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Archive for the 'motivation' Category
Want to find out how to stay in shape in as little time as possible during this busy season? Need to learn how to exercise efficiently? Read Helen’s LA’s the Place December fitness column find out how. If you have any ideas you’d like to share, please comment.
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The 5 Easiest Ways to Stay Fit Over the Holidays
(Written for and originally published on LA’s the Place. Read full article here: LA’s the Place.com)
The Holidays are busy times. Shopping for gifts, attending parties, and traveling to visit family often take priority over your own needs. With chestnuts roasting on an open fire and the smell of baked goods in the air, it’s easy to overlook the simple fact that skimping on exercise now will extract a hefty toll in the new year.
Continue reading ‘Easy Tips to Keep Exercising Over the Holidays’
By Alana Clarke
Guest Poster
The smell of the turkey fills the air. Mixed with the hints of warm apples and cinnamon, even the most stringent fitness guru is bound to have a watering palate. So how does one fight off the urge to throw away weeks, and sometimes months, of healthy eating for a few days of family, fun, and Holiday feasting? Here are a few Holiday “helpers” to guide you through these festive times without the extra “winter coat:”
- DO NOT skip breakfast or lunch in anticipation of the meal ahead. Our culture tends to “groom” us to save the best for last, but this can severely alter our bodies’ natural biochemistry. When you don’t eat, your metabolism is quick to go into “starvation mode” by slowing down drastically to prepare your body for a lengthy fasting period. So when you starve and then suddenly “fill up,” those calories will be less likely to be expended and more likely to be preserved (i.e. stored as fat) to safeguard future “fasting” periods. Ouch!
Continue reading ‘Holiday Eating Tips to Save the Season’
I just read a forum post with that title. The poster talks about being fat, how disgusted she is with her weight, and gives people her diet plan for “tomorrow.”
Will she make it?
Probably not. Because planning to lose weight tomorrow doesn’t ensure success - it ensures failure. Waiting for tomorrow is how I gained almost 90 pounds. Because every day I waited for tomorrow gave me a whole extra day to eat whatever I wanted…license to eat everything that was not nailed down. Eat, eat, eat, gorge, gorge, gorge. Because tomorrow - that magical tomorrow - I would start my diet. Finally be thin. The following day, when I “blew it” and hated myself bitterly, I would plan to start the next tomorrow. And so on. Day after day. Year after year. Pound after pound. Tomorrow after tomorrow.
How did I finally change? How did I finally succeed? By starting today. This minute. This meal. NOW. Not tomorrow. It was difficult. I would rather have waited for yet another tomorrow, one full of empty promises to myself. But the tomorrows had never materialized, so I forced my tomorrow to start today. Finally took control of my own life - and succeeded.
When will your tomorrow start?
(written for lastheplace.com)
The holidays. They are here, once again. Endless days of parties, pastries, shopping and stress. Everywhere you look and everywhere you go temptation abounds. Clients bring edible gifts, friends deliver baked goods. The office holiday party overflows with food and drink.
With enticement everywhere, what do you do? Give in and pay the price in January? Or sacrifice now and start the new year without a brand-new muffin top? To make it easier on you, here’s a guide to enjoying yourself sensibly.
(continue reading at LA’s the Place)
(written for Mad Dogg Athletics)
I cried that day—all the way up the side of the mountain.
I walked, pushed my bike, stopped and cried some more. Yet, I continued to press onward. It was a sight: a small, tough and usually cheerful Spinning® instructor now sobbing her way up 12 miles of mountain.
When I finally reached the top, my fellow Spinning instructors (the “real” cyclists who rode with me that day) swore they would never tell a soul of my miserable trek. But I decided to share with my students how I had cracked, to show that there was an actual human being behind the Spinning machine I had become.
(Continue reading at spinning.com)
(written for Suite101.com)
Weight loss is a challenge. But here are a few simple tricks that will help you on your road to weight loss success. They are simple, free and most of all - painless.
(continue reading at Suite101.com)
(written for One More Set - a health and fitness blog)
Yes, that’s correct. You actually heard a woman say that she loves her thighs.
My thighs are not particularly attractive: They are neither long nor thin nor tan. In fact, they are kind of short, bulky and pale. So why do I love them?
(by Helen Ryan. Written for LA’s the Place)
Most things I know about life I learned in Spin class.
It’s true.
The stationary bike has been my teacher, and I have spent hundreds of hours learning from it.
Four years ago when I saw my first Spin bike it seemed like…just a bike. Made of cold metal with an unwelcoming seat, it did not look very comfortable. I felt physically awkward: I was very overweight and out of shape in a room full of really fit people. I wanted to leave, to run as fast and far as I could, but did not want to be seen as chickening out.
The first half hour was hell. My behind was numb, my legs were shaky and my heart was pounding. But then I felt something inside. A little spark that ignited a part of me…a part I thought was long gone. That spark re-ignited my pilot light and eventually changed - and saved - my life.
Continue reading at LA’s the Place…
How do you stay motivated to exercise? How do you get out and run when you don’t want to? What makes you get on your bike when you are tired? Share your tips and thoughts.
Air under my feet. Levitating. Higher. Higher still. Faster. Sweat pouring. The sound of my own raspy breath filling my ears. Heart pounding, thighs screaming. Tears welling up in my eyes, easily mistaken for sweat. Not tears of pain. Or agony. Or defeat. But joy. Joy tinged with sadness.
At my “a-ha moment.” The moment I realized who I had become – who I had changed myself back into – how hard I had worked – and what I had lost in the process. I was now someone strong and capable, physically and mentally fit. I was there, in the moment, with 200 other fitness professionals, sweating, breathing and moving. I had fought for this. Hard. Gained a lot and lost even more. But I had triumphed. I was there and I was doing it. All my hard work and all that I lost, both physically and personally, wrapped up into the one moment. I sweated. And then I cried.
(written for www.onemoreset.blogspot.com)
I’m sitting here on my sore rear end from a 50-mile bike ride: Del Mar to Oceanside, La Jolla back to Del Mar. I encountered some obstacles naturally—accidentally getting on the freeway (I did not know my legs could pedal that fast), and riding down a very steep hill, just to discover we’d made an error and needed to return up that same hill. I hadn’t had enough to eat, consumed no chocolate, and was sweaty and tired with burning thighs.
Sounds like fun? It was. Actually it was fantastic.
