Thaddeus Jeckell - Your Fitness Advocate
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12/28/2011
“HAPPY NEW YOU”
Hi everyone, I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas. Our holidays have been amazing. With a little one to enjoy opening presents with, it gives me another opportunity and excuse to be a kid again. In fact last night when my little guy fell asleep, I took the time to play with his new bat cave equipped with an elevator shaft. Awesome, I know! We have been celebrating the entire month and we will continue the holiday fun through the rest of the week into the New Year.
It’s time to start making those New Year’s Resolutions again. On average only about 20% of us keep our New Year’s Resolutions. This year make your fitness resolution stick. Choosing to be more fit and healthy should be a lifelong goal. Setting goals to reach your ideal fitness and health is a proven way to be successful. An excellent format for setting fitness goals is using the acronym S.M.A.R.T. This outline will keep you focused and motivated to continue throughout the journey.
S – Specific – Be specific about your fitness goal. “I want to lose weight” is not being specific.
M – Measurable – Measuring your progress is important so you know if you need to make changes or not, to keep yourself on track
A – Attainable – Don’t set yourself up for failure. Make short term goals that can be reached
R – Realistic – If you haven’t run a mile since high school, setting the goal to win an Iron Man this year is probably unrealistic. Ask yourself if the goal can be achieved with dedication not with drastic change.
T – Time based – You need a timeframe to accomplish the goal. This will add a sense of urgency that will help sustain momentum.
Make sure to refer back to my blog titled “It’s beginning to look a lot like Fitness” for my “Steps for Success” to make these goals a reality. Remember to reward yourself when you achieve your goal and then reassess and set another short term goal immediately. But, be careful of your reward type
Did You Know: Most experts agree that it takes about 21 days to create a habit and 6 months for it to actually become a part of your daily life.
Diet Success Challenge: This week let’s identify our bad eating habits; whether it may be late night snacks, eating when we are not hungry, eating when we are bored, emotional, or even happy. What kinds of foods do we reach for? Identify these foods and the reason why we reach for it? Do you crave certain foods? Are you a sugar or a salt craver? Find the trigger foods that are the culprit of your diet. Reduce these foods, don’t eliminate them. We will consider these foods our “reward” foods in which we will use as metabolism boosters in the future. Let’s concentrate on all of these triggers I have mentioned. Write it down and work towards cleaning the diet in this way. The challenge this week is to cut out bread for the next 7 days.
Fit Challenge: Can’t get to the gym or you are traveling. You don’t have a babysitter or you simply just want to be outside. Try my “Jungle Gym Workout”
Pull-ups/Hangs x10-15 Reps or :30 If a pull-up isn’t realistic grab the bar and just hang. This movement will target the same muscles as a pull-up in a stretched position.
Swinging Knee Tuck x10-15 Reps Place feet on swing and hands on ground. You should be in a pushup position. Draw knees into chest. This move targets the core muscles.
Bench Dips x10-15 Reps Perform on a raised step. Place hands on edge of step, feet flat on ground and slightly bent. Start movement by bending at the elbows until upper arm is parallel with ground. This exercise targets the triceps
Stepups :30 This conditioning exercise will raise your heart rate and work your legs.
Hanging Knee Raises x10-15 Reps Hit the monkey bars and hang from them. Draw your knees into your chest allowing your hips to follow.
Incline Pushups x10-15 Reps Find a bench or step and perform pushups with legs lower than your hands.
Lunges x10-15 Reps Perform this movement in a walking lunge. This exercise targets the entire lower body
Perform all exercises back to back with no rest. For the conditioned fitness enthusiast add 10 burpees in between each set.
Blog Teaser: We are purging the pantry, and kicking off the year with a new Diet Success Challenge.
Thank you
Your “Fitness Advocate”
Thaddeus
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