Fitness Friday #3: How To Get Motivated For The Gym!

Having been going to the gym regularly for about 3 months now, I have come to understand and experience for myself the peaks and lulls in working out. I like to go to the gym 2-3 times a week and work for about an hour. I absolutely love and relish the times where I feel really energetic and am powering through my workouts very sweaty but not like I'm going to pass out. I feel great afterwards and this gives me a massive confidence boost. However, there are times when I really don't want to go to the gym or when I'm there, I just don't have the energy to go hard like I usually do. This is both tiring and frustrating. 

Here are my (realistic) tips for staying motivated with your workouts...

Tip 1: Pinterest

Like the digital kid I am, I go to the internet. You know how much I love Pinterest and you can look at all my boards here. Pinterest is full of health and fitness tips, tricks and most importantly, motivation. All you have to do is type in 'gym motivation' and you are presented with a plethora of quotes and pictures psyching you up for your next workout. I've included one of my favourite motivational quotes here for you and why I love it...

This is a very encouraging quote for me. There are a load of magazine articles that claim to 'BANISH', 'BURN' and 'SHRED' your extra pounds, love handles or bingo wings. That's a little too aggressive for me. Now, this may sound a little preach-like but I believe you should love your body and want to 'SHAPE', 'PERFECT' and 'FINESSE' it to its best potential. "Workout because you love your body, not because you hate it", such a positive and motivating outlook. 

Tip 2: Keep track of your progress

There is honestly nothing more rewarding than seeing your weight loss written down in front of you. Be it in a journal or on a graph, it's a big deal. After my first month of working out, I lost a stone. Yes, a whole 14lbs! As well as being elated, I realised too that the reason why that weight literally fell off of my body is because it wasn't supposed to be there. So with that significant weight loss under my belt, I could believe that I can really shape my body and become healthier. Once you start to see results, it just spurs you on to maintain that through toning or to carry on to achieving your goal weight. 

Tip 3: Plan your workouts

If you go to the gym without a clear idea of what you want to do, you won't push yourself to your ultimate goal. Jot down on your phone a clear and realistic work out routine that you can power through and that gets your heart rate going and that sweat dripping! 

My work out routine still needs some adjusting as I need to work harder and sweat more but here it is for a rough outline. It's also a good idea to set specific days/evenings to working out. So you could go on a Monday evening to get your week started and release some of the stress of Mondays, Wednesdays to keep you on track and then Saturday morning to make sure you keep on track for the weekend but have Sunday as a rest day to chill out and even have a naughty roast dinner at your local pub!

So there are my top 3 tips for getting motivated for the gym! Tell me what yours are in the comments!

Thank you for reading!

Fitness Friday #1: Long Walks & Apps!

Hello there and welcome to my first Fitness Friday blog post!

This is a new series born out of my desire and goal to become fitter, healthier, stronger and slimmer! Every Friday I will sharing with you my tips and tricks that I've picked up to really boost the benefits from a healthy lifestyle.

Kick starting this series is a post all about how you can visually see how a long walk can help you burn those calories!

Living in London it can be difficult to find 'peace and quiet'. I hear ambulance sirens and people shouting all hours of the day. With all that rustling and bustling, complete relaxation is a near off impossibility, making me a recluse with my laptop permanently attached to me. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that this is not healthy nor am I losing weight.

I did some browsing on Google Maps (as you do) and found there was a huge park about 10 minutes from me so I decided to devise a 2 mile walk that I could track on my phone and keep track of calories lost.

I downloaded this rather nifty little app from the App Store called 'MapMyWalk' and the first thing I noticed about it is that the interface is very similar to Facebook. Therefore it is really easy to get used to as you can like and comment your friends progress. 

Image from Google Images

To start, you simply click 'Record my workout' then 'Start Workout' and a map of your location will be shown. As you walk, the app will create route line calculating your distance, pace and calories burned. 

On my first walk, I clocked a distance of 3.32km in just under 40 mins burning 134 calories. It was also quite humid that day with very little of a breeze so I sweated quite a bit (sexy, I know). I felt awesome afterwards because it was a relaxed type of exercise where I wasn't staring at the timer on a treadmill, but the nature around me. 

Here are a few snaps I took whilst on my walk. I just fell back in love with the colour green!

Another feature I really like on this app is that you can pause and resume your workout if you stop to have a sit down in the sun or chat to someone. 

I'd highly recommend this app if you are looking for a great exercise if you are away from your gym or in the countryside but don't want to get lost! It's also great if you are not into very rigorous exercise but still want to keep fit and get your blood pumping. 

Do you use any other apps to record your fitness or eating? Let me know in the comments!

Thank you for reading and check back next Friday for another Fitness Friday post!

Dehydration And Headaches

DISCLAIMER: This is a health blog post borderline medical. I am not a medical professional so if you are experiencing anything of what I am going to mention in this blog post then please go and see your GP or health professional. Also, refrain from doing online self-diagnosis', this is very dangerous and could cause you a lot of worry over something very minor. I am aware that this post contains sources from the internet but I have visited my GP and will continue to do so if the symptoms persist. This blog post is firstly; a way of me recording how I feel and what I've done to try and remedy the pain and secondly; offer advice to anyone who may be experiencing the same pain and has the same habits as I. With that being said, I hope you find this blog post interesting and helpful. 

As I am writing this, I have a pain in the back and front of my head. 

Recently, I have been experiencing this pain every day. I did wonder if this could be due to my contraceptive pill as this is a common side effect (said pill should cease to be taken if this occurs). However, I am on my pill-free week and I am still experiencing this pain. I also thought it could be down to me not wearing my glasses enough. Again however, I have been wearing them every time I use my laptop and the pain is still there. 

I was told 2 weeks ago by the nurse at my doctors surgery that I was dehydrated. This wasn't a great surprise to me. 

For as long as I can remember, I have been awful with drinking water regularly and I got into a habit of going a whole day without drinking a thing. I do not advise this type of behaviour, it's very dangerous. I do not have this habit anymore but I am still not drinking as much as I should be. 

Anyway, back to the headaches. I was researching the causes of headaches and couldn't really decipher what was going on until I typed in 'Dehydration and headaches' into Google. I found this article here and quite a lot of it made sense to me. I feel pain in my head when I bend over to pick up something (almost like I am going to fall over) I also felt pain in my head when I was at the gym a week ago and I had to stop my exercise. This could be down to what the article mentions as lost electrolytes that haven't been replenished after heavy sweat loss. I went to the gym last night and felt fine afterwards despite sweating a lot and drinking about a pint and a half of water during and after my workout. This may not be enough and I need to up my fluid intake. Another tip the article gives you is to take electrolytes in your water after every workout. These are small dissolvable tablets that you pop into your water and they are packed with sodium, magnesium, potassium and calcium. All of the ium's. 

Here is a link to where you can buy these tablets from Holland & Barrett (they come in all different flavours) :http://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/high5-zero-citrus-60098125

Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/High-5-High5-Zero-Citrus/dp/B003AIMQ38/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1403698347&sr=8-2&keywords=high5+zero+electrolyte+tablets

Also, this morning I slept in and I read elsewhere that oversleeping has the potential to cause headaches. Your body functions just as it should on 8 hours of sleep so I need to get into the habit of going to bed and waking up at a sensible time with 8 hours in the bank. This also means that you have more time and can be more productive. 

It has also been very hot where I live right now which does contribute to headaches, whether dehydration caused or otherwise. Maybe I should buy a hat.

As I have mentioned, I am awful at remembering when to drink water. In the digital age, technology has been created to help curb this habit. I have found a useful app on the App Store (I am unsure if it is available on other platforms- have a look!) called 'Waterlogged'. This app gives you the ability to record a measurement of fluid intake be it 500ml, 1 litre or more. You can also set reminders to ensure you are drinking regularly as drinking large volumes of water in one go is actually not very hydrating at all. Every time you log water intake, the bottle (or snowflake in my case!) will fill up. I really like this feature as I can visually see what I've achieved and what I have left to achieve in my day. 

Here is a link to the iTunes Store website where you can read up about this App and pictures of what it looks like: 

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/waterlogged-drink-more-water/id352199775?mt=8

Now I have come to the end of writing this blog post, my headache has subsided after drinking about 750ml of water. I am going to walk down to Holland & Barrett now to pick up some electrolyte tablets and have a chat with the staff about other things I can do to help. I will check back with an update in about 2 weeks or so. 

UPDATE: I am drinking my water now with one of the electrolyte tablets I just picked up from H&B. They didn't have any of the ones I featured in this post in stock so I went for the EXTREME ones. Added to 500ml of water, it tastes like watery palmer violets sweets.

I know this hasn't been my typical blog post but if you have found it interesting or you have any tips for me, please comment below :)

Thank you for reading!