Healthy is as healthy does.
This is one of my healthy living mantras.
So is Put DOWN the Cadbury Crème Egg and No, showering does not count as daily exercise.
“Healthy” is not a one size fits all term. Healthy is specific to each person and what they do to keep or make themselves healthy.
Completed my first half marathon!
A lot of healthy people make it look easy to be healthy; they run or workout a few times a week, barely take a second glance at the food they eat (including burgers, fries and everything else we think the healthy avoid) and everything falls into place for them. They also have muscle tone and definition and feel comfortable in their clothing.
A lot of ‘new to healthy’ people think it is fairly easy. What you don’t see is the months and years of hard work it took that healthy person to get to that stage of fitness. Learning how your body works isn’t an easy task but it is a fulfilling one.
If it takes you 3 years to gain 50 pounds, please don’t think that it will take 1 month of hard work and eating right to take it all off.
One of the things that this (almost) healthy girl does is enter her weekly workouts into her calendar as an appointment. This way, when I look at my Saturday schedule, I see that I am running in the morning around 9 am. This makes it easy and thoughtless for me to put exercise into my daily life. I also build in two off days where there is no exercise at all. I allow myself to ‘trade’ these days for another workout day in the week if my life gets too hectic. The ability to control my schedule makes exercise much more do-able for me. My definition of exercise is anything I do outside of my normal daily life; walking to the mailbox, taking out the trash, cooking, doing the laundry, and washing dishes are examples of normal daily life. Running a 5K, gardening, roller blading and biking (to get ice cream maybe) are not normal daily life for me, so they count as exercise.
Heading out for one of my scheduled runs!
Here is my May workout schedule:
Seems basic enough… because it is. If I stick to this calendar, I will burn 2,500 calories a week on average, which is a great number. Since a pound of weight loss = a 3,500 calorie deficit I am losing around .7 pounds a week when I eat right.
Question: How do you make sure to get your exercise in each week?
What a great reminder about the time it takes to lose weight. I think often people don’t see it like that. Great post!
I use an informal schedule: 4 days of exercise, 1 day of rest, rinse, repeat. There are times when the 4 days turn into 3… or 2… or even 1, but I always restart after a rest day, planning to do a stretch of 4. I track all exercise in LoseIt (app/website), where I also account for daily food intake.
This held up pretty well even during the 12 weeks I was training for a half marathon. I always scheduled the weekly long runs for either Saturday or Sunday, and everything else seemed to fall in place around it!
I too schedule my workouts in — it holds me accountable. BUT I also like to eat my cadbury eggs
Blogging my planned workouts for the week has a really crazy way of holding me accountable! I feel like I’ll let people down if I don’t hold up my end of the plan (even though people might not even pay attention to my schedule!). So, I try my best to put a plan up each week and stick to it no matter what!
I also schedule my workouts! Knowing what I’ll do each day helps keep me on track.
I schedule my exercises as well, but I over schedule. That way if I miss one or two then I don’t feel bad
I schedule my exercises as well, but I over schedule. That way if I miss one or two then I don’t feel bad.
That’s such a great mantra to remember each day! I’m constantly trying to learn how my body works, and what exercise is best for me. I get in my exercise by following a half marathon plan now and hitting up my favorite spinning/yoga classes. I also enter it in Daily Mile for motivation!
I schedule my workouts too! For me no schedule = no workout. I try to fit in as many early morning workouts as possible because I love getting it done and out of the way first thing, plus it pumps me up and gives me lots of energy for the rest of the day.
I have to admit, this is one of my biggest weaknesses. Since I got my new job (I used to freelance from home) it has been very difficult for me to find time to fit it in. I know it’s just a matter of finding a schedule and sticking to it, I just need to find a little motivation
I definitely treat workouts as part of my daily schedule. I don’t question it- I just do it. Sort of like how I treat work or dinner or whatever…
But yes- there is one rest day and one easy day (walking or something very low impact) that I have every week- and they often shift as my weekly schedule does.
I schedule my exercise too. I actually enter runs into a site called training peaks and it keeps me honest.