April 26, 2024

Make Fitness Opportunities

Get Fit Quick Tip:

Make fitness opportunities!

You may not have the time or finances to join a gym, but that shouldn’t stop your workouts. Look around you to create fitness opportunities in your everyday environment. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

 

Make an obstacle course out of the playground equipment at your local school.

Use the picnic tables at your neighborhood park for pushups and planks.

Use the track at the high school for a cardio sprint-interval workout.

Use a flight of stairs to log a stair-climbing workout.

 

 

 

Want to start running?

Get Fit Quick Tip:

Walk/Run Intervals!

Want to start running, but don’t know where or how to begin? Walk/run intervals make the transition manageable. A common mistake is doing too much too soon. Here’s how to progress gradually reducing risk of injury and burnout:

Once you have a regular walking program 3 days a week, begin with 10 second intervals in the middle of your workout. Warm up for 8-10 minutes, perform a series of 10 second jogging or running intervals followed by 30 second or more walking intervals. Conclude your workout with a 5-10 minute cool down. Gradually, add seconds and then minutes to your jogging/running intervals and decrease your walking intervals.

 

*Consult your physician before performing exercise.

 

FUN workout= Consistent Workout= Results!

Get Fit Quick Tip:

FUN is important!

And don’t forget to have FUN with your workout! YES, FUN! A fun workout means you’ll be consistent. Consistent workouts lead to results. Here’s how to add in the FUN:

1. Make it social. Invite friends and family!

2. Set up an obstacle course. Meet at your local playground and make up an obstacle course as you go along.

3. Forget structure! Move, jump, run, hop- get your heart rate up for 20 minutes.

4. Play a game. Kickball works well. So does softball, volleyball or soccer.

5. Revisit childhood. Remember freeze tag? Remember hide and seek? Remember musical chairs? GO!

6. Add props. Jump rope, hula hoop, beach ball all make for a great workout addition!

 

Get Visual with Your Fitness by Melissa Kahn

With the new year well under way, it’s normal to struggle to keep up with your resolutions right about now. It’s hard to establish new habits in just a few weeks’ time, so don’t be discouraged. Sometimes, a little help is all you need to keep going. If you find yourself lagging on your goals, consider creating a Vision Board for motivation. Writing it down is a great first step, but actively visualizing your goals every day might be just the boost you need. Here’s how:

1) Fill your Vision Board with vibrant visual expressions: You might want to keep your board small (letter size paper) or go poster size, depending on the size and number of the images you’ve chosen. Cut out photos and phrases that represent your heart’s desire, and feel free to include physical, professional, spiritual, financial, and relationship goals. The more dynamic and exciting to you, the more inspired you’ll feel every day!

2) Keep your Vision Board in a central place: Whether that’s in your office space or framed on top of your nightstand, it’s best to display your Board where you will see it daily. The thoughts you see repeatedly are the ones that will slowly creep into your subconscious mind, and will help you regain focus on the goals that you are intent on reaching. For additional inspiration, add dates for your goals to drive you faster and harder!

3) Actively visualize yourself reaching your goals: Starting a Vision Board is a great time to put your mediation skills to good use. Take 10 minutes out of your day every day to imagine the specific feelings you want to experience when you reach your goals. Picture your success in your mind, including every detail: what you’ll be eating, drinking, the perfume and clothes you’ll wear, and even the sounds you might hear when you know you’ve “made” it. Scientific research shows that the more deeply you connect to your goals on an emotional level, the more likely they are to come to life.

Once you have clear goals, set to visual tangible results, success is much more likely. Don’t let new habits scare you off this year: Get back in the game and make a visual and emotional commitment to living your best life.


Melissa Kahn is a Jenny Craig ambassador and the proud founder of Run, Heifer, Run! —a fun-loving community of fitness enthusiasts dedicated to common sense solutions for weight loss and healthy living. Melissa competes in triathlons now, having lost over 100 pounds, or the equivalent of 45 kilos of fear. She has maintained her healthy weight for more than five years.

Become A Beginner!

Get Fit Quick Tip:

Become A Beginner With Your Fitness!

A great method to increase motivation and maintain interest in your fitness is to learn a new sport or skill. Be vulnerable and put yourself out there as a beginner. What activity would you love to try? Here’s how to get started:

To get ideas ask your friends what workout or sport they enjoy?

Do an online search to see what gear and knowledge is involved, as well as where the sport is offered in your community.

Poll your friends for their impressions about the facilities and instructors your internet search revealed. Still sound interesting?

Sign up! Better yet, invite a friend to join you!

 

Build Momentum To Healthy

Get Fit Quick Tip:

Build momentum to healthy and fit!

Building momentum to healthy and fit takes daily action. Healthy choices are cumulative, and every little bit counts! Here’s how to get started:

1. Commit to your goal every single day. Adopt a mantra to repeat your desired result, along with WHY the goal is important to reach NOW.

2. Take one action every day. One action could be drinking your water, choosing a healthy meal, buying nutritious groceries, reading a fitness journal or blog, taking a stretch break at work, trying a new workout class, inspiring a friend to choose healthy, researching a new exercise, and so on.

3. Small and steady progress usually works best for lasting results. Don’t over do it! You didn’t become out of shape overnight, and you won’t get back in shape overnight. Keep action steps small, but sustainable. You don’t have to eliminate all sugar in one day, but are you able to reduce sugar by one serving to start? Healthy choices are cumulative, and so is fitness.

4. Don’t give up! Setbacks happen. Taking one daily action step means you’re never off track completely. Keep going!

Ready to Get Healthy? By Sarah Pace

Ready to get healthy? With a new year comes new resolve to improve ourselves in so many ways, including our health. My advice this time of year is to be consistent with the basics:

Don’t worry so much about what exercises to do and in what order you should do them; just show up.  Set a goal to show up 2 times each week for the first month, then 3 times each week in February. Can’t make it to the gym? No problem: get outside for a walk or take the stairs all day-all intentional activity counts!

Pack your gym clothes, shoes and water bottle the night before to avoid rushing around the next morning. You’ll develop a routine and soon it will become part of your ‘out the door’ mental checklist: do I have my gym bag? Water bottle? Check!

Bring a piece of fruit with you everywhere you go. Having something on hand will prevent impulse eating decisions. Ask yourself ‘am I hungry enough to eat this apple?’ And if the answer is no, you’re probably not actually hungry.

Mark your progress in a calendar or another physical and visible space to hold yourself accountable. When you can see that you made it to the gym 4 weeks in a row, you’ll want to make sure you continue in the 5th and 6th weeks, and even beyond!

 
For more fitness tips follow Sarah on Twitter: @SarahPace_Fit

Quality Fitness Time

Get Fit Quick Tip:

Quality Fitness Time

Getting in your workout is not a luxury, it is a necessity.  Quality fitness time is essential for all aspects of health. Whether a 10 minute walk or a 90 minute power class, your body AND your mind will thank you. Here’s how to insure quality fitness time:

Rotate workout focus. Choose a different focus for each workout to maintain mental interest.

Not all exercise has to be structured to count. Choose to live active during each day.

Choose a skill-set to master. Take up a new sport or a new mode of exercise. There is motivation in learning something new.

 

 

 

 

Share Your Love of Fitness!

Get Fit Quick Tip:
Share your love of fitness!

Sharing your love of fitness with others is easy- simply invite a friend or family member to join you! You never know who will be inspired. Many who wish to begin an exercise program are unsure how to begin. A buddy workout is a great first step! At the very least, those close to you will see how much you love fitness and be happy to see how you spend your free time. Here’s how to make it a positive uplifting experience for all:

Keep it user-friendly. This is not the workout to shoot for your pull-up PR or your sprint interval personal best on the community track. Keep the intensity low, duration to 20-30 minutes and workout mode easy as far as coordinate/agility required.

Keep it interactive. Chat it up, take water breaks, focus on having fun.

Keep it to a small group. A large group or the most popular fitness class at the gym may be intimidating to a new exerciser. Choose off-peak times and classes, or times when the trail is not packed with runners.

 

Fitness Goals: It’s not too soon…

Get Fit Quick Tip:

Prepare and plan your 2017 fitness goals now!

It’s not too early or too soon to prepare for your 2017 fitness goals. Here’s how to get started:

Write freely for 5 minutes. Grab a pen and paper or your keyboard and write whatever health and fitness-related thoughts that come to your mind. The purpose is to keep writing to brainstorm. An important goal may not be at the forefront of your mind and may take some digging.

Pick your top 3 ideas to focus on immediately. Which of the topics you wrote down are the most interesting and inspiring to you? Which scares you the most? Which makes you the most nervous? Choose those topics!

Gather information to establish a starting point. Commit to take one action step each day, beginning TODAY! Make a phone call, do a google search, talk to your friends, ask around.

START! Go.