Gettin’ Sweaty at the Dog Park

Doggie wonderland.

I’m back! I know it’s been awhile, but I’m still here ─ and still living the California dream! In fact, my husband and I adopted the sweetest, most adorable little dog. LA is probably the best city on the planet to live with an 8lb dog, as these precious little creatures are actually treated better than children. Chloe, our little chi-spaniel, goes everywhere with us ─ brunch by the beach, shopping in Target, wine tasting, grocery shopping, movies in the park, dinners out ─ while you get my drift.

Anyways, besides all the everyday (human) places we take her, we’ve discovered another magical little place we now have access to ─ the dog park. Ironically, we have one a few blocks from our house, so it’s very easy for us to take her down the street to play. However, we recently discovered trips to the dog park can also be a fun way for us to get some cardio in.

This past Saturday morning, we took her jogging and ended up at the dog park. Then we jogged some more around the dog park. Back and forth ─ sprint interval style. And when we were done, we jogged back home. In total, we were gone about an hour and were all feeling tired and sweaty when we got home.

Chloe is fascinated by everything at the dog park.

So there you have it ─ exercising at the dog park isn’t just for pooches. Not only do you burn calories, it’s also a great excuse to spend quality time with a bunch of cute little doggies!

Tips to Have a Healthy Holiday Season

Image courtesy of Flickr user Bart Fields.

So, Thanksgiving is over and you’re left feeling like an overstuffed turkey. Don’t feel bad, it happens to everyone. While strutting down the street like a plump turkey doesn’t feel good, you may think you have no choice now that the holiday season is in full swing. However, that’s so not the case.

For most of us it’s true that the holiday season is not only the happiest time of the year ─ it’s also the fattest. While I don’t recommend trying to lose weight until 2014, you certainly don’t have to gain it. There’s many ways to enjoy the festive food the season has to offer without having to wear a belted Snuggie to your New Year’s Eve party, because you cant button any of your pants.

Three Ways to Have a Healthy Holiday Season

Trying not to gain weight this holiday season? Follow these tips to avoid being mistaken for Santa Claus on Christmas Day:

1. Deepen Your Bond with the Gym: No matter how often you currently exercise, ’tis the season to spend a bit more time on the treadmill. Whether you add an additional day or two onto your workout routine or spend a little extra time doing cardio while you’re already at the gym ─ if you’re going to eat more, you’re going to need to burn more calories.
2. Eat Healthy Between Parties: There’s no need to deprive yourself of your holiday favorites when you’re out celebrating the season. Remember, everything is okay in moderation. However, to balance out the high calorie party food, you need to dedicate yourself to following a healthy diet during your normal daily routine.
3. Bring Healthy Dishes: There’s a good chance you’re going to be invited to a holiday potluck this season. While many people use this as an excuse to create a concoction containing three days of your allotted fat intake, it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s countless delicious, healthy recipes you can make ─ and lightened up versions of classic favorites ─ that still taste delicious, but won’t leave you with a big, fat food hangover the next day.

So there you’ll have it, the holidays don’t have to be the fattest time of the year ─ unless you choose to play it that way.

Yoga — LA Style

Image courtesy of Flicker user istolethetv.

Until I moved to LA, my only experience with yoga took place at free classes that came with my LA Fitness membership in Pittsburgh. Why won’t lie — after a few classes I found myself to be pretty good. It’s probably worth mentioning that many of my classmates were overweight, middle-aged women, who probably used their gym membership for nothing beyond slow strolls on the treadmill. Whatever. Even with my (truthfully) sub-par yoga skills I was able to rock it out in free Pittsburgh yoga.

Fast forward to LA. I spent the first month we lived here whining that I wished the many trendy little studios in our neighborhood weren’t so pricey, while secretly scared to go anyway. Then my birthday rolls around and my husband presents me with a certificate for a month of free yoga at one of said trendy studios. Game on.

Yoga in LA

I won’t lie, I was pretty nervous for my first LA yoga class. I got dressed up in my finest yoga sweats, put some makeup on and headed out to meet the yogis of LaLa land.

The studio I go to is very LA. There’s a crazy expensive, yet totally cute, boutique in the reception room, then a couple of yoga studios off to the side. So far so good.

I walked into my “beginners yoga” class and it was H-O-T. I’m now three classes in and this is always the case, so I’m not sure if a hot yoga class goes on before mine, or if it’s just a way to weed out the weak. My second observation was the large amount of men in the class. In Pittsburgh, there were sometimes one or two super buff guys in class who were clearly shopping for women. Not the case in LA. These dudes were here for some serious planking — yoga style.

My first class started out with a loud “Oooommm.” I’m not going to lie, I found this odd. Even stranger when the class ended with one as well.

Thankfully, the rest of the class was pretty standard. No weird LA stuff. Actually I was pretty pleased that most of the poses were relatively simple. I went home and told my husband it was too easy and he suggested I go to the next level class. I considered it, then laughed. I’d rather excel in a beginners class, than risk being a dunce in a more advanced class any day. So judge me. Ooooommmm.

 

Working From Home Without Getting Fat

I worked from Vegas one day last week, simply because I wanted to…

When my husband and I moved to Los Angeles two months ago, I “retired” from corporate life to become a freelance writer. Working from home involves pretty much every stereotype you’re inevitably plaguing me with right now, so let’s just discuss them and move on with it already. I get up at a reasonable hour of my choosing each day, my dress code is sweatpants, and my office is usually the left side of my couch. I am the California dream baby!

One misconception I would like to clear up is the issue of eating healthy. I’ve heard that people tend to gain weight when working from home and this is one job hazard I just don’t get. Unless you live inside an all-you-can-eat buffet of lard, I don’t see how this is an unavoidable side effect.

Eating Healthy When Working From Home

1. Shop Healthy: Unless you’ve got an unruly housekeeper on the payroll who stocks your pantry with Twinkies and Oreos, despite your desperate pleas for apples, you’re in control of the food going into your house (and your mouth). Stock your pantry with healthy food and it won’t matter if you go hog wild in the kitchen every afternoon.
2. Exercise: When working from home, you don’t have to waste valuable parts of your day commuting to work, freeing up a good chunk of your day. Voila! Now you have no excuse not to exercise. Join a gym, become a jogger, take up yoga, or whatever floats your boat.
3. Get Cooking: When you got tied up working late at the office or stuck in a monster traffic jam during your days as part of the standard workforce, it was understandable that you’d want to order take out instead of getting started in the kitchen at 8pm. Now your working from home, so make your commute into the kitchen and start cooking healthy dinners. You’ll save money and calories!

Six Quick & Easy Healthy Snack Ideas

While delicious, food trucks typically aren’t to best place to find a healthy snack.

Healthy eating isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Many low-calorie snacks require lots of prep work before they’re ready to eat, which you don’t always have the time for when you’re in a hurry or just plain hungry!

While it’s a whole lot easier to grab a bag of Doritos or some cookies when you’re starving and in desperate need of food, that’s certainly not the way to go. Midday and late night binges can cause you to gain some serious weight. And fast. Instead it’s important to come up with healthy snack ideas that taste good and will fill you up.

Six Quick & Easy Healthy Snack Ideas

Practice your healthy eating habits by stocking your kitchen with these low-calorie snacks:

• Fresh Cut Fruit: Don’t wait to wash and cut your fruit until you’re ready to eat it. Do it in advance so they’ll be no excuse not to eat it when you’re on the prowl for low-calorie snacks.
• Greek Yogurt: Easy, healthy, and delicious, this is quite possibly the best snack ever.
• Kale: Keep some of these leafy greens on hand to turn into delicious crispy kale chips, requiring very little effort.
• Almonds: Healthy eating at its easiest. Opt for a handful or two, not a bowl of these satisfyingly delicious little gems.
• Light String Cheese: An awesome snack staple that should always be kept in your refrigerator. My favorite is Frigo Light String Cheese Swirls. Apparently most of the rest of the world is also a fan, as the grocery store is always sold out.
• Popchips: Feeling salty? Satisfy your cravings with any of the delicious Popchips flavors instead of one of their fatty rivals.

Five Reasons Not to Break Your Workout Plans

Let Donnie Wahlberg’s abs serve as your workout motivation.

Maintaining a regular workout schedule can be a challenge. You probably have at least a million things to do each day, so it’s not always easy to keep your workout plans. In fact, you may be wondering how you’re going to accomplish everything on your to-do list today and still make time for exercise.

If you’re thinking of skipping the gym, stop right there, and JUST DON”T DO IT! Here’s five reasons why you should do whatever it takes to keep your workout plans today:

• Health Benefits: There really isn’t any part of your body that doesn’t benefit from regular exercise. Keep up with that workout schedule and your entire body will thank you.
• Bragging Rights: Everyone hates listening to “that friend” boast about their rigorous exercise routine, but that’s only because they’re jealous. Be “that friend” and wear your unbreakable workout schedule as a badge of honor. As you should!
• Justifying “Cheat Days”: Everyone has a meal, or perhaps an entire day, now and then where they just unfasten the top button on their jeans and stuff their faces silly. When you exercise regularly, you won’t need to feel nearly as guilty about eating that cupcake, and taco, and wellll maybe a churro too…
  
• De-Stressing: When you have PMS, whether or not your period is actually looming, or really even if you’re a man or woman, nothing will improve your mood and make you feel better about yourself than a good workout. Trust me, it works.
• Skill Maintenance: It’s a lot easier to keep your workout plans when you’re already in good shape, than if you let yourself slide a bit, and your normal routines become a difficult torturefest. While it’s always good to challenge yourself with your workouts, it’s much harder to get back on the pony than just staying on for the ride.

 

 

How to Combat Fatty Movie Theater Snacks

Don’t you wish you could actually buy these low-calorie snacks at a movie theater?

If you’ve sampled the fine cuisine of one movie theater snack bar, you’ve pretty dined at them all. Popcorn, soft pretzels, candy, and the inevitable $7.50 Pepsi. Total health food.

When we moved to LA, I thought movie theaters here would be stocked with low-calorie snacks. I expected tofu dogs, side salads, Greek yogurt, fresh fruit, or at least Popchips, but no. So far we’ve been to two different movie theaters and each one had the standard fatty fare.

Now, I know you’re not supposed to bring your own snacks into a movie theater, but they really leave you no choice. When the “healthy” option is a 500 calorie soft pretzel, you have to take matters into your own hands…

Low-Calorie Snacks to Smuggle Into Movie Theaters

Okay, we’ve already covered that it’s wrong to bring your own food into movie theaters. It’s bad. Yeah yeah. We’re past that.

So, the next time you head out to a movie theater, stow some of these low-calorie snacks in your bag (or your pants, whatever works best for you):

• Emerald 100 Calorie Pack Almonds
• String Cheese
• Snack-sized Popchips
• Fresh cut fruit
• Homemade Trail Mix
• Pre-popped Popcorn
• Granola Bars

Don’t forget to bring a mini bottle of water too, in case you get thirsty!

For a Good Time, Take Your Workout Plans Outdoors

When the weather is nice, you want to be outdoors, right? If your response is not a big, loud YES!!, you have issues. There’s nothing like enjoying fantastic cardio workouts under the bright sun and clear skies of the great outdoors. Not only are you getting a great physical workout, it’s also fantastic for the mind.

I don’t know about you, but but my normal workout plans involve hopping up on the cardio equipment and quickly turning on the television. While I’m deeply grateful and a large fan of the built-in televisions on the cardio equipment in our gym, sometimes it’s nice to have a change of scenery when working out. And no, I don’t just mean channel flipping until I find a new show to watch. I mean giving the gym a break for the day and partaking in some outdoor cardio workouts.

My kind of nature, “the great outdoors”, a.k.a. the Hollywood Hills.

Now that we live in LA, my husband and I have no excuse not to fit some outdoor exercise into our workout plans. We both work from home, so there’s really no reason not to bust out of the office (okay, fine, our one-bedroom apartment) and get some fresh air. Running, biking, or even going out for a leisurely stroll, are all great ways to enjoy the great outdoors of sunny LA and burn some calories at the same time.

Last weekend we took a trip to Runyon Canyon, in the beautiful Hollywood Hills. Now that is my kind of park! Sweeping views of the entire city, under the watchful eye of the famous Hollywood sign, is the true definition of the “great” outdoors. At least in LA.

We had such a great time exploring Runyon Canyon! We went during the afternoon, when the sun was beating down at its hardest, so we just took our time walking around and exploring the area. Not the most challenging of our cardio workouts, but definitely one of the most fun! We’ll  be back again for sure, probably for a morning run next time.

The Hollywood Sign — so fun to go for a walk and see this!

Finding ways go about achieving your workout plans in a fun, scenic area makes exercising much more enjoyable! When you’re exploring somewhere new, or visiting an old favorite spot, you’re much more focused on where you are and how much you’re loving it, than your sore legs and massive desire to finish your workout as quickly as possible.

View of LA from Runyon Canyon

A Few of My Favorite Tone It Up Fitness Videos

Greetings from sunny Los Angeles! I’ve been living here for nearly two weeks now. Such a fun city! My husband and I have been having the best time exploring and getting to know the area.

I’m currently working as a freelance writer, so I can pretty much do what I want all day. No complaints about that! One thing I’ve been doing a lot more of is exercising. Our new apartment building has a gym that’s about 25 steps away from our little one-bedroom abode, which is a-m-a-z-i-n-g! Instead of just doing cardio and a few fitness videos here and there I’ve been adding these toning exercises to my regular workouts.

I love Tone It Up. They have the best fitness videos! They’re challenging, but not so much that you get discouraged and give up mid-workout, because you can’t keep up. These exercises are fun and you really feel them the next day, so they’re obvious doing some great work!

Here are three of my current favorite Tone It Up workout routines. Try them to get tightened up for those bikinis, strapless dresses, and short shorts!

Tone It Up Holiday Hottie Video

If you’re looking for full-body workout routines that you’ll feel the next day (and probably even the day after) this is it! Not only is this video fun, it’s also nice to literally feel the burn and know  you’ve really gotten a great workout in a short period of time.

Love Your Arms Routine with Karena!

I’ve been neglecting my arms for awhile and it totally shows. I hated going to the weight area at my old gym in Pittsburgh, due to the hoards of sweaty Yinzers causing major overcrowding issues. Thankfully our new apartment gym has a beautifully undercrowded weight room, in addition to the cardio area, so I’ve decided to get back to work on my less-than-sexy limbs. I love this Tone It Up video! I started out using 5lb weights on all exercises and quickly graduated to 8lb-ers on everything but the “Swaying Angel.” I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I am a beast!

itty bitty BIKINI! Tone up the love handles workout

Short and sweet workout routines that get the job done in a timely manner are my favorites, and this totally fits the bill! This workout is fantastic for many reasons. Best of all because it’s a five-minute workout that you actually feel the next day! I do it in hotel rooms, on days I don’t have time to work out, after pigging out when I’m feeling like a big cow, and when none of the former reasons apply, I do it just because I love it.

Karena and Katrina of Tone It Up make sure each of their workouts come with a downloadable printable that you can take to the gym with you, which is fantastic! I have these on my phone, because I always forget a move or two, so this way there’s no excuse not to do the full video in its entirety!

Moving? Tips for Eating Healthy in a New Town

Our moving caravan traveling through the Palm Desert.

My husband and I moved from Pittsburgh, PA to Los Angeles, CA last week! Little bit of a big change there, right? The entire process took a TON of work. From packing all of our belongings in moving boxes, to driving across the country in a Penske truck (one that I must add was pulling my sweet Mazda3), to moving ourselves into a shiny little third floor apartment, we had a pretty exhausting couple of weeks.

Thankfully now we’re all unpacked and settled into our new home in sunny LA, but it took nearly a week for us to get there. Between unpacking moving boxes and making frequent trips to Target, the last thing we wanted to do was stop everything and make dinner. Truthfully, our refrigerator had barely more than milk, a few containers of Greek yogurt, and some cottage cheese in it until yesterday.

Not only was cooking inconvenient, it was also the boring option. My husband and I are in full agreement that one of the most fun ways to explore our sunny new town is through our stomachs, like the little piggies that we are. As one can imagine, LA has ten of every type of restaurant you can imagine, and so many of them are actually healthy AND cheap! Too amazing for words. Finally though, yesterday, after five days of eating everywhere in LA, I made dinner in our new kitchen for the first time. And for the record, I did so again today. Oink on that!

Eating Healthy and Exploring Your New Town

If you’re also planning a move to a new town in the near future, or have already arrived at your destination, here’s a few tips for exploring the cuisine without expanding your waistline:

• Walk to Your Destination: If you live in a pedestrian-friendly area, walk to dinner instead of driving. You’ll burn a few extra calories and get to see a little more of your new neighborhood.
• Designate Dining Out Nights: At the beginning of the week decide how many times you’ll eat out that week. Then stick to it. If it helps, plan out where you’ll go in advance so you can look forward to it with hungry anticipation.
• Incorporate Local Specialties: Eating in doesn’t need to mean you’re doomed to feast on Hamburger Helper and Spaghetti O’s. Learn what types of fresh food your town is known for producing and incorporate that into your menu. For example, if you’ve moved to a beach town, start cooking fresh fish. You’ll get a taste of your new town without having to leave your own kitchen.

Moving to a new town is exciting! Exploring new restaurants is personally one of my favorite things, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s encouraged! Just remember, moderation is the key to just about everything in life.