Janae Says...

For today’s Workout Wednesday post, I thought I’d write about rest days. I generally think this is something you have to figure out for yourself. I’ll tell you what I’ve found and what my general rules are for rest days. This is what works for me and may not work for you. Typically, I reserve rest days for especially busy days. For example, on Tuesdays, I will often to go “donate” plasma (for monies, of course). After that I head home and either cook or wait for Patrick so we can go out. We eat, and we head to institute at 7. We’re there till 8:30. Tuesdays are just busy. So sometimes I skip Tuesdays for working out. I may do the same on Thursdays if I donate a second day. I may also skip a workout when I get invited to do other plans that won’t enable me to exercise and shower and get ready before the activity starts—Friday nights, for example. I might take rest days on the days I know I just need a break from everything. Some evenings I just want to eat and sit on ...

I've never understood the girls who show up at the gym with makeup and hair done. When I go to the gym, it is not to impress anyone or to look attractive. In fact, I think my goal is to make myself look like an absolute train wreck. I want some physical indication that I worked hard. So it used to be that when I went to work out, I just worked out in my grubby lounge clothes. Anything extra I had that was comfortable, and that I didn't mind getting soaked in sweat. Because, why look cute, right? Why spend money on clothes that I was going to get all sweaty? I've had a change in heart in the past year or so of exercising. I have realized that what I wear when I exercise makes a huge difference in how I feel and how I perform. With this, I'm talking both about function and aesthetics. First, function. Before I exercise, I decide what I'm going to do, and choose my clothes based on those activities. Let me give you an example. If I decide that I'm doing yoga,...

It's funny how much pride I used to take in my annual number of gym check-ins. I now take pride more in how hard I can work without having to go to the gym to do it. Don't get me wrong. I still love the place. I just would like to be able to get a good workout in at either my apartment complex gym or in my actual apartment. Remember, it needs to be easy (in a sense) if I'm going to make myself do it. I've mentioned before that I often use a blog for my workouts, and I modify according to what is available to me. Sometimes I even make it harder. But I thought I'd share just a few of my favorite "at-home" workouts that require minimal or no equipment. I've even done these at hotels and things when gym equipment was either taken or nonexistent. 1. The 15 Minute Workout I love this one because of its flexibility. If I felt like running 2 miles, I could come back and do a single 15-minute round of this afterward and call it good for the day. I l...

Something I’ve noticed in the past two years or so is that there are cycles, or trends, if you will, in types of dieting and nutrition. I have followed people on Instagram (try @skinnymeg31 , @jazzythings , @dallassrae , @busygirlseatclean , @corinanielsen , @shivalicious89 , @trishallen , @fromfatgirlto5k , @fitalicious_me , @tastyhealth ) and watched their journeys. Some of them started overweight and lost a lot of weight. Some of them started thin and got healthy and toned. Some of them decided to do bikini and physique competitions. Some of them got to an unhealthy weight, ruined their metabolisms, or developed eating disorders. Many of them have evolved in the way they think about nutrition. While they all have had different paths, they have the same goal: health and balance. They also love food! I’ve learned a lot just by reading their posts, seeing their food, and observing their development. There are a few dieting trends I see that have lingered in the last couple of y...

I posted a long time ago about how odd it was to me to have a doctor call me “athletic.” Having never been enrolled in sports, never particularly enjoyed P.E., fallen in the higher categories for BMI, and performed well in school, this was a revelation to me. When he called me that, it was like serious validation for all the physical activity I had been doing for quite some time. I had a friend invite me to do a half marathon with her, which I ended up doing alone. Still, she invited me. During training, I would hear from all kinds of people, “Hey, I saw you running the other day.” Then a friend and fellow blogger referred to me as one of her “fit” friends. What? Really? People see me that way? And another friend asked me to do a Spartan beast training with her. And she asked me to go to a partner challenge class at her kickboxing place, which I did. And she asked me to consider doing Ragnar, which I passed on. A high school acquaintance invited me to do a workout ...

This is a topic I feel merits some attention. When it comes to exercise, form is everything. If you want to keep doing something and stay in good condition, you have to watch your form. This goes for everything, from running to weight lifting. I found myself in a conundrum in my “total body conditioning” (step interval) class last Wednesday. A lady next to me was doing deadlifts incorrectly. Her back was curved, meaning she wasn’t working the right body parts, and she could injure herself. I wanted to say something to her because I didn’t want her to get hurt, but I’m not the teacher. Tuesday in BodyCombat (kickboxing) class, a girl was lifting her head up, bending her neck, while doing crunches. This is not the right way to do a crunch, as you should focus on lifting your chin to the ceiling. Keep your chin off your chest, and let your abs do the work—not your neck. Again, they weren’t fully working the core, and could have potentially done damage to their neck. I said noth...

Oh, the gym. How I love it. But as I was setting up for my step interval class last Wednesday, I remembered how it wasn’t always so. What is now one of my favorite and most comfortable places to be in, used to cause me enormous amounts of anxiety--especially the classes. It just didn’t make sense to me. Why work out with so many people around you? They’ll look at you funny for getting so sweaty. How do you even use these machines? What is this one for? Will these muscular men be mad at a short little girl for taking one of the free weight benches? People are going to look at you and see that you have no idea what you’re doing. If any of these fears or insecurities have ever crossed your mind, let me squash those for you right now. At a gym, we are all “in the zone.” We are doing our own thing, working toward our own goals. We’re all at different stages on our fitness journey. We all had to start somewhere. There’s not just ONE right way to reach goals, and people who exercise kno...

So I wrote this last week and ended up forgetting to post it. It's a questionnaire I decided to create, using a couple of other ones for ideas. I'll put a blank copy at the end in case you want to fill in your own. 1. How long have you been running? I probably started running consistently at the beginning of 2012, maybe earlier. 2. What’s your favorite distance to run at a time? For some reason, I like 2 miles at a time. But when I get in better shape, I think 4 miles is a great distance. 3. How many times per week do you run? It hasn’t been very consistent lately. I try to include running in every workout, so 3-5 days per week. I did 4 days last week. 4. How far do you run in one week? That also depends. I ran 8 miles last week. I’d say 4-8 miles on average, when not training for a race. 5. What is the longest distance you’ve ever run? 13.1 baby! 6. What’s your average pace per mile? About 10:40. Sometimes slower, depending on hills, wind, energy, etc. But 10:40...

Today's post is coming to you from my couch. That's right. My couch--where I opted to plant my butt instead of exercising today. For reasons you probably would prefer not to hear, I am not working out today. It sufficeth me to say that I do not feel well, and my body needs a break.  So here are my thoughts on commitments and why I allow myself to take breaks.  I have figured out the way my brain works with requirements. Let me give you some examples:  - I love reading, unless I have to.  - I love eating healthy, unless I have to. - I love exercising, unless I have to. I learned that if I decide to cut things out, or put rules on myself, I instantly want to rebel. A teacher at my school last year decided to issue monthly health goals and challenges to the faculty. You'd be entered in drawings if you participated, and receive special prizes if you were a top contender. I won several drawings and did really well with his challenges. But one of ...

Let's talk about "those days." You know what days I'm talking about. Maybe it was a day when you woke up late, and ran behind on everything else. Maybe it was a day where you dropped something not two but three times in a row. Maybe a bird aimed for your car post-meal. Maybe you slept with your neck turned too far and pinched a nerve, putting you in lots of pain for the whole day. Or if you're lucky, it could be several of those things. Let's review the workout edition of "one of those days." Perhaps you brought your gym bag, but left your headphones (or insert any number of items, such as a towel, hair tie, or water bottle) at home. Maybe the equipment you wanted to use is taken. Or maybe the apartment gym with only one treadmill has been taken by an infrequent exerciser when you are usually there at that time. Heaven forbid your phone or iPod dies, leaving you without any music--or Pandora goes crazy. Maybe the rain or snow has taken your...

It's late. And I want to go to bed. But I also really want to write this blog. So it'll be a quick one, I hope. If you haven't already been introduced, I wanted you to meet Tabata. I met Tabata about two summers ago. I've seen it since on exercise blogs (including the one I use daily), and in my Fitness magazine. Tabata is a great short workout, or a great addition to any existing workout you might do. It's simple, really. It's 4 minutes of exercises, with patterns of 20 seconds of work, and 10 seconds of rest. Here's a video to explain it. Watching this was the first time I learned about it. My favorite thing about these intervals is that you can switch the 20 seconds of work to any form of cardio. Jumping jacks, plank jacks, burpees, mountain climbers, high knees, butt kickers, skaters, jump rope, and the list goes on. Today I did my three sets of exercises as prescribed at http://hiitmamas.blogspot.com/. But as I mentioned a few weeks ...

Ah, I hope you are picking up on the tone of the title of this post. I could have also titled this post many other ways: - Workout Wednesday: The Sauna Run-in-Place "Workout" - Workout Wednesday: The “Let’s Wear Black and Run in the Dark” Workout - Workout Wednesday: The “Remind Everyone Why Crossfit Guys are Douchey” Workout - Workout Wednesday: The “We Didn’t Plan This At All” Workout - Workout Wednesday: The “Let’s Exercise in an Underground Parking Garage” Workout - Workout Wednesday: The Non-Workout - Workout Wednesday: Let’s Get a Free Shirt and Leave - Workout Wednesday: Not-Really-a-Spartan-Training I could go on and on. For those of you who are confused, my friend Kristen is doing the Spartan Beast Race in Midway. I am too much of a wuss to sign up for it. It’s a lot of running, and it makes you get dirty. Let’s be honest, Janae hates getting dirty, like more than is reasonable (thanks, mom). Kristen asked me to come with her to ...