Yoga

I promised I would tell you all the new things I have been doing these days...one of my new experiences was attending a yoga class

Even though I always do my warm ups and do my cool down stretches my muscles were starting to feel very tight and I was constantly getting cramps...not a good sign. I knew I had to change my workout plan and a trainer at the gym suggested I try yoga.

The yoga class I attended was longer than all the other classes in the gym; it was close to 2 hours long. This was the first time where I was entering a class with no expectation from myself; otherwise usually I have a plan. I know how much I want to push myself in all my other classes but this class was different because my aim was only to stretch my already strained muscles... (So no pushing myself)

Anyways as soon as I entered I introduced myself to the instructor told her I was new and that I had never done any yoga. I positioned myself in the front row (this was also new- first day and in front row, if you know me you would be equally surprised but I didn't want to end up doing something wrong and hurting myself so front row it was)

The class was very interesting. The atmosphere was different, lights were dimmed, no shoes, everybody looked more relaxed and less pumped up.

We did a lot of different asana each focusing on slow and controlled moment. Slow and controlled is very difficult. Holding a position even for a few seconds requires strength. In the 2 hours that we had I also managed to make a fool of myself because I could not coordinate my hands and legs for some of the asana. I would always get confused even when the instructor would point out my mistake I would still be confused till she would come to me help me get into the correct asana

The thing I loved most about this class was the atmosphere it was very calm but at the same time every position needed effort which was very surprising. It was like I could feel the effort I was putting in but I was still relaxed. We finished the class with a 10 minute meditation session which I could not do properly because I was worried about falling asleep

For those of you who haven't tried yoga you should definitely try at least one beginner’s class. It’s different to the usual high intensity classes but it still does amazing things to your muscles and strength. I am planning to keep going back whenever I can :)
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Tanvee

Food vs Exercise

''Weight loss is 70% diet and 30% exercise''  Have you heard this before?

I feel if you want to get fit you need to introduce both a healthy diet and a good workout routine in your life. They do go hand in hand but food definitely needs to be more in check and here's why...

Unhealthy Calories add up quickly

I usually burn around 350 calories in a 45 minutes  spin (RPM) session, this session is very intense and I am usually very very tired after my session. So to burn 350 calories is a lot of hard-work and lot of time.

If I plan to eat unhealthy just because I can workout and burn it off it is not going to be possible for me to workout that much. Consider a scenario where my snack choices are not very healthy. Just eating one chocolate muffin will add 465 calories which is more calories than how much I can burn in one workout session...

If I add a frappuccino to my muffin my calories go up to 600, then after lunch if I add a chocolate bar my calories go up by another 150. So just 2 unhealthy snacks in a day add up to 750 calories which will need me to workout for 2 hours at high intensity...is that really possible??? What happens if my other meals are equally unhealthy ? Will I ever be able to keep up?? think about it will you ever have that much time and energy to be able to cancel out all your unhealthy calories??

Food is the fuel that helps you workout better

How much effort you can put in your workout depends a lot on what food you eat. If you are calorie conscious and choose an unhealthy option for breakfast you will need to balance those extra calories either through your workout or by replacing your other meals. The problem is even if I manage to maintain my calorie range the unhealthy options are not very filling and the second problem is a lot of times the unhealthy options don't give you enough energy to workout at the same level as you could have with a better food choice.

So if don't choose proper food to fuel your body you will be either hungry or tired or both and that's never good for a workout.

No good food = hungry/ tired = not a good workout = less weight loss 

So does this mean you can never eat your favorite chocolate ever? Or never have a pizza in your life? No it just means you should understand the consequences of your choice instead of blindly believing your gym session will handle all the junk you eat

Hopefully this will make you think twice before you choose to eat unhealthy. knowing all this helps me make better decisions

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Tanvee

(I am sorry about not replying to your comments on my previous posts, will get to that this evening.)

Long time no see

Hi everybody,

I hope all of you are doing well. I am so sorry for not being in touch with all of you. I have been very busy (work and learning new things). Things are going well but I am struggling with my time management. The two things I have managed to keep up with even through my hectic schedule is my healthy food and workouts (no comprise there).

I have tried new things, I have changed my workouts a bit and I am having fun as usual (more about this later)

I hope all of you are also keeping up with your fitness journeys. I promise I am going to get more regular on the blog. I got to go back and read all the blog posts of my favorite people and I got to get back to writing :) 

I hope you haven't forgotten me

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Tanvee

Not giving up (or maybe a little stubborn)

The one thing I hate shopping for is pants. It actually freaks me out. The other day because T insisted I went looking for new pants and as usual the whole experience was not very pleasant. I still have work to do on my hips they need to be toned down for sure by the end of the day I was really very upset.  My entire journey back home I was thinking about where I was going wrong? Was I putting in less effort? Was I cheating on my food without realizing? then I started getting frustrated, I know I put in the effort why am I not seeing the results?? for a brief moment I even thought I should just give up and then I asked myself  ‘Do I really want to give up? Do I really believe I can never have toned legs?’ the answer was ‘NO...no way will I ever give up, I am going to keep trying to get better every single day’

When I got home I went through my workout plan, I went through my food and workout journal just to confirm if I was going of track. The next day I spoke to my trainer and figured out some new exercises to try and I am back with a new hope :). Surprisingly it takes me very little time to start over with fresh hope.

There was a time when I really couldn’t run, as a kid I didn’t even participate in games that involved running. When I started weight loss I could barely run for a few seconds that’s when a friend told me I don’t need to struggle so much I could find other ways of losing weight but I still carried on because my dream was to be able to be comfortable with myself when I ran. Some days I hated it, sometimes I would find excuses not to go for my run, sometimes I could not finish my planned run but in all this one thing that stayed with me was my dream to be confident enough to go out for a run on my own. I can now proudly say I have reached that goal. I am still not a great runner but I definitely have crossed my initial goal of running that’s where being stubborn helped me.

My fitness/weight-loss journey has had it’s ups and downs. I have had days when I am not happy, days when the scale is not my friend or when I have made the wrong choices. At time I have failed miserably and I have made many mistakes in this journey but the one thing that kept me going is not giving up. I still have a lot of fitness goals that need to be reached. Just because I fail once, twice or even a hundred times doesn’t mean I am not going to be able to achieve my goal just means I have to get up and try again.

T says I am stubborn but somehow in my mind I am not willing to accept that I can’t reach my goals (however impossible they might seem to others).

Failing is not a good enough excuse to give up on my dreams

I hope all of you also don’t give up on your dreams too, maybe you have eaten more than you wanted to..maybe you have missed a lot of your workouts maybe you have put on weight...doesn’t mean you can’t reach you fitness goal it just means you have to get back up and be a little stubborn.

Keep Reading I will Keep Writing 
Tanvee

Believing in yourself

There are days when I doubt myself, these are the worst. I am more irritated I look at everything and everyone negatively and I can only see my flaws. I know it’s not easy to start believing in yourself or to believe you can achieve your fitness goals especially if you have let go of living healthy or maybe never really given it a try. Initially it does feel like an impossible task but it's manageable with the right attitude..

I remember there used to be days when I would miss my workout or when I was not able to control my food intake I would feel miserable, I would hate myself...I would feel I just didn’t have it in me. I know people who will give up the minute they feel they can’t handle it. Some don’t start because in their mind they will never be able to run or fit in a certain dress/pant size. I belonged to the second category I just did not believe I could ever do it for a long time.

Even now when I am a lot healthier than what I used to be there are days when I doubt myself, some days I feel I am doing it all wrong and I will never reach my fitness goals and this single thought is capable of making my journey so much harder that's when I remind myself it's all in my hands, if I put in the effort I will get there and I start again...

Weightloss/Fitness is about giving yourself the time to improve

It is about forgiving yourself if you go off track

It is about getting up after failures and being ready to start again

It is about not giving up and moving forward

It is about believing in yourself, believing that you can do it.

These are few things I keep reminding myself on bad days....what do you do? How do you move through days when you think you can’t make it? How to stop yourself from giving up?

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Tanvee

Running club taught me a lot more than running

I started running with the running club sometime around September last year and one thing I had promised myself was I would be consistent. I had promised myself that being the last one in the group wouldn’t stop me from going and I would focus on just getting my stamina up. I remember the first time we ran I was the last one to finish and I also remember one of my goals was to be able to talk while running because I used to be the only one who couldn’t join in the conversation.

Over time I improved just by being consistent my stamina improved so did my speed. At some point my running club runs had become comfortable Michelle noticed I could even talk while running (I completely missed that till she pointed it out)

Anyways now (a few months in) the running club members changed. The trainers are the same but other runners who join in have changed. These runners are much faster and a lot more fitter suddenly I found myself struggling again. Again I am the last one finishing, again my talking reduced and again I have started to worry about getting a stitch while running!!! I was so disappointed and upset with myself, I felt like I was moving in the wrong direction.

After a few days of beating myself up I knew I had to stop and look at this logically…first things first I was running with people are way more fit so without realizing I had increased my speed just to keep up that’s why I was struggling and that’s why I felt like I was not improving but the truth was my speed had improved even though I was struggling I was actually running at a speed more than my usual speed (I had moved ahead from my comfortable speed). 

Finally now I am back to enjoying my running club instead of beating myself up about it, I still haven’t reached a point where I can say my runs are comfortable, I am still struggling to talk while running but I love listening to everybody else talk, they talk about their workouts they tell me how I can improve it’s fun…

Being a part of the running club made me reminded me again that I should stop comparing, I should only focus on my improvement and improvements can be measured in different ways. Another important thing is there will always be people better than you, people from whom you can learn and there will always be people whom you can help improve…

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Tanvee

Who says it's Easy?

• There will always be tough choices to make : It does get easier as you keep going at healthy living but there will always be those days when you really want to skip a workout. There will be days when you want to eat something not in your plan. The other day I had gone for a party and I was the only one sipping on water when everybody else was enjoying their dessert that was not easy but I managed, then there was a day when I missed my workout because I had to finish my work. All choices are my own, sometimes they are right and sometimes I mess up.
• Plans can get messed up : I wish I could control everything but that’s not how life works, so there are days when my plans get messed up for no fault of mine. Sometimes my plan itself is a mess because without even realising I have too many things that need to be done in a day. All this affects my workouts and my eating habits also. If I am too tired I can’t put in the same effort in my workouts. There are times when I forget about planning my snacks and I find myself either sipping on more coffee or nibbling on stuff that’s no good (this is usually more than reasonable amount of nuts)
• It’s easy to go back to old bad habits : This is one thing I am scared of, I really believe it is very easy for just one day to become one week and then one year.In no time I would be back to the square one...

So that was a list of how things can go wrong. I have personally been in all of the situations mentioned above but that does not stop me from working towards my fitness. A few things that help me:

• Tough Choices : When I have a tough choice to make I ask myself what is important, even after that if I find myself making a not so healthy choice I promise myself to make it up through my workouts or eating cleaner than usual starting asap and most importantly I keep my promise. So if I miss a workout I will either fit in an extra workout in the remaining week, if my days are already busy I increase all my workouts by a 10 - 15 minutes as long as I cover up my workout...if I eat more than I planned to I will switch up my food the next day to balance out my calories or I will work out extra. Next time you find yourself making an unhealthy choice find a way...I have always been able to find a way I am sure all of you can too.
• Messed up Plans :When plans get messed up my first instinct used to be disappointment, I would get frustrated, irritated and very upset with myself and all this naturally makes it easier to give up but now when a plan gets messed up I scrap it and make a new better plan. It’s not fair to blame myself if something unexpected comes up instead I have started to have confidence in myself to always come up with a better plan . As long as I reach my goal the plan can keep changing...
• Old Habits: I keep from going back to old habits by reminding myself what could happen if I start slacking that’s the best way for me to keep moving forward the other thing I do is I try to fit in a workout whereever I am by workouts I don’t mean I have to always follow my usual routine but I will make it a point to go for a jog or long walks or just climb stairs anything that I can do to stay active...it might not burn as many calories as my usual workout but as long as I sweat it out a little I know I am  not going back to being a couch potato

How do you handle such situations?How do you make the right choice and how do you stop yourself from going back to old habits?

Keep Reading I will Keep Writing   

Tanvee