Achieve a Lifestyle, Not a Number

Happy 2019! New year, new you, right? Great! If that’s what you want. But how are you framing it? Are you saying you want to lose x number of pounds or BMI? Are you saying you want to fit into size x? That’s all well and good, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the right way to look at it. You should never attribute your value to a number. Never ever. I love the body positivity movement that has been gaining following, but it still has a long, long way to go.

Instead of just trying to achieve a weight loss goal of thirty pounds (or whatever), why not make a resolution to change your lifestyle? I’m not saying you can’t touch a slice of pizza or bowl of ice cream again. I’m saying shifting a few things in your day-to-day life that could make a bigger impact than you might first think. I’m not going to give a direct list of what you need to do because everyone will need a different plan of action, but let me give some overall advice.

Mar262018

5 Tips to Living a Healthier Lifestyle in 2018

Having a healthy and good lifestyle is not just about eating good food and treating yourself to holidays in Hawaii. There is a lot more you can do to make sure your 2018 lifestyle is healthy.

Have a positive mindset about working out

It is so easy to begin going to the gym today and to quit after a week or two. With constant mental roadblocks about working out, it is quite easy to develop negative energy towards it. The trick is to shift your mindset about working out and think of it as a need instead of a want. It is easy to manipulate your body through how you think because the two are linked. Be realistic about your workout goals and stick to them in order to achieve t

Treat yourself to the chiropractor!

hem in the long run. Study your body, and find out how to satisfy its needs in terms of health and fitness, for instance, if you have back problems which may affect your workout routines, get access of the Richmond chiropractic services. Also, go for regular body checkups to ensure you are in good shape.

Jan162018

No-Bake Sticky Protein Bars

How are everyone’s goals progressing? Are we still working hard? Even if you slip up every now and then, don’t let go of the dream! You’re going to mess up, it happens, it’s better to accept that than be blindsided down the road. However, you need to set yourself up for success as much as possible. That means providing yourself with good snacks and good workouts. In this post, I shared some recipe and workout ideas. Go check them out!

It’s important to get enough protein as you’re chasing goals, whether they be losing weight or gaining muscle. I just discovered this super easy no-bake protein bar recipe from Bodybuilding.com. Yep, that’s right–no baking involved. I changed the recipe somewhat to fit my own needs as you’ll see below. These no-bake protein bars are delicious and I accidentally ate three yesterday (whoops). And yeah, there is no baking involved so this recipe takes as long as it takes you to mix all this things together. You can use any protein powder you want and I used Red Velvet protein powder which is why it’s all red!

Jan032018

Easy Recipes and Workouts for a Healthy New Year

Happy New Year! This is the time to set the tone for the year--to make smart goals, decide on an intention, and kick things off on the right foot. Of course, this isn’t the only time of year to set yourself straight, but it’s a great opportunity. However, this time of year can be daunting–there’s all this pressure on becoming the “new you” and that’s not exactly a straightforward laid-out plan. There could be a thousand possibilities of what to do for fitness or what eating style to go for.

Let us help you in a small way. We’ve gathered five easy healthy (and delicious) recipes as well as five workouts you can do from the comforts of your home. Not sure what gym to subscribe to? No problem. Start with these home workouts first and then go from there. The recipes listed below range from snacks to meals and are all very simple (it’s rare to find a complicated recipe on our blog–I don’t have the patience for it).

Jan072016

Show the “New You” Haters Who’s Boss

It’s the New Year! It’s the time where people set resolutions, realign their goals, and set out on this adventure of a life. Goals may be lofty, they may be lowly, but they are still made nonetheless. With the new year, comes a lot of “New You”s, but also alongside that, “New You” haters or shamers. There are those who publicly refuse to change themselves upon the New Year, which is fine, but they shouldn’t shame others when they chose to set new goals. Each and every person should be able to start the new year without any negativity and choose to set what path they desire.

Jan042016

Our New Years Week in Pictures

There was lots of sleeping in and cuddles

Jan112013

Drop and Give Me Ten: How to Do a Proper Push-up

Usually when non-fitness people (whatever that means) hear the word “push-up,” they cringe in fear and run away. So stop! Don’t run! The push-up is a wonderful exercise for strengthening your body and you can literally do it almost everywhere. You don’t need any fancy equipment or gym, you don’t even need a proper ground–you could do it in the mud, if you preferred.

However, when people bravely attempt the push-up, their form is often wrong. Not only will this not give you the proper exercise, you can injure yourself if not positioned properly. So let’s get through this and do it the right way. There are various forms of the push-up, but I’m showing you the basic push-up.

Alright, find yourself an area on the ground where you have room to fully extend. Start on your hands and knees and face the floor. Extend your legs, your toes/top of the foot should be the floor. Now, have your hands shoulder-width apart (or a little bit wider). It’s a good thing to stack your shoulders right above your elbows and wrists. This ensures joint and bone stability, so that nothing simply gives out. So now you’re in the starting position!

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I can’t describe how extremely important it is to have your body rigid like a plank. I don’t want to see your hips drooping or raising above the rest of your body. It should be a direct line–think graphs. If it’s not, you’re doing it wrong and if you continue to do so, it’s going to throw your body out of whack.

Now it’s time to try the actual exercise of lowering yourself as close to the ground as possible. Keep your elbows in as you slowly, keeping the hips in line with the body, lower yourself to the ground (without actually hitting it). Check your form out–is your body a straight line still? What about your neck? So often, people think they’re doing the push-up properly, and you see their neck drooping. Just because your neck can hit near the ground, doesn’t mean you’re doing it properly. So as your whole body is coming down, make sure your neck and head stay aligned with your body. It’s extremely important for the exercise and the health of your body.

Line art drawing of push up. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now the tough part is coming back up. Keeping your form pristine (see above), use your chest muscles to push yourself up to starting position. This means your head and hips are still aligned with your torso and legs. And there you go. Congrats. Do 4 sets of as many as you can do. It will be extremely difficult at first, but the more you do them, the stronger your chest and arms will get. And ladies, I want to see you doing these too! It’s important to build our upper body. I do them, so can you.

Deutsch: Liegestützender Mann in gelben Shorts. Animiert. Verzögerung 0,2 s (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now there is a variation of the push-up for those who need it:

Knee push-ups. These are for those who are too weak and need more practice for the regular push-up. On this one, instead of resting on your toes, rest on your knees. Even though you are on your knees and hands, you still need to extend your body so that it is like a straight line and you are bring your torso down, not just your head or your shoulders.

Keep it up and work on those pecs! You will get to the regular push-up, and once you do, keep good form and get strong! Hey, maybe even make it a Resolution to get to a certain # by each month. Good luck!

Cheers!

Jan012013

How to Make New Years Resolutions that Actually Work

We all know the typical story…we make a nice neat pile of resolutions and then a month later, it’s as if we never made them. It’s okay, it happens to many of us. The key isn’t about persistence (though that is certainly helpful), it’s about creating the right goals. Please don’t say, “I want to lose 60 pounds in a month!” Not going to happen without drugs, crash diets, or other very bad things.

Let’s make SMART resolutions: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely! Yes, this is coming from a personal trainer, how could you tell. So let’s say you want to lose 15 pounds. But specifically, how are you going to do it? Specific terms would be…workout every week, add more servings of vegetables and fruit a day, drinking more cups of water a day, and hiring a personal trainer. That is how you will specifically lose that weight. And why do you want to lose that weight? Let’s say to increase daily energy, increase confidence, and decrease hypertension.

Moving onto measurable goals…this is where we provide a number to all those ways we are going to achieve those goals. Let’s add the frequency of workouts…4 times a week, both cardio and strength training. And we will add 3 more servings of fruits and vegetables each day. And finally, we will drink 3 more cups of water a day. Remember, don’t start crazy big, we want to start in baby steps so we can actually achieve them.

Exercise!

Next is attainable…this we have already set forth. Look up, does that seem attainable? Losing 15 pounds? Sure does, because we’ve laid out a plan before us. Then we move onto the relevant step: here we want to ensure that our minor goals and rules make sense with our bigger resolution of losing weight. For example, to stop drinking soda when you already don’t drink soda is not very useful. Instead, think about those weaknesses. Let’s make another limit, only one oreo per week instead of one per day. You still get your fix but it is significantly diminished.

And now, timely! You want to lose 15 pounds in 3 months. That is 5 pounds per month, an extremely attainable goal. So let’s put it all together.

By March 1st, you will lose 15 pounds, by losing 5 pounds a month in order to increase daily energy, confidence, and decrease hypertension. You are going to do this by strength and cardio training 4 times a week, increasing your fruit and vegetable serving intake by 3 a day, adding 3 cups of water a day, and hiring a personal trainer. You are also going to limit yourself to one oreo per week.

So there’s just an example of one resolution. Make a whole list of them! Make sure you know how you are going to achieve them and that there are baby steps for you to follow. You can add more limitations of course, like fast food only twice a month. You can also add more ways you will achieve the goal such as walk the dog twice a day for x amount of miles. And keep track of everything! Weigh yourself, measure your fat percentage, however you would like to.