Take Fitness on Vacation

Just because we go on vacation doesn't mean we should toss fitness out the window. It's important to keep up some physical activity and healthy eating during vacay. What if we're enjoying an extended month vacation? Eating completely off track and halting our workouts would result in fat gain, some muscle atrophy and feeling like crap.


We would not be happy with ourselves especially if fitness is our lifestyle. Besides, we're not taking a vacation from our health and fitness. Time off means stepping away from our daily work routine. It's a time to relax, forget about time clocks, and breathe in some freedom from everyday stress.

Vacations are not for the purpose of binge eating and moving like a sloth. When did this thought process start happening? It appears vacay has become an unhealthy food planning extravaganza.

I'm not saying to snub indulgences. That's unrealistic and by all means, we should all enjoy our choice favorites. What shouldn't happen is a complete drop the ball on healthy food intake.

My push-ups split with swim interval

The same goes for exercise, especially on extended vacations. If time away is only for the weekend, skipping the workouts would not be such a big deal. However, ten days or longer should include some fun physical activity.

I recently returned from a boating vacation and was able to balance indulgence, workouts, and healthy food intake. I made sure to swim a lot and use the boat creatively for exercise. I also planned healthy meals grilled on the boat.

Cheers!

My indulgences included bloody marys, brownies, and barbecued chips. Since I was active, on vacation and eating in proper portion sizes, I didn't even give a thought to eating off track. This is what I'm talking about with balance, fitness, and vacation.

Enjoy your time, but maintain your healthy lifestyle. Drop to the 80/20 rule to allow for indulgences. Refuse to give into mindless food frenzies. It does take a choice and looking at vacay with a fresh healthy mindset. Going on a trip? Remember to take your fitness on vacation.



A few more exercise and healthy foods typical of our boat vacations:

Pull-ups/swim interval

Core work/swim interval

Grilled Salmon

Filet Mignon

                                                                                                                  

                                      
Can a hair test determine our fitness along with foods and supplements best for our body? Read my recent article on this popular subject.

What Does a Hair Sample Say About My Fitness

Are you living well or Very well? Check out my Sports Nutrition page on the network and start implementing a healthy lifestyle!

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Nothing Better than Morning Coffee on the Boat

Today is Your Monday to Make Fit Happen

How many Mondays have gone by without starting your fitness program? The day is here again and what are you doing to get closer to your goals? We have good intentions, want to get in shape but follow through is lacking.

It's time to put a stop to the excuses always getting in the way of our health. Health is our wealth and we couldn't be so busy without it. Think about that. Declining health equals no work, no social life, and no money. Not that money is or should be the most important thing in life.

Our priorities are skewed and our reasons to not get fit make no sense in the big scheme of life. We shouldn't wait to feel sick and tired of being sick and tired. Our lives require a priority overhaul. Living a life without health is not a quality life at all. When waking is greeted to popping pills to run our body there is something wrong. This shouldn't be an acceptable norm for society. This should piss you off and motivate change in your life.

Today is your Monday to make fit happen. Someday is no longer an acceptable excuse and doesn't qualify as a day of the week. Do you want to lose fat, look good naked, feel great, move better, and be more confident? Do you want to toss those pills prescribed from self-induced illness?

Change takes a choice and you're responsible for your health and fitness. Your busy lifestyle should include workouts and healthy food. Fitness is good time management. Make going to the gym one of your social hours and don't cancel. Take time to pack your healthy food instead of dashing to nearby restaurants.

You can achieve your goals by applying simple changes. It will be a progressive life-long journey. Life is meant to be enjoyed with a healthy, fit body. The choice is yours to make it happen. All in fitness love. Stay Healthy!

Are you living Verywell? Don't miss out on helpful articles to achieve your best healthy body. Start with this great read on "Are You Eating for Muscle".

Read: Are You Eating for Muscle? 

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Be well and Stay Healthy ~ Darla :)

Fitness Goals Are Meant to Be Maintained

Reaching your fitness goals is an accomplishment to be praised.  Are you maintaining them is the question?  Fitness is not meant to be a temporary fix to get into a bikini or attend a wedding.  It's a lifestyle of health and wellness.  Sure, you will rock that suit and look good in those pictures but is that all fitness means?



True fitness success is when you live it daily.  Healthy foods are being consumed consistently and exercise is part of your normal routine.  In fact, getting off track for too long will make you feel like crap.  Fitness becomes a priority and excuses no longer get in the way.  You refuse to return to being overweight, sick and nearly dead.  You get the point.

I've seen too many people succeed at reaching goal weights, reduced body fat and improved health and throw it all away.  The belief system we can get away with returning to a few old habits snowballs.  The purpose of dumping old ways is to learn and keep new and healthier methods.  This is lacking and maintaining our health is suffering.

We need to focus not only on reaching our fitness goals but keeping them for life. Life is the event we are getting in shape for not bikini season.  Forget the clothes and stand naked in front of your mirror.  This will let you know if you're doing a great job of maintaining your fitness. I'm not talking about body and skin changes naturally occurring with aging.  We all know the difference and also if we're not living a healthy life.





We show outwardly how we live inwardly.  Not recording in your food journal thinking your body doesn't know is craziness.  Your body keeps the most accurate record of what you're eating and drinking.   Reaching fitness goals is possible because you have done it and maybe more than once.  Instead of having to repeat getting back and shape, why not just stay in shape.  Real talk all in fitness love.  Be well and Stay Healthy!

About.com has launched it's stand alone Health Page - Verywell!

"Think of us as your friend who also happens to be a doctor. Or personal trainer. Or dietitian. Verywell is your source for reliable, understandable information on hundreds of health and wellness topics that always keeps the reasons you come to us in mind.

Know more. Feel better."

Darla Leal, Stay Healthy

Enjoy my Sports Nutrition articles at Verywell and start reaching and maintaining your fitness goals for life!

Read My Articles at Verywell

Stop Enabling Yourself

What comes to mind when you think of enabling someone ... healthy or unhealthy?  The recent definition refers to providing help that perpetuates a problem rather than fixes it.  You know, the reasons and excuses we make to justify a person's behavior or actions even sacrificing our own health and well-being in doing so.  It can develop into such dysfunction where we actually believe we are helping a situation.   "The reality, though, is that enabling not only doesn't help, but it actively causes harm and makes the situation worse."  When an enabler steps in to help an addict for example, they take away their motivation and desire to get help or change. According to Psychology Today, "enablers help addicts dig themselves deeper into trouble."  

What does this have to do with fitness?  Well, it happens to pertain quite a bit to health and fitness.  Are you making excuses and justifications not to start a fitness program?  Not the right time?  My spouse is keeping me fat?  My friends sabotage me?   Lying to family and friends about a "fake" fitness program? What unhealthy beliefs do you create preventing you from getting fit and why are you enabling that?  This is my point and yes, I strongly disagree with enabling behavior.  It is time to stop enabling yourself.  Being a healthy and fit person will take breaking the cycle of enabling.

When you stop enabling unhealthy behavior, you will see an improvement in your mental game, motivation to exercise and eating right.  Continuing down a path of excuses will only make things worse and illness will eventually come knocking at your door.  We have only one body and playing around thinking our behavior will not come back to bite us in the backside is well, negligent.  Life is too short to entertain enabling behavior further and it is time to make a shift toward healthy decisions.  We can no longer hide behind our justifications that keep us digging a deeper unhealthy hole.  I know this is an in-your-face blog, but it is also what I call tough fitness love.  So, are you ready to stop enabling yourself and get serious about your health and fitness?

Don't miss out on my sport nutrition and fitness articles!  Newly published this week are "Eat Dark Chocolate to Improve Your Workouts" and "Why You Should Eat White Potatoes."   Take some time to peruse the site because it is chalk full of helpful fitness and nutrition info!

Read My Sport Nutrition and Fitness Articles!

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Be Well and Stay Healthy! Darla Leal

Don't Bite Off More than You Can Chew

The thing about getting healthy is doing a good job balancing both healthy eating and exercise.  Nutrition plays a huge role in the equation and eating too much is off the charts for a large percentage of the populous.  Portions are out of control and people are literally biting off more than they can chew.  Super-sized plates draped with enough food to feed an army are common in restaurants and don't get me started on the "all you can eat" buffet.

I love the famous quote "eat to live, don't live to eat" because this gold nugget of information is absolutely true.  This is not saying to not indulge occasionally and doing so in proper portion size is not going to break our fitness banks.  However, stuffing our faces to the point of having to roll to the sofa in a food coma is an upsetting example of living to eat.

Calories people!  What it comes down to is the basic science of chemistry and calories.  When we eat too much, fat is stored.  Eat too little, weight is lost.  Eat just right and we maintain.  Sounds like the "Three Little Bears" but you get the drift.   The quality of calories are also important.  We may eat "junk food" in very small portions and within the calories great for our body, but our inside would look like crap.  Further, we would feel like crap.  This is called being "skinny fat".

When calories from quality "real" food are consumed at the right portions for our body, then health is realized from the inside out.  However, eating too many calories from healthy foods will result in weight gain if we are taking in more than we are burning off.  It would be more difficult of course if most of our carbs came from veggies, but let's say we are chomping down tons of oats, wheat pasta, brown rice and yams...well now that's a whole different thing.

Size does matter when it comes to any food we eat and biting off more than we can chew is not good regardless if the calories are coming from healthy or unhealthy sources.  Portion control is one of the old new secrets to achieving a healthy body. Nothing magic to shutting our mouths at the "food trough" when we feel satisfied.  Start paying attention to portion size, don't go back for seconds, and listen to body signals of satiety.

Great reads on my about.com site! I have just published an article on how "Preventing Insulin Resistance is the New Trend in Health and Fitness" even over weight loss.  It is a growing concern affecting people of all ages and until insulin levels are mastered, fat and weight loss will continue to be a struggle.

Preventing Insulin Resistance...Read the article!

Other great reads to help with fitness goals:

Why You May Need More Calories

Diet Mistakes Women Make Trying to Gain Muscle

Diet Mistakes Men Make Trying to Gain Muscle

Eat Healthy, Feel Healthy and Look Amazing

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I Am What I Eat to a Large Degree

I am what I eat to a large degree and the whole "eating a sexy beast today" does not apply.  People ask me all the time about my nutrition and exercise programming outside of my working with clients.  I am a walk-the-talk trainer and maintain a fairly disciplined eating program and honestly, I would be a hypocrite if I didn't.  I am passionate about what I do helping people adopt healthy lifestyles and eating right plays the largest percentage in the fitness game.

I have maintained a healthy eating plan for several years and it is now a habit as natural as breathing.  I would feel weird if I began pounding down processed crap to feel like crap.  Eating superfoods daily and timing my nutrients is auto-pilot living for me.  I don't have to think about it or journal anymore but simply live it.  It is a process and habits do take time to develop.  All I know is I feel at my best when I eat the right things and combo that with consistent exercise.  My only downfall is not getting enough rest sometimes but disturbed sleep goes along with the whole menopausal thing.

I do enjoy teaching a simplistic and realistic way of eating right.  Nutrition should never feel like a burden but be a fun adventure of change learning how to sub out unhealthy choices for healthier alternatives.  It is true "you can't out exercise a crappy diet" and succumbing to food guilt punishment is not the path to fix that issue.  It is learning how to eat to become who you want to be and guilt is never connected to that.

Healthy food is also my preventative medicine and linked to decreased inflammation and reduced risk of disease.  Want to feel better and improve your quality of life overall?  Start eating healthy!  It may sound easier said than done, but it is a choice and working on what you really want in this life.  I blow no smoke working with clients about what it takes.  You can wish all day but if you don't apply the work, nothing happens.  The work becomes a healthy lifestyle and eventually you look back and don't even think about how hard it was but how good it feels now.  It's like giving birth and how the ultimate pain feels unbearable but the gift of a newborn is the amazing result (I would have to use a different analogy for men of course) but you get my drift.

I hope the holidays are treating you well and you are staying on track with your nutrition.  I have published a few articles on the about.com network that will be very helpful.  "Holiday Survival Tips", "Eat Healthy, Feel Healthy and Look Amazing", and you will really enjoy "100 Calories Superfood Snacks Made Quick and Easy."

           

             Read Holiday Survival Tips!

Read Eat Healthy, Look Amazing!

Read 100 Calorie Super Food Snack ideas

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Be Well and Stay Healthy

 

Giving Up is Never An Option

We all have hard stuff in life, frustrations, and days we just want to keep our heads tucked under the pillow.  The thing about life and the journey is navigating through everything with our best healthy responses, attitudes, and choices.  I am not immune to feeling the tough in life and even in my workouts.  There are days I want a trainer to kick my butt and push me when I struggle with lack of motivation.  Not every day goes as I had planned and nutrition can also take a hit.  Some days, I am just tired, burned and do have to take a step back and  away from the gym.  All that is OK and in my opinion, normal.  This afternoon, I chose to take an Epsom salt bath...there ya go!

 Life is not challenge free and success comes from how we handle the discomfort.  Building muscle is an uncomfortable process for example, but I push through to achieve a positive result.  Goals are achieved through planning and working.  I have put in years of hard work to get the results I wear in the form of muscle.  Tired or not, giving up is never an option.  As long as I give my best for me, no matter what that looks like, it is good enough.  Today, my best came through taking an Epsom salt bath and right now my sore muscles are saying ... thank you.

I have published some amazing reads for you on the about.com network, "How Food Guilt Affects Getting Fit," and "How to Stay Healthy During the Holidays". 

How Food Guilt Affects Fitness
read the article!

Holiday Survival Tips to Stay Healthy
read the article!

Thanks for stopping by my Blog and don't forget to subscribe below to never miss a free update!

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Darla Leal, Fit-over-50
 Stay Healthy