Hello out there in blogging land. All of you out there in the cold regions of where you live, hope you’re all surviving the cold streak that seems to be happening all over this week. So not liking winter. Well today’s picture , features another blouse that I got in the thrift store. Love the colors . And I’m still trying to work on that smile. As they say, I’m a work in progress. Before I continue with where I left off yesterday, want you guys to know I’m allowing myself to be really bad today, both in calories and sugar. Gonna be working out again to try and mitigate it a little, but sometimes you just have to do that, as long as you don’t let yourself be that bad every day. I posted this on the SIS SITE, but in case there are some readers who are not members there , I want to tell you about the new workout I got today. Here is a pic , they come as part of a 2 set DVD.

The workouts are by Shelly McDonald and it’s called Caribbean Workout. The workouts are shot on location in the island of Barbados. From what it says on the dvd back cover, this is the longest running exercise program on TV. This was produced in 2004, so not sure whether it’s still on or not. There are four workouts on each DVD. I did one workout from each one earlier tonight. I enjoyed both. The kickboxing one has kickboxing 1and 2, and then two more done with a step. You’ll workout using punches, kicks, jabs, and step routines ( If your doing the ones using step). Difficulty level is 3 out of 5. I was able to do pretty well on the kickboxing 1 and actually found it to be fun. It’s fast paced , and I didn’t always get it completely right, but just kept moving. I find that I am in much better shape physically , than in maybe forever. Because of my knee and foot issues , I used to not be able to do certain moves. My knee replacement must be even stronger now and my Arthritus better , because before it was impossible for me to do jumping jacks, but I find I can start to be able to do them now. I know I have much more improved stamina than ever. Here are the key fitness points to the kickboxing workouts. They are : 1 Muscle toning and fat burning, 2. Overall body conditioning, 3. Increases cardiovascular endurance , and 4. Focuses on balance and flexibility. I will let you know as I move to other segments. Will probably stay on the first one for a bit. Next we have the aerobics workout dvd. There are 2 low impact and two high-low impact workouts. I did the first low impact one. There are many familiar moves here and some not. It is high energy, but I found it to be doable. I couldn’t always understand what was being said fully , because the music sometimes seemed louder, but part of that might have been my hearing aids. If I didn’t get it right right away , I just kept moving. I enjoyed both workouts that I did and it was a good way to mix it up. The two workouts majorly upped my FitBit step count. I reached what I still needed for my 10,000 steps while doing the kickboxing workout. I never tire of feeling the vibrations coming from my wrist when I reach it. By the second workout, I had over 13,900 something steps. Here are the key fitness points to the aerobic dvd. They are: 1. Fat burning, 2. Calorie reducing, 3. Cardiovascular fitness, and 4. Focuses on leg muscles. If you are looking for something to add to your workout regimen, and want to push yourself a little, I recommend giving this a try. It can be found on Amazon, which is where I purchased it. Ok now we’ll try to pick up where we left off. Might have to do just a small section , since I took time from that to talk about my new workouts. The next segment is how to burn more calories by walking. We all know the more calories you burn, especially if you are burning more than you are taking in, the more the numbers will show when it comes to weight loss. The best way to burn more calories is to walk further. The farther you walk the more calories you burn, so the simplest way to burn more calories , is to just to walk further. Pretty simple math there. Concentrate first on building distance before you build speed. Gradually build up the amount of time you walk, aiming for 30- 60 minutes a day, 5-6 times a week. This second one is pretty interesting. Burn calories while you sleep. One normally doesn’t think of calories being burned by sleeping. I know at some point I need to start tracking my sleep with my FitBit. But you all know my weird sleep habits. According to this you can burn more calories while you sleep , by burning more muscle. This has to do with something called the basal metabolic rate, which is the number of calories you burn each day at rest. Here is a link which you might want to use. http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/blcalcalc.htm As I was going to say, this is something new to me , not sure I ever knew that you burned calories at rest. If you are a beginning walker you will be building leg muscles. For a balanced exercise program , you should build muscle with strength training workouts 2 to 3 days per week. Here’s a link to strength training basics. http://walking.about.com/od/fitness/a/strength.htm

Here’s another link to a 30 day quickstart guide for beginning walkers. http://walking.about.com/od/beginners/a/quickstart.htm. Seasoned walkers who have been walking for months or years, need to alter their walking styles to build more muscle just from walking. One such way would be through what they call the race walking technique, which uses and builds more muscle than regular walking. Here’s a link for those who are interested in learning how to race walk. http://walking.about.com/cs/rwtechnique/a/howtoracewalk.htm. For those not interested in race walking, add strength training to your workout regimen as described above. Ok folks , think we better stop here for now. Please let me know if you are enjoying this series on walking. There is just so much information to be had out there when you start looking. I always need your feedback so I can better serve you, my readers. Wherever you find yourself on your own journey of a lifetime, remember that each second of every day can be a new beginning. If you have a setback, or are just under the weather for a few days, or even a week or two, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off , and hit restart from wherever you left off. Just like the pause button on your dvr, pause it and restart whenever you’re ready. So stay focused, stay motivated, and never ever give up. You’ve got this , believe in yourself and , you WILL get to wherever you want to be. Till next, God bless.

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