Power Hour

As you may have noticed, my blog has had quite a makeover. While Amanda (me) is still a caffeinated panda at heart, she’s also a fitness fanatic and personal trainer. There will still be plenty of posts about things going on in DC and my ongoing quarter-life crises adventures, but now you can look forward to even more posts on wellness, health, and fitness.

With my blog makeover, I wanted to get back to the basics. If we aren’t feeling healthy and well, then we can’t fully enjoy everything life has to offer. Mental, emotional, and physical well-being are important pillars we need to stand on, but they’re not always easy to find or maintain. We’re all on a journey of some sort. We may be looking for different things, but I think it’s fair to say that nobody wants to be unhealthy or sick. We seek wellness, health, and fitness.

In the hustle and bustle of daily life, it’s easy to forget to really listen to our bodies and take care of ourselves. There are deadlines to meet, groceries to buy, bills to pay. There are some days where it doesn’t feel like there are enough hours to get everything done. So when life seems hectic and out of control, I want you to try something. Take some time for yourself. Set aside one hour for yourself and your well-being. That’s only 4% of your day.

That hour is for you and only you. Maybe you go for a walk, read a book, draw a picture, or listen to music. Do whatever is going to recharge you and clear your mind. If you already do this, great! Try to do it everyday. Try to include some sort of exercise in that hour.  The other thing I recommend is to turn of technology. I’m not great at remembering to do this, but I’m trying to get better at it. Stop checking your computer or phone one hour before bedtime. Now that may seem like a tall order, but you’ll get a better night’s sleep for doing it. If you need to, start out with just 15 minutes, then 30. We all need time for our brains to gradually get ready for sleep, but in today’s world, we tend to expect things to happen instantly.

Okay, so maybe I’m asking you for two hours of your day, but that’s still only 8% of your day. If you want to be really efficient, you can set that hour to yourself one hour before bedtime and kill two birds with one stone. What I’m trying to say is: time is a valuable thing. Use it wisely, and that means using some of it to take care of yourself. After all, nobody else is going to do it for you.

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FIT BIT #4

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you’re all having a fabulous first week of 2013. This time of year, tons of people are making promises to themselves to lose weight, tone up, and invest in their health. But it’s not easy to stick to these commitments. Here’s some advice on how to make the most of your New Year’s resolutions:

• The first few weeks are the make-or-break point . It’s really important to plan out your first month when establishing a new habit. That way, you’ll have a better chance of sticking with it.
• Take advantage of technology. There are plenty of smartphone apps available to help you keep track of your goals and make planning even easier.
• Seek what inspires you. Whether it’s a movie quote or a story of triumph, find something that makes you want to get up and do something!
• Use concrete goals and deadlines. A number, a date, or a planned 5k reminds you to set check-ins with yourself along the way.
• Buddy up! It’s easier to stick with your resolution if you find other people working towards a similar goal. Team up with friends and family to make your new habits more social experience.

FIT BIT #3

It’s that time of year. You’ve got an office happy hour, a friend’s holiday party, and even more plans when you visit relatives. Spending quality time with the people in your life is a big party of the holidays, but it can also mean lots of unhealthy food and drink. This holiday season, keep your health in mind. This article from Fit Day lays out the 5 tips I try to keep in mind:

• Eat a healthy meal beforehand or munch on veggies at the party to keep full so you’re less likely to reach for cookies
• Once you get your food, distance yourself from the table
• Limit high-calorie drinks like eggnog and cocktails
• Eat/drink slowly. Learn to savor and you’ll end up consuming less
• Most importantly, make your friends and family the focus, not the food

I’ll admit, I have my off days (it’s physically impossible for me to resist the power of peppermint and chocolate). But these tips are great reminders that you can still have your favorite holiday treats, you just don’t have to have ALL of them. Happy holidays and healthy eating!

FIT BIT #2

Do you walk right past the weights and jump on a cardio machine? Well, you may want to incorporate more weight training into your routine. A recent study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise showed that women who did 8 reps of a challenging weight burned almost double the calories as women doing 15 reps with lighter weights. The study also found that women who did weight training burned an average of 100 more calories over the 24 hours following a workout.

Weight training doesn’t mean you have be front and center with the muscle-heads (you know who I’m talking about). Gyms usually have multiple sections for weight training, and you can do body-weight exercises like push-ups and lunges anywhere there’s a floor! Remember, you’re there for yourself, not to compare yourself to others.

FIT BIT

As a personal trainer and fitness enthusiast, I keep my eye out for the latest tips on staying healthy, happy, and fit. That’s why I’ll be posting a weekly FIT BIT to keep you informed on helpful tips to live a more healthy life. I’ll also be posting even more tips on my FIT BIT Pinterest board, so be sure to check that out as well.

Research shows that as little as 30 minutes of exercise a day is enough to help overweight adults lose weight or to keep you from gaining those extra pounds. 30 minutes is only 2% of your day. I get my minimum exercise by biking to work and taking a break to walk everyday. Make 30 minutes of activity a daily habit and your body will thank you later.

Leaps and Bounds

It feels great to say that you actually learned something new. Yesterday, I got to try parkour for the first time. It’s fun and also a great workout. I was intrigued with parkour ever since I saw Youtube videos of people running up walls and jumping over trash cans. While I’m pretty good at jumping, parkour involves much more than just jumping. So with no background experience in parkour, I assumed my first attempt would look a lot like Michael Scott on The Office.

However, I’m happy to report that I was a lot more graceful than I originally anticipated. It was also comforting to be trying it out in a group setting. The workout started by running around Freedom Plaza (yes, Occupy DC Freedom Plaza) for a warmup. We continued with some dynamic stretching to help limber up and get the blood flowing. Then we began working on proper jumping technique. In parkour, it’s important to land lightly on your toes since you want to be able to pop right back up after you land. We started just practicing on the ground, then moved onto to a two-foot drop, and then began jumping from one ledge to another with about a three foot gap in between. We also learned the basics of parkour vaulting, where you use your hands to help you jump over an object. For a speed vault, you run up to the object without slowing down and place one hand while using your momentum and core muscles to carry your feet over the object on the side opposite your placed hand. Here’s a video showing the speed vault:

Pretty cool, huh? But my favorite move of the day was definitely the kong vault. You start by doing a monkey jump, placing both hands on the object in front of you and jumping onto it so that your feet land in between your hands. Like this:

From that point, you either land on the object (a monkey jump) or pull your legs through and jump over the object (a kong vault):

I was able to get myself over, but now I need to work on actually pushing off with my hands so that I maintain my momentum and can keep running after landing. The convenient thing about parkour is that you can do it pretty much anywhere there’s something to jump over. So as funny as it may look, you might just see me trying out some parkour moves around D.C.

Taking a Stand

I usually ride my bike to work. The few times where the weather keeps me from my daily morning cycle, I take the bus. Getting on the bus is often like squishing into a sardine can, but sometimes there are open seats. I always let other people take those seats. When someone offers me a seat, I promptly say no and (for those Wellesley alums reading this) I can’t help but feel offended.

Let me explain why I feel offended. It’s not because a man is offering me a seat which I clearly would have taken if I wanted it. But that’s for another post. I’m offended because our society does too much sitting.

We’ve all heard the “news” about how our increasingly sedentary work-style is bad for our health, even if we exercise every day. In fact, the exercise you do to “make up” for the fact that you’ve been sitting all day won’t actually do anything to reverse the damage that sitting does. That means you may look fit on the outside, but you may not be as healthy as you think on the inside. Research shows that long periods of sitting that are associated with office jobs can contribute to increased risk of metabolic syndrome, heart attack, and stroke – just to name a few.

Most of the articles I’ve read about sitting (yes, there are quite a few out there) offer remedies for this sedentary situation; like taking regular walks around the office, doing desk exercises (deskercises?), or getting a standing desk. But like many problems in our society, the first line of defense seems to be finding a quick fix to alleviate the effects of the problem rather than looking at the root cause of the issue.

From my personal experience, I function best as a human being when I’m moving. As tired as I was after a softball practices in college, my mind and my body were better off because of it. I was more prepared to take on the studying I had to do later in the day. I slept better. I ate better in order to fuel my body for the next practice. I learned that I not only felt physically better, but I was more mentally alert and engaged, I was more likely to remember things , and I felt more in tune with my body. In other words, I feel like a whole person when I get to be active. You can just imagine how I feel sitting at a desk from 9 to 5 – lethargic, unfocused, and bored…

Part of the reason I began pursuing a career in personal training is the fact that I’d get to incorporate a lot more movement into my life. Despite having an office job, I still consider myself a very healthy and active person. But that got me thinking, if I’m already starting to feel the adverse effects of a sedentary work-style, how are people that are less healthy and physically fit than me dealing with this issue? My guess is they aren’t, and if they are, it can’t be easy.

Jobs that rely on technology and are primarily done on computers are great in terms of communication speed, smooth transactions, and easy organization, but what are they doing for the health and fitness of our society? I know it’s not possible to turn back time and erase the hours we spend sitting at desks, but I try to remain optimistic. I hope that more offices will incorporate incentives for healthy habits like gym memberships, install standing or walking desks, create office cultures that value and reward well-being, or that eventually a lot of jobs won’t require an office at all. It’s long overdue that health and fitness become priorities for businesses and organizations. After all, healthy employees are happier, more productive, and have fewer healthcare costs. And who wouldn’t want that!?

What are some other ideas to address our increasingly sitting society?

The (not-so) Lazy Days of Summer

While I’m usually all about getting my life organized and planned, I’m trying not to look at the calendar so much these days. Why? Besides being reminded that summer is already halfway through, I’ve also got nine days until the three-day AFAA workshop begins. AFAA is one of the many programs available to people who want to get certified as a personal trainer. This weekend workshop makes all the day-dreaming, studying, and discussions I’ve had about becoming a trainer a reality.

Typically the workshop includes lectures, practical demonstrations, and an examination. Since I’ve only been studying for a few weeks, I’m scheduling to do the exam portion on the next available date in D.C., which is in early September. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have to study and prepare myself for next weekend. I still have to know my stuff!

I know I have what it takes to do well at the workshop, but I’m still trying to balance a mixed bag of feelings. Anxious, excited, nervous, proud, and mostly in disbelief that I’m finally taking a big step towards becoming a personal trainer. The next few months will not only be an internal emotional balancing act, but also a test to balance my social, work, and study schedule. After all, summer is a popular time for plans with friends and family. I’ve got friends staying with me in August and I’m going up to the shores of Maine with my family over Labor Day weekend. My strategy to find balance? Find a shady place to lay outside and study at the same time – a perfect juxtaposition for my current situation; finding a moment of calm in a time of rapid changes.

So much for the lazy days of summer!

What Does Fitness Mean To You?

The best way to help someone is to first learn what their goals and motivations are. In my journey towards becoming a personal trainer, that means it’s immensely helpful for me to know what motivates someone to be or become fit. But what does “fit” mean exactly? And is it the same as “health” or “wellness”?

Seems like there should be a straightforward answer for these terms. If that’s what you want, you can go consult a dictionary. But in my opinion, every person is unique and multidimensional, so I can only assume that each person’s definition is equally unique. It’s important to keep in mind our own definition as we establish and work towards our goals.

I tend to use the terms fitness, health, and wellness, interchangeably because my goal is to address a person as a whole: incorporating the mental, emotional, social, intellectual, and physical aspects of my life. The good news is that a lot healthy habits can address several aspects at once. Exercise, for example, not only helps physically, but it also helps alleviate mental or emotional stress. There certainly are a lot of benefits to maintaining healthy habits, but knowing these benefits isn’t always enough to motivate us. That’s why it’s really important to focus on the (more personal) things that ultimately keep us going. For me, I want to be fit for my friends and family so I can be my best self with them for as long as I can. As a (soon-to-be) personal trainer, I also want to be a positive example and useful resource for the clients that I work with.

Whether it’s a love for the outdoors, the approach of swimsuit season, or socializing in team sports; motivation is the key to being healthy, happy, and whole!

What does fitness, health, and/or wellness mean to you, and what motivates you to achieve it?

Trailblazing

Breaks are a necessary part of life. Yes, including breaks from blogging! If we never took breaks, we’d never have a chance to rest, recharge, and look back at the things we’ve done. Or a break could help us avoid getting into a downward spiral ending in doom and destruction – sometimes I find it helpful to picture the worst case scenario so I realize that I’m nowhere near it. Yes, thankfully I’m not facing the downward spiral of doom, but I am looking to switch things up from what I’ve been doing for the past three years.

Looking back at the last three years, I can’t really complain about my life. I graduated in 2009 with a degree in Environmental Studies, got a job at an environmental non-profit in D.C., and maintained a great relationship and circle of friends. Everything all bright and cheery from the outside. Three years later, I’m in the same (job) boat and ready to jump ship, swim around in unknown waters, and find a new boat to sail in. Or if you’re more of a land-based metaphor type, I’m ready to blaze my own trail instead of walking on one that already exists.

Well trailblazing isn’t exactly my forte. I usually do well once I’m given directions, it’s giving myself directions that’s the issue. I’m a person that likes instruction and derives satisfaction from completing a task someone asks me to do. I’m okay at giving myself a pat on the back, but I really thrive on external recognition. I was the child who liked getting stickers on a tests, athletic award ceremonies, and trophies. Basically, I wanted to know that someone out there appreciated the effort I put in. This has proven to be both a good and bad quality to have. On the one hand, it usually motivates me to do things for other people, not expecting anything in return other than a gesture of gratitude. On the other hand, there are plenty of situations in life where there’s no one  there to cheer you on.

Sure, I’ve got friends and family that are there to support me, but when it comes to down to it, I’m the only one who can get me to do something. After all, people can only cheer me on if I make the decision to do something they can cheer for. This time it’s a career change. I’ve always been a fitness enthusiast, and my goal is to turn that passion into a career. I’ve already started by teaming up with a small gym in D.C. that specializes in martial arts and bootcamp-style workouts. I went through certification for Jungshin Fitness, an exercise program that incorporates wooden swords for a full body workout, with other trainers from the gym. At the certification, I was really encouraged to be among people with different backgrounds and from all levels of experience. Through the gym and Jungshin Fitness certification, I’ve met some great people and established meaningful connections. I may be my own boss on this journey, but that doesn’t mean I have to do it alone.

Jungshin Short Sword Training Workshop. Location: Sport & Health, Crystal City, VA

My next steps are to begin instructing Jungshin Fitness classes and studying for my personal training workshop and certification. Stay tuned for more updates on my journey in following my own direction and becoming a personal trainer.