Exercise & A 5K!

Exercising is another healthy habit everyone should incorporate into their lifestyle. While your success at Weight Watchers isn’t necessarily dependent on exercise to lose weight, it’s definitely a great way to be healthier and speed up your weight loss progress. You can also trade your earned activity points and swap them for food.

When I started Weight Watchers over two years ago at 363 lbs, all I could do was exercise 10 minutes a day, three days a week. After 10 minutes, I was extremely winded because of my asthma and I couldn’t even muster the energy to continue. But I kept at it.

(source)

 

About a month later, I was down almost 13 lbs, and I upped my exercise time to 15 minutes a day, three days a week.

I kept at it and eventually upped my times and days I exercised. Two years later, I’m now at around an hour a day, five times a week, plus every workout day starts with a twenty minute yoga session I don’t count as my exercise time since I use it to de-stress and stretch out before my workouts.

I do a lot of different things on different days, making sure to alternate my cardio and weight training to create the ultimate fat burning and toning sessions.

I’m definitely not a star athlete nor running marathons, but I’m happy to say my asthma problems are a thing of the past and I no longer have to rely on my Claritin allergy medicine to just make it out of bed (it’s actually been close to a year since I’ve taken any Claritin!).

So even though I might not love to exercise, I realize there are so many great benefits to incorporating it to your weight loss journey.

I even made some exercise labels on Microsoft Word 2010, and printed them on magnetic paper I bought at Wal-Mart so I could arrange them on my weekly magnetic board.

 

It’s a great tool to have because if I’m not feeling a workout on a particular day, I can just switch it to another day without the hassle of erasing or rewriting anything.

Here’s my workout schedule:

Mondays and Fridays 
Are rest days. I usually use these as my shopping/groceries days.

Every workout day
Starts with a 20 minute yoga practice. My favorite is Jen Hilman’s Weight Loss Yoga Challenge #3.

View on YouTube

Tuesdays
Are arm toning weight exercises with Claudia Schiffer’s Perfectly Fit Arms (with 8 lb dumbbells),

 

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Followed by  a cardio walking DVD (Leslie Sansone’s Burn 30) with 3lb hand held weights. (Affiliate Link) 

 

Wednesdays

is a cardio filled day, starting with a 30 minute walking/running DVD and a 50 min free dance routine. In case you’re interested, I placed my dance playlist on Spotify.


OnThursdays
I do abs toning with a kettlebell workout by Tone It Up, and a 40 min cardio (jog) video I found on Jessica Smith TV.

 

View on YouTube

View on YouTube

On Saturdays
I do a 30 minute weight firming workout (Leslie Sansone’s Firm 30) (Affiliate Link)

Then, I do a 2 mile power walk featuring the Biggest Loser participants.

 

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View on YouTube

View on YouTube

 

 Finally, On Sundays

I just repeat Jessica Smith’s 40 minute Indoor Jogging workout and also fit in Claudia Schiffer’s Perfectly Fit Abs.

 

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And that completes my workout week!

I hope to improve my endurance and one day make it to an Insanity Workout or a Jillian Michaels DVD. Right now, she totally scares me! LOL But it’s definitely my goal!

By the way, can you believe I just recently participated in a 5K? Okay, it was a virtual 5K, but it was a 5K nonetheless.

Not only did the proceeds go to a great charity and I’ll be receiving a medal for participating, but I snagged an awesome 5K charm from Weight Watchers!

A 5K is 3.1 miles, and I danced my way to over 5 miles! Love it!

 

I’ve definitely come a long way from my 10 minute workout two years ago! Whew!