Skipping the Gym

I was meeting with my trainer the other day—I figured a good way to jumpstart my fitness is a couple weeks of visiting the ol’ trainer—and he was asking me about my weekly schedule.  I gave him a rundown of the classes I like and machines I like on days when I don’t have class.  He asked, “What days are your days off?”  I laughed at him.  I don’t schedule myself days off from working out because they seem to happen all on their own!

Those are the days when you get home from work, having every intention of going to the gym throughout the day, but after cooking dinner you just can’t seem to muster the energy to head back out again.  Often I feel guilty for not making any effort to be active.  That’s why I have a few Plan B’s at home!

One of my favorite at-home activities is video games!  If this sentence takes you by surprise, then you haven’t been paying much attention to what your kids are playing.  My parents have a Wii—my mom loves the Wii Zumba and Wii Fit games.  I got my brother the Wario Smooth Moves game for Christmas and you’d be shocked at the sweat you can build up just paying a simple game.  At our house, we have a new Kinect!  I love the Dance Central game (I can’t dance, but I’m a star!).

I don’t have any machines or weights at home, but I did splurge on a Bosu Ball.  It’s a great tool that I can use for balance, abs, legs, pushups or anything I can think of!  You don’t have to fill your house with fitness aids or bulky machines (that just end up holding your laundry).  But if you pick one tool to keep around, you have a backup plan for those days when you just want to stay in, like a yoga mat, a balance disc, or an exercise band.

What kind of backup plan do you have for when your normal routine gives?  Any favorite DVD workouts?  Have you tried other simple exercises that don’t require any equipment?

Kings and Queens of Reasoning

It’s Sunday afternoon, and you’re still in your pajamas.  It occurs to you that you should head to the gym at some point in the day.  But you still have the house to tidy up and some laundry to throw in.  Oh, and you were hoping to run to the grocery store, too.  By the time you did that errand, it would be dinner time.  And you had been pretty good with your eating so far in the day, so it was no big deal if you didn’t make it to the gym.

It’s so easy to reason away those things you’ve committed yourself to!  I find reasoning far better than just making excuses.  With excuses, at least you feel a little guilty for your decision.  When you reason your way to a decision, there’s no guilt because you had perfectly good reasons!

But the scary thing is—I reasoned away my need to get to the gym for the entire month of December.

You can reason away your need to eat fewer calories.  You can reason away your need to drink plenty of water.  Saving your money.  Working reasonable hours.  Staying active.  Our commitments and resolutions float away on a river of reasons.

The best way I have found to help fight the urge to reason is to make sure I have rules and routine in place.  Every Monday I attend Body Attack and Fridays are Zumba nights.  As a rule, I try to get to the gym at least four nights a week.  On principle, I never schedule myself off days (because they seem to happen all on their own without me scheduling them).  When you have a rule that can stop you in your reasoning tracks, or a sense of routine that prevents you from even getting to that point where you’re reasoning away your need.

How to you keep yourself on track?  Do you find that once you start making reasons that it gets harder to get back on track?  What do you do to not give yourself room for reasons?

Change It up!

For me, one of the most sure fire ways to keep my workout routine consistent is to keep it fun and challenging.  If you let boredom creep into your routine, every workout will become a fight to stay on track.

Many times we want to change up our habits, but all we do is move from the elliptical machine to the stair master.  We’re afraid of leaving our comfort zone; we bore ourselves into failure!  This year we’re going to be brave!  We are going to do what we’ve never done!

If you’re one of those elliptical machine people (meaning, four days a week you put in your 30 minutes on the same machine), try a group class!  There are plenty of cardio classes that would shock some fun into your schedule, as well as give you an opportunity to work a few other muscle groups.  Zumba classes are everywhere.  I love Les Mills classes—Body Attack, Body Combat and Sh’Bam.

If you’re one of those group class people (meaning, you only attend classes and hate to work out alone), grab a buddy or a trainer and do some strength training!  You might have variety of muscle groups, but you probably don’t have the strength you could.  You’ll see some gigantic men and women in the weight areas, but I promise they are very nice.  Many are more than willing to help you find weights or give you a quick instructional on how to work a machine.

If you’re one of those weight lifting people (meaning, you only bulk up), try a martial arts class or the Les Mills Body Combat.  You’ll find it will let you still work in some strength training (as well as make you feel like there’s a use to all those muscles now) while letting you build in some cardio to your schedule.

And finally, my running friends!  If you’re one of those marathon freaks (meaning, you’re a marathon freak—you know who you are), try anything else!  Many runners have very healthy hearts and keep their weight in check.  The truth is you’re only working out one very small muscle group.  Can you play a game of basket ball or jump on the trampoline with your kids?  Can you help a friend move some furniture or climb a rock wall?

How are you going to change up your routine this year?  What have you been dying to try but always been too afraid?

A Little Motivation

I got to speak with some lovely ladies last night (shout out to my 20/20 ladies!).  We had a great time talking about all the good, the bad, and the ugly about weight loss and weight maintenance.  We even discussed which plastic surgeons are the best to help with “the ugly!”

I was thrilled with the opportunity to share everything I’ve learned—and everything I am still learning!

One of the stories I shared seemed to hit home with many of us last night, and I wanted to share with Blog Land!  It was a moment that I found extremely motivating when I was coming toward the end of my weight loss.  It’s a great perspective on those moments when you make not-so-great decisions or those mornings you get up, step on the scale, and want to freak out over the number you see.

I was in my Body Attack class (hells yeah, Monday nights at the Redmond Gold’s!).  It was toward the end of class so I’m sweating my butt off, and I’m pushing myself hard.  Our normal instructor often challenges us to consider why we’re truly there: “Are you here to get healthy?  To get fit?  Do you just want a great butt?” she’ll yell to us when we must look like we need some motivation.  Of course my snarky brain was all, “I’m here to work off that cupcake I decided to eat at lunch today!”  But then my brain kept going, “I’m killing the calories that I decided to eat today…  And not calories that I ate over 10 years of unhealthy eating.”

It was such a revolutionary thought to me!  I was working off the decisions I made that day.  My past decisions and their consequences were gone!  Every day was a choice: I could choose to do nothing about the decisions I make, or I could choose to drag my butt to Body Attack and pay up!  It was like a huge weight lifted from me (pun intended!); I felt like people who struggle with financial debt must feel when they’re in the black for the first time.

So when you’re beating yourself up for a slip up or for that extra couple pounds on the scale, remember that it’s not the end of your world.  This is not the biggest catastrophe that could happen to you!  Pick yourself up, pin point where you went wrong, and fix it.  It’s in your power to change your own life.

Those Morning People…

I am not one of those people who exercise in the morning.  I know there are a lot of people out there who love getting up at a ridiculous hour of the morning and beginning their day with a good sweat.  Well, I was one of those people this morning.  Do.  Not.  Like.

I feel my first foray into morning workout land did not go well for one good reason.  My nutritionist once told me, “You don’t need to eat before a workout, but it’s up to you if you feel it helps or hinders your body when you do work out.”  I had always thought this was a broad, sweeping statement that applied to all situations.  Sometimes I eat before I workout; sometimes I don’t.

Apparently, this statement does not apply to 6am workouts.  When you haven’t eaten for over eight hours, you need to eat before a workout.  It was so weird literally not having the energy this morning to move!  I was on my normal machine, doing my normal routine.  But I could not force my legs to move!  My brain was all, “Let’s go!”  And my legs were all, “We’re trying!”

Then I got home and I felt all gross and ravenous.  It’s hours later and I still feel like I haven’t recovered.  Bleh.

Ok, kids.  What’s the moral of this story?  Morning workouts are very different from evening workouts.  Are you a morning person?  I’d love to know what your routine is—how you get the most out of it!  What do you eat?  What kind of workout do you do: cardio, strength?  How long do you work out?  This is new territory for me, but I think I need to keep at it.  There are some days when an evening workout just isn’t happening, and I hate skipping the gym altogether.

Recipe for Success: Eat Right, Get Active



I just love fat pictures!  Last month was the one year anniversary to the beginning of my weight loss journey.  From August 2009 to February 2010, I steadily lost over 95 pounds.  I’ve had several occasions since beginning my weight maintenance journey in March to consider the attitudes and choices that made me so successful.

While I was losing my weight, many people would ask, “So what are you doing?”  I could see the excitement, the expectation in their eyes.  And I knew it would die as soon as I gave them my answer: “Well, I’m really just learning how to eat healthy and exercising my butt off.”  Most people would look disappointed, congratulate me, and move on.  Only a few would push for more on what I was doing.

Don’t hear what I’m not saying.  There are plenty of diets out there—diet foods, diet programs, different dieting philosophies—that do work well for some people.  But, for most people, all that is needed is food education and a kick in the butt.  Most of us want to eat well; we just have no idea how!

When it comes to food, the most important part is to find healthy, low-calorie foods that you enjoy.  In completely revamping my daily diet, I remembered how much I loved fruits and vegetables.  Honestly, a dinner feels incredibly satisfying to me when I get to finish it up with a cup of fresh mango (mangoes are so stinkin’ good that they totally count as dessert).  And I often have to cut myself off because I love fresh zucchini so much that I could eat a pound of it every night for dinner.  When you build in plenty of healthy foods that you genuinely enjoy, you’ll find yourself easily motivated to stick to your diet.

In addition to enjoying healthy foods, you’ve got to get up off your butt!  I know, I know—you hate exercise.  But being active doesn’t need to be strict exercise.  Take a walk to relax.  Go wrestle with your kids.  Help a friend move.  It’s extremely important to build activity into your regularly life, not just to weight loss but also your general health.  You’ll begin to find that it feels like you have more energy to spend when you spend more energy (that’s me channeling Mr. Miyagi for the day).  I feel so sluggish on days that I don’t get to the gym.  But days that I run around none stop and still get to the gym, I feel like I could keep going for hours!

What kind of changes to diet and activity have you found that work well for you?  Were they easy or hard to incorporate into your life?  Do they keep you motivated?

Back on Track

It’s Wednesday and I’ve already had it up to my eyebrows this week.  I have made the conscious decision to eat my stress.  Even after all the planning, I’ll still get pizza for dinner or go out for lunch.  It’s been one of those weeks.

Since I’m already working through in my head what I’m going to do to get back on track, I figured I’d let you follow along.

#1 Meal Tracking – For me, tracking everything I eat is extremely important to my weight maintenance.  For some people, it helps them stay aware of how many calories they’ve eaten.  I mostly use my meal tracker to help me plan out my day.  On days other than today, I’ll sit down in the morning and plan out my breakfast, snacks and lunch.  Then I have a good idea of what to start thinking about for dinner.

#2 The Gym – Generally, even when I make bad food choices, I still don’t have trouble getting to the gym.  I love my gym!  This week, though, motivation has been low.  I need to spend some time thinking about my favorite classes, exercises, and why I like them.  I often find that listening to some of my favorite dance and workout music helps get me in the mood to work out, too.

#3 Focus on How I Feel – I’ve probably eaten around 1500 calories already today (with plans to go out to dinner), and I feel crappy.  When I eat like this, it never—and I mean never—makes me feel good!  Sure, I get that sugar-rush when I first eat these kinds of foods (remember opioids people?), but in an hour I feel sleepy and sluggish and tired.  Not to even mention a little sick to my stomach.  And I think I’m getting a headache.  Have I mentioned that I feel crappy?

#4 Just Do It – At some point, probably Saturday because I have plans to go out to dinner on Friday (I know, I’m just unbelievable, right?), I’ll get up out of bed and kick myself in the butt.  My inner dialog often goes like this: “What are you thinking?  Look at you.  You’re ridiculous.  You know what you’re doing, so stop it.  You know what to do, so do it!”  And then I’ll drag myself off to my 10am Body Step class and feel so good that I did!

Can anyone relate?  What do you do to get back on track?

Amaze Yourself!

I think one of the greatest thrills in life is when you amaze yourself.  I’ll tell you—I amazed me yesterday.

I rode my bike to work yesterday.  I really wanted to put that line in bold, but you don’t understand yet why it deserves bold type.  You’re thinking to yourself, “So what?  You rode your bike to work.”  Let me set it up for you: I live 9.6 miles away from my office.  The real kicker is the elevation difference of over 300 feet between my home and my office.  It took me one hour and 15 minutes to get to my office, but—dang it—I didn’t once get off my bike and push it up a hill.  I pedaled that sucker up over 300 feet!  There was a time in my life when a flat bike ride of 20 yards would have winded me.

So let’s try that again: I rode my bike to work yesterday!

I will admit that the longest inclines are on the way home, so I decided to ride the bus home in the evening.  Amazing myself is quite the thrill, but each day only needs so many thrills.

I had determined that biking to work was something I wanted to try (even if I determine that I don’t want to try it again).  I gave it a shot on Saturday last weekend, thinking a non-work day would be the best time to see how long it would take me.  But I only got to the top of the first hill before I chickened out and thought of a lot of good reasons to turn around.  So Monday night, I decided I was just going to do it.  Sometimes, you can’t give yourself planning time, because planning time often just turns into you deciding why you shouldn’t do it.  Sometimes you just have to surprise yourself with the decision.

When was the last time you tried something you’ve never done before?  How did it go?  Would you do it again?  How did it make you feel?

Oh NEAT!

Today we’ll be talking about how neat NEAT is!  NEAT is Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.  Now you can see why they made it into an acronym.  That mouthful of words refers basically to the movement we make in our day that is not specifically exercise.

As I sit at work I can see a pair of people talking—one gesturing wildly as she talks.  I see a woman bouncing her leg as she sits and types.  My boss (who is seven months pregnant) has made about a dozen trips to the bathroom in the last hour.  I watch a man stand at the printer tapping his hand impatiently on his thigh.

There are three components of energy expenditure or how our bodies spend energy:

1) Basal Metabolic Rate – I had previously defined BMR (or your Resting Metabolic Rate) and provided a way to calculate (click here to read the post).  Your BMR is the calories your body spends just keeping you alive: pumping your heart, running your brain, breathing, etc.

2) Thermic Effect of Food – Your TEF is the calories your body spends processing the food you eat: chewing, swallowing, digesting, etc.

3) Activity Thermogenesis – Your AT is any calories your body uses when you move, whether exercise or spontaneous activity.

Most people focus on the exercise portion of their AT.  Meaning, most people spend their entire day in a sedentary fashion and then make a trip to the gym after work to make up for it.  But NEAT can contribute significantly to our overall energy expenditure.  Studies have found that NEAT can make up as little as 15% to as much as 50% of a person’s energy expenditure.

Much of our NEAT is influenced by our environment.  At work, I choose to send anything I need to print to the machine furthest from my desk.  I own a townhouse with three floors, so stairs are an inevitable component of my home life.  But some of our NEAT is biological as well.  Obviously, young people have more natural NEAT and elderly can lose NEAT that may have been more natural.  Or, think about how you feel after you’ve eaten Thanksgiving dinner—you’re not usually in a mood to bounce around the house.

Have you noticed NEAT in your own life?  How do you think it impacts your weight maintenance, loss or gain?

If you’re going to do it, do it right!

On principle, I try never to rant on my blog.  It’s a struggle!  Ask my husband; I’m extremely prone to ranting.  However, today I’m going to give in and then I promise we’ll get back to some fascinating solutions on how to deal with highly palatable foods.

I can’t count the number of times I walk through my gym and see someone walking on the treadmill.  You might think, “What’s the big deal?  Walking is great exercise!”  I agree: walking is fantastic exercise.  However, some people realize that walking up a hill is even better exercise.  And it is!  When you add an incline to your normal walk, it’s surprising how quickly you’re panting and sweating.

However, when you get on a treadmill, crank the incline up to the maximum, and then hang onto the hand bar in front of you for dear life so you don’t fall off the treadmill, you’re not getting any of that benefit from the incline!  Let go of the hand bar and trudge up that incline on your own, for heaven’s sake!

When you hold onto the hand bar, your legs and feet are still perpendicular to the actual treadmill belt despite the incline.  The only difference between using a treadmill like that and using it normally is that you’re putting all your weight into your arms and shoulders (which, I probably don’t need to spell out for you, isn’t super nice to your arms and shoulders).  You lose all the benefit from using your thigh and calf muscles to propel your weight up the incline.

And you look ridiculous.

Gotta Get Some Sleep!

Bleh. I’m totally dragging today. I stayed up way too late last night, and got up way too early this morning. I’ll tell you, I’m so glad this is a day off from the gym for me because I don’t think there’s any way I could drag myself in today.

However, normally, I’m an 8-hours-a-night kind of girl. As it turns out, sleep is super important to not only losing weight but maintaining your weight. Here, let me say it another way: a regular lack of sleep, or low quality sleep, will assist in weight gain!

Not getting a good night’s sleep makes a lot of different things happen in your body. Aside from normal tiredness, your low energy level will make you less active during the day. You’re less likely to fidget (fidgety people can burn 100 or more calories each day!) or take that bike ride or run that normally sounds so nice.

Poor sleep also messes with a lot of hormones in your body—two of which are the hormones in charge of telling your body when you’re hungry and when you’re full. They’re called Leptin and Ghrelin; they’re the chemicals your brain uses to stimulate your apitite when your body needs energy (ghrelin) and trigger that feeling of fullness when you’ve eaten enough (leptin). There’s some fascinating research explained in this WebMD article, but the basic results are that without regular, good sleep your body just produces too much ghreling (making you hungry when you don’t necessarily need the calories) and too little leptin (making you more likely to keep eating even after you’ve eaten enough).

So what lesson did we learn here? Well, I know I’ll be going to be early tonight to catch up on my sleep. How about you? Any plans to change up your sleep habits? Have you noticed differences in the way you eat on tired days?

A Change in Perspective

I was recently featured in the ProClub’s ProPulse Magazine as their 20/20 LifeStyles success story, and I wanted to share with you:

__________________________

I remember sitting in my junior high health class and finding myself on the BMI (body mass index) chart. While it categorized me in the “obesity” range, I was active and without any health issues. So I decided that no matter what anyone told me, I was fine and my weight was just part of who I was.

While we ate a healthy diet at home, we kept a “clean your plate” philosophy. I’ve always struggle with portion control. As I became more independent and moved away from home, I began to stray away from the healthy diet and indulge in whatever food I felt like. Instant gratification tuned food into an addiction. On top of this, I worked in a completely sedentary job, enjoyed sedentary hobbies, and abhorred any kind of exercise. Before I knew it, I was 268 pounds and still telling myself I was fine.

When I began the 20/20 LifeStyles program, I convinced myself that I probably wouldn’t lose much weight. My real motivation for doing the program was to get healthy. However, I’m a competitive person. As I started losing weight and became more fit and toned, I was thrilled by what I was able to accomplish. I found so much joy in simply jogging. I was ecstatic when I did my first “manly” pushups. It was so motivating to realize that I could take the martial arts class I’d always dreamed of, or beat my little brother in a sprint.

While my blood pressure dropped 10 points, along with my bad cholesterol, the most impressive changes weren’t recorded. I could walk up the stairs in my house and not be out of breath. I could hold my friend’s baby for more than 10 minutes and not have a sore arm the next day. I could sit in a small armchair that I’d never been able to fit into before.

With the help of 20/20 LifeStyles, I changed the way I thought about food, exercise, and health. It changed my perspective as I began to see that the changes I was making during the program had become part of my “normal life.” My old lifestyle (and self image) had become an exception to my new self.

Recently, a friend asked me, “What do you think now when you look at people who are overweight?” It’s this – they have no idea what life could be like! Their dreams of running a marathon? They could do it! That dream of going rock climbing can happen. You can do anything you dream of, but you have to be realistic about how you get there. It’s not going to happen overnight and the journey won’t be easy. But once you start seeing those dreams as achievable, it’s worth all the work and sweat.

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Pump It Up!

In recovering from my previously mentioned surgery, I lost some serious muscle mass. I used to have thighs of steel (they were seriously dreamy), but my thighs and other cute body parts were getting pretty flabby by the time I made it back to the gym.

I'm normally a BODY ATTACK kind of girl, but I decided to try out BODY PUMP at Gold’s. It’s an hour long strength training class (and it’s my new addiction). I think some serious strength training has helped me get back into the game much faster than I might have with it. It only took me about a week or two to get back to my regular work out, and I think it’ll only be another week or so before I’m pushing myself as hard as I used to.

Strength training in general is pretty important to your regular workout. This nifty article from the Mayo Clinic goes into depth on the importance of strength training, but here are my favorite reasons:

· Fight Osteoporosis – Your bones are densest where your muscles attach to the bone. When you regularly stress your muscles (and therefore stress your bones), your body adds density to your bones where you need it most. What does this mean? Women with nice strong guns also have nice strong bones.

· Weight Control – This one everyone probably already knows (but doesn’t do anything about). The more muscle your body has, the more efficiently it burns calories.

Strength training reduces your risk to injuries, gives you stamina, produces a fantastic looking butt, as well as other benefits. So grab a 5-pounder and start pumping some iron today! Or, find a BODY PUMP class near you.

Birthday Attack!

In February, I began thinking about what I would like to do for my birthday (I like lots of time to plan). I thought to myself, “The one thing I would love to do is my Body Attack class. And wouldn’t it be fun if all my friends were there!” I started working with Gold’s Gym and they very generously agreed to work with me. They offered a special time for the class on Saturday and I got to invite all of my friends!

Saturday was the big day and it was fantastic! Gold’s went above and beyond of what I had expected or asked! My favorite teachers did all the planning (pic to the right: Ryan, Jenna and Vicki), and they made my 29th birthday the best one I’ve had yet. And all my friends—who were very suspicious that I was making them exercise on my birthday—had fun and burnt some calories too!

Body Attack + My Birthday = Birthday Attack!

Then we were back at the house for some BBQ! It was the most guilt-free BBQ my friends will be at all year. We had burgers and chicken sausages, fresh veggies, soy crisps (for something a little munchy) and fruit salad. Of course there were cupcakes, but you didn’t have to feel guilty about having one since we had just burnt between 500-800 calories at class.

Best birthday ever!

Man, how am I going to have my 30th top this?

Little Activities, Big Difference

There’s so much more diet information I have for you, but I’m going to take a bit of a break to talk exercise. As we discussed in “Dispelling the Myths,” you can’t be healthy and lose weight without exercise.

But exercise doesn’t always have to mean an hour at the gym. Broaden your horizons and start looking at the opportunities to be active in your life!

Let’s talk about your NEAT, and I don’t mean how tidy you are. NEAT is Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis which is just a very complicated way of talking about the calories you burn during the day that aren’t from exercise. These activities look like you dancing in the driver’s seat as you listen to a song, or shaking a leg while you sit in a meeting, or gesticulating wildly while telling a story. Any minor physical activity during your day contributes toward your NEAT, and NEAT could account for anywhere from 15 to 50 percent of your calories burned for the day (although, for your NEAT to account for 50 percent you’d probably need to be a ten-year-old with ADD)! If you’ve ever wondered how skinny people who don’t try to be skinny stay skinny, observe how fidgety they are.

Another small change that could have a big impact on your health is walking. You could do well for yourself to purchase a pedometer (they can be very inexpensive, just look at Target or Wal-Mart). Just throw that pedometer in your pocket and see how many steps you walk in a day. You might impress yourself when you see 2,000 or 3,000 steps, until I tell you that above 5,000 should be your normal and 10,000 steps is the magic number to help you lose weight. But it’s easier than you think! Walk the long way to the printer at work. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park at the farthest parking spot at Costco (I guarantee you—if you park as far away as you can when you make a Costco trip—3,000 steps, minimum!). Simply increasing the steps you take in a day could make the difference of 100 to 300 calories burned!

Look for little ways to stay active in your day—it could make a big difference in the long run.

Monday Night Body Attack!

I just got back from my typical Monday night: BODY ATTACK at the Redmond Gold’s Gym! I can’t even tell you how inspiring and motivating being a part of this class—no, this community—has been for me as I lost weight, and now as I keep it off.

BODY ATTACK is a high impact, sports-inspired aerobic workout (not too dance-y for the uncoordinated me). I love the workout, and it’s the highlight of the beginning of my week. The teachers motivate and encourage me every week (holla’ Vicky, Julie, Ryan and Jenna!). And my classmates are amazing—I stood toward the back today (I don’t often), and some of my classmates have fantastic looking butts (very motivating)!

Even if this doesn’t quite sound like your cup of tea, I recommend getting yourself involved in an exercise community of some kind. When you love what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with, you’re far more likely to keep it up long term.