Weekly Fitness | Fitness Blogger Chats

Hey everyone!

I’m a little bit late with last weeks weekly fitness post although I’m sure most of you are probably thinking what do you mean last week? I think I’m the only person in the world who considers Sunday to be the start of a new week but regardless, here I am back with an update for ya’ll.

Today’s post is an interesting one so grab a banana and a glass of water and enjoy!

My diet last week was an absolute shambles and I don’t think I’m the only one who was suffering from a severe case of the see food, eat food diet. Both my mother and sister claimed they’d had a shocking week too so at least I’m not the only one. It must have been one of those weeks but you gotta have them right?

Despite the fact I munched a lot it wasn’t too bad as I actually exercised everyday Monday through Friday, focusing mainly on the ab and arm area. I did an abundance of sit ups and Russian twists, sometimes doing two sets a day morning and night and as I continue on with my fitness journey I am going to aim to do a few minutes ab work every morning even on gym days. It’s so easy to incorporate into my day to day lifestyle so why not? I will however make sure to have a rest day at least once a week where I maybe just walk a little more than usual as it’s important to give the body a bit of a breather every now and then.

On Wednesday I had a very exciting day because it was time for my works conference over in Birmingham, eek! Now work conferences are always fun but this one was extra fab as my team and I were lucky enough to have fitness expert Lucy Wyndham-Read come and give a talk about all things health and fitness. I hadn’t heard of Lucy before the conference but she was so informative I’ve made sure to follow her over on Instagram and YouTube so I can learn even more from her.

Lucy Wyndham-Read. Photo taken from google!

One thing I really took away from Lucy’s talk was the importance of walking and tracking ones steps. She said that walking is one of the best things for us and we should all aim to incorporate it more into our daily lives, it’s so easy and beneficial. As I work on a makeup counter in a retail store a great tip that Lucy gave us was to make use of the quieter periods when all our tasks were done to have a walk around the shop and aim to do an extra 100 steps, rather than just standing there on the counter doing nothing. I’ve done that a lot these past few days and do you know what, it’s actually surprising how quick it is to do 100! Lucy has definitely inspired me to walk more and because of this I decided to go for a stroll with my Mum around the lake today and we completely smashed it with a 9093 step count (before we set out I was only on 200 hundred steps). How amazing!

For a good couple of months now I’ve been a big fan of HIIT, short workouts (or longer if you fancy) repeating a pattern of high intensity exercise followed by short rest periods. For example a basic HIIT routine may go like so:

•30 seconds star jumps

•15 seconds rest

•30 seconds high knees

•15 seconds rest

•30 seconds jog on the spot

•15 seconds rest

You get the idea!

During her chat, Lucy really reaffirmed how effective and beneficial HIIT can be, stating that sometimes even a short HIIT workout at home can do more for you than a full hours gym session because your body is actually working harder by doing the exercises at a higher intensity. Of course the gym is still fab but on those days when you don’t get a chance to go HIIT is a great idea. You can watch one of Lucy’s suitable for beginners HIIT workouts here.

One of the most important things I took away from Lucy’s chat was how beneficial it is to switch up your workouts because the body can get so used to certain exercises they’re not as effective, plus different workouts target different areas of the body so it’s great to shake it up with a variety of different activities. I’m definitely aiming to incorporate more types of exercise into my life now as for me it’s always pretty much the same with cardio at the gym and HIIT at home. My goals for the next few weeks are to incorporate more swimming, dancing and walking into my exercise regime.

I felt so motivated after Lucy’s talk, she is so inspiring and informative and I feel so lucky that I got to hear what she had to say. I learnt such a lot from her and feel a lot more knowledgeable now in all things health and fitness related, I’m so excited to take away what I learnt with me and use it to achieve my fitness goals. Lucy presented herself in such a lovely, well spoken way and she’s very down to earth and humble which made her all the more brilliant to watch, she’s incredibly knowledgeable in all areas of health and fitness and you can see she clearly has a passion for her craft! If you’re into health and fitness I would definitely advise you to check her social media pages out, especially her Instagram and YouTube. Thank you Lucy for such a great talk!

With the new week upon us I feel more motivated than ever and my goals for the next 7 days are to exercise everyday, go to the gym at least once, replace one HIIT workout with a dance workout to shake things up a bit, to walk more, to maintain my fitness journal and to snack less.

What are your fitness goals for the week? Let me know in the comments below, we can do this!!!!

Love,

Jennie.

♥