Holiday musings… and ever tightening jeans!

personal trainer diary

- Beth Beauchemin (Read About Beth)

As many of you already know, I have NO hope of keeping my waistline tight and taut over the holiday season.  Having a baby isn’t exactly the best way to stay looking skinny and trim (although it is VERY possible to stay fit through your pregnancy…. Hello Belly Bootcamp prenatal classes!!!), so I’m pushing off my skinny jeans goal until December 2010.  (Yummy… that means all I can eat homemade butter tarts!  Well, maybe not all I can eat, but I will certainly indulge in a few.  It’s for the baby!)

Since I have no hope of controlling my waistline this season, I am hoping (somewhat) to keep a tighter rein on my holiday budget.  What is it about the holiday season that triggers an urge to spend as much as I possibly can to show the people around me that I care about them?  I really and truly don’t look at what I receive as a measure of anything, so why would I put that pressure on myself?  Is it true that “in order to be a good daughter/sister/sister-in-law/friend/etc you need to spend xxx amount of dollars”.   Absolutely not! It is truly a crazy time of year, but here are some ways you can trim the fat from your holiday budget.

1. Go paperless. Not only is this great for the environment (YEAH!), but it will save you time and money!  You can go paperless in a variety of ways.  My favourite 2 are e-cards for holiday notes (This is so fast AND no waiting in line at the post office to mail them all!!!) and being “useful” when wrapping gifts.  As little paper as possible in this house – we recycle gift bags like they are going out of style, of course, but we also try and use fabric.  Bath or kitchen towels make great wrapping paper, as do reusable lunch bags.  Where there is a will there’s a way!
2. Hit the dollar store. While paperless is still goal 1, I still have to send cards to my granny and wrap my mom’s presents.  Some things will never change!  For items like that…. Hello Dollarama!  I can spend $20 on a card and wrapping paper at the drugstore, or $3 at the dollar store.  No brainer!
3. Partner up. This comes from my own personal preference….. I would much rather one nice gift than a bunch of less-than-spectacular little ones.  In our family, I often partner up with a few people to get my dad the tool he’s coveting, or the new golf clubs my mom has been eyeing.  We spend less than we would have individually, and are able to get a much nicer gift.
4. Buy occasions, not items. This is another great “eco” gift.  Items such as a restaurant/movie/spa gift certificates; your babysitting services for a night; tickets to a play… these are all great ideas and will create a memory that the recipient will treasure for a long time to come.
5. Channel your inner Martha. While I admit that not everyone has culinary or sewing skills, there are a variety of easy and gorgeous things that you can make yourself as gifts.  When I was a kid, my grandfather LOVED banana splits.  His present from me one year… “a banana split kit”.  Homemade chocolate sauce, pineapple jam, and strawberry jam, with a small whipped cream container.  Cheesy?  Yes.  Heart-warming?  Very.  Useful?  Definitely!  I think we had banana splits at their house every Friday for the next 2 months!  Spend some time researching online, and you will find a plethora of ideas that truly do come from the heart.

So while I will admit that I did go ridiculously overboard for my granny (can anyone say cashmere set?!), I have managed to find a few places where I’ve been able to be more reasonable.   Now I just have to sit back and let the dust settle on my credit card:  we will see what January brings!

Happy Holidays everyone!

I Think I Can, I Think I Can: Workout Mantras

the trainer’s toolbox

Some workouts are a breeze.  A jog with a friend on a sunny morning or a favourite fitness class can whiz by in a flash.  Other days, not so much.  Maybe you’re trying to shave a minute or two off your 5K time.  Maybe you’re adding a new, evil – and super effective, your trainer swears – squat exercise to your routine.  Or maybe you’re just not running on a full tank of gas.

How do you motivate yourself?  Well, an iPod comes in handy.  A mirror or a point on the wall to fix your eyes can help you stay focused.  Counting your reps or pacing your breaths are great ways to keep your heart and mind calm while you dig deep and get the job done.  But sometimes, you just need a little something else.  Sometimes you feel desperate.  You want to quit.  You are at the end of your rope.

This is when you need a mantra.  When clients are pushing themselves to complete a speed interval on the treadmill or to finish a set of terrible, evil crunches, I sometimes give them a mantra.  I plant a little thought to inspire their minds and help them finish the task I know they’re capable of finishing.  Here are a few of my favourites, for my clients and myself:

• If I stop I will regret it
• If I stop this will be just as hard the next time
• This will only be a memory in a few minutes/seconds
  

  Sometimes a person or memory can be an inspiration when you need it

• Every step/rep makes me stronger/fitter/faster (choose the adjective that suits your goal)
• In a few minutes this will all be over and the pain with it
• This will get easier but only if I stick with it
• This too shall pass
• I can do anything for 1 minute/5 minutes/3 reps (whatever you are trying to finish)
• I’ve already done 28 minutes/8 reps so I know I can do 2 minutes/4 reps more (wherever you are in your workout/set)
• My body can do this
• I am made for this

And now for my personal workout mantra when I need some perspective and push to reach a goal.  This line never fails me.  If you have any past experience of physical pain and triumph you can use this line – mommies, especially, can relate this line to your experiences in childbirth:

This is not the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Now I bet you can do anything if you can keep that in mind.

falling off the wagon should hurt a bit

family fitness

Ah, February…  slush is in the streets, love is in the air and everybody in the whole, freakin’ world is in the gym.  At least for a few more weeks.  As New Year’s Resolutions get a little fuzzier and the temperatures get a little warmer, many gymgoers struggle to stay committed.  And sometimes, you just have to party.

So if you’ve been partying a bit, or feeling under the weather, or sleeping in and missing your step class, or – as in the case of my client, S – you’ve been under doctor’s orders to abstain from exercise for two weeks – you might be wondering how to get yourself started again.  Here are some strategies I always recommend to clients as they re-mount the metaphorical wagon after a hiatus.

• Establish a goal. When you’ve been inactive, it can be difficult to get the momentum up to return to regular exercise and you may find yourself unmotivated because it’s harder, you’re more tired than usual and you feel less confident than you would had you been consistently exercising all along.  Check out the Canada Running Series to find an upcoming 5K or 10K walk or run, or have a fitness assessment done by a personal trainer and schedule a follow-up in 6-8 weeks.  Your personal trainer should help you set healthy, realistic goals based on the results of your original assessment.  Generally, 1-2 pounds per week is a healthy rate of weight loss.

• Get to the heart of things. Muscular strength is retained for several weeks up to several months after an exerciser becomes inactive; however, cardiovascular capacity begins to deteriorate virtually with the first missed workout.  Strict bedrest, severe illness or injury will cause greater levels of “detraining” than merely falling off the wagon, taking a lazy vacation or catching cold for a week or two.  Three cardiovascular workouts per week are required just to maintain cardiovascular capacity; you should take it up to 4-5 cardiovascular workouts of at least 20-30 minutes in the first couple of weeks back.  If you’re focusing on building your cardio back up, do the cardio portion of your workouts before the strength portion.

• Start a new program. There’s nothing more discouraging than returning to your regular workouts to realize just how out of shape you’ve become.  Instead, begin a new program when you head back to the gym.  We expect to struggle a bit with new exercises or routines and to have sore muscles and fatigue in the day or two after.  You’ll be more interested in mastering a new routine than you would be in “retraining” yourself to get back to the same level you were at before your break.  Aim for 2-3 full-body strength training workouts per week.

• Stretch it out. It’s going to hurt.  Laying in bed, laying on the couch, or laying on a beach chair in the tropics, you’re probably not working your muscles strenuously or with a variety of movements.  Lift tea, drink tea, lift tea, drink tea does not a workout make.  Be sure to stretch your chest, back, legs and hips after your workouts.  Have a comfortable, hot bath or shower (or a sauna, if you have access to one) for 10-15 minutes after your workouts.  You’ll still be stiff, but you may be lucky enough to be stiff for only one day instead of two after those first workouts.

In a couple of weeks, you’ll barely remember that you ever left the gym in the first place.  A break from exercise can be a great opportunity to revitalize your program and reset your goals.  Take advantage and enjoy those aches and pains – if your body didn’t punish you, you might never learn your lesson…

Stop Exercising & Get Fit

family fitness

Did that get your attention?

If you’re like me, taking time away from exercise is an exercise in guilt management.  Of course, there are sick days and family emergencies, even work snafoos that might necessarily keep one from the gym here and there.

Then there are those days.  You know those days.  They are the days when you wake up with a headache or you get caught up emailing an old friend and you just don’t make it to your usual workout appointment with yourself.  Those days are the guilty days.  Like that last glass of red wine, those days seem so appealing and often, in retrospect, are not worth all the regret…  If you’ve planned to work out, my advice is to stick to the plan.  This isn’t to say a day off is regrettable.  Days off should be built into your exercise program and adhered to as diligently as days on.

Days off can be great days to go for a walk, go ice skating with the kids or just get some housework done with that extra couple of hours.  During this blissful respite from your ordinary workout routine, your body is doing some miraculous things.  It is repairing its muscle fibers to build them bigger and stronger and to prepare you for your next strength training workout.  It is stocking up on carbohydrates to fuel you for your next walk or jog.  It is resting and relaxing all those tight muscles and tendons.  It is rehydrating.  It is, in essence, getting fitter.  As you play with the kids or just catch up on your favourite TV dramas, your ordinarily active body is luxuriating in some much-deserved time out to process all the work you’ve done over the last few days. Studies have even shown that competitive athletes such as gymnasts, who often train seven days a week for several weeks or months on end, actually gain strength and muscle mass when forced to rest during times of injury.  You don’t have to be that extreme.  You may take one or two days off every week and enjoy those gains on a regular basis rather than pushing yourself to the point of injury.  At least, that would be my recommendation.

When the rest is over you will head back to the gym, the yoga studio, or the track with a clear head and a ready body.  You might even get a bit of housework done in the process…

“Almost mindless”

weight loss blog

In week two, our blogger A discovers some important secrets to great, lasting weight loss: plan, plan and plan some more.  Leaving your next meal to chance makes it much more likely you will choose unhealthy foods.

Weight: 152 lb Height: 5′ 3″

Day Seven — 1/20th of the way down the road to my new fit body and I’ve lost a total of……negative three pounds!  What!?  I’ve tried to be good, I really have!  Kind of.  There was last week’s birthday bash with way too much rich food, wine and tequila.  And there was the subsequent hangover junk-food day. And cheat night at my sister’s house.  And I skipped the gym one day and two at-home workouts…but really, I’ve tried to be good!

I’m proud to say I feel ready to get back on track though.  I had a great workout today at the gym, and have been paying a lot more attention to what I eat and when and why.  It took me a while to realize how often I eat out of boredom. I often find myself at home around 10pm — too fatigued from the day to start any activity of sorts, but still too wired to go to bed.  When books and TV don’t hold my attention I find myself wandering to the kitchen to kill some time.  Another trigger for me is when I’m hungry and I haven’t had enough water throughout the day.  I start to feel frantic, and I’m reaching for the closest thing edible to snack on while my pre-planned meal is heating.  I’m learning to recognize this and reach for a glass of water instead, which works instantly to calm me down.

Today I realized how important it is to know which fast-food choices to make.   I grabbed a Wheat ‘n Carrot muffin from Tim Horton’s thinking it was probably the best choice for an on-the-run breakfast.  WRONG! When I checked their website later, I found out that the innocent-seeming pastry had 400 calories, 19 grams of fat and over 5 teaspoons of sugar.  I spent less than five minutes on their website to find three options with less fat and sugar, and more filling protein — now these are on my “safe” foods list for the next time I’m running late in the morning.

I try to spend a few minutes each day doing calorie counts for my favourite meals and snacks.  This way, the next time I know I have only a certain number of calories left for the day, I can check my home-made recipe cards to find something yummy that won’t put me over the top.  It also means that I don’t have to do the math everytime I make a turkey sandwich for lunch.  Along with portion-controlled frozen meals, and lots of fresh fruit and veggies in the fridge, it makes it almost mindless to stay within my calorie-range.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see the dramatic change on the scale that you were hoping for.  When you look back on your week and realize you weren’t quite as virtuous as you meant to be, it’s easy to understand why you haven’t lost any weight yet.  Regroup and recognize your pitfalls, then PLAN to avoid them.  If you lay your ingredients or meals out for yourself or prepare ahead of time by using frozen meals and recipes to help guide you, the willpower to stick with your plan is the only thing you’ll need!