Personal struggles with work and exercise

As a Personal Trainer I live fitness; whether it’s writing a workout/exercise prescription for a client or helping them add small doses of daily activity. But with work, private clients, family and friends getting in my workouts can be a bit of a challenge.

The good thing is I know myself, this makes the challenge doable. I use many tools & tips. Here's a list of 10 tips I'd like to share with you:

1. Schedule your workout into your day. Adding exercising to your to-do list makes fitness and important part of you day and life. (This sometimes means I’m working one or two body parts, in-between clients.)

2. Choose a convenient gym/fitness center. If you like going to a gym, find someplace close to work, home or school so you don’t have to go out of your way. When your gym is out of the way, you will stop going.

3. Set attainable goals. Set small (short term) and big (long term) goals; your small goals will add up to your long term goals.

4. Keep a journal. In this journal track food and training, this will keep you accountable and tell you why you received your current results.

5. Use the Buddy System. Having a workout buddy can be great for motivation; just make sure your buddy have similar goals and is as dedicated as you are if not more so.

6. Choose/Find a Role model. Choose a person who is where you want to be, and maybe someone where use to be where you are now.

7. Surround yourself with positive influences. I’m not telling you to drop or kick anyone out of your life. I just think you should know positive thoughts and people contribute to overall health; negatively takes away from overall health.

8. Music. For my cardio the beat gets me up and moving; for strength training the music helps me focus and blocks out everything little distraction.

9. Photograph Evidence. A picture is worth a thousand words; I take a Front and Back picture of myself every 4 weeks (in a bikini). I know what needs more attention, I take measurements too. But really seeing is believing.

10. Visualize. If you can see yourself the way you want to look; it makes those early morning or late night workouts easier to fit in.

As you can see Personal Trainers are people just like you. We must schedule, plan, and find tools and tips to motivate and keep us going. I just add tools 6, 7 and 10 a little while ago. They have already made big differences in my exercising and my results.

Written by Laurel Horne, OnTrack Fitness personal trainer. Read more about Laurel here

Practice what you preach

It's been a while since I wrote a blog post, and there's a reason I decided to put if off for a while!

Being a small business owner is really great, and my fitness business is a lifelong dream come true. I love every minute of it, every day is an adventure. It's also a lot of hard work. I could work 24 hours a day and still have things to do. Combine that with my energy draining chronic illness, and a desire to have a personal life and you've got the makings for a really unhealthy lifestyle if you aren't careful!

Since I try to practice what I preach to my clients: being healthy is about the whole package including stress management and a balance in life not just fitness, I decided to cut something out until things died down. I used my extra time to rest, enjoy life and of course to keep fit!

I think everyone, but especially women, tend to try to do too much. Maybe it's a need to please, maybe it's a desire for control. Who knows, but I do know it's unhealthy to take on too much and then personally suffer. Nothing is worth that!

So, that's my story of why I haven't written a blog in a couple of weeks. Do you ever find yourself in the same situation I was in? What do you do? Do you keep pushing, missing sleep and denying yourself a healthy body? I hope not, it's just not worth it. You know what, the world doesn't end if we put something aside for a bit to get a little rest. Try it!