About
Welcome to Team BPM!
Why Are We Here?
BPM.tv is here to be your resource for health and fitness success. The Body Power Method was created to help you see there are no excuses; all you need is your own body and the determination to get into the best shape of your life. You can start your revolution by making a decision to change and sticking with it. You can become your own fitness revolution.
How Can We Help You Succeed?
Your keys to success:
- Education
- Motivation
- Action
You need accurate, trusted information so you know what to do to get results from your efforts. Don’t be misled by marketing plans that promote certain foods or workouts. Don’t be discouraged by media telling you who you should be. You need motivation to stick with your program for the long term. You need to take action to make your goals a reality.
The goal of BPM.tv is provide you with articles, exercises, workouts, recipes, motivation and a community to help you reach your fitness goals!
Getting Real
We want to give authentic, accurate information to people who are striving to make healthy changes and to empower each other to start our own revolution. We need this fundamental change to be healthy and whole using definitions that matters. Not what the media says we should want or need. We need to stick together so we can be strong together.
Who is Cori Ann?
Cori got involved in the fitness world after her own experience of losing 80 pounds and transforming her life. Soon after, she left her career in the finance world and became a fitness trainer, nutritionist, and manager. She has helped run several health clubs, co-authored books, and created a workout DVD. Eventually Cori started traveling the US and training other fitness professionals. Currently, besides other fitness adventures, she’s started her journey to become a figure competitor.
Cori believes that we each need to tell our story. By being authentic, being our true selves, and sharing bits and pieces of ourselves through social media we are all able to come together and change the statistics of obesity, low self esteem, and divorce in America. Her hope is that we can inspire and motivate each other by sharing our lives – and lifting each other up to succeed.
Figure Competitor Journey
We hope to light a fire within you by sharing the current, day to day stories of Cori Ann as she trains to become a figure competitor. Walk with her through the highs and lows as she shares with us her journey.
Welcome to BPM.Tv!!!
Feb 07, 2012 @ 22:12:46
You’re such an inspiration Cori. Keep up the great work!
Feb 08, 2012 @ 07:57:40
Thank you Heather. You are too!!!
Sep 26, 2012 @ 16:00:27
awesome! i am new to the website and loving the workouts you post.
i am a a fitness addict as well and enjoy cardio the most. i do incorporate toning as well, but i as i and my joints get older, i am interested in increasing weights and sculpting more for my muscles. I do alot of cardio as it is,,like at least 45 mins a day and then 20 mins light toning. i noticed you do more strengthening and weights. do you do cardio everyday in addition to these weight trainings that are posted? can you reply exactly what and how much you do of cardio a week.
Sep 28, 2012 @ 14:57:00
Hi Crystal! Welcome to Team BPM! So… In the past I have personally done a minimum of 30 to 45 minutes of either steady state cardio or SUPER INTENSE interval cardio – depending on my energy level. I used to put my cardio workout and recommendation at the end of every workout, but now I’m experimenting with changing my own cardio up so I have been holding off on including it in each blog post until I see how it works for me personally.
All of my cardio is at an incline because my glutes/thighs/hips are a trouble spot, like most women.
I also do quite a bit of weighted cardio. Weighted stairs (with a vest or holding plates), weighted hiking (with a vest), continuous lunges (with a vest), etc. I’m not talking light weight. Minimum of 35 lbs. Usually much heavier. It’s low impact for my joints, but high intensity due to the weight.
Running doesn’t work for me. Swimming or cycling either. I know this from my own experience — I used to do triathlons. It burns up by muscle… which I work way too hard to lose by doing cardio.
I’m experimenting with only doing super intense intervals for cardio and so far I REALLY like it. But I’m also in a muscle gaining phase, so my diet is allowing me to have the energy to do it. When I change my diet for competitions I’m curious to see if I will be able to keep it up, or if I will be too fatigued. I’ll keep you updated through BPM.Tv.
In the meantime…. PUSH HARD! NOT LONG. You’ll never regret it.
Feb 13, 2012 @ 22:17:22
Cori you are such an inspiration and I love following your workouts! I was looking back at your videos from the fall and I notice how much muscle you’ve gained and you look great! I am working towards my upper body strength and building lean muscle and losing weight. I am also going to look into the body pod fat measurements you talked about to help keep track of my progress. Thanks again for all your workouts and health tips and advice and I hope all is going well for you!
Feb 14, 2012 @ 00:51:48
You’re welcome Rebecca! My upper body has been my challenge when it comes to building muscle as well. I have been making progress and it is so nice to hear positive feedback! The muscle is coming and the strength is definitely growing. Hard work, determination, and consistency pays off. The feeling of success is definitely in those moments when it is the hardest, so keep it up! Make sure your nutrition is on target for muscle building! Nutrition is a key component!
Mar 06, 2012 @ 12:33:43
Hi Cori, looking for your expert opinion. I am starting training for a 5k and I would like to lean out. I would like to have muscle defintion and really lower my body fat. Currently, my body fat is about 16% and my goal is 10%. My plan was to use your workouts twice a week upper and lower, and run 3 days.
Also my current weight is 139 and I am 5’6 and I would like to lean down to 127. Does this plan sound like I could get there?
Thank you in advance for your time!
So glad to have you online:)
Mar 06, 2012 @ 16:04:49
Hi Tamika. It’s a great question. You could definitely get there, but it all depends on how your body responds… And it definitely will depend a lot more on nutrition than it will on your exercise.
Also, you will want to focus more on how you feel and look instead of on a number, like 10%. Different people look and feel completely different at the exact same body fat percentage.
Keep in mind, different techniques to measure body fat may differ completely. For example, I am currently about 16% according to manual calipers and 18% according to the bod pod. What I look like and feel like at 16% to 18% may be completely different than how another person looks and feels.
10% is a very low body fat for women and for some it might not be healthy to stay at that percentage for a long period of time. For example, I personally stop menstruating when I hit about 10% to 11% and that’s not healthy.
So, while it is possible… I would recommend you focus more on getting to a bodyfat percentage that you look and feel your best at, no matter what the number is.
How you get there is going to be reliant on your nutrition, your cardio, and your weight bearing exercises… In that order. Not one component can be left out.
Each body is different, but here’s what I do:
When I try to lean out, I do 45 minutes of cardio either one or two times a day… Never more than 45 minutes at once because I seem to burn a lot of muscle at that point, and that would increase my body fat percentage. I eat 1600 to 1800 calories each day and I do weight bearing exercise 5 to 6 days a week to keep my muscle. Some people would be able to do less cardio or lift less, but not me… This is just what my body tends to need.
The nutrition is really going to be the component that makes or breaks you. I will make sure to post this week about the plan that works for me when I’m trying to lose fat and keep muscle.
Mar 07, 2012 @ 06:34:23
Cori it all makes perfect sense.Thank you and you are right I tell my clients not to focus on numbers:) I am working on a nurtrition plan that works well for my body and energy. Tried many others and like you said in your previous video they do not all work for everyone.
Just to clarify because I teach Zumba classes 4 times a week for an hour. So I was giving myself only 30 mintues of Cardio on the days I am not teaching. But I am feeling that will affec me building and defining more muscle.
Lastly, you metioned weight bearing. Do you mean that I should keep my current weight training with weights instead of just body weight?
Thank you Cori Ann for taking the time to give me insight and direction.
Tamika
Mar 10, 2012 @ 08:20:51
Great questions Tamika.
Cardio: Since you’re starting with Zumba 4 times a week for an hour, adding in 30 minutes on the other 3 days is a good place to start. Keep a journal, track your progress, and you can alter it as you need to based on your own personal progress and goals.
What I need to do, since I am a self admitted cardio queen and have to work extra hard to build muscle, is limit my cardio. I LOVE dance and high intensity interval training, but I get too into it and my heart rate undoubtedly goes too high to be congruent with my own goals.
So for my cardio, I make sure to go for about 45 minutes at 65% to 70% of my maximum heart rate. Typically, when your heart rate goes above about 65% to 70% of your max, you are at risk to burn a high amount of muscle… even if you are also burning a high amount of fat. For me, it’s better to stay right at 65% to 70% to try to keep as much muscle as I can. The most recent information on finding your target heart rate can be found in this article: http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2011-09-21/Target-heart-rate-formula-made-especially-for-women/50501680/1
I hold a lot of muscle in my hips and thighs and I want to show case that. As a woman, that’s also where my ‘fun’ seems to show (sugar, alcohol, etc). So I keep my forms of cardio at an incline…. like stairs, hills, etc. I also keep my cardio in a primarily forward motion and sagittal (meaning moving forward, not backward and not side to side). That maximizes the cardio time for my own personal body and goals. Keep in mind what your goals are when designing your cardio program. Not all cardio is equal.
Weight Bearing Exercise: The basics are that if you want to condition, you need to work with high repetitions (meaning you will have to reduce weight). If you want to build muscle, you need to work with repetitions in the range of 8 to 12.
Again, your nutrition is the key to all of this.
Body weight exercises are GREAT for either conditioning or building muscle, you just have to manipulate your body and gravity to make it so you can hit the amount of reps you need to.
When you’re working with 8 to 12 reps that means you should be fatigued by the end of the set, not able to go past 8 to 12.
When you are working with higher reps, you have to drop the weight low enough so you can go, go, go. An example I will use for myself is legs vs. upper body. To balance my physique, I need to keep my upper body exercises in the 8 to 12 rep range. For legs, I want to condition them, not to grow them at this time, so I keep my reps in the 20 to 40 rep range….. or more. See my 600 reps of lunges videos. YYYYYEEEEEOOOOOOUUUUUCH.
Nutrition is the biggest component…. and the one that really needs to be completely personalized to *you*. Different carbohydrates affect bodies differently. Different proteins. Different fats. All react slightly differently inside each of our own individual bodies. I have been putting together a blog post that helps people understand through my own personal fat loss nutrition plan. It should be up this weekend.
Apr 05, 2012 @ 21:33:43
I was wondering how long you can keep cooked fish and chicken…I am trying to plan and prepare my meals by the week…can I cook the protein on Sunday to last the week? Also, I was looking for you’re menu, that I thought you mentioned in one of your videos…I couldn’t find it… Do you have one to share???
Apr 08, 2012 @ 18:48:59
Hi Laura. I personally seem to have no problem at all pre cooking my food for the full week. My food seems to always be fresh. Keep in mind that little things like the temperature of your fridge, where you live, the quality of food you buy and how you cook your food can all play a part in this. If you’re concerned, I would say try to cook just a few days in advance and increase it as you test it out.
You can see my full personal current diet and nutrition breakdown at http://bpm.tv/diet/cori-anns-prepping-fat-loss-diet. You can also learn more about nutrition and my own personal regular (off season) diet at http://bpm.tv/diet/bpmtv-nutrition-101.
Hope that helps to get you started on the right track to developing your own success story!
Apr 11, 2012 @ 12:22:05
I try to eat organic whenever possible and especially when it comes to animal protein. Do you know if the egg whites you use come from organic, free range eggs?
Apr 21, 2012 @ 18:51:03
This is a great question Mequire. I also eat organic whenever possible. Unfortunately, I have had a heck of a time finding organic, liquid, pasteurized egg whites.
The only brand that I know of that sells certified organic, liquid, pasteurized egg whites is Eggology. They are a great brand and they do sell them online, but the the price difference is pretty substantial.
Honestly, that is the only reason I don’t use Eggology. They really are a great brand.
I go through quite a few egg whites each month. I go through at least a gallon a month, lately it has been 3 gallons a month. Because of the difference in price, I decided on the brand I currently use. I buy certified organic, cage free whole eggs and use those as well since I currently eat 2 whole eggs each day.
Here’s the link to Eggology. http://www.eggology.com
Note:
128 oz. is a gallon. Eggology sells 4 gallons for $192.08.
My brand sells 4 gallons for $112.00
Whole Foods sells Eggology in my area. You may want to try them if you are able to before you buy in bulk. I sometimes buy them from Whole Foods because like you, I try to eat organic and cage free as often as possible. If ever money is no longer an issue for me, I would definitely do Eggology all of the time instead of just some of the time.
Apr 17, 2012 @ 03:43:54
Hello Cori,
You are an insporation! I to gained 55 pounds with both my kids. I’ve always worked out, but never got to were I wanted to be. Now with all this information and blogs it’s very motivating but still VERY hard. I am training to do a show in aug 2012 not sure if it’s going to be bikini or figure. Good luck to you:)
Going to check your blog everyday
Danielle S
Apr 17, 2012 @ 03:45:36
One more thing:) your eating 1800 calories…that would be too much for me. I am 5’0 104 I am eating about 1200-1300 does that sound about right??
Apr 17, 2012 @ 11:44:09
Hi Danielle. Congrats on your decision to do a show! Are you working with a coach or trainer? Do they have you on a nutrition plan or are you doing it on your own? If you are working with a trainer, keep in mind you hired them for a reason so trust them and listen to them! If you don’t trust them… Hire a new trainer! The best “general” advice I can give without meeting you is to remember it’s NOT about calories… It’s about the types of foods you are eating. It’s always better to keep your calories high so you have energy and you feel good. 1800 calories might not really be too high for you… It depends on your unique metabolism, activity level, goal and other individual factors. Keep me updated on your progress! I can’t wait to hear how your show goes!
Apr 26, 2012 @ 19:31:21
Hi Cori!!
What an amazing story you have!! I’m so glad i found about you!! You see i’ve recently been wanting to lose some weight for summer and just in general. I do unfortunately have Nerve Damage from my left knee through my foot, making it hard for me to lunge or things like that. I’m really glad you have modifications for people like myself who aren’t able to perfectly go through the motions!!
I’ll be checking your blog everyday, and letting everyone who comes here know that you are such an amazing person, and that it ACTUALLY works!!!
- Val
Apr 28, 2012 @ 06:21:31
Thank you so much Val! You just completely made my day! It is stories like yours that inspire me and keep me going! Be proud of yourself for seeking out new ways you can move your body, even with your nerve damage. Be proud of yourself for not allowing that to become an excuse! Be proud of yourself for actively looking for ways to make different movements work for you! Again, thank you so much for your kind words. It really means a lot to me. Keep up the hard work!
May 15, 2012 @ 02:31:34
Hi
Great website. I read through it and there is some great content.
My name is David Dack, I’m an established author and running expert.
I was wondering if you accept guest posts for your website?
You can check some of my writing at:
http://www.shapefit.com/writers/fitness-writers-david-dack.html
http://www.lifemojo.com/lifestyle/author/david-dack-141899365
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=David_Dack
If you’re ever looking for some quality content I can provide high quality
and exclusive articles for you.
Let me know what you think
Kind regards
May 15, 2012 @ 16:28:37
Hi David. I do plan on including guest contributors in the future, but not quite yet. Great work though!
May 18, 2012 @ 13:15:37
Hi Cori,
I came across your video of tattoo removal because I have one I am interested in removing. I had my first consultation today and I’m so afraid of scarring. Mine is similar to yours in that it is a circle and it’s on my stomach. I was completely amazed that I came across your site though, because I have also been contemplating training for figure competition! I know I’ll be looking back to reference all the great information you have here.
It looks like you haven’t had any trouble with the tattoo removal. Do you happen to know which type of laser was used?
I’m sorry to bring this up, I know its not the focus of this site, but I sure would appreciate any guidance you can give on the subject.
Thanks!
Lori
May 18, 2012 @ 13:29:18
Hi Lori! Awesome! It’s cool how things work out sometimes! So..I forget the exact type of laser, but I remember the practitioner saying it was the standard, top of the line, etc. I have had my 5 treatments so far and haven’t had any problems yet. It bubbled up a couple of times and I was REALLY worried about scarring too. I would rather have a tattoo than a scar in the shape of my tattoo. But, the practitioner I go to is also a fabulous dermatologist so they were able to give me some great advice and medication/creams to minimize scarring. So far, no scars. Even in the areas where it blistered. BUT, it also is a very slow process. AND PAINFUL. I have a high tolerance for pain (natural childbirth, monthly brazilian waxes, marathons, triathlons, etc)… but this hurts. I opted for the topical numbing cream and for local anesthesia injections before each treatment.
For the next 5 treatments I’m going to also have laser resurfacing of the skin to help aid my body’s healing process and to force some more blood flow, cells, etc. to the site to remove the pigment. We’ll see if that works a little faster. I’m hoping that it will be close to completely gone after 10 total treatments. Each treatment should be about 6 weeks apart to really allow your body time to “eat up” all the dispersed pigment…. so that’s why it takes so long. We’ll see what happens! My next treatments won’t be until August since I’m competing now.
Aug 29, 2012 @ 01:32:05
I am grateful that you have chosen to start this website. Just happens to be the perfect time for me! It is like meeting you was just what I needed in my life at this time. I have enjoyed the videos/updates on your success and look forward to everything in store for the future. Hopefully I will be able to join in and walk the stage too in the future with you. Sisters in iron!