Monthly Archives: February 2015

Does weight lifting make you feel less feminine and sexy?

Does weight lifting make you feel less feminine and sexy?

Emotional issues after weight loss, Motivation to stay fit, , , , 
Does weight lifting make you feel less feminine and sexy?We've all heard the misconception that weight lifting will make a woman big, bulky, and she will lose her feminine side. I've addressed these misconceptions earlier, so we've established that weight lifting won't make you accidentally look like The Rock. But what can you do when becoming physically stronger than most of the guys around you makes you feel less feminine and sexy?

Is it possible to stay feminine and sexy as a woman on the inside while weight lifting?

Yes, it is possible to stay feminine and sexy as a woman while weight lifting. But the real question is how? Spending time in the weigh lifting section of the gym among guys 3 times a week can influence not just your weight lifting abilities and body, but your perception of yourself as well.

Does weight lifting make you feel less feminine and sexy?Imagine yourself after few months of weight lifting seeing a guy with big manly muscles use the same weight dumbbells as you. Pretty self confidence booster, isn’t it? Now fast forward a few months of regular weight lifting, and you’ll be watching more and more guys using smaller dumbbells than you are. After 9 months of weight lifting there will be only few regular guys at the gym using heavier weights for weight lifting than you.

This is exactly what happened to me, and at this point when I realized that I lift more than most of the guys at the gym, I panicked. Suddenly I started to feel less feminine and sexy because seeing myself stronger than most of the guys placed me in front of them on that invisible weight lifting hierarchy ladder in my head. I’ve became one of the guys. Then I remembered:

My strength does not come from lifting weights, my strength came from lifting myself up when I was knocked down. [Tweet this!]

So how can you stay feminine and sexy on the inside while weight lifting?

3 tips to make you feel more feminine and sexy while weight lifting

Use these 3 tips to make you feel more feminine and sexy inside and outside of the gym while you regularly do your weight lifting routine.

Tip #1: Spend time with other women

 Spending time in a gym weight lifting where most of the members are guys you are comparing yourself to and competing with is exhausting. All that manly energy and testosterone surrounding you while weight lifting may result in you ending up feeling less feminine and sexy.

What you need to do is get yourself among a group of women. By spending time with woman will make you unconsciously observe their feminine body language and movements, and after a few hours you will start to imitate them. Spending time with women will turn on your feminine side that you’ve put aside for weight lifting.

Tip #2: Be graceful

Does weight lifting make you feel less feminine and sexy?When out of the weight lifting room, make smooth movements instead of powerful ones!

You can teach yourself to be graceful and more feminine. Watch your posture: tighten your abs, move your shoulders down and back, away from your ears and raise your chin to be parallel to the floor.

To walk gracefully in heels or in any other type of shoes, do the following: take small steps, walk heel to toe not toe to heel. Don’t rush, lean slightly back while walking and visualize yourself walking in a straight line.

Tip #3: Dance

Dance classes are great for improving your feminine posture and teach you graceful movements. Just be sure to choose a dance class that requires you to learn sexy, feminine moves! It doesn’t have to be modern ballet, I suggest belly dancing, or my favorite, Zumba! After you learn the steps, you will be able to pay attention to your body movements in order for them to become calculated and fluid.

Get more useful tips on how to motivate yourself towards a more balanced lifestyle! Click here>>>

3 myths you need to know about weight loss before you start

3 myths you need to know about weight loss before you start

Motivation to stay fit, , , , , , , , , , 
Starting a weight loss journey is challenging. Check out what are the noob mistakes that you make after beginning  a weight loss program.

4 steps to healthy life mindset even if you are lazyWhen you start thinking about weight loss while being overweight, you start with an idea in your head about weight loss. You believe that you know exactly what you need to do in order to achieve weight loss. You believe your only problem is starting and sticking to a weight loss program.

So what are the myths that every noob believes at the start of their weight loss program?

Myth #1:

I have to do an hour or more cardio per day for helping my weight loss

Noobs believe that doing hours cardio will burn off that extra pizza slice they had for snack. If you still believe that you can burn off extra calories you’ve eaten, you’re wrong. Here, let me prove this by giving you an example of how many calories you burn with cardio and how many pizza slices you’ve burned off*:

[table caption=”Burn off that pizza slice” width=”500″ colwidth=”20|100|50″ colalign=”left|left|center”]
Exercise type,Calories burned/hour,Pizza slice burned off
yoga,148 kcal,50% of a pizza slice
pilates,148 kcal,50% of a pizza slice
walking,177 kcal,60% of a pizza slice
belly dancing,266 kcal,93% of a pizza slice
aerobics,384 kcal,134% of a pizza slice
spinning,413 kcal,145% of a pizza slice
swimming,413 kcal,145% of a pizza slice
running,472 kcal,166% of a pizza slice
zumba,519 kcal,182% of a pizza slice
elliptical trainer,531 kcal,186% of a pizza slice
[/table]

* used MyFitnessPal’s calculator based on: a pizza slice has 285 kcal, a person has 59kg/130pounds.

So basically you can see that doing belly dancing for an hour will burn off that pizza slice that you had for a snack, but it won’t make you lose weight. Doing hours of cardio won’t help your weight loss.

Don’t get me wrong, cardio is beneficial for you because it can help you build endurance. It has many other benefits as well, as it can stronger your heart and lungs, reduce stress, make you feel more energized, help you increase bone density, reduce the risk of heart attack, make you sleep better and so on.

But relying solely on cardio for weight loss is naive.

Here comes the second myth:

Myth #2:

I must exercise to lose weight.

3 myths you need to know about weight loss before you start
You can sit on that machine for hours and it won’t make you lose a single pound

This is a lie. In reality: weight loss is only 20% gym and 80% kitchen. It means that you can lose weight by changing eating habits, you won’t need to step into a gym at all. However, everyone knows that exercising has many health benefits, so it is always a good idea to exercise. I am the spokesperson of healthy eating, but if your single goal is weight loss, you can always achieve it by eating less calories than you are currently eating.

I am not a fan of different crash-diets, detoxes, cleanses, but these also work for weight loss (even if they are unhealthy and bad for you in the long run) because the require you to eat at a caloric deficit.

You don’t see fat kids starving in Africa. So chances are, if you are twice as heavy as your healthy weight, then you are eating for 2 people. No matter how much you exercise, you can’t outrun your bad diet.

Myth #3:

Doing a bunch of ab exercises will give me defined six pack abs

No amount of ab exercises will give you great six pack abs. I learned this lesson by doing tons of ab exercises daily to loose my belly fat. It was successful until a point, where I could not lose the leftover belly fat from my bottom half no matter how hard I tried.

I had abs of steel, but they were invisible under that layer of body fat. So I seriously considered the truthfulness of the following statement:

Abs are formed in the gym but revealed at the kitchen. [Tweet this!]

3 myths you need to know about weight loss before you start
You can do 1000 crunches a day and still won’t have her abs

So I’ve tweaked my nutrition, and bamm, visible abs! I considered myself a fool for not making the connection between body fat and visible abs, as well as for not thinking about the importance of nutrition as a component of having abs of steel.

Once I made a mistake of telling the girls at my Zumba Fitness Core class that they won’t get abs of steel by attending these classes once a week, but they looked at me in disbelief, like I was crazy.

Sure, they will strengthen their core and sculpt their abs, but they are expecting flat tummies and six pack abs at the end of the 4th week. Well, reality check: if you keep eating that pizza slice for breakfast every morning, no abs of steel for you lady.

 So remember: in order to lose weight, start eating healthy, pick up healthy habits such as regular exercise. You’ll lose that fat in a healthy way for good!

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Fitness trackers are useless for gym workout: exercise routine before and after wearables

Fitness trackers are useless for gym workout: exercise routine before and after wearables

Motivation to stay fit, , , , 
Searching for the perfect fitness tracker? Don't know if you should get the latest model of that fitness tracker everyone is wearing? Let me share a secret: fitness trackers are useless for gym workout. Don't believe me? Read on.

Fitness trackers are useless for gym workout: exercise routine before and after wearablesI was excited just as you are for getting a fitness tracker for Christmas. A smart wearable was the big thing I thought I was missing in order to level up with my healthy living. But getting a wearable fitness tracker hadn’t affected my workout routine in any way. Trendy fitness trackers are made for lazy couch potatoes, not for people who work out regularly and already live a healthy lifestyle. In order to track your workout routine at the gym you will need a special fitness tracker that is not among the trendy ones currently on the market.

Find the right fitness tracker

Fitness trackers are useless for gym workout: exercise routine before and after wearablesResearched online different wearables and fitness trackers, and I’ve read tons of reviews each of the wearable. Different wearables have different functions that seem awesome at first: tracking physical activity, including calories burned, distance and what type of activity you are doing, such as walking, running, cycling.

I really believed that a fitness tracker would be of help in my workout performance and positively affect my workout routine.

Reading the specifications carefully revealed that the functions I would found useful, such as the heart rate monitor, does not work well when you move around… So what’s the point of measuring your heart rate when you just stand around? I want it to measure it while I am jumping around in Zumba class, so that I know how high is my heart rate when my face gets red. Got really disappointed while researching the fitness trackers: none of the fitness trackers functions could be useful during my gym workout, nor my Zumba cardio sessions.

Then it hit me: all the trendy fitness trackers are made for the lazy couch potatoes, not for our type who are already living healthy and exercising regularly. [Tweet this!]

The only function I thought I would find useful was the pedometer. But I already had a free app downloaded to my phone that worked as a pedometer.

Life after getting a fitness tracker

Although I really didn’t know for what I will be using a fitness tracker for, but it is the popular thing right now – everyone is wearing a fitness tracker. I figured I might as well get a stylish one and jump on the wearables bandwagon. After all, it was Christmas, and there weren’t much things that I needed or wanted anyway. Got to have a wrapped present, because simply saying “I love you” or “thank you for being in my life” is not a valid Christmas present in today’s society.

I settled for a Sony SmartBand fitness tracker, because it’s lightweight, stylish, and as its ad says: when a call or a message comes in, you feel it. Figured at least it will be useful on meetings when my phone is on silent.

How useful are fitness trackers in everyday life?

Fitness trackers are useless for gym workout: exercise routine before and after wearables
A fitness tracker for weight lifting is just as useful as these bands on your wrist.

Pedometer helped walk more daily. Had to be creative to figure out how to walk more to reach my daily goal. The secret how I manage to meet my daily goal of 10 000 steps: take stairs instead of the elevator, go for walk during lunch breaks, walk the dog more often, walk to the store for getting just milk even if it could wait until next big grocery shopping, walk to the market, walk to the bank and doing errands mostly by walking. After a few weeks, it becomes a habit. So I don’t have to think about it anymore, whenever I see an elevator and stairs, I take the stairs. Tip: identify opportunities in your everyday life for walks.

I use my fitness tracker in everyday life for:

  • Tracking steps
  • Smart wake up (my significant other looked forward to this function: no more early morning alarms waking him, my band vibrates to wake me while he stays happily asleep)
  • Letting me know when I receive a message or a phone call.

And that’s it, this is a complete list of the things that I use my fitness tracker for.

Fitness tracker useless in the gym

I found the fitness tracker totally useless in the gym. It did not track any of my fitness activities whatsoever. It only tracked my workout once when I used the running machine for warm-up instead of the elliptical. However, if you are a runner, then you will find fitness trackers more useful. But if you are going to the gym to lift weights and use the workout machines, having a fitness tracker on your wrist is completely useless. Pretty disappointing.

There wasn’t any difference in my workout performance before and after owning a fitness tracker. My fitness tracker just helped me get more aware of my everyday activities.

Will a fitness tracker be usefull with my workout?

Stay realistic: don’t expect too much from current fitness trackers. Here is a list of different exercises types and the usefulness of a fitness tracker for that exercise:

[table caption=”Fitness trackers usefulness for different exercise types” width=”500″ colwidth=”20|100|50″ colalign=”left|left|center|left|right”]
Exercise type,Fitness tracker useful,Remark
Aerobic exercises:,,
Running,Yes,Tracks time running
Cycling,Yes,Tracks time spent cycling
Walking/hiking,Yes,Tracks steps
Zumba,No,Can’t pick up the various steps
Tennis,No,Need special fitness tracker that tracks specific body movements
Anaerobic exercises:,,
Weight lifting,No,Need special fitness tracker still in early adopter phase
Flexibility exercises:,,
Yoga,No,Can’t track anything-showed me asleep while relaxing
Pilates,No,See yoga
[/table]

Right now, even the best fitness tracker in the world is still just that: a wearable tracker.

Let me recap: if you are a regular user, you will find fitness trackers useful. However, if you are exercising regularly, you will need to do a thorough research on the various wearables out there to find the a fitness tracker that fits your type of exercise.

So my advice when choosing a fitness tracker for yourself is to do your research: know what type of exercise you will be doing and what are you expecting from your fitness tracker, know the limitations of the device, read reviews, go see it how it fits your wrist before you buy it.

What fitness tracker do you have? How did you choose it? Is it meeting your expectations or are you disappointed like I am?

If you agree with me, share the blog post with your friends!

How to deal with family saying I am too skinny after losing weight when I am actually just being fit

How to deal with family saying I am too skinny after losing weight when I am actually just being fit

Emotional issues after weight loss, , , , , , 
After losing weight and going from obese to fat to fit my family says I am too skinny. My family is using every opportunity to tell me that I am too skinny, I am not eating enough, being skinny is not healthy, skinny is ugly, I will get sick if I lose more weight and keep up exercising(!!??). So how do I deal with family like this?

How to deal with family saying I am too skinny after losing weight when I am actually just being fit Imagine this scenario: family gathering, family members sitting around the table stuffed with food, eating. Then suddenly grandma turns to you and says:

– Sweety, you are eating like a bird. Here, have some more potatoes!

Your plate and mouth are full of delicious roasted chicken, and while you are trying to swallow that bite of Brussels sprouts and start explaining that you are eating right, your father joins the “conversation” and says:

– Eat more! Skinny people are ugly!

You finally swallowed that bite and start defending yourself by telling them that as they can see, you are eating. In fact, you were chewing when grandma turned against you. Plus you are not skinny, but fit. There’s a difference. And you start flexing your muscles to prove your point. All this, while your husband quickly goes into supportive mode and starts explaining that your weight is in the normal range. You cut his sentence in the middle to inform everyone that if they remember, not long ago you were obese. You worked hard to lose weight in order to look like this. This ain’t no accident.

But they seem like they hear what you are saying but anything that you say does not convince them that this is healthy. For them, you are way too skinny. They loved the fat girl, not you, the fit girl.

Now imagine this scenario repeating itself every Sunday. For the past 8 months. Sunday family time equals living in hell.

Sounds familiar? Then keep reading to find out how to deal with family (or friends) saying you are too skinny when in fact you’ve lost weight and went from obese to fat to fit!

Some of my favorite things my family says to me after I’ve lost weight and went from fat to fit are:

1. “We are concerned about your health”

How to deal with family saying I am too skinny after losing weight when I am actually just being fit
“Here, have my pills, they will make you healthy fat again.”

That’s right, my overweight and obese family members are concerned about me not taking care of myself. My family and relatives with diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, indigestion problems and obesity are giving me health advice. Yeah, I should definitely follow their advice – if I want to end up with those kind of health problems. The thing is: I don’t. It was my main motivation to start living a healthy lifestyle and start working out regularly to avoid all of the above mentioned health problems that I’ve seen my family members struggle with.

Polite reply while dealing with family:

– Thank you for your concern, but I am fine. I have never felt this good in my life before. I am energized, focused and I sleep good. In fact, I have my latest blood test results with me as a proof that everything is okay with me. Care to check?

They never check.

Angry reply while dealing with family:

– I just had my blood test results back. My doctor says I am in top shape! How are your results?

Trust me, they’ll never ask you about your health again.

 2. “You look too skinny”

It’s like you can do nothing about becoming fat, but being fit or how they call it, “skinny” is something you should be fixing – by eating more!

Polite reply while dealing with family:

– I am fit, not skinny. And I worked hard for looking like this, it didn’t happen by accident. I want to look like this.

Angry reply while dealing with family:

– I think you look a little heavy.

Just be prepared that they will get offended, because the social norm is people thinking it is  okay to call someone skinny, but telling them that they are fat is considered really rude. You won’t get more comments about being too skinny. Though very few people in your family will like you after that.

 3. “Are you still on that diet?”

How to deal with family saying I am too skinny after losing weight when I am actually just being fit
“See? Orange juice is better than apples and bananas.”

I regret the day I told my family that I don’t eat chocolate. Every time we meet, they have to double check if I am still not eating it. So I started eating it around them.

Not to mention my husband and his keto diet. Family just don’t understand what eating bad means. For them, bad food means that it is spoiled. There is no such food in their dictionary that will make you sick, unless it’s rotten.

A diet in my family’s head equals strict dietary limitations, staying unrealistically thin and depriving yourself of the foods you love. For them, you are not on a healthy eating plan, you are dieting. And it can’t be kept up in the long run.

So what to answer when they ask you if you are still dieting?

Polite reply while dealing with family:

– It is not a diet, I am eating healthy. I developed healthy eating habits for long term. This is a complete lifestyle change, not a 12 week eating plan.

Angry reply while dealing with family:

– Do you believe it is healthy to eat even when you are not feeling hungry? Did you know that hunger is the body’s way to let you know that it needs nourishment?

My overweight family believes that I am way too skinny – for them being overweight is normal. Sometimes it seems to me that in our society, where most people are overweight, being overweight is the new norm. Being fit equals being too skinny.

If your family’s constant remarks bothers you, then you need to learn how to deal with family. Try explaining them the reasons of why you choose to live a healthy lifestyle, and be sure to tell them how you feel better now that you are working out regularly and eating healthy. If this doesn’t help, then do what I did: shut them up by threatening them! I told them that if they keep bullying me, I won’t visit them anymore. Never heard a bad remark again.

Found this guide useful? Get more useful quick tips on how to motivate yourself towards a lifestyle full of healthy habits! Click here>>>