My mom has always said to me “Patience is a virtue!” Well, I have no virtues, seriously, I try to have patience, but I don’t have much!

Over the years, I have gained more than I had in my youth, but I still wish I had more.  You know like the Buddhist monks who can sit for hours in silence.  I can’t go 5 minutes without freaking out.  Okay who am I kidding, I can’t go for more than 1 minute.

Now here is the true.  I go for 12 weeks dieting and working out to get ready for a show, this is where I show the most patience.  I can take the journey and wait and see what my results will be.  Now I will admit I do get a little antsy about 3 weeks out and want to quit, but when the end line is in site, I must keep going.

So tell me about your patience’ Do you have any’ Are you like me and have patience in doses’

Today is my friend Diana’s wedding.  In fact, I should be getting dressed right now, but wanted to share a few thoughts.

Just because I am going to a speical event, doesn’t mean I need to throw away my diet.  I just need to plan.  I think about what do I really want to splurge on, do I want cake, bacon wrapped scallops or a few glasses of wine.

Know that you will be going to an event and want to enjoy yourself, so make concession during the week.  This way you can still enjoy a healthy lifestyle without feeling awkward at social events.

This weekend is action packed!!!

It’s recycling day here in Cambridge, now what does that mean’  It’s Cambridge’s way of keeping old paint, fluorescent light bulbs, etc from going in with the rest of your trash! As you can imagine my husband has been all hopped up for weeks!! He even scheduled it in his calendar. So, we are going to gather up all our hazardous stuff and head to the armory.

Next I’m heading to the gym to get in my 60 min of cardio and 30 min of routine practice.  Head to the grocery store. Cook something for a party we are going to tonight.  Are you exhausted yet!! I am and my day is just beginning.

I’m sure there are plenty of days you have where you are not sure where you are going to find time for yourself.  Well this is how I’m going to do it.  I looked at my day and decided that I needed to crave out some times for myself and not feel guility.  Can you do that’ Out of a 24 hour day, I’ll give 8 hours to sleep, can you find at least 1 hour during the 16 hours that remain on a given Saturday or Sunday to do something for yourself’

So, I’m 4 weeks out from my show.  What does that mean’ Crunch time!! So I’m up to 60 minutes of cardio.  How many of you are cardio queens, you know who you are.. you can stay on a piece of cardio for more than 60 minutes and not have it feel like sheer torture.  How many of you don’t even do cardio or maybe for 20 -30 minutes, but you are reading People magazine or a book and not breaking a sweat.

For me I hope from machine to machine to break it up.  I know how important cardio is, but I HATE it!!!

With that said, I’m not doing intervals…

Please start slow, trust me it will come and its just as effective.

This can be done on any piece of cardio equipment or on an outdoor track.
Start with a 5 min warm-up

Week 1:  sprint for 30 sec then rest for 90 sec do 5-6 sets
Week 2:  decrease the rest period by 30 sec do 6-7 sets
Week 3:  now sprint 30 sec and rest for 30 sec do 7-8 sets
Week 4:  stay the same but increase the number of sets to 8-9 sets

Do this 2-3 times/week and let me know how feel.  For those of you who feel the same way about cardio as I do, you will find this definitely keeps you moving!

The only thing you need is some good tunes on your pod!  Personally I’m trapped in the 80’s!

The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones.~William Somerset Maugham

How many times have you told yourself that starting Monday you were going to… start your new diet, go to the gym, get up an hour earlier to do, take a lunch at work, spend my time with my family, call a friend.  My guess is a million.  Now, how long did it last, if ever got started” Did you make it 21 days’

Okay, so where did this 21-day concept come from’  Dr. Maxwell Maltz, wrote a book entitled  ‘Psycho-Cybernetics’  in the 1960’s after he observed that it took amputees about 21 days to stop feeling as though they still had their amputated limb(s).  Basically it takes our brain 21 days of consistent new stimuli to forge new pathways, so for any new behavior to become a habit we need to do it consistently for 21 days.

Can you do 1 thing consistently for 21 days’

I have 2 goals for the next 21 days.

1. consistently bring informative and actionable information in this blog
2. read for 1 hour each day

Now that I have written this down, and make it public, I got do it. So come brain help me make it stick!

I was watching Sunday Morning on CBS today and they suggesting that the ups and downs of the stock market can be compared to a herd mentality.  A herd mentality is a way to describe how people’s behaviors can influenced by their peers.

So what does this have to do with fitness’ Well, how is your fitness influenced by what others are doing’  Has a friend ever called/emailed/text-ed you and asked what you were doing and when you said you were going to workout they mentioned that a group of people (the herd) where doing something else and asked you to come along’  What do you say’ Do you stick to your plan or do you go along with the herd’

We may have evolved, but we still like to feel part of a group and fear of not belonging sometimes over takes our need to be our own person. Trust me I know how you feel!

I am a fitness competitor and typically compete in 5 shows/year. The season starts in April runs through June and then I start back up again in the Fall. So trust me there are plenty of times when I get the phone call, have to go to a party, wedding or other social event and I want to follow the herd and play hooky, but this is when you reach inside and is this playing hooky today going to help me reach the goals I have set’  Then ask yourself, how committed are you to reaching your goals’

Let me know do you follow the herd or do you stick to your goals’

So… Red Sox nation waits 86 years to win a World Series and then we wait just 3 years to make another trip back to the big game to win again.  We are a town that was accustomed to disappointments.  Then things started to turn around in 2001 and we are now a town that expects everything.

For the past week, Boston has been held in suspense will we make again to the World Series. So last night while most went to bed to awaits the news of Boston loss, The Red Sox make an incredible come back.

Is there something that you have always wanted to do and thought all was lost’ In Boston we have a saying “Why Not Us” When I am feeling down, stress out and thing I can’t turn things around, I think “Why Not Me”

Can you make a come back’  Have you made come back’  Tell me about it

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
– Beverly Sills
So stop with the shortcuts, hold yourself accountable for your actions and embrace the fact that slow and stead y wins the weight loss race.

Tell me (in the comments below) what have been some of the shortcuts you taken’  I promise no judgments.

So, at least 3 times a week I do a high intensity cardio workout.  I run intervals  either straight sprints  or hills on treadmill at my gym.  I love working out, but interval training is not something that I like to do, but since I am getting ready for a show (I’ll talk about that later), interval training is the only way I am going to lean out.

I’m pumped up, got my favorite songs loaded on my pod, I’m 15 minutes into my run on a 10% incline I’m about to do a fast sprint decline and my treadmill gets STUCK!! I couldn’t get it off a 9 /12% incline.

Have you ever got stuck’  What did you do, did you just stop’
So instead of getting a boo boo lip, I just hopped on the treadmill next to me.

It’s 40 days and 12 hours until I compete in the Fitness America Show in Las Vegas; it’s time to put the pedal to the medal, if I plan to come home with some hardware!

The show the Biggest Loser is a blessing and a curse!  A blessing because I know of a number folks who it’s motivated off the couch to take action towards a healthy lifestyle.
A curse, because it sets such UNREALSITIC weight loss expectations.  I am currently running a Transformation program and the husband of one of the participants had the wife call me to say that my guarantee of 8 pounds in 8 weeks isn’t enough of an incentive, because he watches the “Biggest Loser”  and those contestants lose more weight that.
My first thought is does he want me to move in with them and go all Jullian Michaels on his a$@.  Then pick me! Okay, so that was a thought that I had in my head, but how awesome would that be if I said that!

My response to that well, those folks are obese and the weight they are losing is primary, water and some muscle.  Once they get to a reasonable weight the rapid weight loss they initially experience will slow

The facts:
It takes a caloric deficit of 3500 calories to drop 1 pound.
So the average person, if they reduce their calorie intake by 500 calories/day should expect lose at least 1 pound/week.  If you increase activity level by adding a little cardio and strength training you may boost that to 2 pounds/week. 
 
Any weight loss about that amount isn’t typical, sustainable or realistic.  So please look at reality shows for pure entertainment. Unless you are looking for me to become your new roommate.

Confession.  I am addicted to Lifetime Movies!  Okay so now it’s out there.
I have pretty seen them all with the exception of Why I Wore Lipstick To My Mastectomy.  I watched this weekend and WOW, what a powerful movie.  She was only 28 had to make such a radical decision; I think to myself could I be that brave’

When I was 28, I found a lump it turned out to be a calcium deposit, but I certainly was scared to death in the 24 hours before I could see my doctor.

I asked myself, so what would I do if I needed to be brave’  What would you do if you needed to be brave’

Bring your lunch, purchase this awesome Lean Cusine lunch cooler, I have bought one every year for the past 5 years and they’re awesome.  The best thing about it is that $5.00 of each bag goes to the Susan G. Komen breast cancer fund.

We’ve all done it! You know look in the mirror and pick ourselves apart poking and prodding certain bodyparts and questioning why is (insert the body part) so flat or why  doesn’t my (insert the body part) look like the women I saw on the cover of the latest fitness magazines’

One simple answer, MOVE IT OR LOSE IT!!
If we don’t exercise on a regular basis, we will lose about ½ of pound of muscle/year.  You will lose on average 15 pounds of muscle and gain 45 pounds of fat, that’s a 60 pound change in your body from the age 20-60!

Holy (insert your expletive) !!!

So what can you do’

Step 1:  Strength Train at least 20 minutes 2-3x/week
 No ladies you will not bulk up, by strength training
Don’t know where to start’
Have a gym membership take a muscle sculpting class
Hire a personal trainer for a 30-minute session to show you the works
No gym membership, send me an email and we discuss some steps

Step 2:  Cardio at least 20 minutes 2-3xs/week
This doesn’t mean you are reading the latest chic lit book or celebrity gossip magazine you are moving it!  You should break a sweat!

Step 3:  Nutrition:  Eat Right
Just because you are working out, doesn’t give you a license to snap on the feedbag!  Sure, you will be a little more ravenous, but our goal is drop some pounds!  So please follow a sensible eating plan.  We will take more about that in another post.