And now for something completely different lol
Hey guys, I recently decided to get in better shape and eat healthier so I thought I would share my plan with you. I figured that there are a lot of people who want to eat better and workout more but either don’t know what to do or aren’t motivated so I thought that by sharing what I’m doing, maybe you guys would be interested in joining me. I’d be lying if I said I just randomly decided to do this, the main reason is for my school gym class. We have to log 15 hours of exercise for our choice of 3 focuses: cardio, muscular endurance, flexibility. I chose cardio and muscular endurance so I’m to do at least 15 hours of those (together, not each). We were also given a lecture on healthy eating and I realized that I eat horribly so I decided I’d work on that at least a little. I’m not making any huge chances but the changes I make will help in being healthier.
Here’s what I’m doing food wise:
I have never been a breakfast person, I sleep in as late as I can and then rush to class every morning so I don’t have much time for breakfast. I used to eat oatmeal or a bagel but lately I had gotten in the habit of eating a poptart for breakfast every morning (horrible habit, do not do it ). After our little lecture on nutrition I decided I would quit that and find something healthier to eat. I now eat pita bread with peanut butter on it, along with some fruit (nothing specific, just whatever we have in the house at the time). As for snacks, not gonna lie I usually grab some sort of junk food to eat as a snack. Now I’m eating fruits, vegetables, and other healthier snacks.
Now I know that we’re all pretty lazy and would rather grab something quickly out of the cupboard or fridge as a snack. This tends to be junk food though, which is a bad habit to get into. The solution to this is to cut up fruit in advance. Buy some of those glass Tupperware containers, cut up the fruit(s) and put them in the fridge. This way you can grab the container and have fast access to fresh fruit anytime you like. The same goes for many vegetables as well. I also have a habit of eating popcorn when I’m studying or doing homework (which let’s face it, that’s pretty often) so rather than eat the very salty and buttery popcorn, I’ll either pop my own homemade popcorn or if I’m feeling lazy (much more likely) I’ll make the one of the healthier microwavable bags of popcorn.
And now drinks. Again, I got into a horrible habit and I drank soft drinks a lot. What I’m doing now is drinking water or juice (but not the super sugary ones that are no better than soft drinks).
This doesn’t mean you can’t have soft drinks or junk food; they just shouldn’t be a main part of what you eat.
And now onto the fitness section:
I really did not exercise at all before so I’m horribly out of shape when it comes to fitness. With the incentive from my gym class I’m going to work on improving my cardio and muscular endurance.
We recently bought a Wii and fell in love with a dance game called Just Dance 2. It is so much fun to play with family or friends and can be quite a workout if you really get into it. Then for my birthday I was given another dance game, this one a fitness game. It’s called Dance Fitness and it’s by Gold’s Gym. The game is like having a personal trainer (you actually do in the game) and you can organize a workout or just do a quick workout of whatever you want. There’s latin dancing, cardio boxing, and some mini games. I tried out the dancing and mini games and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would, they didn’t feel like that much of a workout. Then I found the cardio boxing section and loved it, it is such a great workout (obviously you actually have to do the moves and get into it, not just move the remotes to get points). Now I mostly use the cardio boxing routines for my cardio workout, and for muscular endurance I add push ups, crunches and lunge jumps between each routine (there’s a pause between each so I use this time). If you use the “my workout” option it also allows you to create your own workout regiment, and halfway through the workout you take your pulse and it tells you if you’re in your target heart rate zone or not.
And now I’ll show you what my current workout is, though I’ll probably be extending it to last longer soon. This workout takes about a half hour of nonstop exercise. With the wii there is a bit of a break between routines but as I said, I take this time to work on push ups and such.
1) warm up (there’s a warm up section on the wii with stretching)
2) one intermediate level 2 dance routine (I use this to warm up and get into the exercising frame of mind)
3) 10 push ups, crunches, lunge jumps
3) one beginner level 1 cardio boxing routine
4) 10 push ups, crunches, lunge jumps
5) one beginner level 3 cardio boxing routine
6) 10 push ups, crunches, lunge jumps
7) one intermediate level 2 cardio boxing routine
8) 10 push ups, crunches, lunge jumps
9) one intermediate level 2 cardio boxing routine
10) 10 push ups, crunches, lunge jumps
11) cool down (there’s a cool down section on the wii with stretching)
And that’s my current fitness and nutrition plan. I hope you didn’t find this too boring and that maybe it encourages you to start a routine that you’ve been thinking about starting as well. I’m also hoping that posting about it here will keep me motivated as lack of motivation is usually what leads to a plan like this failing. We’ll see how it goes. I won’t be updating about it too much, maybe just updating if I change my exercise plan or something.
Here are a few videos of some examples of the cardio boxing routines from the wii game:
