Sassy September Slimdown: Introduction

If you are looking to add lean strong muscle to your body, as well as boosting your strength, then Sassy September Slimdown is for you! This challenge is ideal for women who would like a dedicated strength and muscle building program that delivers real results. Within this challenge, you will find the key information and resources that you will need for sustainable and effective muscle building. Apply this and stay consistent to it and you will achieve great results.

Below you will find some further details on what to consider during the challenge.

Nutrition

The primary goal of the Sassy September Slimdown is to ensure you gain lean muscle mass every month. This means you do not need to gain excessive body fat with this process. 

To ensure your body only adds lean muscle, your diet will play an important factor throughout this challenge. You can do all the training in the world to add muscle to your body, but if you don’t support it via nutrition optimally, you will see poor results. 

An important aspect to get right is to understand how much you are eating on a consistent basis. Therefore, our primary goal for this challenge is to calculate how many calories you need to consume daily. We also know the importance of how your daily protein, carbohydrate and fat intake are too, so that must be calculated before starting. You will find more info on how to do this soon.  

The meal planner provided is to give you a basic structure and an ideal template to follow. Use the suggested meals from it to create great tasting food every day. You don’t need to eat every meal suggested on this plan; it’s simply a template for you to use to guide your daily decisions and choices. 

Make sure you create great tasting, varied and nutritious meals. Don’t just eat a plain chicken breast with some boring veg, spice it up and get creative with it all. You know you have got this right when you actually look forward to your meals and enjoy eating.

So, without starting out too complicated, I want you to focus on the following: 

1. Calculate your recommended calorie and macronutrient intake
2. Aim to be within 5% of your recommended macronutrient intake daily
3. Use a food tracker such as www.MyFitnessPal.com to record and track 

Training

The Sassy September Slimdown has been created to optimize muscle building and strength. It is simple yet highly effective, and it’s recommended that you stick to it as closely as possible. A key component to it will be ensuring you are progressing on a weekly basis. Along with the addition of some advanced muscle building techniques, this creates the perfect muscle-building environment. 

Also to consider is your rest and recovery rate, as this is also critical to your results. You do have to train hard and heavy to add lean muscle mass, but you must also learn how to recover from this type of training too. When you can find the perfect balance between intense training and recovery, you will see the best progress. This means reducing or limiting any cardio or extra exercise as much as possible during this program. So be sure to train as hard as you can when required, and then get plenty of rest in-between. 

When it comes to the Sassy September Slimdown, quality over quantity is the motto. 

In this challenge you will also receive a training planner, which outlines an ideal template for the suggested workouts. Just like with the nutrition plan this doesn’t need to be set in stone for your success. It can and likely should be adjusted to suit your routine and schedule. 

Lifestyle

We have already put into place the most important factors for your success. So, for the mean time, I simply want you to focus on the above and make those consistent changes to your current routine. But aiming for 7-8 hours of quality sleep each night and finding some time to unwind or relax daily will greatly improve your health and wellbeing too.

Participation

To participate in the Sassy September Slimdown you will need to be a member of the Brand New ME Community on Facebook.  Join today and get to know our little family ahead of the challenge.  Stick around afterwards and enjoy the support and community to help you continue on your journey to reach your health and fitness goals.

Crossfit Training

Crossfit training is classified as functional training and is an excellent total body workout. While you may have seen lots of men participating in this type of exercise, it is actually a fantastic workout for women! 

The basics of the Crossfit training program remain the same for everyone regardless of your sex or age. It is the way you perform the program that changes.

For anyone just starting with Crossfit you must take the time to familiarize yourself with the basics. This includes learning how to perform the required exercises.  These exercises involve learning how to do a sit up, push up and squat correctly. You will also need to learn how to do a deadlift, a shoulder press and pull ups.

Of course all of these basic moves will take time to learn. By repeating these moves daily you should be ready to take your first Crossfit class within a month. Take more time if necessary! There is no rush and it is extremely important to learn the moves correctly, this way you will derive more benefit once you start daily classes.

A Crossfit training program targets your entire body. You will develop more strength, power, agility, and balance along with a better cardiovascular and respiratory system. 

Depending on your fitness level you can start with a 3 day routine with a day of rest. Your other option is to work out for 5 days and then take 2 days off. Do whichever you feel more comfortable with.

You can visit the Crossfit website and get a Workout of the Day that lists the exercises you need to do. Each exercise will target a certain area and many people enjoy following this more structured routine. 

If you prefer you can make up your own Crossfit training program and incorporate exercises that you like. You must remember to include exercises that target all areas of your body. This should include some type of endurance and stamina building activities.  The whole object of Crossfit is to workout fast and hard, performing exercises with as few breaks as possible. 

Training should include sit ups, pushups, lifting dumbbells or kettlebells as well as weight exercises like bicep curls and chest presses.

Crossfit/Crossfit Style Routines

Here are some crossfit or crossfit style workouts by fellow fitness bloggers.

MOD WOD Workout by Sarah Jane Parker

Alphabet Workout by Sarah Waninger

Snatch Workout by Julia Hickman

Remember Crossfit is used by members of the armed forces, police department and fire departments. So there must be something to this method of training.  Anyone can easily participate in Crossfit by modifying exercises as necessary. Just don’t try to do too much too soon as you don’t want to injure yourself!

How to Find the Drive and Determination to Work Out Every Day

Working out is something that many of us feel we should do more of – whether that means jogging, lifting weights or training for some kind of sporting event. The hope is that by training, we’ll be able to build more muscle and burn more fat, which in turn will give us the physique that we’re looking for.

Thus we go about creating these elaborate training programs, filled with multiple workouts throughout the week. We combine this with some kind of diet that involves eating a very small number of calories and we generally just force ourselves to live in discomfort for days and months to reach our goals.

Except come day two, we will often already have abandoned that goal. Why? Because it’s just too intense to stick at and we were too ambitious. If you’re already tired and you’re inactive most evenings as a result, how do you intend to add 5 hours of training to your current routine? And how do you intend to do all that while also factoring in 30 minutes of travel, washing and cool down after each session? Or when taking into account a calorie deficit giving you less energy than you would normally have?

Be Realistic

The first problem with this type of training and thus the first thing you need to fix, is your ambition. It’s great to be realistic of course – but not at the extent of being realistic. There’s only so much you can expect your body to accomplish in a given week and your energy (not just your time) is finite. Instead of starting with five one hour workouts, who about starting with three half hour ones? And find other ways to make it easier too; such as training from home.

Focus on the Vision

What’s also important is that you focus on the vision and you focus on ‘dream’. Why is it that you want to work out? What are you hoping to achieve? What would it feel like to have that body you’ve always wanted? To feel confident and energetic?

It’s too easy to miss that connection between our dream and the steps we have to take to get there. So to make sure that you’re driven in the right direction, really focus on that dream and what it can deliver you. Really imagine what it will feel like to accomplish your goals and use this to drive you!

Crossfit Equipment

 ***This post contains affiliate links.***

Purchasing Crossfit equipment can be much less inexpensive than buying a new treadmill or elliptical machine. While you do need multiple pieces of equipment, each one is not that expensive. 

A good quality exercise mat will be a great investment for doing many of the Crossfit exercises. These exercises include sit ups and push ups along with other floor exercises. 



For performing squats you can use a large medicine ball or an exercise ball. The ball is placed behind your back on a wall and helps you to balance and keep your posture while squatting.  

A large exercise ball could also be used for push ups and sit ups and is a little gentler on your back, especially for beginners.  For pull ups a good quality pull up bar is recommended. 

Another mainstay piece of equipment will be your kettlebells. These are similar in weight to dumbbells but allow you to perform different movements and exercises. A common exercise performed is the kettlebell swing, where the kettlebell is held in between your legs with straight arms. The swing involves taking the kettlebell straight up and over your head and then back to the starting position.  This is an excellent exercise that will raise your body temperature and increase your heart rate!



A sturdy box frame is another requirement and is used for jumping up onto.  This box ideally has various heights allowing you to jump up higher as your fitness level increases. 

Jump ropes along with heavier ropes are other pieces of Crossfit equipment that can be added to your inventory. 

Of course you don’t have to run out and purchase all of this equipment at once. You can start off with the basics and add more as your progress. It is best to make sure that you enjoy the idea of Crossfit training first! You don’t want to purchase lots of equipment only to have it sit in the corner and collect dust. 

You will need a good sized area of your home to set up your Crossfit gym. Make sure that you have plenty of room and height to perform the exercises. You will be jumping rope and jumping onto a high box, so a low ceiling in your basement might be an issue.


For the pull up bar ensure that you can place it in between a sturdy door frame. One that offers lots of support, you don’t want to run the risk of having the bar come down on top of you. Another option is to purchase a ceiling mounted bar.

If you are a complete beginner then we would recommend that you start off by buying a good exercise mat and some kettlebells and maybe a jump rope. This equipment is enough to get you started and will provide you with a great workout.

What is Crossfit?

Crossfit is a training method that is used by police academies, military units, martial artists and other professional athletes around the world. This method of training is extremely popular and you will find more and more health clubs offering this type of training program. 

As well it is also possible to set up your own home gym and perform your own Crossfit training system. All you need is enough space. If you have been planning on making a workout room in your basement, now you have a wonderful excuse to finally get started. 

A Crossfit training program is designed to be a broad program which can be individualized.  Programs can be tailored to cater to seniors, people with heart issues and for prize fighters training for their next cage fight!

The basis of the program stays the same. It is the degree level that changes to fit the participants. Many Crossfit gyms are now offering programs for kids. These classes have a low teacher to student ratio, normally classes start off with just 3 or 4 children. These classes are increasing in popularity especially for parents who are already involved in Crossfit. It just makes sense to get their kids involved too. 

A Crossfit workout includes functional training where you are learning to move your entire body. It is very common to see participants jumping onto high boxes with ease!

Each workout focuses on the following 10 areas:

By improving all of these areas you will have the ability to do daily lifestyle tasks more easily. Carrying home heavy shopping bags won’t be an issue. Playing with your grandchildren will be easy. Even yard work and gardening won’t seem like such an effort. 

There are two main ways you can take part in a Crossfit class. First you can find a location that offers Crossfit near you. Your second choice is to follow a Crossfit training program online. 

This can be done by visiting Crossfit.com and taking part in the exercise of the day. If any exercise is unfamiliar then you want to take the time to learn how to perform it correctly. You can easily substitute exercises if you find them too difficult or if you don’t have the right equipment for them. 

Crossfit is a great way to get a true total body workout. It can be fun to do at home or at your local gym in a class setting, the choice is yours.