The rest of my work day passed rather quickly since I was quite busy. Before I knew it, I was done and ready to change and head back into the weight room for my own workout. (I didn’t work out during the functional class I taught since it includes six circuits and I hopped all over the room checking form and offering modifications.)
My workout began with a five minute jog on the treadmill to warm up my muscles. Then it was time to target my legs!
After that workout, my legs were toast! I concluded my time at the gym with 15 minutes of light cardio on the elliptical.
Lunch
My late lunch featured a watermelon and feta salad with avocado.
Love it!
I also ate half of a whole wheat bagel topped with almond butter and unsweetened coconut.
Focus On One Healthy Habit
Making healthy changes to your lifestyle can be very, very overwhelming. There is a plethora of information out there about what you should eat and what you shouldn’t eat. What exercises you should do and what exercises you shouldn’t do. For someone just learning about fitness or healthy eating, it can be a lot to take in. This is something I hear from many of my personal training clients.
I’ve started encouraging my clients to focus on one healthy habit at a time. Since we’re already working out together, I tell them to let me take care of the fitness side of things. I give them workout “homework” to complete on the days when we’re not training together. (This is typically some form of cardio or a group exercise class of some sort since my workouts with clients are often strength or circuit based.)
We then brainstorm other areas of their life that may need revamping and focus on this area for one to two weeks. Some examples:
- Cut out soda
- Drink more water
- Go to bed earlier
- Eat fruit or vegetables with every meal
- Eat more protein
- Focus on healthy, mindful snacking
- Limit TV time
I think the key message I’m trying to convey is that a healthy lifestyle is composed of a bunch of little healthy habits. Sleeping. Moving. Eating healthy most of the time. It doesn’t need to be all or nothing or overwhelming.
I’m trying my best to help my clients break it down. Just because I eat something crappy right when I leave the gym doesn’t mean my healthy journey is over. It’s just that – a journey. The path to healthy living is not the path to perfection. The journey to adopting a healthy lifestyle will include high and low points, but keep on moving toward that healthy goal.
This week, I am going to focus on one healthy habit: Healthy, mindful snacking.
With my varying hours, I feel like I’ve been snacking all the time, even when I’m not hungry. I’ve been reaching for convenient, grab ‘n’ go, not-so-healthy food in the break room and know I’d feel better if I go back to packing my favorite healthy snacks to have on hand just in case hunger strikes.
Question of the Afternoon
- What is one area of your life you’d like to focus on making a little healthier?
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Cutting down on my beverages on the weekends.. yikes!
Definitely all about the little habits! Mine is to try and move more throughout the work day. I have job that keeps me at my desk most of the day so I downloaded a pedometer app for my phone that will track my steps. Even though I work out regularly I’ve made it a priority to move all day instead of just the gym part of the day!
Thank you for this post!! I struggle with the “all or nothing” mentality, and trying to find balance can be hard. Focusing on one habit at a time seems like a moderate way to approach it. Exactly what I need to do!
Love your blog!
I love working out my legs, so this is perfect for me. Thanks!
I have an desk job, so my goal this week is to walk around more during the day. I sit way too much and have noticed that my legs start to swell by the end of the day. Not good! Last week, I asked my office to get me a standing workstation. I can’t wait!
Sleep. I am a horrible sleeper and need to find a way to relax before bed time so I can sleep soundly.
Love this!!
I’ve been getting into the bad habit of drinking soda which is offered all the time at my office. I finally decided that I would ease myself down by bringing a multiple cases of seltzer in my car and grabbing one each morning. I do not want to drink my calories when I can eat them! Also I’d rather drink iced tea and lemonade than soda.
I would love to brush my teeth, floss, and use mouthwash more. Sometimes I forget on Saturdays until an hour after breakfast. I also try and floss but I could be better about it. And, I always buy mouthwash in bulk so I have plenty but I just think of it as a pain. I want to use mouthwash more.
Getting more sleep! Going to be bed early is a weekly promise…it’s happening more often these days though!
I love this post! I’m definitely in the habit of mindless snacking as well. I really would like to cut back my sugar though too.
I really need to work on planning ahead of time and preparing healthier dinners for my husband and I. It’s so hard when we’re both working full time and exhausted at night! I really hope to become better about meal planning, and buy all of our groceries for the week on like Sunday afternoon so when we get home at night we know what we’re cooking. It’s been so easy to just run to the mexican joint or sonic for dinner 🙁 YUCK! Then we wonder why we both don’t feel good the next day 🙂
i’ve tried this many times and failed: not drinking during the week. as a young lady living in the city, happy hours are just too frequent to pass up all the time! i’m trying to find a way to still be social yet not drink all the time… what a tough life!
I’ve run into this problem before, too! I usually order a soda water with a lime wedge (it looks like a gin and tonic!) and just sip on that throughout the evening. Since it looks like an alcoholic drink, it would help me *think* it was and people didn’t know the difference! Plus, I could wake up the next day and fully function at work! 🙂 😉
Snacking, for sure. I tend to mindlessly snack.
I love these!! My weekness is definintly diet soda and I have been working on cutting that back! I Think the key is taking it slow if you try to do it all at once it is much harder – you have to ease into it!
I love the way you put it that it’s a “journey,” because I struggle with that sometimes! I’m always trying to find ways to curb my sweet tooth and it’s urges!
This is a good way to approach building a healthy lifestyle. I know a lot of people struggle with getting enough sleep, but I have the opposite problem. I sleep too much! It’s something I’m struggling with. No matter how early I go to bed, I have the hardest time waking up in the mornings.
Hamstring ball curls are one of my go to exercises! That salad also looks delicious, I will definitely be making it ASAP!
Mine is definitely snacking! I snack when I’m bored even if I’m not hungry. I’ve been trying to focus more on my hunger signals recently and only eating when I’m actually hungry!
This is a great message! I have been focusing on healthy after dinner snacking. I find my sweet tooth hits at about 8pm so I’ve been coming up with creative, high protein options in order to get some nutritious food in me and curb these cravings.
I need to work on including more protein in my meals and snacks.
Great post! As a trainer myself I always try to tell my clients to make small steps each day/week/month. To many changes at once can become overwhelming. Small step leads to habit and success
Thats definitely solid advice. I feel like I finally have the gym thing down and its time to work on my terrible eating habits.
Alcohol. I have to drink less of it, and drink it less frequently. I’m pretty sure that’s the last of my bad eating habits :-/
I have been working on giving coffee up cold turkey. It doesn’t help with my anxiety and panic attacks 🙁 so that’s been motivating to not drink it. I’m on day 6 and haven’t gotten this far sans-coffee since before I drank the stuff 10 years ago! I have found that I actually sleep better at night without drinking the stuff in the morning, too. It’s amazing how even drinking one cup 12 hours earlier, can really affect your sleeping patterns. 🙂 The funny thing is, I don’t even miss it!
Focus on eating more vegetables at lunch. I make sure to get enough at dinner but need to incorporate them throughout the day.
i’d like to cut back on snacking at work…there’s always too much temptations…office birthdays, gift baskets @ xmas, chips, cookies, candy…it’s so hard to resist!
I work at an office that is ALWAYS filled with snacks – not the healthy kind. so my goal has been to resist temptation, bring my own, or just enjoy water instead!
I’ve been trying not to have dessert after dinner everyyyy night. I feel like I often get caught in the trap of having to have something sweet after dinner – even when I’m not hungry. Having sweets (mmmm ice cream!) on a special occasion makes them that more awesome if I don’t have them all the time!
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and just blogged about today. Big goals are often overwhelming and I derail myself. Now I think about micro goals and what I can focus on for short period of time. One goal for the week is NO SODA!
I need to cut down on drinking alcohol! I eat sweets every day, but I can control my intake of those. However, alcohol is a big vice in my diet and I need to start working on cutting down my partying! It’s just hard when you’re 22, in grad school, and didn’t really party during undergrad. It’s an excuse, but I feel like I’m making up for lost time!
My journey to a healthy life started my first semester of college. The junior college was right down the road from where I attended high school. Nearly everyone that graduated from my school before me gained the “freshman 15” after high school sports stopped and late study nights eating Taco Bell started. They all told me that it was for sure that I would gain 15+ pounds too, just like everyone else did. That was my motive NOT to gain weight. I was never the skinny girl, but I was not overweight either. Needless to say I actually LOST my freshman 15 and that is my story to every young girl and guy that graduates and is scared. I simply focused mostly on eating the right foods and went to the school gym to take spinning and weight train a little every day after classes! A proud success story!
Right now I am focusing on eating less processed foods and on drinking more water. As a right now, these are good goals for me!
I have two – alcohol and little sweet treats after dinner. I keep saying I am going to invest in one of those vacuum sealers for wine bottles. That way it will last longer. As it is now, once it’s opened, I feel like I have to have some each day before it goes bad. Plus, for me, the sweet treats are all to offten related to the alcohol. 🙂
Question – did you do today’s leg workout in a circuit, or did you complete all sets of each one before moving on to the next? I normally try to do whole circuits, but sometimes I have to break them into mini-circuits if the gym is crowded, so I don’t have to wait on someone.
Great point! I too try to help my members focus on one thing at a time 🙂
I’m trying to drink enough/a lot of water!!
I am very Type A so for me it is like an all or nothing thing…If I have one giant piece of cake, I feel like I’ve just shot myself in the foot for a month and working through that mindset is tough!
I’ve never trained clients professionally, but I think this is a great approach. It is real, and small steps at a time, something that is attainable for anyone.
Such a great post! Love the mentality – one I use a lot! I need to work on improving my snacking habits at night – I’m good at only snacking when hungry during the day, but late at night could use some improvement!
I lead a pretty healthy lifestyle overall, but I’ve definitely got to nix the afternoon coffee! I drink it black, and I’m a fast metabolizer of the decadent beverage so it could be worse, but I’m trying to cut myself off after noon. Easier said than done, but practice makes…better 🙂
What a great post! I just came back from a weekend of poor eating and I feel so defeated. Viewing healthy living as a journey rather than a win or loss is much more encouraging. Thanks for the motivation to stay on track 🙂
I’d like to focus on eating more meals. Although healthy snacking isn’t a bad habit, I tend to snack instead of eating a meal so I don’t get enough nutrients from certain foods. I need to start planning actual lunches instead of just eating a bar, a handful of something, a spoonful of something, etc. until dinner rolls around.
I think it is so true every habit you add can really add up and make you healthy. Years ago I loved my diet soda and I never knew how bad it was till I read article after article about it and then have it up in turn that helped me increase my water intake.
I need to get to bed earlier and get more sleep during the week.
Quick question for you…
When I do deadlifts I don’t feel the ‘burn’ in my hamstrings, as I should. Is there anything you can recommend as far as form? Just thought you might be a good person to ask since it may have been asked when you were teaching.
While I tend it eat healthy and not snack during the work week my weekends could really be better. My goal is to eat more mindful meals and snacks like the work week. The trouble is when I go out on the nights that bagel looks too good in the morning! I’ve been ordering soda water and lime in between drinks, no one knows the difference!
Ive been trying to watch my snacking, especially at night. Even if im not hungry I want a treat, which is okay sometimes but not every night. I think its nice to have someone hold you accountable too, so I told my husband he has to help me 🙂 PS I love the idea of peanut butter and coconut= genious!
I am always looking for new workouts and want to give that leg workout a shot. What is a hamstring ball curl?
Great advice! I feel like I eat healthy meals but get in trouble with snacking at my office. Mindful snacking is definitely something that I want to work on.
Portion control and listening to my hunger cues. I seem to have a bottomless pit when it comes to eating unhealthy things (chips & guac, ice cream, etc.)….I need to allow myself to have these things, but limit the portions of them and stop before I’m thanksgiving-stuffed!
I want to work on mindless snacking less too. I feel like I’m hungry all the time!
I want a more restful sleep. I find myself waking up one too many times. I wish I could zonk out and not wake up until I need to. All other areas of my life are pretty healthy.
I’ve been doing your warm weather circuit training a few times a day. I haven’t done the full 10 sets yet but I have done 3-4 in a row so far. I LOVE IT! Thanks again for posting it.
Love this post! Last year I cut out soda as part of a New Year’s resolution, and it’s so funny how now I don’t want it at all. Now I’m working on cutting back on alcohol. I really don’t go overboard, but I know we’re only supposed to drink a max of six drinks per week and let’s just be honest…it’s so easy to have one or two a night–and that adds up! 🙂
I need to work on the exercise portion of healthy living! I’ve been doing very well on eating healthy for the last 7-8 months, but I’m definitely a slacker on exercise.
Such good advice, and I’m sure your clients are grateful for the guidance. Making healthy changes can be overwhelming, so they are lucky to have you to break it down!
I too need to snack a bit more healthy. Too often, I turn to Goldfish and Swedish Fish (apparently I like the “fish” haha). So, I’m trying to eat more fruits and vegetables for my snacks. I’m a snacker by nature, and I think that’s ok, as long as they are healthy snacks 🙂
I am a victim of mindless snacking at times too! When you work in an office sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between eating when I’m hungry and eating when I’m bored or need a distraction. 🙂 Otherwise, I’m trying to focus on drinking more water! Some days are better than others, but I’m trying to be better about it because I know how beneficial it is to your overall health, and I really do feel better when I do it.
P.S. This post made me want to try incorporating coconut into some of my snacks! To the store I go! 🙂