35 Creative Ways to Burn Fat

I just found this in my Ultimate Body Challenge notes.  The following forms of exercise may seem elementary but adding them to your daily routine could burn the extra calories you need to acheive the body and mental clarity you have been searching for.

1.  Play more with your kids.

2.  Walk your dog, and invite your family and friends to join you.
3.  When sitting at your desk, waiting at a stop light, or even while watching TV, tighten or contract
     your 
 abdominal muscles for 10 seconds and release.  Then repeat.
4.  Prune, weed, and beautify your garden.  You'll improve flexibility in your arms, legs, and back.
5.  Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
6.  Ride your bike.
7.  Find a parking spot that is at least a brisk 5-minute walk to the store you are going to visit.
8.  Dance to your favorite music 20 minutes each day.
9.  Skip a rope.
10. Rake your leaves.
11. Trade in your power mower for a push mower.
12. Wash and wax your car, vigorously!
13. Hit the trail!  Discover local trails or try trails in new communities.  Don't forget your bike, 
running shoes, cross country skis, or hiking boots.
14. Go for a swim at your local pool or in your favorite lake.
15. Grab a racquet and play squash, racquetball, or badminton.
16. Try walking, rollerblading, or biking to work.
17. Join a fitness class.
18. Hit a tennis ball with a friend.
19. Play softball, baseball, or slow pitch.
20. Replace your coffee breaks with walking breaks.

21. Take time to stretch before, during, and after a long sitting period.
22. Purchase a new workout video.  (And do it!)
23. Try a new physical activity: soccer, ultimate frisbee, speed skating, folk dancing, fencing, and many others are available.
24. Put a basketball hoop up in your yard.
25. Try a yoga or tai-chi class.
26. Go bowling.
27. Do sit ups, pushups, stretch, or other exercises at home.
28. Play tag with your kids.
29. Make housework fun!  Dust and vacuum to your favorite tunes and throw in a dance step 
or two along the way!
30. Play hopscotch with your kids.
31. Add a stationary bike or exercise equipment to your home.
32. Go golfing and walk the course.
33. Organize a neighborhood-walking group.  Choose different routes, one for each day of the week, and invite family and friends to join you.
34.  Register for a local 5K walk/run.
35.  DO SOMETHING MORE THAN YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW!


10 things that are affecting your weight loss

Lee and I, Awards Dinner 2011

Dieting is a multi-billion dollar industry. The problem with most diets is that they provide temporary solutions to weight problems. Another ongoing issue is that many diets may require you to drop out of life, while you fulfill the requirements of a strange new, fad diet, that is unrealistic and that you cannot incorporate into your daily life. So, once again you have only a temporary solution. To maintain a healthy weight loss, you absolutely must adopt a healthy nutrition program, improve your metabolism, and rid your body of excess toxins.


Here are 10 things that could be affecting your weight loss success given to me by Lee Causey, founder of FirstFitness Nutrition. 

1. Motivation. If you’re not mentally motivated to look and feel better, with a vision of what you want to accomplish, your weight loss will never happen.  Get some friends and do it together!
2. Stress. Research has proven that stress is the number one cause of not only illness, but also the inability to lose weight.
3. Small Meals. Small meals keep your body’s metabolism moving. It is always much better to eat 4-5 small meals per day than 2 or 3 large meals.
4. Water. Many of us retain a lot of water, and the only way to release the excess water is to drink more water.
5. Fiber. As with drinking lots of water, you must also have plenty of fiber in your diet while on a weight loss program.
6. Candida. This fungus is the villain which is the root cause for many individuals who are unable to lose weight.
7. Cleanse and Detoxify. The importance of cleansing and detoxification to maintain excellent health and weight loss can never be overstated.
8. Fat Burner. As we age, the body’s ability to burn fat is significantly reduced. Adding the right fat burning supplement can make all the difference in your weight loss program.
9. Mustard. Recent research has revealed that mustard can be very powerful as both an anti-inflammatory and also to increase the body’s metabolism.
10. Sweat and Exercise. To get the full benefit from your exercise regimen, it is important to get to the point where you are producing sweat.

Let me help you reach your goals! Register here to receive my 10 Day Ultimate Body Jump Start guide!

Weight Loss S.U.C.C.E.S.S.

Set goals - The first step to weight loss success is setting a clearly defined goal. Notice I said "clearly defined". Simply stating that you want to 'lose weight' is not clearly defined.  How much weight do you want to lose?  Is there a certain size you want to be?  Is there a  certain fitness level you want to reach?  Right these goals down on paper and give them a deadline.  A goal without a deadline is just a wish.  Brian Tracy, world renowned author and speaker, says, "People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine."

Understand WHY- To have success, you must understand your WHY.  Why do you want to lose weight or get fit? Your WHY is your purpose and motivation for action. Like your goals, your WHY should be clearly defined and written down. This will keep you disciplined and focused on your goals.

Connect with others - Find at least one person to help keep you accountable. Whether its a workout buddy, a close friend, co-worker or Facebook friend, you need to partner with someone.  Set a day and time to check in with them.  It doesn't have to be a big deal, just a quick email or phone call.  I am a member of a Facebook group call Living to be Fit.  We weigh in on Mondays and cheer each other on throughout the week.  Don't skip this step, its crucial to your success!

Clean eating - Finally, we talk about diet.  When I say diet, I mean "habitual nourishment" not "eating or drinking sparingly".  Get out of "starvation mode" and focus on eating healthy, whole foods in their natural state.  Your successful diet will consist of fruits, thermic vegetables, lean proteins and complex carbohydrates. Stay away from processed junk foods that come from boxes and drive-thru windows. Learn more about how to eat more and weigh less in my recent post titled "Stop Starving and Start Eating!".  There you'll find a menu guide to help you get started eating cleaner.

Exercise - I lost 22 pounds in a month without ever exercising. You don't have to exercise to lose some weight. However, if you have a clearly defined goal and you want to insure that you reach it by the deadline you have set for yourself, you have to exercise!  Exercise is not a pass to eat anything you want.  Exercise is a tool to dramatically enhance your results! No matter what your fitness level, you can exercise.  Start with walking at least 20-30 minutes each day.  You will find that if you will just get up and get started, eventually, you will crave it.

Sip Water - Water! Water! Water! Our bodies are made up of 70% water. Drinking water keeps your body hydrated and increases your metabolic rate. It also increases our immune system efficiency and prevents clogging of arteries.  Water is the single most important nutrient we can give our bodies. Get yourself a nice water bottle with a straw and sip on it all day long.

Start now - Stop putting it off until Monday or next month or next year! There is never a perfect time. There will always be a birthday party or dinner date or vacation coming up. "Yesterday you said tomorrow". There is no reason to wait! The sooner you get started the sooner you start reaping the rewards! Now, go get a glass of water and right down your goals!

Are you going to start today?  Why not? 

Working out with "the girls"

As my love for running and working out in the gym continues to grow daily, I've started recommending it more and more to my clients and friends.


Talking with a friend today, I realized that working out and running can be a real pain in the BUST for some women!  (And its not just another excuse) 


Now, if you know me, or even if you don't you can look at my pictures and see that I know nothing about being well-endowed.  I hated that I had absolutely no answers to my friend's issue.  So I started doing some research.


Here's what I found:


One thing I found is you have to be careful how you phrase your search string!  YIKES! I also found that there's not much out there in the way of answers.

Sports Bras


They weren't created just for comfort. They were created specifically to keep the bouncing at bay. FitSugar and Skinny Emmie had some great recommendations.  My friend found this video to be specifically helpful:

Thanks Emmie!

FitSugar also recommended wearing a sport top that has a shelf bra attached to it over your sports bra. Often, a sports bra alone won't do the trick for high intensity activities such as running and jumping rope.

Exercise 

1. Cardio:  If running is just too painful, try hiking, biking, or swimming.
2. Core:  Strengthening the core helps support "the girls". Elbow planks and the superman (seen in this video) 3 times a week are a must to strengthen you back for a strong support system.
3. Posture:  Posture is a challenge for a lot of people, but can be especially challenging for women with large chests.  Pilates and Yoga can help lengthen the spine and improve posture.

If you have more tips, please, please share them in the comments below.

Muffin tops, bra bulge, bat wings...

... no more!

This was a fun and fit weekend for me. Friday night Jason and I went for a short run, maybe a mile. Now when I say run, I mean I ran some of the way and walked really fast the rest of the way, alternating between the two. It got dark before we were out of energy, so we finally connected the Wii Fit I got for Christmas.

I spent over an hour on the Wii Fit, while Jason mostly watched and laughed. It was a lot of fun. While my weight and BMI are "ideal", my original Wii Fit age was in the 50's! This goes to prove even more so that being a size 4 doesn't make you fit or in shape!

While it was not as intense of a workout as I might like, I added some exercises from a recent boot camp training we did with the Biggest Loser group and felt like I had a fair workout. We played it with our daughters and grandson on Saturday and it was fun for the whole family!

I ran about 3 miles Saturday with Jason and our youngest daughter, again that's walking and running, out of 40 minutes, I actually ran 14. I have no way to judge whether that's good or bad, but something is always better than nothing, right? Right!

My overall fitness goals are to do the Princess Half Marathon with a group of friends next year at Disney and to have no jiggling parts!

So, back to the title! I found this video this morning and thought I'd share it with you since we are fast approaching swimsuit season! If you look around, you can see that most of us suffer from one if not all of these - muffin tops, bra bulge, bat wings - for me its the bat wings, but they will be gone before long! Take some notes from this video and especially notice that she says 5-10 minutes each morning can make a difference! But remember, exercise is like pretty much everything else in life, you only get out of it what you put into it!!

Laughter is the best ...

...exercise?

Ok, maybe not, but a 2005 study showed that "Ten to 15 minutes of laughter could increase energy expenditure by 10 to 40 calories per day, which could translate into about four pounds a year"!

Jason and I laughed for a solid hour and a half tonight watching Due Date.

I will warn you that there are a couple of crude scenes that I could have done without, but I absolutely recommend it as a date night movie for adults. I might even go as far as to say married adults given the couple of "crude scenes" which I would have been embarrassed to have seen with a man other than my husband.

Don't get me wrong, there was no nudity or anything unless you consider plumber's crack to be more nudity than you can tolerate. Having managed my father's tire shop for a couple of years, I recognize the plumbers crack as an ergonomic issue for mechanics! ;) Anyway I digress!

Laughing with my husband was great "exercise"! What is the last movie you laughed out loud the whole way through?