Move over Jillian.....there's a new trainer in town!!

Posted: Friday, July 2, 2010 by Kelli Barrett in
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For the past three years I have waged a war against my own unhealthy, sedentary, overweight life! I am happy to report that I am definitely winning this war! In the midst of the sweat and tears I have discovered my true passion in life.

Fitness isn't just a hobby or a way to keep my body healthy - it is my life (aside from my family, of course). Along my fitness journey I have pushed myself to extremes that I never thought possible, I have met incredible life-long friends, I have ignited a fire that will burn in me forever.

It is my ultimate goal to touch as many lives as I can through my fitness endeavors. I am BLESSED every single day to get up and do what I love to do. Over 200 people each week attend my fitness classes - WOW, I never added up the numbers before - 200 people a week look to me to lead them through a 60 minute (sometimes 90 minute ;) exercise class. I love that they like my classes and that they trust their precious time to ME! We are all so busy - it means a lot to me that these loyal people give up an hour of their day to spend with me working out and getting healthy.


I recently became certified through the National Academy of Sports Medicine as a Certified Personal Trainer. This is going to allow me to get up close and personal with my clients - to have an opportunity to be a pivotal part in them getting healthy and changing their lives.

Are you overweight? Do you feel like you may never be able to get the weight off? Have you tried every diet out there? Are you sick and tired of feeling this way? I was too! I have been there - I understand the plight and the feelings! Because I have "been there, done that" I bring something different to you.

I will definitely be a no-nonsense trainer!! I will push you and all your buttons! I will get inside your head! I will work right beside you to ensure that you reach the goal that you set. I will fight for you! I will invest in you as you will in me!
I will understand you! I will love you! I will HELP you succeed!

A HEALTHY, HAPPY life is a decision away! Invest in YOU for once! Call or email me -

A Bump in the Road???

Posted: Sunday, June 13, 2010 by Kelli Barrett in
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It's been nearly 4 weeks since I saw the scale move at all!!! I am down to 157 pounds but have 17 left to my goal weight. So that is a total of 73 pounds lost since January of 2007 -

I have never reached my "goal weight" - ever! Will I be able to do it this time around? YES, I WILL!!

This is my pledge - to myself-
"I promise to finish what I started! I promise and pledge to remain focused, yet realistic. I promise to NOT become obsessed with the number on the scale yet allow that number to continue to motivate me to finally reach the goal that I have set for myself. I promise to allow myself to have a "bad day". I promise to look for health and happiness as my ultimate goal."

We all have bumps in the road toward our weight loss goals. Let's brush ourselves off, get right back on track and keep our eye on the prize!

Relax! Don't Do It!

Posted: Monday, May 17, 2010 by Kelli Barrett in
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Don't Do It!!! Don't swurve off the road at the nearest bend! Don't drop the ball steps from the goal! Don't choke under the pressure! Just DON'T!

"But...I'm on vacation". "But...It's my brother's birthday". "But...I have already lost weight". BUT....BUT...BUT....

How many times have you excused your way out of sticking to your eating plan? It is classic! You work hard, lose some weight, you are feeling great - then BAM! those little voices in your head start to dream up 1001 reason why it is OK to stray from your plan. Why?????

SO much of our daily lives center around food - let's talk about that for a sec. Holidays, Family BBQ's, Dinner with Friends, Birthdays, Anniversarys, Promotions, Baptisms, Kids got a good report card, Jimmy made the football team, the garbage truck came today (LOL!) - but isn't that the truth. It seems like no matter the occasion the celebratory response is "LET'S GO EAT!"

How the hell can we possibly stick to our "diets" when every second we turn around there is a GOOD reason not to?

Here's where you HEAD really comes in - DECIDE to eat healthy! DECIDE to balance! DECIDE that there will be no more EXCUSES! DECIDE to put good quality, nutritious food into your mouth!

DECIDE THAT NOTHING TASTES BETTER THAN HEALTHY FEELS!!

Here are a few pieces of advice that I can offer:

Be Prepared -

  • Before you leave for your vacation get online and find out which restaurants are in the area where you will be. Most large chains offer the nutritional information on their website. If you know, then you can make a smart choice.
  • Going out to celebrate tonight? BALANCE your day!! Eat clean and light for breakfast and lunch - have something a little more decadent for dinner if you want.
  • On the road? Pack a small cooler with fruit, veggies, nuts, water, etc - so much better than the drive thru!!

Be Strong -

  • It is OK for you to sit at the table with your friends and family while they eat pasta and bread, or pizza and wings, and you don't. Your decision to eat smart and healthy has NOTHING to do with them! This is about YOU!
  • Remember that you are working toward something better for yourself. It about the decision to be healthy (not just skinny).
  • DO NOT make excuses for eating right. Look them in the face and say "No Thanks" to the unhealthy stuff. If asked about what you are doing - just tell them that you are eating right and getting healthy!

Be OK -

  • Be OK if you eat something that isn't on your plan - if you beat yourself up over one food choice, I guarantee there will be another bad choice around the corner.
  • Be OK if you get unsolicited advice or criticism from your friends and family - remember this is NOT about THEM!
  • Be OK and KNOW that your journey to health is about your LIFE and making it the best that it can be.
This week I am out of town visiting my sister and the new baby then later will be at the NASM workshop. So I am practicing what I preach this week. I drove in from Houston with the cooler packed with all my healthy essentials and we stopped at the grocery store to load the fridge with nutritious food. This visit is about spending time with my sister and enjoying the new baby girl - NOT about FOOD!

Weight Wars

Posted: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 by Kelli Barrett in
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The battle to reach my ideal body weight has been going on for as long as I can remember. Even after a 70 pound weight loss I am still not at my ideal body weight. For the past three years I really changed the way that I ate - I was very successful eating on the "low carb" plan. Any time I picked up a food and read the label - my eyes instantaneously went to the Carbohydrate line - always overlooking the Fat and Calories line. In my world, fat and calories didn't matter as long as the carbohydrate content was low - it was a "good" food. I lost weight consistently for about 18 months then maintained my weight at a steady 165 or so for the remaining 18 months. On a good week, I'd weigh in at 160 only to step on the scale two days later and have it read 165 again. Isn't it frustrating how your weight fluctuates 2-4lbs in a matter of a couple days.

What is even more frustrating when I'd have a great great week in the gym and expect to have dropped a couple REAL pounds only to step on the scale to see a higher number.
My advice: GET RID OF YOUR SCALE!!! or at least hide the damn thing under the bed so you don't have to look at it or be compelled to step on it every single day!! I try very very hard to stick to weighing only once every two weeks - but I admit, when I "feel thinner" I can't help but to step up and check on my progress. If you weigh too much you will inevitably get frustrated. It is really just a number - so take a step off the scale for a while - and see what happens.

Anyone who knows me would attest to the fact that I eat "well" - BUT what I have learned over the past 2 months is that eating "well" isn't good enough sometimes. If a gym member or client needed help with nutrition, I was ready, willing and able to give them some good sound advice. But, in my own fat loss battle, I was stuck - stuck at a spot where I really didn't know what to do. I was eating good, supplementing well, and exercising my ass off. WTF??????

Monica is my friend from LA Fitness - she rode my classes every week. She rides hard! She is lean and mean! LOL! Lucky for me she is also a very successful published nutritionist.




Check out her blog at www.babyfatdiet.com/blog

She and I have been working together now for 8 weeks and I love her no-nonsense approach to nutritional wellness. I have dropped almost 12 more pounds (17 to go) and feel healthier and stronger than ever. I am confident that I will finally reach my goal weight with this plan and Monica's expertise. The biggest lesson that I have learned from her so far is that I was eating too much good food. Carbohydrates are VITAL to my performance in the gym and fat and calories matter more than ever!! I learned to read labels the right way - taking into account the overall nutritional content of the food. Even though I am working out religiously and seriously - she taught me that I didn't need as many calories as I was consuming. I could get lean and mean (just like her) if I would "clean up" my eating and aim for high nutritional value with every bite. The bottom line is you have to expend more calories than you consume. Now......I am consuming less calories (but far better quality food) and seeing the scale move.
Keep track of your calories at http://www.blogger.com/www.myfitnesspal.com

You don't have to see a nutritionist to get it right - eat whole, fresh fruits and vegetables, lowfat or nonfat dairy, whole grain breads and pasta, and even a little chocolate. Find the plan that works for your lifestyle and work it! That's all it takes - a commitment to good quality eating.

Keep watching my blog for yummy recipes, tips on how to make sensible choices with food, and fun workouts.

Talk to you soon,

K

Happy Day To Be A Mother

Posted: Saturday, May 8, 2010 by Kelli Barrett in
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I have been a mom now for 10 years! WOW!!!

I really never thought about having babies. I have friends that tell me that all they ever wanted was to be a "mommy". All I ever wanted to do was to go on tour with a rock band - babies just didn't seem to fit into that fantasy. My Mom would just laugh and remind me that the only way I would become a groupie was over her "damn dead body"!

My mom is awesome! She is a strong, independent, sensitive, sassy, opinionated, smart and loving - she taught me a lot. I would say that I am a lot like her - just sassier and more opinionated!

My boys are amazing! I just can't even imagine what my life would be like without them. I have learned so much from these two little boys - things that only they could have taught me.


Here is a bit of what I have learned over the past 10 years:

  • That baby vomit doesn't actually taste that bad -
  • That my two-year-old can throw a right hook that would take Tyson to one knee
  • That my child will not "die of malnutrition" from eating only Fruit Loops and Chicken Nuggets
  • That I get excited every day at 3:15pm as I wait for the boys to get off the school bus
  • That if I want 14 kisses all I have to do is ask
  • That Mythbusters, Deadliest Warrior, Ninja Warrior, Star Wars and Indiana Jones are actually pretty cool shows
  • and That I really LOVE being their Mom!















National Women's Health Week - May 9-15th

Posted: Friday, May 7, 2010 by Kelli Barrett in
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Next week (May 9th - 15th) is National Women's Health Week!
The theme for 2010 is "It's Your Time"!

Think about that statement for a minute.....IT'S YOUR TIME! Your time to decide to get healthy, your time to do something for you, your time to love yourself unconditionally, your time to do what you need to do to change your life!
What are you waiting for?

As a wife and mother, I know that I can easily get caught up in the day to day routine of taking care of everyone else but me. We, as women, wear so many different hats - cook, housekeeper, chauffeur, sex machine (hee hee), referee ( if you have kids), accountant, counselor, etc - and many many times we ask for nothing in return. It is just in our DNA to be that way - right??

I say this all the time in my classes and to my clients - "You will be a better mother, wife, sister, daughter, athlete, employee, etc, etc, etc - just a better human being, when you are taking care of yourself as well as you take care of others!!"

So, I challenge all of you beautiful women out there to embrace the thought of putting you on your "to do" list everyday. Take the time to get to the gym, or take a walk with your friends in the park - make your favorite meal for dinner - take a nap in the middle of the day or go to bed an hour early - or whatever else you can do for YOU.


Talk to you soon,
K




It's all in the song -

Posted: Tuesday, May 4, 2010 by Kelli Barrett in
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So, there is this song by 3 Doors Down that I love - The Champion In Me. The lyrics are inspiring and motivating and every time I hear it (and I hear it a lot) - it makes me want to work harder, become better, and to kick a little ass along the way!!! I am fit. I am strong - but I haven't always been. It was just 3 short years ago that I found myself fat again! After swearing up and down and "on a stack of bibles" that I would never get fat again - there I was - 224 pounds. How the hell did this happen?? Looking back into that time of my life, its a wonder that I wasn't fatter! I worked 10 hours a day behind a desk at a job that was stressful and no longer challenging. I'd come home day after day and plop down on the couch and feed my face with unhealthy foods and promise myself that I would start my diet again on Monday!

That Monday finally came AFTER I walked away from that disappointing $75K a year job and decided that things were going to change.

REWIND 25 YEARS or so - I was the girl who always "had such a pretty face". Have any of you ever heard that before? I used to take that as a compliment but now when I hear someone say that about someone it just pisses me off! So, somewhere around
6th Grade I became aware of the fact that I was bigger than most of the girls in my grade. In 7th Grade I just didn't give a shit - kind of adopted the "I just don't care what other people think" attitude. But, my 8th Grade year brought me face to face with a fat teenage girl's worst nightmare - a BEAUTY PAGEANT! My mother met a neighbor whose daughters were involved in pagents. Of course, these girls deserved to be in pageants - tall, blonde, thin - exactly where they should have been. Why my mother ever thought that she should put ME in the pageant is still beyond my comprehension. The weight limit for the pagent was 120 pounds ( I will remember this until my dying day!) - so at 13 years old and 130+ pounds I had to get my butt in gear. So, I joined the volleyball team in hopes of getting some exercise and although I was not very good at the game I managed to get moving at least. I remember stepping on the scale every single day - I hit 120 lbs - and up until the day of the pageant I had to weigh in to be sure that I didn't surpass the weight limit. I think it was during this experience that I convinced myself that THINNER was ALWAYS BETTER - if I was skinny, I was worthy.

OK, Fast Forward - January 2007. Just quit the job, depressed as hell, fatter than ever, and absolutely desperate for a change! Grabbed the flyer out of the stack of mail that sat on the counter for the "COMING SOON" Women only health club and went out the door on a mission to join. Don't get me wrong, I was no stranger to health clubs or physical fitness! I had worked out sporadically almost all my life (when I was being "good"). With nothing to use as an excuse this time I joined the gym.
THIS IS WHERE THE REAL JOURNEY BEGAN!!

To make a long story short - I started taking the indoor cycling class at Pure Fitness and before long was seeing my body change. By March I had lost some weight and had gotten pretty good on the bike. By April - the fire was lit! I was onto something here - I hadn't felt that good in a long long time. This is it!!! Remember hearing from all those wise people in your life - that if YOU DO WHAT YOU LOVE THEN YOU WILL NEVER WORK A DAY IN YOUR LIFE - well, honey, they were right!!

By May 2007 I was certified to teach Group Exercise! In a matter of months I was teaching classes, meeting lots of great women (and men since I was now teaching at a co-ed gym too) and feeling reborn! I know, kind of dramatic to say it that way, but it's true!!

So, today, May 4, 2010 - after thinking about it for a while and talking myself out of it, then back into it - I decide to start this blog. I am working toward my NASM Personal Training Certification, I have hundreds of people each week attending my fitness classes, and I have created a career out of something I love. BUT - I work for it every day. I know what that CHAMPION looks like and I work toward her every day - to be better every day. What does your champion look like?? Read the lyrics to the song - and think about it. Talk to you soon, K


The Champion In Me
3 Doors Down

You said that mountains too high,
You said that oceans too wide
I've heard all new beginings
started with an end
Watch this journey I take,
turn into something I make
Please watch closely,
you may not see this again

Cause I, know I,
I was born to be this way
Everyday I try and I'll do
everything that it takes
to become the one
what I've always wanted to be
Watch right now
and you will see the champion in me
The champion in me

When the others cower,
I'm in my finest hour
We are champions created by design
While I remember falling,
I hear these dreams keep calling
I work so hard, so long,
I'm takin what is mine!

Cause I, know I,
I was born to be this way
Everyday I try and I'll do
everything that it takes
to become the one
what I've always wanted to be
Watch right now
and you will see the champion in me
The champion in me
Champion, champion in me,
champion, champion

Cause I, know I,
I was born to be this way
Everyday I try and I'll do
everything that it takes
to become the one
what I've always wanted to be
Watch right now
and you will see the champion in me
The champion in me