Tip #17: Set a Plan and Act on It!

Its so easy to make excuses for why you don't exercise. You're tired! You're too busy! You're bored with your usual workout! I do the same thing. We all do! I know I've talked about Sparkpeople on this blog before but I had to share something new I discovered about it. There is a fitness tracker on it that can give you a set amount of calories to torch in a week! It works like this:

You enter in the amount of days you want to work out and select about how long you plan to exercise (shoot for half an hour to forty minutes four days a week! I exercise Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday because I usually have the most time to work out). Then the tracker calculates the minimum number of calories you should be burning in a week. For me, its about 800. I know it sounds like a lot, but its easy to burn off if you break it down. Try to even go a little over if you can! Think about it like this: 40 minutes of kikboxing is about 400 calories, 40 minutes of Barre is 340. You are at 740 and you only completed two of your workouts! Its a lot easier to met your goal than you think! Plus its a lot easier to force yourself to get your butt off the couch when your workout for the day is put down in writing!

Now, you don't have to use Sparkpeople (even if it is free!) so you can just write down a page of your planned workouts for the week in your food journal! Also, set a reminder on your phone! No excuses that you forgot to or are too busy to workout when you schedule it in! Good luck and have fun with it!

Tip #12: Keep Active

Now, I'll be perfectly honest. I've eaten horribly this past week, not even thinking about health, but I stepped on the scale this morning and was down half a pound. Now, I've always heard that diet comes first, then exercise, and I'm certainly not saying to forgot your diet all together, but I am saying that maybe exercise is more important than people realize.

I've been keeping active a lot lately. Before this whole hurrican started, I was at the Jersey shore. I ate a Dunkin donut in the morning, topping it off with a latte. Then, for lunch, I had a peanut butter sandwich with chips. Then, for dinner, I had a hamburger and onion rings and fries. And I picked up an ice cream cone on the way home. However, instead of laying on a towel tanning, I ended up in the ocean, pedaling and pushing through the waves. The next morning, my legs actually felt tired and I felt like I didn't completely screw up the day before. That day I had I-Hop crepes, mac and cheese, a giant chocolate chip cookie and then did a Barre workout in the morning, walked with Shape-Ups in the afternoon and did yoga at night. Then I discovered, dispite my horrific diet, my increase in exercise regime had helped me go down half a pound. Now, imagine what I could do if I actually kept up with this increase in exercise and my diet! I might be able to lose double, triple, maybe even quadruple of that.

What I'm saying here is exactly that. Pay attention to not only diet, but also exercise. If you've been tracking your food (good for you!) start tracking your exercise. See if you can add an extra ten minutes to your exercise. Maybe an after dinner walk (instead of an after dinner cocktail) or yoga while you watch television. It's not as hard as you may think it is!