Benefits of Exercise

Now that you have decided to stop making excuses for not working out and you have started exercising, I will give you some great benefits for staying active. If these are not enough reasons for you to keep working out, the fact that you feel better about yourself should. Not to mention your ex is going to be kicking himself because of how good you are going to look. Here are the Mayo Clinic’s top 6 benefits to exercise: 

† Exercise improves your mood. Exercise stimulates various brain chemicals, which may leave you feeling happier and more relaxed than you were before you worked out. You’ll also look better and feel better when you exercise regularly, which can boost your confidence and improve your self-esteem. Exercise even reduces feelings of depression and anxiety.

† Exercise helps combat chronic diseases. Regular exercise can help manage or prevent high blood pressure. Regular exercise boosts “good,” cholesterol while decreasing “bad,” cholesterol. This combination keeps your blood flowing smoothly by lowering the buildup of plaques in your arteries. Regular exercise can also help you prevent type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and certain types of cancer.

† Exercise helps you manage your weight. Want to drop those excess pounds? Trade some couch time for walking or other physical activities.  When you exercise, you burn calories. The more intensely you exercise, the more calories you burn; and the easier it is to keep your weight under control. You don’t even need to set aside major chunks of time for working out. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Walk during your lunch break. Do jumping jacks during commercials. Better yet, turn off the TV and take a brisk walk. Dedicated workouts are great, but activity you accumulate throughout the day helps you burn calories, too.

† Exercise strengthens your heart and lungs.  Do you get winded by grocery shopping or household chores? Don’t give in that easy. Regular exercise can leave you breathing easier. Exercise delivers oxygen and nutrients to your tissues. In fact, regular exercise helps your entire cardiovascular system work more efficiently. When your heart and lungs work more efficiently, you’ll have more energy to do the things you enjoy.

† Exercise promotes better sleep. Struggling to fall asleep? Or stay asleep? It might help to boost your physical activity during the day. A good night’s sleep can improve your concentration, productivity and mood.  Exercise is sometimes the key to better sleep. Regular exercise can help you fall asleep faster and deepen your sleep.   If you’re having trouble sleeping, you might want to try late afternoon workouts. The natural dip in body temperature five to six hours after you exercise might help you fall asleep.

† Exercise can put the spark back into your sex life. Are you too tired to have sex? Or feeling too out of shape to enjoy physical intimacy? Exercise to the rescue. Regular exercise can leave you feeling energized and looking better, which may have a positive effect on your sex life. But there’s more to it than that. Exercise improves your circulation, which can lead to more satisfying sex.

Exercise can be fun! Wondering what to do on a Saturday afternoon? Looking for an activity that suits the entire family? Get physical! Exercise doesn’t have to be drudgery. Take a ballroom dancing class. Check out a local climbing wall or hiking trail. Push your kids on the swings or climb with them on the jungle gym. Plan a neighborhood kickball or touch football game. Find an activity you enjoy, and go for it. If you get bored, try something new. If you’re moving, it counts!

No More Excuses

If you look in the mirror and you do not like what you see but you keep making excuses for not working out, it is time to stop all the excuses and get into the gym or just get active.  Some common excuses for not exercising are:

† I do not have time. This is one of the worst excuses for not working out. Everyone has time with the new and improved ways to workout.  It only takes 15 to get a really good workout. So time is not an excuses.  You can always find time. Wake up 30 minutes early and go for a run or workout on your lunch break.

† I am too tired after work. So go to the gym before work and get it done.  Then you do not have to worry about how you feel after work. Take your workout clothes with you to work and change before you go home. If you exercise at home still change so you do not get distracted once you get home and go straight to your workout area at home and get started.

† I do not know what I am doing or you have fear of the gym. Get a personal trainer to workout with you. If you can’t afford one most gyms with give you a few session to get you started with any new gym membership. Look in the phone book if you workout at home and have an in home trainer come in to set up a program for you.

† You do not have the money to go to a gym. So workout at home.  It does not cost very much to get a workout DVD or some exercise bands that you can workout with right in your own home.

So there is not better time to start working out than now. You are making positive changes in your life right now so why not start with the way you feel about yourself. So stop the excuses and get off your butt and get yourself active.

Staying Safe Without Him

One of my biggest concerns after I got divorced was making sure that my daughter and I would be safe.  I have to say that there is no better than my mother to help me with this issue that I had.  She has been studying Martial Arts for 23 years and teaching self defense for almost that many years.  She has always told me that self-defense is mostly little things you can do to protect yourself and your children.  So I had her write this next blog post for me. 

Let’s start with the basic stuff.  I like to think of self-defense like an onion (not the crying part!) but the layer part.  The more layers you have surrounding you, the better.  At home you should:

1. Lock doors and windows at night.

2.  Have a well-lit porch or entryway.

3.  Keep shrubs and flowers around house trimmed so they don’t cover windows or are large enough for a person to hide.

4.  Plant some shrubs with thorns to deter bad people from hiding there.

5.  Make sure if you are coming home after dark, turn a light on before you go or have a timed light that will come on before you get home.

6.  If you can afford it, get a security system.  Sometimes just having a security sign in the window is enough to deter.  I have an OnStar sign in my car window, but I don’t pay for the OnStar coverage anymore.  The bad guy doesn’t know that!  The bad guy will go find a car without a security sticker, just in case!

7.  Get to know you neighbors.  You may need to depend on them sometime.

I’ll talk more later about staying secure and safe at home, in the car, walking, in hotels, etc.  If you want specifics, just ask!  Have a safe day!

Thanks mom you’re the best.  If you have any questions for her please let me know.

Your Happiness is up to you.

Today I was talking with one of my training clients and we were talking about being happy in a marriage or any relationship.  She was telling me that her parents, a few years ago, were going through some rough times.  She noted that her mom was always relying on her dad for happiness.  I have seen many of my female friends and guy friends, for that matter, think the same way.  They rely way too much on their partner to make them happy.  It is hard enough to make yourself happy, and then to have the responsibility to make someone else happy is  too much to put on anyone.  You have to be in control of your own life and happiness.  No one can make you happy but yourself. I am not saying that while in a relationship your significant does not do things for you that make you happy. There will be many times when what they do for you gives you the happiness that you need, but your ultimate happiness comes from within. It should never be the responsibility of someone else to make you happy it will not work. Only you truly know what makes your life worth living. You have to find your passions in life. What makes you tick?  What gives you the desire to wake up every morning?  What puts that smile on your face? Happiness is very infectious. Do not waste one more minute of your life being any other way but happy.

The Importance of Sleep Part 2

Getting a good night sleep is very important to start your day off on the right foot.  Here are a few tips from the Mayo Clinic to make sure that get up on the right side of the bed. 

• Go to bed and get up at about the same time every day, even on the weekends. Sticking to a schedule helps reinforce your body’s sleep-wake cycle and can help you fall asleep better at night.
• Don’t eat or drink large amounts before bedtime. Eat a light dinner about two hours before sleeping. If you’re prone to heartburn, avoid spicy or fatty foods, which can make your heartburn flare and prevent a restful sleep. Also, limit how much you drink before bed. Too much liquid can cause you to wake up repeatedly during the night for trips to the bathroom.
• Avoid nicotine, caffeine and alcohol in the evening. These are stimulants that can keep you awake. Smokers often experience withdrawal symptoms at night, and smoking in bed is dangerous. Avoid caffeine for eight hours before your planned bedtime. Your body doesn’t store caffeine, but it takes many hours to eliminate the stimulant and its effects.  And although often believed to be a sedative, alcohol actually disrupts sleep.
• Exercise regularly. Regular physical activity, especially aerobic exercise, can help you fall asleep faster and make your sleep more restful. Don’t exercise within three hours of your bedtime, however. Exercising right before bed may make getting to sleep more difficult.
• Make your bedroom cool, dark, quiet and comfortable. Create a room that’s ideal for sleeping. Adjust the lighting, temperature, humidity and noise level to your preferences. Use blackout curtains, eye covers, earplugs, extra blankets, a fan, a humidifier or other devices to create an environment that suits your needs.
• Sleep primarily at night.Daytime naps may steal hours from nighttime slumber. Limit daytime sleep to about a half-hour and make it during mid-afternoon. If you work nights, keep your window coverings closed so that sunlight, which adjusts the body’s internal clock, doesn’t interrupt your sleep. If you have a day job and sleep at night, but still have trouble waking up, leave the window coverings open and let the sunlight help wake you up.
• Choose a comfortable mattress and pillow. Features of a good bed are subjective and differ for each person. But make sure you have a bed that’s comfortable. If you share your bed, make sure there’s enough room for two. Children and pets are often disruptive, so you may need to set limits on how often they sleep in bed with you.
• Start a relaxing bedtime routine. Do the same things each night to tell your body it’s time to wind down. This may include taking a warm bath or shower, reading a book, or listening to soothing music. Relaxing activities done with lowered lights can help ease the transition between wakefulness and sleepiness.
• Go to bed when you’re tired and turn out the lights. If you don’t fall asleep within 15 to 20 minutes, get up and do something else. Go back to bed when you’re tired. Don’t agonize over falling asleep. The stress will only prevent sleep.
• Use sleeping pills only as a last resort. Check with your doctor before taking any sleep medications. He or she can make sure the pills won’t interact with your other medications or with an existing medical condition. Your doctor can also help you determine the best dosage. If you do take a sleep medication, reduce the dosage gradually when you want to quit, and never mix alcohol and sleeping pills. If you feel sleepy or dizzy during the day, talk to your doctor about changing the dosage or discontinuing the pills.

So don’t wait, try these tips tonight and you will be on your way to a more rested you. 

Follow Your Dream

I think that the straw that broke that camel’s back in my marriage for me was the lack of support that I got when I was training for my first figure competition.  Being in the fitness industry most people at some point want to compete.  I was not getting any younger and I have always wanted to do a show.  I got my hours cut back from my therapy job at the end of last year so there was no better time to start training.  I told my husband that I wanted to do a competition.  It was a little heart breaking to hear his response.  I had started to train once before but ended up getting pregnant with my daughter so I did not get to do the show.  Now I had the time to train but I had to do it without the support of my husband, whom I thought would be my biggest fan.  He gets up every morning ready to go to work.  He loves what he does and has a passion for his job.  I did not have that at the time doing home health therapy.  I just wanted to follow a dream that I had and call me crazy to think that my husband should want this for me.  The whole three months he did nothing but complain about the food bill and having to watch our daughter more.  I did not ask my husband to come with me to my show.  I did not think that he deserved to come and enjoy my hard work when he did nothing to support me through it.  I am very happy to say that I won my first show.  I never want to forget that feeling that I got from being on stage.  I plan on doing more competition next year.  So the moral to the story is do not ever let any one talk you out of a dream.  If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.  ~J.M. Power

Don’t You Know You are Beautiful!

I hate to say that my track record with men is not very good.  I have been engaged twice, married once, and now divorced.  My first fiancée, I was with for 6 years when I was in high school and in college.  I am a very strong independent woman now but it took me many years after my ex-fiancée to get my self-esteem and confidence back.  He was not physically abusive but very mentally abusive.  He had me believing that I was nothing and that if I left him I would be alone for the rest of my life, because no one would want me.  This is just one more reason that I have such a big place in my heart for personal training.  I started working out in college and it gave me a lot of my confidence that my ex-fiancée took from me.  It is not easy to stand in the mirror everyday when you do not feel good about who you are looking at.  This is why I decided after college to go into personal training.  I wanted to be able to give women all the tools they needed to make sure when they look into the mirror they see the beauty not only on the inside but also on the outside.  I was very lucky to have family that were very supportive of me and that helped me through this time in my life.  My mom told me that what does not kill you only makes you stronger.  At the time I just rolled my eyes but there is a lot of truth in that statement.  I am who I am today because I traveled the path less taken. Which I have to say is not the easy road.  I know that I still have insecurities that I am working through but I never doubt myself.  I know that I am a beautiful women and I deserve all the best that life has to offer me.

The Importance of Sleep Part 1

I can’t stress enough haw important sleep is for you to be able to function through the day.  Sleep is vital to our health and well-being.  The typical person is wake for 16 hours and should get 8 hours of sleep every night.  The Harvard Women’s Health Watch suggests six reasons to get enough sleep:

 

ã    Learning and memory: Sleep helps the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory consolidation. In studies, people who’d slept after learning a task did better on tests later.

ã      Metabolism and weight: Chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by altering levels of hormones that affect our appetite.

ã      Safety: Sleep debt contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the daytime. These lapses may cause falls and mistakes such as medical errors, air traffic mishaps, and road accidents.

ã      Mood: Sleep loss may result in irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate, and moodiness. Too little sleep can also leave you too tired to do the things you like to do.

ã      Cardiovascular health: Serious sleep disorders have been linked to hypertension, increased stress hormone levels, and irregular heartbeat.

ã      Disease: Sleep deprivation alters immune function, including the activity of the body’s killer cells. Keeping up with sleep may also help fight cancer.

In part two I will give you some helpful tips to help you sleep better at night..

The Sisterhood

I have two sisters and I hate to admit that within the last year we have all gotten divorced.  It has not been easy on my family to have to not only go through this once but three times.  We all got divorced for totally different reason but nonetheless we all got divorced.  We try to stay close but my parents did not think that we would be this close.  I am sure that they did not think that all of there girls would be going through this at the same time.  Although we all left for various reasons it is nice to have them to talk to about what I am going through.   I love both of my sisters very much and would do anything for them.  They are not only my sisters but they are my best friends and without them I would not be me.  It is hard since we do not live in the same state but they are my rock and I love them with all my heart.  This blog is written for both of them.  Thank you for always being there when I needed you and being in my corner.   

You are not Alone

I was lying in bed last night and I could not help but think about all the women who were doing the same thing.  It is really hard when you are used to getting in bed every night with someone to go to being alone.  Looking up at the ceiling just does not have the same appeal and cuddling with a body pillow does not do the trick for me.  I was with my husband for 7 years and it has not been easy to make that adjustment.  Let me tell you though, it is an adjustment that I was very willing to make for my own sanity.  The point that I am trying to make is that you are not alone.  There are tons of women just like you who have the same issues.  We are all in this together.  It is the support that we will get from each other that will help.  Having people to lean on will help you to get through this rough time in your life.  It is nice to be able to talk and relate to women who are also going through the same thing or have already gone through it.  I have a passion to help women like myself to feel and be the best person they can be.  One of my training clients told me today that to remember, we all stumble, every one of us.  That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.  Emily Kimbrough wrote this and I could not agree more.  If you are ready to take a journey it is always better to take someone along with you.  The good thing is there are many women right now that are taking the same journey with you but they are doing it alone.  So make sure you grab their hand to let them know we are never alone we have each other.