Tagged: Motivation
Week 4: Keeping it Simple in 2014 fitness challenge
We have met the homestretch of this challenge! This is the final week and I am feeling so encouraged by this memory verse from the Good Morning Girls:Intentionally Focused online bible study that I have decided to use it for this week’s memory verse.
Do you have an accountability partner? Someone that you can share your goals with? Someone that will cheer you on and tell you the tough stuff when you need to hear it?
Two are totally better then one in every walk of life and especially on our health journey!
Now that you have accomplished these two short term goals. Examine what you want to do next! Maybe it’s going to remain the same or maybe you are ready to tackle something bigger! We are all different. Long term goals provide you with a bigger picture and represent what is important to you in accomplishing on your health journey. They provide direction in your exercise program and reflect what you want.
Don’t forget these two closing thoughts. Stay positive! If you feel like you failed start fresh, right know! Keep a journal, it will help you become aware of unhealthy behaviors, why you do them and the consequences they have on your health.
Good Luck, thank you for joining this challenge it has really helped me learn a lot about the season of life I am in and how to adapt fitness into each new phase of life. The Sky is the limit! #livefitin2014
Blessings, Michelle
Week 3: keeping it simple in 2014 fitness challenge
Bad habits die hard. It takes time, patience, endurance and perseverance. Be patient with yourself. Two weeks in, the end is in sight. Keep your eyes on those two short-term goals. Great work! #livefitin2014
(Don’t forget to jot this memory verse down and your short term goals and place them where they are visible to you)
Blessings, Michelle
Week 2: Keeping it simple in 2014 fitness challenge
Week 2 scripture verse: “apply your heart to discipline and your ears to words of knowledge.”-proverbs 23:12
How did week 1 go? The first week of any new change is difficult. Set backs often pop up and this is how we learn how to get back on track (instead of giving up or thinking you can’t do it, BECAUSE YOU CAN!) Creating a healthy lifestyle for yourself at first isn’t going to be easy but over time it will become routine and your will thank yourself three months from know!
Think small victories this week. Last week was all and all rough for me. Things came up, my plans often altered and I had to adapt quickly. I was still able to squeeze in 4 workouts and I am slowly eliminating my sweet tooth. Don’t be overly hard on yourself. I often clung to last weeks memory verse, looking for The Lord for help when things were spiraling out of my control.
Small victories could include: cutting back on the coffee(tough for me, but creamer has a lot of sugar), taking the stairs instead of the elevator(with a baby car seat is pretty intense:), drinking 8 glasses of water, eating the color of her rainbow and fitting in 3-4 days a week of cardio.
Lifestyle change takes time and to make these healthy habits part of our daily routine focus on the small victories.
Physical and spiritual fitness requires discipline. We can all understand that we need discipline but to actually put it into practice is hard. I found this quote in Food, Fitness and Faith: ” life’s greatest rewards usually require lots of work, which is perfectly fine with God. After all, he knows that we’re up to the task, and he has big plans for us.”
Challenge on challengers, I have loved hearing about your progress. Don’t forget to put this verse somewhere were you can see it along with your two goals for this month. #livefitin2014
Blessings, Michelle
Week 1: Keeping it Simple in 2014 Fitness challenge
Week 1 Scripture Verse:
“I lift my eyes to the hills- where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” -Psalm 121:1,2
Evaluate yourself this week. Pick two goals that you want to work on throughout the next month. Write them down and put them along with the week one scripture verse where you can see them and are reminded of them often.
Share them with your spouse, best friends, sister, brother. We are much more likely to hold ourselves accountable to goals when we have shared them with loved ones and written them down where we can see them.
How crazy is it that only 8% of Americans who set a New Years Resolution follow through and actually achieve their resolution.
I am defiantly convinced that living a healthy and fit lifestyle is more then fitness. A fit life is having a fit relationship with God, fit relationships with those we are close with , with our finances and our career. These are all things in which unfortunately we are never going to arrive in!Oh how I wish we could! We have to keep working at them each day on a continual basis. Your goals may be more related to maybe fitness in your finances or a relationships, we all are going to be a little different on this journey. When I fall into a good workout routine(I feel confident, physically able to tackle any task, accomplished) most of all I find focus. I then see other area’s of my life become more consistent and overflowing with vibrant life. I say this often:” you have to plan your plan and then you have to work your plan!!”
Good Luck, When you are feeling weak or have fallen of path don’t throw in the towel. Be reminded that ultimately we can’t do this life on our own. Look up to the hills and ask the Lord to give you help. The first week in any type of fitness program or lifestyle change is that hardest. Be reminded of that. I am giving up sweets, because they are my biggest weakness and they become a false sense of oh, I think they will make me feel good in this situation. Usually I end up thirsty, sick, and realizing I was eating to run away from my problems when I should have looked to the lord for Help!
Don’t forget to #livefitin2014 and post your goals this month on Live Fit’s Facebook page (like button is on the sidebar) for accountability and support throughout Week 1! We are on this journey together friends!
Blessings, Michelle
Fitness challenge 2014 | Keeping it Simple
Don’t you get tired of hearing the slogan new year, new you?
We all are in completely different places in both our physical and spiritual journey.
Currently I am in a season of challenge, change, and caring for a newborn. You can read more about my precious new babies condition on this post: life with my new baby girl
This challenge isn’t about a diet, weight loss, or setting yourself up for vigorous goals you will be unable to achieve.
I’m a firm believer that we expect results to fast, we set our expectations extremely high and in the end give up on ourselves.
Don’t get me wrong weight loss done healthy, cutting calories when the are unnecessary are each equally important. Setting up a fitness regimen is just as important, but before all that and stressing yourself out lets think habits and lifestyle change.
Creating a healthy lifestyle is about setting yourself up for lifelong Success, one tiny step at a time. Setting short term goals for yourself that you are able to achieve will help build the confidence you need to give you energy to chase after your next goal.
How this challenge works:
I have never done a challenge specifically like this on my blog so I’m excited and nervous to see how it works out. It may be messy but together we will figure this out.
1. Like live fit women’s fitness page on Facebook here is the link: Live Fit Women’s Fitness
2.Follow Live Fit Women’s Fitness blog via e-mail to receive updates on how to form healthy habits all year long, get yourself out of your rut, reach your goals, nutrition tips, recipes, simple fast workouts, inspiration and accountability.
3. Write two short term goals you want to tackle by the end of this month on a piece of paper. Take a picture and post them on either live fit’s Facebook page, my instgram or twitter account. (Hashtag #livefitin2014) (Hang them in a place that you will able to view them often)
Example of a short term goals:
Work out three times a week for a month, drink 8 glasses of water a day, no eating after 8pm, no sweets only on the weekend, eat fruits and vegetables everyday for a month instead of chips and pop.
Example of long-term goals:
Loose 20lbs, train for a half-marathon, start a weight training regimen to build more muscle mass.
4. Each week I will feature a scripture verse for you to jot down on a notecard, memorize, and keep in mind for the week. Think about your two goals for the month and on Monday I’ll feature the verse of the week.
5. You are able to share(Facebook, instgram, twitter) throughout the month how these simple short term goals helped you form healthier habits that you can carry out throughout 2014. People who participate and send me a short story on how this helped them get on track both physically and spiritually for the new year will be featured on my blog in February.
I will be documenting my journey on all of my social media outlets. Let’s start by taking tiny steps together and achieving two short term goals together this month!
Don’t harp on yourself if you have a bad day. Pull yourself back onto the road to sucess. The sooner you start, the sooner the results will start to show! Let’s have fun! Ready. Set. Go!
Blessings, Michelle
Tone it Tuesday
Hey live fit,
This is anther one of my go to moves. A cutesy squat with a lat row. Working the Glute muscles and lat muscles In the back. It’s great to alternate sides and get that heart rate pumping.
If you want to modify here: quarter squat or just take out the lat row.
If you are looking to tone 12-15 reps, 3-4 sets, if your weight seems light the last 3 reps of your last set then maybe it’s time to grab a set of heavier weights (3-5lbs).
Fit tip:machines in the weight room are great. Free weights give us the opportunity to use weights more functionally as we would doing our daily activities. They also are a great way to increase your heart rate.
Motivation Monday
Whatever hardship, trial, season you may be traveling thru know that God is bigger then the hardships, focus on him and multitude of his love for us. Maybe it’s a work related goal you set for yourself, a circumstance that is giving you anxiety in the upcoming months, a fitness regimen or race you are training for. God is our strength and portion. No task that lies ahead of us is to big for him to sustain us for. Look to him for inner strength to lift heavy, run faster, serve more, have the the energy to be the mother, sister, friend, buisness women that HE wants you to be. It may not always turn out the way we see fit but he is our portion and his plans for our lives are bigger and greater then we could imagine!
Blessings, Michelle
Attitude
Why Weights? Part 2
(Photo courtesy of Pinterest)
Good Afternoon Fitness Friends,
Here is our second segment on Why Weights? if you didn’t get a chance to read our first segment on weight lifting it covered the benefits of why lifting weights is so important to incorporate into your fitness routine. Today I am going to talk about some resistance training guidelines.
Resistance Training Guidelines:
1. If you are new to weight lifting, find an experienced friend or partner that can offer feedback, assistance, check your technique and help keep you motivated.
2. Select a minimum to 8 to 10 exercises targeting major muscle groups
3. Training each muscle group for 2-4 sets and 8-12 repetitions
4. If you are just beginning a workout routine ease into it with 1 or more sets of 10-15 repetitions for the first month really focusing on your form and postural alignment
5. Resistance training for each major muscle group should be performed 2-3 days per week on nonconsecutive days, separated by at least 48 hours
6. Use a full range of motion
7. performing each exercise in a slow, deliberate and controlled manner.
8. Don’t hold your breath! Here is a great article explaining how to breath during exercise from Spark People.com and it also has some great video demo’s with different exercises explaining when to inhale and exhale during weight lifting. Breathing During Exercise
Reference-NETA Fitness Professionals Manual
What is postural alignment? Postural alignment when we are focusing on good posture. Our Chin is up, shoulder blades nice and tall, and abdominals are compressed. Our feet our hip width apart, weight evenly distributed on each foot. Postural alignment is important in preventing injury and making each exercise effective.
What is full range of motion? Range of Motion
Resistance Training during Pregnancy helps women from loosing muscle mass and here are some safe exercises that can be performed: Bicep curls, shoulder raises, chest press (back supported, on an inclined bench), triceps extensions, and leg lifts.
Blessings, I hope this information will help you on your fitness journey. Find a friend, keep good form and postural alignment, remember to breath, make sure to rest and exercise each major muscle group on nonconsecutive days and next week I will write on how to formulate a exercise routine that will target the major muscle groups.
Motivation Monday: Getting Started With Small Steps
Good Morning,
Runner or not this quote is so true. What is it about race day that brings out the best in us. The new shoes, Cheering crowd, the rush we feel as we cross the finish line, So accomplished. Our hard work has paid off. The long hours, the sweat, the pain, we have finished the race.
It was that one thing that got us started. We set a goal and we tackled it. It seems so simple but yet why do we make it so difficult?
This weekend I set some goals: They actually were not workout related they started just with getting my life back in order. My priorities had shifted and I started allowing myself to become overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with very simple activities around my home. With where I was going to start and how much I had to get done.
I needed to get started with the small steps again. God reminded me what was important in the race of life: ” A short of keeping my house in order both spiritually and physically”
1. first and foremost my relationship with Christ
2. Caring for and my relationships with my children and husband
3. taking on the tasks and work at hand with a joyful heart and attitude
4. my physical health, to have strong arms and endurance to tackle each day with my family
Sometimes it’s not just about the workout. I realized when the ritual of race day is off, you forget your number, your water bottle, maybe you fall at the start of the race, or you didn’t hit your personal best (PR) that you let it consume you. You have failed. It’s hard to get started again.
I was letting that sense of feeling unaccomplished around my home eat me up. This list I had to do titled:”before baby” but yet I couldn’t even keep up with the dishes.
If you are feeling that it’s time to reevaluate. Instead of looking at everything that needs accomplished around your home or how to start a workout regimen. Short out your house and start small.
It may be with just completing one small task at hand or walking for just 30 minutes a few days a week, whew when it’s accomplished you feel great right? It get’s the ball rolling and then you are started and moving forward to that finish line, the goals that you have on hand.
You see race day isn’t just the day you put on your number and line up to run. It’s everyday our feet hit the ground. Let that ritual of race day bring out the best in you each and everyday by starting the day out with small steps.
The Race of Faith:
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12: 1-2
Live Fit Women's Fitness 