Self-Sabotage

So, it's been a while. Bet you guys were wondering if I was slacking off workout-wise!

Truth is, I was exercising less, but for good reasons that have nothing to do with being 'too busy' or 'too tired' or even letting Zuz and Freddy's 'brutus' win in my conversations with myself about my workouts. (first mentioned here as that voice in your head: http://www.bodyrock.tv/2010/12/21/exercise-challenge-drowning-in-your-own-sweat/). In fact the reason that I haven't been working out as much has been due to a DIFFERENT type of self- sabotage - making the subject of all kinds of self-sabotage my next topic!

First off there are the 'standard' methods of exercise self-sabotage that everyone falls victim to. Did any of the ones I mentioned earlier sound familiar? If you're a morning exerciser you've probably had lots of those days where you say "I'm too tired to workout, so I'm going to ignore my alarm and sleep for another half-hour." I myself am TOTALLY guilty of this and I'm a morning person! Then there are those of you who try to fit the workout in after work and before you start dinner, but a lot of you have families and other responsibilities that you let take precedence over your fitness and health. Or you get home from work and say "ugh, that was the worst day at work - I just want to veg out in front of the TV and try to forget it." Yep, I'm one of these too. Notice I've said "too". Even those of us who love exercising easily let these opportunities to self-sabotage take over sometimes. Then there's 'Brutus.' You know about him, right? Maybe not by that name - he's that voice in your head saying things like "you've worked out 3 times this week, you deserve a break" or "yeah, I know you should be pushing harder here, but you've had a long day and you're really just goofing off right now." He may be in your head saying "Laundry, dishes, cleaning the bathroom, dusting... you've been doing this all week, there's no reason for you to get off the computer/off the couch and do a workout/go for a walk." Usually Self-Sabotage of any form has a cycle. Here is an (unrelated) example of what one might look like:

imagine all of my 'cycles i write about looking like this.

The next kind of self-sabotage is found in your diet and boy am I ever guilty. Remember that you're only human, so giving in to temptation is only natural - sometimes. If you're only giving in once a day to once a week you are in GOOD shape as far as i'm concerned (I just gave in and ate a cinnamon roll, just as an example that I'm as human as all the rest of you! ;-P ) However, if you're 'giving in' and drinking soda and eating tons of junk, you're really sabotaging not only your fitness and 'aesthetic' goals regarding your body, but you're also compromising your health! So try and monitor how often you give in to those "I'm not hungry, but I want something (insert - sweet, salty, fatty, crispy, crunchy - here)" Giving in frequently is a downward spiral that you want to try and stop. Especially if you're an emotional eater like I am because the spiral starts looking something like this: have a hard day - crave something 'bad' - eating it - feeling guilty - crave something else 'bad' - feeling guilty... you see where this is going! Some of my healthiest behavior to stop this spiral has been to stop and ask what's really going on and then do a little mild yoga or meditate or go on a nice walk - all activities that encourage you to think through your issues and help 'fix' that behavior.

how often have any of these tempted you?

RESIST the temptation of this picture! You don't need any of this food!

The third type of self-sabotage is sneaky. REALLY sneaky. This is one that catches me regularly and is why I am always telling you to really listen to your body and what it's 'saying.' This type of self-sabotage manifests in the moment you've gotten into really good exercise habits and (for most people) you get an injury. For me, it's most common in the form of illness. I'm one of those 'blessed' (note I put this in quotes, because i'm really not sure how much of a blessing this really is) people with a really fast metabolism. The kind that, when over-revved, starts to make my body as a whole stop working quite right. Usually it compromises my immune system so that I get sick ALL THE TIME. I like the feeling of exercise and fitness and will fall into the trap of not listening to what my body is telling me. Like 'you really shouldn't work out today, I'm too busy cleaning up after your last workout.' A couple blog entries again I mentioned noticing this and switching almost exclusively to walking and yoga. You know what happened? I stopped getting sick. I was healthy for an entire 4 months. WHOAH!!! So, after realizing that I was getting back into the cycle that totally compromised my immune system, I'm stepping back to working out no more than every other day. I'm trying to incorporate more walking and slightly less high intensity workout, because you all know what happens when you get sick - you can't workout and after being sick for a while you start losing fitness. In my case it's another cycle I fall into: Workout hard and frequently - get sick - lose fitness - get well and start working out hard to try and get back to previous fitness level - get sick - lose fitness. Can anyone see the cycle (another self-sabotage cycle) that keeps showing up?

should i workout today?

Now, I realize this isn't a problem that many people face. But it IS similar to sabotaging yourself when you workout with an injury. How many of you have injured yourself just badly that you're definitely injured, but not so badly that you 'have' to stop working out? And what happens when you don't stop your fitness routine? The injury never really heals, does it? So just like when you get sick, it's necessary to take a break. Re-evaluate. Let yourself heal and learn from how you injured yourself. Never EVER perpetuate the problem by continuing to use the injured part in the way that you first injured it. Or any way that bothers it in any small way, shape, or form.

Remember my mantra: "Listen to your body and what it's really saying." Pay attention to all the little parts as well as the big and make sure you're looking for any self-sabotaging cycles. It could save you in SO many ways!

In other news, I've been picking up a lot of books lately about fitness and health, etc. Right now I'm reading one by Dr. Lisa Callahan called The Fitness Factor. I'll let you guys know what I learn!

Thanks for reading, all of you! I know this one was a long one. Have a great day and keep healthy!

-Katie

Exercising with old or new injuries

There are many people out there with old injuries, including me. In fact, I was asked about working out with joint pain and old injuries. This is a fun question for me, because, like so many of the other things I've written about, it applies to me too! I am frequently known as the walking disaster. I've had two knee injuries (thankfully fairly minor), sprained both ankles multiple times (each one i've gotten fairly minor sprains and one major for each), broken my wrist and had surgery on it later, and sustained some muscle/tissue damage to my lower back/right hip. Just like anything else, when you're working with an injury or old injuries, listen to your body. If it's a new injury, make sure you talk to your doctor before you start working out again. Ask when you can start working out again, what kinds of exercises you can do, what the intensity level should be, and what kinds of repercussions to expect from your body as you get back into it.

So... ouches are not fun

Luckily, there are many exercises that you can do while dealing with ouches and many more that you can modify to work for you. Ultimately, if you don't have much workout experience, you should ask a pro, however, there are many of you out there who don't have that luxury. What I like to do is start with common sense and then modify the moves as my body requires when i'm dealing with one of these setbacks. For example, once I could put weight on my ankle again after my sprain in September (more than 2 weeks later!!!) I started working out again. I took a lot more care with most of my workout moves. I found that I could handle stepping moves (no jumping for me, thanks!) like side lunges where I stepped from one side to the other. When I started doing pushups again I started on my knees; not because my arms and chest couldn't handle the weight, but because my ankle couldn't handle that pressure. I was still able to do reclining ab workouts (like crunches, bicycles, v-ups, etc), so I incorporated those in my workouts a lot.

So i'll cover a couple common injuries and a couple of the exercises you should be able to still do:

Ankle sprains:

obviously, i've touched on this a bit already, but here are some moves that you can still manage.

• Pushups on your knees to avoid extra pressure on the ankle
• tricep dips if your legs (shins/knees) are resting on a chair, make sure that your weight isn't on your ankle
• bicycles (the ab exercise where you are on your back, alternating knees and twisting your opposite shoulder to knee)
• v-ups (you start lying extended on your back, and pull your knees up to your chest as you pull your chest up to your knees. you should end up in a V shape balanced on your bum.)
• Mule kicks where you start from your hands and knees and push your leg up behind you like a mule kicking over a bucket.
  Mule Kicks
  Uploaded by dailyfitnessblog. - Basketball, baseball, pro wrestling and more sports videos.
• dirty dogs starting from that same hands and knees position you're going to raise your knee to the side:
• crunches self explanatory
• Pilates floor exercises: there are lots of these that you can do:

*teasers

*roll ups

*arm circles

*cervical nod and curl

*knee folds

*the bug

*the hundred - beginner or advanced, this one will make your abs BURN

*single leg circles

*forward spine stretch

*rolling like a ball

*single leg stretch

*double leg stretch

*straight-leg single-leg stretch

*straight-leg double-leg stretch

*criss cross (basically like a bicycle)

*the saw

*roll over

once you can bear weight again, and really pay attention to your body on these:

• squats (you can do knee lift/twists too)
• stepping side lunges
• pushups on your toes
• reptiles
• walking mountain climbers
• plank knee tucks

ok, you get the point. There are LOTS of exercises you can still do!

wrist injury:

some of these are obvious. you can still do a lot of those standing exercises; squats, lunges, (if your balance is good you can still do high knees and jumping things). you still have the ability to do those reclining exercises like bicycles and crunches, jumping jacks, and walking too!

• take your plank pose stuff and turn it into elbow plank (if your arm is ok with that)
• grab a light weight for the other arm. you can do bicep curls, tricep presses, rows, etc.

knee pain:

this is the worst one to work with. Here you're going to have to be REALLY creative because your knee is so integral. If you have a knee INJURY, it's best to let it heal first and foremost.

the best thing to do for your knee is pay attention to it. warm up well before EVERY workout. Cool down well. Pay attention to all of the little twinges and modify. Side lunges can be surprisingly easy on the knees, but PAY ATTENTION, it it makes any 'noises' at you, don't ignore it. change exercises. Squats halfway down, but the same mantra applies; Pay Attention to what your body is saying to you. Walking is a great way to get some cardio in with less pressure on your knees.

You can do a lot of reclining exercises. Refer back to the pilates and ab exercises that are listed above for some lower pressure knee exercises that you can always do. Pilates floorwork is a GREAT way to get some strengthening work with minimal pressure on the knee. Just make sure you always pay attention to those 'little twinges' and learn to recognize if it's a dangerous twinge or a minor one. Definitely talk to your doctor about any concerns at ANY point.

the last thing i'm going to talk about regarding exercise:

Iliotibial "IT" Band:

I injured this earlier this year and it can be a really uncomfortable injury. It can manifest in your hip or knee, or anywhere in between the two. Mine was particularly painful in the hip. This is what your IT band looks like/where it is:

first you have to let the band heal. ice and ibuprophen help lessen the swelling and the pain. I hurt my IT band doing curtsy squats with incorrect balance and posture. I put the weight on my leg incorrectly and paid for it. SO be careful with balancing/weight bearing exercises.

When dealing this kind of pain, take it easy, balance your weight carefully, and make sure you are paying attention to those little twinges again!

hope this helps! :)

I'm back with the answers to some of your questions!

Hi guys, it's been a little while (a whole week, ack!) I had some feedback on things that people were interested and I thought I'd address one today.

One of my readers asked about exercise while menstruating, which is really a good question for all you women out there, so I decided I would answer this question first.

The answer to this question ultimately has to come from you. Some women have really easy menstrual periods and it's not a big deal for them to continue their normal workouts. Others, like me, tend to have horrible periods with everything you DON'T want; bad cramps and headaches, backache, bloating, nausea, fatigue, mood swings... well, you get the point. The trick with those periods is that you can usually workout and it will actually help relieve the symptoms somewhat. The most important thing for you to do during your period is to listen to your body. I'm not saying to completely take it off, but if you experience any worsening of your symptoms when you try a workout (usually this happens during the first couple days), stop. However, if you're just using your period as an excuse, knock that off! What is generally recommended is a slightly 'lighter' workout. Basically, just listen to your body and what it's telling you.

If you are a regular yogi, you probably already know this from your classes, but you shouldn't do any inverted poses (where your head is lower than your hips). There are some really good yoga poses and 'workouts' out there that can help relieve the symptoms even more. in particular; half-moon pose, supported child's pose, and reclining bound angle pose. If you are interested in the yoga route when you are menstruating, I highly recommend you look at Moving Towards Balance: 8 weeks of yoga with Rodney yee (in the back of the book there is a 'moon practice' that is really good. I also recommend you look at The Woman's Book of Yoga and Health.

I often find that light cardio or a lighter bodyweight or dumbbell workout helps relieve some of the discomfort and makes me feel better. The general consensus is that you should try to continue your workouts, they will help combat the fatigue - as long as you don't overdo it - and will help relieve other symptoms as well.

The main idea is that you listen to your body. Not the excuses your mind gives you, but what your body is actually saying. Try your workout and pay attention to how it's going. If you're feeling worse, stop. If you're feeling better, finish out your workout. Just like your body, your period is individual and not like everyone else's, so pay attention to yourself and do what your body is telling you to.

any thoughts out there?

Hi guys. I've been trying to write a lot lately despite taking on another job and trying to plan my wedding and I feel pretty good about how I've been doing! How are you liking the photos? I feel like it breaks up the content and provides a visual about what I am talking about, which is always important to me. I like a mix of information that touches on all the learning styles (it must be the teacher in me!). I (still) haven't been posting my workouts, but I'm hoping to build up to posting videos instead! So that's something to (hopefully) look forward to! I also want to point out that while I have done a lot of research and taken a couple classes on nutrition, my answers won't be the best you can get. I highly recommend you look further and ask a certified professional. If you don't have questions and just want to read more about good nutrition, check out my friend maggie's blog: maggiebasiaga.wordpress.com

So, what I'm thinking of doing for a week or so is to profile a couple different exercise options to help you find the one (or many) that work for you. This could end up taking a full month with all the choices out there!

What do you guys think about this? Are there any suggestions from you guys that you'd like me to research and write about?

Working out with mommy

A lot of my friends and acquaintances are now moms and wondering how to pursue their fitness goals. I know for a fact that its possible, though not always easy. In my experience with my cousins (who are now 8, 6, and 3) and my fiancé's nephew (4) I have learned that there are ways to involve your kids in your workouts or use them to help you achieve your fitness goals.

One thing (that i've found from experience) is that pushing a stroller adds a little bit more effort to a walk. On a recent walk with a friend who has a little one, I volunteered to push the stroller for a little while (we had already been walking for at least 2 hours in a hilly area). Pushing that stroller uphill was an AMAZING workout. I feel like I'm in pretty good shape, but I was breathing hard and my glutes were working full-force!

how do you like THIS dancing workout?

SO that's one thing. grab a friend and go on a walk with the little one in the stroller.

Obviously, your children are only going to be content to sit in their strollers for a short while. When they are older they are even more fun to have around to help you achiever your fitness goals. The best part is they will adore you for spending the time with them! The best thing you can do is play with them at the park. If your back is strong enough, toss em around a little! push them on the swings and that'll involve your chest and upper back muscles as well as your abs to stabilize and your legs because you're standing on them! chasing them around is great cardio and kids have SO much energy, they will keep you running for as long as they can keep you upright (and even after you've fallen over).

One thing i've noticed with children as they reach 2 and older, when you start doing yoga poses or 'unusual' moves, they want to be involved and often either climb on you or mimic your poses. My cousins were always saying that they wanted to do headstands like daddy (who practiced yoga regularly at that point in time). Whenever I did pigeon pose, one or more of them tended to climb on me like I was a human jungle gym. Older children love playing ball in the backyard and love you even more if you go out and kick the ball around with them for 30 minutes. They also love riding bicycles. You can ride with them, run alongside, or move with them in anyway you see fit! Uncovering your inner child will re-teach you how to play again and give your body some of the physical activity it craves.

I guess what I'm saying is if you can't fit a 10-20 minute workout in your day, you CAN fit in some active playtime with your children and beyond the fitness benefits, the bond you'll develop with your child will make every silly game they invent worth it's while!

Hiking with extra weight. Even more calories burned!

working out and your life

I've been really bad about posting my workouts lately, but trust me, i'm doing them! just not being as religious about uploading the photos of my journal. That being said, I'd like to talk about how you fit working out into your life. I assume that by now you realize that you go through cycles in your life and that one thing doesn't work for you all the time. My exercise history is proof of that. For Example; when I was a child, I was really active. I loved running around the neighborhood making up fanciful games, climbing trees, and playing basketball and baseball with my brother. I swam whenever I had the opportunity, without reservations about wearing a bathing suit or whether I had remembered to put on sunscreen. Formally, I danced and was in a baton troupe. Essentially, I was very, very active until I hit my teens.

When I was 12 I quit dance in favor of trying soccer. The downside to soccer is that recreational youth soccer is only 4 and a half months of the year. Without ballet to keep me active the rest of the year and with puberty in full-force I became very sedentary. For a while, my metabolism kept me very skinny, but, as every woman knows, somewhere in your teens your metabolism SLOWS DOWN! I still had (and have) a fast metabolism, but I was out of shape. Even with P.E. classes, I didn't have the physical fitness level that I enjoy now. My junior year I started to get a bit heavier - enough so my mother noticed, although I'm pretty sure that she was more worried about my fitness level than my waistline.

The turning point for me was the summer after my Junior year of high school. That summer my family went to Hawaii. We walked a lot, climbed stairs to the fourth floor (where our condo was) every day, multiple times a day, we swam all the time, and I tried surfing. Over the course of two weeks, I noticed that my shorts started to fit better and that all of a sudden I liked the shape of my thighs. They were slimmer and toned, as opposed to mostly fat and heading towards chunky. (I'm one of those body types that puts weight on mostly around the hips and thighs, in case you couldn't tell!).

who WOULDN'T want to walk here?

When we came back from that vacation I was motivated by the changes in my body. My mom and I discussed what kind of physical activity I might do regularly if I had it available. I decided that I would probably do a pilates video so we bought a couple Denise Austin pilates workouts. (Pilates for Every Body and Power Yoga Plus for those of you who want to know). I started doing the Pilates for Every body every day. I wouldn't always do the whole video, but I did some part of it every day. Then, as I progressed through my senior year, I started adding videos to my collection and I would mix it up. I did a lot of Denise Austin videos because they were effective for me at that point in my life and because I was working out at home (and I'm a self-motivating type) I would actually do them.

some of my video library:

I kept up with the video trend (using the videos above in varying combinations) throughout my undergraduate years. My sophomore year of college I took up jump roping regularly. When I say I took it up, I mean I would turn on a movie (usually one that was at least 2 hours long) and jump rope for the ENTIRE DURATION of the movie. I would start with the opening credits and not stop until the closing credits were running. To this day I am not sure how I managed that, but I was in the BEST cardio shape of my life at that point! (I also weighed all of 102 lbs).

The winter of 2006 I started snowboarding on weekends. It's a GREAT workout and really fun to be out in the great outdoors, flying down a mountain and feeling your legs burn. And then I had a snowboarding accident that quickly ended that. (another snowboarder ran into me when I was sitting off the run and his board cut into my lower back/right hip about an inch from my spine... ).

As soon as I healed I started training in Martial arts. Martial Arts is another great place to get a really well balanced workout. I loved the art, but only made it through my yellow belt before I moved to Boston for Grad school. One note here, the training I was doing there was so intense and so calorie intensive that it would make me incredibly hungry for the entire week (I wasn't hungry after the workout, but the next day I was a bottomless pit) and I gained nearly 15 lbs that summer - all muscle.

The next stop in my workout evolution was Boston. I moved 3,000 miles away from everything (and everyone) I knew and loved. I was a wreck. One of the few things I could count on to keep me out of the all-encompassing depression of my homesickness was the endorphins from my workouts. I was nervous about doing them in my new home, though. I was living in a 3rd floor walk up with 3 other people that I didn't know. Thankfully, my days usually started after everyone else's did, so I was able to do my home workouts - which morphed several times while I was going through my masters degree. First I would just use my videos that I had brought with me. THEN I discovered www.exercisetv.tv. This website has a whole store of workout videos of all types and lengths that you can stream online. for the first year and a half of my masters degree (2008-09) this website was my new best friend. The downside was that between walking everywhere (I didn't have a car while I was in boston), the workouts, and the new city I was getting sick a LOT. And when you're working on a master's degree in VOICE, having many, many colds really makes it hard to progress.

So my workout practices changed again. I started doing yoga almost exclusively while adding some pleasure walks to my daily, very necessary, walks. I stopped getting sick as often and started feeling a lot less stressed and a lot more open to the world around me. Which you can read more about in this post: http://buildingsexy.blogspot.com/2011/01/loving-yourself.html

But then, as I moved into that groove, I moved back to California. My parents, being the awesome people they are with lots of furloughed time, flew to boston, rented a car, packed me up and we started the first real road trip of my life. Keeping up the yoga on the road was surprisingly easy. I'd just wake up a little earlier than everyone else and do some yoga on the floor of the hotel rooms. So the trip itself wasn't total ruin for my routine, it just changed where I did it. Then I got home. while settling back into life in California - for good this time - My daily routine went *splat*. I was transitioning from living in boston to living in california again AND I was transitioning from living with roommates or my parents to taking the step of living with my fiancé. In a small house. With lots of stuff. Doing yoga in a room with lots of stuff is really hard to do! So I did some yoga, but I tended to go back to my videos on exercisetv. Sometimes.

Sometimes I would do workouts from womenshealthmag.com. Those are great too, but it was still only sometimes. I was also playing and refereeing soccer at the time, so I was getting some exercise there, but that was all weekends and my week days weren't as proactive on the workout front. I became a 'weekend warrior.' Uh oh.

This is when Ethan (the fiancé) sent me the link to bodyrock.tv. As I watched Zuzana go through her routine, my eyes kind of glazed over and I remember thinking, "there's no way I could do that." So I didn't. I continued with my lackadaisical workout schedule and counted floorsets at work as a workout. Finally I got up the nerve to try one of Zuzana's workouts. and it was fun! I did another workout the next day. And the next. I started recording my workouts in my little journal and I kept doing the bodyrock workouts on a nearly daily basis until I sprained my ankle. Then I discovered that I could create my own Zuzana style workouts that took into account my injury. I discovered that creating my own workouts was fun and decided to keep doing it.

I do even more research for exercising now than I ever have. It's interesting and I learn so much on a daily basis about the different ways to approach fitness. There are so many choices that there WILL be one that works for you.

Have you already figured out what that is? What it was when you were younger? What's your workout evolution? Do you keep a workout journal? How often do you workout? Those are all questions for YOU!

Workout Buddies

Most people find it really hard to self motivate when it comes to working out. There are always reasons not to and it's so easy to come up with excuses! One of the best ways to counter that nagging little voice saying "i'm too tired" or "Work was so emotionally draining, that I can't face anything else to do today." My most common phrase is "I have time. I'll do it later." Bet you can guess what I never get around to doing on those days.

One thing that is really hard to get around is another person depending on you to show up. When someone is expecting you for a workout of any kind, you're more likely to show up. So I challenge you to find a workout buddy with similar workout goals and interests who will challenge you not only to try your hardest, but also to show up for those workouts!