Happy Friday! How is everyone doing with their 2016 fitness goals?
I’ve been making slow progress. I signed up for Barre3 – which offers a plethora of online videos at a low monthly cost, and right now that’s exactly what I need. I’m enjoying the challenge and core building exercises, and I’m excited to keep it up once I start training for my 10-miler.
So this week I want to focus on the “little” things that are just as important to your health and fitness, as the actual physical work. What’s that? Maintaining your stress and positive energy.
1. Confront It. If something or someone is bothering you, confront the situation. I think the word confront often has a negative connotation – but the way you approach the situation is key and doesn’t have to be negative or defensive. Clear your chest and speak your peace, the rest is out of your hands…
2. Lose Control. Speaking of out of your hands, you can only control yourself, aka you cannot control others. So if you’ve spoken your peace, knowing you’ve tried, work on letting go of the rest. You’ll thank yourself later!
*Disclaimer: I know it’s easier said than done.
3. Release The Stress. With exercise! Not food! Personally, I often crave some bad eatings when I am stressed or had a bad day at work – I find I have a small window to get motivated to exercise, but when I do pick exercise over the burger and fries I feel 10x better AND not fat! Challenging your mind to pick fitness over food in those situations is half the battle.
4. Stretch! I’ve mentioned this before; but since I’ve been stretching more I can’t get over how much I can feel it in my muscles and body and how much it helps. It helps release all those stresses that get stored in our body from long days of sitting at a desk or standing on our feet. Try 10-minutes a day, I bet you’ll feel a difference.
5. Reflect on the Good. It’s easy to fixate on the bad, how we didn’t work out, how we ate bad, the jerk at work… and it’s easy to overlook the good. Try writing down on a post-it at least one good thing that happened during your day and tuck it away in a jar, by the end of the year you’ll have a jar full of happy memories, that hopefully also helped you in the current moment – focus on the good. You can also bring this up with a roommate, spouse, or best friend at the end of the day and both share your “goods” of the day.
Keep focusing on your 30-days there is still time to work towards your goals and build good habits!
the bee life 