Walking and Yoga for Weight Loss

I decided to keep the intensity low for my Day 5 workout, and I simply took a short walk followed by a five minute session of yoga stretches.

Walking and Yoga for Weight Loss image courtesy of Pixabay

Why Walking Helps With Weight Loss

Walking is a great low-impact, aerobic exercise for menopausal women and anyone of either gender or age, and getting that cardio time in helps your body burn fat.

• If you can't get outside for your walk, you can use a treadmill or even a walking-based exercise video. 
• I used to have a great exercise video from Kathy Smith called Walk and Roll - if you're looking for a workout video to follow and enjoy a dance-based walking exercise routine, it's a fun one. 

Yoga for Weight Loss

The stretches I did after my walk were more about easing muscle tension and avoiding exercise injuries than losing weight, but yoga can be an effective tool in the battle against obesity and even belly fat. This is because, much like isometrics, yoga builds muscle, plus it stretches muscles to help you achieve a long, lean look.

I'll be expanding more on both of these amazing, low-impact exercises over the next few weeks, so be sure to pop back in for more details, and for more support in your own quest for better fitness and health.

I'm sorry my day 5 post is a little short, and a little late getting online, and I hope you'll feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.Laure J

Combine Exercise, Diet and Positivity to Lose Weight

I realize I'm starting off this year's Fat and Cranky blog series with a focus on exercise and effective workout routines for beginners, but I want to spend a few moments to share why the exercises I am covering for the first week or so are - while great - probably not enough to help you achieve weight loss goals (especially not lasting ones) without combining diet and positivity changes as well, though exercising is part of any good health and fitness plan.

Exercise, Diet and Positivity for Weight Loss

For me, personally, I find if I try to change everything at once, it's too much, and I drop everything new and go back to old habits within a few days.

Lose Weight Fast With Exercise, Diet, and Positivity image courtesy of Pixabay

I find making lasting changes is more of a process than an instant solution, if that makes sense. So, I'm spending a week or so getting used to the idea of increasing my activity level (and doing it) and creating the habit of being more active before I start throwing dietary changes on top of it.

I know myself, and I know things to avoid that will derail my fitness plan if I let them, and that's really the heart and soul of the message I'm trying to share with you...

Know yourself and find ways to build success based on who you are and what works for you. 

It's easier to succeed if you you use the things you like as you build new, healthier habits. If you know you like fresh peaches, for example, include them in your diet. If you know you like riding your bike, try to incorporate that into your fitness routine. If you enjoy something, it's easier to make it into a habit.

And then, limit or omit the things you don't enjoy. If you know you dislike.. I don't know... lima beans, for example... don't go on a lima bean diet because even if you lose the weight you want to get rid of, it isn't sustainable. If you know you don't enjoy dancing, don't choose dancing for your cardio exercises or every workout will be unpleasant. Make changes you can live with, and it's easier to get where you want to be.

Exercise + Diet + Positivity = Weight Reduction + Better Health 

Achieving weight loss and maintaining your weight after you lose it, is kind of like an algebraic equation that stays balanced. If you subtract or add to one side of the equation, the other side balances out, too, or at least that's what is supposed to happen.

The Role of Exercise in Weight Reduction and Better Health

Exercise boosts your metabolism and builds muscle tissue, so even when you're resting, your body is still burning more calories than it would if you don't exercise, but most of the time exercise alone won't get you to your desired body weight.

The Role of Diet in Weight Reduction and Better Health

The things you eat and drink are the things that feed your body, and your food choices can either help you reach a healthy weight or these choices can literally pack the pounds on your body in the form of bigger fat cells.

The problem with using diet alone for weight loss is, your body will start to 'eat' muscle tissue before it gives up its fat cells, so using diet alone to lose weight can leave you with less of what you need to burn fat round the clock - and as soon as you go back to eating the way you did before you dieted - you gain the weight back - plus some more.

The Role of Positivity in Weight Reduction and Better Health

Positivity can be the biggest influencer when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off. As human beings, our emotions get tied to our activity levels and the foods we eat.

• The last thing you might want to do if you've had a lousy day is workout and eat a salad - though you might feel better if you do; you may want to lay on the sofa and nosh on a gallon of ice cream while you cry (I've tried it - it doesn't help and you'll probably need to barf about a fourth of the way through the gallon - just sayin'...)- and  there may be times when that's what you choose to do, but even a brief breakdown doesn't have to ruin your new fitness plan as long as you don't give up.

Focus on Health and Fitness Instead of Quick Weight Loss

If you want an easy way to lose weight fast, it can be done, but fast weight loss isn't usually good for your health.

Your doctor or a personal trainer is a good source to turn to for the max amount of weight you can safely lose each week. 

A focus on achieving a healthy body weight and weight management through diet, exercise, and positivity changes that you can maintain long-term are (in most cases) the best ways to achieve lasting weight loss success - because everything in life works together - if you let one area slide - everything else is most likely going to slide right along with it.

Thanks for visiting Fat and Cranky!Laure J

Avoid the Risk of Burning Out the First Week of Your Fitness Plan

While simply starting is the first challenge of changing unhealthy lifestyle habits, getting through the first week of a new fitness plan can be tough, too.

Avoid Burnout the First Week of a New Fitness Plan image courtesy of Pixabay

There are, however, things you can do to make that first week go more smoothly and to keep yourself inspired when things feel a little too hard.

Avoid the Risk of Burning Out the First Week of Your Fitness Plan

Build success into your fitness plan. When you experience success, it feels amazing, and you want more, and success doesn't have to be huge, it can be something as small as checking off eight boxes to show you drank eight glasses of water.

• It can be drawing a smiley face on your calendar after your workout, even if it's just a five minute workout - because you did it! 
• We get so used to doing everything for others, doing even a small thing for ourselves can be counted as  victory, and you know what? It should be!

Know yourself. If, for example, you know sore muscles will make you quit, avoid the intense workouts that give you sore muscles the first week.

• Instead, do something else that gives you results you can feel good about, and plan to start intense workouts later. 
• I'm starting this out by incorporating different exercises and sharing information about them, and the science behind why I have chosen these particular exercises, how they feel when I do them, and why it's okay -and even safer - if I don't jump right into high intensity workouts. 
• Every day that I get through and write about it in the hope it can help someone else - that's my victory.
• I'll add information on nutrition and harder exercises later, but this is where I am today, and that's okay, just like it's okay for you.

Be flexible. When you are starting a new workout routine or fitness plan of any kind, you don't know what you are going to feel from day to day or moment to moment, so you need to give yourself permission to be flexible.

• Don't make your new plan so rigid that if you can't perfectly do 10 push-ups, it's over and you consider it a failure. 
• Adapt and make a plan to GET to where you can do those ten push-ups. 
• If you're focusing on dietary changes first, don't make your diet so strict that a few extra bites of something yummy or comforting means you've failed.
• Again... build success into your new fitness plan by allowing for your humanity, and by being flexible, so a small blunder or need to make a change is not a failure, it's just... like your GPS might say... recalculating - it doesn't change your destination, it just changes the route you take to get there a bit. 

Why the First Week of a New Fitness Plan Is So Critical

The first week of a new fitness routine is so critical because emotions get tied up in the first week's success or failure, and if it feels like a failure, that failure can turn into another ten or fifty pounds and a whole new batch of health problems.

So, if you haven't started yet, what are you going to do for yourself first? Feel free to leave a comment if you need support or just want to share your own ideas on getting started.Laure J

Should You Clean Your Bathroom Scale?

Have you ever stopped to think about just how unsanitary your bathroom scale might be? For me, my scale was something tucked under the hamper, and I would slide it out with my toe when I got up the nerve to see what news it was going to give me - so I never thought a lot about cleaning it.

How to Clean Your Bathroom Scale image courtesy of Pixabay

How to Clean a Bathroom Scale

Aside from the fact that you step on a scale with the soles of your feet or even shoes you just wore outside, every time you flush the toilet, polluted airborne water vapor escapes into the room and settles on pretty much everything. That includes your scale - but it's super easy to clean.

What You'll Need:

• Damp cleaning rag
• All-purpose cleaning spray
• Or - antibacterial wipes

Steps:

1. Spray a thin layer of cleaner on your scale, but don't drench it.
2. Let the spray rest on the surface a couple minutes.
3. Wipe off the spray with the damp cloth. 
4. Repeat the steps as needed to get your bathroom scale clean and looking sparkly-fresh.

When your scale is clean, it's easier to see your weight on the dial and you can feel cleaner picking it up with your hands instead of doing what I usually did and scooting it with your toe.