But not too busy that I can’t share a few fitness finds from this week – enjoy!

Looking to move? Be sure to check the top 10 healthiest cities for women — find out if yours made the cut!

Are you a new mom like me? Check out these fantastic workouts – just for us!

Want to train like the Celebs? Katie Holmes’ Spinning Instructor shares three tips

And because it’s the Holidays:

How To Avoid Holiday Weight Gain and How to Get Back On Track After an Indulgent Long Weekend

(source) 

Did you read anything interesting that I missed?! Please share!

Walking to the photocopier and fidgeting at your desk are contributing more to your cardiorespiratory fitness than you might think. Read how you can Fidget Your Way to Fitness (For more info, read my post on NEAT!)

Do you have a desk job? Prolonged Sitting Increases Risk Of Blood Clots In Lungs Of Inactive Women. (Read my posts on how to be active when you have a desk job: Fitting in Fitness and How to Exercise at Your Desk)

The gym isn’t always necessary! Take advantage of the beautiful outdoors this summer. Start by reading this post about how Activity is the Key — Not Exercise. Need a few ideas to get started? Try exploring your local hiking trails and parks!

Do you complete most of your workouts at home? Do you have the 3 best at-home tools? Find out.

(source)

What else did you read this week? Please share any informative links in the comments!

After a whirlwind day of being in and out of meetings, I’m finally relaxing with the Mister where I belong — on my spot on the couch, of course There may or may not be popcorn involved.

Anyway, as always, I pulled a few articles I thought many of you would find interesting.

The first of which, I found quite alarming — according to a recent study, Marathons Damage The Hearts Of Less Fit Runners For Up To 3 Months.

With so many of my favorite bloggers (and friends!) working towards that coveted 26.2 car sticker (I kid, I kid!), I know this information is worth sharing. The published research found that the magnitude of abnormal heart segments are more widespread and significant in a group of less fit runners. “During the marathon, they had signs the heart might be at greater risk of damage than that of runners who had better training or at least had better exercise capacity.”

“Without proper training, marathon running can damage your heart. Fortunately the exercise-induced injury is reversible over time,” said the leading Doctor behind the research. “But it could take up to three months to completely recover.”

They studied the effects using MRI measurements, which propel research beyond the traditional stethoscope as a means of estimating and measuring heart function.

Check out the article to learn a bit more about the study’s findings.

In other running news — how many of you have tried running underwater?! Turns out it’s gaining momentum with trainers and physical therapists as an incredibly effective form of exercise. Water workouts build cardio endurance faster than land workouts. “When a body is submerged in cool water, the blood moves faster to warm it up. Combined with aerobic activity, this builds cardiovascular strength.”

I’m the first to admit that I DO NOT take advantage of the pools available to me at my gym — it just seems like such a hassle with having to bring a change of clothes, etc, but now that I type it, it’s just LAZY! I really need to just bite the bullet and get on it — how many of you utilize the pool in your workouts?

What news did all of you find this week in the world of fitness? Please share!

Can you believe it’s only WEDNESDAY?! Argh! At least I spiced things up a bit last night with TACO TUESDAY – I made the Mister and I a yummy, healthy taco bake – I can’t wait to share the recipe with you guys, it’s a winner!

In the meantime, I’ve pulled some of my favorite fitness reads from this week — enjoy!

5 Signs That You Are Overtraining

Working Out In Maintenance Mode

What Causes Cramps and How Can You Fix Them?

Props to my favorite beverage! —-> Milk does a body good, especially athletes

Alright peeps, I’m off – lots to get through today, but I’ll be back later!

Have a wonderful Humpday!

XO

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.

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?

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?

I’m so glad that so many of you enjoyed and appreciated my honest review! But I realized (actually, the Mister kindly pointed out) that I didn’t really tell you much about the actual workouts/DVDs. Well excuuuuuuuuse me. He’s right, though. There I go again trying to make it all about ME and my opinions

Top 5 things you should know before starting P90X

1.) It’s OK if you can’t keep up. These people on the television screen are experts at this workout! believe it or not, they’ve done it before. It’s OK if you are a little slower or need to take breaks.

2.) You’ll need resistance bands or a pull-up bar and hand weights. This is not optional. Not having these items simply will not give you the same workout (or results!) – in fact, you won’t be able to complete many of the exercises on the resistance exercise days (M/W/F), so invest in one or the other. The Mister and I bought a pull up bar that we hang over the door. It was relatively inexpensive. I hate it. Mainly because I can’t do a pull-up. I swear, I hear it laughing at me. It’s OK though because one day I’m going to dominate it. Until then, I use a chair for assistance. You can use the resistance bands as a substitute for both the pull-up bar (you’ll need a door kit for the bands, or a bar on the ceiling) and the hand weights.

p.s you also need a mat (I suppose the mat is optional if your arms and spine are made of steel – read: NOT OPTIONAL).

3.) Make sure you have some good recipes for an awesome recovery smoothie – you’ll thank me later!

4.) DO NOT try and save time by skip the cool down or stretching on the DVD. Classic rookie mistake. Not that I would know anything about this…

5.) Keep at it! It’s easy to get discouraged, but I promise you’ll start to see progress. Even though you might not SEE progress in your body right away, you’ll notice you are able to lift more wight, do more reps. etc. This brings me to my next point of: WRITE IT DOWN! Make sure you write down your weight/reps so you can see (on paper!) all your progress. Sometimes it’s all you need to keep going.

I can’t believe the Mister and I are already on week 3. This thing will be over before we know it! At least that’s the delusion I’m telling myself

Anything else you guys are curious about? I’ll be sure to include it in my Week 3 recap!

This makes me both sad

and ANGRY!

I’m know I’m not alone in this predicament. I know several of you have other things going on — i.e. work, kids, school — that infringe on your workout time. I’m here to help!

What should you do if you can’t make it to the gym?

1.) EAT CLEAN — Diet is 80% of the way you you look. If you can’t get your body moving, make sure you decrease your calories a bit and keep things clean with fruits, nuts, veggies and lean protein.

2.) Take the stairs! I’m on the third floor in my office. While others take the elevator for lunch breaks and to get to other meetings, I take the stairs. Every little bit helps!

3.) Save some time with Exercise TV or a workout DVD (like 30 day shred or Physique 57)

4.) Two birds. One stone. Need to study? Incorporate it into your workout! For example: If you are trying to learn definitions (like me!), create a workout challenge. For every word you don’t get correct, you have to do 10 sit-ups while reciting the definition. If you get it wrong AGAIN you have to do 10 push-ups — I guarantee you’ll start remembering!

Need more help? Read:

How to fit in fitness on any schedule

Fitting in Fitness (even at work!)

Get NEAT! 

How do you change things up when you can’t make it to the gym? What adjustments do you make? Please share your words of wisdom!

Like most things, burnout happens in stages, so it’s important to recognize the signs along the way.

STAGE ONE: CLOUD NINE

Classic sign: you want to look good in that swimsuit you just bought, so you never miss a workout.

Banish burnout: Less can actually be more. See, burnout happens when you expect too much too soon. Balance your excitement with the big picture! Even with the smartest, most effective workout program, you still can’t force your body to become stronger or slimmer any faster than it physiologically can. So start small. It’s better to do too little in the beginning than too much — the last thing you want to do is mess with your limits and push your ability to recover mentally or physically.

STAGE TWO: IMPATIENCE (aka REALITY CHECK)

Classic sign: Do you get easily discouraged when you don’t see results right away? Do you stop looking forward to gym time and start skipping workouts? DON’T.

Banish burnout: Set mini goals. The main reason people stop an exercise program is that they feel so far from their high-set goals! Try setting short-term goals that focus on the process (like time spent exercising) are more likely to boost your confidence and keep you on track than long-term outcome goals (say, total number of pounds lost).

STAGE THREE: EXCUSES

Classic sign: With boredom and apathy setting in, you’ll use almost anything — work, family, stress, the weather — as an excuse to skip exercise.

Banish Burnout: Change it up! Use a different piece of cardio equipment or work out in a different part of the gym. Sick of the gym? Take it outside! Icky weather? Fitness DVDs! Always give your body something new so that it never has a chance to adapt.

STAGE FOUR: SURRENDER

Classic sign: You are already saying “there’s always next year”

Banish Burnout: Put away that white flag! do NOT surrender! Remind yourself of the reasons you started this routine in the first place. Re-commit and make a schedule. Stick to it for at least five weeks (the KEY time-frame to get habits to stick!). Try making a date — with a trainer, your guy, or your best friend. You’re more likely to stay on track when someone is holding you accountable.

Now that you know the stages, they’ll be easier to avoid — hang in there, you can do it!

hang in there!

How do YOU prevent burnout?

In the news: yet another reason why you need to take it easy every once in awhile — Too much exercise can lead to overuse injuries