The biggest enemy of any diet is boredom. People lose their motivation to stick to a diet and so they begin to cheat here and there. Before you know it, your diet is basically done with and you are back at square one. Sound familiar’ So, the key too sticking to a diet is to keep up the initial motivation that you have when you first start the diet. With this in mind, let’s discuss 4 tips that will keep you motivated for the entire diet.

Realize You Don’t Have to Be Perfect

A big problem people have is that the moment that they deviate from their diet, they feel like they’ve lost all their progress and that there’s no point in continuing with the diet. This is what people call a perfectionist mindset and it can be very difficult to overcome. If you’re one of the many people who have this mindset, then you need to get it into your head that the occasional mistake doesn’t set you back to square one. Just because you went out and overindulged one night doesn’t mean that you should give up on a diet.

I coach my clients to focus on the 80/20 rule. Out of your week if 80% of your meals are healthy and clean don’t sweat the other 20%. This is the main key of moderation. When we cut out the fun foods, the struggle becomes real!

With the 80/20 rule it helps you to blend in fun foods vs banning the outright. Say you love French fries, every time you go out and you gotta have French fries, but instead you tell yourself you are on a diet, so you have a salad instead. But those fries are on your brain.

What if instead you ordered the fries and didn’t have the bun on the burger or maybe you ordered the fries and didn’t dessert or a glass of wine. Do you see what I’m doing’ I’m making trades so that I can have the fries AND have clean food choices.

Make Sure That You Regularly Reward Yourself

Ideally, the knowledge that you’re becoming healthier would be motivation in of itself. But, that’s just not the case. So, from time to time you need to make sure that you’re rewarding yourself. It will give you something to look forward to, which will help with motivation, especially in rough patches. As for what the reward is, that’s entirely up to you.

I encourage my clients to have at least 2 treat meals/week. This could be a scheduled date night with your sweetie or movie nights with the kiddos, but it’s a meal where you have your fun foods. With that said, this isn’t the lose my shit at night. You will eat normal portions without the guilt. What are some of your favorite treat meals’

Set Realistic Goals

This is the crux of my REPS Formula . For the past 15 years I’ve seen so many women struggle with their goals because they reach for the stars and then get frustrated when the results aren’t coming as fast as they want them to.

When you are setting goals I ask my clients to work through their REPS
Your goal is it REALISTIC’ For example, it’s not realistic to lose 30 pounds in 30 days despite what you’ve read on Facebook 12 Something more realistic would be to focus on losing 1 pound a week.
Are you EXCITED about your goal’ In order to reach your goals do you need give up your fun foods’ Do you need to spend hours at the gym’ If that doesn’t excite you then you will not stick with it long term.
Can you make a PLAN for it in your life’ Can you make this work in your current lifestyle without a lot of gymnastics’
Lastly is your goals SUSTAINABLE for the long term’ Can you see yourself doing this for the next 30 day, 1 year or 5 years’

If this interests you, take a listen to this podcast where I go into greater detail.

Don’t Weigh Regularly

I get it. You want to lose the weight and you want to lose the weight right fucking now!! Repeat after me this is a long-term goal! You will need to pack your patience. You will see basically no progress when you first start. A lot of people make the mistake of weighing daily. This will kill your motivation because you’re going to have days and weeks where the scale barely moves if it moves at all. Weigh once at the start of the diet to set a baseline, then don’t weigh for at least a month, if not longer.

There are so many factors that go into your scale weight.
Many you haven’t pooped, you drank a lot of water, ate a lot of salt, you are getting your period. So instead of just using the scale, find some other non-scale victories.

Think physical
Less heartburn
Increased sleep Less pain
You get sick less often
Increased mood
Less cravings

What’s a non-scale victory that would work for you’

5 Days Effortless Weight loss.My signature weight loss mini course that teaches you the 4 disciple changers that will leave you feeling better, stronger and more confident. This time you’re guaranteed not to fail. 

Do you exercise’ If you do, that’s great. Most people don’t. With the “busyness” of life we are more sedentary and less physically active than at probably any other time in history. Given what know about the Corona virus, we see it playing out on many who have higher rates of obesity and other metabolic disorders. Now more than any other time in history we need to focus on working out, exercising, staying physically active and working to lose and/or maintain our weight, good for you.

How often do you exercise’

I know you’ve read or seen some social media influencer tell you that you need to workout everyday and you must be SORE! That seems a little overwhelming when you have so many other things on your plate.

For my clients I recommend that you lift 3-5 days. Put those days in your calendar and treat it light an appointment that you can miss.

Now let’s look at how many meals you eat every day.

The average person eats either 2 or 3 major meals each day. Many people enjoy a snack or two daily as well. The human body craves hydration more than it does food, so throughout the day make sure that you are drinking water. . Did you know that the human body can go more than 30 days without food, but only about 3 days without water’ Make sure you are hydrating frequently.

How many meals should you eat’

Focus on eating when you are hungry. I was of the school that you had to have 5-6 meals/day or you wouldn’t build any muscle. When you start to feel hungry ask yourself are you even hungry give yourself 30 minutes and if you are eat, if you aren’t ride it out a bit longer.

What should you eat’

Why yes you need a caloric deficit to lose weight. HOWEVER you need to figure YOUR caloric deficit vs blinding following someone else “plan”. Yes, this takes a bit of fine tuning but once you do it! Man, you will be very happy you did. No more struggling or suffering!

On your plate focus on having 30 grams of protein and at least 400 grams of fruit and veggies.

Nutrition alone accounts for as much as 60% to 70% of your fitness level.

I am not saying exercise is bad, but as the late great Jack Lalane said, nutrition is queen and fitness is king. We all know if the queen is not happy, then no one is happy.

Have you fully considered that losing weight is a 2 prong approach’ I’m a big fan of the show CSI. When you watch CSI they enter a crime scene and do an analysis. The same can be said for your nutrition. Take a look at your results up till now. If you haven’t reached the weight loss and fitness goals you desire so far, but you exercise all the time, you may not be giving nutrition the best opportunity to help you get where you want to be.

Would you like a lifestyle assessment to see where you can fine tune your current program’ Schedule right here 

Together we will take a look at your current routines so that we can see where refinements can be made. I will walk you through my 4 pillars of wellness so that you can determine where is the best place to start. Then we’ll walk you through my REPS formula so that you are guaranteed to not fail.

There are many aspects to weight loss, and one is learning (or re-learning) how to decipher what your body is telling you in regard to hunger. In many cases, it is still telling you the same thing as it always has… just you are not listening anymore.

To begin your journey, you first must know where you are at now to know where you want to go and need to be. The best way to do that is to keep a food journal. I get it tracking food sucks. HOWEVER…. It’s truly one of the few ways we have to figure out what you are eating and it gives both you and your coach clues to help you make better decisions moving forward.

What should you track’

In your journal you will want to write down:

• What you eat
• When you ate it
• How much you ate
• What you were doing at the time you ate
• How you felt afterward 

Sometimes you get into an eating habit based on the time of day and not if we are really hungry or not. Other times you may be distracted when you eat and not realize how much you have eaten. Still, sometimes you eat out of boredom – it gives you something to do. Again, you usually are not focused on the eating part and in a short period of time have consumed far more calories than we need.

This is where your food journal entries can help. After recording the above information in your journal for a couple of weeks, you should start seeing a trend in your eating habits. This gives you a clearer picture of where you are at now with your eating habits.

Now you can focus on the things you need to change to get where you want to go – your goal if you will. In many cases it will be losing weight..

One of the main reason why I love tracking is that instead of looking at someone else nutrition you are looking at yours and figuring out how you TICK!

It frustrates me when I see folks trying to follow a ridiculous calorie plan, instead track your food and see how you feel.

Are you hungry’

How is your energy’

Are you craving’

When you shift the focus off of what others do and focus on what you are doing losing weight becomes effortless. Your body is always giving you feedback. You just have to listen.

For women over 40 who are TIRED of dieting and want to get and stay fit, you’ll want to hop into my newest mini course 5 Days Of Effortless Weight Loss.

Yes, Grab My FREE Spot

Laziness is something which many of us have experienced at some point or another. We’ve all felt like we don’t want to do something, or like we’d just rather do nothing. 🙋🏽‍♀️  Laziness can become a lifelong habit that could start to negatively affect your life and work. If you are reading this right now it’s telling me that you don’t want to be one of those people who want to go through life being chronically lazy or wanting to improve themselves never doing anything about it. If you want to overcome laziness and get some motivation, here are some things you can consider.

Don’t try to do everything at once

When you attempt to do too many things, you can lose motivation for all of them and burn yourself out. I want you to tell yourself success takes time. With that said, the slowness can you make you pissed off and frustrated.  If you feel like you have a lot of things on your list, break them down into smaller lists or categories. This will help you to at least see the smaller successes along the way, and it’s a good way to trick yourself into thinking you are finishing the tasks quicker. Plus you will feel like a winner!

Move your body

Many people think that exercise needs to look a certain way. A bootcamp, cross fit, a workout so hard that you can’t lift your arms to wash your hair or have trouble getting off the toilet.  This certainly isn’t always the case. For those of you just trying to get consistent with exercising try walking.  It’s called NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis. That’s fancy talk for movement, just acts of daily living. Playing with your kids, playing with your pets, cleaning your home, gardening. You’ll end up burning more calories if you remain active through out the day vs focused on hitting the gym “hard”.  How many steps a day are you able to get in’

Stay organized

The less organized you are, the harder it is to feel motivated to workout. This key here is that you need to have a plan! The plan doesn’t have to be written in stone, it can be flexible. You want an outline to help you stay the course, because as a recovering winger it doesn’t work. I challenge my clients to focus on one of two ways to create a plan.

1. 24 hours, each night sit down and map out what you will eat and if you will workout that day
2. A weekly plan mapping out how the week will unfold

Now I know that the weekly plan may seem like a lot of work or not given in any flexibility or a change to have any spontaneity. However I ask that you give yourself structured flexibility so that when fun things to arrive you shift into “if/then” thinking. That looks like this If I’m at dinner and someone orders dessert I will ask myself do I feel like having dessert. If I say yes, then I will enjoy it without guilt.   If I tell myself that I will exercise then I will exercise on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays at 8am.  

Do the things you enjoy

Here’s where I ask you to stop doing the workouts that you feel that you “should” do or you heard will give you a killer workout!! When you start doing things that you actually love you will look forward to it.

When I first started working out I found myself blowing myself off. So, I found a class that I absolutely LOVED! I looked forward to and I made sure that I went every Monday and Saturday to this kickboxing class. What do you love to do”

If you are tired of waiting to see results and are starting to feel as if there is no point to what you’re doing. I’ve got four disciple changers that will leave you feeling better, stronger and more confident. This time you’re guaranteed not to fail.

I invite you to join me to the 5 Days Of Effortless Weight Loss.  This 5-day minicourse will help you to discover 

👉🏽 Building habits that help you to create long term sustainable weight loss

👉🏽 Finally start to focus on getting healthy vs always seeking a way to “fix” yourself

👉🏽 Exercise is the gateway habit to helping you feel great and see success.

👉🏽 Nutrition is the cornerstone to sustainable weight loss through finding a way of eating that works best for you in the long term.

We start on January 10^th – click here to reserve your spot!

You love treats. You want to have cake at your kids’ birthday party or hell your own birthday. You love a good glass of wine or your alcohol of choice. Many health coaches will tell you just say no but is that really life! I’ve seen this firsthand when you tell yourself you can’t “have” a certain food you can’t get it off your mind. Interestingly enough this can be a healthy or an unhealthy food.

When I work with clients, I encourage them to break free from the good/bad food list remember number 2. I work with them factor in their fun foods. I also ask them what foods are non-negotiables (ie. for me it’s cream and sugar in my coffee)

Think of it like this, you love French fries you could torture yourself and not have them or steal them off your dining partner’s plate OR you could order your own.

Take a look at what you are ordering is there a healthier choice you can add. If you are having a burger can you tell them to not serve you the bun. Can you order a side salad’ Can you ask them to grill or broil it so you can have those fries.

Are you picking up what I’m putting down’ Finding a way to make it a “bit” healthier but not denying yourself. As I mentioned before when you keep denying it sets you to go on a big-time bender. 

Would you like a few more tips” Grab my #invincible40 Guide. It’s a resource guide that can help you fight and beat weight gain over 40. 

I used to be one of those that shouted from the rooftops I will sleep when I am dead. I walked around exhausted for years! How many of you ready this now are wired yet tired due to copious amounts of caffeine! Don’t’ get me wrong I love me some coffee and there is nothing wrong with coffee unless you are living off of it as a way to maintain your energy.

Getting enough quality sleep at night is paramount to good fitness. When you are sleeping, your body is recovering, and your muscles are repairing themselves. And if losing weight is part of your fitness plan, you can actually gain weight if you are not getting enough sleep.

The best way to get sleep is to create a bedtime ritual.

Take a look at your ritualistic nighttime behaviors. If you enjoy watching television at night to unwind, make sure you limit your viewing to positive programming in the evening. Don’t read books or watch shows that can trigger a negative response.

Want to see my 10/10/10 sure fire sleep routine’ Plus 8 other ways to beat the over 40 weight gain, grab your FREE guide. 

Remember when I talked about feel satiated’ Well good fats do a great job at that. Eating more good fats at least 2-3 tablespoons/day will help you feel fuller and more satisfied. Good fats are great for your skin, hair and nails. Go for the whole egg and get in both the good fats AND the protein.

Yes, nuts and nut butters are great sources of good fats.

Focus on good fat oils and/or seeds, you are less likely to overeat them.

Good fat oils are ANY oil OTHER THAN vegetable, corn or soybean oil. In most grocery stores you will find an amazing selection of oils.

Would you like some other tips to help you fight and beat weight gain over 40′ Grab my new guide right here

Resources

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-about-fats-bad-and-good

This one blew me away. Several years ago, when my body gave me the finger one of the reasons was all the toxins I was putting on and in my body. Xenoestrogens you probably have never heard of these before. They are “foreign estrogens” that come from industrially made compounds. When these enter your body, your body recognizes it as estrogen.

This can dramatically affect your hormones, causing them to malfunction signaling your body to store weight. This is what happened to me. Sigh… I had to change what I used on my body and how I stored my food.

I was SHOCKED to find these xenoestrogens in everyday skincare, plastics, insecticides and household products.

Would you like to know what other products to look out for’ Grab my new #invincible40 Resource: How To Fight And Beat Weight Gain Over 40 

For years you’ve been told about eating super foods and making sure you focus on sticking to foods that are on the “good” food list and avoiding foods on the bad one. This is what I know some of the most healthiest food on the planet doesn’t work for everyone. 😱

Here’s an example – I love bananas but when I eat them, they make me crave all day long. Same thing with eggs, eggs are one of the greatest sources of protein, but… for me they are not filling. I eat them and 20 minutes later I’m looking for my next meal.

Do you see where I’m going’

What should you do instead’

Focus on eating until you are SATISFIED and SATIATED.

Satisfied — this is an art form, because this is felt in the head. This is where “willpower” and “discipline” start to talk to you and you eat what you feel is the right thing.

Think about it like this, how many times do you eat what you want to eat versus eating something that thought was the best choice’

Many of you eat because you want to be the “good” girl and while you really would love to have a slice of pizza you don’t have it because you don’t want to blow your diet. So instead you have the chicken, broccoli and brown rice and all day long you are thinking about that pizza using all your willpower and discipline to not have it.

Now this isn’t me telling you to eat crap this is me asking did that chicken, broccoli and brown rice leave you feeling satisfied or would you have felt better having the pizza so you could have just had it and moved on.

For the amount of time you lean into feel satisfied versus doing the “right” thing you’ll be surprised that you won’t go completely off the rails. You’ll build trust in yourself and your binges will be few and far between.

Satiated –this is in the stomach — did you feel full after eating. It will take your body about 20 minutes to register that you are actually full or need more food. Whatever you eat should make you feel full for at least 3-4 hours.

Lastly, only remove food groups if they don’t agree with you. Let’s stop just removing food groups or types of food from your nutrition unless they do not agree with you. If you are interested in learning how to do a proper elimination diet let’s talk.

I have 9 more in the Invincible40 Resource Guide. 

More Resources

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324078

Fit Girl Magic podcast new rules of dieting

Elimination diet

I see it all the time, when I start working with clients, I ask why they haven’t hit their goals. Typically, one of the first things I hear is time. When I ask where are you spending your time. Many of you are spending your time doing shit you hate, saying yes when you should say no or doing something that could easily be delegated or simply not done!

We as women put so much pressure on ourselves. Pressure to be “the best” –the best Mom, employee, spouse, girlfriend, and friend, you name it. The mind-chatter can be deafening, is there room any other thoughts.

Here is where you and I talk about harmony. The band of your life is gets out of tune from time to time. Let me be the first to break it down for you, it’s hard to be “perfect” and live a full life. You aren’t present when your mind chatter is always yelling “coulda, woulda or shoulda”, as Susan Powter use to shout STOP THE INSANITY! Don’t know who she is GTS – google that shit. 😉

Harmony is the word I use instead of balance. Life will never really be balanced but we can start to fine tune band. It starts with setting your priorities and you can come pretty close to achieving a sense of balance.

As children we are taught to not say no. Unfortunately, this rarely transfers over to adulthood. One thing a mentor of mine told me early on as I was struggling with perfectionism, she said no is a complete sentence. I don’t need to go into a long dissertation as to why I’m not doing something. You
don’t need to be rude, but just say no I won’t be able to
Lastly if something isn’t a hell yes, then it’s a hell no!

Think right now what are some things you are doing that aren’t hell yeses.

Can you either stop doing it OR delegate it’

For ladies over 40 this is just one of the ways that has NOTHING to do with exercising more and eating less. If you want 9 more tips click right here. 

If you have been following me for a while, or you are one of my magic makers, you know that my favorite part of the Fit Girl Magic formula is ROUTINES! When you create strong habits, they lead to amazing routines and those routines lead to consistency and it’s the consistency that finally gives us the results we have been seeking! And that is the ONE THING we are looking for, those RESULTS!

Some routines are so elusive that we feel like we are chasing shadows most of the time and routines today are quickly looked upon as “boring”. Our society is conditioned to want instant gratification. Right now, RIGHT AWAY!  And this same thing goes for workouts. We are conditioned to change things every single day, and if you do change then you are doing something right. But it is in those routines that we do every day over and over again that is what is really going to lead to success.

How are you defining success”

This is the first thing I ask every single client that I work with. I ask this because years ago when I started working with a business coach, she asked me this question. That question made me take a giant pause because I don’t think many people take the time to define what success looks like for them. You may hear about success for other people and think that you want it, but seriously what do YOU want!! Why are you working so hard’ If you aren’t working towards your goal, what will motivate you to take consistent action.

I ask the question because I want to understand if you have created realistic goals. And then I follow up with Are you excited about that goal’ Can that goal be planned into your life’ Is that goal sustainable’And that my friends is what I call my REPS formula!! As you are building your routine you want to make sure that the end goal is realistic. It’s sustainable and can map it INTO YOUR LIFE!

Many will say routines are boring, but I will say routines are the gateway to success. They help us to establish priorities, help us to stop procrastinating and help us to track our goals. Plus, it helps us to get stuff done!

So, here is an example of that.

I have defined my goal and in the next 12 weeks, I want to drop a dress size or 6 pounds. I start by putting together a plan and look at my routine to see what I am doing on a day in and day out basis to lead you to my result.  While writing this plan, it is easy for us to procrastinate.have to find the right diet, trainer, coach, gym schedule, blah blah blah! It is not about doing 50 different things to drop that dress size, it is me getting my mindset shifted so that I am going to do this and be so crystal clear about what it is we are trying to achieve.

First, we are going to DEFINE YOUR SUCCESS. I already mentioned this above a little bit, and I don’t want this to make you feel stressed out. So, keep it simple and grab out that piece of paper. I want you to go old school and write some things down throughout this blog to help you a little bit better!

Now, let’s LOOK AT OUR ROUTINES. Do these goals you have set for yourself make you feel good or stressed out’? You should have a little pressure, but not a TON! What are your current routines day in a day out to lose those 6 pounds’? Am I tracking my food’ Am I sleeping’ Am I stressed’? It all adds up, it all counts. Write down your routine today on that same sheet of paper and sleep on it. Take out that paper and write what is working and what is not working and go through that routine.? Look at those routines and be very honest with yourself and if you can’t, that is when you hire a coach or get a friend that is not afraid to tell you. This list will be pretty telling because our routines are our guidepost. It’s something that tells you, “Hey Girl You Are off course!

Success needs to feel like something you are marching towards. It should feel effortless. As you write this list, I want you to think about this.  What do you look forward to doing and are you excited about it’ And if you are not excited, what can you do now to tweak this, so you feel more excited about it’  With the list, review your daily activities. Are these things getting you closer to your 6-pound weight loss’ And if it’s not, start reviewing those daily activities. Weight loss doesn’t have to be a struggle, it doesn’t have to be a grind. You can choose differently.

Give yourself 2-week sprints to see where you and how you are doing. So, the next 2 weeks, what am I going to commit to’ Tracking food’ Going to the gym 3 days a week’ Water’ Small micro-commitments it what is necessary so that you can see that progress. And don’t focus on THE SCALE. Come up with non-scale victories. Things that you can feel and see you are doing to say you are on the right path.

Now that you see what is working and not working, you can work on a DAILY SCHEDULE. This isn’t what you think it is either!  Trust me, I don’t like being strictly confined to a schedule All it means is that you want to give yourself some guidance, but I do not want your day to live by the clock.  Just start by giving yourself 3 things to do every single day. (3 tasks to complete in the day). Start small instead of trying to make a list of 500 things because when you only finish 5 out of the 400, you feel like crap and will be hard on yourself, so start small.

Let’s also be sure to take into consideration flexible accountability. You are just playing and seeing what is working and not working as you go along. What do you have to change’ How do you have to change it’ And reduce the scope of how much activity you really have to do! If you can’t fit in 3 hours at the gym, that is okay, fit in 30 minutes of a workout at home. As long as you are moving your body than you got this! (And the same goes for food. Create a menu, meal prep, and be prepared.)

At the end of the day, routines help us become the people we want to be. Start thinking about your current routine, how does it work and how does it guide you to your success. But you CANNOT miss STEP 1, DEFINE WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE SO YOU CAN BUILD A ROUTINE!!

If you are lost and need a little more guidance, grab my 50 Routines to Start. And omg, YOU DON’T have to do all 50, this list is just a great brainstorming tool to help get you started today magic makers!!

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/FabFitSquad

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Website: https://kimbarnesjefferson.com/

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fit-girl-magic-healthy-living-for-women-over-40/id1476883661

Most of us agree that working out is essential for good health and good health, but some days it just seems harder and harder to fit it in to a busy life.

You’re working crazy hours, kids activities, maybe caring for aging parents, technology is making physical activity easier to avoid, and in the current state of the world stress is taking its toll on our bodies. Considering all these obstacles, it can be difficult to get in the physical activity that we need.  

Then there are those days that you just feel lazy or unmotivated to workout. Days when you find fitness boring, too difficult or they simply just don’t want to do it. 🤷🏽‍♀️

I’m here to ask that you don’t give up!      

With all these factors working against you, let me be the first to tell you that can have good health even if getting up the motivation to workout seems impossible.

Here are five easy ways to sneak exercise into your day without feeling overwhelmed. In fact, you may actually look forward to them!

1. Make It A Game

This is a trick that many parents and teachers use to make children do things (you don’t know anything about this😉) that they are unmotivated to do. It works! Try it on yourself.

You don’t feel like doing a monotonous 45-minute jog on a treadmill, and that’s understandable. Who does’ Hop of the treadmill. Take your run outside, run to one telephone pole and walk to the next. Run the next two telephone pole and walk the next two telephone phone and move up to four telephone poles. It’s a great way to break it up the run. Not a runner you can walk to a telephone pole do 10 jumping jacks walk to the next telephone pole do 10 pushups the next telephone pole 10 high knees.

I think you are picking up what I’m putting down. No telephone poles” You can use trees, street signs, mailboxes so many landmarks to choose from.

2. Sneak It Into a Lazy Activity

It’s been a long day. Work was hectic, school was stressful, the kids were crazy, and life is hard! 😤 The last thing you want to do when you are finally done with your daily responsibilities is work up a sweat! You want to unwind on the couch with a glass of pinot and watch your favorite show on Netflix, scroll through social media, or read a good book.

The call of the couch and the remote is strong I get it.  Could you consider sneaking in a couple minutes of fast-paced aerobic activity such as jumping jacks, high knees, or bicycle crunches for about 15 minutes, maybe a quick yoga stretch to unwind before you scroll through your Netflix queue.  

Feeling strong, you can use commercials as the time to do jump squats, or for each new chapter in your book means you have to complete 4 rounds of 45-second (jumping jacks, burpees, kettlebell swings or speed skaters)

Sneaking in a little fitness here and there doesn’t take away the value of your activity. As long as you keep them close enough together, your heart rate will stay elevated and your body will benefit!

3. Make It Social

We’ve all been a bit cooped up these past few months. If you keep 6 feet apart it’s great to workout with someone. Studies show that most people perform better in a social environment. With gyms opening back it, maybe you’ll venture out to take a class. Or have you been taking live virtual classes’ When you are working as a group to accomplish a goal it makes you feel more competitive, you try a little harder and you go a little faster. Apply this to your workout!

4. Add It To Your Chores

 We all errands that we run and chores to do. Why not pick up the pace and get these tasks done not only faster but also kill two birds with one stone’ Are you doing laundry, scrubbing the tub, or mowing the lawn with boredom and little effort’ The quicker you get them done the quicker you can move on to what you really want to do and you are working out!

Don’t know if you are really getting an aerobic exercise’ An easy way to tell if you are getting the benefit of an aerobic exercise is if you can talk but with a little difficulty. You should feel winded but not to the point of exhaustion. You will feel so accomplished after these errands; your high will carry you through the rest of the day.

5. 20 Minutes or Less

Many people have the mistaken idea that you need to put in an excruciating hour everyday to consider it as a workout. Not so! Even a workout of as little as twenty minutes, maybe even less, can be an effective aerobic workout. To measure a great workout. You should be breathing heavy, work up a little bit of a sweat and feel a burning in your muscles.

The key is intensity! If you don’t have the time to put in a long workout, don’t fret. Muster yourself up and do a quick but intense workout regimen that may be hard while you do it but over before you know it! Every Friday I post a Fat Burning Friday in my Facebook group.

Want to make a commitment’ Join my new Beat the Summer Slide challenge!