Tommy Europe Interview

 

Exclusive Interview With Tommy Europe

Tommy Europe is a former CFL player and current personal trainer and film stuntman. He hosts “The Last 10 Pounds Bootcamp” and “Bulging Brides” TV shows.  Kris Simpson interviews TV host and fitness expert Tommy Europe

KRIS – Tell me about football: what it did for you, how it created the person you are today and how it helps you with your job?

TOMMY – Football was a sport I loved. It was actually hockey more than football until I started working out and then football kind of took precedent, and I could see myself going further playing football.

K – Did you have your sights on a fitness career while you were playing football?

T – Initially (my weight training) was just to become a better player. I trained people while I was at Bishop’s University (in Quebec), not full-time or anything, but it was just something I wanted to do. I didn’t really consider it work. Towards the last half of my CFL career, that’s when I looked at the fitness industry as a viable crossover once I was done playing.

K – Tell me a little bit about 13 Hitz — the personal training program, the studio you run and the vision you have.

T – 13 Hitz is my personal training company. There’s one-on-one training, partner and group training, and corporate training. I have trainers that work with me as well. It gives my clients a little change of pace. 13 Hitz is my vehicle of putting something out there that’s going to challenge people, be a little bit different. There are so many different things you can do, fitness-wise, whether you’re inside or outside. I’m not a big machine guy, I’m more of a functional training (person), utilizing whatever’s around.

K – Do you think the functional training approach comes from your sport background?

T – Yes, definitely. I was very fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of very talented people who were athletically talented – trainers and coaches. Some of them did things a little bit differently. We were utilizing things that were available to us at the time that some people might have thought was a little bit crazy, and some of it was, but it was different. Just like a lot of my clients, I can get bored very easily, so if you don’t change things up or have something a little bit different, it’s going to be a tough go.

K – Bootcamp training seems to be a trend right now. What exactly is it?

T – Whether you’re inside or outside, you’re going to be doing a lot of different things. Most of the time you’re not going to want to do them. The exercises are going to be challenging. The main thing about bootcamp — and what I fight with my clients with constantly — is I never want to hear “I can’t.” “Bootcamp” puts people in a certain mind-set … that this is going to be a grind.

K – Where do you see the fitness industry going?

T – Bootcamp is always going to be a hot topic. I think bridal bootcamp because people are always getting married, that’s not going to stop. And fitness for children because all we hear about is the child obesity (trend).

K – What do you think is the secret for losing the last 10 pounds?

T – Determination. “The Last 10 Pounds Bootcamp” is over a four-week period, some people get on the program right away and believe in it and put everything into it. There’s others that kind of BS for the first week until they have their two-week weigh-in and see they’ve lost one or two pounds and a couple of inches, and then they’re shocked and kind of embarrassed. Then I tell them, “What did you think was going to happen?” You’re gonna get out of it what you put into in. I think once that kind of clicks, you really see a lot of positive change.

For more information on Tommy Europe visit 13hitz.com

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Fitness Expert Tosca Reno

 

Exclusive Interview With Tosca Reno

Tosca Reno is an author, professional speaker, fitness expert and swimsuit model. Currently in her late 40s, you can find Tosca gracing the covers of fitness magazines, speaking at seminars across the country, and promoting her best selling books including The Butt Book, The Eat Clean Diet, and The Eat Clean Diet Workout Journal. With more books on the way, I had a chance to speak with Tosca and learn about her amazing story.

KRIS – Thanks again, Tosca, for taking the time to speak with me.  Why don’t you start by telling our readers about your life ‘before’ your transformation.

TOSCA – Sure.  Like a lot of North Americans, I was overweight.  At one point I weighed over 200 pounds.  I wasn’t happy, I ate whatever I wanted, and I didn’t have much focus in my life.  I would try a lot of different diets, and I never questioned what I ate.

K – What was the turning point for you?

T – It was 10 years ago, when I had a chance encounter with Robert Kennedy whom is the publisher of many fitness magazines including Oxygen Fitness.  At the time I was a teacher, and I was working with his daughter.  He saw how unhappy I was, and issued me a challenge to compete in a bodybuilding competition!  As crazy as it sounded, I followed his advice, step by step, and it worked!

K – What exactly was his advice to you?

T – He basically introduced me to 2 concepts – clean eating, and weight training.  Up to that point I was doing a lot of cardio.  I started weight training 5 times per week, and decreased my cardio to twice per week.  I learned that you can ‘cardio’ yourself to death, but it won’t shape your body.  To get definition, and nice curves, you must include weight training in your program! 

K – Your new books are all about ‘eating clean.’  What is the ‘Eat Clean Diet’?

T – Well, I must admit that it’s not a diet at all.  It’s not about giving up one food group for another.  It’s about giving your body what it needs to thrive, but eating the food that God gave us, and not the ‘food’ that humans created in a lab.

K – I’m sure there were obstacles along the way.  What kept you motivated?

T – Initially, I knew that I wasn’t healthy, but I was really concerned that I had three beautiful daughters, and I wanted to take care of myself to live a long, healthy life.  I wanted to leave a legacy for them so they could also take care of themselves.  My biggest obstacle was my family, since I was making changes to my eating and lifestyle, which meant that they had to make changes as well.  But that soon passed, and now everybody eats the same way.  We all lead clean, healthy lives.

K – Describe a typical day in the life of Tosca Reno.  How do you stay in shape?

T – I typically wake up around 6:30 a.m. and have coffee with my hubby.  Afterwards, I’ll do 35-40 minutes of cardio on my elliptical or treadmill.  Breakfast is usually at 8:15 a.m., and then I’ll eat a meal every 3 hours consisting of lean protein and complex carbs.  Dinner is at 6:30 p.m. with the family, and it’s always pre-planned with no distractions (like TV) so that we can spend time talking about our day.  Then at 8 p.m. I’ll start my weight training – usually 2 body parts per day.

K – What is the one tip that our readers need to know?

T- I think the key is to give yourself permission to enjoy the gym, and enjoy the benefits of going to the gym.  Don’t be freaked out — love the results that comes out of it.

K – Where can our readers learn more about you?

T – They can visit my websites, www.eatcleandiet.com and  www.toscanreno.com.  They can find my ‘Eat Clean’ books on my website, including the Workout Book and the new Training Journal.  I’m also proud to be on the cover of FIRST Magazine with Eva Longoria this month.

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Homeopath Bryce Wylde

Bryce Wylde is one of Canada’s leading alternative health experts and a respected homeopathic doctor and nutritionist.  He is the director of the Vaughan Medical Centre, and has his own call-in TV show, Wylde on Health, on CP24. His book, The Antioxidant Prescription, is a best-seller.

Kris Simpson interviews homeopathic doctor and nutritionist Bryce Wylde

 

KRIS – What are the 3 top tips for living the better lifestyle?

BRYCE – Number 1: good cholesterol levels, so get that HDL as high as you possibly can. Outside of diet, exercise is one of the best ways to get HDLs up. Number 2: Aim to incorporate a nutritional protocol in your life that is essentially going to give you the best glycemic index in your diet. It’s studying foods for their antioxidant capacity within each of the categories. Choose proteins with the highest antioxidant capacity, choose fruits and vegetables with the highest antioxidant capacity, choose your grains this way, and choose your drinks this way. It’s called ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) dieting. Number 3: understand your life’s agenda. Have some good ideas as to what motivates you, thrives you and what your long-term goals are.

K – What motivated you to become a homeopathic doctor?

B – It was really by virtue of upbringing that my original exposure came. My mother, a single parent, was very much into first-line therapy using natural alternatives, as far back as I can remember really. If it was a cold or a flu, her first go-to would be the herbal or homeopathic medicine cabinet, perhaps some cold-stop therapy or whatever was the latest or greatest in the realm of alternative healing. Her philosophy was always helping the body to work as best as it can on its own as a first.

K – What are the main differences between homeopathic medicine and traditional medicine?

B – Traditional, which is absolutely needed by the way … is not really good at managing chronic issues, like the defunct immune systems perhaps, or the never-well-fit scenarios where – by virtue of genetic predisposition, on top of a stressful lifestyle, on top of a poor diet – your bad genes start to express, and you develop chronicities based on our predisposition. [Traditional doctors] like to be palliative – suppress pain, control pain, suppress this, kill that, eradicate this bacteria or virus – where we’re more of the focus that is the natural medicine at large – homeopathic, naturopathic, nutrition, and certainly what you do Kris, in getting the body fit.

K – Where do you see the future of medicine, because I know prescription drugs will be part of our future, but to what extent?

B – Well, we’ll never get away from prescription medication, and that’s fine, but what we need to do is qualify use of specific prescription medication. Take cholesterol medication for example. “High cholesterol levels” is not much of an epidemic as we’re led to believe. I think it’s much more fuelled by the pharmaceutical industry than really exists …. Lipitor, for example, is the number one selling drug in North America, accounting for more than $13 billion in sales last year, and that’s disproportionate to how many people have elevated cholesterol, plus should otherwise have been given lifestyle and diet recommendations that simply weren’t. If people were compliant, then we would probably be a huge difference and success rate in alternative health care as well as fitness recommendations, but even more so, if people just knew and were educated as to their options.

K – Do you think conditions such as heart disease, cancer and the leading diseases could be cured or decreased?

B – There’s no miracle to natural medicine. There’s no miracle to homeopathy or herbology or even nutrition. The body is the miracle. We have these ingenious machines that we get to use for the course of our lifetimes and if we treat them well, give it the information it requires to run effectively, that’s when the miracles occur. We’re able to get over things like cancer, given the right information and nutrients that our bodies require in those situations. Here’s what we know about genetics. We know we can’t change our genetic predisposition – you can’t change the cards that mom and dad have dealt you – but what we have now learned through epigenetics and nutrigenomics is that you can actually modify your genetic expression through diet, exercise and lifestyle.

K – Is there a secret to anti-aging, from a natural standpoint?

B – Absolutely. If you study the Blue Zones (regions of the world where people commonly live active lives past the age of 100) there’s a lot of documentation written on that, and the focus there was good vs. bad cholesterol, and good cholesterol being the common  denominator of importance …. This and other studies are all reflective of diet and lifestyle and leading lives that contributed to less free radical activity …. There’s proof now that while we can’t change our genes, we can absolute influence how they express themselves, and there are genes that essentially control aging – whether it’s slowing down or speeding it up – and those are directly related to free radicals and antioxidants.

For more information on Bryce Wylde visit Vaughanmedicalcentre.com

Fitness Expert Paul Plakas

Exclusive Interview With Paul Plakas 

Paul Plakas has been in the fitness industry for over 18 years. Co-owner of Custom Fit Personal Training Studio in Edmonton, Alberta, Paul splits his time between training clients, and hosting his hit TV series  “X-Weighted” which can be seen on the Slice Network. I had a chance to speak with Paul to learn more about his incredible journey.

KRIS – Good morning, Paul. Why don’t you start by telling us what happened in high school that started you on your path to fitness.

PAUL – No problem, Kris! When I was a boy, my parents opened a restaurant where they had to work long hours. That meant I spent a lot of time, and ate a lot of meals there. Unfortunately, a typical lunch would be a cheeseburger, fries and a milkshake, and I really started to gain weight.  During grade 10 I had a traumatic incident – I went to school that day in a tank top and remember the entire school making fun of how I looked. At that time I thought “I’m sick and tired of looking this way” so I convinced my parents to buy me a weight lifting set and started training in their basement.

K – How did you get into the ‘biz’?

P – I graduated in 1990 from the University of Alberta with a Phys Ed degree and started at a local club as a fitness instructor. From there I joined up with some friends and started the first personal training studio in Edmonton, then went on my own to start Custom Fit Personal Training Studio in 1999.

K – So tell us about “X-Weighted.” How did you manage to start a TV show?

P – One of my personal training clients has been in TV her whole life and had an idea for doing a weight loss show where they have cameras follow people around for 6 months to see if they could lose weight.  She approached me to host, and the first show was called “Taking it Off” which lasted four years.  Then we changed the format of the show and called it “X-Weighted.”  We’re about to start filming the fourth season, called “X-Weighted Families.”

K – On your website, you mention the Top 10 Rules on Exercising. Why don’t you share your favourite with our readers?

P – Sure. I suggest that you avoid lying down or seated movements – they are the two laziest positions that the human body can be in. Most people sit down or lie down already too much so why do the same at the gym? If you want to expend energy and be a functional person, I suggest training with multidirectional movement patterns that have you on your feet.

K – Any last words of wisdom for our readers?

P – Yes. If your goal is weight loss, I recommend that you try to hang out with people who have like-minded goals – if you hang out with people who are interested in keeping in shape, they care about their health and are into fitness, then you are more likely to do the same thing – try to hang out with more ‘fit’ people.

K- Thanks Paul!

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Aida Memisevic interview

 

Aida Memisevic is a former life coach who has become a successful entrepreneurial TV producer and personality. She hosts the lifestyle series “Cosmetic Innovations” and “Positive Living.”

Kris Simpson interviews TV producer Aida Memisevic

KRIS – Let’s talk about “Positive Living.” What is it?

AIDA – It’s a television show about how to create your most amazing life. We do that by sharing with people and interviewing authors and the gurus in the areas of inspiration and motivation. It’s about creating your most amazing life, and not only for yourself, but for everybody. Part of that is creating a better world, being a better person and being concerned about other people and their welfare.

K – How do you think health and fitness ties in to positive living?

A – Our body is our temple: it’s what gets us around from place to place. Our brain is what allows us to think, so part of living your optimal life is having your body and your mind working at their best.

If you keep your body active and you keep working on building muscle mass so that you can function properly, then the amount of debilitation I think that people assume happens with age does not have to be the case, so there’s a lot we can do to keep our bodies functioning, healthy and strong for a long time.

K – Why is the personal development industry growing? 

A – I think there’s a shift that’s being created in the world about social consciousness, about who we are as human beings. From a fitness and wellness point of view, look at the consumer products, the marketing: probiotic yogurt, 12-grain bread, low-emission cars. All of these new products are coming about as a result of this social consciousness. One study I read said 1-in-9 investment dollars are now related somehow to something green, or eco-friendly or socially conscious.

K – Could you give us one secret that would allow our clients to achieve their goals (which are typically weight loss, looking better and living positive)?

A – Sometimes when you’re on a weight-loss or physical fitness journey you don’t always find the answer right away. Sometimes you have to figure out what works for you, what you enjoy doing. I think it’s really important to find that physical fitness strategy you enjoy, whatever that may be. For me, I like martial arts, so my personal trainer works with me the way that I like. In terms of food, don’t give up easily if it doesn’t quite come perfectly the first time around. Know that there’s an answer, know that there’s a way, and if you haven’t found it, you have to keep looking until you find the way to make it happen.

Sometimes people go on a route and they get off track. Keep moving, keep moving forward and keep the goal in mind. Focus on what you do want, not what you don’t want. If you’re not liking what you see in the mirror at the moment, get out of that quickly and go to what you do want.

For more information on Aida Memisevic visit PositiveLivingTV.com

Inspiration Guru Richard Dolan

Richard Dolan is the mind behind Bydolan and its Group of Companies aimed at empowering people to think rich, dream big and live life powerfully. Richard is an accomplished author, the creator of the nationally acclaimed “Possibility Series,” and he has delivered more than 2,000 presentations. Richard has spoken to major corporations and has shared the stage with some of the world’s top thinkers.


KRIS – What events have you been involved with lately?

RICHARD – I just completed a speaking tour across Canada with Anthony Robbins. Also, having recently shared the stage with U.S. Olympian Michael Phelps and journalist Barbara Walters in Toronto, I am scheduled to share the stage with former U.S. president Bill Clinton at the “Power Within” conference in Montreal on Nov. 25.

K – How can people be their best and how can they stay motivated to achieve their fitness goals

R – I believe that to remain undaunted in your goals, you should follow the SMART plan:

1. S – be SPECIFIC – about what it is EXACTLY that you wish to achieve. Many times people are vague in their fitness goal
2. M – be MOTIVATED – about that specific fitness goal. If the goal doesn’t move, touch and motivate you to jump out of bed, from work or out of the car to get it done, you likely won’t.
3. A – be ACCOUNTABLE – Hire a fitness coach and tell your friends and co-workers your goals — chances are once they know what you’re up to, the ‘positive pressure’ will press when you feel like not following through.
4. R – be REALISTIC – Unrealistic goals may be the surefire way of sabotaging your fitness plan
5. T – be TIMELY – Without a deadline or checkpoints, you can’t keep yourself on time, on target or on purpose.

K – How can success on the gym floortranslate into success in other areas of a person’s life?

R – I believe that one’s confidence in life is about winning a succession of small games that lead to larger victories. In other words, setting weight loss goals, reaching an ideal look or lifting heavier weights is about setting the benchmarks of a game. As you begin training, tell yourself you can do it and your mind will grow. Your confidence will then begin to emerge

K – How can your series of CDs help people achieve their health and fitness goals

R – I just completed my newest book “On Purpose – Living and Leading Life Fully” where one of the chapters focuses on Health On Purpose. I believe great leaders must see that their ability to lead will be a reflection of what state ones health is in, inside and out. Having one’s Health on purpose begins with (1) Inner Health – nutritionally sound, (2) Outer Health – physically sound, and (3) Growth of Both – the aim of growing muscle capacity, better breathing, sound physiology and a quiet mind.