‘Get it in gear!
There’s no doubt that regular exercise adds a healthy glow to your skin, makes you feel better mentally and physically and helps to keep your body in tip-top shape.
I, unfortunately, have let my routine seriously slip in the last year. My Aromaleigh duties, a flood of new products, family responsibilities and mommy time have completely engulfed my schedule and left me making excuses.
For a long while, those excuses were alright… because working at Aromaleigh everyday is very physical and I am constantly on the move, lifting and reaching, bending and blending, shaking and stirring. But a few weeks ago, I just started to realize that I feel just plain “icky” (yes, that is a technical term) and I must get back into my routine. But that isn’t going to be easy… because starting from scratch is always hard.
If you’re in this very same position, or just starting to work out again… I feel your pain! Ouch, ouch and ouch! How did I ever take ten hours of grueling ballet classes a week, or walk 30 miles a week in MBT sneakers? I wish I had appreciated my body’s capabilities more when I did those things.
So now, I’m taking baby steps. Very small baby steps.
I’ve taken a lot of Yoga classes in the past, so I thought that getting out some of my old Yoga videos would be a great way to start by increasing my strength, stamina and flexibility. Because believe me, if I throw myself back onto the ballet barre, I’ll be a dancing fool and I’ll just hurt myself…
I highly recommend this trio of Gaiam Yoga videos, which are great for those with a stiff schedule. I am able to do a video every morning while the kids eat breakfast! These are 26 minutes each and focus on strength, flexibility or stamina. I’ve been doing these every day for the last two weeks and I’m finally over the “ouchies” and adjusted to begin step two…
What’s step two?
Back to my beloved MBT sneakers. If you are an avid Aromaleigh Aficionadas reader, you may recall that MBT sneaks are a topic that pops up now and then. These sneakers are my “chiropractor in a box”, as they do wonders for the lower back pain which has plagued me since my pregnancy. Unfortunately, as I have found in the last year… you DO have to wear them in order for them to work.
These are my MBT’s (sadly, they did not have the ones with the pink trim in stock when I ordered this replacement pair). My first pair of MBT’s had seen hundreds of miles of walking, and were a higher platform (more challenging shoe). The M-Walk, which I opted for this time around, had a lower platform and a more gender-specific fit for women.
MBT’s are a pretty penny, but they are worth every penny. There are a lot of brands alternate to MBT’s coming out these days. Bliss Spa has a whole page of them! I am sure that a lot of these are worth the try for similar beneficial effects that MBT’s provide!
Today, I donned the M-Walks for their first mile, and it was a painful one. I had forgotten the first time I wore MBT’s, how you discover muscles you never thought you had. Well, I became reacquainted with those little muscles this morning after I did my Yoga video. Yikes.
I will be working up slowly but surely, to the 5 mile MBT walks I used to take 5-6 times a week… how I miss that time, and I sure know my body misses it too!!!
And then, maybe eventually I can dust my barre off (it is a fabulous clothes dryer right now, by the way…) and get out some of my ballet videos and really, truly be back to normal… whatever normal is!
Because we all know that working out is the next best anti-aging weapon in your arsenal next to sunscreen!!!
What do you do to keep your blood flowing?
xoxo
Miss K
Yikes, I am in the same boat as you — not exercising, but not even having the execuse of a physically demanding job! We bought an exercise bike thinking we’d exercise more if we could do it at home, but yeah, I think we both used it once or twice then it just sat there! (Is there a blushing/embarrassed smiley on this site?!)
In high school I was on the track team, ran the 2-mile event and ran several miles every day for practice and I really enjoyed it. (Must be my introverted nature, I like running and having time to let my mind wander while I run! I’ve even been known to work on math problems in my head while I run…. I am a weirdo
) Now it seems like I can’t just get motivated without a coach yelling at me! lol
After we move into our first house (this weekend, woohoo!) maybe I’ll get started on exercising again. We have a large unfinished basement, and in one corner we’re going to put down an old rug, the exercise bike, an old TV with the old video game systems, and an old couch to have a little semi-furnished corner. Maybe I will work out if I can watch fun TV! I wonder if I could play Super Mario Brothers while on the bike
Or get one of these for the computer, lol:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/accessories/9ff5/
At a minimum, I’ll get exercise on laundry day since the laundry’s in the basement and the bedrooms are on the second floor
Off the subject, is the sale extended? I don’t see a new sale on my screen today (I checked w/ Safari and IE to make sure I didn’t have an old version of the page or something).
Since I have fibro, I am limited on what I can do in terms of exercise. Some light walking is OK. If I have a good day, I tend to overdo it, and then I am in trouble and have several very painful days to follow. I try to take care of Caitlin, do what I can for myself and husband… with chronic fatigue that is my best. My weight is ideal and stable, so I’m content with that. Thanks for this post, this is an important issue!
If I’m not in dance class several times a week I feel icky as well. Right now, I’m doing 6 hours of ballet a week plus 3 hours of a swing dance class, which is SO MUCH FUN!
I do miss my jazz classes though, since I’m a musical theatre/jazz dancer at heart. Once I’m done with this show though, I’m going back to the jazz classes and upping the number of swing classes. I hope…
I’m a yoga, biking outdoors and dance girl myself.
Until the last year or so I always had to exercise just to due to my energy level.
Now, at 46, I’m content to rest. So, for the first time, I’ve had to get motivated to exercise. I’m Just buying a new bike right now.
I love to dance, and dance any chance I get. And I practice yoga several times a week. For many years I’ve practiced daily.
The videos you recommended, Kristen, are great ones for folks who’ve done yoga before. Rodney Yee is an excellent instructor. If you haven’t done yoga, I’d recommend taking a class to get started and to get feedback. After you feel comfortable and have some experience, videos are a wonderful way to keep up your practice at home. I also love Shiva Rea’s videos. I don’t know what I’d do with out videos. I still take classes regularly. (And I teach yoga, and have taken classes for 25 years. Still learning from classes.)
Keep movin’
Kathy
girl-geek, I am the worst with stationary things, esp. if there is a TV in front of me. I just start glazing over and walking or pedaling slower and slower… I got a treadmill off of QVC after Connor was born, I thought that I would be dedicated to it and that would be how I’d lose the baby weight. It didn’t do a thing for me other than catch me up on back epidodes of CSI and hurt my back! I sold it to the mother of one of my employees.
Ballet is the perfect exercise for me, but it’s not something that I can start and stop. I have to be conditioned in order to do it or else I will definitely injure myself. The perfect workout is one where time stops, and your mind is working and distracted by what your body is doing, and you’re engaged and lost in the movement and what comes next… not “when can I stop!!!!???”. That’s why I love ballet… I also love the music, plus, I will never be good at it… no matter what, there is always a constant need for improvement and perfection, so it is the perfect art/sport/workout for my personality type. And when I need inspiration to get myself moving, I can get out a performance video and see how it’s supposed to be done!
I started dancing quite late in life (in college I took my first class). But I knew then that I loved it and the awareness and sense of power it gave me over my body. I went from being very ashamed and shy about my body, always hiding it under layers of clothing- to being very proud of how strong my body became from ballet, and what hours of work at the barre could enable a body to do.
I miss that feeling and I feel so guilty that I’ve let SO much time pass and let myself make so many excuses… blechhh….
Another dancer here! I’ve been dancing since I was 3, mostly ballet, but a fair amount of modern and also jazz & tap when I was a kid. I took 1.5 hour ballet classes at least 5 days a week while I was in high school (modern once a week too), and I was in awesome shape! I miss it. My dance schedule was a little less rigorous in college, and since I graduated…nada. I miss it so! I went through a period where I wasn’t doing any exercise, but for the past few months I’ve been walking 1-2 miles a day 4-5 days a week. It’s been enough to help me start losing the large amount of weight I gained due to uncontrolled PCOS. Hopefully I can start dancing again soon!
I love dancing — freestyle, swing…belly….and I love jogging to dance music. But since I got my job at the Park, I’ve been standing all day and then going home and vegging out. And on my days off, I’ve been unmotivated to move…. gotta get out of this rut!
I’m a ballet girl too. I also run on the treadmill and take an aerobic hip-hop class once a week. I feel extremely icky if I don’t exercise, plus working out alleviates my insomnia 100%. I should say I’m not a serious ballet dancer, but I sure have fun doing it.
Sounds like something is definitely in the air — must be spring time!
I myself just started again at the gym. I was doing a circuit with weights and cardio intervals a few months ago. But after a few weeks of that I noticed that I was gaining weight. I know all about the muscle/fat thing, but it was really discouraging to me because I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. So, this time I decided to get on the treadmill. Yes, it’s boring, BUT I started walking / jogging intervals to keep me challenged. I do 2 or 3 minutes of each and alternate for about 30 minutes. I’m feeling much better already. I will soon incorporate some light dumbbells for my upper body (namely my arms) because I did like the definition I got with the circuit.
I think I’ll check out the MBT’s though…sounds like I’d appreciate what they can do for a girl’s backside!!!
Hey Cristin — if it’s muscle and if you look good, it’s ok to gain weight! If you know you’re healthy, I honestly think it’s best to ignore the number on the scale
When I first started running track in high school, I actually GAINED weight from all the muscle in my legs, even though I wasn’t do any weights or “real” strength training (our practices were mostly a mix of sprints, hill running, and distance). I loved it, I had some awesome rock-hard thighs and defined calf muscles! Now I have skinny, flabby chicken legs and a growing tummy. Yuck.
Unfortunately I know I won’t have the discipline to get *that* muscular again — even when I played basketball and had 2.5-3 hour practices 5 days/week, I didn’t have that much muscle until I joined the track team! So it takes a lot of work to really build up the muscle for me… (If you can’t tell, I went to a small school where they rarely cut the sports teams and most anyone could play, lol)
I also like individual sports like track, where even if I know I won’t win a race I can still push myself to beat my personal best time. (Kind of like always wanting to improve your ballet, except my ISTJ personality type prefers a more concrete measurement, lol. Plus, I am a weirdo and during races, they would say your time after each lap. I’d memorize my best time for each lap and do math in my head while I ran to see if I was on schedule! Knowing whether I was doing “good” or not helped motivate me!) For some reason, I didn’t have that motivation in team sports like basketball!
Kristen — our thought with the bike was that we didn’t want to take the time to go to a gym, it’s too cold to run outside in the winter, plus I wouldn’t feel comfortable running outside alone in the city, so we wanted a way to work out at home. And I can’t stand watching the same few exercise videos each day, that drives me nuts! I thought that if I could work out at home on a bike and watch a different TV show each day or even just listen to music, I’d be more likely to do it
But hey — everyone’s different, do what works for you!
I’m still hesitant about the MBT’s though. I already have problem feet, and I’ve heard podiatrists say MBT’s are not good for you because they change your gait so much…
How do I keep my blood flowing? Well, I have zero dicipline. To add to that lack of disipline, I’ve never had the ability to oay attention enough to drive safely. So I bicycle to work.
4 days a week I bike 15-20 minutes uphill. On back roads with no traffic. Once I’m going I love every second. Getting out the door is what stopped it from being an exercise routine in the past. But with the obligation of needing to make a paycheck, that gets me out the door these days just fine.
Bikes used to be lame and hard to ride with painful seats when I grew up. Now I have a Novara Transfer and it rocks. Even in the winter snow. It would take a gun to get me out in the snow in the past. My hands and feet are always freezing. But this past winter I HAD to get on the bike in the cold and snow, and once I got going I was toasty roasty warm. The seat, found online, is a special cushy one made for a woman’s rear and it is so comfy.
Then going home is downhill most of the way. yeeeee hawwwww!
It’s such a natural high! I turn down rides from my husband because I want to feel that sense of freedom.
EagleEyes, that sounds awesome!!! I would love to bike to work (I loved walking to class in college…. well maybe not in bad weather) — but I have too long of a commute and even if the commute was shorter, I don’t work in the safest part of town! Eek! (No wonder my company got such a good deal on these office buildings! lol)
Yes, glad you put safety first, girl_geek.
In the past I had a used old model Nordic Trak. That was wonderful in cold winter to watch telly and heat up the freezing toes and fingers at the same time.