I came up with this little workout to do every day. It only takes about 10 minutes and works out your whole body. It’s great for if you don’t have time for a full scale workout or if you just want to add a little something extra to your regular routine. I started doing it a few weeks ago and now other members of my family have started asking me to share it, so I thought I would post it on here! Enjoy 🙂
Since last Saturday, my sister and I have been on a roadtrip through Tennessee and Kentucky! Throughout the trip I have been trying to stay on a regular exercising schedule and eat as healthy as I could, which is not always easy. I am pretty happy with how I have done so far. With a day and a half left on our trip, I have only had a few “hiccups”. Of course if you are visiting someone and they offer you dessert, it is polite to accept, right?! As for exercising, most days I have been able to fit something in and even if I can’t find time to do a structured workout, I have been able to walk a lot around town while we were out so I am still staying active.
Here are my tips for staying active while traveling:
1. Take a jog around the neighborhood you are staying in-if it is safe to do so- and try to go in a straight line so you don’t get lost if you are directionally challenged like I am!
2. Do exercises that don’t require any equipment. I did squats, planks, jumping jacks, tricep dips, push-ups, crunches, lunges, etc. I would suggest picking a few exercises and doing one set then repeat it a few times for 15-30 minutes.
3. When eating out, share meals with whoever you are with. This will prevent over-eating and also cut down on expenses.
4. For traveling snacks bring fruits and vegetables in a small cooler, along with some water and some candy-free trail mix.
5. If you can’t fit in anything that you would consider “working out”, don’t just sit on the couch watching a movie or sit in the car driving around-get out and walk, take some adventures, and have some fun!
Me at the Parthenon in Nashville, TN
Last weekend I ran the Monument Avenue 10K with my mom, my friend, and her mom! It was misty, rainy, exhausting, and so much fun!
My finishing time was 1:02:06. I want to work on getting faster, but I was pretty happy with my time!
For the past few months school has taken over just about every ounce of my time. I was enrolled in a program for a career that I did not even want to pursue, or at least not long-term. Recently I have made the decision to withdraw from that program and discover what I really want to do with my life. It is a very new and exciting time in my life!
Until I figure out exactly what I want to do, I am just focusing on my current job and my fitness. While in school, it was very hard for me to keep up with exercising. During my first semester I still managed to work out about 3-5 times a week, but once I entered second semester, my schedule was so demanding and exhausting that I barely had time to eat, much less exercise.
As I am considering my career options, I am thinking a lot about my interests. Fitness and nutrition are really high up there on the list and I have been thinking a lot lately about becoming a certified personal trainer. I think it would be great to be able to help people with their fitness as well as continuing my own. I still have a lot of research to do, but the thought of it is very appealing to me! If anyone has any information that I could use, hit me up!
In other news, I am really pumped for the 10K that I am doing on the 29th! I have a few friends who are going to run it with me and my mom will be walking it. It will be my mom’s very first event and I am so proud of her for deciding to do it with me! I am also going to (hopefully) be starting to do Combat Hapkido at a local dojo where my younger sister does her Tae Kwon Do! I have always wanted to learn a martial art, but we never had the money when I was growing up. As long as everything goes as planned, I will be starting that soon.
Everything in my life is changing and I am very optimistic that it will be for the better!
Three weeks ago I started school (a veterinary technology program) so I have been very busy for quite a while getting things together! Now that I am pretty much all settled I think I can resume posting again! I have spent the past couple of weeks studying like crazy and figuring out how my new program is going to work. It is often hard during the week to find time to work out, especially since I have class from 9:30 to 4:45 every day, but I have made a weekly schedule to make it easier. It also helps that my apartment contract came with a free Gold’s Gym membership! I am so happy about that! I was worried that I would not be able to afford a gym membership and now I don’t have to worry about it! I love it! I even have a gym buddy named Heather who I met a few weeks ago. I go to the gym on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays and the other days of the week I try to do home workouts with 1 day being a rest day because I can’t make it to the gym on those days. On Mondays and Fridays I attend Zumba class with Heather and I also do an additional workout (running, weightlifting, or another class). On Saturdays I do running and weightlifting. Then on the days when I am not at the gym I will work on abs or do a P90X workout at my apartment. It has been a pretty good system so far!
This Weekend I went home to celebrate my dad’s birthday. It felt nice to be home after such a stressful week last week, which had included 4 tests. My sister and I went hiking yesterday morning and we had a great time! We decided to run part of the trail. It was funny because it was only steeply inclined on the parts we tried to run. I love trail hiking. It was so nice to be out in the fresh air. Not too hot either! It was something I had been wanting to do since the beginning of the summer, but I just never got to until now!
My sister and I hiking
I have been insanely busy for the last couple of weeks! I have, however, been doing really well with my workouts! Last weekend my sister flew from Washington DC to Washington state to visit our friends on the west coast so my mom, Mathilde (our friend visiting us from France), and I took a trip to DC a 2 days early so we could shop and walk around the city. It was a lot of fun. Not to mention a lot of walking! I don’t even know how many miles we walked, but it felt like a ton. By the time we finally got home we were exhausted. Somehow I was still able to run like 6 miles the next day. I had only planned to do 2 or 3, but I didn’t feel like stopping. It was actually pretty awesome.
A few days later I took my youngest sister and Mathilde to a beautiful park that had several gardens and wildlife exhibits to see. It is one of my favorite parks to go to because you can get a lot of exercise and it is a great place for taking pictures. I am pretty sure we walked several miles there as well.
The other night I did Ab Ripper X P90X and then the next day, yesterday, I took Mathilde to Busch Gardens (a theme park). It was her first time going on a roller coaster and she was a bit scared at first, but I think she liked it. We had a great time. We walked so much! I think we might have walked more here than in DC! Well, maybe not, but it was a lot of walking.
Today I was so sore. SOOO sore. My abs still hurt from the P90X I did and I think I also got a few bruises from some of the rides we went on. I am just aching all over. I probably should have taken a rest day today, but noooo. I ran 3 miles. It was almost too much for me, but I finished. The rest of the day I was so tired and just wanted to sleep. Tomorrow will be a rest day though and hopefully I can get fully recovered by Monday!
Well hey there! I have been doing a lot better lately with my workouts! Now I just have to make time to post on this blog!Starting on the 4th up through today was my window for completing my virtual race! I went ahead and signed up for the half marathon race when I registered because we were given several days to complete the race and it said the miles did not have to be completed at the same time or on the same day, which was very convenient. I knew I was not ready to try and run 13.1 miles at once. I ended up running 6 miles on the 5th (which is the longest I have ever done at one time), a little over a mile on the 6th, and 6 miles yesterday, the 8th. It was really fun and I actually did not get bored like I had before (probably because I was running to complete something). I was actually pretty impressed with myself! I believe the key to my success was probably not running the same pace all the time. I switched it up and that helped a lot. My total time was 2 hours and 14 minutes. I’m happy enough with it!
My Race Bib
Today I am thinking about doing P90X. I don’t know which one yet, but I will figure it out. I have been really focusing just on running this week (and last week) for my race so it will be really nice to do something else!
Work has definitely been interfering with my fitness goals. Well, it is that and also how I feel after working. I work from home so it should not be a big deal, but I usually do work for the majority of the day and when I am done I just want to relax, not run, strength train, or lift weights! In the past few weeks I have still been exercising fairly regularly and actually I have made some progress in my running, but I have not felt very driven lately. Almost every time I have gone to work out recently has felt like it is something I am forcing myself to do, which takes the fun out of it. So I have decided that I need to make some changes. I need to start planning my workouts ahead of time again including what I want to work on each day, how long my workouts will be, and when the best time to work out would be depending on the day.
Yesterday my sister asked me something that really reminded me that I need to get it together. She asked ” If there is a day where you really don’t feel like working out, but you know you need to, what should you do?” and I answered “Do it anyway.” I need to listen to my own instruction.
What I have been doing for the past couple of weeks is mostly running and other cardio. I have not been switching up my workouts as I want and need to do. However, I was able to run 5 miles the other day and I felt very good about that. I did it again a few days later as well. I found out though, that I cannot do it every time I run yet. I also noticed that I kind of get a little bored when I am on the treadmill for over 30 minutes, so I need to figure out a few different ways to overcome that.
Yesterday I did a very nice 30 minute abdominal workout with a few additional exercises including a 1 minute plank, 50 jumping jacks, 50 squats, and 15 pushups and then ran on the treadmill for about 15 minutes.
Today my sister and I went and played tennis at the middle school down the road for 45 minutes and then ran around the track twice. It was really fun.
Today I did a workout that I found on Pinterest that was composed of 30 exercises for 30 seconds each for a total of about 30 minutes. I did this set of exercises 3 times:
It was a very fast-paced workout. I tried not to take any more time than necessary to reset the timer in between each exercise. I think I may go running a bit later, but if I don’t I will be fine with this as my workout for the day.
Today for lunch I made a spinach crust pizza. I was thrilled with the outcome. I had never had a spinach crust pizza before, but we had the stuff to make it so I decided to try it. I found a basic recipe online and decided to cut the recipe in half because I did not need a 12″ pizza. For the toppings I just used pesto for the sauce, the rest of the mozzarella that we had (it was maybe 1/4 cup), and a few spinach leaves that I cut in half. It turned out super good. I didn’t even think “man, I wish I had some real pizza dough” or anything! The crust was really thin and crispy and had a good flavor. Also, it is not burnt, that is just the color it turns..and where there is a little chunk taken out is where my mom ripped off a piece to try it before I took the picture. It was awesome though. Next time, when I plan to make it, I want to put mushrooms or tomatoes on top, maybe some olives or something. But it is a very good alternative when you really want pizza or when you don’t really have much of anything else in the house to eat (like me 🙂 )
Yesterday was my rest day, but Saturday I did not have time to post my workout. I did a Pinterest arm workout that I have done before, but I did it 3 times through so it took about 30 minutes instead of 10.
I have been super busy this week. I have still been exercising pretty much every day, but I just have not had time to update this blog. Sorry about that! Last week I was staying at my grandparents’ house and all of my workouts were either running or walking because I did not have any equipment and it was just a really great neighborhood to go running in.
This week my workouts have been fairly short for the most part due to lack of time. Some of them I could barely call workouts, but hey, it was some form of exercise so I counted it. Today I got a really good workout in though! I did a 37 minute cardio Fitness Blender workout and then I ran a mile on the treadmill at 7 mph and then walked a second mile. It felt really great. I should have time tomorrow to do another longer-than-half-an-hour workout. I am looking forward to it.
The other day I found a really good, informational video while I was looking at workouts on the Fitness Blender website. It is called 5 Foods You Should Never Eat. It provided a lot of information that I knew and some that I did not know about nutrition and I found it to be reliable information. If you want to watch it, make sure you have a few minutes because I think it is about 10 minutes long. I hope it benefits you like it benefitted me. Here’s the link:
http://www.beyonddiet.com/l/th1-v1-st15-ofr5-c2?vtag=sn-landing
Oh yeah, and one other thing: I am doing a virtual race in July! I am really excited. It is for a really good cause and I like the fact that I can do it anywhere. When I first heard about it on another blogger’s page, I was kind of confused about what a virtual race is, but the website (hyperlinked above) explained it pretty well.
imforfitness 