MarcForrest.com

Category: Personal

  • Time for a little makeover

    Time for a little makeover

    Last night I decided to give my site a little makeover by updating the theme, and fixing up a couple of the pages. The awesome beauty about wordpress, is the fact that, you simply select a new theme, and then with a few tweaks and adjustments, you have a brand new looking site.

    The old look

     

    So last night I downloaded the very very cool Spicy Theme from Themeforest, and uploaded it to my site. Within an hour, after all the adjustments & tweaks, I was up & running with a brand new look and feel.

    The new look :)

     

    The Spicy theme is awesome. It has loads of features, and styling it to your needs is simple. Check out the demo to get an idea of how powerful it is.

    If you have any suggestions about the new look & feel, please feel free to leave a comment below, and I will do what I can :)

  • The next step in #Project2011

    The next step in #Project2011

    So you may have been following my Project2011 project, where my goal is to become leaner & fitter. So far it has been going really well, and although I haven’t been riding as much as I should have, I have been training Kettlebells quite hard, as well as following a proper eating plan. I also did another mudman triathlon event a few weeks ago, which turned out to be disastrous, thanks to all the mud. Horrible ! I do however plan to get back on the bike as soon as it starts getting a bit cooler in the mornings.

    Admittedly over the last couple of weeks, I have lost a bit of personal focus on the eating side of things. The training has been good, but with easter and the holidays, seems to have messed things up a bit. Overall, I am probably down around 15-20 kg’s in body weight since I started in Jan, but have turned a quite a bit of fat into muscle thanks to the Kettlebells.

    So I chatted to Sean from FluxMotion who has been mentoring me over the last few months with the whole fitness & eating plan, and he suggested we start with a new fresh project, and I’ll be the Guinea pig to test it out. So obvisouly I jumped on board strtaight away ;)

    So, in came Travis Gale from AppleTree who’s Motto is “Live Life Now”. Travis is the catalyst in the project, and takes the role of “Mental coach” to ensure I stay on the right path. This is exactly what I need and over the next 12 weeks, I will be working together with Sean & Travis in achiveing my goals, while keeping fit, trim and mentally stable :) You can read Travis’ take on the project on his blog – http://travisgale.wordpress.com/project-forrest/

    One of the key elements to the project is that I’ll be keeping a daily journal of my activities. This includes before photos (be warned), eating plans and training journals. It’s really just an online diary of whats happening, as well as a motivator for me to go back and read on. You can follow it at http://thinmarc.posterous.com

    I am really look forward to the next 12 weeks, as well as working with these 2 great guys, and can’t wait to see the results. Stay tuned, as I will be posting updates as I go along.

  • Gadgets & Gizmos in the Airport Magazine

    The guys & girls from Fabmags here in KZN, have recently launched an awesome new magazine called “The Airport Mag“. The FREE monthly magazine is distrubuted at King Shaka Airport, and focuses on lifestyle and local news from around the country. They also have a section on “best places” to visit in various cities around the country.

    The mag is designed to be a quick read while you on the plane, but also something you take home, to read again. I really enjoyed the layout of the magazine, and there are some awesome articles as well. In the next couple of months the magazine, should start being distributed at OR Tambo and then Cape Town airport. Monthly distribution is currently around 20,000

    I have been asked by the team to contribute to the Gadgets & Gizmos section of the mag, where I review a couple of interesting gadgets every month, and give more info about them. The info is pretty brief, but includes a larger image to get an idea of what it’s all about.

    In the first edition, I featured the iPad2, DSTV Drifta, The Nintendo 3DS & the XBox Kinect. You can download a copy of the section in PDF, by clicking on the image below.

    If you have any suggestions of Gadgets or Gizmos you would like me to review or if you would like your product reviewed, leave a comment below

     

  • A quick #Project2011 update

    So if you been following this blog since the beginning of the year, you will know I started a personal project, #Project2011, where my goal was to start living a much healthier lifestyle, and lose some lots of KG’s

    Well, so far, so good…I think :) After getting the Cannondale, I did a couple of Rides @ Holla in Ballito, as well as doing my first Mudman triathlon. I have to admit, that I really enjoyed the Mudman, but due to various things, I was unable to do the next 2. The next one is on the 17th of April, and I am really keen to get to that one. I haven’t been riding as much as I should have. There isn’t too many excuses for that, except I had one really bad ride about a month ago, where my blood sugar dropped, and I felt horrible. But I have positioned the bike in my garage in such a way, that every time I see it, I feel guilty, so will be getting back on soon :)

    But that said, I have been doing some (lots) exercise, in the form of Kettlebells with Flux Motion. Actually, I think I might well have become addicted to Kettlebells. Last week, I ended up doing 4 sessions !! Sean from Flux has been a true inspiration, and along with an eating plan, and some general guidance, I am really enjoying my lifestyle change. I have progressed from a 4kg Kettlebell when I started in mid Jan and this morning, worked out with a 14kg. I am super stoked.

    We recently moved the KB training down to the beach in Ballito, and started training on the promenade. This is one of the best moves ever. There is nothing better than at 6am, working out looking over the sea, and having a cool sea breeze blowing to cool you down. It has really opened my eyes, and makes your day so much more bearable. We are really so lucky to stay in this awesome part of the world. Amazing.

    The results ? Well, so far I am down about 16kg’s since I weighed myself in Dec (and got totally pissed with myself). Although this isn’t a true reflection of the weight loss, as I have lost a LOT more fat, and turned that fat into muscle. My clothes that I haven’t been able to wear in years, suddenly fit me, and my body am actually feeling 1000% better. The key to all of this, is really just eating well, and pushing your mind & body 10% extra each time you eat/workout/play. You need to focus on what you are trying to achieve, and focus on the end goal.

    Once I have reached my goal weight (hopefully in a few months time), I will post all the stats & pictures :) So far, so good :)

  • Why I removed my smokoo post

    You may have noticed that I have removed one of the most popular posts on my site about Smokoo.

    Earlier today I got a phone call from the guys at Smokoo who asked me to remove the post, as it was reflecting their company in a negative light. They have offered to have a meeting about this, as they claim to have an open door policy, as well as give me an insight into how the business operates.

    I complied and removed the post, as there is a whole other side to this story, which unfortunately I can’t divulge into at the moment in public.

    To date the post had over 6,000 unique views, as well as over 140 comments from users on the sites. The post ranked as the number 1 post when searching google for the keyword “smokoo”, above the companies site.

    This is the first time that I have ever been asked to remove a post, and to say I am bleak, is an understatement. Unfortunately this time it was a bit to close to home to ignore :(