Archive for June, 2007
Pop open that bottle of champagne… or in our case, a nice, cold refreshing glass of filtered water! Nutrex Solutions held its official grand opening this past weekend with great success!
On Sunday June 24th we opened up our doors to the public. It began at 10am where we had a steady stream of people come by to check out the studio and to chat it up with personal trainers Mark Young and Stacey Nolan.
At noon, Mark Young gave a seminar on targeted fat loss in the butt and thighs to a room full of interested and eager-to-learn people. A crowd favourite was his demonstration of the stiff-legged deadlift, his chosen exercise for those particular areas.
This was followed up by a “Meet the Clients” session where people had an opportunity to chat with some of our current clients, including Jeff of the Jeff Franco Project and Sherry Bartmanski to hear their success stories and to ask questions.
Throughout the day Nutrex Solutions collected donations on behalf of The Children’s Exercise and Nutrition Centre at McMaster Children’s Hospital. We’d like to thank everyone for their contributions to such a worthy and important cause.
As some of you may know, we held a contest to win one free month of personal training. Nutrex Solutions would like to officially announce that the winner of this amazing opportunity is Peter McKechnie of Hamilton, Ontario. Congratulations Peter and best of luck on your weight loss journey!
SNAP newspaper visited us at the Grand Opening to take a few photographs. Hamilton area residents keep your eyes peeled for photos of us in their August issue.
All in all it was a great success. Nutrex Solutions would like to thank everyone that came out to support us. And to everyone who helped us get to this point, we raise our glasses of…errr….water in a toast of sincere thanks!
June 28th, 2007
The Hamilton Spectator just can’t seem to get enough of us. This week Mark Young is featured performing a dymanic exercise we use with our clients to get their glutes firing so that we can maximize the butt firming effects of their lower body workouts.
To see the exercise click HERE.
Or CLICK HERE download the entire newspaper page in PDF format.
June 14th, 2007
A while back we interviewed our long time client Sherry Bartmanski to get her insights on fitness and fat loss. Recently we managed to get her to stand still long enough to catch a current photo.
For comparison, we’ve included a photo of Sherry when she started with us. Over 120 pounds and 5 years later Sherry is still an inspiration to everyone she meets.
All covered up you might not appreciate the effort that Sherry has put in consistently over the past 5 years to develop her physique. However, we recently captured a photograph of her mid-training that demonstrates her exceptional upper back development. Her dedication to training can easily be summarized by her personal mantra.
“The myth that women should not lift heavy
is advanced only by women who fear effort
and men who fear women.”
Here’s what Sherry recently had to say about her dramatic transformation.
Five years ago, after yo-yo dieting for most of my life, I reached 298 pounds and wore a size 26/28. I decided to join a gym. After a year of going to the gym 6 days a week for one to two hours each day I managed to lose 30 pounds. But that is where I was stuck. I was mad at myself, frustrated that all the effort I was putting in was not showing any further results. As a last resort I decided to try a personal trainer. That’s when I met Mark. I have worked with the public over 30 years and have a keen ability to read people. Although Mark is only a couple of years older than my own kids, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Right from our first session I saw his expertise and knowledge and felt his genuine concern to help people.
Through Marks coaching and training I have lost over 120 pounds, wear a size 7/8 and have kept it off for over two years. Now I shop at any clothing store, fit into any seat at the amusement park, climb a flight of stairs without needing to sit down to catch my breath. I look different and feel strong. I have been able to do things that I would not have even attempted before.
It is sad that society continues to judge our competencies by our looks. I know that I am treated differently and my opinions valued more since my weight loss. One of the greatest achievements is seeing the impact I have had on people around me. Those that are in the place I once was and have taken heart in knowing that if she can do it, then so can I.
Mark told be at the start of this journey that results were not going to be overnight and it was a lifestyle change. I have learned how amazing the human body is. It reacts and adapts (sometimes too easily) to the changes I have made. If I pay attention I can pinpoint food reactions that were masked before and make better choices.
I encourage anyone who has struggled with weight issues and is tired of looking for the magic diet that will finally work, to talk to Mark. I know you will see the same attributes I did. I’m thankful I made the decision to give him a try and I continue today to pay it forward.
June 13th, 2007
In the first part of this series we watched Jeff as he formed some very important lifestyle habits, experienced some rapid fat loss, and then worked hard to start retaining more muscle during the fat loss process.
Month 4 – Getting Serious
After 3 months of hard work it was time for Jeff to take it to the next level. Having outgrown his small amount of weight equipment at home we asked Jeff to take a big leap and join a gym. At this point we provided Jeff with a detailed program including exercise selection, sets, reps, and even video clips of each exercise. While some like to only write the names of the exercises, we find that video provides a more effective means of communicating what would otherwise take much longer to explain. A video is, in effect, worth more than a thousand words.
With his personalized routine in hand Jeff went to the gym and was able to execute his program with confidence and his results were exceptional.
Month 5 – The Furnace
It was at the start of this month that Jeff dropped a bomb on us. Jeff informed us that he’d been shooting a movie just prior to the start of this program and that they were finally ready to continue filming. For an actor work is always good news, but for us there was only one little problem…Jeff had lost weight. The whole movie was supposed to have taken place in one day and the continuity of the film might be interrupted if Jeff’s weight loss was too apparent. In essence, Jeff told us that he had to put some weight back on.
To help Jeff out we thought the best approach might be to temporarily stop fat loss and help him gain some muscle to add some weight to his frame. This way we’d be giving him the appearance of being heavier without sacrificing all of his effort to this point. We added healthy starches at breakfast and after workouts and told Jeff to contact us in a week with his weight.
After a week Jeff reported back and he was still losing weight. Being in such a time crunch we didn’t have much time to take the more conventional, slower route we usually use so we added a healthy starch every night at dinner, cut down his cardio, and increased the number of weekly cheat days from one to two. That’s right. We gave him two whole days per week where he could eat whatever he wanted. Again, this is not normal practice, but Jeff needed to gain some weight ASAP.
After two weeks we hadn’t heard from Jeff so we checked in to see how things were going. To our amazement, Jeff was still dropping pounds like it was going out of style. We’d basically turned Jeff, who couldn’t have lost a pound if he tried, into a metabolic furnace. Everything that he put into his mouth was just fuel for the fire and so long as he stuck to his exercise routine and the habits established in month 1 he couldn’t help but burn fat. His sluggish metabolism was now a raging fat loss inferno.
It was at this point that Jeff also told us that the weight loss apparently wasn’t that noticeable on camera so he could probably maintain the plan in this form until the completion of filming. For us this was great news as we would otherwise have had to find a way to ship him crates of food to put the brakes on his incredible fat loss.
Months 6 – Filming
This month Jeff was off in the wilderness somewhere filming and we didn’t have many updates. Just 2 days ago we were finally able coordinate our busy schedules to sit down again.
Here are Jeff’s most current results.
Since our last update Jeff has lost 17 more pounds bringing his total weight lost to 32lbs!
Starting Weight: 198
Current Weight: 166
Total Lost: 32lbs
Jeff has also lost another 4.9 percent body fat amounting to a total of 7.8 percent lost since our first meeting. While those who know anything about body fat percentages might argue that Jeff doesn’t visually appear to be 9 percent, we can assure you that we use a very expensive system for body composition testing. However, the system does occasionally read some people a little low. When this is the case it is important to remember that the absolute value is not of much significance anyway. The direction and amount of change from the previous measurement is the key to assessing progress with fat loss.
Starting Body Fat Percentage: 17.5
Current Body Fat Percentage: 9.7
Total Lost: 7.8 Percent
Despite dramatically increasing Jeff’s food intake he has managed to drop his waist size by another 2.25 inches for a staggering total of 6.25 inches since the start of the program.
Starting Waist Measurement: 42.75 inches
Current Waist Measurement: 36.5 inches
Total Lost: 6.25 inches
What’s Next?
Since Jeff is finally done filming we’ve decided to up the anti and have Jeff increase his training volume again. We’ve also revised his diet to facilitate his fat loss to bring out his abs for the beach weather.
Don’t forget, Jeff will be at our Grand Opening on June 24th. Make sure to come out to show him some support and see his fantastic results in person.
June 5th, 2007
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