur still alive!!!!

10. Love your life.  If you don't make it so you do.  It's all choices.

Louie loving life!!!!

Teamwork and Competition

Lets face it, working out by yourself sucks.  It helps to have a buddy working out with you.  Helps to hold you accountable.  The idea behind group classes in Crossfit is you are forming a buddy system.  Everyone knows your name.  The people in your class become your buddies, the motivation.  They miss you when you are not there.  They help cheer you on when you on when you can't do another rep.  They show you how to move forward.  Everyone starts at a different place.  If you see someone ahead of you it's like an invisible line pulling you along.  You will work harder to achieve the same status on the white board.  You want to beat them, run a little faster this time, add a little more weight.  We help each other to improve, to be the best we can be.

It's ok to be selfish

When it comes to your health it is ok to be selfish.   If you don't put yourself first everyone loses.  When your health suffers so does evryone around you.  Too tired to play with the kids, to tired to play with your spouse?  Work sucks, depressed, unmotivated....the list goes on and on.  You can go to your doctor and they can prescribe pills that may or may not work.  Have side effects that are worse than the problems you are expiriencing.  Or you can go workout for one hour a day, feel better about yourself, feel better about your life.  Be energetic for your kids, your spouse, your job.  Set aside one hour for yourself and everyone will feel the benefits.  You will find that everything else will find it's place and you will have the time, the energy, the drive to be the best person you can be.  You get one body for this life.  Why would you treat it like crap?  People take better care of thier cars.  It's sad to me.  Open your eyes and realize your potential.  Be selfish, the people in your life will love you for it. Bob brings his kids to the park with him when he works out on Saturdays. They not only have fun but watch their Dad exercising and learning good habits from him. What are your kids learning from you?

Lifting weights

Aside from building muscle weightlifting has many contributions to a healthy body.  It helps make your bones stronger as well.  No osteoporosis for me.  It works on coordination, power, and strength.  Picking up that cat litter bag or 50lb bag of dog food is nothing any more.  When olympic weightlifting just about every muscle in your body is being used right down the the small stabilizing muscles. This makes them a very efficient exercise as well.  Done properly they are very safe, very effective and very good for your over all fitness. 

Community

Crossfit is a community.  It is so much bigger than a gym.  We are likeminded individuals with a singular purpose.  Our purpose is to see you succeed in becoming the strongest, healthiest, person you can become.  We are here to guide, to challenge, to encourage.  Best of all so is everyone else.  How many people do you know when you walk into your gym?  Do they encourage you?  Do they cheer for you?  Probably not.  When you are here you are known.  Everyone knows your name, everyone wants you to succeed.  We are all in it together.  When we moved our gym, our athletes showed up on a Sunday and helped us move everything.  People who no longer even come to the gym for various reasons showed up to help!  This speaks volumes to me.  We are all in this crazy world together why are we always fighting each other?  If we all worked together think of the things we could achieve.  Team work, helping each other.  Just when you think "I can't do another freakin burpee" you have someone telling you, "YES you can, come on, just one more!" and you do it!  Our gym is a place of team work, encouragement and real people accomplishing unbelieveable feats!  I am so proud of how hard each of you are working.  What we do is hard, but life is too so you might as well be prepared and have support every step of the way!

Some of our 5:30am team!!

Numbers

We have an obesity epidemic in this country.  There is more access to gyms, gadgets, diets, weight loss suplements, etc. etc. than anywhere in the world.  What the hell is going on?  There are no quick fixes and everyone wants one.  Eating healthfully and exercise are the only things that work.  We are obsessed with the scale and the number it says.  We feel horrible about ourselves when we get off the scale.  The problem is we just feel horrible to begin with and that number doesn't make it any easier.  Throw away your scale and start thinking about numbers that matter.  How long did it take you to do your workout this time?  1 minute Faster?  Good!  How much weight did you lift over your head today?  10 lbs more?  Great!  How many days this week did you workout?  2 more than last week?  Fantastic!  Think about the numbers that actually make a difference in how you feel and how you perform in life and then you will be on the road to health!

Being prepared

Being prepared makes all the difference in the world.  We are very busy as a society.  This fact usually leads to failure when it comes to our diet.  There is so much fast food available that when time comes to eat and we are hungry, we go for the quick, tasteless, unhealthy choices.  If you take a little time to prepare you can have healthful options available when you are hungry.  After you grocery shop, don't even put the veggies away.  Cut them up immediately and put them in baggies.  Hard boil a dozen eggs.  Fruit is very portable.  Cut up some nice hard cheeses.  Yogurt is great but watch out for all the added sugar and or artificial sweeteners.  Get a insulated lunch box and keep it full of healthy choices at all times.  Throw a bag of almonds in there, you can get tuna in a pouch, some fruit cups(read those labels, no added sugar or artificial sweeteners)keep a bag of sunflower seeds in your car and munch on those when you get a craving.  There are easy ways to avoid failure.  Don't let McDonalds even be an option.  It's completely up to you how you want to feel going through life.  Simple changes and a little preparation is all it takes. I think the line goes.....If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.