Here is an article from Fitness Magazine that I really liked and wanted to share with any followers out there.
So my apologies for letting the blog go the last few weeks. Stay tuned, more to come next week.
How many stairs do you walk in one day? Do you double step them sometimes? Do you feel the burn in your backside?
I love stairs. Anywhere I can do stairs over an elevator I will.
Do you know what else besides stairs will work your backside? HILLS! I also love hills. (Hills also wear out puppies I have discovered).
This week, get out there and get some stairs and hills into your life.
I don’t know about you, but laying on the ground and trying to do a sit-up or crunch can be hard on your back if not exactly correct and I generally am picky about a clean ground. Here are three exercises that don’t require laying on the ground, but work the abs.
- Mountain Climbers – Reach up alternating arms above your head, like you are rock climbing and lift the same leg at the same time that arm goes about the head. keep alternating for 15 seconds
- Left Elbow to Right Knee – Standing tall, lift your right knee to touch your left elbow, 15 reps. Then alternate to the other side for 15 reps (left knee to right elbow).
- Power Knees – each side for 15 secs. Leg slightly behind you, arms over head and bring them together, slightly twisting while you do it. Remember to do both legs. The faster you go, the better the workout.
Enjoy your week!
A co-worker brought this to me the other day and I really liked it.
- Compare yourself to only yourself.
- Record your successes.
- Find an opportunity in every obstacle.
- Guard your tongue; Say less than you think.
- Make promises sparingly. Keep then faithfully.
- Never let an opportunity pass to saw a kind word.
- Be cheerful. Don’t dwell on minor aches and small disappointments.
- Keep an open mind. Discuss but don’t argue. Disagree without being disagreeable.
- Discourage gossip. It’s destructuive.
- Pay no attention to ill-natured remarks about you. Live so that nobody will believe them.
Think of a Nutritional Label on a package has a map. Depending on where you want to go, will depend on how you read the map. For example if you are needing more fiber, you would look at the fiber content or if you are watching your calorie count, you look at the serving size and see how many calories are in a serving size, (remember that most of the time packages include more than one serving).
Here is an article that will provide more indepth information about reading a label.
Today starts 8 weeks of changing our mindsets at my workplace. Each participants has set goals about what they wish to accomplish and how they will be accomplishing that over the next 8 weeks. My big goal is drinking water…I want to get up to 64 oz of water a day. Wish me luck.
Quote of the Challenge
“The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.” William James
Here is the blog entry my team created for the start of the challenge.
How to Keep On Track Over 8 Weeks!
Here are three tips from Laci’s Team (the Aqua Chica’s named as of the moment):
- Set outlook reminder. That’s what I do when I have a class I want to hit or need to leave early. Block yourself out. – Dawn
- Set reminders on your phone. We’re all so attached to our phones so make it yell at you to get your butt off the couch! Even if you have to set it every 5 minutes until you do it! – Kira
- Post the challenge form. (Or a shortened version of it) in your office (cube), in your bedroom, in your kitchen and in your car. So that next 8 weeks wherever you go you can be reminded of the challenge. – Laci
Please comment if you have other ideas how you plan to keep your challenge going over 8 weeks, please comment and share with all the challenge participants! Remember to wear your I love Move It and Lose It!
When I was in college, I went off the deep end and was addicted to Dr. Pepper. My roommate (who was from Texas) and I could go through a 24 pack in 2 days. This addiction cost me ALOT of money, added alot of weight to the famous freshman 15lbs which turned into the sophomore 30 and junior 40. My senior year I made a commitment to break that addiction. Two weeks ago, I had a little bit of root beer and I have noticed in the last two weeks I have had pop choices more and more. I was at about once a month drinking pop (soda pop for those from the east coast), now I need to recommit and go back to once a month.
Pop, soda pop, soft drinks, whatever you want to call it, is also known as osteoprosis in a can or bottle (plus many more nicknames like Diabetes In a Can, but I will blog on that at a later date). For this blog post, I wanted to share with you is how the carbonation in all soft drinks causes calcium loss in the bones. This occurs through a three-stage process:
The carbonation irritates the stomach.- The stomach “cures” the irritation the only way it knows how. It adds the only antacid at its disposal: calcium. It gets this from the blood.
- The blood, now low on calcium, replenishes its supply from the bones. If it did not do this, muscular and brain function would be severely impaired.
Do you think you can drink enough milk and take enough calcium pills to make up for one can of pop a day? Don’t even try, the chemicals in your body will get all screwed up. So I wanted to share a few of my tips on how to get off the ‘wagon’ of pop.
- Replace it with water, flavored if needed at first
- Clear all pop out of your house
- Reward yourself on days you don’t have soda pop with a small piece of dark chocolate
- Finally, post on facebook and tell your family and co-workers what you are trying to do, nothing like peer pressure to help
Anyone have other tips to share?
1) Put your gear out where you basically step on it often (safely of course) to help keep working out in the forefront of your mind. (I have my kettleworx sitting in front of my tv to remind me, and guilt me into the workout)
2) Figure out how to turn your commute into a workout. Most people would think of riding your bike, but you can start small, park further and further away each week and walk to work, pick up the bus an extra block or two away each week.
3) Set workout goals with rewards. If you workout 3 of 5 days, buy a new pair of workpants from the clearance rack at Target. Buy a workout tool like Kettleworx, medicine ball or balance board for example.
More to come next week. Have a great week. I started Kettleworx today, so I will be giving an update on it soon. Also in May my company is challenging us to Move It or Lose it! and I am still considering my 8 week goal, hike a mountain, complete a mini tri, commute by bike to work….any other ideas for me. I will be blogging about it. Exciting stuff to come on this blog. So stay tuned….
And summer is coming, so stay tuned for early morning workout pictures while wakeboarding and moonlight wakesurfing stories. Summer 2011, a time to be outside and active.
I just picked up the Kettleworx workout at lunch today from my local Sports Authority. Hopefully by next week I can give a quick run down on my opinion of the workout. Really excited to try it.
http://www.kettleworx.com/
