fitness

February 5: Amazing morning yoga

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Another winner found today! After jumping around so much yesterday, I searched for a 30-minute yoga routine and when I saw this video from instructor Sadie Nardini, called 30 Min Morning Wake Up Yoga Flow, I was sold. It’s morning here, and surely morning yoga would be nice … and calm … and relaxing … and … WRONG! It was a massive strength workout.

Wow, I think I may have found something to add to my morning routine. Currently I meditate for 10 minutes and stretch for five. But lately I’ve noticed I squirm and wriggle for at least the first few minutes of the meditation, and this morning, I was preoccupied with rubbing my knees so they would bend comfortably to a sitting position. Yesterday’s Banish Fat Boost Metabolism workout has left its mark – I’m not as sore as I thought I’d be, but I’m still feeling it.

When I’m settled into the meditation, and my spine is straight, my breathing calm and my wrists feel like they’re a part of my knees, I really feel like I’m in the zone …  and then the music stops and I ‘have to’ stop. So maybe tomorrow I’ll bump it up to 15 minutes of meditation and then go straight into this workout from Sadie (check out her website here).

Ooohhhh, it was tough. I am no yoga practitioner, or advocate really. But this was great. I felt my hips cramping. But then they stretch out. My shoulders, back and arms feel like I’ve been lifting weights. It was impossible to do all the exercises as well as she did, but it was totally worth the effort.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. I’ll be doing this again – maybe tomorrow, so I can feel the benefits again. Then I’ll mix up my morning routine each day, and do this workout every, say, Friday. What do you think? It won’t be counted as part of my fitfor15in15 workouts, it will be counted as my morning routine.

Do you mix up your morning routine? Or does that defeat the purpose of it being called a routine?! What do you like doing in the morning?

Wishing you a wonderful day.

February 4: Tomorrow, I’ll be sore!

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Yes, that headline rhymes on purpose 🙂

Wowee, I found a good workout today! My friend Sandra and I were talking yesterday about Jillian Michaels, who’s very popular in America and has also been one of the trainers on The Biggest Loser USA.

I’ve done two of her workouts previously, on January 7 and January 19, and they took roughly 30 minutes each. Today’s workout, “Banish Fat Boost Metabolism Complete Workout”, was about 54 minutes of solid movement and I worked up the ‘best’ sweat I’ve had since beginning fitfor15in15. (No photos. Not pretty.)

These women are machines! If you can ignore the terrible, repetitive warm-up music, the rest of the soundtrack is pretty inoffensive … or maybe all my creaking, crunching and cracking and Jillian’s instructions filled my head. The workout is intense! Every circuit is done twice, which is good because for the first circuit you’re pretty much making sure you’re doing some of the exercises correctly.

When it came to all the jumping moves, I ended up just going with her beginner’s recommendation of squats for the second pass of each circuit. Jumping and coordination were beyond me in the final 10 minutes. As were the full planks. I was on my knees. Begging it to stop.

But I TOTALLY recommend this workout. You don’t need any weights, just a mat for the floor exercises and a full glass of water (how can these three trainers not drink any water in 50 minutes?! Phew!)

Exercising this afternoon really changed the day. When I woke up this morning, I was flat. It was a low day, a slow day, a shallow day, a hollow day. I couldn’t even be bothered to get out of bed to do my morning routine. I did it in bed. How slack is that? It was cold … I was cold … and I felt old.

But I (figuratively) slapped myself a bit and prepared to leave the house for my lunch appointment with a former German teacher, Claudia. Not surprisingly, forcing myself to shower, get dressed, put on some make up, walk to the bus (oh my, was that walk cold!) and talk German and English for three hours really lifted me up. Thanks Claudia!

And on the walk home from the bus, I was positively gagging to start exercising, and not only because the Siberian wind (well it was coming from the north east, so it has to be from Siberia, right?!) had frozen me through. I was keen to move, and sweat … and, ok, feel warm. That’s why I chose something I haven’t done before, and something more than 30 minutes long.

And you know why I think I felt so bad this morning? I couldn’t work it out, but then I thought about what I’d eaten in the past two days – Monday night pesto pasta, Tuesday morning muesli with natural yoghurt and Tuesday dinner leftover pasta … ahhh, not one piece of fruit or a vegetable in sight! All processed foods. I’m no expert but I think that very much had something to do with why I felt so bad this morning. Plus, I probably didn’t drink enough water yesterday …

So the better nutrition plan is gaining legs. And speaking of legs, I need to go rest mine!

Wishing you a wonderful day.

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Love the layers of snow on the pool edge

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This is the road to our house. It was a bit tricky walking on this today, but still better than the shortcut in shin-deep snow. Boy it was cold walking between these frozen fields

February 1: 15 minutes of strength exercises

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Once again, I’ve left it too late in the day to exercise properly. I’m finding it hard on the weekends to do exercise!

While we were watching the men’s Australian Open tennis final this morning, the weather was gorgeous.

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Blue skies!

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Everything looks amazing in this kind of light

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Love the white trees

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And the white telephone wires! Our little house is looking good!

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Probably not the right footwear!

When we were ready to do something, it was snowing and yuck.

So I made the most of the afternoon doing something fun, which I’ll tell you more about tomorrow.

Tonight, I did 15 minutes of strength exercises in the office, as before – squats and lunges with the tin cans etc – and this time I threw in the occasional salute to the sun. My butt is feeling quite sore from the previous days’ exercises too. Yippee!

The weather’s supposed to be horrifically cold over the next few days, so I apologise in advance for my own prediction – an onslaught of blog posts to keep me occupied!

Wishing you a wonderful day.