Health Habits 4

Alright... just don't check the dates between this post and my last one, okay? Thanks! So, for those of you who did anyway, you may have noticed that I haven't updated the Health Habits in a while. It's a bit early for a completely missed 2 weeks, but I felt it was time to explain what happened.

What happened: a complete and utter failure at every single goal.

This last chunk of time didn't start out that way though! After my last post I was doing better than ever! That week I met every goal including the new sleep habits. Then it happened. Sickness. Days of not feeling well and the second week resulted in not a single goal being met. Then guilt. The downward spiral continued as I realized last week that I had failed, and still didn't meet a single goal. I realized I had more work ahead of me to get on track and felt discouraged.

This week I have been trying to get it back together. I have missed my weights training still, but have been going to the gym for cardio. I'm drinking my water and taking my multi-vitamin. I'm trying to go to bed on time, and still waking at the same time every morning (plus: no naps!!!). So here we are. Time to work on motivation.

Here's my "What to do when you fall and have to pick yourself back up" post. I'm going to make this another simple 2-point post that I hope helps you all WHEN you find yourself struggling to meet your health goals. Remember, having the best intentions isn't going to change anything. It's all up to you, so you have no one to blame but yourself. That being said:


1. Don't be too hard on yourself.

First thing about getting motivation back is to keep a positive self-image. Thinking your a failure WILL make you one, so how about remembering why you made the goals and tricks you've used to accomplish them. You haven't lost all of that hard work and I know you remember how good it feels to be on top of things. Let's get back out there! No need to do everything right away where you left off. Start with whatever you know you can handle and pick up the rest when you're feeling confident again! Remember that you're strong and you don't need a gym to remind you!

2. Focus on today.

I know you're busy. It's overwhelming to think of a long list of health habits that you want to maintain! You have so much to do and all these goals just keep pilling up! Even with taking things a step back to build confidence, you might get overwhelmed by planning for a week of gym workouts and noting your time to be asleep by, etc. The more goals, the more important it is to change your focus.

If you look at today, you'll get a much better handle on things! Plan ahead a little, but only get into the details of what you can work on now to meet these goals. Don't worry too far ahead, because it just gets unmanageable too fast! Start drinking your water and think of when you can hit the gym, and you'll be fine! Really! Make sure you get the important things done first and everything else will either fall into place, or fall off your to do list. Good luck!


So, there you go! Whenever you need it, you can come back to this post, refocus, and start moving forward again. Don't be too hard on yourself and don't give up! One step at a time is how we're building these habits and one step at a time is how you maintain them! Now, get offline and get yourself going again.

Facebook Politics

This post is in honor of the Presidential election coming up very soon (welcome to November!), and how awkward Facebook political posts are. Also, I am posting this because my friends are clever and they already took the steps to joke about this. Therefore, I am sharing the humor with all of you and inviting you to share it some more. Please enjoy and be sure to vote!

Health Habits 3

Here we go again!

Okay, so I have the goals from the first Health Habits post down now! Yay! I've been drinking plenty on water and remembering my vitamins even on vacation. The second one was a really big step and is going to take a little more work. I wasn't feeling well the first week of that goal and traveling messed with the second week, so I still haven't done my full goal within a week. I'm going to continue to focus on my gym goals for this 2-week section and hopefully make some real progress! Here's what I'm adding to that:

Sleep.

This is a 2-part goal again:


1. Get 7 hours of sleep every night!

I know it's simple, but I'm surprised at how often I miss this and end up taking a long nap the next day. I'll be more productive if I can sleep better and stay focused all day. This is the first goal and the one that absolutely cannot be broken!


2. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every night - including weekends.

This one will be the hardest for me! I'm hoping to work this in a little more gradually as I see what works best for me. Doing this will greatly increase the quality of sleep as your body maximizes how much rest you get and having a regular schedule really helps it to be efficient! I'm worried a bit about the weekends part and realize that it may be tough in a college lifestyle to do, but I'll get there!


So, there you go! Sleeping on a schedule and getting back to the gym. One step at a time my friends. One step at a time.

My No Equipment Workout

I'm going out of town for about 4 days and need to keep up on my second round of health goals! That means I've come up with a hybrid of the weight/cardio days that I can do pretty much anywhere. Since I've put some work into this, I thought I would share it and see if any of you have any feedback or want to give it a try yourself.

This workout should take about 30 minutes and is best to do with one other person. Make sure you have a timer and a chair and that's all you should need! I recommend resting a bit between each of these steps and, as always, making sure you're drinking water. Good luck!

1: Warm up

Stretch a little, but mostly just get moving! The best warm up will start to use the motions you will be going through in the work out.

2: 60-second plank

This should be self-explanatory. Hold yourself up for a full 60-seconds. I recommend making sure your body is as straight as possible and holding yourself up with your hands, but you can also use your elbows. If you need to make it harder, you can hold it longer or try lowering yourself so your elbows are supporting your plank and raising yourself back to your hands.

3. Squat with leg lift (1 min)

Start out in a basic squat position, making sure your knees are not extending beyond your toes. Stand up while lifting left leg off floor and extending it out to the side and hold for a beat. Lower leg back to floor as you return to squat position. Stand back up, this time lifting right leg. This is one rep. Make sure your back is straight throughout.

4. Hip Raise (1 min)

Lie with back on the floor, knees bent, and your feet flat on the floor. Keep your arms out away from your sides with palms facing up. Tighten your center and glutes and raise your hips until your body is straight from your shoulders to your knees. Hold for 5 seconds then lower to the starting position and repeat.

5. Mountain Climbers (1 min)
From a plank position, alternate bending each leg up and pulling your knee up to your chest and then straightening the leg back into the starting position. Keep your back straight.

6. Chair dips (1 min)

For this, you will need a chair that can support your weight and won’t move (try placing it against a wall). Keep your arms straight and place your hands on the edge of the chair so that you are facing away from it and your fingers face your back, holding yourself off the ground. Your knees should be bent and shoulder-width apart in front of you. Lower yourself until your upper arms are parallel with the floor and hold for a beat. Lift yourself back to the starting position (arms straight) and repeat.

7. Jumping Jacks (100 count)
Another one that should be pretty basic. Make sure you keep count and don't get sloppy with these towards the end!

8. Stationary Lunges (1 min)
Do a full lunge forward with your left leg. The right leg should remain straight while the left takes a large step forward and the knee bend over, but not past the left foot. Return to standing position and repeat with the right leg. 

9. Push-ups (1 min)

Do as many as you can in a minute. If you can’t keep going, hold a plank again. You can also try lowering yourself so your elbows are supporting your plank and raising yourself back to your hands for a better workout.

10. Crossover sit-ups (40 count)

Do a full sit up but cross your right elbow to your left knee and left elbow to your right knee. Do 20 on each side for a total of 40. Adjust the count to your ability as needed, but always complete as many as you can. I can do 40 right now, so that's why I chose this specific number. Have someone hold your feet if possible and take turns. This will allow you to do more and you'll be glad to have some encouragement on this one!

11. Leg Raises (100 count)
Lay on your side with legs stacked and raise the top leg 50 times. Hold for one beat down and one beat up. Make sure your body remains straight throughout. Roll over and do the same for the other side. This tones the hip area.

12. Cool down
Walk it off and be sure to give everything a great stretch. Hold each stretch pose and slowly inhale and exhale as you relax into the stretch more. Take your time cooling down! 

Tongue In Cheek

Here's another random old one for you guys. I'm pretty proud of this one actually! I happened to be thinking of a lot of puns one day and... well... you can see what happened.

Maybe

So, I was looking through an old notebook today and found this. I decided to type it up and make it look a bit better...

Health Habits 2

Hey there!

I know this is a couple of days late for the second 2-week set of health goals. Again, I'm trying to keep things moving forward without going too fast. For this block, I've set a gym workout schedule. I live just 1 block away from my gym and have already been going at least once a week, but I want to take better advantage of that!

Goal 1: Cardio at the Gym

For this goal I have set apart 2 days a week to workout at the gym for cardio ONLY. Wednesday every week involves a 30-minute routine on the stationary bikes and Saturday is 30-minutes on the elliptical machine. It works out that I get about 3 songs in for a 10-minute block so I try to push for 2 songs pushing hard and the third song easing up. I also record how I did with distance, calories, etc and try to push myself harder every week. 

Goal 2: Weights at the Gym

I'm not only doing to weights on these days, but mostly weights. I've learned that within 6 days you will start to lose muscles you've been building up, so I'm going twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday. I know these days are close together, but this is what works best with my schedule so that's what I'm sticking to. Sometimes the Thursday workout also gets pushed back to Friday so those weeks do balance out better. For weights we do free weights, benching, abs, then legs. After that it's 10 minutes on the rowing machine, 10 on the stair stepping machine, sit-ups, and planking. I'm hoping to work up from planking to push-ups, but that's where I'm at now. I'll try to post later with more specifics on which machines I use. I always take extra time to stretch after these workouts as well as before I go to bed that night to help loosen up and not be sore the next day. This is especially important with the muscles that you don't use regularly!

Tips: 

1- It's best to take a buddy with you (I'm using my roommates). This makes it more likely for you to go as you can help each other remember and go even on lazy days. They'll also spot you on the weight machines!!!

2- Stop comparing yourself to that person next to you! Your personal level of fitness and the time your spending on the machine are probably different from those people next to you so keep yourself at a good pace and just push to beat yourself.

3- Hydrate. Always bring water and make sure you're taking a sip once in a while! If you get there and realize that you've forgotten water, then leave and come back with some.

4- Stretch. Nothing is harder than trying to go the gym the next day when you can barely walk because you didn't stretch before and after your previous workout. Warm up and cool down with stretching and make sure you take deep, slow breaths as you hold each stretch out. You should 'relax' into each one before moving on to the next.

5- Eat right before and after. As a general rule, it is best to eat carbs before a workout and protein after. I recommend eggs or a glass of milk soon after the gym to help your body build up those new muscles.

And that's it for the second 2 weeks! So far the water & vitamins are going really well! I've done 100% on water, and missed one day of vitamins, but I am back at those again! I've been charting my progress on a calendar as well which really helps me remember and to keep track of everything. The gym visits have also been on my calendar already. I highly recommend a wall calendar so you can see the entire month at-a-glance! Good luck! 

Please comment with any feedback you might have!

Bye!

Health Habits - First Goals

Hey there!

I'm kicking off my blog with a series of posts about making health goals. I'm trying to take this slow with small steps and set a couple of steps for every 2 weeks during this college year (and beyond!?). We're starting school this week, so this is when the goals start! I'll try to be detailed with my goals so that anyone who wants to copy them or even join me will be able to! Please let me know in the comments what you think as well!

First 2 weeks: 2 easy goals.


Goal 1: Drink more water!!!

So, for this first goal, I am turning myself into a CAMEL! Okay, not exactly; but you know what I mean! I keep hearing everywhere about how important drinking more water is, so I figure this will be a great first step to being healthier! What I've done is gone out to buy one of those real water bottles (to me that's the large ones that you don't throw away) and I'm only drinking water out of that now. I have to drink at least 2 full bottles a day plus anything extra like my milk or V8. So far: so good!

Side note: I'm currently trying out the V8 fusion smoothies which are GREAT! I definitely recommend them!


Goal 2: Vitamins

Basically, the other thing that will help me to start feeling better immediately will be to make sure I'm taking my daily vitamins. I do try to eat a variety of food and be fairly healthy there, but I want to be SURE that I'm not missing out on anything important. My way of trying to 'make sure I'm covered' is the One A Day Women's vitamins. I love that you only take them once. I have takes these before and I know how they are really hard to take at first so here are my tips:

1- Only take them after a meal. On an empty stomach, these things definitely can make you nauseous!
2- Don't drink too much water right before/after. These things aren't pleasant when you have that sloshy stomach feeling.
3- Take them at a time of day when you're feeling energetic. I find that after dinner works best for me because I have more food in my system and I'm not sleepy. If your body is feeling strong, it will be able to handle the onslaught of all those vitamins at once and take it in stride.

And that's it for the first 2 weeks! It's that simple. The trick is forming the habit, so if it feels easy then you have no excuse but to SUCCEED! I'll let you all know how I do and I hope someone will try this out for themselves too. I'm ready for making changes :)

Bye!