HOW TO: Holiday Health at Home

December 24, 2015 LifeOfCarlyBLeave a comment

The holidays are the time of year where it seems that everyone vows to get through the season as healthy and as on track as they can, but as soon as you binge into 5 cookies 3 nights in a row, you teach yourself to accept that this is how the holidays are supposed to be and you will get on track next year.

WHY WAIT?!

If you start your New Year’s Resolutions a year before the new year starts, you are that far ahead of the game and have already subjected yourself to the hardest season to be true to your goals during. If you can get through that you can get through anything! Go into the new year already feeling great about yourself! Feel confident the moment 2016 starts and I guarantee the rest of your year will follow suite. So don’t wait, start now, you still have 1 week left of 2015 and here are some tips to get you through the holidays happy, healthy, and confident!

It’s about control, know it, have it, embrace it

When baking: try to keep track of the calories per delicious cookie, cupcake, etc. If you know the calories before you eat it you will be more likely to eat just one rather than five.
And if you are tempted with something sweet in front of you and are torn over what to do- GRAB the treat! By giving yourself permission to enjoy, and I mean fully enjoy, that treat you will feel more satisfied after-the-fact, and less likely to binge on more later on
Trying to be the healthy person in a room full of 20 unhealthy people is hard. Provide some of the food! Find a healthy recipe that is both nutritious and delicious that can satisfy a sweet tooth or will leave a “salty” lover wanting seconds. You’ll know it’s healthy, they’ll think its delicious- it’s a win/win! (Pinterest is FULL of these kinds of recipes)
People will ask you why– tell them why you are doing it! Everyone commits themselves to something, some people commit themselves to work, to their family, to their wardrobe, commit yourself to your health and be PROUD! Others might respond awkwardly to it, but 9 times out of 10 it is because they don’t know how to respond to health because they don’t know how to be healthy themselves- but wish they could be

It’s about making do with what you have. Try this at home workout:

Home Tabatas: 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, complete each exercise 6 times before moving on

Jumprope (real or invisible)
Box jumps or chair step ups
Alternating ski jumpers
Jumping wall taps
High knees
Rapid jumping jacks (shoot for 25-30 in 20 seconds)
Alternating front kicks (add a hop in between to make it harder)
Burpees

And remember: you have one holiDAY to enjoy, it is not, and I hope it has not been a month of holiWEEKS

2016 Fitness Challenge

December 21, 2015 LifeOfCarlyBLeave a comment

I believe that your health and fitness is the single most important thing you can invest in, so why don’t more people do so? There are reasons, or “excuses” for everyone who chooses not to work out, eat healthy, go to the doctor regularly.

I am challenging all of my followers, friends, family, clients, passerby-ers to challenge their health and fitness in the new year!

I want to help you reach your goals, which is why I am putting together a 2016 health and fitness challenge group! You might all be on different plans, but you have similar goals. You have 10 days left of 2015 to make this promise to yourself, commit to it before the new year! Ask me about personal training, online personal training, group fitness packages, or Advocare products to help you reach you potential. YOU HAVE POTENTIAL, now go find it!

So tell me, ARE YOU IN?!

For more information on products, packages, or how the challenge will run, email me at carlymae717@gmail.com

To keep up to date on future announcements, follow my blog page or my instagram pages carlymaee7 and commit_fit_carly

Post Exercise Calorie Burn: EPOC

December 18, 2015 LifeOfCarlyBLeave a comment

There is a thing in the fitness world, a great thing, called EPOC: Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption. The beauty of this body mechanism is that following high intensity workouts, it requires that your body continues to take in more oxygen than normal, keeping your calorie burning efforts elevated.

Research has found that following a workout, your caloric expenditure can be drastically affected, based on the intensity of the workout itself. The higher the intensity, the higher the post-exercise caloric burn. With this mechanism, intensity trumps duration. So if you check your calorie burn following a 20 minute HIIT session and are disappointed that it didn’t reach the same burn of a 60 minute lower intensity session, don’t worry! Following that 20 minute HIIT your body will be working hard to reach normal oxygen consumption levels and return the body and the muscles to a resting state that you will be burning extra calories, even into the next day!

But how? EPOC is a process that restores the body back to its resting state by balancing hormones, replenishing your fuel stores, repairing cellular breakdown, and dissolving the lactic acid built up during exercise. And while all of these processes are working hard at the same time, your metabolism will stay elevated

Higher metabolism=higher caloric burn

No for real, but how? How is it burning that much more? The body burns 5 calories consuming 1 liter of oxygen. On average, a person could consume 10-25L of extra oxygen following exercise, think about that! That is 50-125 extra calories immediately following exercise.

How to make the most out of your EPOC:

Circuit training and/or heavy resistance training with short rest intervals are some of the most effective at elevated oxygen consumption. The most effective? HIIT (high intensity interval training) by adding 6-15% extra energy expenditure to the workout

So get out there! Try out some HIIT training, alternate these high intensity days with lower intensity to prevent over training, and always, always remember the effect of your workout on your body in the hours after!

Where has The Girl Behind the Keyboard been?

December 9, 2015 LifeOfCarlyBLeave a comment

Hey followers!

Wow am I sorry for my absence! Life and work have taken a crazy hectic turn and as I have been working 50 hours a week I have chosen to use my spare time to be with friends, family, and my dog. I am happy to say that I will be down to 40 hours a week on Monday and will be back to blogging, I miss it!

Next week you can look forward to 2 new blogs! One about EPOC: Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption, and one related to an article ACE Fitness ran about 7 food factors that influence mood.

Happy blogging and I’ll see you next week!