We all know that Christmas is right around the corner... seriously! Are you ready? I definitely still have some shopping to do, and I know that shopping can be a workout in itself. However, getting to the gym should still be high up on your priority list.
An average American will gain between 7 and 10lbs between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Do you want to be a part of that statistic? I DON'T THINK SO! I know I don't, that's for sure.
Since there is about 10 days left till Christmas, I'll give you 10 Tips to stay fit over the holidays!
1. Make time for yourself: we all tend to get overwhelmed during the Holiday season. We are so busy thinking about everyone and everything else that sometimes we forget about ourselves. Try to find at least 5 minutes to relax! Do some deep breathing exercises if you are getting over stressed. (In through the nose out through the mouth)
2. Don't set unrealistic exercise goals: As I said before our workout time gets cut shorter during this time of year. Set a goal of working out for 15-20 minutes each day, so that you are not disappointed when you aren't able to stay for that 45-60 minutes.
3. Holiday activities instead of Holiday COOKIES: We all know that our mom's and grandma's are busy in the kitchen making the delicious Christmas cookies that we all enjoy eating. Now I'm not telling you that you can have one here or there, I'm telling you not to over-indulge. Try to start a new holiday tradition like a family football game, or family sledding or snowman building. Anything fun you can think of the include and encourage the whole family to stay active.
4. Find a friend for motivation and encouragement: Working out with someone always makes the workout better and more fun. You can get encouragement, ideas and motivation! If your a competitive person you can make a friendly competition from exercise to exercise :)
5. Don't try to necessarily lose weight over the Holiday, but try to maintain!: Trying to have a super stricked diet over the holidays is going to be really hard and frustrating for most of us. We all have our weaknesses! Mine is definitely caramel corn! I could eat it all day long... BUT I don't! I am trying to stick with my healthy meal plans and regular workout routine just to stay on track over the holidays and that's what I would recommend for all of you!
6. Drink plenty of H2O: I know it's not summer and were not sweating as much and getting dehydrated as easily. However you still need to have your 64-120 oz of water daily. Drinking water helps counter the feelings of dehydrating effects of traveling and drinking alcoholic beverages. Drinking water may also help you feel less hungry, many people mistake the feeling of being hungry and being thirsty. Most people are more inclined to grab the food before they would grab a glass of water.
7. Don't over do it with alcohol or caffeine: Having to much of the stimulants could actually add to your stress level, and that's the last thing that you want.
8. Spread out your meals: When families gather around the dinner table for Holiday feasts they always try to fill up every ounce of their plate. Try using a smaller dinner plate so you aren't taking as large of a portion. Also it is good to take a little break between eating the main meal and then having dessert. It's good to get everything cleaned up so you have a decent amount of time to let your food settle. You may find yourself eating less dessert and not getting so many stomach pains from being over stuffed!
9. Don't aim for perfection, and enjoy the imperfections: I know that I come from a crazy family and we always say that it's not a family holiday till somebody cries. But it's so true, we all try to have these images of perfection in our head, when in reality we know that perfection is impossible! Nothing is ever going to be perfect, so relax and don't stress out if something doesn't go the exact way you think it should this Holiday.
10. LAUGH! Laughing is a great tension reliever. It also burns calories, reduces stress and usually means that you are having a good time! Keep a smile on this Holiday and enjoy the people that you get to celebrate with. Even if parts of your family are far away you know that you will always be thinking about them. Well, at least I know that I will.
I hope these 10 Holiday Tips help you get a little more out of this Holiday season. Keep your eyes pealed for my next few posts I'm thinking about posting Tips on how to grocery shop!!
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
STRESSED OUT!
I can't believe it's only Wednesday. I feel like so much has happened this week. It sucks because I have been so busy I was unable to have the time to update my blog for the past couple of days. This time of year is when I feel like many of us are at a high stress level. Students are coming up on the end of their semesters so FINALS are knocking at their doors. Parents are running around like crazy trying to make sure they can get everything ready for Christmas and holiday events. I've been so busy at work I haven't even had the chance to get a decent workout in this week and the week is halfway over :( Sometimes getting that workout in can be a great stress reliever because its that short little window of time that you can spend focusing on just yourself. It's a little mini break that you get to take during your long stressful day. Being able to take just 20 to 30 minutes could make a world of difference in the way you feel throughout your day. Exercising can actually give you that energy boost because your body releases a good amount of endorphins while exercising and your body actually produces twice as much ATP (ENERGY) that your body needs to complete a workout so the left over ATP is what your body uses for that energy boost.
Take a look at the following metabolic workout ( this is a workout that should take less than 30 minutes to complete but you are building your cardio in with your weight training to cut the time in half that you have to spend at the gym!)
5) Jump Squat x 24 Reps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utQShuge6Vk&feature=related
(Don't mind the British accent in this video! LOL)
Rest 60s
Repeat this sequence up to 5 times
please use the instructional videos to view the exercises if you have questions on how to do any of the exercises listed. If you have further instructional questions or you maybe cannot perform one of the exercises due to a joint or bone problem, let me know and I will give you a secondary option.
** Reminder if you don't have access to a Kettlebell you can use a dumbbell instead**
Take a look at the following metabolic workout ( this is a workout that should take less than 30 minutes to complete but you are building your cardio in with your weight training to cut the time in half that you have to spend at the gym!)
1) Push Up x 12 reps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh00_rniF8E&feature=fvsr3) Plank x 45-60 seconds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKPTt8TJWIs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKPTt8TJWIs
5) Jump Squat x 24 Reps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utQShuge6Vk&feature=related
(Don't mind the British accent in this video! LOL)
Rest 60s
Repeat this sequence up to 5 times
please use the instructional videos to view the exercises if you have questions on how to do any of the exercises listed. If you have further instructional questions or you maybe cannot perform one of the exercises due to a joint or bone problem, let me know and I will give you a secondary option.
** Reminder if you don't have access to a Kettlebell you can use a dumbbell instead**
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Sunday...a Day of Rest
Everyone needs an off day. Sundays are good days for that because this is when you can finish up those household chores, or just sit around and watch football all afternoon. When you are creating a workout program don't forget to assign one of those days as a "rest" day. Your body needs time to recover. You don't want to over work or over stress your body because this can actually have adverse effects on your immune system. You can end up getting something called "overtraining syndrome" and this is something that you definitely don't want.
Overtraining syndrome is what happens when their is an insufficient amount of rest in your training program. If this happens then regeneration cannot occur, and performance will also start decreasing. Don't get me wrong overtraining doesn't occur right away, it's something that develops over time. Overtraining can best be defined as the state where the athlete has been repeatedly stressed by training to the point where rest is no longer adequate to allow for recovery. The "overtraining syndrome" is the name given to the collection of emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms due to overtraining that has persisted for weeks to months.
For example I workout six days a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are dedicated to weight training and Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are dedicated to active recovery (cardio days). That leaves Sunday as my "recovery day". Also, know that because I'm working out six days a week doesn't mean that I am working out for hours each day. Most of my workouts are between 25 and 35 minutes. If you workout at a high intensity for a short period of time you are going to burn the same if not more calories as you would when you are doing a workout for an hour or longer. By taking shorter rest period throughout your workout it automatically builds that cardio component into your workout and therefore increasing the amount of calories burned.
I hope that you as readers are finding this information helpful. I will always try to post information that is useful to you. If their are any topics that you want to know more about leave me a comment about it and I will do my best to address it in a later post.
Have a great rest of your weekend and remember to REST!
Overtraining syndrome is what happens when their is an insufficient amount of rest in your training program. If this happens then regeneration cannot occur, and performance will also start decreasing. Don't get me wrong overtraining doesn't occur right away, it's something that develops over time. Overtraining can best be defined as the state where the athlete has been repeatedly stressed by training to the point where rest is no longer adequate to allow for recovery. The "overtraining syndrome" is the name given to the collection of emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms due to overtraining that has persisted for weeks to months.
For example I workout six days a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are dedicated to weight training and Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are dedicated to active recovery (cardio days). That leaves Sunday as my "recovery day". Also, know that because I'm working out six days a week doesn't mean that I am working out for hours each day. Most of my workouts are between 25 and 35 minutes. If you workout at a high intensity for a short period of time you are going to burn the same if not more calories as you would when you are doing a workout for an hour or longer. By taking shorter rest period throughout your workout it automatically builds that cardio component into your workout and therefore increasing the amount of calories burned.
I hope that you as readers are finding this information helpful. I will always try to post information that is useful to you. If their are any topics that you want to know more about leave me a comment about it and I will do my best to address it in a later post.
Have a great rest of your weekend and remember to REST!
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Saturday's a Cleanin' Day!
I'll I have to say is that CLEANING is DEFINITELY a WORKOUT!
My apartment is officially as clean as it was when I moved in over a year ago! Living room, kitchen, bathroom, spare room, bedroom CHECK! It's all done and it feels great. This is exactly what rainy Saturdays were meant for. Ask yourself... "how long has it been since you did a full... and I mean full cleaning of your house or apartment?" I have to tell you that it feels great to have a fully clean space to live in. Now, don't get me wrong I'm not usually really dirty. I do spend at least a day out of my weekend every weekend to do the normal household chores. However, today I was feeling super inspired to just deep clean my whole apartment.
I worked up a good sweat! It all started with cleaning the pots and pans in hot water in the kitchen. Standing over the sink with bubbles up to my elbows, scrubbing the dishes really got me warmed up. I moved right along to the bathroom where I got down on my hands a knees and scrubbed the floor (picture Cinderella). Getting up, getting down, scrubbing, organizing, etc. after a while that is a lot of squatting and/or lunging, which is the beginning of a good workout. Those of you who workout know that when you use your larger muscle groups your body has to work a whole lot harder, since their is a lot of blood that needs to flow through those muscles. Next, it was time for the laundry. I gather it all up, separate it into loads, and head down stairs, load the washers and head back up stairs. I think overall I went up and down 4 flights of stairs at least a dozen times...add it all up and you have CARDIO! When the wash is done it's time for a little shoulder workout; FOLDING! I know, I know every one hates the folding and putting away part, but if you try to do it with a little speed behind it you end up holding your arms up and shoulder height for just the right amount of time to feel a little burn. I also moved a lot of furniture today so that I could vacuum everywhere. I'm sure everyone has moved at least once and knows how good of a sweat you get from picking up and moving furniture! That's precisely what I did. So, as you can see I did basically a full body workout today with out even trying and all I did was clean my apartment and do some laundry. Remember just because you may not be able to make it to the gym everyday, their are things you can do in the comfort of your own home to get yourself a pretty decent workout.
Here are some more pointers for at home workouts. Do you have a sturdy coffee table? You can use this as a step, to get a little lower body burn/cardio workout. Do you have a wood or a tile floor and a pair of socks? You can do things like mountain climbers, or pike ups if you have the socks on your feet. Switch it up and put the socks on your hands you can do single arm layouts, or sliding push-ups. Only have carpet? Do you have paper plates or plastic glad-ware lids? The same exercises that I listed above you can do on carpet with these two items. Do you have a chair or a couch? You can do tricep dips or incline/decline push-ups. Everyone has a floor of some sort doesn't matter the surface texture, you can do planks, push ups, sit ups, etc. on the floor alone. Try doing some of these exercises during the commercial breaks of the show that you are watching. Most 30 minute television shows have at least 10-12 minutes of commercials. That's 10-12 minutes of exercise that you just created for yourself. Challenge yourself with this over the weekend! Leave me a comment and let me know how it went for you!
My apartment is officially as clean as it was when I moved in over a year ago! Living room, kitchen, bathroom, spare room, bedroom CHECK! It's all done and it feels great. This is exactly what rainy Saturdays were meant for. Ask yourself... "how long has it been since you did a full... and I mean full cleaning of your house or apartment?" I have to tell you that it feels great to have a fully clean space to live in. Now, don't get me wrong I'm not usually really dirty. I do spend at least a day out of my weekend every weekend to do the normal household chores. However, today I was feeling super inspired to just deep clean my whole apartment.
I worked up a good sweat! It all started with cleaning the pots and pans in hot water in the kitchen. Standing over the sink with bubbles up to my elbows, scrubbing the dishes really got me warmed up. I moved right along to the bathroom where I got down on my hands a knees and scrubbed the floor (picture Cinderella). Getting up, getting down, scrubbing, organizing, etc. after a while that is a lot of squatting and/or lunging, which is the beginning of a good workout. Those of you who workout know that when you use your larger muscle groups your body has to work a whole lot harder, since their is a lot of blood that needs to flow through those muscles. Next, it was time for the laundry. I gather it all up, separate it into loads, and head down stairs, load the washers and head back up stairs. I think overall I went up and down 4 flights of stairs at least a dozen times...add it all up and you have CARDIO! When the wash is done it's time for a little shoulder workout; FOLDING! I know, I know every one hates the folding and putting away part, but if you try to do it with a little speed behind it you end up holding your arms up and shoulder height for just the right amount of time to feel a little burn. I also moved a lot of furniture today so that I could vacuum everywhere. I'm sure everyone has moved at least once and knows how good of a sweat you get from picking up and moving furniture! That's precisely what I did. So, as you can see I did basically a full body workout today with out even trying and all I did was clean my apartment and do some laundry. Remember just because you may not be able to make it to the gym everyday, their are things you can do in the comfort of your own home to get yourself a pretty decent workout.
Here are some more pointers for at home workouts. Do you have a sturdy coffee table? You can use this as a step, to get a little lower body burn/cardio workout. Do you have a wood or a tile floor and a pair of socks? You can do things like mountain climbers, or pike ups if you have the socks on your feet. Switch it up and put the socks on your hands you can do single arm layouts, or sliding push-ups. Only have carpet? Do you have paper plates or plastic glad-ware lids? The same exercises that I listed above you can do on carpet with these two items. Do you have a chair or a couch? You can do tricep dips or incline/decline push-ups. Everyone has a floor of some sort doesn't matter the surface texture, you can do planks, push ups, sit ups, etc. on the floor alone. Try doing some of these exercises during the commercial breaks of the show that you are watching. Most 30 minute television shows have at least 10-12 minutes of commercials. That's 10-12 minutes of exercise that you just created for yourself. Challenge yourself with this over the weekend! Leave me a comment and let me know how it went for you!
Friday, December 2, 2011
FRIDAY FIT CHALLENGE!
So as you all know I work at the Anytime Fitness in Oshkosh WI. Every Friday we have a "fit challenge". This Friday's challenge was to take a load off and do a wall sit! We challenge all the Anytime Fitness's that Karmen owns to participate (that's 10 clubs). The winner of these challenges gets to pick the next weeks fit challenge. It's pretty awesome because we usually get a lot of participants (people are crazy competitive). We post all of their scores on our facebook pages and it's fun and friendly competition! :)
So I was thinking I used to do wall sits all the time! Our basketball coach in high school used to make use do them for almost 10 minutes at a time... how hard could it be? Well, turns out it takes a lot of mental strength to hold that position for a long period of time, because after about 2 minutes your quads are ON FIRE! Unfortunately I only made it to 3:20, I let my legs get the best of me.
So I decided that this would be a cool thing to add to my blog every Friday. So if you are a follower of my blog feel free to participate in the Friday Fit Challenge. The longest some one held it today was 7:03! Think you can beat it?! Post your Name and Time in my comments box and let me know how you did!
Rules: Thighs must be parallel to the ground and your hands should be behind your head!
So I was thinking I used to do wall sits all the time! Our basketball coach in high school used to make use do them for almost 10 minutes at a time... how hard could it be? Well, turns out it takes a lot of mental strength to hold that position for a long period of time, because after about 2 minutes your quads are ON FIRE! Unfortunately I only made it to 3:20, I let my legs get the best of me.
So I decided that this would be a cool thing to add to my blog every Friday. So if you are a follower of my blog feel free to participate in the Friday Fit Challenge. The longest some one held it today was 7:03! Think you can beat it?! Post your Name and Time in my comments box and let me know how you did!
Rules: Thighs must be parallel to the ground and your hands should be behind your head!
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Everyone has a SICK day...
Today I was feeling a bit under the weather...
I can't stress enough how important it is to take care of yourself. You hear many people say, "oh, I'm just going to go to the gym and sweat it out." well that might not be the best idea. When your feeling sick it is best to let your body rest, sometimes pushing yourself too much can make your sickness worse. You might also spread your sickness to other people. Being in an environment where you are sweating and touching equipment is not the best place for people with the cold/flu to go. Germs travel fast and the last thing you want to do is make any of your gym members sick or even your clients. When you are working one on one with people it is easy to spread germs. So again the best thing to do is rest and recover and make sure that you are not contagious.
Always be sure to wash your hands after you sneeze or blow your nose. Try not to cough into your hand or into the open air. Cough into the pit of your elbow or into a kleenex to help stop the spread of germs. If your sickness continues to get worse be sure to visit your walk in clinic or doctors office to make sure that it is nothing too serious.
I hope that everyone is able to stay healthy! I know that I will be getting better soon!
Keep checking back for new posts!
I can't stress enough how important it is to take care of yourself. You hear many people say, "oh, I'm just going to go to the gym and sweat it out." well that might not be the best idea. When your feeling sick it is best to let your body rest, sometimes pushing yourself too much can make your sickness worse. You might also spread your sickness to other people. Being in an environment where you are sweating and touching equipment is not the best place for people with the cold/flu to go. Germs travel fast and the last thing you want to do is make any of your gym members sick or even your clients. When you are working one on one with people it is easy to spread germs. So again the best thing to do is rest and recover and make sure that you are not contagious.
Always be sure to wash your hands after you sneeze or blow your nose. Try not to cough into your hand or into the open air. Cough into the pit of your elbow or into a kleenex to help stop the spread of germs. If your sickness continues to get worse be sure to visit your walk in clinic or doctors office to make sure that it is nothing too serious.
I hope that everyone is able to stay healthy! I know that I will be getting better soon!
Keep checking back for new posts!
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