Category Archives: Koko Mojo: Sticking With It

A Strategy to Reach your Fitness Goals: The Goal Snowball

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We are almost a month into the new year. How are you doing with your health and fitness goals?

Goal setting can be a challenge for many of us. John Berardi, PhD., author of the Metabolism Advantage, offers some discouraging statistics on goal setting. If your goal is to make one change in your life, you have an 85% chance of success. If your goal incorporates two changes at once, your chance of success plummets to 35%. If your goal requires three changes at once, your chance of success becomes almost zero. Ouch.

But, wait! My point is not to convince you that setting multiple goals is a waste of energy. It’s not! You just need the right strategy.

Alwyn Cosgrove, a man I admire a great deal, offers up a goal setting strategy specifically designed to help you successfully tackle multiple goals. And, when your goal setting has to do with your health, there are almost always multiple things we want to change, right? This time of year we are focused on improving our diets, increasing the amount of exercise we’re getting and banishing nasty habits.

If this sounds like you, try The Goal Snowball. Here’s how it works:

  • Step 1 - Write down a total of (5) goals. Behaviors that you would like to improve/change and good habits that you’d like to add to your lifestyle.
  • Step 2 – List the 5 goals from easiest to hardest.
  • Step 3 – Though you will be mindful of all your goals, give your full attention to the first item on your list – the easiest one. Spend 2 weeks focusing on that first goal until it becomes a habit in your daily routine.
  • Step 4 – Once that habit is “ingrained in your brain,” move on to the second goal on your list. Give it your full attention for 2 weeks until it is a habit in your daily routine, then move on to the third goal.
  • Step 5 – Continue like this until you have checked off each goal on your list of 5.

What happens is, by systematically tackling those goals one at a time, your success will snowball, making more of an impact with better long-term success than if you tried to do them all at once.

Before you know it, that little snowball of new habits will build up into a BIG SNOWBALL,   chock-full of healthy lifestyle changes that yield huge improvements in your long-term health and fitness.

Michael Wood, CSCS
Chief Fitness Officer
Koko FitClub

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Holiday Weight Gain? No, Thank You. Holiday MUSCLE Gain!

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Gain muscle NOT weight this holiday season at Koko FitClub

Wow! How can it be December already? The calorie-laden home stretch of 2012 is upon us. No need to panic. Holiday weight gain is not inevitable. In fact, with just some small changes to your regular Koko exercise routine and some holiday party survival tactics, you can easily keep it in check while protecting and BUILDING that lean muscle. We have even created some in-club holiday fitness challenges to help motivate you!

 

Much is written about holiday weight gain this time of year, so I’m not going to rehash it, but the scope of research suggests the average person only gains between 2 to 5 pounds.

 

What I find more interesting than simple weight gain statistics are the results of a study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development that links much of the incremental weight gain we accumulate over the years to the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years.

So, we may not gain a lot of weight over the holidays, but that weight has staying power. Alternatively, holding holiday weight gain at bay sets you up to maintain a healthy weight long term.

First and foremost, if your club is participating in the Holiday Hold’em Challenge, or the 12 Days of Koko, sign up! It will give you an extra nudge to stick to your Smartraining routine, 3 to 4 days a week. The hustle of the holiday season may be leaving you feeling time pressed but the best way to deal with the stress and excess calories is to make time to exercise it away. I also like to add an extra cardio session or two to my weekly workout routine because I know I will be indulging in plenty of amazing home cooked Italian food all season. If you know you love to indulge in holiday fare, compensate by burning a few more calories. Thanks to Smartraining’s efficiency, that amounts to a mere 30 additional minutes at your local Koko FitClub each week.

Besides sticking to your Koko Smartraining routine to stay fit, it’s also a great idea to have strategies in place to handle holiday situations that tempt you to overindulge. Here are a few of my go-tos:

  • Eat a healthy, high fiber snack before you head out to holiday festivities. (Something like fruit, veggies or oatmeal.) This will help you avoid overindulging in high calorie party food.
  • Don’t waste calories on mindless munching. Skip the chips, pretzels and peanuts and spend calories on the holiday food you really love.
  • Liquid calories are a killer this time of year. At holiday parties, alternate your favorite adult beverage with ice water. It prevents dehydration and slows down your rate of consumption. Fewer calories AND fewer headaches.
  • Don’t eat after 8PM during the week. My secret weapon against sneaking an extra slice of pie before bed? My toothbrush and dental floss. Brushing and flossing my teeth right after dinner is a great deterrent for late evening snacking.
  • Get plenty of sleep. Burning the candle at both ends trying to be everywhere and do everything will have adverse effects on the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in your body, causing unhealthy food cravings when you aren’t really hungry.

We now know that preventing end of the year, holiday weight gain plays a big role in maintaining a lifelong healthy weight. And the good news is, it really doesn’t take much to successfully hold them off.  First, if your club is participating in the Holiday Hold’em Challenge or the 12 Days of Koko, sign up! Nothing like a little fun, healthy competition to encourage you to make time for Koko this season.  Second, think about tagging on a couple of extra cardio session each week in anticipation of indulging in your holiday favorites. Finally, be prepared with a few strategies for when you are faced with the inevitable temptations of the season.

All the best to you and yours this Holiday Season!

Michael Wood, CSCS
Chief Fitness Officer
Koko FitClub

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Thankful 4 Fitness Challenge at Koko FitClub

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Thanksgiving is almost here! At Koko FitClub HQ we’re giving thanks for the abundant benefits of fitness. Join us in the Thankful 4 Fitness challenge for a chance to win a special gift from your *local Koko FitClub.

But first, Koko FitClub HQ didn’t want to miss out on the fun and the Thanksgiving spirit, so to help get your creative juices flowing, we’ve added some of our own Thankful 4 Fitness stories. Watch now.

http://youtu.be/a5yRnshlwOM

To get you started, here are a few contest details:

Before November 30, visit your local Koko FitClub’s facebook wall and share what benefits of a healthy, fit lifestyle you are most thankful for.

*Participating Koko FitClubs around the country will be awarding special gifts to their members who share the best stories. If you aren’t already a fan of your local page, you can connect to it through the KokoFitClub.com “Locations” page.  Be sure to “like” the page before you post.

You will find full contest details in your club or on your local Koko facebook page!

We hope you’ll help us celebrate all the ways being fit and healthy makes our lives better.  We are so very Thankful 4 Fitness!

Happy Thanksgiving!
The Koko FitClub HQ Team

www.KokoFitClub.com
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On Point for the Best Workout Possible

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Friends, I love earning Koko Points every time I exercise! They are instant feedback on how closely I followed my custom Smartraining workout. A pat on the back for a job well done. I know I’m not alone in this, but you may not know what’s actually at work behind the point system. (It’s really pretty amazing when you get down to it.) So, I’d like to broaden your understanding of why we award you Koko points every time you exercise and how they are calculated. I also want to encourage their use for positive motivation.

Remember: In the end it’s not about the points, it’s about getting the best workout possible.

Koko Points are calculated based on how well you keep to your prescribed Smartraining workout during a session. You must:

  • Stay on pace for each exercise (indicated by earning a 100% pace score)
  • Complete all sets and reps prescribed by the Smartrainer
  • Use the prescribed weights for each rep/set

Surprised? It’s a common misconception in Koko Nation that a 1000 point workout is earned simply by getting  a 100% pace score on every exercise.

The most important role of Koko points is to motivate and encourage the good strength training habits that make for the most effective workouts possible. How it motivates and encourages is different for each person, just like Koko workouts are different for each person.  We know that for some, Koko points light the fire of an already competitive nature and possibly an obsession with colored lanyards. (Just fine if you remember- It’s not about the points!) For others, my husband and Koko Co-founder Mike Lannon is a perfect example, the number is simply good feedback that lets him know how he’s doing each session and he doesn’t ever worry about a few points here and there. Different strokes for different folks.

I leave you with this final thought: Koko points are for good not evil. They are feedback meant to educate and encourage good exercise form. Never let them become a de-motivator and never, ever feel discouraged by a workout that doesn’t earn quadruple digits. That would be missing the point!

Mary Obana
President & Co-Founder
Koko FitClub

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A Strength Training Workout to Obsess Over

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Love getting fit at Koko FitClub.

Dearest Koko Pace Bar,

This is a little bit embarrassing for me to admit…I find myself completely mesmerized by you! I literally can’t take my eyes off you. What’s more, I find your opinion of me has changed the way I do things. (That’s a first!) All I want is for you to be green and cheering my performance. Some might call this relationship unhealthy, but I say it’s the opposite! This might just be one of the healthiest relationships in my life. I know you are pacing my repetitions so my muscles get the optimal Time Under Tension. You prevent me from undermining my own success. You set the bar high for my own good and I want nothing more than to measure up to your high expectations!

Forever Yours,

Koko Nut

Do you have a healthy obsession with your Koko Pace Bar?  If you don’t yet, you might once you understand how incredibly effective it is for improving your strength. The captivating Pace Bar is how the Koko Smartrainer controls the amount of time your muscles are resisting weight during a repetition. In the world of exercise science, this is referred to as Time Under Tension. When multiplied by weight lifted and the amount of sets and reps, the resulting total measures the volume of your workout.

So, pace control is an absolutely critical piece of the effective workout equation, but for the independent (non-Koko) exerciser it is, at best, hard to optimize and at worst, totally ignored. One of the challenges to personal pace control includes our natural tendency to undermine our own workouts by doing each rep too fast, allowing momentum to do some or most of the work our muscles should. Thankfully for Koko Nation, the Smartrainer measures your personal range of motion, then customizes and optimizes pace control every rep. All you have to think about is keeping up with the Pace Bar!

If ever there was a relationship to obsess over, it’s the one with your Koko Pace Bar. You’ll be a stronger, healthier person because of it. ♥

Koko FitClub

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