Transform Your Workout Day 18: 4 simple tips for weight-loss success from Rachel Murray!
Celebrity fitness personality, nutrition expert, and coach Rachel Elizabeth Murray is here with not one but 4 tips to help YOU get fit and lean!
From Rachel:
Tip 1) Remember what you love about yourself. Make a list of 5-10 things you love about yourself NOW, not 10 pounds lighter. I’ve seen so many people pick themselves apart so much they become depressed. Depression is a major reason people give up on their weight loss training programs. However, many symptoms of depression are reduced drastically when you exercise regularly. Need fitness and nutrition challenge ideas? Check out my weekly ‘Monday Challenges.’ But first things first, remind yourself daily why you do deserve to take care of yourself. Then get to the gym! A happier, healthier you means a happier healthier family!
TIP 2) Keep your sugar intake under 30 grams a day. Sugar, whether artificial, table sugar, or fruit sugar, all affects your brain and body the same way. It triggers insulin spikes, promotes fat storage, and increases cravings. Yikes! Eliminate sugar and you’ll not only crave it less often, it’s also an easy way to seriously reduce excess calories too! NOTE: Beware sneaky sugars in things like condiments, bottled beverages, and alcoholic drinks and mixers. Read the ingredients and labels carefully. Check out recipes and grocery lists on my website for more help with what to limit and which treats you can enjoy in moderation and still stay fit!
TIP 3) Can’t get to the gym today? Let your chores and your kids become your substitute! Housework, like scrubbing floors, vacuuming, carrying hampers full of laundry, and playing with your kids can burn tons of calories and double as a full resistance training and cardio when done right! For example: try vacuuming the carpet while lunging into every step (push with right arm, lunge with left leg for 10 strokes/steps, then switch sides). The push strengthens your core, arms, chest, and shoulders, while the lunge works your thighs and butt, and that’s just the ‘push’ part of the movement. When you pull the vacuum back, and step out of the lunge, you get more leg work, but you also get the benefit of back, arm, and shoulder work. Want more calorie burn with some added kiddo bonding time? Have your little one ride piggyback while you do the housework. Who wouldn’t want to make cleaning house a calorie burning, challenging, and fun activity? Check out the ‘at-home’ workouts and get inspired with more training ideas on my website. (Then let me know how your cleaning-inspired workout went!)
TIP 4) Challenge yourself and start a ‘streak’! Every one falls off the workout-wagon once in a while. So don’t let it discourage you and cause you to give up on getting to your goals! Instead, start a ‘streak.’ Get a calendar and hang it on the wall somewhere you and your family will see it all the time and put a big ‘X’ over every day in a row that you get your training or cardio or other activities/goals done. When the inevitable drop off comes, you will have a lot to show for it as encouragement, and you’ll also have a real number of days in writing that you can use as the number to ‘beat’ when you start your next ‘streak'!
What's one thing you love about yourself right now? Tell us! Then try the rest of Rachel's top tips and let us know how you do!
Rachel Elizabeth Murray is a celebrity fitness personality, nutrition expert and coach determined to make a positive change in the lives of people around the world through research and fact based fitness and nutrition education, proven results-based workouts, optimal health and physique-improving nutrition, and general but reliable tips and tricks to change your lifestyle to a fit lifestyle for life.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's tip from Leah Segedie of Bookieboo.com and Mamavation.com.
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I love the streak idea. that was kind of one of my strategies at the beginning. i really need to start paying attention to my sugar/sodium/fat/carb/protein better again. :(
I think i'm open-minded, kind, intelligent... qualities I like about myself :)
Hula hooping to flatten stomach
- Cafe Becky
on Nov. 18, 2011 at 4:34 PM