Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Where is Your Time Going?


There are so many complaints about lack of time to exercise and with technology today like; cell phones, email, and social networking sites it's no wonder. During this second challenge I have heard more complaints about lack of time. How many of you spend time texting and better yet how many of you spend an hour or better on the computer logged into your email, Facebook and MySpace? If the computer isn't eating up your time you need to evaluate your situation and find out what is causing you to waste time.


If you have an hour to surf the net then why can't you find an hour to take care of yourself? Figure out what is more important, your health or your social statues on the Internet. Are you really miserable with your weight and do you want to do something about it, or are you just looking for something to whine about? Do you really lack time or do you just lack the discipline to manage your time efficiently?


There are 24 hours in a day and I think GOD did a good job with the amount of time he allocated for a day. You must decided what is more important. Are you happy with yourself? Do you look in the mirror and complain about what you see because you are 20, 30, 40 plus pounds overweight? Do you enjoy shopping for clothes right now or do you avoid the stores at all cost? It's time to focus on the task at hand and that is sit down and write out a schedule. Yes, you can still pencil in time to play on the computer but you need to mark in pen the times you will workout. You need to acknowledge how much time you are wasting each and every day on the computer. How much time are you wasting when you are sitting in a waiting room at the doctors office or waiting in line to pick up your children from school. You are wasting time that you could be using to make yourself a healthier person.


Stop complaining about lack of time, responsibilities, and kids. When the real reason you are not exercising is because you've found another excuse.


I am challenging you to let the mouse go. Put down the cell phone and get your butt in gear. You have one week to finish up this challenge and you need to make it count. Can you do it? Yes, I know you can because I have seen the changes you have made. If you are currently working out but you are not feeling like you are getting a good workout then it's time to step it up, add more weights, add more time and most of all put in 110%.


Here are some tips to manage your time more effectively.


Plan Ahead; Make a schedule and stick to it as best you can. Prepare dinners on Sunday for the following week. Prepare your lunches and snacks ahead of time so all you need to do is grab them from the refrigerator and go.


Don't Waste Waiting Time; If you are on hold or waiting in a doctors office, make use of your time. Write out a grocery list, make out a weekly menu, go through your calendar and plan your workouts for the next week and complete other small tasks.


Stock Up; Buy extras of items like postage stamps, non perishable food items, greeting cards, and paper products. You can avoid several trips to the store or to the post office.


Have a System; Store all of the kids backpacks, lunch boxes, and coats in a central location instead of all over the house. Use post-it-notes on the bathroom mirrors to remind yourself and your children of schedules or items you might need to take to work or school. Post a dry erase board and a dry erase calendar by the door or in a location you will see it daily. Post schedules and write reminders so everyone in the house knows what is going on for the week.


Multi-Task; When at all possible schedule all appointments on one day and schedule appointments for first thing in the morning or directly after lunch. When giving your children a bath sit in the floor and grade homework, sign any necessary paperwork for school, write out bills, and balance your check book. If you don't want to do that groom yourself by taking nail polish off as you are waiting, brush your teeth, wash your face, and do a mask. There are several things you can do while your keeping an eye on your children.


Don't be a Perfectionist!


Learn to Say No; This is by far I think the most important. As a former co-dependent I understand what it is like to always want to take care of everyone and make sure their needs are all met and forget my own. I used to be a co-dependent until I realized noone was taking care of me and of course with a little help from the book Co-Dependent No More. If you can't say no then say not now.


You can't manage time and you can't make a clock stand still but you can manage yourself. Try some of these tips and hopefully you will free up 20-60 minutes in order to take care of you.








Monday, October 26, 2009

A Little Confidence Goes A Long Way

How do you gain confidence? Confidence is really what you think of yourself. If you think badly of yourself then you feel like everyone else looks at you the same way. The mind is a big reason people become overweight. In order for you to work on your confidence the first thing you must do is lover yourself and become the best person you can be.

Take a challenge, set small goals, along with with big goals and watch your confidence grow as you achieve your goals and beat your challenges. The Skinny Mom Challenge, challenges you to make better choices and change your food intake and the big challenge is to incorporate exercise into your day to day life. There are so many advertisements for quick weight loss and yet they fail time and time again. Why not find something to challenge you? When you begin to reach your goals and step out of your comfort zone you will be surprised at how much confidence you will gain.

How do you get started building your confidence? Here are some things you can do; first begin an exercise program at home. Don't be ashamed to workout in front of your husband and your children. This is the first step to confidence. You may be surprised that if you stick with this for a few weeks your children or your husband may decide to join you. Once people take notice that you are trying to make a change in your life sometimes they will want to join you. Having family join you will bring your confidence up because you will realize you are helping others make a change in their life. Step out of your comfort zone and go to a community center to exercise or join an exercise class once or twice a week. Exercising outside of your home will begin to build confidence because you are stepping out of your comfort zone. This will also help you find other people who are having the same feelings you are having. Yes, there are others like you, scared to death but daring to try something new. Once you realize that you can make it through a class with other people, you will begin to feel more confident. Trust me, when you are in a class, nobody is paying attention to what you can or can't do. Everyone in the class is too busy focusing on what they are trying to do.

Being confident means you have to face your fears. You will cry, sweat, and fall flat on your face at times but knowing this and having the courage to get back up and do it again will build your confidence. Don't try to do everything alone or everything at once. Find a friend or even your spouse to join you on your road to a new you. Find someone in our Skinny Mom Challenge to become your workout partner or person to hold you accountable.

To become confident you need to find your purpose. What is your purpose? Find something you believe in and commit yourself to it. Set your goals and focus on achieving them, it's not how fast you lose weight it's the obstacles you climb and the goals you reach that will build your confidence and help you realize you can do anything!

Friday, October 16, 2009

Upcoming Meeting for New and Current Skinny Moms

Ladies I will be hosting an information and educational meeting regarding nutrition and exercise on November 1, 2009 at 1:00 p.m., at Donatos Pizza (Community Room) located at 980 N Morton St, Franklin, IN 46131-1373. I would suggest you eat a healthy meal at home before coming. I am not promoting in any way to eat pizza.

Many of you know that my favorite magazine is Oxygen. There is a special collector's addition out right now called Off the Couch! I really recommend you pick this issue up. There are several very inspirational stories in there and best of all they are featuring a Makeover Contest! You can win $ 1000 so if you want the details and you want to get a jump start on the Skinny Mom Challenge 3 then I suggest you head to the store and purchase this magazine quick!

Please RSVP for the meeting as soon as possible.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Are you Ready for Skinny Mom Challenge 3?

If you are interested and want to join the 3rd Challenge for the Skinny Moms please email me at skinnymomschallenge@yahoo.com I will need to hear from you by November 2, 2009 and I will then email you all the information you will need. The challenge begins November 9, 2009 and will run for 8 weeks.


Challenge 1 the total weight loss for 18 women was over 108 pounds.

Challenge 2 with 3 weeks left the group has lost 78 pounds and there are 17 active challengers.

You can also find the group on Facebook under Skinny Mom Challenge.

Dare to Take the Challenge! The Skinny Mom Challenge!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Focus on Goals

In order to lose weight you must set goals. Without goals this won't be a journey it will be a struggle and you will continually focus on the negative instead of the positives. This will cause you to give up again. You must set realistic goals too. You cannot expect to lose 25 pounds in 8 weeks because realistically you will end up gaining more weight back. Healthy weight loss is 1 -2 pounds per week and that's it. You need to also realize that your body weight changes several times throughout the month, you will see the scale go up 1-3 pounds in a day. This is not physically possible! What is it you ask? Well most of the time it is water, salt and a lot of hormones. You just need to realize that being a women we sometimes get the raw end of the deal. I'm kidding! Just realize that our bodies change a lot and your weight will fluctuate don't sweat it.

Instead of focusing on the number focus on goals. Here are a few examples of some goals you should be trying to achieve right now.

1. If your waist measures over 35 1/2 inches you have a much higher risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Set a goal to lose those inches and focus on getting below 35 1/2 inches try setting a goal for at least 30 inches to get you started.

2. Keep a calorie journal for 7 days. Can you set a 7 day goal? Sure you can! I hear a lot of my challengers say, "I just don't know what happened, I worked out really hard". Well maybe it was the food. Count your calories for a week and lets see what you might be doing wrong.

3. Set a goal to lose 5 -10 % of your weight. If you don't want to focus on the numbers on the scale focus on the percentages. Just remember if you have lost 2% great job! Think positive!

4. Eat breakfast every morning at least 1 hour after waking and drink two 8 oz. glasses of water. This should be your first little goal! You'll be amazed what your body will do if you just feed and re-hydrate it when you get up in the morning. I know, I know you say, "After I eat breakfast I'm always hungry." Really? You should be! It's because you have given your metabolism a jump start. At least 2 hours after eating breakfast eat a healthy snack, then 2 more hours eat lunch. You should be consuming most of your calories between breakfast, snack and lunch. Do not hold onto your calories till the end of the day and do not eat less calories then you need. Your body will keep all of your fat and eat up all of your muscles if you do this. Saving calories until the evening will cause you to graze and eat more calories then you are allowed. These calories will then be stored as fat. Focus on healthy breakfasts and lunches.

These are just a few simple goals you can set for yourself and achieve within the next 3 weeks. Focus on setting goals for the holidays. Just because it's the holidays doesn't mean you will need to go hog wild when you see all the wonderful food. Make healthy choices, use portion control, and most of all STOP eating when you feel full. Drink lots of water before you eat then you want tend to eat so much food.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

As many of you are aware October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Many of us have had a loved one or you may have been affected by breast cancer.



Last year I participated in my first Race for the Cure. I was on a team for a 28 year old mother of two who lives here in Franklin. Her name is Mandy and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I really loved being able to participate and raise money. This was a very emotional and wonderful experience.



I have started a team Skinny Mom Challengers, for the next Race for the Cure on April 17, 2010. Please join our team and help raise money and come walk or run with us.



Go to http://www.komenindy.org/

Once you are here Click on the link that says Registration for the 2010 Race for the Cure. Then inside there look to your right where it says Join a Team click and scroll down enter our team name; Skinny Mom Challengers then you will be prompted to join the team.

If this doesn't work you can always contact me in the comments and I will send you an email to join the team.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Winter Blues and Plateaus

The dreaded cold weather season is fast upon us and if you're like me, you don't want to get out of bed in the morning, you feel really tired, and you lack energy. Is this you? Some of our challengers are beginning to hit plateaus. I believe this is because of the lack of motivation due to the change in the weather. Beat the blues and focus on burning off your energy or gaining energy for some by changing things up.

If you have hit a plateau, change things up a bit. Change your calories by shaving 200-300 calories off of your daily calorie intake for the next 7 days. This will make your body react. Also, change up your routine; change your workouts if you are doing the same workout over and over again your body gets used to the same thing and it will stop showing you results. I have started adding a lot of cardio to my daily workouts and I have even started doing two workouts a day. They might be 20 minutes one time and maybe 45 minutes the next but my body isn't used to two a days so it's catching on and making changes. I also started a jump rope exercise program. There are DVD's at Target called Rope Sport by Eric Neis. The first one should include the workout and two ropes, a weighted rope and a speed rope. The beginner is a fifteen minute workout and there is an instructional DVD to show you the different types of jump rope techniques. It's the fastest 15 minute workout ever! I did it twice just because I couldn't believe it was over so quick. Jumping rope is a great cardio workout as well as a total body workout.

Boxing is another great total body workout and requires great cardiovascular fitness as well. Grab a bag, some gloves, and spend an hour boxing. Do 3 minute drills and after every minute take a 30 second break, after the 3 minute drill (rounds) is up then do things like, 30 lunges, 30 sit ups and 10 push-ups, and continue on with your rounds. If you can't buy a bag find a partner and practice with each other. I'm not saying go all out and box I'm saying practice sparring against each other and working on various boxing moves. Before every boxing workout start by jumping rope. Boxers and kick boxers jump rope before every workout and sometimes in the middle of their workouts. At my kickboxing club we jump rope every time before any workout just to get the blood flowing and warm up. You can pick up boxing gloves at Dick's Sporting Goods or go online to Amazon.com and you can find expensive gloves. Maybe purchase some focus mitts for your partner to wear as you box.

If you want a great workout click on the link regarding kickboxing and check it out. You can make changes and you can break free of the plateau you just have to be creative and get your body guessing what's going to happen next.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

My Workouts

I had a request from a Skinny Mom Challenger to post my weekly workout. Here is a sample of what I have done this week starting with Sunday.

Sunday - 45 minutes of Jillian Michaels Banish Fat Boost Metabolism. This is 45 minutes of kick butt cardio.

Monday - Strength and Cardio
Strength workout includes;
Bench Press (Pectorals) 2sets/8 reps
Bench Flyes (Chest Upper/Outer) 2 sets/10 reps
Squats (Thighs) 2 sets/10 reps
Lunges (Thighs) 2 sets/10 reps
Lat Pull Down (Back) 2 sets/8 reps
One arm dumbbell (back) 2 sets/ 8 reps
Hamstring curls (hams/glutes) 2 sets/10 reps
Deadlift (hams/glutes) 2 sets/10 reps
Cardio included/ 1/4 mile sprints, jump rope for 10 minutes

Tuesday- Muay Thai Kickboxing 1 hour

Wednesday- Strength and Cardio
Same workout as above.

Thursday- Muay Thai Kickboxing 1 hour

Friday- Jillian Michaels 45 minutes No More Trouble Zones (strength)


Interested in learning about Muay Thai Kickboxing please click the link over to the side. If you would like to visit please let me know I have a coupons for a one hour private lesson valued at $ 69.00.