An evening with Jillian...yeah that Jillian

Yesterday I went to Jillian Michaels' Maximize Your Life

When I first heard about it I thought it was going to be a US only thing but I was super happy to see Calgary on the list of locations so I bought a ticket right away.

I got there early and debated on buying any of the sway. There were t-shirts, a hoody, sweatpants, her workout DVDS and books, plus they were selling BodyMedia - I saw a lot of people buying that.

The cutest part was while we were waiting for it to start her daughter came out of the wings and was dancing away and then waved to all of us. So cute.

It opened with a video that flashed images of things like chicken farms, workouts, genetically modified something or other.

Then she came out and I always forget she's 5'2. She asked how many of us where there because we felt lost. I had to stick my hand up for that one and so did many others. The first thing I wrote down was when she said "Destiny is a choice not a chance". She talked a lot about how you do things for your why. I'll get to more on that in a minute.

She talked about her trick to successful weight loss - Calories In and Calories Out.

What I enjoyed about her was she was very down to earth and she broke her session into 3 sections:

Calories In
Calories Out
Self

On the calories in she talked about focusing on quality vs quantity, told us to check out her website to look at a list 10 additives to avoid, look up the Clean 15 (veggies and fruit with thicker skins and not as likely to be effected by pesticides). Encouraged us to find an extra $20 bucks to focus on organic dairy and meats.

What I like about her is she doesn't talk about being perfect in fact she said the 80/20 rule is just fine. 80% Health and 20% treats or have a treat every 5th meal which is something she also says in her Slim For Life book.

On calories out she explained the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) which are the calories we burn just breathing based on height, weight and sex (mine is 1601.26). Active Meta Rate (AMR) your BMR adding in how active you are in your regular day as I have a desk job it's 1.2 and multiple that by 1601.26 and it's 1921.5.

She said we should be focusing on 85% intensity, to calculate your maximum heart rate take 220 - your age. So mine is 180 and 85% would be 153. The best workouts use body weights not machines and do the work for the why and HIIT (high intensity interval training)  training is excellent and with this you would go above the 85%.

I also liked that she didn't tell us to sign up for anything and you could get the info free off of her website of look it up online.

Then we had an intermission and she closed off the evening with Self.

At this point we talked more about the why. Why do we stop ourselves from achieving things? Earlier on she showed us what she calls the Responsibility Sandwich and it was sandwich of words like shame, regret, fear, judgement. I'm sure we've all felt some of those I know I certainly have. Shame that I haven't succeeded at getting to goal yet, regret that I didn't do something sooner, fear of not succeeding and feeling judged based on my appearance.

She brought a member of the audience on stage who had volunteered to do this. They talked about what was holding her back from accomplishing what she wanted to. At one point the audience member said she wanted to be happy and Jillian asked her to define happy. She actually talked about that a lot about how we don't dive beneath the surface of why we do things. She even used the example of how on the Biggest Loser ranch when she asks the contestants why are they there and they say "to be healthy". What is that she said, what does being healthy look like to you, what does happy look like for you, what does successful look like for you?

I didn't take any notes during this section as I was just purely soaking it in.

The biggest part that I took from this though was the power of belief. You are worth it, imagine it and believe it. Be present in your life.

I think I'll revisit her "Limitless" book.

Hugs!!!