Midlife Fitness, Health and Wellness Blog
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Anya Vitaly
I hope you enjoyed my last post “Find That Carrot And Gear Up For Success”.
We were talking about motivation and how to find it within yourself, inside, or outside. Preparing yourself mentally is of utmost importance to be able to stay motivated for long.
BE CLEVER and set achievable and realistic goals that meet your specific criteria.
HAVE A POSITIVE ATTITUDE and make sure that you remain in choice with your goal.
SEEK SUPPORT and team up with people who are willing to share your determination.
GO WITH MUSIC and get some music you love to stay motivated.
EXPRESS YOURSELF and invest in your best gym uniform.
In this post, we will talk about
~ how to start exercising
~ how not let the aspirations fade
~ how to develop an exercise habit
~ how to make it successful and impossible to fail
Suppose, you already know your strongest motivation point and you are self-determined to start as soon as possible. Your intrinsic motivation whether it is health, personal growth, seeking affiliation, or your extrinsic goals, such as social recognition, seeking wealth or influence, are being very promising for long-term exercise adherence. Great! Your incentives will be key to understanding your exercise behavior and will dictate it step by step leading to well-being and personal growth.
are among the fitness priorities in midlife. Many exercises can be performed at home, however, joining a gym or a fitness center will provide emotional health benefits as we often find lots of social interaction outside of our homes.
to start with just 15 to 30 minutes workout and make it as efficient as possible. Visit your local health club, take a tour with a gym professional and join that club if you liked what you saw. As a rule, gym personnel will help you initially with your simple exercise routine. They will show you how to use weight machines properly or you can always read instructions yourself. These are usually printed on every machine so you will not be intimidated by them.
You will find plenty of magazines, videos, and articles online and learn how to use various strength training equipment, free weights, weight machines and exercise tools, and pick up some tips how to avoid mistakes. It is important to use gym equipment correctly to prevent injuries.
“Gym Equipment Guide For Beginners – Names and Pictures”
by Ada Lane
Exercise Equipment
Here is the list of the most common gym equipment:
Abdominal Bench ~ Maybe
Barbells ~ One of my favorites
Bench Press ~ A must use
Cables and Pulleys
Calf Machine
Dipping Bars
Dumb Bells ~ One of my favorites
Foam Roller ~ Fun one
Hack Squat Machine
Hammer Strength Machine
Hyper Extension Bench
Incline Bench Press ~ One of my favorites
Lat Pulldown Machine ~ One of my favorites
Leg Abduction Machine ~ One of my favorites
Leg Curl Machine
Leg Extension Machine
Leg Press Machine ~ One of my super favorites
Pec Deck Machine
Preacher Bench
Pull Up Bar ~ One of my favorites
Smith Machine
Squat Rack
Stability Ball ~ One of my favorites to also use at home
Wall Ball
Kettle Bells ~ One of my favorites to also use at home
Dynamic stretching, core stability exercises, exercises using resistance bands, machines and weights can help strengthen your muscles by activating the muscles and tissues providing them with healthy stress. This can help decrease stiffness, retain muscle and build new muscle mass.
It also helps you maintain your balance and coordination, improves circulation around the joints and allows the joint to function optimally and move with ease. Use a resistance band when doing bicep curls or calf lifts.
Stretch to remain flexible and to move more freely. Stand or lie on a mat while performing stretching exercises. Stretching helps loosen the tissue that muscles are surrounded in, helps avoid injuries while using weight machines, and unlocks the tension and tightness in your muscles.
Just a short 15-minute stretching and resistance workout session will help reduce or eliminate pain or discomfort in your legs and your back.
Cardio workout is essential for building endurance and improving overall cardiovascular health. If you prefer you can walk or bike, hike, do dancing, aerobics, and swimming. Cardio helps you lose weight fast. Experts recommend using Elliptical. These machines are known to minimize the impact on the knees and hips with the maximum workout benefits. Other cardio exercises include but are not limited to running (moderate pace) and/or walking on a treadmill, using kettlebells, stationary cycling, and rowing.
For stress reduction try yoga. It relaxes both the mind and the body. It incorporates controlled breathing, meditation with physical poses where you are holding postures or remain seated in meditation pose.
Yoga may help reduce stress and tension, lower blood pressure. It may help you breathe more effectively and suppress negative emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt.
You can practice yoga at home or at a gym.
Some of the beneficial exercises from yoga include forward bends and lunges.
Anyone with joint issues, heavily overweight or recovering from an injury should try fitness program based on low impact bodyweight, including cardio and stretching. Slowly get your body in sync and later transition into free weights and weight machines. Exercises should be done standing up to minimize pressure on the joints. Your results will be permanent and long-term.
Pick exercises and machines you feel you will enjoy doing and adjust difficulty as you go. For example, if you don’t enjoy running, you can choose to walk briskly. Walk on a treadmill for 15 to 30 minutes. Make sure your inclines and your speed are in sync. I personally choose 3.5 inclines and 3.5 to 3.9 speed on a treadmill when doing a brisk walk. Picking the enjoyable types of exercises will allow you to follow through to form a habit and stick with it for long enough to see results.
Once you start exercising, your results will show sooner if you also start changing your eating habits.
~ meal plans which are a balanced flexible diet for every day that will help you lose and maintain your weight
~ calorie count
~ certain food restrictions
~ portion control
~ gaps between meals
~ meal options
Please share your motivation points and ask your fitness questions.
I’d love to hear your comments right on this blog!
P.S. I depend on the word of mouth. I would really appreciate if you share your thoughts and this blog content personally or shared through social media with your relatives and friends. Hope you will keep coming back to my blog. I will keep sharing helpful tips and ideas and appreciate every single one of you!
Hello My Friends,
I hope you enjoyed my last post “How to break your midlife mindset and turn it into a fit mind habit.”
I was talking about motivation and how to find it within yourself, inside, or outside. Let us just remind ourselves why it is so important to find motivation and to stay motivated for long.
Motivation is the reason or reasons why one acts or behaves in a certain way. It’s a driving force, incentive, inspiration, encouragement, or perhaps a stimulus that generates desire or willingness of someone to do something.
It is simply a fact that staying active, exercising regularly and eating healthy food will help you stay stress-free, good looking and energetic for life.
Since every person is different and every one is unique there is no one size fit all approach. Make sure you are setting personalized and realistic resolutions geared for success. Your goals must be timely, measurable, specific and achievable.
1. BE CLEVER:
You should only set achievable and realistic goals that meet your specific criteria. Once you do it, set a timeframe to achieve your goal. It may also be helpful to break your goal down to mini-goals. You may want to write down every step, every victory and every activity you are doing. You can adjust them along the way. It does not matter how long it may take to achieve your immediate or long-term goals. Be patient and you will get there.
Once you know what it is that motivates you, find more motivation to keep it going. The more the better. Once you get obsessed with the source of your desire, you will find more reasons to keep going to achieve your goals. To maintain motivation is to maintain that desire or interest with the positive attitude. Don’t let it go in the dust. You know that it becomes your obsession when hitting the gym appears to be the most exciting part of your day!
2. HAVE A POSITIVE ATTITUDE:
Make sure that you remain in choice with your goal. If you feel like you have to do it, then your own intention and desire get undermined. You have to stay in choice meaning that you’ve agreed with yourself to do it in a certain way, your way, the one that is right for you.
You choose when or where you want to do it and whom you want to partner with to share and implement your determination. Your goal should never feel like a burden, you are in control of your resolution, not the other way around.
3. SEEK SUPPORT:
Team up with people who are willing to share your determination and will bring a positive mindset. Stay focused yet relaxed with your attitude. Share your desire with friends and family, your partner, or a resolution ‘buddy’ to hold you accountable and who will be proud of your progress along the way. If you are a social media owl, share your success on social media. You sure have accounts like Facebook or Instagram and post pictures of yourself before and after so your friends can express words of encouragement so you keep motivated. Share your story and offer your own support to others.
4. GO WITH MUSIC:
When it gets hard to stay motivated, get some music you love. This will make you feel like you are back on track with your goals and refresh your positive feelings and your ambitious mindset. In addition, listening to music helps you exercise for longer, improves and enhances your workout by elevating your mood. It increases endurance and distracts you from discomfort that may be associated with some types of exercise.
Invest in some nice headphones. I plug in mine to my cell phone when I do cardio, and find my favorite music on youtube, but you can also use an MP3 player.
5. EXPRESS YOURSELF:
Afraid to show up at the gym because you are not sure what exactly to wear? Thinking that your old cotton t-shirt will do it because you will get sweaty and don’t want to ruin a new one? Wrong. Your performance and your mood depend on the freedom of expression. Your gym uniform is as important as your efforts. Your movements have to have a sense of freedom and a sense of improving body image. You have to feel comfortable. It is crucial to know you are doing the job right.
Cotton is great for comfort but when you sweat it gets heavier and slows you down. Gym clothes have improved in quality and safety in the recent years. Cotton with a blend of Polyester absorbs sweat and can be washed and dried easily.
I recommend investing in at least 4 or 5 gym items to get this out of the way as you think what to wear and what not to wear to your exercise sessions. You just change into a clean one every time you hit the gym and then toss it all into the washer on your laundry day.
~ how to start exercising
~ how not let the aspirations fade
~ how to develop an exercise habit
~ how to make it successful and impossible to fail
Please share your motivation points and ask your fitness questions.
I’d love to hear your comments right on this blog!
P.S. Click Here for a Free EBOOK
P.S.S. I depend on the word of mouth. I would really appreciate if you share your thoughts and this blog content personally or shared through social media with your relatives and friends. Hope you will keep coming back to my blog. I will keep sharing helpful tips and ideas and appreciate every single one of you!
Hi,
My name is Anna and I am 56 years young. I love to share age-defying tips and insights to help people evaluate, introduce, and reinforce new views to become open-minded about fitness, fashion, nutrition, and more. I do not have private clients and group programs.
I just want to share ideas to show what helps me personally to stay healthy, in great shape and stress free, things that make us all happy and active.
But first things first…
When I talk to my friends and acquaintances about fitness I often hear “Me and the gym do not go together very well…” They like how I look and they express admiration and look up to me as their inspiration.
However, when it comes to doing it themselves, there is an internal barrier. It sounds like they almost gave up on the idea itself and don’t want to even think about changing their habits. Change is hard especially when you are in your 40s, 50s, or 60s.
And I thought, before you even start you have to break this midlife mindset that is preventing many of us from staying active, going to gym, embracing and practicing healthy cooking and eating.
Once you figure out how to get motivated you can answer the next question:
What is the best way to start achieving your goal to become healthier, fitter and stress-free you?
I wanted to first share my own motivation tip that works for me personally. It is simple yet very effective.
Help yourself first so you can help others…
You were the one who cared about others and helped them most of your life often forgetting about your own self. And that’s great, you proved yourself to be caring, loving and helpful to others. However, you want to stay this way and keep helping others. But you are getting older now and in order to continue being helpful to others you now have to start taking care of your own health. This way you will continue to care for others AND you will never be in a situation when you yourself become a burden to others as you get older and more fragile.
Be honest with yourself.
Why do you want to keep fit? It could be a physical reason. You may be overweight and need to lose weight to get healthier. It may be a mental reason. You want to look younger. Or, you want to feel stress free and happy, have fun, want to feel desired and admired. In fact, most of the time it is a combination of a few. You just have to take time and look deeper.
Next, we want to think about what’s prevented you from doing something like this in the past? If you tried numerous diets but was never able to stick with any for too long or just got discouraged with the intermediate results? Or, you may be uncomfortable walking across a gym floor and afraid to be judged? You may hate an idea of going on a treadmill and rather just walk outside but not sure if that’s good enough for your particular goals?
Putting all the bits and pieces together will help you understand what motivates you most so you set yourself for success. It is important to prepare yourself to win.
Once you find that unique motivation and desire that it meant for you and you only, you can start educating yourself on what exercises you want to be doing and which ones will benefit most in your particular situation.
It’s just easier than you think to exercise regularly, eat healthy, and feel happy. All the time every time.
Now, for you, my readers!
Please share your motivation points and ask your fitness questions. I’d love to hear from you right on this blog.
P.S. Click Here for a Free EBOOK
P.S.S. I depend on the word of mouth. I would really appreciate if you share your thoughts and this blog content with your relatives and friends. Hope you will keep coming back to my blog. I will keep sharing helpful tips and ideas and appreciate every single one of you!
Thanks for joining me!
Anna Vitaly
Blogger/Writer/Fitness Enthusiast/Healthy Living Advocate
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
MyFitMind 