Exercise Edition

 A couple months ago I responded to a reader’s request and wrote about what I eat in a typical day. Clients had a lot of feedback, as they always do. Some were happy to hear my day was “as clean” as their food plan and others weren’t as positive. One client even told me “I found what you eat unappealing” which is fine, as long as she doesn’t feel that way about her own food! On the blog, one of the comments included the following question:
This was great. Would you share a week in the life of Lauren--exercise edition? Would love to know what you do for exercise.

Before I share my exercise diary, I will say I think people fall into one of 2 camps with exercise. There are some people who hate exercise (or think they hate it) this either prevents them from doing anything or they do their exercise “because they have to” possibly enjoying the satisfaction of completing a workout though nothing else. Others love exercise or sports. They would exercise every day if they could usually limited only by time. I fall into this group. I realize exercise-lovers are pretty much Martians to exercise-haters and that it is difficult to switch groups.

I am training for the Chicago Marathon in October. My training schedule has me running 4 days a week. One of these runs is longer which right now is about 12 miles. The other runs are shorter. I have written about yoga before and it’s rather new for me. I started at the end of 2009 and was convinced I wouldn’t like it and didn’t like it at first. I now look forward to it and feel it has helped my running enormously. Nothing hurts! The tennis is a summer thing. I split a lesson with a friend once a week. If you’ve read this blog you’ll realize I am a guinea pig and my exercise routine reflects this. For 2 years I was addicted to core fusion, have worked with amazing personal trainers and if you check back who knows? Maybe my next craze will be Zumba, not likely but we’ll see. So here it goes:

Monday: Hot Yoga and Run

Tuesday: OFF

Wednesday: Run 4-6 miles

Thursday: Tennis and Yoga for Runners

Friday: Long Run 10+ miles

Saturday: Yoga

Sunday:run 4-6 miles
So perhaps I work out more than you do or if you’re one of my tri clients you may think I have it easy. Regardless, there are a few things I think are important with an exercise routine:
• Schedule your exercise- whether you are an exercise hater or lover. Most of you have busy days, the exercise cannot be fit in after everything else. If you’re not exercising, start with 2-3 days and attempt to keep those days consistent each week.
•If you want to change your body, change your workouts. Even if walking is your preferred form of exercise choose 1 day as your longer walk, maybe another day as a faster, shorter walk.
• It’s very hard to generalize recommendations but most people need 150 minutes of “sweaty” cardio (or more) weekly to get results.
• And finally (and I would hate myself if I read this on my screen) attempt to make it fun. If you hate the gym, maybe Wii fit will be better. Did you like to hula hoop or ride your bike as a child? Maybe that’s your answer. There is only so much time in life one should spend on the elliptical machine.

I promise, that’s it for writing about exercise for a while. My next post will be about the new wave of Aloe drinks or competitive eating or perhaps answering one of your questions. And to my honest client, I hope this wasn’t “unappealing.”
What do you do each week for exercise? Any current exercise or fitness goals? Type of workout you want to try? And are you a “lover” or a “hater”?