Posts Tagged ‘exercise’

Getting Married? Get the Perfect Body for Your Perfect Day!

This is a guest post by Nick Clipton from Building body muscles. You can find more posts by him on his blog by subscribing to his RSS or by following him on twitter.

You’ve probably imagined your “dream” wedding at least a bazillion times since you were a kid. The dream is becoming a reality as your significant other has asked for your hand in marriage and you proudly said, “Yes!” The planning for the big day has begun; you’ve started working on invitations, you know who you want to be your bridesmaids, and you even know what kind of cake and flowers you want. One glaring task on your to-do list is whipping your body into shape for the big day. You have plenty of the time, the problem you have is that you really aren’t sure how to do it.

Put Goals to Paper

It is important to start off by creating a goal and putting it to paper. By creating a goal, you have a reason to get motivated which will set you up for success. Maybe you’ve had your eye on a certain wedding dress that you’d like to fit into or maybe you want to look as great as you can for your groom to be. Maybe you’ve got a bit of a wild side and bought a wedding dress with a mid-driff so you can show off your tight, sexy abs. If you want to create a new you, it is vital that you put the desire in writing.

Nutrition Is a Lifestyle, Not a Diet

You’ve set your goal and are ready to re-create a “sexy” you for the big day. Nutrition will play an important role in helping you reach that goal. Nutrition should always be looked at as a lifestyle and never a diet. You want to make smart food choices that can make your fitness goals attainable. Eating right doesn’t mean boring. You want to eat tasty foods but the right kinds and the right portions. To keep it simple. you should eat five or six small meals each day. This will keep your metabolism burning efficiently and keep your body properly fueled with nutrients throughout the day. By eating more meals that are smaller in portion, you feel satisfied and will avoid that bloated feeling that comes from over-eating. You’ll also put your body into fat burning mode. The smaller meals should be made up of clean foods and not junk like cookies, donuts and cake. You want to eat lean proteins, good fats and good carbohydrates to attain peak health and get you closer to a great body for your wedding.

Make sure and eat a lean protein and natural carbohydrates with each meal. You should also include a healthy source of fat in a few of the meals. Here are some examples of each:

  • Lean proteins include egg whites, tuna, chicken, lean turkey, low fat dairy, lean beef and protein drinks
  • Natural carbohydrates include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and whole wheat pastas
  • Healthy fats include vegetable oils (soy, olive, and canola), fats from fresh water fish, and nuts,

To help stay motivated, use one day each week as a “free” eating day. On this day, you can take a few meals and eat your favorite foods whether they be ice cream, hamburgers, pizza, or whatever. On the other days of the week, eat cleanly. You’ll find that as you get into this lifestyle, your body will actually crave clean eating.

Exercise is The Other Key to The Equation

Like nutrition, exercise is key in helping you achieve your goal of a knockout body for your wedding. Training with weights and aerobic exercise should be used to help you build a little bit of muscle and help shape your body. By building muscle, you’ll increase your metabolism which will help burn excess fat. Train with weights at least 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for instance). If you’ve never lifted weights, do some research on the Internet or hire a personal trainer to introduce you to some workout routines as well as the equipment in the weight room. The Internet is handy because there will be lots of videos that will show you how to do various exercises and as well as lots of free weight lifting programs geared towards women.

Aerobic exercise will help you burn more calories and help you reach your goal faster. Lengthy cardio sessions aren’t required. You only need thirty minutes of aerobic exercise two or three times a week. Also, aerobic exercise doesn’t have to be a chore, it can be fun activities like swimming, jogging or walking with a friend, spinning, a dance class, or even playing sports.

Stay on Track

You’ll start fast and furious in the beginning. Staying with it is the tricky part. To keep from fizzling out, it is important to plan. Keep a log of your progress on both your eating and workouts. Try to make improvements each time you go to the gym. Try a new exercise that looked too difficult or add a little more weight to some of the exercises. Plan meals that you will eat for the week on your clean eating days. Planning your meals will make it easy to stick to the nutrition part. If you stay on track, you’ll have a wedding day to remember and everyone in attendance will be talking about how great you look.

Work it – Lefties, breakfast and big calves

Happy Wednesday! It’s it crazy that we’re already at mid-week? Holiday weekends really are glorious, aren’t they?

In an effort to keep you all at the top of your game, I’ve scoured the world of fitness and found the following gems for your reading enjoyment:

Lifestyle Intervention Reduces Preschoolers’ Body Fat, Improves Fitness

Are you a leftie? Play baseball? You might be prone to injury — Leftie baseball pitchers more prone to injury

Need some new breakfast ideas to get you out of your morning rut? Look no further. 5 Kick-Start, High-Energy Breakfasts that Build Muscle and Take 5 Minutes to Prepare

We could all use some extra tips — Sneaky Ways to Increase Your Metabolism

Did you eat too many cupcakes this weekemd? Recovering from a Holiday: 6 Tips To Get Back On Track

Why can’t you see your six-pack? Simple but true.

Do you have chicken legs? Lean how to build up your calfs.

To get rid of fat, don’t eat before workout - High adrenaline and low insulin are good fat-burning combo, studies show

Did anyone else stuble across any good fitness news? If so, please share!

P90X – So am I still alive or what?

……. is this thing on?

Sorry I’ve been a bit neglectful of my p90x updates (read week 1, week 2 and week 3).

But I am still chugging along – I promise!

Want the honest truth? (Do I ever give it any other way?)

If you want to do P90X in its entirety without missing or postponing ONE workout, do NOT start it in the spring/summer. I’m sorry, I don’t care what anyone tells me, but when it’s beautiful outside, I’m going to choose to go on a bike ride with my Mister vs. staying inside with the artificial air (AC) to do Plyo. Sorry Tony Horton, but that’s just the way it is. Mental health vs. Physical health. And I’m not going to beat myself up or get all bummed out for skipping a workout in order to EXERCISE outside! That’s just ridiculous.

The point is, I’ve been doing the P90X workouts at least 3-4 days a week. I haven’t missed a single weight training workout. Sure, I moved some days around to accommodate for other activity, but I’m not going to miss out on summer fun to make sure I work out with Tony. (The Mister is cuter, anyway ;) )

What I can tell you is that I’m getting stronger. I’ve upped my reps AND weight. I started off using 7 lb. dumbbells and I now use 10 lb! I’m also rocking the push-ups like nobody’s business and occasionally doing them on my (gasp!) FEET! Major milestone? I make it through every workout without dropping any f-bombs.

After the third week of P90x, new weight training workouts are introduced (after the week 4 rest week). They are tough, but at this point in the game, they’re nothing you can’t handle. And I actually think they *feel* faster than the workouts from weeks 1-3.

Bottom line: I still consider myself an X-er. Like I said, I’m logging in every weight training workout and mostly choosing outdoor activity over the cardio workouts. This is what works for me. It might not work for you, and that’s OK too. To be honest, I would have loved to finish this workout in its entirety. But to me, it’s all about priorities and (yes, shocking!) BALANCE. For some of you, maybe choosing the P90x workout every-day-no-matter-what is worth it. But for me, I’ll choose the walks, hikes and bike rides. Something tells me they’ll make better memories ;)

Are you doing P90X? How are you doing?

Work it – Hip bone connected to the knee bone (literally!)

WOAH! This morning has FLOWN by! Nearly escaped me! But alas, I am here ;)

I have some great links for you guys this week – ENJOY!

Common Knee Pain In Runners Effectively Reduced, Eliminated By Hip Exercises - Have knee pain?! The cure may be in your HIP!

If your body was a company, its well-being would rest solely on your shoulders. You are the CEO, stakeholder, owner, manager and employee. Your initiative (or lack thereof) will bring about the success you want to see or the failure you try so hard to avoid – 6 Ways To Think About Fitness Like an Entrepreneur

Everyone likes studies that prove what they’re doing is good for them! – New Proof That Exercise Pumps Up Your Metabolism

Anyone out there who does rope training? These guys are HARDCORE! Maybe I’ll give it a try after P90X (fourth review coming soon!), but until then, I’ll just continue to watch in awe. Feeling up to it?

I know there’s a lot of controversy over fueling before a workout and working out on an empty stomach! This artcicle states that to get rid of fat, don’t eat before workout.

Do YOU have any news to share?! Please link to it in the comments!

I’m off – I’ll be back later with a review of some of LARABARS’ latest flavors! You won’t want to miss it ;)

Work it – P90X Week 3 and some fitness news!

Happy Wednesday!

I’ve been a bad blogger (cue the boo-ing), as I didn’t give a proper re-cap to P90X- Week 3.

The structure of the week was identical to Week 1 and Week 2. But while it was the same, it was very, very different. At this point, I’m going to tell you that if you can make it past week 3, you have a real shot at completing this thing.

Why, you ask? Because the hype has worn off at this point. The workouts are no longer new and Tony Horton is beginning to grate on your nerves. You think “Would it really make a difference if I just skipped a day of this?”

The answer is yes, yes it would. Not that I would know anything about that. (In all seriousness, I DID NOT take a day off, just strongly considered it ;) )

In my heart of hearts, I believe week 3 was designed to weed out all the people who just aren’t committed, aren’t serious enough. Like the first semester of Law School! Or so I hear…

Week 3 is more of a mental challenge than a physical one. In fact, the workouts are getting easier! And if you are keeping track of your reps and weights, like a good lil P90Xer, you’re probably noticing that you are getting progressively stronger each week. And that, my friends, makes all of this craziness worth it. I promise.

So keep waking up early, keep pressing “play” and keep bringing it. If I can do it, so can you.

Consider this your “pat on the back.” KEEP GOING!

In other fitness news (these are some GREAT reads this week!):

4 Ways To Do More Pull Ups

Working out with your kids

MizFit training: biceps, triceps & shoulders.

How Water Can Affect Body Fat Readings

Top 3 Wii Workout Games

ENJOY!

What is YOUR fitness news? Concentrating on anything new this week? Trying any new workouts?

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