by Amy | Jan 14, 2015 | Blog, The Art of Fitness
For many of us the new year brings on one major goal…fitness. For me, January brings on a wave of guilt as I look back in awe at all the sugar I’ve consumed over the last few months. Even when I’m trying my hardest, that time span between Thanksgiving and January 1st can often mean lots of cookies, salty meats, heavy meals. It’s a time of substituting raw, green veggies for cheese coated casseroles.
Before I go on, let me be clear. I’m not trying to guilt you. I love vegetables cooked down and covered in cheese. I love ham and cookies and eating at places you only get when you visit your home town. I’m not anti-indulgence. I’m pro-balance. Now is a great time to bring our lives back into balance: our jeans are a little tighter, our stomachs are still not sure they want more starch, and we are eager to bring a fitness goal to fruition.
I’ve spent years working out and working in gyms. {In fact, not teaching fitness classes any more feels most weird at this time of year.} Over time I learned some things that helped me and my clients keep on track. This year, hopefully I’ll be taking my own advice as I attempt to reenter the fitness game—very gently. {For those of you wondering why…I’m still recovering from a summer back surgery. Turns out those take a frustratingly long time to fully heal.}
Decide what your objective is. There is a big difference in the way you’ll approach a one-time, concrete goal {more on concrete goals here} verses a lifestyle change.
This fitness goal: “I want to lose weight and look better,” is actually a lifestyle change. You can diet for a while, lose a few pounds and have a little short term success. However, if you really want to keep weight off and live inside a a healthier body you’ll need a lifestyle change. {More on that in a moment.}
On the other hand…this fitness goal: “I’m going to run the Crescent City Classic,” is a concrete, one-time goal. The approach here requires putting together a training timeline and exercising in a specific way. The first step in fitness success is deciding on an objective.
Success in a lifestyle change will require…change. It’ll require change in diet, activity, and mindset. These changes are hard because we have to fight against habit to get there. At first the choice to say “no” to that Diet Coke and “yes” to a glass of water might seem painful and backwards. But the more you make that choice, the easier and more natural it will become. A lifestyle change is all about retraining your mind to naturally choose new, positive choices.
Something that I’ve seen really help folks make a big change, is to turn the broad, lifestyle goal into smaller more concrete goals. Take it a week at a time. {Examples in this post.} Don’t look ahead at your whole life and all the hard work it will be. Instead, focus on the coming week. Make good choices for the next seven days. You can do it. It’s only a week.
I believe in the power of group mind. It’s one reason I became a fitness instructor. Teaching kept me accountable to my fitness routine. As an instructor I kept others accountable as well. Once you start going to a class, and make some friends, it becomes a lot harder to start skipping. You know your friends will ask where you were, or the instructor will say, “We missed you on Tuesday. Is everything okay?” When those comments arise, deep down you want a better excuse than, “I skipped.”
All that said, I definitely recommend joining a gym and finding a class you love at a time that works for your schedule. The accountability there can be key.
However, if you really hate classes {but I don’t know how you can} or they don’t work for you…find another system of accountability. Get a friend or spouse on board who can encourage you and check in on your progress.
Don’t be a closet dieter. There is no reason to be ashamed, embarrassed or secretive about your fitness goal. This is exciting and something to be proud of. Make your goal known. Nothing will crush your fitness dreams faster than being surrounded by un-supportive friends and family. Make your goals known so that those closest to you can support you—instead of offering you a second helping of potatoes.
Spend some money on your goals. You know I’m pretty darn thrifty. For me to tell you to spend money is very rare. But in this case, I’ll tell you to do it. When you invest your hard earned dollars into something, chances are you’ll utilize it.
It doesn’t have to be a lot of money. Even a modest investment can be enough to keep a goal on the right track. Buy a gym membership, register for a 5K, join a community accountability group like Weight Watchers.
Know that most of your success will come in the kitchen. It’s just a fact. You can work out all day and still not get the results you want if you aren’t fueling your body with the right foods. On and off– even when I was teaching four classes a day—I would hate the way I looked. Every time, it boiled down to what was happening in the kitchen.
Be mindful of the season. I ran into a friend a few weeks ago. When we started talking about health and diet, she reminded me that lots of our diet success can come from choosing the right approach for the right season. She told me that last winter she tried a raw diet. It didn’t go well. Icy veggies and raw smoothies are hard to stomach when you are facing a brutal Practically Canadian wind chill of -50˚. Pick an approach that fits the season.
Don’t drink and start drinking. Cryptic, yes. But here’s the thing…one of the quickest changes you can make to your diet is simply swapping your drink choice. As you take steps toward a fitness goal you can expedite your success by eating your calories instead of drinking them. Cut out soda and carbonated beverages. Unless you are an actual athlete, of college or professional level, cut out the sports drinks. They won’t do you any favors. Look at the calorie count on those fancy coffees…it’s nearly a whole meal’s worth. Cut them too. And lastly, cut out alcohol. It slows your whole system down.
Instead of those things, buy a bottle you love and start drinking water like it’s going out of style.
I know you can do this. Take it one step at a time. Remember to look over the first two posts in the series for more inspiration on setting and reaching goals. This post specifically touches on setting deadlines and timetables in regard to fitness goals.
Amy
by Amy | Feb 5, 2014 | Blog, The Art of Adventure, The Art of Fitness, The Art of Gathering, The Art of Living
by Amy | Jan 27, 2014 | Blog, The Art of Fitness
It’s the end of January. The “resolution” gym crowd is thinning out. At the gym I work at our membership forms have stopped flying out of the folder.
{Image from Women’s Health Magazine}
So if you are still sticking to your 2014 plan to get fit and shed those pounds that have haunted you…well done.
If you are new to the workout game {or even if you aren’t}, you might be getting bored with your routine by now. This month I’ve had a few days every week that I’ve taught four classes at the gym in one day. It’s a bit above average for me. All the time at the gym, all the classes have caused a couple people to ask me: Where do you come up with this stuff?
This is the truth. I write out every workout I teach. Then, at the end of class I throw it away. I do it simply because I like doing something new and different each time. So, where do I get so many ideas? Today I’ll show you my go-to sources for fitness inspiration. **Be warned…these are links to fitness sites. There will be images of tones up girls in sports bras on these pages. These pages advertise their workouts by showing results. I advocate conservative dressing…and working out while covered up.**
Some of my very favorite workouts come from The Daily HIIT. {High Intensity Interval Training.} These moves are way hard. They inspire my hard core classes. I usually do a workout, or just browse around for moves that I’d like to pair together.
For pilates inspiration I love Blogilates. She’s got good posts about clean eating, recipes, and workouts that will kick your booty. Most of her workouts are categorized by body focus and they are short {12-15 minutes each}. Usually all you need is a mat and a bit of space.
My last go-to source {I’m not giving you all my sources, just the ones I frequent most} is Women’s Health Magazine. The magazine is okay, but I’m a bigger fan of the web version of the source. That way I don’t have to week through ads, clothing advice and articles. I can go straight to the workouts. They have a great variety of moves to try out with basic equipment that you’ll have at your local gym.
I can go months without looking anywhere other than these three sites to bust out of a fitness rut. Hopefully they’ll help you too. The hardest part about fitness is always starting. So if you haven’t started: Go for it. And if you have: Keep it up!
Amy
by Amy | Feb 26, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Fitness
Do you know what winter hands are? I thought I did. Then I moved to Practically Canada.
The chapped hands of my past pale in comparison to what is going on with my knuckles right now. And it’s not just the knuckles. My whole hand is rough like someone ran sand paper over alligator skin. I’m telling you, I’ve never experienced hands like this before. The cold weather makes them bad. Cold season hand washing makes it worse.
If you looked only at my hands and guessed my age, you’d probably put me in the ball park of 75 years old. So gross.
So I reached out to locals. How the heck to they deal with this every winter? Newsflash…winter still has several months left up here. My hands will be bloody, chapped stumps by then if I don’t take action now.
I got a few pieces of advice. Lotion followed by socks over the hands before bed. Mary Kay hand scrub. Body butter. But the most unique tip is the one I’ve found to work the best. Are you ready to heal your nasty, winter hands? Go to your kitchen and get out your Crisco.
Wait, what? Crisco?!
Yes, you heard right. The very sweet, very northern yoga instructor at my gym clued me in on this little home-miracle. Just open up your tub of solid shortening and smear it on your hands. Then cover your hands with a pair of soft socks or gloves. Wear them to bed, or for 30 minutes at a time. You’ll seriously be amazed. It’s time to defeat our winter hands once and for all.
Amy
by Amy | Feb 19, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Adventure, The Art of Fitness
Here’s the problem with skiing. They give you a map of the trails before you go up the lift…but the map is 2D. Sure the trails are color coded…black diamonds are the most difficult and clearly marked. But alas, the map is still utterly flat.
After a sufficient warm up at Huff Hills, where Derek and I skied over the weekend we began hitting the harder trails. Now, as you can imagine, I’m not a pro. I’m even a bit on the clumsy side {go figure}, yet all that taken into account, I’m a decent skier. After going down the hills marked with circles and squares I got more adventurous and went down one of the black diamonds.
It went great. Fast, fun…I didn’t even hit anyone.
Now, back to this 2D map. Skiing is a sport about three dimensions. Especially the vertical dimension. As in steep drops. We did really well on the hills we went down and made it a goal to hit all of the trails offered. Fine. Just fine. Until…
We found ourselves going down a trail called the Cougar. I then found myself faced with another problem of skiing: Once you start down a hill, you are committed. The flat trail map didn’t clue me in to a drop that seemed to fall off the end of the Earth. It didn’t tell me that the hell, excuse me, hill was a death trap.
The slope started off fine. An exhilarating drop much like the other diamonds we’d gone down. Then the trail leveled out for a moment. So level I was able to come to a stop to look at the view. After taking in the scenery I noticed that the slope seemed to have disappeared. I was now standing on the edge of a cliff {at least that’s how it felt…my story, I’ll exaggerate at will}. And here is where the second problem of skiing came into play. Once you go down, you can’t turn around and pick another trail.
It’s not like at the amusement park, where a kid stands in line for the scary roller-coaster, only to chicken out at the last second. That’s an easy fix. Skip the ride, go out the exit.
When you are on skis, you have one choice. Go down.
After freaking out for a moment, I gathered my nerves and pushed off. Swoosh…one drop down. A small level out, then another big drop. Knees bent, stay cool. Then, the world became a big jumble. It was like I was inside the plastic case of a game of Boggle. Everything was totally shaken as I tumbled {sans grace} down the hill. You know that scene from The Princess Bride when Wesley falls down the hill toward the Fire Swamp yelling “As…you…wisshhh”? {Watch it here.} Yeah, I’m pretty sure it looked like that. Or at least that’s how it felt.
The skis were off, my hat was off, I was a big snowy mess. Luckily there I was now at the bottom of the hill, just a slight easy slope back to the ski lift. I laid for a few moments, then put myself back together and met Derek at the bottom. He hadn’t fallen, but he did say, “Yep…wasn’t expecting that.” Needless to say, I was a bit gun shy for the rest of the afternoon. Overall I was okay, too. Nothing broken, just one bruise across my back. I’ll take it.
The warm weather was only a special weekend treat, though. Today we are back to a high of -9. Seriously? I hear things start to thaw out around April.
On a totally different note, thanks to all of you who were so kind and supportive yesterday when I opened up about my new ministry project. I’m totally jazzed to tell you more about it. I just love you all so much.
And speaking of things we love…remember Lydia? Her full session will be featured on the blog Thursday. So be sure to come back. And tomorrow I’ve got a killer wreath tutorial ready for your enjoyment. See you then!
Amy
by Amy | Oct 12, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Fitness
Let’s start Fitness Friday with a quick fairy tale.
Once upon a time there was a princess. The princess lived in a castle in a kingdom called Practically Canada. She and her prince went on a long journey to a far away place called Dover. While they were there they feasted day and night on the most delectable foods this new kingdom had to offer. The princess knew that eating late at night was a bad habit. She knew that eating ice cream every day was also a bad idea. She knew that staying away from the gym would make her very weak…but she didn’t care. She was too distracted by the awesome fun and friendship to be had.
Then…after seven days the prince and princess returned to Practically Canada. Then an evil queen called Reality made the princess teach Trim and Tone twice in one day…less than 24 hours after she arrived back home. She was sore and she regretted her bad choices…but the real bummer came when she had to teach again the next day…Trim and Tone–again.
The end. {Or the Beginning of a very stiff weekend.}
Okay. Total transparency. The princess is me. I went on vacation. I ate a lot. The most exercise I got was walking. No one is perfect.
Let’s all get back to it. If you’ve never used my circuits before check out the instructions here. Get fit this weekend. Click through to see the circuits. (more…)
by Amy | Sep 28, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Adventure, The Art of Fitness
Happy Friday everyone. Today is Friday, I hope you have all been taking advantage of the awesome fall weather. I hope you are ready to get out and be active.
Last night’s Trim and Tone class used steps…so the circuits were not equipment free. So instead, I thought I’d share a bit about my recent experience at an Urban Adventure Race. It definitely got us out and running. It’s fitness, exploration, and adventure in a creative way.
We participated in the Great Urban Race in Minneapolis, put on by Red Frog Events.
At the start of the race each team {of 2-4 participants} gets an envelope with 12 clues inside. On “Go” everyone opens the clues and starts racing. Clues can be in the form or riddles, puzzles, etc. Each riddle leads you to a location in the city…usually a cool small business, art gallery or other local treasure. One clue was required a sudoku’s solution to discover an address. Another was deciphered by solving a cryptogram.
Once you know where you need to go, get there as fast as possible. No cars, taxis or bikes. Go on foot or bus. Locations are spread across the city and can be miles apart. Upon arrival, your team needs to complete another puzzle or activity. Then snap a photo to prove completion.
1. After arriving at indie art gallery we were lead to the basement. Then we had a choice…tarantella or cockroach? Well, you see what we chose. Then lay down, put it on your face and snap a photo.
2. Once arriving at Hell’s kitchen Derek needed to paint a mustache on me with chocolate frosting, then I dipped my face in dry cake mix. And…photo.
3. One challenge required taking a photo with a bald stranger. That was an awkward request to make…
It was crazy fun. We jogged/walked about 8 miles…in addition to performing other feats of strength. Like scaling a boulder wall, jumping off scaffolding onto an air bag, biking an obstacle course, and talking to lots of strangers.
1. At a local sporting goods shop we scaled a bouldering wall.
2. At a local artisan showcase we had to make a craft for each other.
You can find a race near you here. But there are lots of event organizers that put these kind of events on. Like Urban Dare, Gulf Coast Adventure, and Merrell Oyster Races. Any way you cut it…now’s the perfect time to find a creative way to get out and get fit…before the winter traps us inside.
Amy
by Amy | Sep 14, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Fitness
Hey all! Here are the Trim and Tone circuits from last night’s class. Get your fit on!
Here’s how it works. Do each exercise in a row with no rest between moves. Once you’ve done the whole circuit, recover for 60-90 seconds…then do it again. Do each circuit three times.
Circuit #1:
- Nosy Neighbor: 30 Seconds
- Squat Kick: 1 minute
- Globe Hops: 1 minute
- Plank Jacks: 30 seconds
Circuit #2:
- High Knees: 30 seconds
- Mountain Climber: 30 seconds
- High Knees: 30 seconds
- Mountain Climber: 30 seconds
Plank Jacks: Start in a plank position {see above}, next pop your feet out and in…like a horizontal jumping jack. Keep your hands firmly planted.
Globe Hops: Squat then take a small hop to the right. Squat again, hop forward. Squat, hop to the left. Squat, hop backward. Make your box in one direction for 30 seconds, then reverse your direction.
Have a great weekend!
Amy
