Fitness4Her

Women's Fitness

Archives for July 2011

Take Your Fitness To A New Level

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Women’s fitness is all about getting better, stronger and faster. As you master the complexities of each exercise that you do, it is important that you strive to make it a little bit more difficult as you go along. This can mean adding weights, increasing repetitions, or mixing up your routines with circuit training. All of these will increase your stamina and endurance to help you move and improve your fitness to a new level.

Climbing to the next level of fitness will certainly provide plenty of physical changes. But it will also bring forth changes in the way you think, too. I’m talking about having more confidence in everything that you do. This new way of thinking will show in the way you handle yourself, the way you walk and talk.

First off, what is your target? What do you hope to achieve? Without this vital information you will never know if you have reached the goal. Successful people choose a target and then take aim. They decide where they want to go, formulate a plan to get there and then stay focused on their goal until they taste success.

Reaching your next level of fitness works the same way. That’s why keeping a fitness journal is so instrumental. Writing your goals out will help to keep you focused for success. Remember to log everything into your journal, even notes about your muscle soreness and any other pain or discomfort you have when exercising.

If you are looking for advanced exercises, check out my Exercise section and notice the Take it to the Next Level or Advance examples. You can add more weights, advance on the ball, or increase repetitions. These moves will build muscles naturally to show off your incredibly sexy feminine curves.

Will you need to spend more time with your workout? Perhaps thirty minutes is not long enough to accomplish all the exercises and cardio activities that you have planned. Be sure to record your start and finish times in your journal. The time of day that you exercise and how you feel afterward will give you a good indication of your energy level at that hour.

As you progress with your fitness routine, reassess your short-term and long-term goals. Reward yourself for a job well done and use your journal to record just how great you feel.

Almond Milk and Honey Oatmeal

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I love this oatmeal; it is one of my favorites. Add the raisins and the apples for all the benefits of a rounded meal. You can serve it with a couple slices of turkey sausage or egg whites to boost your protein to keep you satisfied until your next meal.

1 cup dry oatmeal
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 almond milk
1 tsp honey
1 small apple, chopped into bite-sized pieces

Directions:

1. Cook oatmeal as directed on package.
2. Add apples while oatmeal is cooking.
3. Add almond milk.
4. Add raisins.
5. Pour into bowl and top with honey.

Health Benefits:
Oatmeal provides soluble and insoluble fiber for heart health and bowel benefits. It helps to regulate cholesterol while improving digestion. Adding almond milk gives it that creamy taste and texture along with the calcium and Vitamin D, but without any saturated fat, cholesterol or lactose normally associated with cow’s milk. Raisins are a good source of iron and honey gives flavor and helps to metabolize fat.

Karen’s Secret to Help You Maintain Your Motivation

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Once you have mustered the motivation to begin a fitness program, you will want to look for ways to make this healthy change a permanent part of your lifestyle. Making fitness a healthy habit can be as simple as writing down your achievements. I have found that keeping track of exercise and diet success is a great way to keep motivation at its highest.

Keeping a journal is a powerful way to maintain your motivation and track your achievements. When you devote time every day to writing in your journal, you make a mind body connection that sets your progress in motion. By writing your goals and recording everything that you eat and drink along with writing down all of your exercise, you open your mind to infinite possibilities.

When we write our goals, we activate our inner success mechanism, which starts to attract the good things we desire into our lives. By maintaining an accurate record of our meals and activities we provide a type of backup to help validate our desires. By keeping a journal we can clearly see what works for us, and what doesn’t. Our weekly goals give us a quick check to see how we’re doing and where we want to go from here.

Another great way to stay motivated is to find a fitness friend or workout buddy. Working out with a buddy makes exercising more fun and because you probably don’t want to let your friend down, ensures that you will make it to each session. Be careful not to rely to heavily on your fitness friend, though, because it might turn out that they are less committed than you are. That’s why a personal journal helps to keep you focused and motivated.

The speed of the Internet and the world around us, has conditioned us to expect instant results, yet true success can take time. Your diet and fitness plans should be ever growing and changing. Friends, fitness journals and your inner yearning to make fitness a part of your life are all great ways to keep you motivated. The most important thing is to never give up. Keep reaching for the goal to look and feel your very best and Empower the beauty in you.

The Secret to Writing Your Fitness Goals

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Maintaining a diet and fitness journal has been proven to be the number one motivator for helping you succeed with your goals. Writing down everything you eat and drink and all of your activities each day will help you track your progress as you move toward your fitness goals. So, what are your fitness goals and why are you participating in a fitness program?

Perhaps your goal is to lose weight. But how much weight do you want to lose? One of the best things about a fitness journal is that you can record your current weight and measurements so you’ll have a starting point of where you began. Once you have those numbers written down in front of you, ask yourself again, how much weight do you want to lose or better yet, what size would you like to be? Be specific with your goal planning by pinpointing exactly what you wish to change.

A great motivator to making changes is to identify what those changes will mean to your everyday life. Why do you want to lose weight or change your size? Is it so you can wear certain styles, look good in your clothes or are their health concerns with your weight? Write down all of the reasons that you desire to lose weight. This is a crucial part in goal planning. Discovering and documenting the why behind our goals really does make them easier and more logical to achieve. Remember this is part of the brain game and your mind must be able to grab the concept in order to play along.

Focus on how you will look when you have reached your desirable size. Visualize your self in that sexy black dress, a new swimsuit or your favorite tight jeans. Allow yourself to feel as if you are wearing those items now. How do you feel now that you have achieved your goal? Get emotionally involved with the result. Your subconscious, meaning your mind, will believe whatever you tell it, real or imagined. As I have said many times before, your mind does not have eyes to see or ears to hear, it can only react to the stimuli that you feed it.

Make short-term and long-term goals and strive to set specific dates as to when you will achieve these. For instance your short-term goal could be to walk an additional mile or two this week, while your long-term goal might be to walk 10 miles per week within a 60-day period. When you write all of your goals down on paper, you reinforce them to your sub-conscious and allow your mind to find ways of attaining them.

Keep updating your goals as you progress through your fitness program. Even if you are the perfect weight and size you can use the fitness journal to maintain your wonderful shape. Those athletes who are looking to step up their routine will find the journal indispensable for tracking your advancements. It’s a great way to challenge your own abilities and work towards higher goals.

Do your mind, body and spirit a big favor by starting a fitness journal today.

Building A Better Body Starting Today

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The desire to build a better body may be all you need to inspire you to begin a diet and exercise program. Women’s fitness plans like Fitness4Her offer inspiration with interesting stories, helpful tips and diets to help you get started. But the inspiration to help you get started usually comes from your own heart, mind or soul.

To act on that inspiration, it might help to use something to remind you of why you want to build a better body. It could be for health reasons or something as simple as wanting to look good or it could be to improve your health for a loved one. Maybe you want to be able to run and play with your children, or be able to keep up with your spouse when it comes to playing tennis or going skiing. Whatever your reasons for getting in shape, when you need inspiration, you might want to use a reminder to keep you focused on your goal.

Pictures of loved ones or even of oneself can act as silent reminders of why we are working so hard to get in shape. If you have seen a fitness model whose body you admire, cut her picture out of the magazine so you can look at it regularly for inspiration.

Inspirational quotes are also good for keeping women interested in getting in shape. These quotes have a way of reaching into our hearts and motivating us to take action. Meant to empower us, inspirational quotes help us to reach for the next level because we believe that we can.

Inspiration is helpful in getting started building a better body. However, perspiration is needed to keep anything going and that includes a women’s fitness program. Fitness4Her offers a diet, exercise program and online journal to help women look and feel their very best. Intersting and insightful articles and blogs at Fitness4Her are designed to inspire each and every woman to look better and feel great.