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Weekend Link Love – 05.01.2011

Bloggy Stuff – Recipes, Health, Fitness.

Nail Polishes… (These are just a bunch of colors that caught my eye.)

Randoms – Books & More.

What are you loving right now?

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Healthy Monday Tip #4: Walk for Exercise!

Healthy Monday is a public health initiative founded in 2005 in association with Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and Syracuse University. HM’s goal is to end chronic preventable disease in the U.S. by offering people and organizations a weekly prompt to start and sustain healthy behaviors, intentions, actions and initiatives. For most Americans, the week begins on Monday. Studies suggest we are more likely to maintain behaviors begun on Monday throughout the week. That makes Monday the perfect day to make a change for your health and the health of our planet.

I mentioned yesterday that I quit the gym and got tons of great responses. In keeping with the “quit the gym” and “fit for free” theme, today’s Healthy Monday Tip is…

Walk for Exercise!

I wrote about this once before (walking for health). Walking is something that you can add in to your daily routine no matter what – no matter how old you are, how fit you are, where you live, or how much time you have. I am a 24 years old, I work full time, I’m moderately fit, and I live in New York – and I walk every day.

How to Fit in a Daily Walk

  • Walk to work.
  • Walk home from work.
  • Take a 20 minute walk in the morning before your morning routine.
  • Take a 20 minute walk after lunch and/or dinner.
  • Have a date-walk with your significant other and chat about life instead of plopping on the couch to watch TV.
  • Go to the park and walk around with a camera; take pictures of pretty flowers.
  • Walk around your city or town and check out all the Christmas decorations.
  • Go window shopping (might be a good idea to leave the wallet home).

Why You Should Walk

  • It’s heart-healthy (apparently so is a 3/4 cup serving of oatmeal).
  • It’s good for your brain – as we get older our brains shrink… but the shrinkage is less for people who walk more. (I’m not kidding.)
  • It puts you in a good mood and fights depression.
  • It’s good for your bones (weight-bearing activity).
  • Walking a mile requires the same amount of “work” as running a mile. So why run if you can walk?

How to Walk?

  • Make sure you have proper posture. Stand tall as you walk; don’t lock your knees. Think of how monkeys walk (but don’t overdo it that much or else you will look like a goof).
  • Walk with your arms, too. It’ll increase the exertion.
  • Short and fast steps are good if you want to get your heart rate up, but…
  • Slow and steady steps are good too. Just get moving.

That’s all for today’s Healthy Monday. I’m off to… walk to work.

How much walking do you do?

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CSN Giveaway Winner

Random.org picked a winner for the CSN Giveaway… Click here to see who won!

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I’m not sure if I will have a long post for you today; I have a ton to do at work and later today a best friend is coming to stay with me. She’ll be here until Saturday. Tonight we are both going to concerts (I’m going to the Belle & Sebastian one in Williamsburg) and then we are going to have lots of fun tomorrow (facials!) and Saturday. Hoping to take her to my gym at least once.

Speaking of my gym, these are the classes I’ve taken since my last update:

  • Tuesday: Yoga. I love this class and I am going to try to take it once a week. I would take it more but I’m pretty sure he does the same flow for all classes in a set week, and I like to vary it a bit more.
  • Wednesday: Vinyasa Yoga. This was a really interesting flow – I will probably go back to see what else he comes up with. It wasn’t a sweaty flow at all, but it was a cool combination of poses.
  • Thursday (today): Cardio Sculpt. Awesome class! Just enough cardio and weights for my liking (it was only 45 minutes) – I did not walk away wanting to die but I did get in a great workout and was very sweaty.

I am off to work. I also have to do a quick clean sweep of my house before my guest gets here tonight.

What’s your favorite workout class?

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Updates

I updated my pages:

Go check it out! Tell me what you want more of. (I might not listen though. It’s my blog, not yours.)

Other things…

  • I updated Operation Wedding with pictures and results 🙂 More wedding stuff coming tomorrow.
  • I also updated my blogroll! I added some new favorites.
  • I got to see this lovely lady and she put me in a wonderful mood yesterday.

Aaand I got these moccasin boot things this weekend and I love them (they look kind of weird in this picture but they are not in real life):

I also got these keds at Anthropologie:

Let’s get some shoes.

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Goal Setting

I’m in an ambitious mood today, so here we go. My goals for the next few weeks (I want to see at least slight changes in all these areas by mid-September… my 24th birthday):

Going to Sleep Earlier

I am not really a night owl by choice, but night after night I fall into bed at 1:30am or later, only to roll out of bed at 7am bemoaning my existence. I took a class on sleep with my friend Mel down at Brooklyn Brainery a few months ago (BB is awesome, check it out if you are in NYC) so I do know that sleeping is incredibly important!

Goal: I’m going to follow the usual tricks – 1) get up at the same time every day, 2) set a routine for night (read for 20 minutes starting at 11 to get me sleepy), and 3) do this for at least 10 days in a row to get in the habit. I think ideally you’d do more than 10 days, but that is a start.

Food Less, Live More

I want to talk about some other stuff on the blog – I like food, but it’s not good to think about it too much. Maybe this is me being more intuitive.

Goal: Blog about other stuff every week!

More Fitness Fun

Been slacking a little on fitness, but I’ve been getting in some walks. I try to do 5,000 steps a day on a low day. 10,000 is better! I usually hit that. I’d like to do some more yoga, too. It keeps me sane, even if it’s just 20 minutes a day.

Goal: 20 minutes of yoga a day 5 days a week + at least 8,000 steps a day.

More Music Fun

Sometimes I listen to a song that just makes me happy. One of my (current; there are many more) favorites is:

  • Defying Gravity – this is off of the Glee Soundtrack. Actually the entire soundtrack is mood boosting. At least it is if you are like me, and you were a music nerd back in high school 😉

Goal: find a new song every week and play piano for 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week.

Were you a music nerd? Do ya miss it? I sure do. I have an audition for a choir tomorrow night, so I’m excited to (hopefully) have that back in my life. Favorite songs?

What are your goals for the next few months?

Are you good at following through on goals, or not so much? Why do you fail or succeed?