Hope you’re having a super summer!

For you folks on this side of the border, Happy Canada Day! …and to my wife, Happy Birthday!

I told her she is that important that our whole country celebrates her birthday;-)

We are in Quispamsis, New Brunswick right now on vacation. It might have a funny name but it’s a beautiful place just outside the main center of St.John. It’ so nice we are actually looking at some of the real estate here;-)

We are staying at my wife’s sisters and Matea is having a ball and was quite the travelling trooper during the drive here.

A lot of people seem to worry about what to do with their healthy living routine when they go on vacation.

So I took the time out of my vacation to share with you 3 tips that I have used over the years to have a guilt-free vacation this summer while not erasing all of your hard work in the gym and in the kitchen
this winter.

1. Forget Food & Fitness

Personally this is the option I prefer, but it  might not be for everybody. Once a year I allow myself to break free from healthy eating and exercise for up to 2 week for our summer vacation.  I basically eat whatever I want when I am hungry and drink whatever I want whenever I am thirsty. Any other intermittent breaks during the year last only a few days or are for unexpected events. Eating REAL food and doing efficient exercise 90% of the time allows me to do this and actually get stronger and leaner year after year. Yeah, you might put on a couple pounds of water as you won’t really gain any fat in 2 weeks but that will leave you even more motivated to get back on track when you get back. So earn this time and enjoy it!

2. Daily Dining

Pick one meal or snack during the day that you will enjoy the most depending on your planned activities for the day and have it guilt-free.
Brunch breakfast with the family, ice cream at the park or wining and dining in the evening. You don’t have to make it pure junk everyday, take the opportunity to try fresh local recipes wherever you are staying. I just had the local Lobster with Thai Noodles and it was amazing! With your activity levels not as high as normal one large meal and small healthy snacks of nuts and fruit during the rest of the day will keep your hunger and calories on track and you on the move without craving the next meal.

3. Relish the Routine

If you feel the guilt from straying from your Dad Fitness workouts are worst than the food itself then stick with it. Living the Dad Fitness lifestyle is super simple to maintain anyway by eating real food most of the time and having a “treat” meal once a week along with 3 short weekly workouts. Sprints on the beach or bodyweight workouts at the park are great ways to add spice into your workouts while combining, family, fitness and fun.

Because those things are something we don’t want a vacation from…

Happy Canada Day!

I am EXCITED!

…because first I have a NEW exercise video to share with you that builds strong legs, with a cool new twist on an exercise that I bet you haven’t tried;-)

…and second I am OFFICIALLY on vacation!

My wife and I both finished up work today and we are packing up the Murano with Matea and all her “stuffed” friends and hittin’ the road on Sunday to the beautiful East Coast of New Brunswick here in Canada.

We will be gone for a couple weeks, spending some time at Kathy’s sisters as well as taking Matea to Magic Mountain waterpark and Crystal Palace amusement park.

I am also looking forward to hitting the most beautiful beaches North of Virginia as we have a cottage booked for 3 nights in Shediac during the Lobster Festival.

I hope we have better luck in New Brunswick this time around than we did when we bought the car 2 years ago there and got rear ended at a stop sign by some guy on a motorcycle…

Luckily our accident wasn't this bad!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I hope you have been having an awesome holiday season with your family!

Christmas morning was so fun as our 19 month old daughter Matea is finally old enough this year to open her gifts and dig into all the goodies from Santa.

That’s the real joy of being a dad during Christmas is seeing your child’s face light up when they tip toe out to see what Santa left under the tree Christmas morning.

…and of course she had just as much fun with some of the boxes than the gifts themselves!

I know you are probably feeling bad about all the eating and drinking you have been doing over the holidays.

But guess what…It’s OK.

Trust me I know how you feel. I ate and drank too much as well. But I am not worried and I don’t want you to worry either.

What I want you to do is turn these feelings into ACTION. Today is the last day of the year! Let’s put 2009 behind us…

I know you still have New Years Eve to contend with but you don’t have to wait until the clock strikes 12 to make a commitment.

Start TODAY and ask yourself.

“What are my goals? What are my behaviors?

Do my behaviors match my goals?”

What you did in 2009 doesn’t matter – the year is GONE. Just be aware of how effective your behaviors were in reaching your goals.

The real question you should ask yourself is what will the next year hold for you?

So lets get to work on making this your best year ever!

Want to know what workout routine has been working better for me as a busy dad than anything I have been doing all year?

With a new year upon us we all try to start off with a sense of renewal regarding our health and happiness.

Regarding the Dad Fitness System, I have been experimenting with a new approach to being a strong and fit dad.

With feedback from you living the Dad Fitness lifestyle and my personal experience I have been tweaking the program to give you even faster results.

Let’s just call it Dad Fitness 2.0…

The biggest mistake you can make with your workout routine is to keep doing what you’re doing.

You are right in thinking that consistency is the key to long term results, but preventing that dreaded plateau where your body shaping results come to a screeching halt is the real key to life long fitness.

Workouts are all about pushing your body a little harder than it’s is comfortable with so it can adapt by burning fat and building stronger muscles.

But none of this means anything if you can’t adapt your workouts to your lifestyle.

Do you want to know how to stay consistent with your workouts while getting results week after week, month after month?

Be like water!

I will let the great Bruce Lee explain…

“Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash.

Be water, my friend.”

This is what the NEW Dad Fitness workouts is all about in 2010, being like water and adapting the workouts to our evolving role as busy dads.

So stay tuned in the new year as I help you lose your gut and build lean muscle and share with you the New Way To Workout from Dad Fitness,
The Ultimate Fitness Plan For Busy Dads.

Happy New Year!

Share your GOALS and BEHAVIORS to become a fitter dad in 2010 by posting a comment below!

I even have a touch of it myself but I am a big boy so I can handle it…

Thankfully she is now on a stronger antibiotic that is doing the trick as she is feeling better already.

So when family and life gets in the way, eating well don’t have to take a back seat if you have some tasty tricks up your sleeve.

Here is another nutrient dense meal that is great for dinner or refueling after your Dad Fitness workouts.

It’s also easy to prepare and tastes even better the next day when it soaks up all the flavors.

Trust me, you will be looking forward to the leftovers!

Multigrain Fusilli with Sausage

1 box of multigrain fusilli pasta

6tsp of olive oil

1 onion chopped

2 cloved of garlic

1 bell pepper chopped

6 sundried tomatoes chopped

4 Italian sausages diced

a sprinkle of salt, pepper, oregano, parsley and chili flakes

grated romano cheese

Boil pasta for 10 mins and drain

Heat oil in skillet and saute garlic and onions for 5 minutes

Add peppers, tomatoes and sausage and cook through

Add cooked pasta to mixture and stir

Top with Romano cheese

ENJOY!

Got any easy recipes to share?  Leave a comment below…

We have been having some late nights with our little daughter Matea as she has come down with a runny nose and a tough cough which is keeping her up at night.

That’s how I feel today…

I am sad because my wife’s parents (Matea’s nanny and poppy) finally headed out and moved away this weekend.

…Now all the babysitting pressure is on MY parents … hear that Dad? (My Dad reads the blog as well)

But I am excited because The Dad Fitness 60 Day Transformation Challenge officially starts TODAY!

If you still want to enter and lose your beer belly before Christmas you can get all the details here:

==>http://www.DadFitness.com/rules.html

So with the Dad Fitness 60 Day Transformation Challenge getting under way this week, here are 5 Body Transformation Diet Tips that you can start applying to your diet TODAY.

I would have made the trip with them, but unfortunately I couldn’t get time off work.  We are planning on taking a vacation in September anyway to attend my wife’s sister’s wedding on the rock.

I must say I certainly miss the two ladies of the house as I really look forward to little Matea running to greet me at the door when I get home from work.

Today, was especially quiet as our area was hit with an unexpected 5 hour power outage from 9am-2pm!

With a couple days off from work and some extra time to myself I was looking forward to starting the day with an early morning workout then running some errands which I normally have little time to do when I am working or home with Matea.

But when the power went out, everything was put on hold.

Any outdoor activities were also out of the picture as it’s been pouring rain all day…

With no internet to distract me I took advantage of this time by using the couple hours of power my Macbook had left to work on some writing projects for Dad Fitness.

I even surprised myself as I got on a creative roll and completed 3 new health and fitness articles which you will be seeing very soon!

Then when my laptop when dead, I did some cleaning up around the house and even got to organizing my home office bookshelf which was being weighed down by all the books I continue to read. I try to read at least 3-4 books a month on health and fitness, self improvement, business and marketing.

When the lights came back on I was charged up to hit the gym for an intense full body workout.

Today’s workout was considered a “Light Push” workout that involved a little more isolation exercises that I usually do but it was fun and refreshing and my legs were like rubber after the first two exercises. Everything was 2 sets of 12 reps except calves.

A Leg Press

B1 Bulgarian Split Squat

B2 Dumbbell Floor Presses (keep elbows tucked to emphasize triceps)

C1 DB Fly’s

C2 Triceps “Concentration” Extensions (lie on a bench with a dumbbell held overhead with one arm and lower the forearm across your chest until the dumbbell touches. Use the other arm to support and/or assist the working arm)

D1. Dumbbell Lateral Raises

D2. Overhead Barbell Shrugs

E. Seated Calf Extensions, 3 sets of 10

To refuel after today’s workout I had a chocolate milk and a banana.

Then  it was “Dinner for 1″ as I made my famous Dad Fitness Quick and Easy Chili for supper with lots of leftovers for healthy meals for the week.

Finished off the meal with a little 90% cocoa dark chocolate.

Looking forward to talking with my wife this evening as I hold down the fort here at home…

The Barker’s will be at full power on Thursday when the girls return!

By “going with your gut” I don’t mean you should accept that beer belly hanging over your belt.

What I mean is that sometimes you have to go by how you feel if you want to stay motivated with your exercise program.

I have no workout scheduled for today so it’s my wife’s turn to hit the gym as I stay home with our baby daughter Matea for the afternoon.

It’s a cool rainy day here so I guess we will have to keep things inside. I hope Hokey Pokey Elmo can keep up!

I am looking forward to tonight though as it’s “date night” with my wife and Matea will spend the night with her nanny and poppy.

Not sure if we will go out or cook dinner at home…

Yesterday I went to the gym for a busy dad workout but when I got there I wasn’t really in the mood to do the workout I had planned.

I just wasn’t up for heavy deadlifts and I wanted to just do whatever I felt like doing for a change so I threw my training journal back in my gym bag and did whatever exercises I felt like doing.

This is something I rarely do so when I have days like this I know it’s time to change up my workout.

So here is what I came up with after my warmup.

Dumbbell Pushups off hexagon dumbbells supersetted with Inverted Barbell Rows.

3 sets each, 12-15 reps

V Bar Weighted Pulllups with a 10lb plate attached to a dip belt.

6 reps, 2 sets, with a 20 sec negative lowering for the last rep

Bulgarian Split Squats

8 reps each leg, 2 sets

Standing Dumbbell Curls/Hammer Curls

I supersetted a set of dumbbell curls with a set of hammer curls

2 sets each

Seated Calf Raises

2 sets of 10 reps

Ab Wheel Rollouts

2 sets of 10 reps

I really enjoyed this workout, I got a great pump, worked up a good sweat and it was mentally refreshing to just “wing it” at the gym for a change.

I have been doing the same Dad Fitness workout routine for the last 4 weeks so I will design a new workout program and start Sunday or Monday.

]]> http://dadfitnessblog.com/go-with-your-gut-536/feed 0 http://dadfitnessblog.com/the-weekend-workout-428 http://dadfitnessblog.com/the-weekend-workout-428#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:15:45 +0000 Sean Barker http://dadfitnessblog.com/?p=428 Whatta’ weekend!

Friday night we had to take our 13 month old daughter Matea to the emergency room after a gust of wind blew the front door of our house that was open, unfortunately hitting her in the front of the head.

Sporting her bruise like a champ!

She started to get a huge bump right away so we played it safe and took her to the ER just in case. Thankfully the swelling went down rather fast after we applied an ice pack and it was only a minor boo-boo and she hardly cried afterward, she’s a trooper!

Then Saturday night my wife and I had date night and we went out for some fine dining. I had the wild mushrooms to start and then ordered the herb crusted rack of lamb that was fall-off-the-bone delicious.

That's some good eatin'...

Sunday brought on more fun, food and family with a BBQ at the in-laws house. I enjoyed a burger, more ribs, and a couple Cuban beers that Kathy’s parents brought back from their vacation awhile ago!

Almost as good as our Canadian beers!

If you want to know how I eat what I want on the weekends and still stay in great shape year round as a busy dad.

Click Here To See My 24 Hour Diet.

==>http://www.Seans24HourDiet.com

If you want to see how I workout on the weekends when I have a busy week and can’t get to the gym, READ ON…

The Weekend Workout.

Is a 2 day workout plan that only requires 2 back to back workouts on Saturday and Sunday. This program also requires that you are willing to dedicate time on your weekends to 2 intense workouts.

Yes…I did say intense because what you miss in QUANTITY, you will make up for in QUALITY.  These workouts will not be your 10 minute fluff workouts using soup cans.

These 2 workouts will take at least an hour each and require some real-man hard work and intensity, so don’t complain or make excuses, after all, you have all week long to get over it!

I also recommend that you workout in the morning if at all possible for mainly two reasons.

#1 . You won’t have any chance of blowing off these workouts if things come up during the rest of the day. These are your only scheduled workouts for the week so you have to make them count.

#2. You want to take advantage of maximizing your metabolism early in the day so your body will be primed for burning fat and building muscle all weekend long. So if you are going to be a weekend warrior, you have to save your energy for your weekend workouts, so staying out late at the bar with the guys from work when you finish up on Friday isn’t going to put you onto the path to being the fittest dad on the playground .

A man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do. So it’s time to step up to the plate and knock out the excuses with the Weekend Workout…

Out of all the different workout routines I have done over the years there is one that I keep coming back to, the one that never fails me don’t matter how many curve balls life throws my way.

My Big Fat Independent Movie dvd

It’s called the AB Split.

It’s simple and effective and best of all it is easy to work into any busy dads schedule.

You just have two different workouts where you train half of your body one day and the other half the next.

Now the beauty of The Weekend Workout is that you can workout on back to back days, in this case, Saturday and Sunday because you are not annihilating and isolating specific muscle groups.

You will be using the classic compound exercises that work many of your body’s largest muscle groups revving up your metabolism to burn fat and increasing Testosterone to build strong dad muscle.

Saturday: Workout A

The Barbell Squat, 5 sets of 5 reps

Flat Dumbbell Bench Press, 3 sets of 8 reps

Bent Over Barbell Row, 3 sets of 8 reps

Close Grip Bench Press, 3 sets of 6 reps

Front Abdominal Plank, Hold for 30-60 secs

High Intensity Interval Cardio:

Use a treadmill and perform intervals for 6 rounds of 30 secs sprint, 60 secs walk

Sunday: Workout B

The Barbell Deadlift, 5 sets of 5 reps

Chin-Ups, 3 sets of 8 reps

Standing Barbell Shoulder Press, 3 sets of 8 reps

Standing Barbell Bicep Curl, 3 sets of 6 reps

Standing Calf Raise, 3 sets of 10 reps

High Intensity Interval Cardio:

Use a stationary bike and perform intervals for 6 rounds of 60 secs fast, 90 secs easy

*The Mid Week Bodyweight Booster Workout

Yeah I know this is supposed to be a TWO DAY a week workout plan. You CAN make progress on this plan if you only have 2 hours a week to dedicate to some serious lifting.

BUT, if you can find another 15 minutes sometime during the week, do this Mid Week Metabolism Booster Workout with just your own bodyweight to boost that metabolism and get the blood flowing to your recovering muscles that you trashed on the weekend. I would recommend you do this short workout on Wednesday preferably to allow for maximim recovery from your weekend workouts.  This bodyweight workout can be done anytime anywhere so it’s hard to find a reason to not squeeze in this little workout that can make a big difference in burning off that gut and buidling some strong lean muscle despite your busy schedule.

Prisoner Squats
T-Pushups
Lunges
Cross Body Mountain Climbers
Burpees

Do 10 reps of each exercise without rest. Then rest for 1 minute and repeat the circuit 3 times.

I would love to hear about YOUR weekend workouts!

Leave a comment below and tell me about your weekend workouts…