So I have to admit before you read this post (and before I write it, I guess...) that I did not even watch the Academy Awards last weekend. But I'd have to be under an even bigger rock than I already am in order to have missed this whole "right leg debacle" and the ensuing negativity toward Angelina Jolie.
Admit it. You hate warming up. I hate warming up. That guy who runs past your front window every morning at 6:30 a.m. and makes it all look so easy—he hates warming up too.
There are two kinds of warm up in my world:
1. I am chomping at the bit, just want to run as fast as I can and don't have the patience to warm up.
2. I am dragging my ass, muscles & joints are cold, brain is just not into it and I don't want to do any of it, let alone tack on 5-10 minutes to warm up.
You know that old saying Use it or lose it? It’s actually pretty true when it comes to several things: your sex life, your memory, your remote, and your heart. Your heart is made of special smooth muscle tissue and, like the muscles of your arms, legs and torso, your heart can be strengthened by exercise. It can also be weakened by neglect.
A couple of weeks ago, Sweaty Hubby started having some upper back and neck pain. Turns out he has a nerve impingement in his neck, meaning his nerve has unhealthy pressure on a nerve, which is causing pain and numbness in his neck, back and arm. Yikes!
My first reaction: you don't exercise enough, dude. But no man wants to hear that from his wife while he's dealing with a humbling injury. Especially when said wife is a fitness professional and could maybe bench press him.
Hey! You there. How long have you been sitting at that computer? And how many hours have you spent this week running from bed to drop-off to work to pick-up to dinner to housework to computer to bed? Whatever happened to taking time for yourself?
It’s probably true for most mummies that the days of 2-hour gym sessions are behind us. It’s hard enough to squeeze in that old Tae-Bo video your gorgeous cousin gave you now that her kids are off to university and she is not enslaved busy sustaining several human beings.
It's the season of introspection and self-loathing! Happy New Year!
Studies show most of us actually don't make our New Year's Resolutions until after January 1, so I'm here to help with a few practical, healthy suggestions for those who have not yet decided on this year's guilt trip resolutions.
There is a lot about motherhood that really can't be put into words. That newborn smell. The sensation of labour contractions. The realization that you might not use the bathroom by yourself again for 4 or 5 years. It's all sort of a mystery until you've been through it yourself, and all of this mystery starts in pregnancy.
At my hairstylist’s earlier this week, I picked up a copy of US Weekly. I read celebrity magazines about once every 2-3 months... when I visit my hairstylist.
On the cover was a slim and very un-postpartum Mariah Carey, boasting about her 30-pound weight loss in just 3 months and only 6 months after giving birth to twins.
If you’ve ever lost weight (and most of us mommies have!) you know that finding the balance to keep that new, leaner weight is like starring in your own private Indiana Jones sequel, full of all the running, jumping, heavy lifting, sweating, and panic of the original. In fact, current research shows that the average person must exercise vigorously for one hour each day to maintain a healthy weight. This is especially important if you’ve lost weight and want to keep it off.
I get all kinds of questions from clients, Belly Bootcampers and readers, but my favourite questions of all are from my family and friends. I’ve learned from experience that no one wants the personal trainer in the family to “suggest” diet and exercise improvements they might make... So, when a relative or friend asks my advice I’m always stoked.
This might sound a little funny coming from someone who puts fitness information out into the world but there is just too much freaking fitness information out in the world. My clients are constantly baffled by the differing opinions and conflicting studies they hear about, usually in the form of a 50-word blurb that is, at best, watered down and sometimes even misleading.
Last week I posted a 15-minute morning workout designed to tone the entire body and best done before breakfast, to rev your fat burning system and help you work up an appetite! I received some great responses and I'm so stoked, as always, to imagine you Yummy Mummies using my workout suggestions to get yourselves active & fit!
One comment I received sounded an awful lot like the comments I get from some of our mommies in Belly Bootcamp postnatal fitness classes.
My eldest, Sweaty Kid, is off to Junior Kindergarten (yikes!) this fall. I am finally joining the ranks of parents who must juggle the before-school/workday/after-school balance. Though my job helps me to keep fit, I look around me and see mommies going back to work, kids heading back to school, extracurricular schedules about to be formed and... horror of horrors...
A lot of people seem to be under the misconception that you need to have an enormous variety of equipment to exercise at home. This is simply not true. There are a few great tools you can purchase, inexpensively, to equip your “home gym” without having to take out a second mortgage... and without compromising your workout!
Even trainers fall off the wagon... I haven't exactly fallen off the "fitness wagon" - I don't think I've gone more than 2 days without a workout in months. But I have fallen off the "happy wagon"... and the "diet wagon"... not to mention the "sobriety wagon"...
There has been a lot of crying, wine and potato chips in my life for the last couple of weeks.
These are all moves I really use with my Fit Family personal training clients and in our fantastic Belly Bootcamp prenatal and postnatal classes. The Get Sweaty! Moves are all simple and effective, and they're perfect for exercising at home, or at your gym... or even your local park. Spread the sweaty and try this move!
you have to clean up after you bake
