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Jump on into the Action with Shannon’s Slimdown and on over to Dragon Gym – Exton! You will pay just $42 for Four Kettlebell Classes and One Nutritional Coaching Session ($83.50 Value).

Shannon’s Slimdown with Dragon Gym: Vacation, then a "Graduation" of sorts

Hi everyone! It’s been a few weeks since my last update on my progress with my fitness program at Dragon Gym. Following my last update, my family enjoyed a wonderful vacation to the Outer Banks and since our return, some great things have been going on in my training sessions with Steve!

When I returned from vacation, my home scale was telling me that I had gained about 3 pounds from enjoying ourselves a little too much while we were away! I was trying hard to avoid that from happening, but it was vacation after all. So, when I went into meet with Steve, I was feeling particularly motivated to kick my training into high gear and and not only get rid of the vacation weight I’d gained, but also to start losing at a more rapid pace.

Interestingly, Steve was prepared for our post-vacation meeting with a plan for moving to the next phase of our training … i.e. Phase 2! It was great that we both were thinking along the same lines that I had mastered “Basic Training” and needed to take it to the next level with my training intensity, my total exercise hours per week and my eating plan.

The other important detail that we discussed is that I need smaller, short term goals to strive towards. It works better for me to stay focused and motivated to have little interim steps that I am trying to meet, instead of just that big final weight loss number at the end. So, we talked about over a 11 day period trying to lose 4 pounds…. the 3 that I had gained on vacation, plus 1 additional. It was aggressive, but again, with more intense workouts, exercising a minimum of 5 hours per week, and eating much more carefully, I am hopeful that I can get there. Tomorrow is weigh in day, so I will let you know next week if we were able to meet the goal or not!

So, Phase 2 begins…. wish me luck everyone! The workouts have definitely been harder the last two weeks, but I feel SO GREAT when I am done.

Until the next Shannon’s Slimdown, have a healthful week!

*Disclosure: Dragon Gym has provided personal training services and gym membership to me in order to do this project. No compensation was received for this post, and as always, all opinions are strictly my own.

~Shannon

Shannon’s Slimdown with Dragon Gym: Another One Bites the Dust

Another One Bites the Dust. Another pound that is.

But who’s counting? Well. Maybe I am just a little, but I am certainly not focusing all of my energy on it. After my last update when I told you about all of my decreases in weight and inches from my workouts at Dragon Gym, it really made me realize that I need to focus on the long term goals.

It is important to do weekly weight checks to stay accountable and make sure that I am staying on track, but I don’t want to obsess about it. The real results will be every several weeks when I have my body composition rechecked and I see how many inches I am losing!

This week there was an even more exciting realization for me. For the first time EVER in my life, I bounced out of bed and was excited, truly excited to get to the gym for a workout. Yes, I’ve been committed before. Yes, I’ve been motivated to stay on track and get healthy before too. But, I’ve never ever felt a true excitement at the prospect of getting to the gym and getting a workout in.

I have to say that the feeling has taken me by complete surprise. And, it is AWESOME. I love how I feel these days. I have so much more energy and my moods are so much better too. What a blessing it has been to not only lose some weight, but even more to FEEL GOOD. For so long I’ve been struggling with chronic fatigue, migraines, mood issues, etc. and to feel energetic and healthy and have less “headache days” is nothing short of a miracle!

How do you feel about working out? Is it something you look forward to or is it complete drudgery for you? What are some tips you’ve learned to look at it in a more positive light?

Until the next Shannon’s Slimdown, have a healthful week!

*Disclosure: Dragon Gym has provided personal training services and gym membership to me in order to do this project. No compensation was received for this post, and as always, all opinions are strictly my own.

~Shannon

Shannon’s Slimdown with Dragon Gym: Now with Numbers!

In my last update, I told you how a shift had happened in my training program at Dragon Gym after a couple of tough weeks. The last two weeks have been just as fantastic as the that week I described. I am getting to the gym, I am doing the work, I am food journaling, and I am making PROGRESS….. measurable progress.

This past week, I met with Steve on Friday to have our weekly War Meeting to address my food and nutrition challenges. I’m still using the My Fitness Pal app on my iPhone (you can also use it on the web) and I LOVE IT! It really has made both food journaling AND calorie counting so easy for me. Last week I was able to keep my daily calorie consumption in the 1200 range, with one day getting up near 1500. The remarkable thing is that keeping my calories in that range really isn’t that much of a challenge for me. I am eating when I feel hungry, and some days I feel like I need to eat MORE at dinner to make sure that I am not eating too few calories. Of course, there are other days when I need to exercise much more control, but overall, it hasn’t been too bad.

I am still having occasional “cheat” foods and not eating 100% “clean”. There’s just something about a Dairy Queen Blizzard on a hot night that I don’t want to give up. But, now I order the mini size and I also make sure that it still stays relatively within my caloric intake goals for the day OR that I’ve gotten in some vigorous exercise to offset any food indiscretions. I want to be realistic during this process. The only way that this is really going to become a LIFESTYLE for me is for me to find a way to live in the 90/10 zone (90% healthy foods/10% “cheat” foods). It is unrealistic to think that I will eat healthy foods 24/7 for the rest of my life.

Because my food journal has been looking pretty good for the last 2 or 3 weeks, we’re going to keep doing what I’ve been doing and see what kind of progress I continue to make over the next few weeks. If I continue to lose weight/inches, then that is great. If I start to plateau, we’ll start to look more closely at the exact foods and food combinations that I am eating. I’ll keep you posted on that.

Because my journaling has been going so well and we do want to start to be able to measure the effectiveness of any changes that may/may not be made to my eating patterns and exercise routines, it was time to do my first weigh in and body composition measurements since the beginning of this project. So, I give you the NUMBERS:

Weight Change: – 7 lbs.

Body Composition:

Arms: – .5 inches (each)

Thighs: – 1 inch (each)

Waist: – 4 inches

Hips: – 4 inches

Want to know a great way to head into Memorial Day weekend? Find out that you’ve lost 4 inches from your waist and from your hips…. that’ll definitely put you in a good mood!

I’m really excited by these results so far. More importantly, these results motivate me to work harder and do more because I know now how much more I can do, not just from a wight loss perspective, but also from a strength and coordination/balance perspective too. It feels so good to be on the road to good health. Thanks so much for taking this journey with me!

Until the next Shannon’s Slimdown, have a healthful week!

*Disclosure: Dragon Gym has provided personal training services and gym membership to me in order to do this project. No compensation was received for this post, and as always, all opinions are strictly my own.

~Shannon

Shannon’s Slimdown with Dragon Gym: What a Difference a Week Makes

I am so excited to tell you that I finally, after a couple of not so great weeks, had a FANTASTIC week of training at Dragon Gym last week for several different reasons!

First and foremost, I made it to the gym 4 times last week for 3 training sessions and also for 1 O.T.A. (Outside of Training Assignment). It felt great to be in the gym and working hard that regularly and it felt especially great that I didn’t let any scheduling issues or headaches get in the way of prioritizing my training.

Secondly, I was talking to Steve about how my food journaling, and therefore my accountability, had gone completely out the window during those 2 or 3 really bad migraine weeks. He asked me to set up a separate weekly meeting with him (that he later referred to as our War Meeting, which I loved!) where we would review my food intake and take note of what was working well and strategize about how we could change the things that aren’t working well.

I love that a challenge or struggle is presented to Steve and he always comes up with a way to address it head on. I am having major issues with my food journaling, and he is dedicating extra time and energy to me each week to help me succeed. I really appreciate the supreme customer service that I get at Dragon Gym and the feeling that your health and wellness really do MATTER to the team there.

On Friday, Steve and I had our first War Meeting and he gave me some great strategies to start thinking about. The best tip he gave me was to download the My Fitness Pal app on my iPhone (if you don’t have an iPhone, you can use their website). In addition to using my food journal to record the food I am eating and the time of day I am eating it, Steve also wanted to see the amount of calories I am consuming and My Fitness Pal is a very easy tool to use to help me track that.

I think that linking the food journaling with the calorie counting is just the thing I needed to understand the consequences of my eating patterns more clearly. So far this week, my eating has been good …. but we’ll talk about that more in next week’s post.

I left the gym last week feeling a 180 degree difference from the week before. I left feeling so excited that I got all of my workouts in, that all of my workouts were really good and productive, that I had gotten some new perspective on things from Steve, and also had some things to look forward to tackling.

The best part of this experience so far besides the vast improvements in my strength, coordination, balance, etc.? The ability to take a step back and believe in myself the way Steve and the team at Dragon Gym believe in everyone that is part of the family there. This has been a mental challenge as much as a physical challenge, and I am confident that the only reason that I am succeeding this time is because of the support and the methodology that Dragon Gym applies.

Wait ’till next week when I tell you what’s going on this week. It’s awesome!

Until the next Shannon’s Slimdown, have a healthful week!

*Disclosure: Dragon Gym has provided personal training services and gym membership to me in order to do this project. No compensation was received for this post, and as always, all opinions are strictly my own.

~Shannon

Shannon’s Slimdown with Dragon Gym: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

You may have noticed that I didn’t post a “Shannon’s Slimdown” update last week. Unfortunately, it was because there wasn’t much to say from 2 weeks ago. During that week, I was only able to get to Dragon Gym to meet with Steve ONCE due to some scheduling issues (both my husband and I had work travel that week) and the start of a series of debilitating migraines.

Although Steve was on vacation this past week, I vowed to turn things around. I was all set to get to the gym 3 times last week and complete the O.T.A.’s (Outside of Training Assignments) that Steve had left for me. At least that was the plan until I was further sidelined by migraines. I made it to the gym only ONCE last week as well. I had a migraine last week 5 out of 7 days, including Mother’s Day (doesn’t seem fair, does it?). If you are a fellow migraine sufferer, you can attest that there is NO working out with a migraine…. there is BARELY any getting out of bed, let alone getting to the gym.

There are some reasons for this “flare-up” in my migraines. First, they’ve just been getting worse in general lately. I’m not sure if that has to do with weather, stress, or a possible plateau of the preventative medicine I take for them. Second, I had to come off of another medicine that I was taking last week, and I think that may be impacting my migraines as well. I am really hoping that this is just an adjustment period that will soon be over versus a “new normal”. I am working with my neurologist now to talk about more options for managing the migraine pain.

If you can’t tell… I’m a little frustrated. I feel like I was making really great progress, and then I’ve been sort of stuck for about 3 weeks now in regards to my exercise routine. But, this is life, right? I guess I couldn’t expect it to be all smooth-sailing.

So, I’m just going to pick myself up and try to address the migraines as best as I can and get back in the game. I have my first training session of this week set with Steve for this afternoon and I’m looking forward to it.

I have also been getting alot of headaches and sometimes migraines after my workouts. Does that happen to any of you? How do you handle it? Have you tried anything that makes it better or helps ward off the headaches? I am trying VERY hard to not let that start decreasing my motivation to go to the gym, but I have to be really honest…. when I already have as much head pain as I do, it’s hard to happily go to the gym and know that I will likely come out with yet another headache. Give me some tips, readers!

Until the next Shannon’s Slimdown, have a healthful week!

*Disclosure: Dragon Gym has provided personal training services and gym membership to me in order to do this project. No compensation was received for this post, and as always, all opinions are strictly my own.

~Shannon

Shannon’s Slimdown with Dragon Gym: Energy Day and more!

After a delayed start to my training last week due to my crazy schedule, I was able to still get 3 training sessions in with Steve from Dragon Gym. My biggest regret of last week’s training is that I wasn’t able to fit in my O.T.A session due to said scheduling issues. I was really hoping to take my training up a notch to 4 sessions last week, but I just have to do the best I can and move forward this week.

I was really feeling good during last week’s training; feeling strong and capable. Then, on Saturday, I arrived at Dragon Gym expecting Steve to focus our session on either a strength building and/or conditioning routine. Steve instead informed me that it was “Energy Day”. When I asked him to define that term he told me (with a smile) that Energy Day focuses on just “doing the work”, essentially moving quickly, perhaps with less precision, through a series of exercises and not resting in between.

I’m still not clear why he calls it Energy Day (kidding, Steve!) since I was feeling anything but energetic as I went through a 6 exercise circuit with a medicine ball and high jumps and then a 6 exercise circuit with a large, heavy rope and kettlebells. But, I DID IT. And, afterwards, I was feeling pretty energized 🙂

I followed through on most of my eating change commitments that I shared with you last week. I have to say that I got some really great feedback for snack ideas and eating “on the go” and I wanted to share them with you:

Sierra said: We have fruit and yogurt for breakfast or even a yogurt smoothie (kids love them too). I also make a big batch of hummus on the weekends for snacking throughout the week with fresh veggies (I chop a ton of celery and carrots and also eat the hummus with tomatoes and cucs).

Trina said: One thing that I do is buy a bunch of veggies and cut them up and put them out at lunch time and keep them out throughout the day, so if I get that urge to eat junk I just look at those veggies. Plus, the kids can pick on them throughout the day too.

Heather said: I struggle with the need for carbs to satisfy my hunger, but greek yogurt is my new best friend. It really does fill you up – and I think it’s mostly in my head that I “need” carbs.

And then I got this really great suggestion for meal and grocery planning:

Lara said: Meal and grocery planning used to be a nightmare for me until I created a grocery spreadsheet. I set it up with six sections based on the different areas in my usual store. All of our regular purchases (milk, cheese, eggs, etc…) are listed in the corresponding section. When I get ready to shop, I print a copy of the list, cross off any of the regular items I don’t need that week, pull the recipes for the week’s meals and write in the ingredients/items I need to get. Having it divided into sections makes getting through the store easier (even with two bored kids along) and helps me keep a handle on the budget because it cuts down on impulse purchases. It only takes about 30 minutes to set up but for me it’s been totally worth it! Good luck!

A topic that Steve and I discussed alot last week were healthy eating strategies for me while we are entertaining. Over the last 2 weekends, we were having people over to our house 4 different times. I wanted to be sure that I served tasty food that everyone would enjoy but also not sabotage my own healthful eating goals. My biggest struggle is self-control… so if “bad” foods are in my house, I am much more likely to eat them.

Some of the strategies that I implemented were:

1.) Eating some fruit or veggies before our guests arrived, so I wasn’t as tempted to eat as many appetizers.

2.) I put out both bread/crackers AND apples with our cheese plate and stayed away from the bread.

3.) I planned out what I would let myself “indulge” in for the evening, so I knew that I had a splurge to look forward to, and that helped me stay away from other temptations.

4.) I kept my portions really small so that if I really wanted to taste the sweet potato casserole on Easter I could do it, but I only had 2 spoonfuls, and it was enough to satisfy the desire.

What are your go-to healthy appetizers and entrées to serve guests? I need a better catalog of tasty healthy recipes and ways to make my old stand-bys better for us. And, what do you do to be sure that you can stay on track when entertaining?

Leave a comment and let me know!

Until next week on Shannon’s Slimdown, have a healthful week!

*Disclosure: Dragon Gym has provided personal training services and gym membership to me in order to do this project. No compensation was received for this post, and as always, all opinions are strictly my own.

~Shannon

Shannon’s Slimdown with Dragon Gym: Food for Thought

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.”

Aristotle

This past week, I noticed that some big changes are starting to take hold as a result of my training with Steve from Dragon Gym. The largest change that I’ve realized is that I am starting to enjoy working out and the energy I feel afterwards! Over the weekend, I hadn’t worked out in 2 days and I was missing my training sessions….. BADLY!

This week’s training sessions were great. I am starting to be able to handle increased repetitions of the exercises in my program and also tried a few new exercises this week as well.

In addition to my 3 training sessions per week, I also completed my first O.T.A. (“Outside of Training Assignment”) this week. Steve has prepared a series of O.T.A. routines for me to complete at Dragon Gym on non-training days. They are well documented and easy to follow since they mirror some of the work we do during training sessions. Next week I will start doing 2 O.T.A.’s per week. I am really looking forward to getting a workout in 5 days per week.

The real focus this past week, however, was on my eating habits. Since the start of this project, I’ve been keeping a Food Journal (developed specifically by Steve). When Steve and I did our first review of my Food Journal (FJ) a few weeks ago, he identified some issues that could be addressed quickly:

1. I was taking no vitamins/supplements of any kind.

Not that vitamins and/or supplements are the be-all-end-all of any health regimen, they do definitely play a PART in it. Based on all of the reading I have done in combination with Steve’s recommendations, I now am taking a Multivitamin and Fish Oil on a daily basis. I am looking into the benefits of some other vitamins, but for now, I am taking baby steps with these two.

Can you tell me what vitamins/supplements you take on a daily basis? Would you recommend them and why?

2. I was either skipping breakfast or eating breakfasts consisting entirely of carbohydrates.

Breakfast just has not been my “thing” historically. I’m not a morning person. I don’t feel hungry when I get up. And, then since the kids have been born, once I am up, it’s go time. But, as I told Steve, these are all just excuses. All of the research is well documented … Breakfast IS the most important meal of the day and not having a solid start in the morning wasn’t setting me up to win for the rest of the day.

I am now concentrating on getting nutrient-rich, healthy breakfast ideas. So far, I’ve been having alot of eggs. Hard boiled eggs on days when I am rushing around, and then fried eggs or omlettes on days when I have more time. I’ve also added some fresh fruit and I feel full for most of the morning.

What do you eat in the morning? I fear that I will grow tired of eggs every single morning and would like some other options to fall back on.

3. Fueling my body 30 – 60 minutes before a workout.

I had not been paying attention to when I was eating in relation to when I’d be working out. So, sometimes that meant I’d be working out on a completely empty stomach or else feeling way too full during a work out. Now I make sure that I have something small (and hopefully with protein) before I go to the gym so that my body has the energy it needs to get through the exercises efficiently.

As you can see, those 3 things were pretty easy targets and relatively simple to address quickly. I’ve been doing really well with those 3 goals, so it was time to delve deeper at my FJ review this past week. Although, it didn’t take a detective to see that I still was eating alot of sugar in my diet. And, because of the busy pace of the lives we lead with jobs, kids, activities, etc., I was still eating to many convenience and packaged foods.

So, here’s what Steve wanted me to work on this week:

1. Cut the Sugar!

Um… yeah. That seemed scary. I knew I was still having too much of it, but I was sort of anxious about cutting it altogether. I feel like I have done a really great job this week at eliminating MOST sugar out of my diet, but it would be a lie if I didn’t tell you that I had 2 chocolate chip cookies and 1 spoonful of pudding. Thankfully, I had stopped drinking soda about 2 weeks before I started this project (and haven’t had a drop since!). If I had to break my soda addiction along with the rest of the sugar, that would NOT have been pretty 🙂

Steve actually gave me a great tip for the sugar cravings. He told me to get dark chocolate, the darker the better, and if you have an evening sugar craving (which is when mine are), break off ONE block of dark chocolate, have it, and be done. The only issue for me is that chocolate is a migraine trigger so I’ve been avoiding that, but it may work well for some of you!

I am also using small amounts of honey to sweeten my tea and also on my plain greek yogurt. Not sure if that is considered “cheating” or not, but I do need just a little bit to make them appealing.

What tricks do you have for ditching the sugar? I know that this is SO GREAT for me in the long run and I want to be able to sustain this as a lifestyle, not just something to do to get the weight of for now.

2. Food Prep, Food Prep, Food Prep

We noticed that most of the time that I was eating danger foods was because I didn’t have healthy foods in my house, planned out ahead of time, or cooked/prepared.

This is huge for me because I have not been meal planning, I have not even been making grocery lists lately…. I’ve just been winging it because we’ve been so busy. But, if maintaining a healthy lifestyle is as important for me and my family as I say it is, I HAVE TO dedicate more time to making sure we have healthy foods readily available.

This week I am working on Meal Planning for my family. This generally just includes dinner meals that we will all eat together. In addition, I am thinking critically about ALL 21 meals that I will be eating (plus snacks) and setting myself up well with a comprehensive grocery list. I want to make sure that I have everything we need in our refrigerator to make good choices.

And, finally, Steve helped me recognize that I need to dedicate time to food prep. The dozen of eggs I got at the store won’t hardboil themselves and the chicken won’t magically be marinated if I don’t make sure it gets done. I am working on setting time aside each weekend (and I am also changing my grocery shopping day…. very important) to prepare the foods we will need throughout the week to make them as grab-and-go as possible to fit into our lifestyle.

How do you eat healthily despite all of life’s demands? What tricks do you have to set yourself up so that you are eating wholesome, real foods instead of packaged convenience foods?

I’d love to hear your feedback and get any tips/tricks you have on my food issues that I noted this week. As you can see, I need all of the help I can get! Can’t wait to read your comments!

Until next week on Shannon’s Slimdown, have a healthful week!

*Disclosure: Dragon Gym has provided personal training services and gym membership to me in order to do this project. No compensation was received for this post, and as always, all opinions are strictly my own.

~Shannon

Introducing "Shannon’s Slimdown" with Dragon Gym

You may remember from this post last week how impressed we were when Sarah and I went to meet with the folks over at Dragon Gym in Exton a few weeks ago. When we went in to interview Som and Lonnie, I really felt myself personally pulled to their philosophies, their programs, the facility, and their staff.

To give you some background, at about the same time that our appointment with Dragon Gym had been scheduled, I had just made a firm pact with myself that MANY areas of my life needed to change and that 2011 was going to be the year that I prioritized my health right along with the needs of my husband and children.

As a Mom, I think we are all pulled to put the needs of our families first, and just keep moving forward to do whatever needs to be done to keep our families in working order. Unfortunately, 2010 was a really crappy year for me personally, and I wasn’t paying enough attention to what my body, mind and spirit needed. After experiencing the loss of a very dear and very young friend, the resulting depression, and excruciating & crippling migraines, I really let my eating habits spiral out of control.

The irony here is that I am a HUGE proponent of local, whole, and organic foods. I am part of a CSA every season. I buy local, minimally pasteurized dairy products and fresh eggs for my family and have just started buying mostly grass fed meats. I’ve read every book that Michael Pollan and many other authors have published on our failing food industry, and know how to feed and nourish my family well. For me to require healthful eating for my family and kids, but allow myself to have ice cream and candy was more than ironic. It was stupid.

But alas, when it’s you that is stuck in the situation, it is sometimes hard to see a way out. Finally, at the beginning of this year, when my weight had climbed to the highest (non-pregnant) number it had ever been to and I recoiled from seeing myself in pictures, I knew that something had to be done. But, even more than that, I was SO TIRED of not feeling well. I wanted so desperately to feel energetic and healthy.

I vowed to start eating and exercising my way back to health. I know that a better diet and exercise will make a huge impact on my chronic fatigue and on these nasty migraines that I have to take lots of medicine to control.

The day I met with Som and Lonnie, we talked about what types of programs they had at Dragon Gym and what kept striking me is that they focus on a person’s total health there. They want to be sure you are strong, and eating well, and have energy and focus, and yes, weight loss is awesome too! They aren’t as interested in people walking in there, shedding a bunch of weight and feeling “done” with the process. At Dragon Gym, you really learn how to create healthy habits and lifestyles.

So, the week after we met with Som and Lonnie, I met with the personal trainer at Dragon Gym, Steve Maze, and was on my way to health! That day, I put this message on my Facebook page “I have a meeting at 12:30 that is going to change my life.” I was confident, before I had ever even done one single exercise with him, that working with Steve was going to change my life. It may sound overly dramatic, but truly it was how I feel (and I still do). This is the first time I’ve had a gym experience where someone works with me for several hours over several weeks to be sure that I understand the whys and hows of exercising instead of just throwing me to the wolves with a bunch of weight machines and some fitness classes.

I’ve been working with Steve for about 6 sessions so far. His first mission was to assess my current level of strength and fitness, of which there was none, and build a program for me that suited my skill level. I don’t always understand where he is going with certain things, but usually by the next session, I start to really understand his reasoning for having me do different exercises.

I’m not bench pressing huge amounts of weight, I haven’t lost many inches or pounds yet, but each and every day I feel stronger, which is huge for me. I also feel more flexible. Every session I prove to myself that I can go a little longer, push a little harder, or do a little more.

Once I get through this next week of my 3 week intro with Steve, things will really start to pick up. I will be blogging my progress here each week and explain some of the things I am doing in my fitness program.

And, YES, I will blog the numbers…. it’s good to be accountable, right? 🙂

Here are my main goals:
1. Lose 35 pounds

2. Improve posture significantly

3. Build strong muscles

4. Eat healthfully

5. Improve migraine health and decrease migraine medicine

So, without further ado…. here is the PAINFUL, REAL RAW TRUTH…….

THIS is my before picture 😦

Uuuggghhh……. Yes, it is embarrassing to put this picture out there for all of our readers to see. However, by putting it all out here, I’ve realized that I’ve got nothing to hide and I can be totally honest with all of you throughout this journey. I must really love my job, people!

In all honesty, I am really excited about this process. I look forward to sharing this with all of you along the way. Let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, etc. I’ll be posting questions for you all or asking for advice when I need it and I hope you’ll jump in!

Until next week on Shannon’s Slimdown, have a healthful week!

*Disclosure: Dragon Gym has provided personal training services and gym membership to me in order to do this project. No compensation was received for this post, and as always, all opinions are strictly my own.

~Shannon

Chesco Moms Introduce Dragon Gym in Exton & a Fantastic Offer on Martial Arts Classes

Recently, Sarah and I had the pleasure of meeting the team at the Dragon Gym in Exton. We were really excited to meet with them and find out more about their business. Both of us pass by Dragon Gym on Whitford Road on an almost daily basis, but neither of us had ever stepped inside or been introduced to all of the services they provide there.

Co-Owners Som Sikdar and Lonnie Beck started by sharing their personal connections to Dragon Gym with us. Both men have been doing martial arts at this same Dragon Gym since they were young children, giving them a vast pool of experience to draw from. Due to the years of training at The Dragon Gym, you immediately get a sense of their deep commitment and passion not only for martial arts and fitness, but for the community of people that are members at Dragon Gym.

If you are looking for a quality martial arts program for any member of your family, Dragon Gym has programs for ages 3 up to 103! Taught by highly trained, advanced belt instructors, kids and adults alike will gain new physical skills as well as master leadership and respect.

With a unique blend of both martial arts and fitness offerings, members can practice several different disciplines at Dragon Gym in order to maximize the variety in their workouts. Dragon Gym has RKC certified instructors in their Russian Kettlebells program and they also offer very popular Kickboxing classes to round out your exercise routine. They also have a full time, highly trained Strength and Conditioning Coach on staff (who also has been at Dragon Gym since he was young) to give you personal training and help you discover the healthiest “you” possible. The trainer does fitness evaluations, creates workout plans, measures progress, and also mentors people on their nutrition goals as well. Click here for more information on the Dragon Gym Performance Lab.

Check out my interview with Co-owner Lonnie …. you’ll see why we were so impressed with the Dragon Gym team, the services they provide and the outreach that they do in the community, including a Bully Prevention seminar that they are working with West Chester Area School District on.

Dragon Gym would love to introduce you to their services and their spacious facility as well!

Dragon Gym offers a Free Orientation for all prospective members. Following your free orientation, prospective members are invited to do a Quick Start to Confidence Program where you are given one on one instruction and coaching to properly integrate you into the program. After the Quick Start program is complete, the student can begin classes.

The Quick Start to Confidence Course is $59 and includes your Martial Arts Uniform. As an EXCLUSIVE offer for Chester County Moms’ readers, they would like to offer a 67% discount on their Quick Start Course and provide it to you for only $19!

This is a great, low-risk way to get to know the philosophy, the instructors, and the facility at Dragon Gym. Just be sure to make sure that you tell them that you saw the offer on Chester County Moms in order to get your discount!

If you want to learn more about Dragon Gym, check out their website. You can also follow them on the following social media outlets as well:

And, you’ll want to stay tuned for more fun posts about Dragon Gym …… Shannon has taken on a really fun project with them that we’ll start blogging about soon!