How to Be Healthy and Stay Fit during Summer

It seems trivial to talk about how to be healthy and stay fit during the summertime….obviously this season is most important to all! Tank tops…. short shorts… bikinis, etc. but what we may not realize is that it’s actually a lot harder for women to fit in their workouts and prepare healthy meals during the summer. Why?

One reason is that now, kids are home from school. Many moms, both who work and don’t work, have the added responsibility of making sure their kids are taken care of FIRST. What does this mean? Quick, easy snacks & meals the kids will enjoy. It’s a lot harder to prepare food for the kids that they’ll enjoy plus prepare some healthy meals and snacks for her. Let’s face it- women put everyone else first, especially when it comes to their children. And in the summer, when their children require a lot more time commitment from them, they tend to put themselves last, making it a lot harder to stick to their healthy meal plan and workout regimen. 

Another reason are those yummy summer barbecues! barbecue chicken… potato salad…cookies… alcohol… beer… and more… “well, just this once!” 

How many times per summer do we say that? Add up those calories and see why it’s so hard to stay fit and healthy when your weekends consist of family barbecues!

The last big reason it’s hard to stay focused on your plan are vacations. Many people take vacations in the summer. What do vacations mean to the average population? Diet= out the window. Workouts? not today! Relaxation= yes please. Calories don’t count? Not this week!

It’s great and necessary to take a break from time to time, but that doesn’t mean you have to undo everything you worked hard to accomplish. So what’s the plan? Follow these steps to stay fit and healthy this summer!

1) Map out your kids’ schedule. 

2) Find time to prepare around your kids’ schedule. Is it the mornings? Evenings? or are weekends the only time you have to prepare healthy meals and snacks?

3) According to the schedule, when will you have time to workout? If it’s the mornings and you like group exercise classes at W3, choose which one you are going to do. If it’s the evenings and you know you want to participate in the group functional training program 2x/week, check those times and carve it out in your schedule. You need “me” time!

4) Again… prepare, prepare, prepare! You must prepare for the summer barbecues. By this we mean- think ahead and make something healthy to bring for everyone. Maybe look up a healthy version of chicken salad or a healthy dessert that involves fruit. It’s A LOT easier to avoid the bad stuff when you have the option of good stuff, too! And if you don’t bring it, you can’t necessarily count on anyone else who will.

5) Even on vacations, you can indulge and still not go overboard. We recommend really researching wherever you are going. Are there local places to take walks? Hike? Bike ride? Research the local food places you will most likely be visiting. Maybe choose the top ones where you can order something delicious yet healthy! You can indulge but still eat healthy 70-80% during your vacation!

We know you know.. preparation and planning are key! But really, if you go to a barbecue unprepared or wakeup and didn’t plan a workout into your hectic day, how do you expect to be able to keep the ‘good stuff’ in your schedule? Healthy food won’t just appear and time definitely won’t appear, so just plan ahead. You can do it!

If you have anymore recommendations, please leave your comments here! We would love to share more tips on staying healthy and fit during the summer!

Stay Fit, Stay Fabulous

~W3

W3 to Host POWER Boxing Certification

We will be hosting another HIIT IT P.O.W.E.R. Boxing Certification at our Hometown facility on August 25, 2013. For more information, please go to: www.hit-itfitness.com to find out the cost, times, etc. for the event!

After hosting our first boxing certification in June, we have successfully launched this program at our Berwyn and Downers Grove locations. We know how important having boxing classes for women is with the boxing trend in the fitness industry today, so we wanted to make sure we offered our members something fun, exciting and effective! Our members who have been participating in our boxing program already are kicking, punching, hooking, jabbing and burning hundreds of calories to getting and staying fit! They love our POWER Boxing program and are getting great results. Now it’s time to share this women’s boxing class with all of our W3 locations =)

If you are interested in getting certified, please see the above website for details and/or ask your club manager about employment opportunities with this class!

Stay fit. Stay fabulous~

Women’s Workout & Wellness

Shape Magazine & Women’s Workout Bring You the DIVA DASH!

Shape Magazine and Women’s Workout & Wellness are bringing Chicagoland the DIVA DASH. It’s August 3rd in Sandwich, IL. Join one of our W3 teams to jump, skip, hop, dance and get through this all-women’s obstacle course with your friends! The competitive wave for W3 is at 9:45a and the non-competitive wave is at 10:45a.

Check out www.divadash.com for more info and find W3 under one of the training centers! We will be there at the start line to help warm up the diva dashers. Hope to see you there!

If you haven’t registered yet, use the code CHIW3 for $10 off registration!!!

If you have any questions, please contact marketing@w3body.com

Stay fit, Stay Fabulous

-W3-

Fit Tip: How to Make Exercise a Priority

With only 20% of the population working out, it’s obvious that exercise for the typical American is not a priority. It’s not necessarily that the majority of people don’t want to lose weight or get fit and healthy… it’s more that they don’t fit exercise into their everyday lives. The point is, if you don’t actively work to make sure you workout 3-5x/week, you most likely won’t just stumble upon the time to exercise.. unless you work in a gym of course!

Whether you’re part of that 20% of the population or not, you most likely struggle from time to time to make it to the gym. It seems more convenient than not to just skip today… “oh, I’ll get there tomorrow!” Easier said than done. How do you KNOW you’ll get there tomorrow? What are you doing to make sure you will step foot in the gym and workout hard? If the answer is nothing, you might just keep putting it off another day.

So what do you need to do to get fit and healthy? Make exercise a priority! Do this by tackling the reasons or excuses you come up with for not working out. Are you tired? Workout first thing in the morning. And not only that, but you have to plan how that workout will fit into your day. You can’t go to work and say you’ll workout on your way home if you don’t bring any exercise clothes with you. It’s not just going to happen… you have to make it happen! Here are a few examples of overcoming those excuses. If you know you are tired at night after work and you’ll most likely skip your workout, PLAN to workout in the morning. Do what you need to do to workout in the morning. This might consist of going to bed earlier, laying out your clothes the night before, preparing your breakfast if you’re in a hurry, and having a backup plan. Another example is if you tell yourself you’re not going to workout because you’re hungry after work…. Bring a snack with you! Another big one is “I don’t have time.” That’s the whole point- you have to MAKE time! Do you have time to watch TV? Surf the web? Talk on the phone? Trust me, you have time to workout.

As always, you should have a backup plan. To make exercise a priority, you have to put it FIRST before doing other things. If you have the mindset that you can’t do any other activities until you workout, you will plan ahead and fit that workout where you need to! Make exercise a priority TODAY! It will benefit you in more ways than one.

Stay fit~ Stay fabulous~

Is Diet Green Tea Good for You?

I was in one of our W3 locations the other day, and a member approached me with a nutrition question. She asked me what I thought about diet green tea and is it good for you? Interesting question I thought…. Anything with the word “diet” in it is usually altered in some way, usually more than one, so no, it’s not good for you. I went on to explain…

Natural green tea has zero calories in it. “Diet” usually means that it is reduced in calories, oftentimes to zero, so if natural green tea has zero calories, diet green tea shouldn’t exist. She looked perplexed.

Basically, it’s backwards, and kind of sad that the food/diet industry would take such a great, natural product and morph it into something unhealthy… and then marketing it to the public as if it’s going to help them lose weight. WRONG!

Basically, unnatural green tea products, so any type of bottled green tea that is sweet, was created by adding tons of sugar. This sugar=calories. In today’s world, every sugary drink needs a diet version, right? So the food/drink industry went on to create a diet version of green tea, so they basically do the same thing that you would do to make Coke “diet.” You take out the cane sugar and replace it with additives and fake sugar/aspartame, making it zero calories and extremely (unnaturally) sweet…. basically this makes drinking diet green tea equivalent to drinking diet coke. I don’t recommend it.

It’s unfortunate that it’s marketed in such a way that it’s good for you. Green tea IS good for you and has great health benefits; it’s even linked to helping you lose weight! But that’s natural green tea. I have a great recommendation for you. Buy unsweetened, natural green tea. The bottle should literally read 0 calories and the only ingredients should be green tea and water. If you don’t like the way it tastes, add zero calorie, natural sweetener, such as Truvia or Stevia. It has zero calories and doesn’t include the dangerous aspartame. It’ll make it sweet and keep it healthy!

There you go- hopefully that answers the question!

Stay focused, stay fit~

 

TRX Suspension Training at Women’s Workout & Wellness

We’re so happy that we have finally kicked off our TRX classes in full swing at our Tinley Park and Downers Grove locations.. and wow are they packed! These classes are open to members and non-members and are offered at various times throughout the week/weekend.  They are raging in popularity! Why?

If you’re looking to take your workout to the next level, we highly recommend you come try out a class. It is an extra charge on the membership because you are working with a trainer in a small group setting, but trust us- it’s well worth it! And not that expensive compared to our industry’s standard of a one-hour personal training session…

What you’ll find in a TRX class? A combination of lower body, upper body, core and cardio exercises. We always go over the principles of TRX in the beginning. One key point I personally like to talk about is how to make it HARDER! I always demonstrate the 3 principles, my favorite being the vector principle. By changing the vector between you and the ground, you can take a simple exercise to a whole new level. You can also change the stability by taking one foot off the ground and lastly change the difficulty by stepping out further from the straps’ neutral hanging position.

Normally, the class is formatted with progressive movements. You start with a squat and later in the class, you make it harder by, say, taking one foot off the floor to do a one-legged squat. So fun!

This past weekend, I had my TRX class at the W3 in Downers Grove step it up a notch. We STARTED with the progressive movements and made them even more difficult. Their favorite, all of whom had never done it before, was a TRX burpee! We’ll shoot a video this upcoming weekend, so you can see how W3 rocks it out on a Saturday morning!

Intrigued yet? Come try out a class! The benefits are amazing- for strengthening your muscles, truly engaging your core, losing weight, getting FIT, gaining energy and feeling better. And hey- it’s almost bikini season, and if your current workout isn’t cutting it, I would say it’s time to try this cutting-edge small group exercise class! It’s time to TRX!

Stay fit~ See you soon~

Women’s Workout & Wellness

Spring into Fitness at W3!

The big “New Year’s rush” is over…but summertime is almost here! So what does that mean? It’s REALLY time to get in shape. Pressure is on for beach/swimsuit season, not to mention the weddings, vacations, graduation parties, summer bbqs and more that await our agendas during the summer. It’s fun, but it’s also nerve-racking if we slacked off a bit during the winter months (especially these winter months in Chicago- it’s May and it’s 50 degrees outside!) So, with the weather (hopefully) attempting to warm up outside, it’s time to get serious and really take some time to focus on ourselves.

Besides the ever-so-popular Zumba, Turbokick, HardBody and CardioFlex classes at Women’s Workout & Wellness, you can also find a variety of bootcamps, challenges and functional training programs going on that are changing the lives of women across Chicago- helping them lose weight, tone up, increase their strength and cardiovascular levels, feel better and more energized, and just overall GET IN SHAPE! Before we talk a little bit about what these programs consist of, I just wanted to share a few comments we have heard from some members across our W3 locations. One 4-Week Summer Shape Up Challenge member from the Downers Grove W3 said she can’t even begin to explain how these workouts make her feel- not just physically but emotionally and mentally as well. She decided the 4 weeks wasn’t enough for her and enrolled in this program for a minimum of 3 months! Good for her!

Another member from the W3 on Monroe St. in the Loop had to put another hole in her belt… not to make it looser, of course, but to make it tighter! Her belt has now become too big. She thanked her trainer for the great workouts so far. Yes, it’s the trainer’s motivating training style and amazing workouts, but she has put in a lot of work and has amazing fat loss results to show for it. Can’t wait to see her before and after picture side to side! Only a few weeks left of her bootcamp. Unbelievable RESULTS coming soon!

Intrigued yet?

We could write blog post after blog post of amazing success stories followed by pictures to show the results these women have received, and we will continue to do so because we know this program is what will help women across Chicago get fit and HEALTHY. What’s so great about it? It’s the functional training style of classes. Women join our group functional training program for various reasons: to lose weight, reduce fat and inches, gain muscle tone, feel better, get rid of pain, gain energy, sleep better, and more! And they are getting what they asked for. We use our functional “toys” and carefully designed workouts to produce amazing results. Some of our toys include ropes, slam balls, kettle bells, Bosus, TRX suspension training, plyo boxes, val slides, bands, superbands, monster tires, and more. Have you seen the Biggest Loser? Then you know exactly what we are talking about.

Check out our video HERE to understand  a little bit more about functional training. Come check it out for yourself- whether you are a member of Women’s Workout & Wellness or someone looking for a gym/program to join, we have a challenge, bootcamp or program for you! Non-members are welcome to enroll in a program for 4 weeks or more, depending on our current promotion. Call today- you’ll be amazed.

What are YOUR results? Be our next success story. Call or visit us today!

~Women’s Workout & Wellness~

W3 Fundraiser to Benefit A New Direction

This Saturday, March 23rd at our Hometown/Oak Lawn location, Women’s Workout & Wellness is working out to wipe out domestic violence. We are hosting a fundraiser to benefit A New Direction, a non-profit that works to raise money to help bring women out of domestic violence situations. We are happy to work with our members and neighboring guests to raise money for this amazing cause! ALL W3 members and any of their friends are welcome to participate in this event. We just ask for a $10 donation toward A.N.D. to take as many group exercise classes as you want- including our special MASTER class with top W3 instructors for our NEW launch of the Kickin’ Core Ball Round 21 class- signature to Women’s Workout & Wellness!

*We have extended our group exercise schedule for this day only to make the $10 spread from 8:15am-2:00pm! Join us- we will see you there!

8:15-9:00am: YOGA

9:00-10:00am: ZUMBA

10:00-11:00am: STEP

11:00-12:00pm: BODY FIT

12:00-1:00pm: PILATES

1:00-2:00pm: ***MASTER CLASS KICKIN’ CORE BALL***

If you have any questions, please email marketing@w3body.com. Thanks!

Women’s Workout & Wellness in Hometown/Oak Lawn:

4130 Southwest Highway

(at the corner of 87th and Pulaski)

(708) 425-2171

W3 Personal Training Opportunities!

Check out our employment opportunities for personal trainers for all Women’s Workout & Wellness locations. We have immediate opportunities available at our Monroe St. location in the Loop and for our location on 51st & Kedzie Ave (bilingual preferred for this location).

Personal Trainers

Description

As a personal trainer at Women’s Workout & Wellness, you will be expected to deliver a great experience during 1-1 sessions with members and also during group personal training sessions. You will provide a safe and effective workout and follow any policies set in place by W3. We want our trainers to have a lead-by-example attitude by maintaing a healthy, active lifestyle. We also expect our trainers to follow our training philosophy that everyone trains functionally. We expect our trainers to be upbeat and motivational, always maintaining a positive and professional relationship with members to encourage continued participation and strive for results.

Responsibilities:

-Provide exciting, safe, effective workouts for our group functional training classes and during 1-1 sessions

-Contribute Workouts of the Day to our W3 Fitness Coach Team

-Develop positive relationships with clients and seek to develop these relationships with future clients

-Sell personal training packages and programs

-Clean and organize functional training area before/after each session

-Seek 1-1 clients as well as group PT clients

-Be able to work on a team, share feedback, and contribute ideas to build a successful program

-Adhere to W3 rules and policies

Qualifications

-CPR/AED certification

-Nationally recognized Personal Training Certification

-TRX certification and other specialty certifications a plus

*We have great opportunities available both for part time and full time personal training positions. We will provide all training necessary for our functional program and W3 systems.

Please send your resume to Jamie and Adrianne- jamie@w3body.com and adrianne@w3body.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

New Exciting Weight Loss Programs at Women’s Workout & Wellness!

Happy New Year Everyone!

2012 was a great year, but we are so ready to bring new programs and challenges to our members to really help them get RESULTS in 2013!!! It’s our year to help you, and it’s your year to get the body and optimal health you’ve always wanted! We have the programs to help get you there- all at Extremely affordable prices and all at a place where women feel comfortable to workout and be themselves!

So, about these programs… we have completely revamped the way our personal training has been running, more importantly, our group personal training. We know so many members have lost weight, lost body fat, increased their strength and muscle tone, increased metabolism, improved their energy and just have felt amazing by doing our group training programs. But now, we want to make sure every member has the chance to be able to feel this way and experience the best program around!

I’ll give you a few details of the program… First of all, our core philosophy for our training programs at W3 is that everyone trains functionally. Our workouts are built off of this philosophy because we KNOW it works. We know it gives the best results and helps you lose weight and get fit.. but we also know that it’s important for living your everyday life with ease. You train your body to be able to perform activities without any pain and with the strength you need to complete everyday tasks. But like I said, that’s not all it does. It also helps you achieve your goals in the most efficient way possible!

We will continue to make this program amazing. Just a few things we have implemented are 30-day experiences for our members- we want to break down any barriers or questions you may have about this amazing program, and offer a 30 day trial to you for just $19, so you can try it- risk free- and start seeing results! We know once you start seeing results, you’ll know how amazing and valuable this program really is! We have implemented a new system with our W3 personal coaches. We call it the coach’s card. It’s basically to help our coaches get to know all of our clients better and make sure they are aware of any injuries, pains, or maybe just to be aware that HEY- this member needs to go heavier on her next workout! (it’s all to get her the results she is working toward!) We have a new scheduling system, nutritional seminars, exercise tip videos, and a new way for our coaches to deliver these workouts to you- our workout of the day! These are scientifically designed by our top, most educated and experienced trainers to burn fat and increase metabolism. And we are getting all- new functional equipment, or toys as we like to call them, at our Kedzie location. All the clubs will be ready to go!

That’s just a brief overview of our new program… there’s no reason YOU shouldn’t try it! Truthfully, health is a lifelong commitment. You only have one body and one chance to take care of it. We want all of our members to commit to this program because we know it’s the BEST, but we also know that it can be scary to try something new, so we are giving you 30 days to try it. You HAVE to take advantage- I know you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish in just 30 days!

And hey- it helps a little bit that we have our New Year’s resolutions to start kicking in to gear… what could be a better way than to try the best program that will help you reach your goals ???

Warning: once you start seeing results, you won’t want to stop 😉

Ask about our new weight loss program today, and how you can work with a W3 coach. Make sure you take a BEFORE picture… can’t wait to see that AFTER, so I can post YOU and YOUR success story of your journey to results on w3body.com. Let’s go! What are you waiting for?

Chat soon.

Jamie

W3 Director of Marketing