Groove, Interrupted

An every other day habit.

Tie shoes, pop in earbuds, step outside, breathe in some fresh air.

Walk to the rhythmic sounds.

The View From Here: No More Self-Sabotage

This week's View is from Mari Farthing of Mari, Quite Contrary.

Mari wrote about a very personal issue for her.

I hope you will read and give her supportive comments.

__________

No More Self-Sabotage

A few years back, my doctor told me I had something called metabolic syndrome—meaning that I was a victim of my insulin, which was completely out of whack and I would need diet, exercise and medication to put my life back into order. More specifically, I would have to lose a significant amount of weight to get my insulin in control.

30 Day Leg Lift Challenge

I was sans a fitness challenge the last two months.

I don't like it.

Need a new one!

And did you know May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month?
Well it is.

It’s Fitness & Sports Month! Check out this toolkit for ways to #MoveInMay: http://t.co/lmHjlAHgPr. #LetsMove pic.twitter.com/ICnvJDq5u0
— President's Council (@FitnessGov) May 1, 2014

What haven't I don't yet.....?

Leg lifts!

30 Day Fitness Challenge

Now that I've done

Crunches

Push-ups

Squats

and

Lunges

I think it would be appropriate to combine them ALL!

I made my own chart!

Yes, yes, I know February has only 28 days.

I don't care.

I didn't want to do nothing this month.

(I'm going to have to wear a bathing suit in March!)

Also, I just wanted to get it out there.

You can do it this month, or next, or whenever you're ready.

Which is why I didn't make it specific to any one month.

I will be doing it this month, so what will I do about days 29 & 30?

Just roll them over to March 1 & 2!
(It's not rocket science.)

You can do this as a way of getting started with exercising if you haven't been.
Or, you can add it to whatever you're already doing.
Like me. I also walk.
I like to walk first, then do these other exercises.

Won't you join me?
C'mon! It's not gonna be hard at all.

30 Day Lunge Challenge

I hope you didn't think I wasn't going to keep trying fitness challenges in the new year.

I haven't done lunges yet!

Here is the chart I'm going to follow:

150 really seems like a lot, doesn't it??

And because I wanted to be sure I knew how to do lunges properly,

I found a video:

Heads-up!
After doing lunges this month, I'm going to do a MULTI part challenge in February, so stay tuned for that!
I feel I must admit I'm not 100% perfect with these. My grand idea to stay centered with Yoga last month pretty much fizzled. But I do genuinely try hard at each thing, and learn stuff along the way.
Wanna join me?
Happy New Year!

31 Day Yoga Challenge

One more fitness challenge for the year!

I want to do something a little different for December.

The Holidays can be a very crazy time of year.

People get stressed.

We eat too much sugar.

Maybe drink a little too much alcohol.

So the idea of doing yoga came to mind.

Whenever I've done yoga, I've felt better for it.

I found this lovely blog where they have been doing a "Year of Yoga".

UPDATE:

Their December challenge wasn't up at the time I was ready to publish this post,
but I'm sure they'll get that posted soon.

Their December chart looks like this:

OR, the next most recent month with 31 days is October:

Not sure which one I will follow.
Maybe I'll do TWO poses a day!

Join me?

Just Dance 2014

Once upon a time there was a girl who liked to go for walks. It has always been her favorite and easiest form of exercise.

She tries to walk at least every other day. One day recently was one such day, but two things got in her way: 1) Rain, and 2) She had spent all morning talking to her friend on her cell phone and the battery was nearly dead, so she would not have it to listen to music on. She NEEDS to be able to listen to music while she exercises!

She needed to get her exercise in soon because it was already past noon, her peanut butter toast fuel was going to wear off AND her kids had early release from school.....

What to do, what to do?

Aha! Just Dance!

Not only would she get the cardio workout she needed, but there is music BUILT IN.

Brilliant!

(I need to stop talking about myself in the third person now.)

So get this: Just Dance 2014has a feature called "Just Sweat". It's where you can select 10, 20 or 40 minutes worth of continuous music to get a good cardio workout to.

And lemme tell ya, it's a good workout!

Even though I completely suck at doing the dances, my heart rate increased and I got good and sweaty.

I thought my darling 13 year old daughter would love to do this with me, but after a few tries, she started chickening out. Guess why. She was being too self-conscious!

I mean, it is pretty embarrassing how completely awful it may turn out that you are at dancing, but c'mon! It's FUN!

Here, I'll show you. At the end of each dance, the game gives you a fast-play snippet of "your best moves". I'm going to show you one of mine, but you have to promise not to LOL at me too much, K?


(There is an option to share these video snippets, but I wasn't connected to Xbox Live, so I took a video of my video. Be quiet.)

Are you done laughing at me? Seriously, that's enough now.

I don't play video games. Like, at all. This is different. I know just enough about how to work the Xbox to play Just Dance. That's all you need to get some good exercise, or simply have some silly fun!

One more thing: my husband managed to shake his booty to a song. That's huge!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

30 Day Squat Challenge

There have been crunches.

There have been push-ups.

Then came planks.

Oh, I did not like the planks, my friends!

Ready for planks, my abs were not.

Therefor, I tapped out at 2 minutes Maybe 2 1/2, tops.

I kept doing them, but I got nowhere near 5 minutes worth.

That's OK. Moving on!

Imma do some squats this month....

source

This chart has the same numbers, but I don't know, maybe you like it better?

30dayfitnesschallenges.com

For November, my "exercise ingredients" will be:

Walk 2.5 - 3 miles
60 crunches
20 push-ups
daily squats

Squats are apparently good for your ass.
I discovered this when I Googled  for squatting charts, and there were all these BUTTS staring me in the face. Even naked ones! It was all I could do to find G-rated charts.
Go ahead, Google for yourself.

So you wanna do some squats with me?

30 Day Plank Challenge

For two months now I have been doing some sort of fitness challenge.

August was crunches and September was push-ups.

Push-ups didn't go as well as crunches, but I still did them! Mostly.

For October I will be attempting planks!

Or planking. Or however you want to say it.

I will be following this chart:

I couldn't track down the original source of this image. If someone claims it, they can let me know.

Or there's this one from 30dayfitnesschallenges.com:

So now my workout ingredients look like this;

Walk

50 crunches

20 push-ups

+

daily planking

Whenever I post about this challenge, I'll use the hashtag #30dayplank.

It's October 1st! Join me?

I Walk

My favorite form of exercise is walking.

This has served me well as someone who has never had a driver's license. When I lived in the Bay Area, I used public transit and walked nearly every day, and stayed in pretty good shape doing so.

After moving to Marysville, Washington and I became a stay-at-home mom, coupled with the amount of rainy days here, walking places totally dwindled. I also had another baby.

And I got seriously out of shape.

I've told you about my high cholesterol. I also expressed how the idea of me starting to have health problems freaks me out because of Mark's. If there's anything I can do to keep myself healthy, I just have to do it.

It was this reality check that got me up and out there walking again. Sometimes even in the rain, although that's pretty miserable and I don't recommend it. Thankfully, I have a treadmill for back-up.

Walking is not only good for your body; it's also good for the soul. The way I feel about life, the world and myself is dramatically improved when I go for a walk.

I step outside, stick my headphones in my ears and start Pandora on my phone. Always on shuffle because I like to hear a variety of music. Now too, I open up the MapMyRun app, make sure it's still set to walk and touch START. I hear the voice say "begin workout" and off I go.

My feet hit the street, I take in a breath of fresh air and am instantly refreshed and invigorated. I know I'm doing good for myself and it spurs me. But I don't start out full on; I know it's best to start slow and work up to a fast pace. The more I'm doing this, though, the sooner I speed up and really give it my all (hopefully without looking like a spaz).

I live in a neighborhood surrounded by small farms. The main road to our development doesn't have sidewalks and no shoulders. So my routine is at least two laps around the perimeter of the neighborhood.

This route, depending on just how far I push what is the "perimeter", MapMyRun tells me is about 2.7 miles. Yesterday I felt it was time to push to three miles. I decided to walk this one section of my route a second time and was able to get that three mile goal. Finally!

It was more like 11:44 am. See my funky route?

Go me! Now, this means I have to continue to do at least three miles, right? Well that's OK. Because I WANT to.

Wanna know what else I'd really like to do? I'd love to do a charity walk. There are several causes I care about. Just need to get back into better shape, and then work up the gumption.

Now, if I could just find some activewear that has a special pocket just for my phone, I'd be in heaven.

What is your favorite form of exercise? Why do you love it?

Inspired by Mama Kat's weekly writing prompts.

30 Day Push Up Challenge

I did a 30 Day Crunch Challenge during August.

Now I want to help the other least favorite part of my body: my upper arms.

I dislike them so much I never wear anything sleeveless.

Push ups can be pretty tough, so I looked for two different charts,

one starting with just 5 and the other with 15.

Both get you to an end goal of 40.

Found HERE

30dayfitnesschallenges.com

Yeah. I'll probably be going with the one that starts with 5.
And doing "girl push ups" on my knees!

I've been walking regularly for about 14 months, and will of course keep that up.

I will also continue to try and do at least 50 crunches a day.

I guess I see this as adding in the ingredients of a work out, month by month.

Big thanks to my very supportive friend, J.Ho!
(who also has a blog, Mom Rocks Mealtime)

Tomorrow is September 1st. Let's DO this!

30 Day Crunch Challenge

My friend JHo, who is a food blogger at Mom Rocks Mealtime,

emailed me and her other friends saying we should all do this:

With help from Google, I found 30dayfitnesschallenges.com

where they also have this variation:

A handful of us are on board, complete with a hashtag: #30daycrunch.

I gotta say, ever since having my son 7 1/2 years ago, my belly has been my least favorite

part of my body. The boy gave me "jelly belly"!

My OB/GYN called it that. Nice, hu?

So I'm doing this.

You should join us!

How to finally kick your own ass into shape!

How are you doing with your resolution to start exercising?

I am in no way a health and fitness nut so I am not here to pretend that I am or lecture anyone on such things.

I do, however, want to share what has been my process in arriving at a place where I finally WANT to exercise and take better care of my health.

Maybe "arriving" is the wrong word. Considering all the temptations out there, and that I know I will give into them sometimes, it will continue to be a process.

One thing I know for sure is that making healthier choices has to be something YOU decide to do. No amount of anything besides your own motivation will make you do it. Further, I believe there is a moment when it simply clicks and you will finally see it through.

Psychologically

You have to be FED UP. You have to be sick and tired of how you feel or look or both. Just done with not being wherever it is you want to be physically.

I have this idea of what size clothing I should and shouldn't wear. In my mind I should never be any larger than a size 14, and I would prefer to be a 12 or 10. I honestly don't see myself being any smaller than that because I just am a curvy girl with large breasts and hips. Beyond that, I know that I am on the other side of looking and feeling good if I get up to a size 14.

You have to really want to make a change. Like, this is for real, different from other times. You feel it in your gut. It's not gonna happen if your heart isn't in it

For me, it is literally my HEART that's in it. You put my husband's health problems (including many with his heart) and that my dad has had a heart attack, not to mention that my uncle died from sudden cardiac arrest, all into a bowl, and I have the recipe to create fear for the health of my own heart. The cherry on top? Finding out my cholesterol is "marginally high".

It sucks, but it really helps if there's some key factors motivating you, such as a recent health screening, wanting to be healthier for your family, maybe even a recent health crisis.

Physically

You have to be honest with yourself about what form of exercise will work best for you.

Walking is my thing. I think it has naturally evolved as such due to my inability to drive. When we lived in the Bay Area I walked and used public transportation nearly every day. I stayed in pretty good shape doing so. That was California where it's sunny, or at least not raining, most of the time. I experience the exact opposite here in Washington. I got out of the habit of walking pretty quickly after moving to the Evergreen State, and my body has suffered for it.

But I still really enjoy walking so it is what I have gotten back into over the past several months. I'm not gonna lie, I am having to push myself to walk as fast as I once did, as well as figure out the right things to eat before exercising so I don't go all low blood sugar out in the middle of the street. Walking may not seem like a high impact exercise, but when you've gotten as out of shape as I have, it'll work.

I also like yoga, and from the small amount of it I've done, I am a firm believer in its benefits to the whole you, mind and body.

I've met people here online who love to run. Others who enjoy an elliptical, bicycle or Zumba. We each have to find what we will enjoy doing. If you hate the form of exercise, you're not going to do it regularly, therefor you're not going to lose any weight or feel healthier.

It is a pretty well known fact that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. You have to push through the early days in order to make exercise a true ROUTINE.

Don't you think I've tried before now to get back into walking? Of course I have! But the difference I discovered last summer is that I hadn't pushed on through for a month before I slacked off again.

When the Holidays (and winter) came I got real worried that all my effort at my walking routine would be ruined. It did slow down, but I got on my treadmill every day that I could, and then I found myself itching to get back to it more often once the new year hit.

I am now in a place where I truly want to exercise and know that I feel better when I do. I am pretty blown away by this.

Once you push through the hurdle of it being extra-ordinary, it becomes ordinary and just a part of your life.

Accountability

I have hated that word over the years. I've never wanted to feel like I had to justify myself to anyone. But the thing is, it really does help. Not in an "answer to" way, but more of a "report to" way.

Not telling anyone of your intention to do something is another way to let yourself not do it. If you didn't tell anyone, they'll never know, hence no disappointment (or judgment). Except in yourself. Letting yourself down is really no better than letting someone else down.

I got involved with Chosen Choas' Run Blog Give last summer, and her Adopt-A-Pantry this fall. All those involved reported their mileage or days exercised to Jamie and she kept track of it on a spreadsheet. I'm not a runner, just a walker, so I didn't log as many miles as most of the other participants. But no one let me feel disappointed in myself for that. On the contrary, Jamie was a friendly cheerleader.

In my experience, accountability can actually translate to encouragement and support. For me, having someone to report to in the beginning is what helped me push past the 21 days I needed to form my new exercise habit. I'm not holding myself accountable to anyone right now, yet I'm still exercising.

Patience

I am a 38 year old woman who has grown, birthed and nursed two babies. I wasn't exercising at all for YEARS. Women's fat cells like to stay put. All that, and I still gotta eat. Therefor, weight loss is not proving easy for me.

Still, I know I am doing good things for my body and that keeps me trying. I'm not on a fad diet, I'm making lifestyle changes for the long-term. I feel good about that.

You need to have patience both with yourself and the process. There is no point in beating yourself up if you decide to eat a cookie, nor to throw in the towel on your exercise routine because you don't think you're seeing results fast enough. Just keep swimming. Hey, swimming is great exercise!

Bottom line (Ha ha - bottom):

• Feel it
• Choose it
• Do it
• Tell someone
• Be patient

Do you have any tips or tricks to motivate yourself or others into healthy habits?