Everyone I talk to wants to lose weight, lose inches, get stronger.......  One thing I want you to keep in mind is this takes time. There is no quick fix to get these results, at least no quick fix that will have lasting effects. Just look at life in general. Often if something is done fast its quality wont be as good as something that takes longer. This is true with cars, houses, boats, paintings, the list goes on and on! So the same is true for our fitness. My point I want to make is do not get discouraged if you dont see big results after a week or two. If you keep putting in effort every day you will see the results you want. You also have to know that little results mean a lot. If you can only do 1 push up when you start our kickboxing class, and then by the end of the first week you can do 1, then you just doubled the number of push ups you can do! Imagine how happy you would be if you doubled the amount of money you had in 1 week :)

We have to make the decision to be in great shape and good health. But do we all know what a decision is?  When you make a decision to do something you have to be committed to it. You have to have a plan and you must intend to follow through with that plan even if it gets tough. The word decision comes from a latin word. Im not even going to try and spell it but you can research this on your own if you are interested.  Anyway the root word in Latin means " to cut". So I take this to mean that when you make a decision you are cutting off all possibilities of going back. You are cutting ties from the old you and committing to the new you.  It takes some will power. When we say we are going to do something we must follow though with it. Developing this skill will guarantee your success.

Eating better and cutting out empty calories can help anyone lose weight. It does not have to be anything crazy. Just little changes in your diet done over time can make huge changes. I use this example to show you what I mean. If you look out into a room filled with 500 random people, you can look round and pick out people who do not exercise at all and people people who might workout out a little bit. You might be wrong sometimes in this category.  However, you can definitely pick out the people that have made a habit of exercising and who do it daily. That constant effort over time makes it obvious. So I want you to adopt the same attitude for yourself. Lets go over some little things that add up to a healthier diet.   
#1 Switch out a soda for a water once or twice a day.
#2 Use a little less sugar in your coffee or tea.
#3 If you eat a snack like chips or cookies, eat something good first like fruit or have a glass of water.
#4 This has nothing to do with diet but I like to tell people this because I personally do it and I share it. You do not have to do this but like I said I have fun doing this. If you are getting a snack or whatever at work or at home, do some lunges or calf raises before =, during or after you have it. Just a little exercise like that will make you muscles use more energy which means your body will burn more calories and it helps you build or retain some muscle strength.  Plus lunges and calf raises are good for keeping your knees and ankles strong.

Doing this things does not guarantee you will be in great shape, but it helps. Success is the sum of small effort done consistently. So lets get to it. 

One thing you will hear our instructors saying all the time is "DON'T FORGET TO BREATH".  That might sound simple to do, but when you have been working out for 35 minutes and your legs feel like jello..... It is not so simple anymore.  No one forget to breath in, but we can not breath in unless we breath out. So what we train our students to do is to breath out when they throw a punch or a kick. This releases Co2 from our lungs so we are able to breath in oxygen when we are done the combination. Building strong ab muscles helps control your breathing also. This is why we do lots of ab exercises before and during class. And one other important thing we show our kickboxers about breathing is to breath into your lower abdomen and not breath up into your chest. If you are breathing fast, this is no good. You must practice slowing your breathing down and breath into your lower abdomen. This allows you to take advantage of your full lung capacity. To help slow your breathing down we tell the kickboxers to breath out for twice as long as you breath in. For example breath in for 3 seconds and exhale for 6 seconds. Following these tips will help you maximize your hour long kickboxing class, and these breathing tips can also be very helpful with everyday life if you are moving anything heavy or doing any strenuous activity. So always remember to breath out so you can breath in :)