You don't need a gym membership to be able to exercise. There are so many ways to get a workout in without spending money or feeling like you have to kill yourself each day.
If the weather isn't very good outside (as is the case a good chunk of the year in Oregon), there are plenty of ways to still get exercise inside. Here are a few ideas:
1) Walk around the living room at a brisk pace.
2) Jog in place while watching tv or listening to music.
3) Pop an exercise video into the DVD player (I recommend T25. It's only 25 minutes per day!).
4) Turn on the music and DANCE! Nobody is watching. Have at it!
5) Watch a free exercise video online. Popsugar has really fun workout videos that range from 5 to 30 minutes. You can find the different videos at http://www.popsugar.com/Fitness-Video. My favorite video is the Victoria's Secret 10 minute circuit. The 10 minutes flies by and it's fun too. Check it out at http://www.popsugar.com/fitness/Victoria-Secret-Model-Full-Body-Workout-21416942
5) Set a time or number of reps and do bodyweight exercises such as squats, pushups, crunches, lunges, and planks.
If you want to get outside, there are some great options for that as well:
1) Go for a walk or run (with or without the dog). I love walking or jogging with my dog to the nearby dog park. It's great exercise for the both of us.
2) Take that bike out of the shed and go for a ride. It doesn't have to be really long. Just get on and enjoy the scenery as you ride. Each time you go, try and push yourself to ride a bit further or faster than last time.
3) Go for a hike. In Oregon, there are fantastic places to hike. You don't need to be a mountaineer to go hiking. Try a good trail in the forest.
4) Head to the beach for a day. If the roads or trails around your home are getting boring, why not walk around the beach? The sand will make walking a bit more difficult and burn more calories than walking on a sidewalk.
5) Go swimming or kayaking in the lake. You can always reward yourself afterwards with a nice, light picnic.
6) In the winter, you can go skiing or snowboarding. If you haven't been before, let me tell you it is definitely a workout and will burn a ton of calories while you're having fun blasting down the mountain.
Of course, there are many other options that I didn't list. These are just a few. There is no excuse to not exercise just because you can't afford a gym membership. Just find things that you enjoy doing that get you moving and burn calories. If you so something everyday, you'll not only make it a habit soon enough, but you'll feel great and be a lot healthier with the regular exercise.
Showing posts with label Exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Exercise. Show all posts
Friday, February 13, 2015
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Activity Trackers
Do you have an activity tracker (i.e. Fuelband, Fitbit, UP, etc)?
If you don't have one and want some easy motivation for keeping track of your healthy habits, GET ONE!
I recently purchased a Jawbone UP24. While my friends have the Nike Fuelband or FitBit, I decided on the Jawbone for 2 reasons. One, it is much cheaper than the other two popular bands (I got mine on Groupon for $62 and they are also on Amazon for between $48 for the UP and $79 for the UP24). The Fuelband and FitBit run for $100 and up. The second reason for getting the Jawbone was because it syncs to my Strava app. If you aren't familiar with Strava, it is a fitness tracker app for cycling, walking and running. I enjoy cycling and want to make sure that activity is tracked accurately. Some cyclists wrap the other bands around their shoe. Some just manually enter the activity and how hard they perceived they went. Neither is a perfect option. When the app syncs to Strava, it can tell my distance and speed. Using the calculation for my weight, it should be able to get a fairly accurate account of how many calories I've burned. (*Note: as I'm a fair weather rider and I live in Oregon, I have not yet been on my bike in the 2 weeks I've had the UP24).
A quick run down of an activity tracker's abilities. The primary things it tracks is activity, food and sleep. You have to manually enter your food, but it has many choices to pick from, including foods from restaurants. For activity and sleep, it tracks automatically. However, you can put in a workout so the app knows you were doing more than walking and updates your calories burned. What I like about having this app is that I can look at my calories burned vs how much I have eaten and see the difference. As I am in the weight loss phase, I am shooting for a significant deficit.
The thing about the activity trackers is that you can really become obsessed with hitting your goals for the day. I had a busy morning today with few steps and only tend to average about 3,000 steps at work, so I know that I'll be doing some activity when I get home to get to that magic 10,000 steps. If I can't get outside, I walk around the living room, jog in place or do an exercise video. Those bump up the steps pretty well and I feel great at the end of the day having achieved a small, but significant goal.
Sometimes you just need motivation to get up and do activity. Sometimes you just need a reality check to see that you really don't move as much as you think you do. When I bought this, my reason was the latter, but as I started using it, I found that it really gives me that motivation to just MOVE.
If you don't have one and want some easy motivation for keeping track of your healthy habits, GET ONE!
I recently purchased a Jawbone UP24. While my friends have the Nike Fuelband or FitBit, I decided on the Jawbone for 2 reasons. One, it is much cheaper than the other two popular bands (I got mine on Groupon for $62 and they are also on Amazon for between $48 for the UP and $79 for the UP24). The Fuelband and FitBit run for $100 and up. The second reason for getting the Jawbone was because it syncs to my Strava app. If you aren't familiar with Strava, it is a fitness tracker app for cycling, walking and running. I enjoy cycling and want to make sure that activity is tracked accurately. Some cyclists wrap the other bands around their shoe. Some just manually enter the activity and how hard they perceived they went. Neither is a perfect option. When the app syncs to Strava, it can tell my distance and speed. Using the calculation for my weight, it should be able to get a fairly accurate account of how many calories I've burned. (*Note: as I'm a fair weather rider and I live in Oregon, I have not yet been on my bike in the 2 weeks I've had the UP24).
A quick run down of an activity tracker's abilities. The primary things it tracks is activity, food and sleep. You have to manually enter your food, but it has many choices to pick from, including foods from restaurants. For activity and sleep, it tracks automatically. However, you can put in a workout so the app knows you were doing more than walking and updates your calories burned. What I like about having this app is that I can look at my calories burned vs how much I have eaten and see the difference. As I am in the weight loss phase, I am shooting for a significant deficit.
The thing about the activity trackers is that you can really become obsessed with hitting your goals for the day. I had a busy morning today with few steps and only tend to average about 3,000 steps at work, so I know that I'll be doing some activity when I get home to get to that magic 10,000 steps. If I can't get outside, I walk around the living room, jog in place or do an exercise video. Those bump up the steps pretty well and I feel great at the end of the day having achieved a small, but significant goal.
Sometimes you just need motivation to get up and do activity. Sometimes you just need a reality check to see that you really don't move as much as you think you do. When I bought this, my reason was the latter, but as I started using it, I found that it really gives me that motivation to just MOVE.
Friday, February 6, 2015
Dancing for exercise
You don't need to have a gym membership to be able to exercise. You can go for a walk or jog in place for a few minutes. You can go for a bike ride on a sunny day or take your dog to the park.
Or you can DANCE!
You don't have to be a good dancer to get the benefits from it. Just walk into your living room or bedroom, turn up the music and move! Not only is it a fun way to get exercise, but you can also burn a lot of calories. Not much makes me feel better than dancing. I love music and rocking to it is just about the best thing ever.
Haven't danced by yourself? Try it! Once you let go of any fears or insecurities you might have, I guarantee you'll fee great when you're finished.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Habits of Health
What are habits of health?
Those are habits that you can develop in your everyday life to promote optimal health. So many people don't sleep well, have a lot of stress, don't exercise or move enough and don't hydrate well enough. It's so easy to get busy during the day and forget to drink water or stand up from your desk. When you are busy, you can get stressed easily, which leads to lack of sleep and tiredness the next day.
When will it ever end?
What can you do about it?
You can make small commitments everyday.
Commit to:
- Drink at least 64 oz of water each day.
- Stand up and walk around at least once an hour.
- Give yourself 10 minutes each day of closing your eyes and breathing.
- Drink one less pop (soda) per day
- Smile at a stranger...or 10!
- Hug your loved one everyday
- Take the stairs instead of the elevator
- Try to reach 10,000 steps each day
Those don't sound so bad, right? Well, maybe the 10,000 steps sounds like a lot. But once you make that commitment to yourself, you can make it happen. I've had days where I'm only at 2,000 steps by the time I reach work at 2 pm. Do you know what I do when I get home? Walk around my home and march/jog in place. You can do anything if you commit to it.
What happens when you commit to these small tasks? Research shows that it takes 21 days for something to become a habit. How much better could you feel if, every day, you walked , smiled at someone, stayed hydrated, drank less drinks with empty calories and gave yourself time to just breathe?
I can tell you from personal experience that you can feel pretty great. I was one of those people who drank pop all day (and very little plain water), sat on the couch as soon as I got home until it was time for bed and needed a ton of caffeine to make it through an evening shift at work. With Take Shape for Life, I started to change those habits into healthier ones and today I feel amazing! With an exception for an occasional cup of green tea, I haven't had any caffeine for weeks. And what shocks me if that I don't even feel like I need it. I drive by Starbucks without a craving. My skin is also improving from all the water I've been drinking. And my stress level is so far down that hardly anything really bothers me these days.
Are you ready to try it? Why not pick 3 of those things on the list and commit to do them today!
Those are habits that you can develop in your everyday life to promote optimal health. So many people don't sleep well, have a lot of stress, don't exercise or move enough and don't hydrate well enough. It's so easy to get busy during the day and forget to drink water or stand up from your desk. When you are busy, you can get stressed easily, which leads to lack of sleep and tiredness the next day.
When will it ever end?
What can you do about it?
You can make small commitments everyday.
Commit to:
- Drink at least 64 oz of water each day.
- Stand up and walk around at least once an hour.
- Give yourself 10 minutes each day of closing your eyes and breathing.
- Drink one less pop (soda) per day
- Smile at a stranger...or 10!
- Hug your loved one everyday
- Take the stairs instead of the elevator
- Try to reach 10,000 steps each day
Those don't sound so bad, right? Well, maybe the 10,000 steps sounds like a lot. But once you make that commitment to yourself, you can make it happen. I've had days where I'm only at 2,000 steps by the time I reach work at 2 pm. Do you know what I do when I get home? Walk around my home and march/jog in place. You can do anything if you commit to it.
What happens when you commit to these small tasks? Research shows that it takes 21 days for something to become a habit. How much better could you feel if, every day, you walked , smiled at someone, stayed hydrated, drank less drinks with empty calories and gave yourself time to just breathe?
I can tell you from personal experience that you can feel pretty great. I was one of those people who drank pop all day (and very little plain water), sat on the couch as soon as I got home until it was time for bed and needed a ton of caffeine to make it through an evening shift at work. With Take Shape for Life, I started to change those habits into healthier ones and today I feel amazing! With an exception for an occasional cup of green tea, I haven't had any caffeine for weeks. And what shocks me if that I don't even feel like I need it. I drive by Starbucks without a craving. My skin is also improving from all the water I've been drinking. And my stress level is so far down that hardly anything really bothers me these days.
Are you ready to try it? Why not pick 3 of those things on the list and commit to do them today!
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