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Fitness Printable Roundup

Today, I’m bringing you a few awesome printable charts that other people have made, so we can all share in the wealth. I like that the following charts can be printed on regular computer paper, not cutting and pasting involved.

This one was from Rila’s post last year, but works just as well for this year’s bikini series. I like how you can plot out your meals and your workouts. I have been taking K and K’s weekly emails and jotting the workouts onto this sheet so they’re easy to see right away in the morning.

For everyone participating in the Tone It Up Bikini Series! I made this weekly organizer/progress chart for the Bikini Series! I’ll be using it to help me stay on task and motivated! It includes spots for: Morning Bootycalls (all you Tone It Up Girls know what those are!) Daily Workouts Mini Meal Plan (spaced into 5 separate meals)  I know this will help me, so if anyone else thinks it will help them too…feel free to use it! Good luck everyone :) (-riia)

This meal planner is handy too. I like how minimalistic it is as well. She offers a sneak peek into a few days’ worth of meals on the TIU nutrition plan. When I was trying to decide whether or not to buy the plan, I would’ve loved to have come across something like this.



This fitness printable set has pretty much everything included, such as goal sheets and workout charts. If you have an insatiable urge to organize, take notes, record and color-code things like I sometimes do, you’ll appreciate this li’l roundup.

Free Fitness, Exercise, Workout Printables



This goal-setter chart gets down to the real nitty-gritty. Plot out an entire year’s worth of fitness goals. I like this idea of short-term planning to get to long-term goals. You could really use this for any goal, fitness or otherwise.
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If you haven’t checked out my free printables for the Tone it Up Bikini Series yet, follow these links:
Any other ideas for printables that you’d like that you don’t see here? I’m always open to design suggestions. Yep, that’s right, I’m offering to do all the work for you:)

Weekly Workout Rundown

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Monday:
  • 40 min AM run, 3 miles
Tuesday:
  • 35 min AM run, 2.5 miles
  • 22 min PM Bridal Babe + Sunkissed Abs workouts

Wednesday:

  • 45 min Bikini Cardio AM run, 3.7 miles
  • 30 min Surfer Babe DVD in PM
Thursday:
  • Rest
Friday:
  • 40 min AM run, 3 miles
  • 45 min PM Surfer’s Paradise + Cowabunga workouts, 3 rounds each

Saturday:

  • 60 min run, 5 miles
Sunday:
  • 35 min run, 3 miles
This week, we’re starting to tally up our miles until the first day of summer. As of this morning, I am at 22.5 miles for #100bySummer. My workouts are pretty much on-pace with the #BikiniSeries schedule for the week. Links to all workouts can be found in this post. Oh, and I reached a number on the scale this week that I haven’t seen in a very long time, thanks to this Bikini Series. The numbers crept up a little over the weekend, but the downward trend seems to be sticking. I just really want to get into the “healthy weight” zone. Right now, I just fall into the “overweight” category, but I’m so close that I can taste it.
Holy sore-ness! I’ve got a lower back and shoulder thing going on this week that are pestering me, but not restricting my workouts in any way. I won’t do any moves that will worsen my aches, but I can still run and do pretty much everything. I just look like a 90-year-old lady when I try to bend at the waist and get up from my chair. I’m a tummy sleeper, so I’ve been sleeping with a pillow under my pelvis and that really helps take the pressure off my lower back. I may or may not be secretly using Ben-Gay. I’m not! I kid…

Our weekend was spent almost entirely outside due to the amazing weather we’re having in Wisconsin finally! I did some yard work, studied for my NASM exam in a lawn chair, took a 5k run around the neighborhood, accidentally crashed a cookout, went on a ‘coon hunt in the middle of the city, picked up veggie plants for the garden, and took a scooter ride. Peanut did some of this stuff with us, but he had a special sleepover and fishing trip of his own to attend. I’m feeling a cold coming on, but this warm summery weather sure seems to be tempering the effects.

Here’s our little neighborhood friend. Pretty docile for a wild animal. Hubster live-trapped and relocated her. Peanut has a weird fear of raccoons of all things, but he was all-too-eager to help his Da hunt her down.

How excited are you for the upcoming three-day weekend? I am! I am! We always hit up the city-wide rummage sales in the town where my husband grew up and put flowers on his grandpa’s grave while we’re there. It’s kinda a tradition now. We’re going to try and find this place again. And in two weekends, we’re heading to Chicago for a little family trip, centered around my NASM personal trainer workshop. This summer is going to be so good…

What trips do you have planned already for the summer?

Weekly Workout Rundown

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Monday:
Tuesday:
  • 45 min Bikini Cardio in the AM
  • 30 min Abs + 3 rounds of Surfer’s Paradise in PM
Wednesday:
  • 30 min Booty Shorts Cardio in the AM
Thursday:
  • 30 min brisk solo walk at lunch
  • 18 min 3 rounds of Love Your Arms in PM
Friday:
  • 30 min 2 rounds of Sunseeker + 2 rounds of Surfer’s Paradise in PM
Saturday:
  • 45 min run in the AM
  • 35 Grab a Friend Workout in the AM (performed solo)
Sunday:
  • Rest
*See last week’s Tone It Up schedule to see the workouts listed above.

Sunday was the only day that I deviated from the Bikini Series a little bit. I was supposed to work on my buns for Sunday Bumday, but I didn’t. I don’t like excuses, so I try not to use them myself, but I needed a rest day. I’m having some lower back issues, but I’m determined to not let it interfere with my progress.

This week we’re starting to track our mileage for #100bySummer. We have 6 weeks until summer officially starts, and it’s time to kick the mileage into high gear. I have no doubt that I will accomplish just that. I accomplished #100byVDay earlier in the year, those first 6 weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day. So, 100 miles by summer should be completely doable.

In other news, I have my CPR/AED training coming up really soon. Next month, I’ll be attending the NASM personal training workshop in Chicago and then it will be test time. I plan to hit the books hard for the next month-and-a-half to make sure I have my personal training certification in-hand by July. And that, my friends, is how I like to…Make it Happen!

How are you doing on the Bikini Series?

A Peek into my Daily Planner

Today I am giving you a sneak peek into my real-life planner to show you how I plan out everything from blog posts to workouts to family events.

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I originally intended to create my own planner in Microsoft Publisher or some other program, but it was getting too tedious and, as I decided, unnecessary. The problem is that I wanted to track too many things in one place and that got a little bit out of hand.

All the things I’d like to track:

  • Blog posts
  • Family events
  • Birthdays and special occasions
  • Workouts: time, type, calories, miles
  • Daily gratitudes
  • Bill due dates
  • Work-specific projects
  • My son’s milestones/memorable moments
  • Weekly menu planning
  • Daily to-do list
  • Bible reading plan/notes
  • Goal-tracking

Ok, so you can see how this might get a little overwhelming. Taking a step back, I thought about how I could get all of these onto one page or how I could narrow down all of these trackers a little bit. The answer came to me from inside a little bag from a vendor here at work. Colored gel pens!

With that, I grabbed a leather-like journal cover I had, a 2013 planner already in my possession (cut down just a bit to fit inside the journal), and a few sheaths of paper and got to work.

Instead of tracking everything separately, now I track everything together, just in different colors. That way, it’s easy to see what’s what and to see everything at the same time. Also, it helps prevent me from lugging a giant-sized planner with me everywhere. I really didn’t want something else to lug around. I’m a mom, so that’s a constant concern of mine.

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Here’s my color key:

  • Orange=special dates
  • Purple=workouts
  • Green=blog topics
  • Blue=family events
  • Red=work-related items

On each date block, I record all things listed in my color key above. I try to keep family events and birthday reminders toward the top, blog post topics in the middle and workouts toward the bottom. That way, I have a nice consistent structure. I just write out workouts as you can see below, with miles and calories listed if I’m tracking them. Simple enough!

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I then record milestones and memorable occasions in the little “notes” section. I transfer those dates and events to a yellow sheet tucked in the back of the journal. This way, when the year is over, I can recycle the planner right away but still keep a record of important moments throughout the year. Sometimes I’ll use these dates for scrapbooks or memory books. It’s just nice to have a list of each year’s accomplishments, even if they aren’t put into a scrapbook. We all know how hard it is to remember when you took that amazing vacation or which day your toddler learned how to form a sentence. I’ve been doing this since my son was a baby, and I can tell you for certain that had I not written his first steps, first tooth, first haircut in my planner, I never would have remembered when they happened. It’s also neat to be able to go back over these sheets each year and see what you were able to accomplish.

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Isn’t this just the cutest?
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My entire planner stays on my desk at work so I don’t have to cart yet another thing around on my poor shoulders. Sometimes I take the planner home on the weekends if we have a particularly full weekend planned. However, I do sometimes get into trouble when people ask me what I’m doing three weekends from now and I don’t have the planner in front of me, but oh well.

Grocery lists and meal plans, I’m keeping on separate sheets. I just use a printable like this to plan out my meals and what ingredients I’ll need to pick up. Then, I hang the list from the fridge and reference it throughout the week. This way, I don’t have to lug around a separate food journal and I can simply recycle the sheet at the end of the week. Plus no one ever asks what we have to eat in the house/for dinner. The act of actually eating healthy is strongly dependent upon a healthy meal planning system–fail to plan, plan to fail. If I’m tracking my food calorie for calorie (I do so occasionally to make sure I’m on track), I use the online calculator on SparkPeople.

Daily to-do lists I’m also keeping separate in a teeny little Tone it Up journal from the Cyber Monday deal. I may insert a post-it here and there to remember this or that without wasting pages. I keep the journal in my purse to stay on task each day. This is where my goals are broken down into steps and phone numbers are written down for those I need to contact–that sort of thing.

I have another separate notebook, divided by subject, that I keep blog brainstorms and tips of the trade in. I also jot down helpful blog layout tutorials and traffic-building ideas in there. This notebook usually stays at home next to my computer and I only reference it or transfer ideas into it when needed. It’s not something that I need to worry about keeping track of on a daily basis, because my blog post ideas are usually spread out over the week in my planner already.

I’ve decided to go with a gratitude journal app on my phone instead of keeping paper copies of that too. I do like to look back on these (i.e. don’t want to throw them away), but I don’t want to keep a paper notebook of them (more clutter). So, I’m recording these digitally, only when I feel I need a boost or have something really special to record. Yes, I do think a gratitude journal is important enough to not exclude. There is so much research out there that correlates gratitude journals to happiness. They help change thought patterns to the positive, encourage you to embrace what is going right, remind you of all that you have, and help you feel fulfilled (just Google it). I ain’t giving that up!

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So there you have it, a glimpse into the real-life planning system of a regular momma, writer, and fitness fanatic. Doable right? How do you keep everything straight?

Weekly Workout Rundown

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Monday:
Tuesday:
  • 30 min interval run in AM
  • 7 min Sunkissed Abs + 14 min Sunseeker x2 in PM
Wednesday:
  • 20 min Cocktail Dress WO at lunch
  • 15 min Cocktail Dress + 10 min Bikini Booty in PM
Thursday:
  • 35 min Itty Bitty Bikini Cardio in AM
  • 30 min Under the Sea x3 in PM
Friday:
  • 35 min run in AM
  • 18 min Malibooty x2 in PM
Saturday:
  • 45 min Zumba in AM
  • 20 min casual evening walk
Sunday:
  • Rest
To see all the Tone it Up workouts from last week (Australia Week), check here. All workout videos, printable workouts and challenges are linked up in the weekly workout schedule. To get an idea of what I’m already doing this week for New Zealand Week, check here.



This past weekend, I went on a retreat with my mom’s church. We actually had a Zumba instructor in attendance, which was really handy. Sunday was not Sunday Runday for me. I just couldn’t fit it in between checking out of our motel, attending a morning session, driving home, stopping for lunch, and on and on. I’m not an excuse person whatsoever, but even I am willing to admit that it doesn’t always work out and that’s ok.

I did somehow manage to gain some poundage this weekend despite NOT eating copious amounts of food. No really, one of the meals they provided was fish and I don’t eat fish. So, I’m just hoping that this was a temporary weight influx that will go away fast. Before the weekend, I noticed that the TIU nutrition plan was making my weight drop a bit which is a huge accomplishment for me. I swear, my metabolism is more sluggish than a sluggity-slug itself.

Otherwise, I pretty much followed the Bikini Series schedule to a “T” last week. I’m enjoying finally being able to follow along with the Nutrition Plan this year. Together, the workouts and nutrition are a force to be reckoned with–and it’s working.
Happy Monday!

Weekly Food Prep

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This week, my menu was based upon the TIU nutrition plan of course, because the Bikini Series is in full swing and I want to make my best efforts. You can see the full spread below. I’ll break it down by meal, so you can see an example of what I’m eating each day.

 
 
 
 
  • Breakfast: Protein Pancakes with Peaches (pictured below) + Bombshell Spell
  • Snack: Grapefruit pieces + 1c Almond Milk
  • Lunch: PB&J Wraps + Apple
  • Snack: Creamy Cucumber Salad (recipe coming tomorrow)
  • Dinner: We’ve got grilled chicken, steaks, salad, and stir fry on the menu. Sides will be strawberries, dates and Brussels sprouts. 
 

I was barefoot, rocking out to some old-school Jackson Browne on my record player last night while prepping my food for the rest of this week. Hubster and Peanut were nesting down for the night, so I got a lot done. Spring is in the air, so my palate desires all things tropical, fresh, and light and my feet desire to be untethered. It’s a good feeling.

I used my very own meal planner printable to plan out the meals and formulate our shopping list. Then, I hung the sheet on the fridge so I can reference it each day. I tend to forget what we have to eat or what to pack for work unless it’s written down somewhere.

You’ll see quite a few mentions of things like the Bombshell Spell and Perfect Fit Pancakes out there in the Tone It Up community. These recipes are taken right from the TIU plan. If you’re curious to know more about the Tone It Up Nutrition Plan, leave a question in the comments section and I’ll try my best to answer them. Otherwise, there are tons of free lean, clean, and green recipes on their blog to test out too.

Bombshell Spell + Almond Milk

I know some people hate seeing what you’re eating online, but I’m not one of those people. What are you eating this week?

Weekly Workout Rundown

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Monday:
  • 25 min AM interval run, 2 miles, 377 calories
  • 20 min circuit training at lunch
Tuesday:
  • 30 min Insanity Cardio Recovery, 162 calories
Wednesday:
  • 20 min solo walk at lunch
  • 35 min PM run, 2.64 miles
  • 14 min Sunkissed Abs x 2
Thursday:
Friday:
  • 35 min AM run
Saturday:
  • 60 min AM run (45 min Bikini Cardio pictured below + 15 min extra)
  • 15 min strength (TIU in Foam Magazine)
Sunday:
  • 40 min AM run, 3.1 miles
  • 15 min of Tara Stiles Slim Calm Sexy Yoga before bed
  • On Monday, my friend and I got schooled by a nice-looking boy at the gym on how to do pull-ups on the available equipment. Now, I know some people are averse to unsolicited gym advice, but my friend and I were grateful for the pointers. He may or may not have had his pretty looks on his side:) I’ve also been practicing pull-ups at the parks whenever I take Peanut. It’s one of my goals to be able to do 5 in a row by the first day of summer.
    Tuesday was the start of the Tone It Up Bikini Series. I am one full week into the Tone it Up Bikini Series, and pretty much right on track. This week, I’m going full back into the Nutrition Plan, after Hubster does the grocery shopping. This morning I finally tried Perfect Fit pancakes (see Insta pic #1). I had been hoarding the one packet I got on Cyber Monday (ha!), and was dying to try the pancakes from the welcome packet, so I finally did.

    The weekend finally brought temperatures in the 70s and our town came alive again. After battling winter temperatures for the past, oh, 6 months (no lie!), we were all more than happy to spend our entire weekend outside without jackets. Literally, if we weren’t sleeping, we were outside. We did some work in the yard, had a picnic at the park, worked out on the porch, did some meal planning in the backyard. Oh, it was beee-you-tee-fulll! Every window in our house was open to infuse it with that spring scent.

    On Sunday, I realized I hadn’t hit my goal of incorporating at least 15 minutes of yoga into my week. Determined to reach that goal, I did 15 minutes of Slim Calm Sexy Yoga before bed. Oh, yoga right before bed is the most amazing thing ever. Maybe this is how I will incorporate more yoga into my routine, by doing it at bedtime. Sounds delicious.
    I’m so excited to dedicate another week to my goals and dreams. Next weekend, I’m taking a mini weekend retreat, so this is a short week for me. Weee!
    Images
    1. TIU Perfect Fit protein pancakes with peaches
    2. Meal planning in the backyard, TIU nutrition plan in-hand. Find my menu planner printable here.
    3. My makeshift porch workout station. Dumbbells + picnic blanket + sunshine = best workout idea ever.
    4. The kiddos played with chalk and bubbles while I worked out, natch!
    5. Flowers growing in the gutter are special: A view from my morning walk.
    6. My Tone It Up journal. Got a mini portfolio at work and decked it out. You’ll see my motivational quote and measurement printables tucked in there.
    7. Practicing pull-ups at the park.
    8. Glazed chicken and broccoli, a healthy meal at Ihop.
    9. Peanut pretend fishing with a stick down by the river.
    10. Peanut and I walking the trails after church.
    How was your weekend?

    Tone It Up Bikini Series Printable: Motivational Quotes

    I was a busy little bee again and whipped up this Tone It Up document with Post-it sized quotes. Cut them out and tape them to your bathroom mirror, fridge, dashboard, computer, or treadmill. The second page contains two inspirational Bible passages for all my Jesus-loving #TIUsisters out there.

    A few of the quotes are from Karena and Katrina themselves, like the leading life with your heart quote. They often talk about posture and leading life with your heart has to do with standing tall and literally leading with your heart out and shoulders back. Let this note be your visual reminder to stand up tall.

    A few of them motivational quotes would be great to post directly on your workout station. Use them as mantras to get you through tough workouts or reminders about why you’re working so hard. Check out a great post about effective mantras here.

    Download your free copy here

    Let me know what you think and if you have any ideas for more printables–I’ll see what else I can whip up!

    Enjoy!

    20 Tips to Help You Start Working Out in the Morning

    I think the time of day you work out is irrelevant, as long as you are actually performing at your fullest capacity. This, for you, could be before work, at lunch, in the evenings, or broken up throughout the day. The most vital part is that you find what works best for you so that you can stick with it.

    However, there are some undeniable benefits to working out in the morning:

    1. The evening is all yours and your family’s–no running off to the gym at the expense of family time.
    2. Working out before breakfast could increase your fat burn by up to 20%, without causing more hunger later in the day.
    3. Your workout is done before the distractions and stresses of the day could potentially keep you from your workout.
    4. It wakes you up better than coffee and the effects last much longer.
    5. You’re better equipped to run morning 5ks if you train in the mornings. Studies such as this and this suggest that you can train your body to be at peak performance at the time of day of your specified activity.

     

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    Now, it may be super hard to get your butt out of your nice warm bed at 5:30 in the morning. I hear ya.
    I have a really tough time with this myself, especially in the winter when cold air freezes me in my tracks and my eyeballs and body beg for “just another half hour!” Plus, it’s dark out, so your circadian rhythm fights back against your best efforts. However, since the beginning of this year, I was able to successfully transition my workout schedule with some creative tweaks.

    How to Start Working out in the Morning:

    1. Begin on Vacation: I had quite a few days off in a row this past Christmas break. So, I decided to start working out in the mid-mornings. Then, once I went back to work, it was much easier to transition into early-morning workouts. I wasn’t about to mess up all the progress I had made during those two weeks.

    2. Prepare Ahead of Time: The night before your workout, set out your workout clothes, prepare your morning breakfast (at least set out the ingredients), unfurl your exercise mat, and decide which workout you’re going to do. You’ll have everything in place to just roll out of bed and begin, barring all excuses. You also won’t feel so scrambled in the morning rush when you have made all your preparations beforehand.

    3. Write it in the Calendar: To help you decide what workout you’re going to do, it is helpful to sketch out a plan in your calendar. The calendar helps hold you accountable to your goals and breaks them down into manageable steps. Plus, it just feels great to mark x’s through all your completed sessions. Here are a few fun write-in calendar printables I found by way of Pinterest: monthly workout calendar, two-week calendar, designer calendar.

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    4. Build in Rest Days: Either designate a few days during the week that will always be rest days or give yourself one or two freebies during the week to use as you wish. I always rest on Thursdays and Sundays. This gives me something to look forward to (sleeping in!) and offers a little leeway so I don’t over-train. If I need to move around rest days, it’s simple to do. Building in rest days just makes the whole routine feel more sustainable.

    5. Create Plan B: Think about all the things that could happen that could make you miss out on a workout: your alarm doesn’t go off, your body feels too weak to get up, you find cat puke that needs to be cleaned ASAP, etc. Decide right away what Plan B will be, such as working out later in the day, giving yourself the day off, or doing a shorter but more intense HIIT workout when you’re running short on time. Being prepared for obstacles is more than half the battle to overcoming them.

    6. Go to Bed Earlier: Start easy, going to bed maybe 5 minutes earlier each night. Then, build up to about a half hour. At the half hour point, you have quite a good base for an effective workout session. Start there and increase as you progress. As an alternative, if your workplace allows, go into work a little later.

    7. Commit to just 15 minutes, for just one week: It seems a whole lot less scary to get up just a little earlier for one week than to commit to 45 minutes, 5 days per week for the rest of your life. See how that works? You can practically trick yourself into getting into the habit with this simple tip. Get up just 15 minutes early for a week and do the best workout that you can. You might just find yourself going a little longer, if your schedule is a little more flexible. You may even break up your workout routine into 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes after work until you’re ready to completely transition to morning workouts. It’s helpful to just start somewhere and build up from there.

    8. Make a Date: If you have friends who work out in the morning, offer to join them or join the morning session of your favorite exercise class. You’ll be less apt to miss a session when your friends are expecting you or you’ve already paid for the class.

    9. Nix Travel Time: You don’t need the gym. Say what? Yes, you can do so many killer workouts at home, so it’s unacceptable to use the “I don’t have a gym membership” excuse. Workout DVDs, fitness magazine printables, Youtube, Hulu and so many other resources are available to you on your own turf. Maybe you even have a pup that could use a good leg stretch in the morning. Besides, working out at home cuts out time lost on travel to the gym–another common excuse.

    10. Set a Motivating Alarm: Would you like to wake up to your favorite music or a bright light? How about waking up to your trainer telling you to get your workout in? You can always check your app store for a motivational alarm clock. For example, the TIU app comes with a playful alarm clock where you hear Karena and Katrina rooting or pushing for you in the morning. If you don’t have a smartphone, put motivational post-its on your alarm clock with reasons why you need to get up and work out or reminders of events that you need to tone up for.

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    11. Practice Tunnel Vision: clear your mind and just do it. Get dressed, brush your teeth and get to working out. You really have to tone up your tunnel vision muscles. Ignore the laundry. Ignore the dishes. Ignore the project you left out on the table. The more you are able to hone this skill, the better.

    12. Attach Activity to Something Fun: Catch up on all your favorite TV recordings from the night before (that you missed by going to bed so early, ha!). Get your news fix or indulge in guilty pleasure magazines. Treat yourself to a good tea after you’re done working out. When you attach working out to something pleasurable, it will become that much easier and enticing.

    13. Reward System: Set up a reward chart to show what you’ll get yourself after a week, month, quarter, etc of successfully working out in the mornings. Make the rewards simple–they need not be extravagant or costly. You can do something as simple as use that special body wash you were saving in the shower after each morning workout. Or buy a new flavor of tea for #12 above.

    14: Warm up: As soon as you’re warm, your workout will not feel so hellish. Winter is especially brutal. I like to bring our small space heater into the bathroom to get me warmed up while I’m changing. The hardest part about morning winter workouts is the cold. The bed has a much stronger draw than the treadmill. So, beat the cold at its own game. Find ways to get your body warm, and don’t give up on your idea of working out in the morning until after you’re warmed up.

    15. Watch infomercials or music videos: I sometimes find that watching P90X infomercials or music videos in the mornings pumps me up. The infomercials are great motivation to push it hard and the pop music pumps me up. It really depends on your mood and personal preferences. I just know that both of these have gotten me through tough workouts when I needed them to.

    16. Employ cheerleaders: Recruit Twitter friends, follow your favorite fitness role models, or post Instagram images from your morning route. Cyber motivation is powerful and proven. My feed is filled with ladies (#TIUsisters) doing their “Booty Calls,” a term coined by Tone It Up. Announce your goals on social media. Follow those other crazy morning runners. The more “likes,” “favorites,” and “retweets” you get, the more fire you’ll have under your feet. Once you feel like you’re part of that team of morning workout-ers, your motivation will swell. 

    17. Build in Snooze Time: pad in one or two “snooze” presses if you must. I have a hard time getting up after the first alarm too. If you know this about yourself, pad in a bit of snooze time. Just not more than one or two or you’ll be losing out on valuable REM sleep.

    18. Start Writing/Noticing Changes: Recording inches or lbs lost, energy gained, changes in confidence levels, etc provides instant gratification for what you’re working so hard for. Maybe you’ve begun to revel in the early morning sunrise or how your belt just went up a notch. Whatever beauty you’re gleaning from your morning workout, write it down. Take note of how your body feels after an AM sweatfest and makes you feel better throughout the day. This will perpetuate the habit and be a catalyst for future workouts, perhaps one day making you feel as though you never want to go back.

    19. Practice: Do one week of morning workouts here and there just to see what they’re like. Committing to the first week is always the hardest part, especially when compared to thinking about doing it for a lifetime. Try a few mornings or one week per month. You’ll start to get the hang of it with a few trial runs. When it doesn’t seem so daunting anymore, you might just make the switch with ease.

    20. Drink Some Coffee: Not only will it help wake you up, but it might also help you perform better during your workout. I linked to just one compilation of studies, but if you Google “coffee and exercise,” you’ll find a myriad of proof that this works. If you struggle with the waking up part of morning workouts, this is your magic wand.

    So, there you have it: 20 tried and true ways to make the transition to morning workouts a bit easier. Try out a handful of them and eventually you’ll make a smooth transition. Follow me on Twitter (@BounSee_Jess) to see what I’m getting done in the morning, before the rest of the world wakes up, and to get a dose of extra morning motivation.

    Any other tips from all you morning mavens out there?

    Weekly Workout Rundown

     photo 0e340d3e-62ba-4e55-9f4a-7258f16cd99a_zps3484b587.jpg
    Monday:
    Tuesday:
    • 30 min AM run, 2.13mi, 393 calories
    • 30 min casual walk at lunch
    Wednesday:
    Thursday:
    • Rest
    Friday:
    Saturday:
    • Rest
    Sunday:
    • 5k race, 29:11 official race time
    You’ll notice I tapered a bit toward the end of last week. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t tight and sore before running the 5k on Sunday. It worked! The run was amazing–though pretty dang cold even for being in Wisconsin. You can read about the 5k and my Peanut’s first official run in yesterday’s post.
    This week, I’m so beyond excited to be starting the Tone It Up Bikini Series, I can hardly stand it. The official kickoff email came out this morning. This year, I’m actually a member of the nutrition plan, so I will even qualify for all the amazing prizes. I can’t wait to hear what the grand prize is.
    If you don’t know about them yet, be prepared to have your mind blown. Tone It Up is the most amazing community of women who are either already addicted to fitness or are about to be. Their business and community model is something to aspire to, especially for a fitness professional. Right now, I’m busy getting the details down on paper, marking down my plans, and filling in my calendar. I will have a post soon about how I plan out my days, from workouts to blogging to family schedules, in my planner. Stay tuned for that.
    If you haven’t already signed up for the Bikini Series, head over here pronto. You’ll even get this free kickoff printable with recipes and workouts:
    BIKINI-SERIES-Tone-It-Up-Bikini-Series
    Anyone else signing up for the bikini series challenge? Anyone else as excited as I am?