Category Archives: Inspiration

Motivational Monday: Why?

Workout Wednesday: Guide to Building Your Own Workout

Last Wednesday I had a crazy busy morning and didn’t have time to squeeze in a workout. I resolved to workout if I got a long enough lunch break or to just save it until after work. I am proud to say that I managed to workout, shower, eat lunch, get ready, and make a smoothie all within a 45 minute lunch break. That’s right, I am Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman

In the end, all of my time efficiency comes from having a routine for each of these things. I had the blender on while I was getting dressed and I was eating lunch while my hair dried. It’s all about thinking out a plan on the car ride home and not dawdling even a little bit. Which is what I’m trying to do this very morning so moving on…

The workout I did was quite unique. I realized on the drive home that I wouldn’t have time to look up a workout with the lovely Zuzana Light so I made up my own. I just chose some full body exercises and a time crunch that would make me sweat AND hurt at the same time. Sounds like fun right??

Here was my workout:

3 rounds of 5 exercises. Do each exercise to the max for 40 seconds, rest for 20 seconds, start the next exercise. Repeat each round 3 times.

Exercises:

1. Pushups (from my knees because my pecks are strangely weak)

2. Crunches (with my legs straight in the air)

3. Squat to shoulder press (with weight, use water bottles if you don’t have weights)

4. Lunge Jump (lunge down then jump up and switch legs)

5. Leg raise (Lie on the ground and lift legs up to 90° angle, keeping them straight, then lower them)

This workout ended up being killer and I felt pretty awesome for formatting my own. Some rules to help you do the same:

– Make sure you know the correct form for an exercise before you do it alone. Wrong form makes you prone to injury. (If you don’t know, just google or youtube it!)

– Establish reachable goals for the workout like “I want to do 30 crunches in each 40 second time period.”

– Keep the whole workout under a time limit so that you feel like you’re really accomplishing something in a tiny bit of time.

– Record all your numbers so that you can look back and try again in a few weeks. Track your progress!

– Be proud of what you’ve done and build on it, nothing’s better than self-propelled success.

I repeat: nothing is better than self-propelled success. So get off your bum and get it done!

And be sure to SMILE in between grimaces 🙂

Thankful Tuesday: My Three Things

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So I’ve mentioned her before but there is one blogger I follow regularly and she writes a couple of blogs. One of them is made up entirely of a daily post of three things she’s thankful for (check it out here). So, for us, this will be our Tuesdays! Gratitude journals are short, sweet, and helpful and everyone should have one in some capacity. So I’ll be yours. Yay!

1. Today I am thankful for the tiny town that made me appreciate tiny zoos. Thank you Peoria Zoo for getting me so close to giraffes, my favorite animal of all time.

2. I am thankful for old friends (Katie and Mike) and their willingness to accompany me to local farms to pick a pumpkin. Also, this farm has tons of wind turbines which makes it extra awesome.

3. I am thankful for the week of work I have ahead of me. Although getting out of bed can be hard, I love my job, my coworkers, and all the people I get to help everyday. Let me at it!

Alright. Let me have them. Seriously, what are your three things for today? It takes 2 minutes and makes you that much happier.

Motivational Monday: How Could You Not Smile At This?

Have Some Confidence People!

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Wow. All I can say is thank you guys so much for all the feedback yesterday. I want to reply to every person that commented but you basically all said that my blog is awesome, I’m awesome, and that I’ve helped you in some way. You guys just gave me the biggest flippin’ boost of motivation. I didn’t even know some of you read it! So all I can say is I am sending a big, fat THANK YOU and a huge hug and kiss (oh yeah) to all of you everywhere.

This encouraged me to write, today, about confidence and having oodles of it. Today’s post is pretty much a way to balance out this post about setting realistic expectations. Anyway, I have a friend who happens to read this blog and also happens to suffer from an utter lack of confidence (you know who you are). She is one of the most inspiring athletes I know as well as being kind, caring, and really fun to party with. She just all around awesome and has NO IDEA.

I know that she isn’t an isolated case. I have other friends and actually read some blogs (like this one) who are similar to this particular friend and just have no idea how amazing they are. I don’t care what your IQ is, what you look like, how many friends you have, or what special skills you have, every person has a special something that makes you worth “it.” “It” being a stranger’s time, a second glance, or just respect from the people you know and love.

Anyway, I don’t want to ramble so, just never underestimate yourself. Find your specialness and capitalize on that s**t! You will always get further in your life by strengthening your strengths rather than working on your weaknesses.

^ This is me at my first every mountain bike race. I knew I could handle a bike so I traveled with the mountain team that weekend, rode a mountain bike for the first time for 3 hours in the morning and then raced it! I had such a good time and accomplished one of my life goals of playing in the mud 🙂

Also, and this is important so listen up, if you are one of the people who already has the confidence of a guido in Jersey then help some others out! Tell each of your loved ones and coworkers something special about themselves every day. Only stuff that is true. It’s ok to repeat stuff, it helps drill it into their heads. Compliment at least 3 people every day and you will find that they are drawn to your positivity and will start to think of themselves in a better light.

Ok, that is all. Thank you again for reading and writing all those lovely comments. You are all very special to me .

🙂

Thankful Tuesday: C’mon Roll Out Of Bed!

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Oh man. After my glorious 3 day weekend, it was VERY hard to roll out of bed this morning. So I’m going to do a gratitude post to get me motivated.

I am thankful for the nice, warm, comfy bed that I share with my wonderful boyfriend. I’m so happy that I have the resources and flexibility to wake up, do a spot of yoga and then head into work to meet with my really cool coworker and bosses. I am thankful for the delicious granola-free granola that I’m about to eat (check it out here). And I am so happy I did not wash my car yesterday because the rain is doing it for me today!

^Thank you boyfriend for making the bed this morning!

Is it a slow morning for you too? Tell me about it. Then plant a smile on your face and keep pushing through your day.

Monday Advice: Set Realistic Expectations

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Alright, I’m calling myself on my own bull crap. About a month ago I posted on sleeping soundly. Skim it over here. It basically maps out a bedtime routine to make sure that you sleep soundly. Each of the activities work together to help your brain and body settle down but never have I ever done all these things, in a row, in the same night.

While I believe that a bedtime routine is absolutely necessary, this post is bull crap! Setting aside an entire hour for a pre-bed routine? No way Jose. No one has that much time, including myself. So, I herby promise to never post any kind of advice that I don’t do regularly and with success. Scouts honor.

This leads me into my tidbit of advice for the day: set yourself realistic goals. If you have a big goal in mind, make sure it’s far enough in the future to break it down into little, reachable, daily goals. I find that setting the bar at a height that I can stretch to reach is a great way to motivate myself and to make sure I don’t have any excuses.

^ This is me! Thanks for sending me this pic Ma.

How could you not smile at those baby buns?

Friday Advice: Do Not Be Intimidated, Get Informed

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I just got back from a spectacular bike ride with a new friend! Yes, I made a new friend. Her name is Sara and she rides bikes, moved here from Northern California, and is in nursing school. This is the third time I’ve met up with her and we never fail to have something to talk about. Aside from my excitement at meeting someone that I actually connect with, I’m pretty stoked on the routes she’s been showing me. Yay!!

Anyway, today was s short ride but we spent most of the time talking about the flu shot. Haha. I know it seems odd but we’re both at different ends of the medical/health spectrum. While both of us are healthy, we have differing opinions on how to prevent and treat different ailments. I won’t go into my opinion right now (save that for a later date) but we managed to have a fantastic debate over the effectiveness and worthiness of the flu shot.

This has started happening more and more in my adult life where I am being challenged by other people’s opinions and, instead of backing out and say “I don’t want to argue about it, I don’t have enough information to defend my opinion,” I’ve started learning from what other people have to say. I started reading and listening to people I greatly respect and then finding the science to back myself up. Instead of being intimidated by other people, I’m coming to realize that it only takes a little bit of information to get on their same level. AND when you start talking to them, debating them, you learn more about how to defend your side of the argument. I am getting smarter just by talking to people that think I’m wrong! Sweet!

So this is kind of a rambling post but the meat of it is: Don’t be intimidated by people with strong opinions, just make sure you know why you believe in something and start the debate! You may learn something.

There will be more on this later but I don’t want to bore you all right now. On a happier note, last weekend, I FINALLY learned to ride my bike with no hands! After trying repeatedly for 3 years, I realized that you just have to take both hands off at the same time and lean back. I was so excited that I asked Mike to take a picture.

Do any of you readers have an opinion that you’d like to be able to defend better? Maybe it’s time to dedicate an hour to researching it.

Workout Tuesday: Dance Like No One’s Watching

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Yes, you should dance like no one’s watching. To encourage you, I’ve decided to make a complete fool of myself and dance while everyone’s watching.

For the last several years there has been a long and arduous debate about warming up before a workout. Some studies show it’s good, some show you’re fine without it. Whatever the case, I know that my body needs to warm up to a workout otherwise I will twist or strain something. But traditional warm ups suck! So I dance!

Dancing at 7am is not only incredibly energizing but it puts you in a great mood for the rest of the day. So just put on a great song (see below) and loosen up. Dancing alone means you can do whatever weirdo moves you want.

I find that this is great dancing AND workout music:

And this was the workout I did with Zuzka today:

And finally, the piece de resistance, my ridiculous dance moves, published and open for laughs. Now you have NO EXCUSE not to dance!

You also now have no excuse not to smile. Have a happy day!

You Are In Control

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I keep this written on a couple of post it notes next to my makeup so I see it whenever I get ready for a long day.

We tell ourselves that life will be great when we can buy a more luxurious car, get a better job, buy nicer clothes, or whatever.

The truth is that there’s no better time to be happy than right now.

Your life will always be full of challenges. It is better to admit as much and decide to be happy in spite of it all.

I talk to SO many people who make the excuse of, “life will be great when…” Including myself! Until I started writing this blog, I didn’t realize that every single one of my days holds something awesome just waiting to be recognized. So you better recognize!

Please, everyone that read this post, comment what your happiness is/will be today!

And have a happy Monday 🙂

A Happy Lass

One woman's journey to her healthiest body and mind.