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Already on the floor? Try these quick inner thigh workouts
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The best way for me to find time to workout is to squeeze it in with something I’m already doing. When I’m laying on the floor watching t.v. with my little one, I can easily squeeze in these quick exercises to help me get beach ready (and make up for my Ben & Jerry’s binge). Seriously, I’m already on the floor, so there’s no excuse. I mix and match exercises from Popsugar, which is my fave go to site for fitness. YAY for summer!
Here are my top five:
1 – Pilates Inner-Thigh Leg Lifts
This exercise might remind you of Jane Fonda’s workout videos from the ’80s, but it’s been a staple of the Pilates mat repertoire for decades. Since the knee is straight, you work all the muscles of the inner-thigh group.
• Lying on your side, lengthen your bottom leg and cross your top leg over it. Rest either your knee or foot on the floor. Prop your head up with your hand, or rest your head on your arm.
• As you exhale, lift your bottom leg up, and inhale as you lower it back down. Your torso should stay still while you do this.
• Do 10 reps, then repeat on the other side.
• Watch a video on how to do the side-lying leg lift here.
Source: Megan Wolfe Photography
2 – Bridge With Squeeze
Adding an inner-thigh squeeze to your basic bridge will tone your inner thighs.
• Start on your back with your knees bent and your feet hip distance apart. Place a pillow, a ball, or a toning ring between your knees.
• Push up into a bridge. Keep your ribs aligned with your pelvis.
• Without raising or lower your pelvis, slowly squeeze your pillow 20 times. Lower the pelvis and bring your knees to your chest to round and relax your back. Then repeat twice for a total of three sets.
Source: POPSUGAR Studios
3 – Elbow Plank With Leg Lift
Adding a leg lift to your side plank tones the outer thigh while challenging your core. The trick to keeping the pelvis high as you lift your top leg is to reach the inner thigh of your bottom leg toward the ceiling.
- Place your right elbow on the ground. Extend both legs out so that your body is in one straight line and you’re balancing on the outside edge of your right foot. Flex both feet if you can, and rest your left hand on your upper hip.
- Keeping your spine lengthened and your abs engaged, lift your left leg up just higher than your top hip. Then slowly lower it back to your bottom leg.
- Keep your waist up and lifted, and don’t sink into your bottom shoulder.
- Do three sets of 15 to 20 repetitions on each side.
5 – Ball Pass
When I finally find time to get off of the floor, here’s a quick video to knock out a few thigh exercises in five minutes. Cancun, here I come!
http://www.popsugar.com/psvn/embed?video=34787582&width=728&height=410Quick Inner Thigh Workout from POPSUGAR
20ish things to do before turning 30
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As I turn 30 for only the 4th time (I think) I’m now ready to own my 30ish and fabulous life! I think the hesitation to accept my true age was the realization that I really can’t be this old unless my ish is somewhat together. Finally, I think I’m there…at least for the time being. Here are some things I had to do, and you can do, too 🙂
- Stop stalking your exes! You broke up for a reason; so if you were supposed to be dating them, you’d still be together. Do yourself a favor and delete them from your social media accounts to avoid the temptation. Oh, and using your friend’s page as a decoy is still stalking.
- Stop using acronyms ROTHLOL; YOLO; TTYL. Words are powerful, use them. Otherwise, you may be confused with a teenager.
- Have a savings plan or emergency fund in place.
You need a few months of living expenses just in case….and just in case is not an impromptu trip to Cancun. - Get off of your parents’ phone plan. You can’t claim to be an independent woman if you need your father’s permission to upgrade to an iPhone 6. Just sayin’.
- Delete the guy in your phone who only texts after 2 am. You deserve better than that.
- Grab that sweater (or dress, pair of pants, etc.,) you think you’ll wear one day if you’re not wearing it now, haven’t worn it in years and don’t see it making a comeback in 2015. Yea, throw that thing out. Clearly, your body has an aversion to it.
- Get your own spot. Living in your parents’ basement, or your BFF’s couch does not count.
- Have a best friend who is like a sister. She’s there for you no matter what, and will tell you what you need to hear. Who needs a ton of ‘friends’ when all you need is one really good one?
- A closet of “staples,” and among these things, something to wear to an interview, funeral, wedding, spontaneous Friday night drink at a casual bar and a dream date if Idris Elba ever knocks at your door.
- Negotiate your salary. Women do this far less than men when offered a new job (hello, we work so hard we really should be paid more!). If you’re not in the market for a new job, ask for a raise or a promotion. Be fabulously fearless, and use your
- Unfriend that friend who never calls you.
You don’t need to tell her you’re letting her go (girl, bye!), but mentally, it’s time to stop harping on relationships that aren’t productive, meaningful, and were dead around the same time of Nick Cannon’s rapping career. His comeback is as pathetic as you expecting her to call. - Have a hobby that has nothing to do with drinking, shopping or being around a particular person all of the time.
- Memorize recipes for a number of easy meals in case you find yourself hosting a last minute dinner.
- Get a passport. See the world, not just the next town over. Be prepared to pack at a moment’s notice to get away for a weekend, a week, or a whole new life.
- Have a trip you can tell awesome stories about and a few details that you swear to take with you to the grave. And pictures that did not pass approval from your friends to post on Facebook.
- Have a spiritual relationship. Connecting with a Higher Power really helps to center us and it’s crucial for us to not walk around this world aimlessly with no sense of purpose or fulfillment. Life is too short, get connected.
- Have an idea of who you want to be. Please, not a Kardashian (if so, please read #9).
- Stop snacking in bed after 9pm. Face it, after 9pm you might as well just tape the carbs/fat to your actual thighs.
- Let go of your social media addiction. You’re going to have some other addictions to worry about and your time may be best spent picking up a book.
- Stop having cheap clothing splurges. A $6 skirt at Forever 21 isn’t a good find (we’ve got to do better ladies), it’s as If you have pants that have the letters P-I-N-K going across your behind – which means NO BUENO. Put them back on the rack.
- Invest in a black blazer. Dude! Zara has some good ones.
- Having five glasses of wine… every night. What are you going to do when you’re actually going through a mid-life crisis? Turn up on a Wednesday? I need you to get to work early on Thursday instead.
- Stop talking about it and just be about it. Think about all the times you have moaned to a coworker about how unhappy at work you are or to a friend about how miserable you are with your boyfriend. We talk trash because it’s easy, comfortable, and cathartic — but nobody will know, and nothing will change, until you speak up. So do something.
- Date a guy you never would have dated before. I know, I know, you may think you have a good idea of what you want in a romantic relationship, but the willingness to explore different people and other ideas to find what exactly what you need is such an eye opener. News Flash – looking for the perfect man is a waste of time. The sooner you realize sacrifices must be made, the sooner you’ll start to appreciate the parts of life you do have (we’ll discuss the 80/20 rule another time). In life, no one has it all… except maybe Beyoncé.
- Stop worrying! It’s the hardest thing to let go of, but the most worthwhile once you do. Think about it, what would you do or try if you weren’t afraid? Kick worrying, and caring what other people (may) think about you to the curb, and living your life by just being free – being you.
On Happiness: Enjoy the Weekend
A little inspiration as I prepare for the week! It’s so easy for me to become so overwhelmed with what I need to do, and what I haven’t done, that it takes away from those beautiful moments were I’m grateful in the moment, and hopeful about the next great moment to come.
Let me tell you I have days when I feel like I don’t want to wake up. Days when all I want to do is cry in a bathroom stall but I have to be at my desk producing work. Days when I force the big smile for my children and try my damnedest to hide my sadness. But after brooding and worrying somehow a ray of sunshine sparks in my soul and I begin to believe, again, that everything will work out. I feel blessed to have the resilience to feel the fear and fight against it , because if I gave up too soon I would not see that things generally do work out. It may not have worked out 100% the way I wanted it to but it worked out to some satisfaction because I fought for a different outcome. Try to always believe that something wonderful WILL happen even when it feels like its…
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10 Ways to #gethappy
So put on the Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars hit “Uptown Funk,” Pharrell Williams’ “Happy,” anything by the Blind Boys of Alabama or Mozart’s “Clarinet Concerto in A Major,” and check out our 10 ways to get happy.
Why not pick one and try?
1. Practice kindness. Do something nice for someone else, whether it’s someone you know or a stranger. It can be spur of the moment or planned out. You can do the good deed anonymously or help the beneficiary directly, said Lyubomirsky.
2. Keep a gratitude journal. People who kept a weekly gratitude journal actually did more exercise, had fewer physical problems and felt more optimistic about the coming week and life in general, according to gratitude researcher Robert Emmons, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis.
3. Get spiritual. There’s plenty of research showing that people who participate in their local church, synagogue, mosque or other preferred spiritual community are happier. Even reading spiritual literature can be helpful. Not religious? There are ethical societies and movements that get people thinking beyond themselves.
4. Buy experiences, not stuff. A vacation with loved ones or buying tickets to a show or concert will make you happier than buying another gadget. Those gifts help you feel closer to others, said San Francisco State University psychology professor Ryan Howell. “Instead of buying the jersey of your favorite baseball player, for example, buy a pair of tickets to a game, which will allow you to spend time with a friend or a loved one.”
5. Buy stuff that creates experiences. So you still want to buy something? How about gear that allows you to have experiences in your areas of interest, such as games or music? “Experiential products such as sporting equipment or musical instruments are a special class of material items that allow you an opportunity to engage with people you care about,” Howell said. Even board games count, since you can play them with a friend.
Pharrell, Britney and more celebs pick U.N. #HappinessSoundsLike playlist
6. Stop hanging out on social media so much. People who spend more time on Facebook and other social media report lower self-esteem, less connection to others, fewer positive emotions and even more homesickness (for college students), said Timothy Bono, assistant dean and lecturer in psychology at Washington University. “Social media also evokes upward social comparison, often leaving us feeling worse about ourselves,” he said.
7. Stop checking your email. . People who check their email all the time are more stressed than people who check their email just three times daily, according to a recent study. We know it’s hard to do. “People find it difficult to resist the temptation of checking email, and yet resisting this temptation reduces their stress,” said Kostadin Kushlev, the study’s lead author and a Ph.D. candidate at University of British Columbia’s Department of Psychology, in a statement.
8. Focus on time, not money. Although people typically focus on money, marketing professor Cassie Mogilner has found that that focusing on time often helps people realize that time is a precious resource. That knowledge helps them be more deliberate in how they spend it. “This leads people to spend their time in ways that are more fulfilling and that make them happier, like connecting with the people in their lives,” said Mogilner, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
9. Lose yourself in your activities. Do you remember the time you “lost” yourself because you were having so much fun playing tennis, gardening, sailing, learning a new musical instrument, woodworking or baking the perfect pie? Increase the number of opportunities to “lose” yourself in a new or old activity that occupies your brain and body.
10. Embrace failure. Failing is way to learn what doesn’t work before we learn what does work. People who succeed often fail many times before they succeed. “Success requires acquiring experiences and learning lessons,” Bono said. “Very often, the best way, and sometimes the only way, to acquire that experience and learn those lessons is through failure: trying things one way, realizing what doesn’t work and then making the appropriate changes.”
If it makes you happy to share, please let us know the ways you used these tools on social media using the #gethappy hashtag.
Most Wanted: Happiness
http://www.oprah.com/video_embed.html?article_id=37473&width=574&height=321
I was recently at the hair salon talking to a fabulous entrepreneur about the challenges of having only female clientele. She laughed, “They just don’t know what they want!”. While she went on to tell us stories of how one minute the request will be for a simple set of turquois earrings, to change to a request of a pink necklace with matching bangles instead, all I could think about was the truth in her statement. We are so fickle – and we want so much!
So, what do I want? Hmmm, I’d say happiness (my simple way of saying a successful career, loving marriage, beautiful and smart children, wonderful friendships, no family drama, and to squeeze back into my pants from college – shall I go on?). They say the only way to achieve happiness is to focus on it. Oprah has even said focusing on what we don’t have is actually what leads to us being and feeling miserable. Honestly, I focus on what I don’t have quite often (I wish I was making more money, I wish I spent more time with my friends, I wish I had more free time, I wish my family was more like the Huxtables, I wish I wasn’t in so much pain so I could go to the gym – shall I go on?). Now that I think about it…I have been quite overwhelmed and a bit miserable lately.
So that’s my challenge! I want to focus on why I’m happy and grateful, while relishing in those good moments of which I can’t seem to get enough. I’m cracking open my journal to jot down the 3-5 things I’m grateful for or the 3-5 good things that have happened to me. Oprah swears by her gratitude journal and according to the Science of Happiness writing down your gratitude works because it gives you the space to focus on the positive, and this practice teaches you to notice, remember, and savor the better things in life. It may prompt you to pay closer attention to positive events down the road and engage in them more fully—both in the moment and later on, when you can reminisce and share these experiences with others. Reflecting on the cause of the event may help attune you to the deeper sources of goodness in your life. (Sources – Jeffrey Huffman, M.D., Harvard Medical School; Sonja Lyubomirksy, Ph.D., University of California, Riverside)
What are your three good things?
Simply Organic Products and mint cocoa smoothie
Tried it. LOVED it! Mint is so healthy, and refreshing – two qualities I want my best self to exhibit 🙂
Disclaimer: This post is 100% my opinion and view on the products alone. While I did receive free merchandise on behalf of the company, I am not receiving compensation for having affiliate links posted on my blog.
Simply Organics
I was so thrilled to have the company offer to send me some free merchandise! While I am not the best cook I know by any means, it is certainly something that I enjoy. I am always looking to try out new recipes.
What I received in the mail:
Simply Organic chili powder
cinnamon powder
crushed ginger root powder
peppermint flavouring
vanilla non-alcoholic flavouring
I have utilized Simply Organic’s spices in my recipes before. I have to admit, I’m pretty picky when it comes to my seasonings. I feel the best resource for them are to get them from their most natural state. However, that’s not always a viable option. These…
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Self Premier 