Fitness Friday

{Fitness Friday} Recommitting To My Workouts

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It has been months since I last wrote a Fitness Friday (FF) post and I think that it is time to recommit. Part of the reason I stopped writing these post as based on the survey I gave a few months back, where many people didn’t want to hear about my pregnancy.  Since then I realized that this blog is for me and I can write what I want, anyways to make a long story short I stopped writing FF posts because frankly for the next 19 or so weeks fitness and pregnancy will be going hand-in-hand.

I have honestly have been lacking motivation and although I am setting goals for myself I haven’t been either a) achieving them or b) I’ve been doing them half-assed. I think getting back to weekly posts will help to hold me accountable for my goals and I have some big ones (aka Disney Wine and Dine Half which I already have a deferred registration to- more on this another day).

Okay so lets jump back in!

Workouts Last Week 2/23-3/1 (my workout weeks start on Thursday):

  • 1.5 hour pre-natal yoga class
  • 2.25 mile walk

My goal was to do at least 2 walks, 1 yoga class and 1 workout DVD, so last week was overall not a success.

Goals for this week 3/2-8:

  • Th: Pre-natal yoga
  • F: OFF
  • S: 2.5+ walk
  • Su: 2 mile walk
  • M: 2 mile walk and/or workout DVD
  • T: 2 mile walk and/or workout DVD
  • W: 2 mile walk and/or workout DVD

This week I bumped up the walks since we will be on vacation and in a warmer (snow free) climate.  I am hoping that the weather holds out for us though because right now there is a lot of rain predicted.  Just incase this happens I am brining my two pre-natal workout dvd’s with me.

What are you doing to stay fit this week? How do you keep yourself motivated?

Have you ever had to recommit yourself to your workouts? If yes, any tips?

Fitness Friday: Fitness Survey

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I know it’s been awhile since I’ve done a Fitness Friday post but I am posting today! I saw this survey on Carrots ‘n’ Cake  this morning and thought it would be the perfect come back post.

Five Fitness Things I Can’t Live Without:

  • Swimming
  • Elliptical
  • Running
  • Yoga
  • Foam roller

Most Embarrassing Song I Listen to While Working Out:

I really don’t listen to music when I workout, I’m some what of a purist-however when I run on the treadmill at the gym I like to watch (and read the captions) of The Real Housewives, Kardashians or NCIS.

Favorite Pre-Workout Snack or Meal:

Toast with almond butter.

On My Fitness Bucket List:

  • Run a Disney 1/2 marathon
  • Run a race in every state (any distance)
  • Run a 10k
  • Run a 15k

Must Have Tech Tools:

  • Garmin Forerunner
  • DailyMile (does that count?)

Top Exercise Gear:

Motivational Mantras:

  • You never regret a workout.

Favorite Cardio Exercise:

  • Running
  • XC Skiing
  • Elliptical
  • Walking
  • Swimming

Favorite Strength Moves:

  • Squats
  • Plank
  • Lat Pulldown (w/machine)
Now it’s your turn! Fill out this Fitness Survey and come back and leave me a comment so I can check it out!

Giveaway Winners:

12 Days of Giveaways: Chocolate Fiesta Winner is:

Don’t forget about today’s 12 Days of Giveaways SPIbelt giveaway! It’s not only great for running but for walking, traveling and so much more!

{Guest Post} Fitness Friday: 30 Days of Yoga

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Feeling the Benefits of a Daily Yoga Practice

Hi everyone, I hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving! I’m Erin, the blogger over at Creative Soul in Motion! I am so excited to be guest posting for Cook. Vegan. Lover. and chatting with all of you about my wonderful experience with the 30 Days of Yoga Challenge.

I started practicing yoga a few years ago. At the time I was drowning in work and so stressed I was having problems sleeping and focusing. After months of literally holding my breath I started looking for ways to open up and breathe deeper. That’s when I found yoga.

Since then yoga has become part of my life, part of my entire being.

Even though I’ve been practicing for a few years now I have never had a daily practice. It’s always been a 3 – 4 day a week routine that came and went depending on my schedule and my mood that day. Having a bad day? Do yoga! Have time to make it to class? Great. But it’s never been something I’ve dedicated time to every single day. Until Lindsay posted the 30 Day Yoga Challenge.

At first when I read about the challenge I thought, “Oh, I don’t need to do that. I practice yoga already.” A few days later though the idea of signing up for the challenge called to me and I honestly figured there was no harm. I mean, I already signed up for the National Novel Writing Month for November which means I need to write 50,000 words in 30 days so why not balance it out by promising myself to dedicate 10 minutes to yoga everyday?

It seemed like a good plan: 2,000 words a day + 10 mins of yoga = a happy stress-free Erin!

For the last 24 days I have been writing like a crazy woman but finding peace and relaxation through my 10 minute yoga practice. Honestly, 10 minutes is the perfect amount of yoga for me – it’s enough time to get through a few sun salutations, focus on my breath and feel the stress and frustrations melt away.

Dedicating myself to at least 10 minutes of yoga everyday has…

Helped me find a new source of strength within myself

Given me the ability to slow down and focus on my breath

Helped me improve many of my poses and learn some new ones

Shown me how a daily practice can help me feel more calm throughout the day

Improved my general mood and attitude throughout the whole day

Led me to discover a new way of thinking about my day and schedule

Reminds me that I don’t have to rush around and life is better when you slow down

Now it’s Day 25 and I have to say that I’m SO happy I signed up for the challenge. It’s helped me adopt a daily yoga practice that makes my day so much better. I breathe easier and deeper, feel happier and calmer and live a more mindful life. And all it takes is 10 minutes (but more can be better).

So thank you Lindsay for providing me with the inspiration I needed to adopt a daily yoga practice!

And if you’d like to read more about my yoga practice and attempts at self-improvement come on over to my blog Creative Soul in Motion and say hello!

Fitness Friday: Journey to Ironman

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Hi everyone! I’m Heather and I blog about food & fitness at Better With Veggies. When Lindsay asked for guest posts about fitness a few weeks ago, I jumped at the chance to share my journey to Ironman.

If you’re not familiar with Ironman, it’s a long-distance triathlon consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run. Now before you say you could never do that, let me assure you that you could! It’s all about slowly working your way up to the distance. I firmly believe that anyone can do an Ironman, if they have the patience, dedication, and the will to train for it.

So how did I get here? It all started about a year and a half after college, after trying and failing to motivate myself to go to the gym regularly. I needed a goal – in my case a 5K – to keep me motivated. After 12 weeks of training, I completed my first 5K. Next, I slowly increased my running distances to a 10K, then a 1/2 marathon, then a marathon. I wasn’t fast, but races kept me moving and motivated! I also found that as I ran more, I slowly got a little faster.

After a few more marathons, I gave triathlons a try for more variety in my training. Over the course of 5 years, I tackled the Sprint, Olympic and Half Ironman distances – moving up slowly over time. I registered for Ironman Austria the night after watching my husband complete Ironman Germany, his first Ironman distance race.

Training for an Ironman is a big time commitment, but my goal was to have fun during training. I did a lot of my training with my husband and friends, joined a masters swimming group, and got up early for a lot of workouts! I’m not a morning person, but getting a workout out of the way before starting your day leaves time for a second workout or a little fun!

Race day was one of the most amazing experiences. I picked a scenic location to race my first Ironman – Klagenfurt, Austria. If you’re going to race for 10-17 hours, I think it should be in a beautiful place! My mental strategy for the race can be applied to any long distance event. I broke the day down into smaller sections, refusing to think too far ahead:

  • First, I went for a “little” swim. I knew I would be in the water for a while, so I just enjoyed the scenery with each breath. I knew the distances between each turn buoy and focused on swimming to the next one.
  • Next up, time for a bike ride. I broke each loop (there were two) into three sections based on the 3 climbs I had to tackle. I focused on making it up each climb and celebrated my progress. If I started to think ahead, I stopped and redirected my thoughts to something else. No thoughts of running allowed!
  • Finally, it’s time to run. I didn’t think of running a marathon, focused on one mile at a time. A trick I use on the run is to cheer on everyone around me, which shifts the focus off me and onto other people. For this race, I also tried to figure out what country everyone was from and how to cheer them on in their language. 🙂

Running down the finisher’s shoot is an incredible feeling! Can you see all the people in the picture below – all cheering for me like I’m a rockstar?!

Right in front of me at the finish line was a physically challenged athlete who did the entire race without his legs. He completed the swim with no kicking, hand cycled a challenging bike course, and then powered through the run course in a wheelchair. Simply amazing! As I said at the beginning – anyone can do an Ironman! You just need patience, dedication, and the will to train.

  • Patience: Don’t sign up for an Ironman tomorrow, if you haven’t already completed a half ironman. It can be done, but you’ll be so much happier if you have patience and work up to the distance over time.
  • Dedication: There is a lot of training, so you need to be dedicated and stick to your training schedule. You put in the time during training, so race day can be fun.
  • Will: You have to want it. You won’t have the drive or motivation to keep going when things get tough if you don’t want it. Until you really want it for you, it’s not time to register.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my story! If you are interested in the much longer version, check out my Couch to Ironman series. I hope you’ll dream big and go after your goals!

Fitness Friday: Training, Yoga and Gear

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Happy Fitness Friday! What have you been doing to stay fit this week? 

I have been doing some running and a little bit of strength training yesterday with the Hubz. Tonight we are going to a yoga class and one tomorrow (getting ready for our 30 Day Challenge).

Hubz and my training blog is up and running again so head over and check out my weekly half marathon training updates.

You can also check out the Hubz review of SPIbelt. 

Lastly, don’t forget to sign up for my 30 Days of Yoga Challenge starting November 1, 2011.  You’ll have a chance to win a Lululemon gift card and there may just be a few surprise giveaways for participants throughout the month.

Fitness Friday: Improvement, Races & Sports Bras

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Improvement

I have made huge improvements in my workouts over the the past 10 days, i.e. I went from zero to 6.6 miles of run/walk and 35 minute workout last week to this week where I have already put in 11 miles of running and walking and I still have three more days! It feels great to be back.  It is crazy how Neil’s accident directly affected my workouts.  The first week after his accident was as stressful time that resulted in little sleep and little time to do much of anything besides try to keep the house in a manageable state, check in on Neil frequently  and stay up on any commitments that I had.  Now things are better and Neil is back to work and slowly getting back to his normal routine.  He sees the neurologist in 11 days and we are hoping for good news and that he will be able to get back to running (and driving- I’m over being a taxi driver).

The next step is for me to get back to the gym.  It’s been a challenge because I’ve been back to running and it has been beautiful out so no desire to run inside and because Neil is only allowed to go for walks and I’m his driver I haven’t been going right after work.  This weekend and until he gets the okay Neil and I are going to go to the gym together after work so I can do some alternative cardio and weights and he can walk on the dreadmill or hangout and read magazines and watch TV. 

Races

Okay so we are almost fully back. Neil has 11 more days before he sees the neurologist and (hopefully) gets the okay to go back to running. Since we can no longer do the Disney Half Marathon we have been on the lookout for a new half to run.  Today I came across the perfect one; there’s beer, running and the beach….in New Hampshire…in February.

I know it’ll be a little cold for sun bathing but that’s okay we’re there to run and have an amazing time! Is anyone else running this or have you or do you want to?

Training for this half is going to start for me next week! I am sticking with the Galloway plan because I have been using it thus far and am loving it!

On another note I have a 10k on Saturday which I am debating about.  It was supposed to be in line with my original half marathon training but since Neil went and got himself injured (silly man) I got thrown off my training plan and I’m not sure if I am physically up to doing it.  I had a great 4 mile run this week and a quick and easy 2 mile run yesterday but I am not sure if I am ready to do 6.2 miles on Saturday.  I guess I’ll decide between now and 7am tomorrow.

Sports Bras

Now on to the good stuff sports bras! I have been working on finding various sports bras for giving me the right support for various activities.  When it comes to being active I lucked out that I’m not in need of something that is super supportive since ahem…there isn’t a ton to support.  I have tried a number of bras and I have a few favorites but my new addition is easily becoming a favorite of mine for a number of reasons.

For the past few weeks I have been trying out the Moving Comfort Rebound Racer Sports Bra and I am loving it and no you don’t get a photo of me in it so this one from their site will have to do.  My thoughts:

PROS

  • Excellent support
  • True to size
  • Well Made
  • Adjustable Straps (love this and you can use strap as a key holder if you’re like me)

CONS

  • Could use more colors- not that I’m flashing it around to other people but I’d like to see more variety than black, white and blue

BEST USES (based on my experience)

  • Running
  • Training
  • High Impact
Overall huge fan of this bra and would definitely recommend it!
What is your favorite sports bra?