Fit Challenge

Tuesday: Day 3

Sorry I've already gotten behind, but on Tuesday I chose to do some relaxing and gentle Yoga because Tuesdays are my longest day of the week. 

I have been following this adorable Yogi on YouTube and I absolutely love the way she approaches yoga. She is relaxed, lighthearted, and smiling! I originally learned yoga at a studio in my town through my college and I started something new for me. I love the connection of the mind and body, like Pilates, and I also enjoy the gentleness of it. It reminds me to treat my body nicely, relax, and enjoy movement. 

Here is an extra link to here channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene

Here is a link to the video I started with and that I love to revisit on those Tuesdays that I am feeling tired and rundown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBu-pQG6sTY

Thanks for reading, sorry I'm late in posting this, and be sure to follow Adriene on YouTube!

Fit Challenge

Monday day 2: At the Gym

25 calf raises

The Hundred 

27 minutes on the treadmill

Full body stretch once your heart rate has come down

**the hundred is a Pilates move that involves a tight core, structured breathing, and one hundred pumps of the arms. If you're not familiar with the Hundred check it out on you tube

Fit Challenge

I'm going to start posting a fit challenge every so often on this here blog!

Sunday: day 1

25 heel raises
head-to-toe stretch/ range of motion 

Heel raise description: 

Start feet parallel and hip distance apart,

check in with your posture and start a head-to-toe check: chin up, gaze straight ahead, shoulders down and back, abdominals engaged, belly button to spine, hips neutral, toes spread and weight balanced evenly between each leg as well as between toes and heels.   

slowly raise both heels at the same time and balance all weight on the highest point of your toes. weight should be focused to the second toe for the best balance. but all toes remain in contact with the floor. 

slowly lower both heels at the same time resisting the urge to plop down, as you lower down softly raise through the spine and top of the head. 

Head-to-toe stretch description:

gently look in all directions: right, left, up, down 
circle head and neck around clockwise and counter clockwise
roll shoulders forward and back
move shoulders up and down
make circles with arms forward and back
stretch each arm across and over head
stretch each side in a lateral stretch 
reach up on an inhale and stretch back ever so slightly while lifting the gaze and heart up
exhale and bend down toward toes
bend and straighten legs relaxing in this stretch of the lower back and backs of the legs
bend knees and slowly roll up through the spine
step right leg back into a gentle lunge and strecth the calf; return
step left leg back now; return
roll each ankle in both directions
roll through each foot up the the toes and back to flat
take a deep breath and drink some water :)

You did it!!

Burn at the Barre

I took an awesome Barre class today with my sweet friend and we did indeed 'burn at the barre' and it's still burning! lol! I have been looking for a barre class in my city but sort of hoping it would turn up at the gym I already have membership to ;)

 My friend recommended this class and taking it together was so fun! We both have dance backgrounds so we understand barre in that sense but it was great to use it in a different way to condition our bodies more! 

Thanks girlfriend for the recommendation and I can't wait to take it again soon!

Married life Push-up Challenge

Beau and I got the great idea that we should do a push up challenge! 

Our Challenge: 1 push up + 1 more every day

We will do it together everyday and hold each other to it! 

 It's been a lot of fun doing this challenge with him and we are not near done yet! Our goal is to do 100 push-ups continuously so we are working our way there by adding one everyday. We started on April 1, 2014 with one push-up. At first it felt silly because we were already used to doing at least 15 continuously. We laughed and it has brought us closer, it's something we look forward to, not really the push-ups so much as the feeling of our arms burning together and laughing about it!

 Accountability is a great thing in fitness and in life! Find a challenge or make one up, like we did, and do it with your spouse or your best friend. It builds healthy habits and builds your relationship too! Good luck!!

FitBit One

Hello! So it seems that I have been off the blog-o-sphere for a while because I still have some post Christmas things to tell you all :)  

Beau got me some great #fitness Christmas presents, the fitbit one and a balance ball chair! So awesome!!! Thanks bear!!! :) 

I love using my fitbit so far! It makes me love taking the stairs at work and seeing how many floors I climb in a day. The steps are great too. I also like wearing the sleep tracker! So interesting to see how may hours on average I get and how many times I wake up or I'm restless in the night. Great info! It is a convenient size and hides well under clothing. I even get a little sad If I accidentally leave it at home for a day haha! 

the day I ran bleachers with my girl friends haha!

The fitbit site is well done and the smart phone app is great, logging the food can be a bit tedious so in all honesty I don't always log my food because some days I'm just like "ain't nobody got time for that" haha! but I have put in a few of my favorite foods as favorites and once I do that with more of the food I commonly eat it will be faster and easier to log. The layout of the mobile app is really great, simple and streamlined! The online site has more goodies, like an area to log blood glucose levels, blood pressures, and helpful graphs to visualize progress. Plus there are fun badges for having really active days and ways to connect and engage in friendly competition!

I had a little trouble with the work out activity logging because it didn't have yoga , pilates, or ballet, which are my go to exercises weekly. So what I did was research (by that I mean I googled it lol!) how many calories I would burn in an hour of pilates for example and then put that in as a favorite activity so every time I do I do it I can log it quickly and easily. I'm sure it's not super accurate because how many calories anyone can burn in a workout varies widely from person to person and even within the same person depending on how hard you push yourself in the same type of activity but it does provide a nice average. 

note: You can search for the average amount of calories burned in an exercise by your weight to get more accuracy.

All in all I really love using my fitbit and it does help me be more aware of my daily amount of activity. I think this product is great for any level of fitness junkie but also for people who don't even like to work out! I say this because It shows you that you burn calories with everything you do, even sleeping, and counts all your steps so when your cleaning your house and you literally haven't even walked outside but some how you've managed to walk a half mile, you can feel pretty stinking good about yourself. Feeling good about yourself is so important! It makes a huge difference in the pants size of the little fat girl inside your head. This sounds silly but it it's so true, there is a girl in your mind, it's you, but she looks how you imagine her and the guilt you feel about eating some ice cream can make her go from a size 2 to size 8 but the real physical you looks the same as you did yesterday! The physical progression is typically much slower to change sizes but she fluctuates in an instant!

 I've always been small and people look at me and say "you're so tiny!" but I've always worried about my size. It's just part of living in the culture we do and being a woman. There's always going to be someone smaller than me or more fit than me or have longer legs or a prettier face but no one else can BE me! That'a my job! God made me with a purpose and plan. He lives in this body of mine so I'm going to care for it and strive to be healthy but also keep my inner fat girl in tune with God too, reminding her that if she has some ice cream she's still beautiful and God loves her a lot!!!

Speaking of which, God loves YOU a lot!!! Have a great day!!! 

this is me being me! I told you no else could this job! ;)

Mom and Daughter Workout

Hey everyone! I wanted to share a workout my mom and I did last night :) I loved the feel of it because it was nice to chit chat with my momma and the workout was gentle on our bodies. Great for a day that you're already spent after work (this was the case for us) or a Saturday after a week filled with tough workouts that made your body sore.

Here's what we did:

We started with light stretching:
neck roll and look from side to side
shoulders roll forward and back
arms across body and over head
soft lunge to stretch the calves gently
forward bend and down dog (for me the yogi wannabe)
and seated glute stretch on the floor or balance ball.

Next we walked on the treadmill for about ten minutes .65 miles for me, speed was 2.8 at the highest (short legs) walking peppy but not fast. 

I like to use my back warmer during cardio workouts for the extra warmth in winter and the extra sweat. It's probably weird but I love to sweat! Just had to share lol! 
My mom wears a turtle neck for extra warmth during winter workouts, if you don't like the extra sweat factor but you want some warmth or you don't have a back warmer.
The reason I added this tid bit is because it is very important to be warm during stretching and workouts to prevent injuries like pulled or strained muscles. And it's a good idea to always wear a sweater when you leave the gym to walk outside to prevent the shock f cooling off to fast. (i do this even in the summer because if there's a breeze at it it will cool me off too fast, all that sweat and all haha!)

Then we kicked it up a notch on the elliptical (my personal fav)
I started with a resistance level 5, three minutes forward and three minutes backward 
then I dropped the level of resistance down to 4 and jogged until I reached 1 mile (according to the machine)

We finished with more stretching:
soft lunge for calves
toes on the wall and lean forward for a more in depth calf stretch
seated forward bend for hamstrings and low back
side lying quad stretch
butterfly stretch for inner thighs
I always like to finish with a gentle roll up for good measure

Here's how I roll up:
 feet parallel, knees bent, curved spine like you're slumped over, engaged abdominals and roll up one vertebrae at a time until you're standing upright, roll the shoulders back and stand straight, muscles engaged while you inhale and exhale to finish a job well done!

My Ballet teacher always reminded her students to be gentle with our bodies because they are our instruments. My husband has a few guitars and he keeps them in pristine condition, cleaning them and handling them gently and with caution. Good imagery right? 

Anyways, I sometimes over work out and this causes too much soreness. This soreness makes me want to just lay around and heal for a few days but it seems like this method only makes the soreness last longer. It also causes me to lose flexibility. So I'm working on being more gentle, doing strenuous work out on non-consecutive days and in between those days doing some moving like this work out along with stretching to keep up my flexibility and heal my soreness faster. 

I'll add some pic soon :) just for fun, but enjoy the workout and modify to fit your needs!

Piloxing!

Pilates and dance are the main focus of my workout routine and I aim to get at least one 25 minute or longer full steam cardio session in each week. Occasionally I get to go to a private lesson on the Pilates Reformer taught by my beautiful and extremely talented Pilates trainer. She has taught me so much about proper form which makes ALL the difference in an exercise. She recommended that I give a Piloxing class a try and today I did!!! It was a great class! 

A Piloxing class is a combination of Pilates, dance, and boxing that is cleverly put together to music and choreographed combinations. This class is packed with movement the entire time and hits up all the major muscle groups while working the core the whole way through. A good warm up...literally! I was freezing when I walked in wearing a tank, long sleeve top, and a fleece hoodie, and within 10 minutes I was looking for an opportunity to throw my hoodie off to the side :) We then worked on the upper body, arms, legs, back, abs, and we even did some balances in the mix. It really is a full body workout and it's a blast to do! My instructor did a great job at motivating the class and only a few of us were first timers so the other regulars helped to create a fun environment to dance, throw punches and work out with ;) 

So I say thumbs up for Piloxing and I look forward to the next chance I get to take a class! I hope you'll give it a go sometime too! If you like dance, Zumba, boxing, organized and structured directional classes in a group setting OR you just happen to be a gymnast-turned-dancer who also loves practicing Pilates and trying new things, like me, then you'll love it! :P