My 4 day immersion into the world of Wellness has shed a lot of light and revealed many sensible solutions to achieving better health.  We rarely know what we are getting ourselves into when we set out to sea with a new community but we had no clue what to expect with our first “non-music” cruise.

The last few days have truly been inspiring.  We confirmed our suspicions that people are passionate about other things than music and there probably is a great opportunity for us to learn how to bring many other communities together on vacation.

But we also witnessed a large group of people focused on their journey to stay fit and healthy.  We heard from experts in fitness, nutrition and other aspects of wellness which got me excited but mostly made me feel duped.  Duped that I didn’t know these fundamentals about the food I have been putting in my body my entire life and guilty for what I have been feeding my kids bodies during their young lives.

Don’t worry…I have not been brainwashed, just educated and here are some things I have learned.

#1) Count Your Calories

If we count them and understand how many we burn (which is not as hard as you think), we can recognize patterns that will lead to weight gain, loss or maintenance.  Apparently, I burn about 2,500 calories per day just from normal activity.  Adding a workout can burn an additional 300-500.  If I can eat 2,000 calories a day, I can lose 1 pound a week without even working out.  An additional 1/2 pound if I workout 3x per week.  I never knew you burned that much just with normal activity.

#2) Muscles Burn Calories

Even when they are not being worked, muscles need calories.  The bigger they are the more calories you burn throughout the day.  And some muscles, like legs and back, burn more calories each day as they are bigger than biceps and triceps.  Something to know before you spend all your time doing curls and push ups.

#3)  Abuse is Abuse

Knowingly choosing the wrong foods and becoming overweight is very similar to abusing alcohol and drugs.  The main difference is that people who abuse food carry it around with them as extra fat for everyone to see whereas alcohol and drug abusers are able to hide it easier.  Odds are that we are using food to cope with something going on.

#4) The Lunch Lady

There is a huge opportunity & responsibility to change things in the school systems.  It won’t be cheap in the short run but long term benefits are overwhelming.  I am looking for an Ipad app where kids can learn math skills by building 2,000 calorie meal plans.  They would select a group of things for breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner and dessert.  If they were over 2,000 they would exchange items to make it balance.  If they were under they could add a dessert or a treat.  Can you imagine kids being able to look at a menu and add up the calories in their meal?  Maybe an SAT example….If Jim had 3 chicken breasts, 3 slices of pizza and 3 hamburger patties, how many calories would he have?

#5) We All Have Fat Somewhere We Can’t Lose

The body stores fat in different places for everyone.  Some of it is dictated by the balance of testosterone vs. estrogen and some of is just genetics.  So don’t be surprised if you get totally ripped and still have a little something you can’t get rid of on the legs or butt or somewhere.  According to the experts, everyone has at least one thing that you just can’t shake.

I am by no means a health expert so do some more reading before embarking on a plan if you feel so inspired.  What I am sharing is just my observation from listening to experts on the Jillian Michael Ultimate Wellness Cruise.

And for those of you who trusted us with your vacation this weekend, thank you.  It was so refreshing to see so many people working hard and having fun at the same time.  You helped us learn more about ourselves and inspired us to look for opportunities to incorporate Wellness into everything we do.

Here’s to a New Fun Tier.

Andy

Good Morning Day 3!  Where does all this energy come from?  As I rolled from my bed this morning, guests were already jogging around the promenade.  Jillian was already kicking butts.  And, healthy food was already being served.

I’m amazed with the endurance of everyone on this cruise.  As a semi-athletic, relatively young individual, I fancy myself a bit of a strong arm.  But I pale in comparison to these people.  They’re jogging, they’re working out, they’re following along to Jillian’s Wii game, and they’re high-fiving all up and down the promenade.  It’s a sight for all eyes.

We always talk about bringing like-minded individuals together that share a passion, and we’ve done it.  I’ll be honest, we were a little scared.  How do you make a wellness cruise Live Loud?  You have Jillian Michaels yell about pushups, and these people will Live Loud all day long.

See you on the sweaty side!

-Lisa

The guests on Jillian Michaels Ultimate Wellness Cruise have more competitive spirit than any group of people I’ve met, and they are awesome! These people live loud, but in a very different way, as Melissa pointed out in the previous blog. On Day 1, we had a Deck Wars rally so that each team could meet their cohorts. Oh, wait…. Back a little further: do you know about Deck Wars? It’s the coolest thing ever!

We have split the entire ship into four groups – Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue. Each person can earn tokens for their team, and the team with the most tokens at the end of the trip wins!

I am captain of the yellow team. Yesterday at the Deck Wars rally, all four team captains taught their group a cheer, and Jillian was to judge and decide on the best cheer. I was really impressed by all the other teams’ cheers, and a little worried about the competition. While we were getting ready, the pool deck was SO loud! It sounded something like this:

Go back to bed, here comes TEAM RED!
We’re lean! We’re GREEN! We’re fierce workout machines!
B-L-U-E! We’re the best team on the sea!
And finally… Yellow’s strong! Yellow’s bold! YELLOW’S gonna win the gold!

There was a ton of cheering and shouting; I even met some Red team folks today who had lost their voices from all the fun!

For the main event, Jillian came out, introduced all of her trainers and special guests, and then it was time for the cheer competition. All four teams rocked it! I won’t tell you who won, because it’s not ALWAYS about winning, but I will say that it was one dang fine moment in Sixthman history.

Day 2

I woke up this morning at 7am this morning to start my shift and made my way out to the Pool Deck and could you believe it! -There were people out there running on the track, getting ready for the first Jillian Workout and drinking some OJ. This might not seem like such a phenomenon for most, had you not sailed on our other Sixthman events, like say, The Rock Boat. If I was oddly up early enough on The Rock Boat to see what was going on at 7am, I’m pretty sure the only thing I would have found would have been the stragglers who haven’t made it to bed yet.

I was so impressed! It was the most energizing thing to see 250 dedicated guests up and ready to get their butts kicked by Jillian at 8:30am and a few handful others just peeking in to see what was in store for them when it was their turn. All of this is happening while we overlook the amazing port of Great Stirrup Cay. With it’s irresistible white beaches and blue oceans taunting them to come lay out and drink a daiquiri, the island was put on hold while our guests got what they came for, a chance to work out one on one with the woman who has changed many of their lives. There was sweat and looks of pain on every person in the hour long class but every single one of the participants had the biggest grin of accomplishment as Jillian counted down the last 10 seconds of the final plank pose.

It’s just now 10am and I feel like we’ve already had a full day of positive vibes and I couldn’t be more ready for the rest of these classes and seminars. This is easily the biggest step out of our box that Sixthman has taken, and it’s a great one. In fact we’re going to take a huge lunge out of our box, and maybe do a few pushups in the end just because we can.

Here’s to the rest of Day 2!

Last week was our third annual Sixthman Lake Day up at Lake Allatoona. If you’re not sure what Lake Day is all about, you’ll definitely want to watch the most recent video below!

Over the course of the year our company has grown a little bit, so there were a few newbies that didn’t know what to expect. I think I can speak for everyone when I say it was a SPLASH! (see what I did there?)