Friday, November 30, 2007

Exercise in Bad Weather

Appraising Your Success

The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week -- Exercise in Bad Weather
Welcome to autumn. The weather is changing and the days are getting shorter, which make it more difficult to exercise outside. It’s important to continue your moderate intensity activity most days of the week, no matter what the weather is. It’s especially important to keep moving as the holidays approach, and we tend to eat more food and more, unhealthy, holiday foods.

If you belong to a gym, of course, that’s an obvious place to work out without needing to worry about the weather or lack of daylight.

If you have indoor exercise equipment, like a treadmill, elliptical machine, stair stepper or stationary bike, now is the time to pull it out, dust it off and start using it. I recommend hopping on it while watching your favorite TV show so that you get both exercise and the pleasure of watching a show you like at the same time. During commercial breaks, increase your intensity and really push it for those 2 minutes.

Another option is exercise shows, which include TV shows, internet videos and DVDs. The benefit of exercise TV shows is that they are on a schedule, which can motivate you to do it at a specific time each day. Of course, the internet and DVDs, on the other hand, give you more flexibility in scheduling. I suggest trying various shows and finding a few different ones that you like. Be sure your collection includes both cardio and toning workouts. If you belong to a DVD rental service (Netflix, Blockbuster, etc.), rent some exercise DVDs and try each a few times before deciding to purchase any. If you already own exercises videos, dust them off and try them, but if they are old or on video cassettes, it’s time to look into some new ones because exercises and exercise combinations improve as we learn more about how the body works.

Don’t let the weather turn you into a sloth; think about the best way for you to continue exercising as the weather changes.

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne

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