Fitness
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4 Reasons to Break Up With Your Fitness Tracker
Or “take a break” … or “just be friends” Here’s recent imaginary conversation between me and my fitness watch: Me: “It’s not me, it’s you. You only love me when I walk 10,000 steps per day, you take a lot of my work and exercise for granted, and I’m afraid you’ll share my personal information without my permission. In short, I invest a lot of time and effort in you, yet end up feeling inadequate and betrayed. I think we should just be friends.” Fitness watch: [silent] Fitness trackers are great for a lot of things – like setting a morning alarm that won’t wake your spouse. That is the…
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The Only Three Exercise Apps You Need
There are approximately one million fitness apps out there, covering every nook and cranny of the wellness/fitness realm. Some are super fancy and/or intrusive – asking you to enter your entire life story and sending you notifications ten times per day (boo!). Others are so chock-full of ads and pictures of oiled-up Schwarzenegger-like dudes that you can’t even really use them (time-wasters and body comparison – double boo). With a bit of diligence and perseverance, one can avoid the worst offenders in the above two categories (invasive and ad/’roidy). In this post, I’ll write about a few of my favorites; keep in mind that these are the ones that I…
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Three Reasons Noom is Not for Me
I was excited to try out Noom, a healthy-habit/weight loss app that’s been getting a ton of press recently. I dutifully entered all of my health info and stats as prompted and waited for my personalized recommendations. Imagine my surprise when Noom gleefully announced that I could lose 15 lbs by March! Surprised because, if I did lose 15 lbs, I’d weigh 100 lbs (I’m 5’6”), which would be unhealthy and darn near starvation. Noom. It’s an expensive app ($45/month at time of posting) designed by behavioral psychologists to help you lose weight. It’s targeted to millenials, because as stated by the app itself, millennials struggle to perform difficult tasks…
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Sports Injuries: 3 Steps to Complete Recovery
So you’re injured. You were humming along, being your active self – running, playing tennis, crossfitting, etc. – and you feel a knee pop or wake up the next day with searing pain in your shoulder. Whether you suffer an acute injury, like breaking a bone, or an overuse ailment, such as plantar fasciitis; it’s common to feel angry, sad, or even depressed about it. For me, coping with the psychological impact of an injury is harder than the physical recovery! No matter how you feel, one thing is for certain – we all want to recover well, and recover as fast as possible. In this post, I share a…
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The Best Advice for Long Distance Running
How to Develop a Perseverance Mindset The thought of long distance running as a hobby or recreational activity seems to put off a lot of people. I think it’s because running is thought of as (and can be) a painful activity that one must suffer through rather than enjoy. When I tell people that I look forward to my longer weekend runs, I often get bewildered looks. Is this negative perception due to memories of the “gym class mile” in middle school, running-as-punishment in high school sports, or some other running=bad experience? Certainly, running can be painful. Running when injured or trying to run a 5-minute mile with no training…
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How I Overcame Finishing LAST in Every Race
Principles for accomplishing ANY goal Do you ever feel like all your hard work is just NOT paying off? Like you’re beating your head against the proverbial wall to achieve something, yet have nothing to show for it? That is exactly how I felt when I started running. My first year on the track team in high school, I finished dead last in every single race. Grueling practices and lung-burning exertion all the way to the finish line, only to see no improvement – to fail, letting down my team and myself. Initially, I thought joining the track team would be a great way to become a runner. Until then,…
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How to Start Running … and not hate it
Oh how I love running! Let me count the ways: Little/no equipment needed. No gym membership required. No driving necessary. I choose the duration and intensity. I can do it alone or with others … the list goes on and on. Whether running is new to you or you’re returning to the sport after taking a break, there can be some anxiety in starting this exercise. But don’t sweat it! (pun) Running is something that almost anyone, at any age or fitness level, can start and enjoy. I’ve been doing it for 25 years … Get Started in less than 1 hour per week If you have 5 – 10…
