DIY spa

I often have spa vacation fantasies.  I imagine going away to a place where I have a week to eat delicious healthy food, get plenty of exercise, sleep well at night, and get a massage or two or ten.  I visualize myself by the pool, having done my morning workout, relaxing in the shade before my tasty lunch and my afternoon meditation or facial or yoga class.

Here in reality land, it turns out that I can incorporate a lot of that stuff into my regular life.  Sure it’s not quite the same since I still have responsibilities and since I have to take care of the details myself, but it can be done.

So this week is a semi-spa week for me.  I have to plan meals anyway, so they might as well be ones that nourish me more in line with my health goals.  I can focus my workouts on restorative and relaxing practices like Pilates and yoga.  There is nothing stopping me from going to the pool to swim or taking the time to meditate.  I can even schedule a massage if I want one.

It might mean that the laundry gets done a little slower, or that I procrastinate a little longer on the housework.  No one will die.  And I might just find myself truly refreshed.

Monday Workout: Jumping in!

There are lots of ways to make exercises more challenging, but one of the easiest is to add a jump.  (Yes, I know that regular jumping jacks are a jump, but plyojacks have a bigger range of motion, making them extra jumpy.)  Lunge jumps work all the same muscle groups as lunges while getting the heart rate up even more.  Some of us might not think this is a feature, so I will offer one other benefit of jump lunges:  they are over faster.  Please remember that if jumping is not appropriate for your body, it is a great idea to substitute a non-jumping version of the exercise.  Three rounds.

kb swings	30
kb 1 leg pass	20
kb 8s	10
plyojacks	30
flies	20
pushups	10
jump lunges	30
rows	20
pretty princesses	10

Thursday weirdness

Sometimes our usual motivational strategies don’t work.  Here are three totally out-there strategies to try when all else fails—I have used (do use) all of them.

1.     Pretend the workout is a montage.  Music selection is crucial here, whether you go all Rocky or Cinderella Man or Flashdance or Chariots of Fire.  Just remember that you win.

2.     Take a picture.  My Instagram is full of weird pictures from my workouts.  Finding, or at least seeking, yet another angle from which to photograph my spin bike keeps my brain whirling as fast as my feet.

3.     Tell a story.  I take the same walk with my dog every morning.  When I take photos of similar things over the course of several days, I make up a story to go along with it.  Currently, the story is the adventures of the traffic cones (Orange Witch Hats, in my telling).  I don’t know what they’re going to do next, so I have to walk to find out.

The point is that we have to do whatever works, even if it’s odd and we’re kind of embarrassed to tell anyone about it.