Feel the Burn Thursdays

Good morning, shrinkin' divas!

Just a few little reminders here on our workout sharing day:

1. Energy Bars or Sport Beans or Gel or anything:  Keep track of ALL your calories consumed and ALL your calories burned and stay within your net caloric goal.  Perhaps you didn't burn enough to warrant a high calorie energy or protein bar.  Check out this article from Bicycling Magazine: http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s1-4-21-21630-1,00.html
2. Sleep: "Moodiness, anxiety, and irritability are all effects of losing out on sleep"  This has been big for me.  Last night I got an unusual 12 hours of sleep and it made all the difference in the world.  If I can get that in once a week, I would be a new person.  I go to sleep a grinch and I wake up a superwoman ready to take on the world.  Check out this article from Runner's World Magazine: http://www.runnersworld.com/article/1,7124,s6-238-267--8028-0,00.html#
3. Workout Outdoors: Think unconventionally with your workouts.  It doesn't have to be a dedicated hour at the gym.  It can be just a 10 minute romp around the park with the kiddos.  (Ok, except when you live in crazy Wisconsin and it decides to snow in APRIL) Except for that rarity, being in the sunshine just makes you happier than being cooped up indoors.  Check out these ideas for outdoor workouts from Women's Health Magazine: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/outdoor-workouts
4. Emotional Outlets: When your emotional trigger or stressor hits, and you turn to food, first of all try so hard to recognize WHY you got in that mood in the first place, and find an alternate method of dealing with it.  This is something I'm a novice at, but I've heard working out is a fantastic stress reliever.  For me, when I get in a good workout, I'm just proud of myself and want to shout it from the rooftops, so everything else that is bugging me in my life just isn't that big of a deal anymore.  It's all about my feelings about myself.  Here's an article about stopping binge eating from Shape Magazine: http://www.shape.com/weight_loss/diets/stop_stuffing_yourself_secrets
5. Strength Train: Don't forget this important piece to your workout program.  Cardio looks more appealing b/c you become sweaty and blast huge calories, but weight training (dumbells, resistance bands, pilates, core work, squats, crunches, etc.) has big pros that can't be overlooked.  You'll look slimmer, you'll rev up your metabolism, and you'll be strong. Don't worry about bulking up- that doesn't happen to women.  Here's info on Weight Training 101 from Shape Magazine: http://www.shape.com/fitness/workouts/weight_training_101
6. Water: Are you drinking enough of it?  Sodas, even diet sodas, tend to make your midsection bloated.  Water will energize you, keep you hydrated enough to not confuse thirst signals w/ hunger signals, & keep you healthy.  Here's the link to the tool from Runner's World that helps you calculate out how much you need to be drinking each day, something we've posted on here before: http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-242-302--5382-0,00.html#

So what workouts have you been up to lately?  What do you have planned for this weekend???

Tuesday Motivation

Good morning, beautiful ladies! How did the first full day go?  Are you feeling pretty proud of yourselves?  You should!  Just a few little reminders to consider today:

• Are you drinking enough water?  You could aim for the old addage of 8 glasses of 8 ounces of water.  Something I prefer b/c it's more realistic for a water-liking-challenged person like me is this fun calculator that takes into effect your gender & body size: http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-242-302--5382-0,00.html
• Are you eating enough?  You shouldn't ever get to the ravenously starving stage.  Eat something light every few hours.  Your metabolism will keep revving along steadily and you'll feel more fulfilled.  Have you tried mini-meals or smaller meals w/ more snacks?  Make sure you're eating those calories you're burning, too, to stay at your net caloric goal and keep your energy up.  If you're at a net calorie for the day LOWER than what MFP says you should be at, you might start feeling low-energy, really fatigued, and your body could go into "starvation mode" meaning it won't burn much and it will store everything you eat instead of burning it for fuel b/c it senses it has no idea when or if its next meal will come.  All bad stuff, right?!  So make sure you're eating ENOUGH! :)
• Are you getting enough sleep?  Being sleep deprived really affects not just your ability to work out, but also your metabolism and mood.  Adults should aim for 8 hours a night if possible (and if not possible, then all you can do is the best you can and that's awesome).  Athletes should aim for 10 hours a night. WHOA!  So depending on how incredible you're doing at your workouts this challenge, you might want to increase your sleep habits a little bit so you don't start draggin' and feeling burnt out.

Onto today's message, which I LOVE!  I know the Olympics are over, but this is just really cool, something I came across that motivated me into action.  It's a motivational newsletter from inside my company, from a really great guy named Harry Hoopis out of Chicago.  The message is a bit lengthy, but pretty cool.  Comment on this post & let us all know your thoughts on it and how it pertains to us and this particular Ten in Six Challenge!:

WHY I LOVE THE OLYMPICS

Whether it’s the Summer or Winter Olympics, I love them. I have thought about this a great deal and have come to the conclusion that it’s not just my Greek heritage that makes me feel this way. In fact, while I am very proud of it, I know that it’s not about heritage, but instead, the significant statement that the Olympic Games make. The first Olympiad was held in 776BC and was held initially as a religious festival to honor the supreme god of gods, Zeus. The games lasted for 1170 years until 393 AD when they were abolished by the Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius.

The Greeks loved the Olympics because they put great emphasis on fitness and athletics and its importance to a good mind. Because being an Olympic Champion was so significant, the athletes competed for honor, not material goods. A simple wreath made from a sacred olive tree was the symbol of their accomplishment. After an absence of 1500 years the Olympics were brought back by a Frenchmen who shared the thinking that a strong body was important for a strong mind. Thus Baron Pierre de Coubertin is credited with bringing back the Olympics as International Games in 1896. I am personally grateful he did this for the world.

So as I thought about the games this week, I couldn’t help but think of the lessons that they teach, if we are willing to look below the hype and the competition itself. For while we have only three medals, Bronze, Silver and Gold; each and every one of these athletes are champions. They are champions for what it has taken for them to make it to Vancouver this winter. So today I would like to make some comparisons to what it takes to be an Olympic athlete and what it takes for you to win your greatest personal victory. And that victory is, as Aristotle told us 2300 years ago when he said this,” the greatest of victories is the victory over Self”. Imagine 2300 years ago and Greeks were writing self help books! :)

So here is how I will summarize my thoughts on your personal greatness and the Olympic champions.

The Five P’s

Preparation,

Perseverance,

Patience,

Persistence

Performance

First think about the preparation that it takes for an Olympian to make it to the Games? The hours and hours of training, practice and disappointment, all with nothing more than the dream of a medal. When, I wonder, does someone see the possibility that they can qualify for the Olympics? When do they finally believe in themselves enough to begin the arduous task of working toward that dream?

So the first P, Preparation, is about creating a dream, believing in yourself more than anyone else probably does and then taking the steps to get there. This will include a good coach and a commitment to excellence. You too, need a dream and like the Olympians of the Ancient games, you need to do it for honor, not material things. Honor, to me, is doing the right things for your family, religious beliefs and community.

The second P, Perseverance, is what it takes to get from the dream to the reality of just how hard this is going to be. How many kids talk about being a Navy Seal, a Doctor, and Astronaut, only to abandon their dream at the first sign of hard work? Do you think an Olympian ever has days when things didn’t go well? Do you think they ever consider quitting? My guess, everyone of them will tell you they thought of quitting numerous times. Do you think about quitting your dream? Do you play hurt like so many Olympians, or do you call in sick with a sniffle?

The third P, Patience is about your staying power. It’s about endurance and your ability to allow skills to catch up with dreams. Being realistic about the time it will take to make it to the top. The great athletes of the Olympics know this well. How many did we hear about this week, who had to wait four more years for their next chance? How many had a bad break, an injury, a fall and still came back, four years later? The dream never dies!

The fourth P, Persistence is what all champions have. My mentor, Don Clifton always said a winner “increases his/her persistence in the face of resistance.” Your ability to persist is a skill, not just a feeling. No one achieves without persistence.

The fifth P, Performance is what we have after we have done all the rest. Our performance is simply the culmination of our preparation, perseverance, patience and persistence. This is the payoff for the practice, the hours and hours of practice. Is your practice in alignment with your desired level of achievement? If you were in front of the judges for the Olympics of Life, how would they rate your performance?

So as we watch the Olympics come to a close this weekend, don’t let the memory of great achievement fade. Don’t let the emotion you felt as you watched an Olympic performance leave you. Decide now that you too can win the greatest victory of all, victory over Self!

So why do I love the Olympics? I love the Olympics because it is the greatest manifestation of Human ability. It’s about ordinary people, doing extraordinary things. Remember, anything you ardently desire and earnestly work toward will eventually come to pass.

(alright, and this cake is just funny :) )

Make it a great day, girls!

Tuesday's Motivation

Good....er....afternoon, forgiving friends! :) 

SLEEP CHECK:
First, a sleep check.  Have you ladies all been improving the # of hours of sleep you get each night since our last convo about sleep last week?  I'm stealing this sleep blurb from my amazing sis-in-law, Erianne: 
 "Everyone needs 7 to 10 hours sleep. Children (ages 1 – 10) require at least 10 hours, Adolescents (ages 11 – 22) need an average of 9.25 hours, and adults (23+ years) require 8.25 hours of sleep, on average, each night. Athletes in each age group have been shown to have a greater need for sleep than the nonathletes. For anyone, a sleep deficit is defined as the sum of all night s in which you sleep less than your sleep needs (» 8-10 hrs). The average American adolescent is operating at about a 25 hour deficit. At a 19 hour sleep deficit, athletes perform on cognitive and coordination tests, worst than someone with a .08 blood alcohol level. In the United States, a .08 blood alcohol level is considered legally drunk in 42 states.  Some of the reported effects of a sleep deficit are: impaired motor skills, impaired cognition, impaired memory, inhibited creativity, higher stress levels, increased body fat, depressed immune system, anxiety, impeded growth, irritability, depression, mood swings, decreased life expectancy, and difficulty maintaining interpersonal relationships. Athletes who want to perform at their peak must outline and follow a proper sleep regime.  Another study just performed at Stanford on their swim team demonstrated that extra sleep (1 hour beyond normal sleep patterns), significantly enhanced the swimmers performance! Kind of cool.
Here is a link to a good article with some helpful hints and facts about sleep and athletic performance: topspeedschool.com/uploads/TopSpeed-Sleep.pdf "
So that's you! You're an athlete I'd say if you workout daily or try to.  So you need MORE sleep than others!  Can you put a high priority on sleep?  You're drunk if you don't! :)  That's a fun light to put the issue in. So, after that cool sleep check from Erianne, on to today's info. 
 
DECIDING ON A GOAL WEIGHT:
Leslie, to answer your question posed yesterday about the proper goal weight, there are oodles of BMI calculators and what not online.  I do agree that a given BMI number IS a huge weight range, though.  I've never asked a physician what my healthy weight was, or used a calculator other than my Wii Fit to tell me what my goal BMI was, but I'm sure those would all be good ideas.  I took the weight I was when I graduated high school and subtracted 10 lbs.  I figured that'd be a good goal weight, but that I'd probably adjust to see how it was when I got there.  It just so happens that right around that goal weight was my arbitrarily set 50 lb total weight loss goal.  I wanted to get to a round # (dumb, I know, totally not scientific or biologically genius).  And then the biggest thing for determining my goal weight was a weight loss success story I read last summer in a magazine where the woman was 2 inches taller than me and at that goal weight, and I liked the body type (not all muscular and ripped, just trim and athletic) and the body type corresponded with my own (pretty straight up & down, I've never been hourglass-shaped).  So I've determined, though, that my goal weight is a "decade" range on the scale.  Just in a range of 10 lbs.  If I stay between x lbs and x lbs I'll be happy.  It seems I can't really lose more unless I want to lose muscle and I am not about to do that and sacrifice my athletic ability, so I'm happy where I am, which is about 5 lbs more than what I had originally thought would be my goal weight, but my body seems happy where it's at, stable.  Like I said yesterday, I'm just working on being a little less gooey in a few areas and a little more solid now :)   What tips do you guys have?  How did you decide on your goal weight?
 
BEATING THE WEEKEND BINGES:
Leah & Jeanie, we all have a hard time on the weekends because it's just not in our routine.  What's helped me is my hubby getting in on the healthy-eating bandwagon.  If he wasn't, I know for sure I'd be a big sucker for whatever decadent or greasy foods he wanted to splurge on.  So Shanda, I definitely say get Mara on the bandwagon!  Have her join our group!  She's such a sweetheart- I know she'd love it.  Then problem solved with the healthy grocery shopping.  If she doesn't want to hop on, then I'd suggest flip flopping your arrangement.  Have her do the utilities and you do the groceries.  Or if not that, then put your heads together and plan a meal plan for the week that works for you both, and have her go shopping for it.  Or do separate meal plans and give her your healthy meal-plan-for-one (lots of little snacks you can have separate from everyone) to go shopping for.  So back to the weekends in particular, one thing you can do to counteract the heavy eating is to put in a heavy workout.  Usually we have an extra chunk of time to workout on a weekend than we do during the work week.  For instance, I like to do my longer runs on Saturdays, because it's the only day of the week I have enough daylight to go do that.  So my Saturday calorie burns are higher than any other day of the week, so if I eat more, it's ok.  Another idea is to try your hardest to maintain your routine throughout the weekend, like getting up at the same time, eating at the same time, working out at the same time, going to bed at the same time, etc.  If it's a matter of an extra 8 hours spent at home wearing a trail in the carpeting from the couch to the fridge because you're bored, plan a typical work-day long excursion from the house, either shopping or running errands, working out, or some other adventure.  This will help keep your body on schedule for what it's used to being away from the house at work during the week.  This article from Shape on the subject of avoiding binge eating says to keep up on your food diary (counting what you eat in MFP), explore food-free ways of socializing (like our active non-restaurant date night side challenge), bring your own low-cal healthy treat to a get together so you know you can eat at least one thing instead of being victim to whatever everyone else provided.  What tips do you have?  How do you keep from falling off the healthy-eating and working out bandwagon on the weekends?

Share, share, share :) Let's all help each other!

Feel the Burn Thursday

Good morning, sweating & shrinking divas!

What workouts have you done this past week?  What do you have planned for this weekend?

One of the best workouts you can do for your body is.....SLEEPING!  If you don't get enough sleep (sorry, mommies of newborns, this might be impossible), then you're more apt to come down with illnesses or injuries in your workout regime.  This Bicycling article is pretty good. It suggests 8-10 hours!  Whoa! This RunnersWorld article says getting enough sleep (again, 10 hrs) will improve your reaction time and speed in running.  This WebMD article suggests that getting enough sleep actually affects 2 important hormones in our body that affect appetite, so if you don't get a good night's rest, the next day perhaps nothing you eat will be satisfying or perhaps you'll be ravenous.  And the thing we probably all knew, this AFPA article says that sleep is needed for our muscles to repair themselves (when you workout tiny muscle tears happen and then your muscles rebuild bigger and stronger).

The other great component to a successful weight loss program is....WATER!  We know that often our bodies confuse the signal for thirst for the signal for hunger.  Sometimes when you think you're hungry, your body is actually thirsty and dehydrated.  Being sure to drink enough water will decrease your hunger & probably the amount of food you eat b/c of that. It will also increase your energy, increase your metabolism, cleanse your body, be easier on stomach bloat than diet soft drinks, and will just overall make you feel better.  How much is enough?  The old, well-known recommendation is 8 8oz glasses of water + any you drink during a workout. This RunnersWorld calculator that I like a lot actually customizes that generic recommendation for your gender and body weight, so it results in a little bit less water intake for me than the 8x8=64 fluid ounces/day.  But this smaller calculation still has the addition of + anything you drink during a workout.  And another cool tip is that if you sip ice cold water throughout the day, you'll burn a few extra calories from your mid-section as your body spends energy to warm up the water temp in your stomach to an absorbable and usable temperature.  And I've heard that if your body feels thirsty, you're already dehydrated- so drink drink drink!  Any tips for how you get in your daily water?  There's actually a free iPhone app called "8" that tracks your intake of 8 glasses of water a day like a checklist- kind of fun :)  I like a big glass of Crystlal Light w/ dinner, too :)

So the point of this post is not just to hear about what workouts you're up to (which I LOVE hearing about), but it's also a SLEEP CHECK and a WATER CHECK!  How are you doing in both of those departments?

Feel Good Friday

Good morning! On Wednesday afternoon, I had the chance to attend a conference with Dr. Robert Cooper, a renowned neuroscientist turned Fortune-100 business coach. He is actually my boss’s mentor. It was neat to hear all of his insights about how the brain works, how each of us is hardwired for one thing but then defaults to other things, how the brain is a forgetting instrument but how we can make changes and differences in our thought processes in increase our innovation in half the time. He’s the author of a book called Get Out of Your Own Way, which is one I plan on reading sometime soon.


One section of his presentation was all about metabolism, which I think really applies to our blog! He has teams of researchers dedicated to various research fields and projects for him. One such team is dedicated to researching just metabolism, the MetRev© team. They have discovered through their research a list of the following MetRev© Metabolic Prompts, or in other words, things that increase your metabolism, burning more calories resting:

• Breathing/Posture (Take deep breathes more often, increase the flow of oxygen, don’t cock your head to the side or forward when sitting or reading b/c 30% of your collective intelligence is determined by your shoulder to head position, decreasing the flow of oxygen and blood)

• Bright Light (Looking 5 seconds at a light will raise your metabolism 30% for the following hour, change your light often)

• Smart Snacks (smart snacks and light meals aren’t universal and what works for one doesn’t work for another, if you LOVE a snack then it doubles your metabolic rate, so if you hate rice cakes, don’t force yourself to eat them! Find a healthy snack you love to eat)

• Light Meals (higher protein adds mental alertness, complex carbs add mental calmness, fruits and veggies are mentally neutral, high fat foods are mentally fatiguing)

• Muscle Toning (our muscle fibers are metabolic furnaces)

• Physical Activity (exercise makes you sleep deeper)

• Hot Spices (I was thinking about this last night when Abrey was describing her way too firey dinner she made- hehehe)

• Ice-cold Water (the key here is SIPPING, if you sip 6 glasses of ice-cold water a day, you’ll burn 226.7 extra calories per day average, and the preferred place your body pulls calories from to heat the water within your stomach before it can be absorbed/digested is the belly fat)

• Non-Hurtful Humor

• Work-to-Home Transition

• Cool Temperature for Sleeping (1-5 am is the critical time for deep sleep, you’ll sleep deeper if it’s cooler in your bedroom, healing process of your muscles speeds up, metabolism roars, better recovery)



All of these things dial in your senses more and increase your metabolism. Another interesting tid bit was that half of all arguments are hunger related. Keep that at bay w/ the almost constant light snacking, or at least feed the one you’re about to fight with. Jk



What do you guys thing of that? I for one am really going to implement the cooler sleeping temperature, the ice cold water sipping, and looking at lights once in a while!!!!!!  Though maybe I won't go to the extreme of making an ice bed... :)

Tuesday Sleep Check

Review your sleeping habits this past week. Are you getting enough sleep? Did you know sleep can help you lose weight? It balances two hormones which affect appetite. It also improves our mood which makes us more likely to work out. It also makes us snack less. Wow, the list just goes on and on. Check this out- it was news to me! =)

The Dream Diet: Losing Weight While You Sleep

Breaking Down Weight-Loss Barriers

Of course I wouldn't suggest napping instead of working out in most instances, but if your body is exhausted and trashed beyond belief, maybe that nap would do you more good than forcing a pathetic workout. We need to be careful to get in both workouts and sleep in adequate doses each day. A lot of studies out there tout that a good exercise routine will help you sleep better at night. So what do you ladies think? How has your sleeping been this past week? Don't want to be your nagging mom telling you when to go to bed, but just tossing it out there as a suggestion....if you want your allowance that is....jk