Eat Dance Live

Sometime in the middle of last week, I signed up for Gina's annual Summer Shape Up Challenge . This year's is an awesome 4 week routine (with optional meal ideas) and I've been loving it so far. In fact, I love her workouts so much that I mentioned her first Summer Shape Up Challenge (a full-on 12 week program she came up with in 2009 ) in an earlier post I wrote about the 5 best workouts of my life . Having just launched into a new SSU series, I thought I'd talk about the flip side of that coin by sharing exercises that I just dread. Conveniently, a lot of these are features in Gina's latest SSU so I guess I'll have to conquer my fears! I know, I know. They're really effective. You have to work up to them. It'll all pay off in the end, but as much as I love weights or bootcamp style workouts, whenever these babies appear in my routines, I kind of want to run for the hills: 1. Burpees: Push ups, planks, jumping up and down, all of these moves I love in...

I've mentioned this a few times in a variety of different ways, but I have often gotten comments and questions about flexibility. The secret? Stretch. No really. Stretch. After every work out. It's super simple, it only takes about 5-10 minutes and you can do it wherever and whenever you want. At the gym? Sure! Watching TV? Of course (more on that later)! To me, stretching is one of the three legs of the perfect fitness stool (the other two being cardio and strength training). Stretching is great thing to do, especially after exercise, but it's definitely under-appreciated. (If you're interested, that is a picture of me on an OmGym last year... They're awesome, though it depresses me to see how tanned I am when I don't undergo a Canadian winter.) Here are only some of the things stretching and flexibility achieve: relaxes your muscles after your body has undergone a lot of stress and impact (under a lot of stress and trauma, your muscles shorten, which will pul...

For all of you who actually got that joke, hah, sorry... So I have a new addiction: Hooping . By that I'm referring to the cooler version of hula hooping. It's not the kind you used to do as a little kid, but the awesome adult version, using bigger and heavier hoops. I totally recommend this to everyone! Why am I picking up this random hobby though? 1) As an avid summer festival go-er, I love to acquire as many miscellaneous talents as I possibly can. My long-term romance with tribal fusion aside, I've attempted poi (a skill I have left up to Andrew, seeing as how most people argue it was started as a flexibility exercise for male Maori warriors), have some pretty mad skills with the chinese yo-yo , tried Acro Yoga quite a few times, love love love our Om Gym , and more. Now I'm seeing hooping as part of my array of renaissance woman talents. Once my skill increases, I'm seeing LED hoops, fire hoops , and so much more... 2) As an avid dancer, hoopi...

So I realize I've totally been skimping on the dance and live part of my name (I already did note this earlier, but apparently, eating always takes a priority with me)... Though I still do believe that changing your diet changes your worldview, I don't believe any diet is complete without the proper amount of exercise/activity/workout or whatever you choose to call it. I think the most important thing for anyone who is seriously into working out  to know is to switch it up. Variety IS the spice of life! I see too many unfit girls on ellipticals every day for 45 minutes to 1 hour, and though they keep it at, nothing changes. Once you break the cycle of get on the machine get off the machine, you quickly notice that through excessive repetition our bodies go through workout fatigue: the results we get from doing the same thing every day drastically decrease as the days go on. I've personally found that I have to change whatever my workout routine is every 4-6 weeks, I both ge...