Remember happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think. ~Dale Carnegie

This quote sums it up quite nicely.  I hear so many excuses, time, money, family conflicts, work you name it. But what we really need to do is change our thinking. Making time for yourself just as important as taking your kids to soccer and meeting deadlines at work. So instead of saying well, I’m a mom and I can’t do it, or to be the best employee and get ahead, I have to stay late. It’s time to think about yourself and how you can help yourself. If you aren’t taking care of yourself, how can you take care of anyone else.

We are our own worse enemies, we are great a negative self-talk.  So, when you feel yourself saying something negative, turn it around! Think about what are you good at, if your not good how can you make it better!  Remember baby steps, we all fall down, but its the strong women who dusts herself off and starts again’

Talk to me how are you going to change your thinking’

Okay, I can resist most things, with the exception rice krispy treats! They are heavenly!!!! I have a good day rice krispy treats, Have a bad day rice krispy treats, it’s raining out rice krispy treats!  What makes it worst is that Starbucks has started to sell, do you know how many Starbucks I pass in my everyday life.  Heavens!! It’s heard to resist the pull of the rice krispy treat.  they are AWESOME!!!

What is your weakness’ What makes you stop in your tracks’

Courtesy of Nerd Girl Blogging

Don’t these look AWESOME!!!

Now, this is where I tell you about control.  If we don’t give ourselves treats every once in awhile we will go CRAZY!! The best rule of thumb is 80 -20.  80% of the time you are eating healthy and the other 20% you are giving yourself a moderate free pass, so if pass by that Starbucks on a Saturday and want a rice crispy treat.  Go for it!

I grow easily bored with gym bags, in fact I have a ton! But guess what I need a new one, my current bag just isn’t cutting it any more. It’s been a few months and it’s falling apart!  Are you a bag junkie like me!!

Current Bag above, below is my bag graveyard!

Does your graveyard look like mine’

I have a great lulu lemon bag, and  Nike duffel, and free bag I got at show that worked for awhile and again I still find myself on a quest!!  So help me out!! This is what I’m looking for in a bag! Must haves include: POCKETS!! I l LOVE compartments! I need a place to stick my ipod, my water bottle, phone and an outside pocket for my bus pass and cell phone (I stink at hearing that thing! Plus another outside pocket for my book. Again, I take public transportation and need to entertain myself with something beyond some of the interesting characters that ride public transportation.  Also, it must have a shoulder strap. So if you know a bag,  that my be useful to me, let me know!!  Like I said I could always use a new bag!

So, last night we made history. Obama told America we need change and America turned out in record numbers to vote for that change.  How about what change are you going to make’

In order to change we must be sick and tired of being sick and tired.- Author unknown

So if you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, the time is now to make a change.

What change am I making’  I am getting ready for my show in Las Vegas, which is 15 days and 12 hours away, but who’s counting.  I am going into a full on show diet mode, amping up my cardio and dialing in my food.

Let me know, what you are up to, by placing comment below.

I see it all the time in the gym, women who are flying through reps thinking that they are lifting. I ask all the time do you think you could lift a little heavier, and I get the same response, I don’t want to bulk up!

News Flash!

Unless you have some sort of hormonal imbalance of testosterone, it’s impossible for you to bulk up! It is possible for you to tone up and show some muscle definition.  Who doesn’t want that!  Plus, muscle:

• Burns FAT!!
• Strengthens your bones
• Takes up less space that fat, so you look leaner

So, you need to stop flying through your reps and increase your weights.  You ask’ When do I know it’s time to increase my weights’  Well, when you get to the last 2-3 reps and you feel like you can do 10 more, then you need to increase your weight.  With that said, you should only increase when you can maintain proper form!!

So tell me, are you flying through your reps’ Do you have any more questions, about weight training, I would to hear them’ Just post a question below.  I plan on answering a question every Sunday.

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