Don’t Stop Movin’!

Remember that song from back in the 90’s by Livin’ Joy?  “Doooon’t stooop movin.  It’s your life!  Keep on mooovin.   Get it riiight.  Yea, you’ve got to get it riiiight.  You can do anything that you want to do.  Get your mind body and soul to it!  Prove it to yourself and say YES.  I want.  I will.  I can do anything!”    Great song.  I remember blasting that on my cassette player as I would push myself up the steep hills near my house.   And when I say steep, I mean steeeep. 

Don’t stop moving Lindsay.  NO, don’t you dare quit.  Breathe.  You can do this.  15 more steps.  10.  5.  *Exhale*  My heart felt like it was doing jumping jacks and I had sweat pouring out all over but man did it feel good to push myself.  I have always enjoyed being active.  Between dancing, biking, running, power walking (yep, I did it), pushups and crunches, my focus has always been on keeping my body in shape. 

In my last blog, I wrote about how we can eat healthy without worrying about long preparations or weird tasting foods.  But it’s not just what we eat that makes us healthy.  This week, I want to talk about keeping our physical bodies active.  And of course, I will share some tips on how we can do this without interrupting our crazy schedules. 

Ever tried zumba? If you haven’t heard of it, zumba is the new fun aerobic workout that involves very basic dance steps (salsa, meringue, cumbia, swing, hip hop, etc.).  Now, I’m gonna be honest with you.  You may be a little lost in the beginning.  But guess what? That’s life! No one knows exactly how to do anything the first time so hang tight.  I promise you will get it.  If you are kinda like “Welllll, I really just like to have some idea of what it’s like before going in.”  You can view some sample classes on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D80NBKy0tG0&feature=related

If you are still hesitant to go, try it at home and see how you like it.  You can buy the game for Wii or Kinect.  So when the kids are at school, grab that remote control and get ready to move!  The thing I love about the game is that it keeps track of your progress and sets achievable goals for you.  Setting achievable goals is so important to your exercise routine.

If you are not into dancing, I would suggest at least biking, running, aerobics...basically, anything that gets your heart pumping.  I recently learned that our muscles contain some bad acids/fluids that cause fat to build up, blot clots and other not so nice stuff.   In order to push this “stuff” out of our muscles, our bodies require that our muscles be squeezed.  That is where working out comes in.  When we do aerobics, our muscles are basically squeezing out “the bad stuff” so that “the good stuff” can flow through. 

Here are a few other tips that I really like.  You can use them every day and they don’t take much time:

http://www.productivity501.com/5-exercise-tips-for-busy-people/3100/

You’re probably wondering “Okay great, got the aerobics down, but what about the muscle building workout?  Isn’t that important too?”  Yes, it most definitely is.  I’m actually looking to start that myself.   Thus, I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I know what to do.  However, I found some pretty cool tips that you can do to build muscle and do not require much time.  Check out the link below:

http://fitbie.msn.com/slideshow/15-minute-workouts-busy-people

As you can see, there are so many ways for you to keep that body active every day.  I hope you feel encouraged by these tips and begin to use them no matter where you are.  Your body will be thanking you!

Alrighty peeps, that’s all I’ve got for now!  If you have any tips, please share them as well.  I’d love to hear them!  Happy exercising and remember…DON’T STOP MOVIN’! J