7 Ways To Increase Your FitBit Steps {and general daily movement}

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Good morning! Can you believe we are getting pounded with MORE SNOW today? While up in Vermont over the weekend, RM and I were talking about how much better the snow is when you don’t live in the city. I love winter and love snow but living in the city and having to deal with parking and snow removal has literally made me want to move away! With that said, please make sure to stay warm and dry this week- and be careful shoveling! If you need workouts to do, but can’t get to a gym, I’ve got lots on my “At Home/ No Equipment Necessary” page, as well as the Kitchen Chair Workout I posted last week.

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a post talking about tracking devices and asked you guys what you thought of them. Do they make us crazy? Are they good for motivation? Is there a time and place to use these devices? I really loved reading all of your comments regarding this topic, and since it seems as though there are a number of you who thought they are helpful and a good way to hold you accountable, I thought I’d share some tips for how I try to get my daily steps in.

I’ve always thought of myself as an active person; I’m always thinking about ways I can move more and never get really find myself sitting for hours on end. I just enjoy moving, but I have to admit that there are days where it’s hard for me to meet my 10K steps goal… especially if I don’t work out. Even though I’ve been pretty good about not obsessing over my Fitbit and my steps, it’s still fun for me to try and think of ways I can get more steps, ultimately leading me to be more active. And, the beauty of these tips/ideas is that even if you don’t wear a Fitbit, they can still help you get more movement in, which is never a bad thing 😉 I know some of these are common sense things, but sometimes life, shortcuts and laziness get in the way and we forget about little things that can add up and make a big difference.

Park far from the door

This tip has been around for ages, but that’s because it’s a good one! I’ve realized that if I park at the back of the parking lot, I easily get in at least 500 more steps than if I parked in the first spot.

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Getting out of dodge…

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Hi friends! I’m just popping in for a quick post. What a crazy week, right? I don’t know about you, but I’m really just over this snow and the effects it’s having on the city and life in general. Between shoveling, saving parking spots, getting parking spots stolen, getting stuck in massive amounts of traffic, being on delayed or disabled trains… the city is not a fun place to live when it’s under multiple feet of snow 🙂

Needless to say, it’s been a rough week and I am SO looking forward to a weekend getaway to Vermont for a ski weekend at Sugarbush. I’m sure I’ll be posting on Instagram, so feel free to follow along for the fun 😉 I’m ready to be a more positive person, so hopefully after some relaxation, skiing, being outside, drinking wine and being with friends and RM, I’ll come back with a much better attitude!

snow day

 

Questions for you: Have you ever been to Sugarbush? Any places we should check out? Do you like to ski or snowboard? What’s your favorite winter activity?

Wednesday Workout: The Kitchen Chair Workout {Because I was snowed in…}

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Good morning! If you’re a fellow New Englander, I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of “snowed in” hours at home, right? Most of Boston was entirely shut down during Juno and even though this past storm didn’t have the same effects on the city, I still only left the house to shovel. Since I’m someone who gets antsy pretty easily, I was definitely itching to get some movement in (other than shoveling, that is. I’m so over it at this point.). But, since I couldn’t make it to the gym, I had to get a little creative.

I wasn’t feeling my Step360 and wasn’t in the mood for a lot of cardio or upper body exercises since I was pretty beat from shoveling. Enter: the kitchen chair! I was just playing around on it at first, but soon enough I was adding on and doing multiple sets of something that started out as an innocent way for me to get some energy out.  Continue reading →

5 Tips To Work Towards Achieving Your Goals

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Good morning and happy Monday, friends! For all of the Patriot’s fans out there- what a game, right?! Boston is a great city to live in during times like these… I think it even helped soften the blow of this storm today 😉

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January is generally a month of setting goals for the upcoming year. It’s a time a reflect on the previous year and to think about what you want to achieve in the upcoming year. While I tend to stay away from setting specific “I’m going to do X, Y, and Z in 2015”, in favor of just being mindful about things I want to continually improve (loosening up, stressing less, relaxing more, etc.), I did have a few fitness-related goals this year:

  • Improve my push-ups: Rather than wide arm, drop down a few inches push-ups, I want to do them with my elbows tight to my body and with dropping my chest all the way to tap the ground and come back up. The strength required to do this is much more than I thought it would be, so my goal this year is to do LESS crap push-ups and MORE real push-ups.
  • Do 10 unassisted Pull- Ups & Chin-Ups: Again, this is a move that seems so easy, but is really very challenging since it requires so much strength. It’s such an incredible exercise to incorporate into your workout routine because it utilizes so many muscles and is a great functional exercise.

Over the past month, I’ve been working towards improvement in both of these areas and I wanted to share some tips that have helped me. You may not have fitness-related goals for 2015, but I think these tips can be applied to a whole range of goals- fitness-related or not.

1. Make a plan. Simple enough, right? But for me, I find that if I write something down and detail out exactly what I want to accomplish, it’s much easier to figure out how to chip away and work towards achieving that goal.

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Nerd Alert: I love book club! <3

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My girlfriends and I have always talked about starting a book club, but for one reason or another, nothing ever manifested from those discussions. That is…. until about 6 months ago.  After too many glasses of wine, we picked our first book and decided to officially start our book club. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how it was going to go; I imagined us reading one book then switching to just a wine club- sounds about right for most book clubs, right? However, I’m pleased to say that we have actually made it quite a serious little book club:  we all bring book suggestions with descriptions for the next book, we vote on the next book, pick the next time/date/location for the book club meeting and then we discuss the book we’ve read with actual discussion questions. Granted we always do have a lot of wine and food, but still… Total nerd status, right?!

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