Tai Chi is a combination of both meditation and a series of slow and deliberate movements that was developed around 2000 years ago in China. You may have seen Tai Chi performed by older adults in your local park, on TV, or perhaps by someone who attends Tai Chi classes.

The benefits derived from Tai Chi have been well known and documented. It not only relieves stress, but enhances one’s balance and flexibility as well. In addition, the moves implemented in Tai Chi are one of the best exercise programs in alleviating health problems in older adults.

Do not let the slowness of the movements discourage you from trying Tai Chi. While you will find many older adults engaging in this beautiful and graceful exercise it is great for all ages. Considered to be low impact, there are no major strains put on the body or joints and is particularly effective for those who suffer from any form of arthritis or joint pain.

Recent studies have shown that Tai Chi, offers calm and balance, dissipates anxiety and depression, helps adults to sleep better. It aids in reducing bone loss in menopausal women, decreases blood pressure, helps in alleviating pain, and prepares one for tasks performed on a daily basis. Performing Tai Chi in the morning will get your joints awake and ready for the day while a few moves in the evening help to alleviate the stress of the day and calm you for sleep.

Considered to be a great form of exercise, Tai Chi requires no equipment, no time table, is very easy to do, has no side effects, and affords adults the opportunity to meet others who love the exercise as well. Once you learn Tai Chi and the proper way to move, there is virtually no chance of injury.

Whether you perform in your home by following Tai Chi exercises on DVDs, or you go to your local park and exercise Tai Chi there, once you begin this art form of exercise you will most likely continue for the rest of your life. Further, you will begin to develop your own moves and may likely advance to the newest form of exercise and meditation known as Qi Gong. Based on the same principle of slow movements, Qi Gong, while new to this country, has been around as long as Tai Chi and will most likely become as popular in the future.

Meditation has long been studied and affirmed to be one of the best forms of relaxation as well as a great stress reducer. Adding this with exercise and you have an unbeatable combination. More importantly, not only will you develop a new exercise routine, but you will begin to feel good about your health, and your overall well-being.

Photo credit: gigiscò

If you want to be in better shape, aerobic exercise is important. Basically, aerobics get your heart going and breathing going at a fast and steady pace. By doing this aerobics are going to benefit everything in your body and especially your overall health.

However, no matter what your level of current exercise is, aerobics can get very boring if you do the same thing a lot. Even things you like such as riding a bike or walking around your neighborhood can get really old after awhile. Then you might be tempted to stop doing them just because you are bored. Don’t let yourself quit, lets just change some things up.

There are many things that you can do that are creative and that can work as aerobic exercise. Remember that aerobic exercise is simply movement that gets your heart beating faster and your breathing increased. This means that when it comes right down to it, there aren’t too many limits on what you can do for your aerobic exercise.

Try using skates and pushing your baby’s stroller. This is something that can be a lot of fun because it can be time that you spend with your child, and it can also be exercise time. Just make sure you have a stroller with a handbrake to be safe. You can skate with a dog, as well. Dogs love to run and if you are skating you’ll be able to go faster.

Something else that you can do that is very creative would be to take a fast paced dance class. This can be a great way to get your work out, because you’re able to get a full workout while you are dancing, and you can learn some great dance moves as well. In fact, if you take enough dance classes, not only can it be a creative way to get your exercise, but it can also turn into a new hobby for you! There are many dance dvd’s, like ballroom, zumba and ballet, so don’t let the lack of local classes hold you back. Zumba is a very popular dance fitness craze right and you can learn everything right at home. It’s a lot of fun and a great workout.

Don’t forget that no matter what you are doing, it can work as aerobic exercise, as long as as you keep your heart rate up for 20-30 minutes. If you can manage to have this level of work out, then no matter what you choose to do, it can be a creative way to do aerobics. Think outside the box and add some fun to your cardio routine.

Photo credit: cherrylet

No, I’m not getting as many workouts in as I’d like. In fact last week I really slacked. It’s such a crazy time of year and I’ve had a lot of business stuff to work on in the last couple of weeks. Look at all those excuses piling up fast lol

It’s wrestling season and this means the kids dropping weight. The youngest’s season is over already, but the oldest has just really gotten going. She’s at a little standstill right now with the weight loss so that means she wants to go to the gym to workout after practices or on Sundays. There is just no way I can ever say no to driving her to the gym. So that means me getting there on some days I wouldn’t have and I’m thankful for it. Even if I do barely anything and mostly play on my phone, it was more calories than I would have used up at home.

I’ll be honest that the eating right now is not on target. I need to work on being a little better so I can maintain that 10 pound weight loss I had.

workouts 12/16

• bike 12 min, 2.2 mile, 60 calorie
• elliptical 15 min, 1.25 mile, 143 calorie
• total 27 min, 3.45 mile, 203 calorie

workouts 12/18

• bike 40 min, 7.17 mile, 188 calorie

Normally when you think of exercise the vision of running, jogging, biking, rock climbing, tennis, even golf in some cases may pop into your head. However any and all types of workouts you can think of fail in comparison to the warm up you do in such activities.

Warm ups are by far the most important part of training in every single sport and exercising/workout activity known. Why is it so important?

Warming up is important for a multitude of reasons.

You start getting your muscles use to being worked, it reduces the chances of you getting hurt when you start to do the planned exercise. This is especially important in exercises that work your muscles hard right form the start, such as weight lifting.

You stretch your muscles which lowers the chance of you straining a muscle whilst training. As you know straining a muscle can be a very painful experience and in turn can restrict not only your exercising activities but also your work and social life all the way down to your love life and more.

Doing a warm up actually burns calories and fat in itself, this of course helps you lose weight, stay in shape or tone your body depending what your fitness goals are. Since these afore mentioned reasons are why you are actually exercising in the first place you can easily see why a simple 5 minute warm up will help you achieve your goals.

These are just three reasons why you should do warm ups and you can already see the highly beneficial qualities associated with doing warm ups. They don’t take particularly long, nor are they made to be difficult and straining. They do however enable your body to get slowly use to being worked which in turn makes your body more flexible and ready to take on more strenuous exercise.

A few things to remember are:

• Give yourself at least 5 to 10 minutes to warm up before beginning a work out
• Practice full range of motion for your joints during warm up
• Start out slow and easy, remember it is called warming up for a reason
• Be sure to give yourself 3 to 6 minutes to cool down after a work out
• Practice your breathing during your warm up and cool down
• Pay attention to feelings of pain, if you experience them it’s time to take it easy or back off

NEVER:

• Hold your breath in an effort to reach to strain further
• Skip the warm up or cool down because you are pressed for time
• Just cut the main workout by five minutes instead
• Just quit after a workout and sit down for a break
• Just dive into a workout without warming your muscles up
• Go straight into a run without walking ahead of time

Overextend your stretches just to prove how far you can go.  Within a few days you will notice how much more flexible you already are getting.

Been a while I know, but I’ve been working out quite well thank you very much! The last 3 days not included lol

I stopped doing the super strict diet. For a few reasons, but the biggest reason was I was seeing myself binge too often. The food items were too strict. I was totally doing the yo-yo dieting. One day I’d be super good, the next day I’d be binging on all sorts of food I wasn’t “allowed” to eat.  I was feeling deprived and it wasn’t doing well for my mindset.

Then I also am prepared to do a half marathon this spring. Prepared as in I have been looking forward to running and running a lot. I couldn’t do that on the strict diet.

Since it’s wrestling season here the food had to change dramatically that is allowed in the house. While we still have too much junk around here in my opinion, we also have a ton of lean meat and veggies.  I’m working on maintaining the 10 pounds I lost and in January I’ll go back on the strict diet again if necessary.  I really do want this 20 pounds off by my birthday.

So I’m behind on listing my workouts but I’m so proud of myself that I’ll catch up with them all right now.

11/19

• jogged 2.5 miles outside

11/20

• elliptical 30 min, 2.43 miles, 314 calories
• walk on treadmill 12 min, .63 miles, 50 calories
• total 42 min, 3.06 miles, 364 calories

Sadly a majority of US doctors are symptom fixers instead of preventative. Pharmaceutical companies just don’t make as much from us if we work hard at warding off issues before they happen. But this isn’t a political rant post. I want to talk about how you can take some control and be proactive.

First is to have insurance. As a small business owner I realize that it can be expensive, but it really should be up at the top of your list for things to afford. Do a search and talk to different health care companies to see what your actual needs are and what company would be a good fit. There are many places that you can get a quote online to get you started on your research.

Now why after just talking about pills and such am I telling you insurance is important? Well someone does need to run the tests for you so you can keep an eye on your numbers. Knowing your baseline for cholesterol, blood pressure and different vitamins and minerals is important. This year my doctor found my vitamin D to be dangerously low, but I wouldn’t have known without having my yearly check up. I have felt amazing since getting my numbers up and keeping them up.

Being proactive means doing your own research for things before and after visiting the doctor. I don’t mean being a hypochondriac, I just mean knowing everything you can about any issues you are already diagnosed with and looking up new problems as they arise. It’s really important to have good communication with your doctor.

We know how important fitness is as a preventative measure. It helps keep your blood sugar steady, it uses up excess calories you may have consumed and it improves your cardio vascular system.

Diet as well is good preventative medicine. Getting a well balanced diet with different vitamins and minerals it key. If you are always eating the same foods then you will miss out on important nutrients.

Knowing your diet and any possible limitations you have for foods makes it important to take appropriate vitamins. As I said above, by getting my blood work done routinely we found I need to take vitamin D. I can not have dairy so I take a calcium supplement as well. Seeing as how it’s pretty impossible to eat enough to get every daily allowance of vitamins and minerals without overeating my daily calories I take a general supplement as well.

Because of personal health issues I consider chiropractic preventative medicine as well. If I get adjustments regularly with the occasional massage, I don’t end up being out for the count with a back that keeps me from enjoying life. Back pain can be very debilitating and I have gone into bouts of depression from the pain at times. I really enjoy keeping it at bay as much as possible.

There are other forms of preventative medicine depending on your circumstances, but these are things that you can work on right away and some of them are free or cost very little. In the scheme of things, all of them are better and cheaper than having severe health problems down the road because you didn’t take care of your health.

Yesterday I needed to take the little dog to the groomers. I could pretty easily find something to do for an hour in town or even sit and talk to them while they are grooming since they are friends of mine. But instead I chose to park at the trail and jog. Figured I’d give it a try and see how I feel while I’m still on this low cal diet.

I felt great! I jogged for 25 minutes straight. I have no idea how far it was, but I can drive it another day and see approximately. It is a really straight section of trail and I’m not a fan of that. It really can feel like it takes too long when you just see forever and ever down the way. I’m big on setting little goals while I jog. I’ll just go to the next block, I’ll go to that last house, I can make it to the stop sign, etc. Mind games  I had to pull it out far to set these jogging goals.

One thing to mention is it was 37 degrees while I was jogging. 37 DEGREES! I bundled up and didn’t use it as an excuse. I have some new goals and it has to start somewhere and today, not someday. So I used my time wisely and still got to go back and hang out with my friends when I picked the dog up.

New goal is actually an old goal. You may remember it from way back. I never did get that half marathon ran. I got pneumonia and then I got lazy after that. I just searched out and bookmarked some half marathons to sign up for. I have to get the calendar out to see what will work best with our schedule, but I’m signing up for one before the end of the year. Then we’ll also do the Sound to Narrows again this year and I’m sure I can get friends to do both with me/us.

It’s been a while. It’s been a super long while. Bleh. But my commitment is to not beat myself up over things. Then I just self sabotage as I focus on how crappy I’ve done. Moving forward from here is important.

I’m just starting week 3 of a really strict diet.  I mean really strict. But I’m going to touch on that in another post. I’m down 10.8 pounds and 19.5 inches. The inches are the really nice part. Being comfortable in your clothes is so nice.

With the new found weightloss and seeing a waist again I’ve had the bug to workout. I don’t want my butt to get flabby. So yesterday I went to the gym and hit it. Attempted to do my old jean butt workout. I did as much as I could, but I definitely haven’t done any weight work in a long time. It’s ok, I’ll start slowly from here. It just felt nice to feel motivated to do it.

I’m not supposed to be working out because of the strict caloric intake. But I upped my protein during the day and did it anyway. My hubby and youngest were at the gym and I never got dizzy so it was just fine. I’ll pay attention to any signs, the last thing I want to do is cause an injury or make myself sick.

As I wrote my workout down yesterday I had another couple that didn’t make it into a blog post yet. So here are three different days workouts. It’s good to keep track because I can see that I have only worked out 3 times this month now. But again, two weeks of that I’m actually not supposed to be exerting high energy.

Workout for 11/3

• elliptical 10 minutes, .75 miles, 88 calories
• bike 18 minutes, 2.36 miles, 57 calories
• bike 25 minutes, 3 miles, 70 calories
• total 53 minutes, 6.11 miles, 215 calories

You’ve probably heard about or tried to lose weight on one of those high fiber or high protein fad diets, only to find that once you quit the diet, you gain the weight you lost right back, or even worse, you gain more. Eating healthy, losing weight and keeping it off is only going to work if you truly make a lifestyle change. And making lifestyle changes such as this requires that it’s fun and enjoyable. Here are some fun and enjoyable things you can do to help keep you motivated and kick fat to the curb for good!

photo courtesy johnnyberg

You probably already know that cardio can be a great way to get fit. You’ll find that you are able to stay trimmer, and you are also able to have more endurance to do other sorts of exercises. One of the best ways to get into cardio and to make it something that you can do full time is to take aerobics classes.

At aerobics classes, you’ll be able to learn how to do the basic fundamentals of many different exercises. You can also learn different moves – things you might not know yet, and you can learn how to transition between one type of move smoothly to another. At aerobics classes, you are going to have a chance to learn all about aerobics – what they can do for you, how they work, and why they are important. Not only that, but you’ll actually be able to learn them, from a certified instructor, someone who is good at what they do and someone who can help you be good get safe results.

When it comes to aerobics classes, they good for more than simply teaching you dance moves. Everyone knows that the hardest part about working out is actually doing it, going to the gym or riding your bike, or doing whatever it is that you have decided to do. This is the hardest part about an exercise routine, actually getting there. However, if you sign up for an aerobics class, this means that you are scheduling yourself to do it – you are saying that during these times you’re going to be at this class, which means that you have to go.

Often, just getting it put down on the calendar is a great way to make sure that you do something.  By scheduling your aerobics class, you’ll find you are even more likely to actually go ahead and work out instead of putting it off. This is something that you might want to think about  if you have a lack of motivation.  Trying to work out on your own just might not cut it. You would probably be better off taking a class because this way you are guaranteed to have scheduled this time to work out.  Even better is to rope a friend into taking the class with you, then you have double motivation for getting to each class.

Photo courtesy www.localfitness.com.au