“The fitness industry in  Australia is booming with boot camps and personal trainers filling our parks and  beaches. It is now estimated to be worth over 800 million dollars per year but how qualified are the people who are pushing us to our limits and potentially causing us serious injury?  The minimum qualification for a personal trainer can be attained in eight weeks and many veteran trainers and allied health professions feel it is nowhere near long enough. Should we be looking to personal trainers to help us move the extra kilos? Or are they simply ripping us off and endangering our health?” [1]

Sunshine Coast Personal Trainer,  Bianca Aiono of SculptLife was featured this week  on SBS Insight’s program to discuss industry reform.  Bianca says “ They invited me down to help shed light on the problem at hand, but they were more interested in one bad experience I had with a Sunshine Coast Personal Trainer I had years ago. It’s easy to try to make a name for yourself by criticising something that is essentially very positive and I definitely didn’t make a trip all the way to Sydney just for that!”

Bianca believes the problematic issues lie in the “Fly By Night” nature of the Personal Training Industry, a lack of communication between client and trainer, and the “No Pain No Gain” mentality typical of “The Biggest Loser”. Being a PT and “getting paid to have fun” is an enviable lifestyle, and Training Providers know many people hate their job. But in eight weeks time, a taxi driver can become a  SunShine Coast Personal Trainer and for the unsuspecting consumer, this can spell disaster.

Sunshine Coast Personal Trainer, Bianca, says though it’s not the length of education that is to blame, a willingness to learn and life experience can make a world class trainer. Conversely, trainers with a 4 year degrees have been turned away by employers for not having the “people skills” necessary to give good service to their members. A lack of experienced trainers is compounded by the fact that a PT’s expected career life is just 18 months, as quoted by Fitness First’s Personal Training manager, Dominic dos Remidios.  Bianca believes this is due to new graduates often having unrealistic expectations as to how hard you need to make it work before getting the big bucks and not being equipped with the skills to run their own business. 

“ There are cold early mornings, late nights, unreliable pay and high rental commitments from the money grabbing corporate giants such as Fitness First.” Bianca says  “Safe effective and permanent  weight loss does not require a trainer screaming orders, injuries are just waiting to happen.”

 At SculptLife Personal Training on the Sunshine Coast we offer potential clients a free fitness consultation on our website www.sculptlife.com.au  valued at $80 to assess exactly what they want to achieve, a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee and plenty of client testimonials. Don’t sign up without a complimentary consultation, know your limits and if you have a special condition, make sure you hire a trainer who can cater to your needs.  Group Training can be very rewarding and positive, but remember in a group environment a trainer cannot give you their undivided attention. Bianca believes that over regulation is not the solution, rather a commitment going forward to mentor new graduates with experienced PT’s and to provide avenues for Trainers to be recognised for their experience on a national level.

 SBS Can Be viewed at http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/index/id/212#watchonline

To be a successful business woman you must ;

1. Always, always, always put yourself and your health first, no matter how busy you are. Poor Energy = Poor Perfomance = Poor Profits. .

2. Understand that your personal presentation has a direct correlation to your income. You know that how you feel about how you look gives you the confidence to tackle projects head on.

3. Clearly define your goals and your Sunshine Coast Fitness Program in order to get the best health and fitness results. There’s no time for wishy washy goals, your time is valuable and you need maximum results in the minimum amount of time.

4. Forget about will power, this isn’t about punishing commando style bootcamps and and eating rabbit food. You need to make sustainable lifestyle changes for the long term for a long illustrious career.

5. Create a Sunshine Coast Fitness workout schedule and stick to it religiously, your fitness appointments are amongst the most important in your very full diary.

6. Always be prepared, simply taking 15 minutes the night before to prepare quick and healthy meals for the next day will make an impact on your bottom line, as well as your waist line.

7. Seek the help of a Sunshine Coast Personal Trainer to tailor a Sunshine Coast Fitness program to your needs. Your trainer will provide you with the accountability and motivation to achieve your goals. The last thing you need is an injury, or to waste time on an inappropriate exercise routine that doesn’t inspire you or deliver you the results you demand.

Bianca Aiono

Sunshine Coast Personal Trainer, Bianca Aiono, is looking for a sponsor, preferably one who farms eggs.

In her bid to become one of the world’s best natural body builders the 27-year-old Sunshine Coast Personal Trainer from the Glasshouse Mountains, eats 28 eggs a day, minus the yolks.

“I spend a lot of money on eggs,” Bianca jokes. “I just need to find out which restaurant is making a lot of hollandaise sauce and get the leftover egg whites before they get thrown out.”

Bianca competed at the International Natural Bodybuilding Titles on Sunday 17th May 09 and won the Intermediate Figure Category.

The title has eluded her for the past two years as Bianca struggled to meet her strict diet and exercise regime.

“I didn’t believe I could do it, which meant I just wasn’t lean enough to stand up on stage in bikinis and stripper heels and have a group of strangers give me a point for every fault I had,” Bianca said.

“This time I started preparing months earlier and did a lot of soul searching and figured out accepting yourself and loving yourself for who you are is the best fat burner of all.”

She trains at least 20 hours a week, incorporating weights and cross training.

Bianca represented Australia in swimming and volleyball before discovering body building. She was unhappy with her weight, which was 84kg, and wanted to trim down. She now weighs 68kg.

“When I was 24 I was overweight and wanted to improve my body. I got into bodybuilding and loved it – then it became an obsession,” Sunshine Coast Personal Trainer, Bianca said.

“Bianca heads to the Gold Coast on May 30 for the Asia Pacific Natural Bodybuilding Titles, where she is hoping for a win.

Brekky with Bianca Aiono, Sunshine Coast Personal Trainer

What Bianca eats every day:

Breakfast: Protein pancakes made from 10 egg whites and half a cup of oats

Morning snack: Grilled chicken breast with vegetables

Lunch: Omelette made from 10 egg whites and vegetables

Afternoon snack: Grilled fish and vegetables

Dinner: Grilled chicken breast and vegetables

Supper: Omelette made with eight egg whites

Read Sunshine Coast Personal Trainer Bianca Aiono’s article “Managing Fitness And Diet: Good Calories Vs. Empty Calories In The Battle For Weight Loss In Sunshine Coast” for some great tips on Sunshine Coast Weight Loss!

Article by Anne-Louise Brown | 20th May 2009 featured in

Christmas is usually thought of as one of the only times of the year that you’re ‘allowed’ to gorge on calorie dense foods and drinks, but on the other hand, you’re also expected to look fab in your outfits when at all those special Christmas events. Here are 4 tips to avoid weight gain over the Festive Season.

1. Decide now to be more health and figure conscious with your food choices this Christmas, but still enjoy yourself! You dont have to overindulge on everything in sight to have a good time, enjoy the company of family and friends you rarely see; play games with the children or make a great mix cd and have a dance with the family on Christmas Night!

2. Be prepared. It is essential that you are mentally and physically prepared. To ready yourself mentally, ask yourself these questions:

-Do I honestly and seriously want to eat healthily and feel good over Christmas?
-Do I want to resign to the fact that I will gain weight over Christmas?
-Do I really want to face the task of losing the same weight again after Christmas?

Your outlook towards staying slim during Christmas is highly dependant on your attitude. Your mind is a very powerful tool, dont underestimate it’s power. After some thoughtful and serious consideration of the above questions, if you answered, ‘yes, no, no’ then you’re in the right mindframe and on the right track to keeping those extra Christmas kilos in check.

Thoughts like ‘I always gain weight at Christmas’, or ‘I’ll get serious about my figure and health after Christmas’ are negitively fuelled thoughts. Keep your thoughts postive, think things like ‘I will stay slim and maintain my figure over Christmas’ instead of ‘I want to stay slim over Christmas’.

3. Be aware of what your Christmas figure maintenance goal is, since you’ll most likely be experiencing a big change in your regular routine with regards to your normal eating habits, your goal may simply be to maintain your weight. That way you wont be disappointed if you dont lose anyweight, but any loss would be an added bonus! Know what you expect of yourself and what you’re aiming for.

4. Really want it and believe you can do it. This is something that you are doing for you, not anyone else. It is definitley possible to keep excess weight off over Christmas, the only thing that could possibly stop you from doing it is yourself.
This is your figure you want to maintain, your goals you want to achieve and the benefits and results will be yours too, really make it your own and do it for yourself and most of all, believe you can!

Thinking It Through to the End

There was once an old expression that went something like “a moment on the lips and a lifetime on the hips”.   You don’t hear this expression often anymore, but it really sums up the need to be fully aware of what you put into your mouth.  When you thoughtlessly prepare and/or eat meals that are unhealthy, the food tastes great in your mouth but quickly turns to fat in the body.

Even worse is the fact the wrong food choices can lead to disease and shorten your life span.  Almost everyone knows that high cholesterol foods can cause cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, or even cancer.   Foods that are high in sugar can cause type-2 diabetes and heart disease.

All too often, people decide to go on a diet and make a big production of the decision.  They announce their decision to family and friends, make a date to start the diet, and begin weighing religiously.  Most diets start out well, but it’s not long before the cravings for certain foods begin and the constant effort becomes tedious.

Instead of deciding to go on a diet, you should decide to start living a healthy lifestyle.  Going on a diet for Sunshine Coast weight loss is a short term solution.  Living a healthy lifestyle is a choice you are making that will endure the rest of your life.  You can begin by simply thinking about what you eat and when you eat it in order to achieve Sunshine Coast weight loss.

Lose Weight By Living the Healthy Life

When you embark on a healthy lifestyle, it is important to begin thinking about your decision related to food and physical activity.  When it comes to food, you want to mentally evaluate your choices.  For example, when you reach into the refrigerator for an evening snack, you can choose ice cream or a piece of fruit.  When it’s time for breakfast, you can choose a bowl of oatmeal or bacon and eggs.  Do you really need that in-between meal snack?  Are you that hungry, and if so, why?

You can begin to substitute foods with high nutritional value for foods that are not good for your body on a meal by meal basis.  Instead of being obsessed with Sunshine Coast weight loss, you can focus on your energy level and how well you are aging.  When you make the right food choices and manage the quantity of food you eat, you will lose weight.

Your diet management should be combined with regular exercise too.  If you just think about each food item you put into your mouth, you are bound to maintain Sunshine Coast weight loss as you learn to make better choices.

When you lose weight by following a calorie restricted fad diet, you are not making a lifestyle change.  You are simply dieting.  This makes it very difficult to keep lost weight off, because as soon as you start eating again the weight will return.

The ideal healthy diet is really not a diet but more of a fitness plan.  You learn to eat right and get regular exercise.  The fitness plan is not something you follow for a few weeks until the weight is lost, but it is a plan for living a healthy life.  There is a big difference between dieting to lose weight and getting fit while losing weight.

Maintaining Sunshine Coast weight loss is a lot easier when you adhere to a healthy lifestyle.  The key is to make your fitness program interesting by eating a variety of healthy foods and choosing physical activities you enjoy.

If you are uncomfortable working out at the gym then you can hire an in-home trainer who can develop a varied exercise program.  If you like exercising outdoors, there are many different athletic and recreational activities which you can do to burn calories.  You can play tennis or start a walking program.

Paying Attention to the Details

The key to Sunshine Coast weight loss is to continue your weight maintenance program in your daily living while paying attention to habits which could lead to weight gain.

• Stay focused on your daily Sunshine Coast weight loss maintenance program by becoming aware of physical symptoms indicating the body is distressed (i.e. eating high fat food that causes indigestion)
• Weigh yourself regularly without being obsessive
• Learn how to choose a variety of healthy foods
• Learn how to cook foods in a healthy manner
• Exercise 5 to 7 days a week
• Change your exercise program regularly so you don’t lose interest
• Don’t let your body feel starved which lowers your resistance to eating junk food or extra calories you don’t need
• Only eat when you are hungry and not because it is “meal time”
• Eat smaller meals more frequently
• Make sure your exercise program includes aerobic and strength training exercises
• Look for ways to burn more calories as you go through the day (i.e. stand instead of sitting, parking far from the store door and so on)

Keeping the pounds off for Sunshine Coast weight loss is not difficult as long as you pay attention to your diet and continue to exercise regularly.  Even as you age and the metabolism naturally slows down, low fat diets coupled with increased exercise can help you stay at the right weight.

Good Calories, Bad Calories

All calories are not created equal; not all calories are evil—you need calories to live and have energy.  A diet capable of supporting health and fitness is one that is packed with good calories.  So what’s a ‘bad’ calorie?  You might recognize it by another name—an empty calorie.

An empty calorie is a calorie with no nutritional value.  It is a calorie largely based in fats and sugars devoid of vitamins, minerals, and important nutrients. When trying to achieve weight loss in Sunshine Coast, you should learn which calories are empty calories and try to avoid them.

Protein, carbohydrates, and fats are all macro nutrients.  There are good sources of these needed dietary elements, but there are also a lot of bad sources that are nothing more than empty, useless calories.

Good calories and good sources of macro nutrients have necessary carbs, good fats, and proteins, and they also have micro-nutrients such as fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.

Useless, Empty Calories

The problem with empty calories is that they provide little to no energy, no restorative and constructive properties (for muscle, bone, and tissue), and add to fat stores.  Very simply, empty calories have none of the necessary elements needed to support body function, workouts, and good health.

Fitness depends on having good sources of calories that also provide other needed elements and energy for working out.  The right caloric sources will result in improved energy, enhanced muscle formation, and increased weight loss.  Empty calories will negate these efforts, making it harder to achieve weight loss for Sunshine Coast residents.

How To Spot An Empty Calorie

In a hurried world it is easy to consume many empty calories throughout the course of the day and not even realize it.  This can leave you feeling sluggish and thwart the best of fitness efforts.  Many people trying to achieve weight loss on the Sunshine Coast eat mainly empty calories and do not even know that they do it.  So how can you easily spot an empty calorie?

First off, consider that all ‘junk food’ is empty calories.  Avoid sugar-laden foods and refined grains (white flours).  Eat natural sugars (fruits and vegetables) and whole grains.  Avoid fried foods, candy, and sugary drinks (soda, but also sugary ‘energy’ drinks that are often nothing more than sugar and caffeine).

Also look out for beer and alcohol; these are sources of sugar and stored fats with nothing else to offer.

Depending on preparation, even good calories can turn empty quickly (fried foods and more).  To really learn to quickly spot empty calories you need to get educated—talk to a nutritionist, your doctor, or your personal trainer.  These professionals will give you the basics of good calorie consumption, help you balance out your diet and point you to reliable resources for more information about weight loss on the Sunshine Coast.

Your health and well-being depend on your good diet.  Reaching your fitness goals does, too.  Many a person has found that simple dietary changes, a switch-over to good calorie sources rather than consuming empty calories, has made the difference between a stalled fitness campaign and reaching and exceeding fitness objectives.

To make Sunshine Coast Fitness a priority in your life, you need to give yourself as many reasons and as many helpful tools as you can.  Here you’ll find five great tips for making fitness a priority in life, rather than an afterthought.

5 Tips To Make Health And Sunshine Coast Fitness A Life Priority

Clarify your undeniable need for fitness, enlist some help, and pencil—no pen—fitness in to make sure that you live well and live long.

Write it down—what gets done in the course of your day?  The things you’ve made time for.  Exercise should be top of that list because it is what will ensure that you are around to do more and live better.  Schedule time for fitness just as you would for getting dressed, working, and attending important meetings.  Block out your time for fitness in your daily planner first so that you make the time.  Schedule exercise in at a time that makes sense and the rest around it.

Buddy up—get a friend to be your fitness buddy; or, if a friend isn’t interested or available, partner with a like-minded acquaintance at the Sunshine Coast fitness  center and make him or her your friend and fitness buddy.  Having a buddy makes fitness fun and (close to) painless and helps you support each other.  You’ll find that the reasons you give your buddy to go on work for you, too!

Make a list—list all the reasons why you want to get fit and be healthy.  This helps you set fitness goals, motivates you with clear reasoning, and works as a reminder for those times when ambition is waning.  Refer back to your fitness list to see what goals you’ve accomplished, what goals need revamping or replacing, and for general motivation.

Reward yourself—create a reward system as further motivation; with one caveat—your reward cannot be food.  Give yourself something worth working for, something that promotes fitness, and something with lasting motivational power.  A spa treatment, new clothes/wardrobe, a long weekend or vacation, or new recreational or even fitness activity are some good rewards to start with.

Look to the pros—the guidance and support of a good personal trainer is unbeatable as a prioritization strategy for Sunshine Coast fitness.  A personal trainer will help you in innumerable ways by making exercise more enjoyable, more ‘do’-able, providing ongoing information and support, structuring a fitness program tailor-made for you, and being a general source of motivation.  You’ll find that keeping that appointment time and being accountable to someone else helps, too.

You’ll find these five simple tips for prioritizing fitness in your life will go a long way toward your success on the Sunshine Coast fitness trail.  Small changes like these can make a big impact and really help you keep your good health and well being at the forefront of your list of things that need doing.