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Motivating Yourself To Workout – For Beginners

Your heart is a muscle; it can get stronger and weaker based on how you condition it. The universal recommendation is to get at least 30 mins of exercise per day, but that still leaves 23.5 sedentary hours in your day. This has made North Americans are more motionless than ever.

Even if you commit yourself to 30 mins of walking it can make a big difference in your health. People who don’t decide to exercise are twice as likely to get heart disease than people that have an active lifestyle.  

Regular exercise can help you:

  • Reduce cholesterol
  • Lower blood pressure
  • Burn calories & bad fats

The most challenging barrier people have to overcome when working out is, actually getting up and doing it. Most people work all day and do not want to get up extra early to workout before going to work, and most people are too tired after a long day, and the last thing they want to do is to work out.

These are all mental barriers that you have to set yourself to overcome. To attempt to combat these barriers you set on yourself try:

Setting goals and objectives

Goals without a time restraint are just wishes. Make sure that you give yourself a timeline to hit your objectives — set goals based on your weight, distances or lifting power and write them down. Writing your goals down makes them real; setting a time constraint makes them come true.

Example Goal: “I will lose 10 lbs in one month, by running 30 mins every day.”

Finding a good playlist!

“It is scientifically proven that music boosts performance, motivation and helps you push through the pain”. Music can have a profound effect on our emotional state – says Dr Costas Karageorghis from the University of London.

Different beats per minute (BPM) influence our feelings, the higher the beats per minute the more upbeat and motivated you will feel. The lower the BPM, the calmer you will feel, so certainly stick with a playlist that’s upbeat to motivate you!

Developing a solution/future-oriented thinking.

This will help you with your goal setting and motivation to get up off the couch even if you do not want to. Developing solution-oriented thinking means to think about the long term benefits and diverting from future problems because of the knowledge that you obtain right now.

Understand that if you do not commit to working out, you could cause problems to your physical and mental health in the future.

Realizing working out isn’t a sprint its a marathon

Understand by simply exercising you will not see results after your first training session… even after your third, fourth or fifth session. It’s essential that you do not let this discourage you from continuing.

Consistency is key. The more you test your body, the more adaptive it will become.

Rewarding yourself! (But not with sweets!)

This is a fun motivation tool. You can reward yourself with various things, but here are a few to get the thought juices flowing:

  • Put five dollars into a jar (or account) then once you hit 100 you can take it out.
  • Get new workout gear
  • After a certain number of workouts say, you can work out somewhere in nature opposed to the gym.

To help you get started, these are exercises we recommend to start with!

  • Running on the treadmill or outside
  • 50 pushups a day, 50 crunches and 2 mins of plank
  • Weight training  
  • Swimming
  • Walking

Check out this 6-week fitness guide for absolute beginners!

Be sure to follow the Mikey Network on Facebook & Instagram to stay updated with the latest heart healthy news, tips and solutions!

Curbing Emotional Eating

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Life can sometimes come crashing down on you all at once. Does this sound familiar? -It’s a busy time of the year at your job, your mother’s new medication doesn’t seem to show any improvements, and you forgot to pick up the cake you ordered for this weekend’s party.

You rush to the bakery as soon as you realize you need to pick up your order. While you’re there, you also buy a full box of pastries. On your drive home, you nibble on one. Before you know it you’ve had an additional two pastries, but did not take the time to enjoy any of them.

If this sounds familiar, t-ese are cues of emotional eating. It’s a coping mechanism where you turn to food for comfort when you’re stressed, upset or frustrated, and even when you’re not hungry at all.

The relief you get from food doesn’t last long and the prolonged habit of emotional eating could cause weight gain if your go-to foods are high in calories, sugar, and fat- which they usually are. The excess weight could increase your risk to heart disease, diabetes, and other issues.

We all have our comfort foods and a little emotion eating is perfectly normal. If it’s getting out of hand though and the clothes are starting to get tight, we have some tips get your emotional eating under control.

Here are some tips to help you control emotional eating:

Write it down. Record the thoughts and feelings you’re experiencing before snacking in a journal. Track what you eat, how much you’re eating, and what you’re feeling when you eat. This will help you identify patterns and make connections between your mood and cravings.

Ditch the distractions. When you’re having your meals, turn off all screens and focus on eating your food. Take in all the senses of smell, taste, and look. Make sure to savour every bite, take your time to chew, and stop when your body is telling you it’s full.

Healthy eating doesn’t have to suck. If you catch yourself in the act of emotional eating, take steps to get out of it. Substitute your cravings with nutrient-dense alternatives or reduce portion sizes. Drinking a glass of water first before having a snack can help a lot. Often when we thing we’re hungry a glass of water can curb those cravings. If you’re not hungry at all, go for a walk instead!

Pace yourself. Set small and obtainable goals to change your behavior. You could start simple like eating your meals at a table than while driving. Changing your longstanding habits require your commitment and patience, so don’t be too hard on yourself when you just start out – take it step by step.

Most of all, don’t beat yourself up over it. Guilt over eating will only add to your stress. Once you identify that you want to change, take a small first step and be proud that you are making a change not guilty over why you have to make it.



Interesting Facts About Your Heart

Healthline is a great website that has a list of interesting facts on all kinds of subjects. Of course, we think the most interesting list is the Heart Facts. Here’s just a sample of the cool things we’ve learned:

  1. The average heart is the size of a fist in an adult.
  2. Your heart will beat about 115,000 times each day.
  3. Your heart pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood every day.
  4. An electrical system controls the rhythm of your heart. It’s called the cardiac conduction system.
  5. The heart can continue beating even when it’s disconnected from the body.
  6. The giraffe has a lopsided heart, with their left ventricle being thicker than the right. This is because the left side has to get blood up the giraffe’s long neck to reach their brain.
  7. A woman’s heart beats slightly faster than a man’s heart.
  8. Death from a broken heart, or broken heart syndrome, is possible but extremely rare.
  9. The fairy fly, which is a kind of wasp, has the smallest heart of any living creature
  10. If you were to stretch out your blood vessel system, it would extend over 60,000 miles.

Visit https://www.healthline.com/health/fun-facts-about-the-heart#2 for more interesting heart facts!

Everyday Superfoods!

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Eating Well, is a great source that informs you on ways that you can eat well on a daily basis. They have shared their top 10 super-foods that anyone can eat on a daily basis!

1.Berries:

Berries are a great source of fiber. Essentially, fiber keeps your digestive system and heart healthy.

2. Eggs:

Eggs are very nutritious. Not only do they have protein and give you the energy you need, but they also keep your eyes healthy.

3. Sweet Potatoes:

Yum! Sweet Potatoes keep your eyes, bones, and immune system healthy.

4. Broccoli:

Broccoli is packed with vitamins. It helps with bone health and stimulates your body’s detoxifying enzymes.

To check-out the rest of the Superfoods by Eating well, go to: http://www.eatingwell.com/article/290550/10-everyday-superfoods/

There are plenty of Superfoods that you can eat everyday, to protect your heart-health and overall health. It only takes a few minutes to prepare for a lifetime of good health.

Heart-Healthy Workouts to do at Home

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Working out is often a great way to de-stress at the end of the day and a good way to keep your heart health in tip-top shape. We often recommend doing at least 30 minutes of exercise a day with activity of any kind such as a vigorous walk or a swim but recent fears of contracting the new coronavirus disease, COVID-19, have made many people on edge and avoiding places where they could contract the disease; such as the gym.

This begs the question, what to do you do if you don’t have a place to workout? Better yet, what heart health exercises can you do?

To help, we’ve created this list of exercises that you can do at home that will make sure that you maintain a heart healthy lifestyle.

Yoga

Yoga provides relaxing physical activity all year long and can easily be done in your bedroom, living room or just about anywhere in the house. You can even use yoga first thing in the morning to wake up slowly and get your body warmed up for the day. If you are new to yoga, try out a beginner level class or explore resources online to learn more about meditation and poses.

Running Alternatives

If you love cardio, you probably don’t want to give up that runner’s high, but you might not want to venture out into frosty conditions either. During the cold winter months you can get your heart pumping indoors with cardio workouts you can do at home, such as:

  • Climbing stairs
  • Jumping jacks
  • Mountain climbers
  • Burpees
  • Jump rope
  • High knees
  • Play

Chances are your family and family pets are getting a little stir crazy inside the house, too. Play actively with your kids or pets for another cardiovascular workout option. Whether it is a game of hide and seek or a family dance-off, playing together is a good workout and great fun. Just be sure to secure the breakables and move that coffee table out of the way.

Body Weight Exercises

You can do body weight exercises in your house easily without purchasing any special equipment. Just perform three or four of these exercises three or four times a week to grow stronger.

  • Push-ups
  • Crunches
  • Leg lifts
  • Planks
  • Squats
  • Lunges
  • Chair dips
  • Calf raises

YouTube Workouts

There are a lot of workout routines on YouTube. You can search “workout,” or you can search by the specific type of workout that you would like. This eliminates the need to use workout DVDs, and it allows you to mix up what you are doing to avoid boredom. YouTube is also great if you want to do a traditional workout with push-ups, squats, and crunches, but are unsure on how to properly do these types of exercises. There are tons of videos that instruct you on how to use correct form as you exercise.