Mix up that routine with little adjustments to daily activities

Low-impact, fun exercises to mix up your routine

• Dance like nobody’s watching.  That’s right, bust a move and don’t care how ridiculous you look.  In fact, the more ridiculous you look by flailing arms and legs, the more flexibility and calorie burning you’re doing.  So put on some upbeat tunes and go wild!
• Walk around like a ballerina.  Try walking on the balls of your feet or doing peirouttes when you reach for something.  You’ll work on your balance, flexibility, and feel like a real star.
• Act frazzled.  You know when you see people going in and out of a room or aisle of the grocery store?  And they can never seem to remember what they needed or maybe they keep forgetting something else from the same place?  Be that person (at home! Bonus points if you feel good enough to do it in public…you don’t need to talk to yourself though).  If you have to bring stuff to another room of the house, take one thing at a time.  Go back and forth and you’ll easily do quadruple the amount of walking.  You can also leave your phone in a different room so that you have to keep moving the check it…it also might help give you a break from technology.
•  Pretend you’re Jackie Chan.  Find a nice open place in your home and bust out some karate moves.  They don’t have to be “real,” but they should get you moving and even work up a sweat.  PLUS, you’ll be relieving stress if you pretend to be kicking the ass of someone or thing you can’t stand.
• Plant a garden. And maintain it.  If you can’t have your own garden, do a garden share or volunteer at a local greenhouse.  You’ll be getting outdoors, filling up on sunlight (free Vitamin D!), producing pretty and/or nutritious things, and working with the earth which may help you feel more at peace.  Little things like weeding, planting, and transporting soil and plants actually forces you to stretch, lift, and tone more than most gym routines.
•  Play with your kids.  Go for walks with them, play catch, house, soccer, and teach them to ride bikes.  You’ll be getting quality time in with your family, showing your kids that exercise is not only important, but fun, and getting a great workout.
• Yoga.  Find free videos or charts online and do some stretches and poses in the comfort of your home.  Wear comfy, loose fitting clothes and do as much or as little as you like.  Focusing on breathing to calm down and help regulate your heartbeat and rhythms of your body
• Cook like Emeril.  BAM!  Put some new moves and dances into your cooking.  Bonus for cooking healthy foods and working up a sweat while doing it.  Use fun words and expressions while you're cranking out delicious things.

Take a Break

(Picture taken in Hawaii, Hawaii - black sand beach with 

sea turtles sunning themselves.  They know how to take a break!)

Don’t overwork yourself.  You don’t want to end up all cramped and injured.  It feels good to get those muscles working again and have your lungs working to capacity, but if you don’t take a day off once in a while (ideally once a week), you’ll pay in the end.  I found myself facing this problem…I was running and getting into a great routine, but my knees and ankles were killing me.  I thought that working through the pain would work, but it only exacerbated it.  I was pushing too hard and needed a break before I did real damage.  I took a day off of HIIT and just did extra walking and standing at work.  Then I found a new problem… when I don’t exercise, my appetite increases.  So I have to be more careful on days off.  The good news is, exercise decreases overall appetite.

On your days off, you might want to catch up on chores (simpler, necessary tasks that still keep your body going) or just veg in front of the TV…but be careful not to waste the whole day, because sitting is killing us and here's an infographic of how!  If you feel the need to snack while watching TV like I do, find healthy alternatives like Veggie Sticks, fruits, vegetables, nuts, or yogurt.

Most importantly, don’t feel bad about yourself for taking a day off…what you’re doing is just as important as exercising and eating right.

Fish and Roasted Veggies

Delicious super foods!

Fish
Cod, drizzled with lemon juice and bread crumbs and baked for 20 minutes.

Roasted Veggies
Onions, peppers, potatoes, celery, carrots, sweet potatoes cut up and added to a baking pan.  Olive oil and honey to taste with french onion soup mix coating the veggies.  Bake until tender (30-50 minutes).

Work through the flab

I learned something very interesting...for people with belly fat, especially excess flab everywhere like me...you can't do crunches and situps to lose weight.  You might have done those exercises and created perfect abs...a six pack even..but it's buried under flab.  It's important to do those toning exercises, too...but if you're strapped for time and energy...go with cardio.  Working your arms or doing resistance training on your legs will help build the other muscles that might get neglected when you're walking or running.

My big thing is that I hate when my legs rub together when I run.  When I concentrate on it, I mess up my pace.  What I try to do is use an old school thigh master while I'm sitting on the couch.  Wow, does it burn the inside thighs!  But it feels like a good workout.  And it helps with slimming down the thighs.


I found that after walking and picking up a pace of 3.6mph at a 2% incline (took me a few weeks to feel good enough there), I was ready to do some serious cardio to speed up the process...and that's when I found HIIT...which you can read about in another one of my posts.

I noticed the effects almost immediately.  The tire around my waist (just under my chest) shrunk...I lost 2 inches there.  The scale didn't move much, but that's because I was building muscle mass.

So basically...those quick burns from crunches are better than nothing...but if you've got extra flab...you're not helping much.  Find a cardio routine that works for you!

Whole wheat

Whole wheat is soooooooooooooooo much better for you than regular pasta, bread, oats...anything.

Whole wheat is less processed and therefore keeps a lot of the healthy benefits.  You'll feel it right away...less whole wheat goods will fill you up faster than the same amount of non-whole wheat.  The calories may be slightly more...but you'll eat less and the nutrients are much better.  It helps clean you out, too!  You might find it even tastes better.

Find whole wheat bread that you like..try different ones.  One sandwich with whole wheat bread will fill you up and keep you feeling satisfied for longer.

2 ingredient power cookies

So simple and soooo delicious!  The ones pictured have more than two ingredients...I added cranberries!


Directions:

• Banana, mushed up and mashed with whole wheat oats (like Quaker oats).
• Roll them into cookie balls and put on a greased pan (or one covered in aluminum foil)
• Bake for 15 minutes...smells like banana bread!

Optional additives:

• honey
• cinnamon
• vanilla extract
• dried cranberries

These are awesome and they fill you up...and help keep you "regular."

Simple food changes

Simple things to add to your daily meals which will pay off in soooo many ways.

Ginger!
Lemon!
Cinnamon!
Nuts (almonds)!
Honey!
Green tea!
Greek yogurt!

Here's how I roll...

• MORNING
• Drink a whole bottle (reusable) of water on the way to work.
• Drink a large cup of green tea with honey, lemon, cinnamon, and ginger.
• Eat a handful of dark chocolate almonds (lots of protein)
• Eat about 2 cups of fruit...grapes, blackberries, rasberries, banana, strawberries, blueberries)
• Drink a large cup of hot water with fresh cut ginger root, lemon, and cinnamon.
• Drink a small cup of black coffee.
• Drink another bottle of water.
• LUNCH 
• Usually something with protein and veggies for a snack
• Drink at least one large cup of water at lunch...with lemon with lunch.
• Banana or greek yogurt as a dessert
• AFTERNOON
• Keep drinking water...if I get sleepy, I make another green tea.
• If I need a boost, then I hit up the almonds or two pieces of dark chocolate
• SUPPER
• Something with veggies. 
• Even if I have a frozen pizza, I have sweet potato fries or a sweet potato made in the microwave.
• EVENING
• Chamomile tea with honey and cinnamon

HIIT

I love to HIIT it!  HIIT is high-intensity interval training.  What I love about it is that you can do it for 4 minutes or 40.  Some days, I can only do 10, but other days I push it to 20.

Here's the basics:

• Do a simple, manageable activity like walking at a comfy pace.
• Warm yourself up by doing this after stretching for a good 1-2 minutes.  If you're new to it, you might want to take longer to work yourself up.
• For one minute...yes just one minute, do that same exercise as fast as you can.
• After this minute, take one or two minutes and do a "recovery" period of that same manageable activity.  
• Then HIIT it and push yourself for another minute and then take another minute for recovery.  Do this in intervals for as long as you can.

Here are the benefits:

• It works your muscles so much more than a moderate, continuous pace so you end up burning as much, if not more fat in soooo much quicker.
• You work your body harder so that you actually burn fat for the NEXT 24 HOURS!

You can look up all kinds of specifics about what to do...push your oxygen intake..blah blah..the thing to do is push yourself as hard as you can for one minute and then rest while still moving for one minute.


I was doing 3mph walking and 5mph run/jog.  5 started to feel easier, so I HIIT it up to 6mph.  This means that if I do 20 minutes of HIIT, I end up running a full mile and walking a half mile.  ITS CRAZY!!!  ME?  Running a MILE???!!!

Background

I'm going to use this blog to post cool ideas, recipes, and weight loss/nutrition tips.  But before I begin, let me tell you about myself.

I've always been a chubby girl...from childhood to now.  I tried crash diets, cleanses, seemingly everything.  It bothered me off and on, but once I fell in love, I was much more comfortable with myself.  Someone incredible loves me for me, regardless of what I look like.  That was and is a wonderful feeling.  I think I had to get to the point where I was making changes for me and not for anyone else.  That point came when I got weighed in at the doctor's office for a routine checkup.  220.  I couldn't believe it.  I really had to evaluate my life and see what went wrong.

That's not the way to think of it, though.  Nothing had gone wrong...in fact, everything was going right.  I graduated college and got a great job...a desk job where my exercise was no more than walking to and from the bathroom.  I made excuses for not taking the stairs to the third floor...it was too early in the morning, I was too tired.  I started making small changes, drinking more water, finding healthier snacks.  But that doesn't cut it.  It took a few months, but I figured it out.  I don't need a diet or exercise... I need a lifestyle change.

If I want to get fit, I have to exercise.  If I want to exercise, I have to make time for it.  A gym was something I never wanted to do...being in my grubby clothes and sweating so much in front of people...yikes.  Not for me.  I bought a treadmill.  And I was determined to use it.  I started walking to build up my muscles and lungs.  Then I researched different exercises for obese (yes, though I might not necessarily fit what you might think of when you hear the word obese, in the medical world I am) people.  I found HIIT, high-intensity interval training.  And it's pushed me harder and further than I ever thought possible.

If I want to lose weight and feel great, I have to eat well.  If I want to eat well, I have to change my shopping habits.  I needed to learn to love veggies.  I started by eating a lot of fruits, which I still do, but they're more of a treat now.  They pack a lot of sugar.  After talking to a friend about the effects of sugar, I realized that I needed to cut back.  Maybe I have smaller amounts of healthier, more powerful fruits.  Maybe I exchange some of my snacks for vegetables or almonds.  All of these things have taken time...and LOTS of research, but I'm ready to make changes.

I love myself and that makes a huge difference.  I exercise and eat well to reward myself for working hard and give myself a better, healthier lifestyle where I should live longer.  I do this for myself.  When I'm ready to quit on the treadmill, I push on...not to punish myself for being heavy, but to ensure it's easier next time.  I try to remind myself that in a year, I won't regret working harder now, I will regret giving up.

Fit in fit time!

Low-impact, fun exercises to mix up your routine

• Dance like nobody’s watching.  That’s right, bust a move and don’t care how ridiculous you look.  In fact, the more ridiculous you look by flailing arms and legs, the more flexibility and calorie burning you’re doing.  So put on some upbeat tunes and go wild!
• Walk around like a ballerina.  Try walking on the balls of your feet or doing peirouttes when you reach for something.  You’ll work on your balance, flexibility, and feel like a real star.
• Act frazzled.  You know when you see people going in and out of a room or aisle of the grocery store?  And they can never seem to remember what they needed or maybe they keep forgetting something else from the same place?  Be that person (at home! Bonus points if you feel good enough to do it in public…you don’t need to talk to yourself though).  If you have to bring stuff to another room of the house, take one thing at a time.  Go back and forth and you’ll easily do quadruple the amount of walking.  You can also leave your phone in a different room so that you have to keep moving the check it…it also might help give you a break from technology.
•  Pretend you’re Jackie Chan.  Find a nice open place in your home and bust out some karate moves.  They don’t have to be “real,” but they should get you moving and even work up a sweat.  PLUS, you’ll be relieving stress if you pretend to be kicking the ass of someone or thing you can’t stand.
• Plant a garden. And maintain it.  If you can’t have your own garden, do a garden share or volunteer at a local greenhouse.  You’ll be getting outdoors, filling up on sunlight (free Vitamin D!), producing pretty and/or nutritious things, and working with the earth which may help you feel more at peace.  Little things like weeding, planting, and transporting soil and plants actually forces you to stretch, lift, and tone more than most gym routines.
•  Play with your kids.  Go for walks with them, play catch, house, soccer, and teach them to ride bikes.  You’ll be getting quality time in with your family, showing your kids that exercise is not only important, but fun, and getting a great workout.
• Yoga.  Find free videos or charts online and do some stretches and poses in the comfort of your home.  Wear comfy, loose fitting clothes and do as much or as little as you like.  Focusing on breathing to calm down and help regulate your heartbeat and rhythms of your body
• Cook like Emeril.  BAM!  Put some new moves and dances into your cooking.  Bonus for cooking healthy foods and working up a sweat while doing it.  Use fun words and expressions while you're cranking out delicious things.