So my next tip for staying fit is having a routine....with both exercise and your diet. Routines are proven to be the desired form of educating students because they know what is expected of them. Routines are what defines us as families...routines for holidays, birthdays, bedtimes all give us a sense of belonging. Routines give us peace, can help us make decisions easier and keep us from making rash decisions.
My SCHOOL YEAR exercise routine is the same every week so that I know what nutrition I will need to recover, what I can and can't accomplish during the time I have to exercise and if and when I need to add in a recovery day.
School Year Work Out routine (which differs heavily from my summer routine)
Sundays-Weight Circuits with my girls at 6:00 (5 rounds of circuits that we perform 3 times each). They focus on legs, arms, core and back. There are 3 of us that meet on Sundays and we take turns writing the circuits. This is important because I will avoid burpees all day long...but one of my girlfriends adds them into all of her routines!!!! I love lunges but another girl HATES them...this way we all keep from doing the same routines and really challenge our bodies.
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| Bar Squats ...HURT SO GOOD :). |
Mondays-4:45 am. A 5 mile run around Colleyville with my girls. There are 5 of us that run this route. It takes us through several nearby subdivisions and across several big highways that are dead at 5:00 in the morning. This run has a 4 mile cut off so if we are tired we can always stop short of our goal of 5 miles. We have met the newspaper man many times on this route and I jump every time he approaches us slowly and hurdles the paper out of his window. Geesh.
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| Colleyville Run...including a run right past Braums...good thing they are closed that early in the morning :). |
Tuesday-4:45 am. A 5 mile run down the Cotttonbelt trail that has some hills and wide sidewalks so we can run side by side. Us ladies like to talk ...ALOT...which is how the time FLIES by!!! This trail runs all through the mid cities and we start at my friends house in Hurst and run to the watertower in Colleyville and turn around. This one also has a cut off at 4 miles so that some of us can adjust for time or soreness. This trail is usually busy with bikes this early in the morning and they are normally wearing bright lights...it reminds me of the twilight zone every time. This trail also has llamas and lots of bridges!
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| Straight down to the water tower and back. If we want to go the full 5 we head back down Glade and turn around when the sidewalks ends :). |
Wednesday-Off day for my running group but DANCE NIGHT for my Zumba group (mainly teachers from school)!!!! My groupon just expired for Zumba and since I hate to pay for exercise I have started walking on my treadmill while I read every Wednesday morning at 5. So far I have read "Shepherding a Child's Heart" and "Thank you for Arguing" and I started a murder mystery last week. I normally walk for an hour, at a low incline....just enough to get some movement but still give my body a rest day.
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| We all showed up to Zumba in our pink and black!!! |
Thursday-4:45 am. Stairs and Weights circuit at our school. We have 2 flights of stairs at school so we have 6 circuits we work through 3 times each. (ex. Run 3 flights of stairs, 15 tricep dips, 30 standing russian twist with weights). Each circuit has you doing something different on the stairs...like running them with high knees, jumping up them with both feet, skipping every other, bear crawling up them, etc.) There are 5 of us that come on these days and we all take turns writing these circuits too. If one of us needs to skip stairs then we run sprints in the gym instead...THE KEY IS GETTING YOUR HEART RATE UP!
Friday 4:30 am. 6 mile run through the main part of Keller. We meet at our friends house who lives off a main road in Keller and run a heavy hill course and normally through sprinklers..MY FAVORITE. There are normally 4/5 of us that head out there. We start 15 mins earlier to allow for a longer run and longer travel time. This run always gets me turned around, I couldn't ever do it alone since I have no clue when to turn, they are always yelling at me as I pass the turn and have to circle back :). It is so early though that I can't see a lot of where we are at and I hardly ever stop to look at the street signs...I GOT THINGS TO TALK ABOUT PEOPLE!!
Saturday 6:00 Park Run. We aim for these runs to be fun and exploratory. We pick different parks all over the Metroplex and plan out longer runs. Right now we are building up to our 13.1 race, trying to all get it down under 2 hours. These runs have taught us many life lessons, like EAT before you run more than 5 miles....wear things that don't rub your thighs, armpits and toes....long runs KILL your body sooo much more than short ones. Plus, we run later which means its hotter. This past weekend the weather was PERFECT and I was in such deep conversation with one of my friends that our intended goal of 10 miles turned into 10.5 before we ever thought to check our distance. NOW THAT IS GOOD CONVERSATION. We all feel like we get a double work out as we have to huff and puff up a hill while we talk. That's our story and we are sticking to it!
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| This park run started and ended at Sparger park. There are wooded trails with BIG HILLS all around Sparger. My sweet friend and I were so deep in conversation that we ran several loops 2 or 3 times :). |
This routine has allowed me to run 104.5 miles just in the month of August. I set a PR in August too, running 7 miles in 1 hour and 1 minute. I LOVE IT!!!
As far as routines go with food, I have about 20-25 foods that I KNOW I enjoy and exactly how much I can have to be full. I rotate through these every time I go grocery shopping. As long as I have 3/4 of them at home I am never tempted to eat fast food, or like this past weekend... I said no to Pizza, Cake, Cupcakes and Chips at ALL 3 BIRTHDAY PARTIES... I had my roasted sweet potatoes and apple mixture for dinner already packed in a tupperware and popped a bag of Kettle Corn popcorn to munch on at another party.
These foods include a smoothie every morning, normally full of spinach, a fruit and Advocare Spark. Other foods include dark chocolate raisins from Sprouts Bulk, egg whites, Tropical Fruit Trail Mix from Sams, Rice Cakes with PB2, Bananas, Oatmeal and Grits 100 calorie packets, Edamame, Canned Tuna, Turkey Lunchmeat, Carbmaster Yogurt, Cheerios, Apples and KIND bars. I also eat a lot of Dr. Spreagers Super Green patties, roasted veggies and almonds.
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| Egg whites on top of roasted cauliflower, asparagus and peppers with Siracha sauce! |
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| Routines also include knowing where I can eat out and exactly what I will order before showing up there! Panera Chicken Strawberry Poppyseed salad with No Fat dressing! |
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| Yummy Dessert, Apples with PB2! |
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| A GOOD GOOD Smoothie!!! Spinach and Spark..then I either add a frozen banana, frozen pineapple, 60 calorie vanilla yogurt or almond milk!!! |
Having a routine allows me to feel like I am in control of my health, like I can plan ahead and I am hardly ever in a situation where I can't fit in a workout or eat a healthy, low calorie meal or snack!!
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