Mimi's Fitness and Things!

So I noticed something that's happened to my face in the last couple weeks. My skin got clearer! Yes even at the tender age of 35 I still get outbreaks of pimples. I thought that stopped happening after high school but apparently not. I broke out all the time in my 20s. It happened less in my 30s but they were still there. But I noticed that my skin has been looking a lot clearer lately. So I did some research on this subject and apparently it's been shown that exercise has some wonderful benefits on the skin. According to WedMD, the increase circulation and the delivery of nutrients to your skin cells takes out damaging toxins.  Another thing that exercise does is increase the production of collagen. Collagen is the stuff that keeps wrinkles and lines away. In other words you stay looking young. My husband commented just yesterday how I look a little younger. Which used to bother me when I was 24 and people thought I was a freshman in college.  But now at 35 I'll take it!

Next in the series "Workouts I do so you don't have to..." SPINNING! Yes that's the official logo for Spinning on the left..  Now here's an exercise I never thought I'd do. I'm sure you've all seen the spinner bikes. They have the one wheel in the front that just goes round and round and never stops and the handle bars seem a mile away from the seat. That's for a reason. I just never saw myself pedaling like a maniac for 30 minutes and not getting anywhere. In a word it looked "dumb".  But I was invited by another colleague of mines who teaches spinning to join her class. I've been hearing a lot of people talk about spinning lately and since I'm all about trying now things to get fit I decided to go.Let me say it was an experience!  Now let's get this straight. You can't just hop on a spinner bike like you would a regular bike or stationary bike and start pedaling. No there are is protocol to spinning. First you have

Ok next workout in my series "Workouts I do so you don't have too" I tried Zumba yesterday. Now this isn't my first time doing Zumba I did it once before a few months ago and didn't really care for it.  The folks in those infomercials looked like they were having so much fun that I thought why not give it another try. Maybe I was just having a bad day.  So a colleague wanted to try it and I went with her for support. She's getting back into the workout grind so I said hey why not! So we get there at a smidgen after 2. We workout on our lunch break. So we have 1 hour to change, workout and change back. We get there and there's no instructor! WTH? According to the other students there this is a regular with Miss Zumba. She's always late. Strike number 1. So she strolls in 15 minutes late and doesn't even apologize for being late. And why should she this is the norm with her. Anyways so she's here and I'm like let's get this show on the

I was going to blog about something else today but something totally amazing happened to me that I just had to share. I'll blog skin care and exercise tomorrow. Anywho...I was getting ready for work this morning  and like every morning stood in my walk-in closet and stared at the many things on hangers in there and declared "I have nothing to wear!" Of course my husband just rolls his eyes and walks to his little spot in the closet to grab a pair of slacks and a shirt and throws it on. How do men do that? So I grab myself a pair of pants and shirt and throw it on. Only thing was I didn't like the pants. So I perused through the rack again and my eyes fell on a pair of brown slacks I had bought at Macy's a couple years ago. I had stopped wearing them after I was pregnant. I've tried them on every now and again but they were just too tight. Well not today! Those suckers actually fit! And I don't mean they fit good enough to pass. They weren't clinging

Ok so before I start on my topic at hand I just want to say that this blog isn't all about good news and positive things and how great I feel because all though there are days I feel great there are days that I do get down. And I wouldn't be true to myself or to my readers if I didn't share them. So everyone knows last week I started doing 2-a-days. That is working out twice in one day. Once in the afternoon and once in the evening. My goal this week was to lose two pounds. That's doable right? So I worked out everyday, some days I worked out twice in one day some days I only worked out once. But the fact is I worked out EVERYDAY! 7 days this week. But my mistake was weighing myself everyday.... I felt like I wasn't going to accomplish my goal because that scale wouldn't budge. In fact it went UP! The nerve!!!  So I started to get a little depressed and felt like all my hard work was for nothing.  But I never gave up. Even if I felt like it was a waste of ti

In my series "Workouts I do so you don't have too" I did Kettlebell conditioning tonight.... Ohhh emmm geeee..... that's all I can say about this work out. Every muscle in my body hurts already. I can't imagine what it will feel like tomorrow morning! But man what a work out. I didn't think I was going to make it past the warm up!  But once we got going with the kettlebell it wasn't so bad. It was  the push ups  and mountain climbers that killed me. lol The instructor was very nice. Her name was Lou, that's a nickname. She's from Bulgaria and has the cutest accent.So about kettlebell, according to an article in Women's Health magazine:   Researchers found that people who did a 20-minute kettlebell workout torched almost 300 calories—and that's just for starters. When you factor in the muscle-sculpting impact (the calories burned after you exercise as your body repairs its muscle fibers), the total expenditure could increase by

Yes they have turned ballet into fitness exercise.  Anyone who's ever taken ballet or any other dance already know that it gives you a workout. If anyone who has seen a dancer's body and seen how tone and lean they are, that's done without lifting one pound of weights in the gym. So why wouldn't someone turn the art form into some type of fitness program. Growing up I did all types of dance, jazz, modern and ballet. But let me say that I was not fond of ballet.  Actually I kind of hated it.  LOL Always standing on your toes, releve, my knees always popping. It was a hot mess. But one day I found myself feeling nostalgic for my teen and early 20's body and went searching for a dance class.  Most were geared towards children. But then my search lead me to something called Cardio Barre. For those who are wondering what that is. Here's a short clip.   I went looking for a class and found one in Coral Springs  at a place called Fusion Fitness and Yoga

 What is it about fitting room lighting and mirrors that just make you want to burst into tears anytime you try on anything. I swear those mirrors add 20 lbs. I can't count how many times I try something on in the fitting room and think it looks hideous but I give it the benefit of the doubt and buy it and when I get home it looks fantastic on me.  But more times than not especially when I'm buying jeans, I leave it in the store and vow never to return to that store again. I went to Burlington coat Factory yesterday in a quest to buy a couple sports bras and found some work out pants that I thought I'd buy. So I gathered a few and went into the fitting room.  I swear those were the most unflattering pair of pants I've ever seen. My thighs looked horrible in them. Now I know I'm the small by any stretch of the imagination but I swear I looked like I was a size 20 instead of a size 12-14.  I quickly took them off bought my two bras and went home and put on my NY and

So I took a fitness test yesterday. I had to time myself doing push-ups, crunches for one minute. I did well for push-ups and did 20 in one minute. If you know me that is a feat all in itself since a year ago I couldn't even do 1 push-up. Today my arms are burning but it was worth it. I did 27 crunches, which I thought was really low. I think I was doing the crunches wrong because I know I can do a hell of a lot more than 27 in one minute. For the step test, you had to step for 3 minutes then take your pulse after one minute of rest. My fitness level came out that I was AVERAGE. Average can you believe that?? Well I can. I've always been average. Average height, average grades, average looks. Why not add average fitness level.  But I refuse to stay at average. My goal is to be above average to Excellent fitness level. I also took my body fat percentage which was NOT average!!  LOL  My body fat percentage is 37%. That falls into the "overfat" category. I have no

Alright so I made it through my second week of Active 2 workout 9 week program. Today was mostly all cardio and a slew of lunges. My legs were screaming for mercy.  But as always I felt good afterward. I don't know why I always dread working out. I always feel good at the end of a workout. I need to retrain myself so that rather than dreading going to work out that I look forward to it.  That's going to be a tough sell. In other news I tried one of Jillian's recipe last Friday. I made salmon covered in a pureed sauce of parsley, garlic, lemon juice,  salt and pepper. It called for basil that it cost to much at the Fresh Market. $4.99 for a like a pound.  I want to try more organic food but I'm kind of poor. LOL Anyways add a side of mushrooms filled with the parsley concoction and some tomatoes and you have a meal. Now the flavor was sort of bland to me but it was filling. I thought for sure I'd be hungry in an hour or so. But that wasn't the case. I actually

Yall why did my co-worker just drop off a big a$$ cookie on my desk! Anyone who knows me knows I can't say no to cake and cookies! They have been my downfall since the beginning of time!  So now I sit and stare at this cookie while it mocks me and dares me to eat it. And to make things worse I broke fitness cardinal rule #1: I did not eat breakfast! I forgot to set my alarm this morning and had to rush to get to work. So now I'm sitting at my desk and my stomach is grumbling and this cookie is staring at me! Someone help me!!!  I'm trying to reason with the cookie. I tell it I will only eat a corner of it. Only enough to take the edge off. I tell it if it goes away I will be good. I'll help little old ladies cross the street, I'll actually take that bag of clothes I have sitting in the corner down to Goodwill. Just leave me alone! I think I saw a breakfast bar sitting around somewhere. I'll go hunt that down with some tea. That should work!  Then I'm goi

Yes those were the words uttered to me yesterday when I went to the library yesterday. In my quest to be fit and fab in 2011 I went to the library to get Jillian Michael's book, Master your Metabolism . Well they didn't have the book so I got the cookbook. I go to check it out and the woman looks at it and says "Oh I guess you're cooking tonight." Me: Well yeah it's Jillian Michaels, she's a trainer so I figured I read it. The woman chuckles and closes the book and says, "it's much more fun being fat." Yall I was flabbergasted. I didn't know what to say so I just gave her a polite smile and left.  More fun being fat. Is she kidding me?? I didn't realize huffing and puffing up a flight of steps was fun. I didn't realize having diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease was fun. Let me find out that hospitals are like fun houses where all these people are having all this fun. I think what she meant was that being fat was m

Yesterday I talked about goals. One of my main fitness goals is to lose 20 lbs by June 1st. Well I can't do that sitting on the couch which I totally felt like doing when I got home from work. the past two days have been so stressful and exhausting at work that I just want to veg out when I get home. Then my dad came over and so it's hard to get into the workout groove when you ahve company. Then everyone sat down for dinner. I knew if I ate it would be over and there would be no way I would workout. So while my dad, husband and son sat down to eat I went and turned on my EA Sports Active 2, which by the way is a phenomenal game, and did my workout while everyone ate. I got this game for Christmas. I always heard of people talking about the Wii Fit and the like and wondered if Playstation 3 had such a game while browsing through the aisles of Sam's Club. And lo and behold there it was. It was on sale from $99 down to $56. And yes I made my husband buy it for me right ther

So the first thing, in my opinion and the opinion of many bloggers and fitness experts, that you need for a successful weight loss plan are goals. But you say "Mimi, I already set my goals. I want to lose weight this year." Well that's fine and dandy and all but that's not going to get you anywhere. I taught a College Success Strategies class last semester and in the book I used, the author Skip Downing,  (any of you in higher ed may have heard of him. I met him at a workshop. Fascinating guy)  According to Skip to be truly motivating, a goal needs five qualities.  You can remember them by applying the DAPPS rule.  "DAPPS" is an acronym for Dated, Achievable, Personal, Positive and Specific.   What I learned while teaching that class was that many people do not set goals this way. When I asked my students what was their goals in life it was always something vague such as "I want to graduate from college, get a job and have a great career."  Tho

So I decided to start a blog. I tweet, I Facebook, why not blog right? My name is Miriam, but you can call me Mimi. I'm a 35 year old wife to an amazing husband and mother to  a 2 year old son. This will be about me and my quest to get back to my pre-baby weight and then some. Just a little bit about me and my struggles with my weight. When I was 14 I hit puberty and my body went crazy. So as they say I developed, particularly in my hips and butt. It was maddening growing up especially when you had one sister that was rail thin and another that was 5'8" and proportionate in her size. I could never borrow their clothes. Then I went to college where yes I did gain the freshman 15. Well since I was a transfer student I gained the junior 10. But I took an aerobic class one semester that got me on a exercise kick. I weighed 150 in college and a couple years after I decided I wanted to lose weight to try out for the Miami Dolphins cheerleading squad. I didn't make the squad