Fitness – Page 5 – Jenna Jamieson, Author

To workout or not? …WORKOUT!

By Jenna Jamieson | March 15, 2014 | Comments 2 comments

Do you ever have one of those days where you aren’t sure whether you want to workout or not? Of course you do, because we all do at one point or another. The point when you say to yourself, do I really want to workout today or should I take the night off. It’s one of life’s burning questions! Well, maybe not exactly one of life’s burning questions for all of us, but you know what I mean! 🙂 You get off work at 4:30, the kids have soccer practice at 6:30, and you aren’t sure whether you have time to fit in a workout, shower, and get the kids fed before practice. Trust me, time management will allow you to do it and you will thank yourself later! Skipping workouts is one of the worst things you can do for yourself because it takes you out of your routine. Even if you can’t do your regular 30-45 minutes of cardio, strength training, or yoga, go ahead and fit in a small workout whether it be a walk or 30 minutes of stretching and at home exercises (i.e. jumping jacks, lunges, squats, push-ups, etc). Maintaining a routine will help encourage you to stay on track, reach your fitness goals, and make you feel healthier and happier (aka less stress)!

The question at hand: Should you workout today? Answer: See the infographic to the left! There aren’t too many reasons that will get you out of the workout, so if you are looking for an excuse you will need to look elsewhere! There are too many benefits of working out! If you are considering skipping a workout this infographic will reaffirm to you why you SHOULD get up off your butt and go workout!

It’s March, which means it is time for 5k runs, outside workouts, yard work, walking on trails, swimming, etc so no excuses! Go WORKOUT! Why? Because you will thank me later (and yourself too)! Plus, your physical and mental health will be happier as well!

~jj

Find your “happy workout” :)

By Jenna Jamieson | March 9, 2014 | Comments 2 comments

What is a “happy workout”? A “happy workout” is finding a routine or exercise that you are tremendously passionate about and love so that you can enjoy your workout and what it has to offer you! One important thing to remember about being consistent with your workouts is making sure you have a workout routine or exercise that you look forward to rather than dread. The key to being consistent is trying different workout routines and exercises and finding one you feel comfortable with, works the part of the body you want to improve, and makes you look forward to working out. For example, you might consider zumba classes, cross training classes, walking, running, swimming, yoga, etc. Once you find an exercise or routine that you enjoy, stick with it. Don’t feel like you need to change it, especially if you are considering changing to a routine or exercise you don’t like to do. You are far more likely to give up or not follow through if you don’t like your workout, leaving you frustrated and stressed.

If you become bored with your workout and no longer look forward to it, you know it is time to change it and find something new to keep you going. You don’t have to keep the same workout every day or every week, but I do suggest that you find a workout routine or exercise that makes you look forward to it. This will encourage you to workout each day and increase your chances of seeing success. It may be a workout routine that lasts 2 years or it may be a workout routine that lasts 2 months, but either way it is to your advantage to not only find something you love, but something you love with a passion. It can be something as simple as jumping rope, a routine you do with an app on your smartphone, a YouTube video, or a routine of pictures you found online. No matter what it is, if you enjoy it and find it to be something that helps you relieve stress and break a sweat, then you have found “your” workout. A workout that you have a passion for and look forward to doing sometime during your day.

So, get EXERCISING, have fun, and make sure you LOVE it! If you don’t love it, then ditch it and find something new (such as some of the options above)!

~jj

Go meatless (sometimes)…and love it!

By Jenna Jamieson | February 26, 2014 | Comments 0 Comment

As I was working out tonight I was thinking about the blog and what might be a good entry this week. I recently started eating more meatless meals, not to lose weight, not because I think it is healthier, but because sometimes I just don’t crave meat or the thought of meat kind of grosses me out (at times) when I go to fix dinner. No, I am not a vegetarian and while I know that some people would say it is better for you, I truly believe in “everything in moderation.” I do what I feel is right for MY body and I suggest you do what you feel is right for yours, too! In all of my posts, I want to continually emphasize that you should always do what YOU think is best for you and take my advice or leave it, use some of it, and realize that I do not have the answers to each individual’s unique lifestyle and routine.

Since I have been going meatless more frequently than I usually do, I decided I actually kind of enjoy my meatless meals, maybe some more than the ones where I do eat meat. I typically enjoy “Meatless Mondays” each week, but I have now taken it even farther and decided to also eat at least one meatless meal per day. So, whether you already occasionally eat meatless or whether you never eat meatless I challenge you to “Meatless Mondays.” This is a great way to start and ease into what meatless meals can offer! I promise meatless meals can be just as delicious, fun to cook, and can make your creative juices flow! 🙂 This means you will eliminate meat on Mondays, so no meat at breakfast, lunch, or dinner! No cheating either! Sounds challenging maybe, but it really isn’t. Consider peanut butter toast and sliced apples for breakfast, grilled cheese and veggie soup for lunch, and pizza or pasta minus any meat for dinner.

Once you have “Meatless Mondays” down I encourage you to take it one step farther as I have by eating one meatless meal per day. That should not be hard and should be a routine that you already have in place. One meatless meal per day is actually very healthy as the consumption of meat at every meal is not necessary (or healthy)! It does not have to be the same meal each day. It can be breakfast one day, then dinner the next, followed by breakfast again, and then lunch the following day. For example, you might have a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit for breakfast, a spinach and feta quesadilla for lunch, and then chicken parmesan with broccoli for dinner. You went meatless at lunch so you met your goal for one meatless meal that day.

You say that you can’t get full on meatless meals? I DON’T buy it! That’s crazy! Eat more veggies, which are one of the best things you can fill your body with! Consider some of the following if you don’t believe me: 1) veggie stir fry with brown rice 2) pasta with a meatless marinara sauce and garlic bread 3) sliced potatoes layered with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, and ranch dressing (potato nachos) 4) breakfast foods including eggs, hashbrowns, waffles, pancakes, french toast, biscuits 5) veggie pizza. You can’t tell me that none of these foods speak to you because it includes nearly every food group (and all are meatless)!

So, next time you sit down for a meal think MEATLESS! I know I do and my body still loves me and I feel great!

~jj

Small pieces to the health puzzle…

By Jenna Jamieson | February 22, 2014 | Comments 0 Comment

Need a few quick tips to keep you going through your workouts? Here are a few things I continuously keep on my radar to ensure I can get through my workouts without feeling tired or bored.

1. Get yours zzz’s. Sleeping is vital to ensure you feel refreshed. It helps get you through the whole day, and that includes your workout! Try to get 7-8 full hours of sleep each night.

2. Stretch. Just do it. Even if you are short on time, stretch before and after your workout. If you don’t think it will help, read last week’s post and it’ll help convince you! 🙂

3. Eat more fiber. Your body will thank you now and later. I promise!

4. Drink water, and plenty of it. What is plenty? At least 64 ounces each day! That’s eight 8 oz. glasses. It’s easy. Spread it out throughout the day…before meals, with meals, and between meals. Trust me, it’s worth it. Drinking plenty of water also helps give you a full feeling in your stomach, typically causing you to eat less.

5. Make your meals rather than eating out or on the run. You eat less healthy food when you eat on the fly. You tell me you don’t have time to make food? Pre-plan and pre-make food ahead of time. Fruits and veggies can easily be sliced and put in a container with water and lemon juice to keep them fresh, sandwiches can be pre-made, whole wheat crackers are an easy throw in. No excuses!!

6. Find a way to control your stress. I cannot emphasize this one enough. Stress is not good for your mind or body. What’s my way to destress? Working out and exercising, of course! 🙂

7. Drink…water, not lots of sugary drinks and alcoholic beverages. Bummer, right? Not necessarily. I am not saying give them up, just don’t over do it. Everything in moderation!

8. Try to limit how often you let your sweet tooth win AND find sweets that are “healthy” sweets. I sound crazy, right?! Not exactly. For example, eat a slice of whole wheat bread with Nutella or cinnamon sugar, chocolate mousse pudding, strawberries dipped in dark chocolate, etc. rather than a huge bowl of cookie dough ice cream or chocolate cake.

9. Exercise regularly. Not when you want to lose weight or because swimsuit season is coming. Those are great motivators, but exercising and maintaining your health is a continuous process. You can’t “diet” for a month, decide to go off the diet, and then back to your previous eating habits and expect to keep your results. You have to watch what you eat all the time. You don’t have to restrict your diet of all sugars or all carbs, but eat in moderation instead. You also can’t decide that you want to lose 20 pounds and then decide it’s time to start walking everyday or going to the gym. Exercise is a life long commitment. Why? Because exercise and eating properly keep your body happy and healthy. I promise.

These are little things I try to remember. Not things I just occasionally think about, but truly have engraved into my brain. Things that are in my phone and on my bulletin board, so they can’t escape my mind. When I am struggling during a workout, I think about what it’s doing for me. When I am not drinking plenty of water, I remember, it is what helps get me through my workouts and keeps me focused. When I want something sweet, I may go ahead and let myself eat something sweet, other times I don’t eat anything sweet at all. Try limiting yourself to having sweets a certain number of times each week. You don’t want your body and mind to become accustomed to getting something sweet after every meal or whenever you feel like it.

~jj

Burn v. Pain & Stretching

By Jenna Jamieson | February 14, 2014 | Comments 0 Comment

Exercising is great, but one important thing to realize about exercising is that there are times when you should keep going and times when you should stop and days when you should take the day off and days when you should push through.

Often times, people feel burning sensations in their muscles when they are exercising. I hear this frequently from people actually. Burning sensations while exercising (not pain) are completely normal and mean you are pushing your body and muscles during your workout. When your muscles and body get past the point of burning and feel pain then it is time to stop. You should not be exercising if your muscles and body hurt or you feel pain. Exercising should not hurt or evoke pain, AND yes, I will repeat that again…exercise should NEVER be painful or hurt. Burn, yes. Burn that leads to soreness, yes to that, too. In fact, I encourage you to exercise until you feel the burn in your muscles to maximize your results. Short, intense periods of heavy cardio and exercise are great for you. This may create sore muscles later in the evening and the next day because of the burning sensation that your muscles feel, but this is normal and actually good for you. If you can’t walk the next day from soreness, then you probably felt the burn at some point during your workout ;-)! I stress though that you should NOT be in pain. Pain is not something that should be associated or linked to exercise. Exercise is a pleasurable, stress reducer, not a pain inducer! 🙂

Where does stretching come in? To help alleviate soreness from exercising, remember to stretch, stretch, and then stretch some more. Stretching is one of the most essential and beneficial ways to not only warm your body and muscles up, but to increase your flexibility and therefore push your exercising capabilities even farther. Stretching is something that is easy. It is also one of the BEST things you can do for yourself to progress through workouts so that you can challenge yourself and get better. The more flexible you are, the better. This is because the strength you gain from stretching and increasing your flexibility will allow you to push through your workout and workout even longer. With the above discussion of pain in mind, stretching out before and after your workout will help ease soreness, prevent pain, and allow you to hold exercises longer when you feel burning.

If you aren’t convinced stretching is as great as your actual workout, you should think again! It will help wake your mind and body up before you hit the intense part of your workout. I stretch as soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning. It’s one of the best things I can do for myself to help wake up. I touch my hands to my toes to stretch my back muscles, and touch my feet to my butt to stretch my legs and thighs. Nothing too crazy or over the top, but simple exercises to help get me going. The same can be seen as I go throughout the day. I frequently stretch 4 or 5 times a day because it helps loosen up my body, destress, and makes me feel refreshed in as little as 2-10 minutes! How awesome is that?!

So, start thinking about what your body is telling you whether you feel pain or burning and remember that stretching is a great way to prevent soreness from exercise. I say, get STRETCHING! 🙂

~jj

Do it for your heart health!

By Jenna Jamieson | February 9, 2014 | Comments 0 Comment

Happy HEART HEALTH month! Let’s talk about some important statistics and discuss what you can do to make sure your heart is strong and healthy. This is a particularly important topic that I hold close to my heart (no pun intended)! 😉 I worked collaboratively with the American Heart Association (AHA) for 2 years and it opened my eyes to the wonderful initiatives and projects of the AHA as well as the severe concerns regarding heart health that face the United States today.

According to the AHA, heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States, claiming more lives than all forms of cancer combined (heart.org). While this stat is geared toward women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, but heart disease is preventable and controllable (cdc.org). These stats alone should be enough to make you strive to exercise at least 30 minutes each day so that you can spend many moons making fun memories with friends and family! Remember, heart disease impacts all shapes and sizes, big or small, as well as every age, young or old.

What can YOU do to help prevent heart disease?

-Eat and maintain a healthy diet.

-Exercise regularly.

-Keep a steady, healthy weight.

-Don’t smoke.

-Regularly check your blood pressure and cholesterol.

For additional or more specific information, visit heart.org (AHA), millionhearts.hhs.gov (CDC), and cdc.gov/features/heartmonth (CDC).

I hope you recognize that the tips, advice, and stories I post each week are to help encourage people to “exercise2behealthy” for this very reason. Not because I am concerned with the outside of each person, but because I care about the inside and the health concerns such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc. that can be side effects of poor health choices. Hence, there is no time like the present to get moving and start making healthy dietary choices for you and your family!

~jj

Reps & sets…count your way to success!

By Jenna Jamieson | January 27, 2014 | Comments 0 Comment

I was thinking about the blog while I was working out this week to determine what might be a good entry. My inspiration came from my actual workout because I am a strong believer in counting reps and sets so that I can track and see my improvement over time. For example, I make sure I do 3 sets of 50 reps of crunches each day. Then the following day I make sure I do at least equal to that or more.

Further, sets and reps can be a great way to improve over time and keep you on track so you don’t lose progress that you have made due to fluctuation in the number of reps you achieve during each set. For example, doing 100 reps one week, 150 the next, and then 90 the following week. It is important to try to build upon your workout and one way to do that is through continuous counting of reps and sets. I do an abundance of cross training, trail hiking, and walking. One thing I always do when I am cross training is make sure that I do 3 sets of reps. So, if I do jumping jacks, squats, lunges, etc I do 3 sets. Rather than doing 3 straight sets of 40 reps when I do jumping jacks, squats, lunges, etc I do a “warm-up” set, “build up” set, and a “cool down” set. First, I usually have a specific number for my total set goal such as 150 reps. I then split my total set goal into reps per set. For example, my “warm-up” set might be 1-50, followed by a “build up” set of 51-115, and my “cool down” set of 116-150. I find this particularly helpful because it allows me to warm myself up to the exercise, then really push myself to the max to build my strength, and then cool down during the last set so that I can be prepared to push myself when I start my next set of exercises.

When I do trail hiking or running, I try to set a distance or amount of time that I will run and I make sure that I meet that goal so that I am not going out for a run without having a distance or time goal set. This helps push me farther and work harder to run or walk longer than I initially might have anticipated if I were to go without setting a distance or time goal.

So, next time you workout, remember that counting your reps and sets is a great way to track your progress, conquer your fitness goals, and help you increase your strength.

~jj

Why exercise? Here’s WHY!

By Jenna Jamieson | January 12, 2014 | Comments 0 Comment

I have a very short entry today because I want the picture I post to speak for itself. While I was reading health articles this week I came across a picture, “50 Reasons to Exercise.” I have read it several times and the more I read it the more I find that there are lots of reasons why exercise is great for you. It may not always seem fun, but it has tons of benefits.

So, I shall end this week with saying, HAPPY EXERCISING! 🙂

~jj

Feel happy in the New Year!

By Jenna Jamieson | December 28, 2013 | Comments 0 Comment

A new year can often feel as though it is absorbed by everyone making new resolutions to visit the gym more often, lose weight, and eat healthier everyday, but these can be overshadowed by other great changes and new beginnings that can get you off to a great start in 2014! New beginnings and new changes don’t have to mean weight loss and diets, but can also mean being happier with yourself and your surroundings, so here are a few great tips I have gathered that make me feel happy, healthy, and keep the adventurous edge of life in me.

If you’re feeling the new year “blah” because the holidays are over and you don’t have the optimism and positive attitude to go along with the New Year, consider some simple changes that might help give you a new perspective or outlook. For example, consider painting a wall in your house or a specific room to have an accent wall or rearrange your furniture to give a room a new look.

Consider booking a spring or summer vacation in January so you have something to look forward to. Whether it be a small weekend getaway or a week at the beach or in the mountains, you will thank yourself for booking something. It will give you the motivation and energy to get through the rest of winter and build momentum as your getaway gets closer.

Allow yourself to be more open and honest with yourself and others. If you don’t want to attend the numerous baby showers, bridal parties, and weddings that you get invited to, quickly send back the RSVP card with a “no” response and cross that obligation off your calendar. If you don’t want to go, it will show, so there’s no reason to show up to someone’s party or celebration with a poor outlook or attitude.

Lastly, try to improve the characteristics and qualities about yourself that cause additional stress. For example, if you tend to run late for everything learn to get up earlier to pad yourself with additional time. While running late may seem somewhat harmless, it adds additional stress to your day and can cause you to be thrown out of your routine. It often makes you feel frazzled, which is typically carried throughout your entire day.

~jj

New Year, New Goals, New Rules aka Accountability

By Jenna Jamieson | December 17, 2013 | Comments 0 Comment

Hooray for a new year! Hooray for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and so! Hooray for new goals! One thing that I love is setting goals for myself that are challenging and rewarding. Rather than making new resolutions in January every year I typically have goals each month for myself throughout the entire year. They can be simple goals such as setting a Christmas budget for myself in September, jotting down all the ideas I have for people on my Christmas list in October, and then finishing my Christmas shopping by the end of the first week in November. Further, rather than setting “negative” goals and resolutions I try to set goals that have a “positive” spin. So rather than setting a goal of losing weight, I would set a goal of eating healthier. For example, set a goal of eating out for lunch once a week and eating an apple with peanut butter or caramel with your lunch so your goal doesn’t become dreaded and can easily be incorporated with your typical lunch routine.

Weight and eating resolutions are typical goals every year, but all too often these resolutions fail, not because the person doesn’t try or doesn’t care, but because the person loses motivation when he/she doesn’t see instant results or becomes wrapped up in the chaos of daily life. While I know it is not New Year’s yet, there’s no perfect time to set new goals or resolutions for yourself. Rather than putting off what you can start today, make a plan, set your goals, and make yourself accountable for what you want to accomplish. One of my favorite sayings to remember is, “Why wait until tomorrow when you can start or do it today?”

So, rather than waiting until January to make a plan because you just want to “get through the holidays” aka eating the scrumptious candies and desserts and the exhaustion of finishing your Christmas shopping consider making yourself accountable during the holidays so you don’t feel so guilty in January. Many people feel guilty in January because of all the food, chaos, and stress from the holiday season. Then once New Year’s rolls around, people make resolutions to help make up for it. The problem with this is that we often tend to make goals that are unattainable in order to fill the gaps and inefficiencies from the holidays.

My suggestion is to START NOW! Happy day, month, and year of positive goals and accountability. Change starts now, not tomorrow, not next week or next month or next year. Change starts with yourself, not with an organization or group of friends, so start your goals today. You will thank yourself tomorrow for what you accomplish today. Cheers to the new year from me to you!

~jj