February 2012 – Happy February!
If wintertime has you feeling as if you’re stuck in your own personal version of Groundhog Day, living the same 24 hours over and over again, now’s the moment to break out of your rut. Winter can seem remarkably short when you have activities you enjoy doing outdoors. Being active outdoors allows you to breathe fresh air, get your vitamin D in the sunshine and may even give you a renewed sense of motivation. If you’re not into buying skis, snowshoes or skates, no worries, all you have to do is get on your winter boots – and your boot grippers for any icy spots – and use what’s in your neighbourhood or local park. Dress in layers, stay hydrated and get back to nature with these simple and effective activities that will keep you engaged in physical activity all through the winter. All it takes is a little imagination.
Pump up your heart
- Walking or running intervals. You can vary your intervals by fast walking or jogging for 30 seconds and then walking 30 seconds.
- Hill walking or running. Make good use of any hills. Really pump your arms to get up there. Walk back down.
- Markers. Use trees, telephone poles and street signs as markers. Walk to the first (closest) mark, jog back. Then walk to the 2nd marker (a little further away) and jog back to the start point, and so on. Use 3 or 4 progressive markers.
Bodyweight strength exercises
- Squats. Stand with your feet hip-width apart, squat by bending your knees so that your thighs are parallel (or close to parallel) to the ground, but don’t allow your knees to go further forward than your toes.
- Lunges. Take a big step forward with the right foot and lower into a lunge (keeping the front knee behind the toe), step the left foot next to the right and then into a lunge on the left side.
- Push-ups. You can push up against anything – the a bar, a bench, a tree.
- Step-ups. Find any platform you can step on to. Step on and off with alternate legs. For power, go for a smaller platform but do fast steps. For strength, choose a higher platform and keep it slow and controlled.
- Pull-ups. Use any bar that you can reach and grip, like a playground’s monkey bars. Try your first pull up. It may be tough, and one is great to start out with, but add more over your next workouts.
- Jumps. Try jumping jacks, scissor jumps (alternating right and left feet forward) two-footed jumps (on flat ground and up steps), long jumps, jumps on and off a platform, jumps into squats, and hopping on one foot
January 2012 – New Year – Best Year
Thinking about something will not make it happen. Thinking that you want to take holidays, does not transport you to your holiday destination. To make this year your best year, you need to: be clear about your priorities and what matters most to you; identify goals; and create an action plan that will keep you true to your commitments. Reflecting on the questions below will help you get started on making 2012 your best year.
New Year – Best Year Action Plan
- What do you want for you this year?
- What is your most important New Year desire, goal or intention?
- Why does this matter to you?
- What is the best possible outcome you seek?
- What do you need to do in order to create this outcome?
- What do you need to let go of to achieve it?
- What do you need to change to achieve it?
- What or who do you need to support yourself?
- How will you measure your success?
Remember:
- Take some time to reflect on these questions.
- Go over these questions more than once to become really clear about what you will comit to.
- Giving your goal priority and allocating your time, effort and energy to this priority will give you the outcome you seek.
- It’s all about making choices that support your goal; and you have the power to make the choices that will see you succeed.
- If your goal will take you a while to achieve, divide it into smaller mini-goals.
- Celebrate your achievements along the way.
- Seek out the help of friends, family and professionals to support you in your “best year”.