Blame it on…
- not having enough time
- not having enough money
- your commitments at work
- your housework at home
- your kids
- your spouse or partner
- eating out too much
- being too social
- not being social enough
- not having a gym nearby
- not liking the people at your gym
- not being able to stop eating
- not having enough energy
- not being able to start until you finish X
- not wanting to do it alone
- not wanting to buy a scale
- not wanting to weigh yourself
- not wanting to say no
- not wanting to cook
- Mexico (if you’re George Strait)
All good reasons not to diet, right? Or to not eat right or to not get in shape or to not take care of yourself.
In my case, I used a few of those excuses and tried to blame it on Italy. After 8 years of living here, I started to say:
- “There’s no gym culture here like there is in America.” (true)
- “My gym opens too late for me to get a workout in before work.” (true)
- “I’m too tired when I come home from work to workout.” (true)
- (when my other gym was open early) “It takes too long to get there / I have to take public transportation.” (true)
There were all true, perhaps like one or more the first list of excuses might be true for you. None of these reasons were good enough, however, to run away from the fact that I was my own worst enemy.
Probably the most valid excuse I had was: “It just wasn’t important enough to me.“
Two conferences for Food & Fitness lovers
I’m glad for once I don’t live in the US as I would have had to decide between going to BlogHer Food ’11 and Fitbloggin‘.
The first conference is full of some of my favorite food bloggers and friends, many who are speaking, and the second is run by Roni who I mentioned in this inspiring post, and I would have loved to have met a lot of new people focused on living healthily, too.
Both conferences perfectly fit this site, and true to form, they conflict with each other, on the same weekend. I hope they’ll be on your radar for next year, and I’ll be watching to see round-ups and highlights when they’re available from what I missed!
3 tips for beginning weight lifters
Photo by Jessa9
In my last post about weightlifting helping weight loss, I mentioned I would share some tips for beginning weight lifters.
Here are 3 tips to get you going:
- Isolate
If doing curls (working out your biceps) is hurting your back, you’re probably doing it wrong. Try to keep your back straight (while not doing back exercises) and if standing, with slightly bent knees. Calm the rest of your body and focus on that arm, shoulder, stomach, or butt muscle to do the exercise. If you find other parts of your body moving (your back moving while doing a bench press, your upper arms moving while you do tricep extensions, etc.) stop for a moment and make sure you’re only allowing movement in the muscles that are impacted by the exercise. If you’re using a weight machine, often there will be a diagram with highlighted muscles so you know where you should feel the burn.
- Control
Weight lifting is not meant to like aerobics – bouncing all over and using momentum to keep moving. The more control you have over a movement, the more likely it’s working (and the more you’ll feel it). Sure you can pull up that barbell with a snap if you do it quick enough and use the momentum you’re releasing from the downward movement, but you’re probably using your back muscles to compensate for your arms. Your limbs shouldn’t be locking, either. If you’re finding an exercise too easy, or you suspect you’re going too fast, before adding more weight, try this: slow down. Force yourself to do the same exercise for two counts (up halfway at one count, up all the way at second count) instead of one motion. Force yourself to exert tension in both directions of an exercise so you feel your muscles working on the release, too.
- Breathe
Try to breathe out during the most difficult part of the exercise. Releasing that pent-up breath will help you exert more and focus on the movement, and you can concentrate only on the exercise. And of course, the more oxygen your body has, the easier it can complete the task you’re giving it. Don’t hold your breath.
Weight Training = Weight Loss. An Equation
I’m a big proponent of weight training, especially for women, as opposed to only regular cardiovascular workouts, and definitely over just dieting with no exercise.
When I was in a very regular workout routine in California, I went to Gold’s Gym which was renown for having a lot of “beefcake” big muscly men. And it did. As well as many personal trainers, who at 6am they’re still waiting for their clients to arrive and see you several times a week, will throw some free weight lifting tips your way and even correct your form. And I paid attention to every word.
Weight loss = Building muscle + Eating right
The reason is simple. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn. So that same 30 minute run that previously burned 300 calories, for example, with more muscle mass, now you’ll burn more calories doing the same thing. To build up muscle mass, you can’t do it on cardiovascular activities alone.
You’ll have to lift some weights.
I’ll include some tips for newbies about weight lifting in another post, and break down the belief that women bulk up when lifting (spoiler: they don’t).
Are you including weights in your exercise routine?
Notes to self
One of my favorite “healthy” bloggers, whom I met at BlogHer 2009 in Chicago at a food blogger’s dinner, is Roni Noone. Not only is she a food and health blogger, she’s a geek, too, and has a bunch of different sites (sounds familiar) about tech, eating healthy, and staying healthy.
One of my favorite parts of her Roni’s Weigh site is her “Notes to Self” – those intimate moments when we’re feeling weak, disappointed, tempted, or discouraged about keeping to the healthy path. What are we really thinking? And what could we say to ourselves to keep the fight going?
She lays it out pretty well. I’m sure I’ll be writing some notes to myself as well.
Here’s one of my favorites:
I don’t care how much you ate this weekend. The chocolate, the cookies, the pizza, the fast food, all of it, really, I don’t care. It’s over. It’s done. It’s eaten. There’s no taking it back.
Now you can beat yourself up, get depressed and continue to punish yourself by going down this self pity path OR you can…
GET OVER IT!
Seriously girl.Get on your running clothes. Make those lunches. Pull out something for dinner tomorrow. If half the battle is won with confidence the other half is preparation. You got this.
Read all the Notes to Self on Roni’s Weigh.
Food Blogger on a Diet 