Fitness Fridays -or- Don't Give Up!

I know, I know... it's not Friday, it's Saturday. My posting schedule got a bit off since the hubby and I spent the night away yesterday. So I'm posting Fitness Friday on Saturday instead.

It has been one week since Operation Skinny Waist began and so far, I have lost somewhere between 0 and .25 inches. Not the grand results I was hoping for, but I'm going to be honest: I wasn't very diligent in my exercising!

Never fear, though. I am convinced that the trick to losing weight or inches is to never give up! And so, I am planning on expanding my regimen this week to include a couple more slimming exercises.

First of all, I plan to continue doing the transverse abdominal exercises detailed in the last post. I also plan to swim laps twice each week. If you're not a swimmer, try a quick walk instead. As long as you're getting at least 20 minutes of cardio twice a week, I say you're on track! The trick is to keep building off of what you can do.

For this week, I am going to be adding more abdominal exercises and some strength training. Here we go:

Bicycle Crunches

I'm all for efficiency, so if you're going to do crunches, you might as well do bicycle crunches so you're working all your abdominals at once. One thing I learned from Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred is to do these crunches slowly and deliberately. Focus your eyes on one spot on the ceiling to keep your chin up, then crunch and hold. Here is an article with a couple of options for doing bicycle crunches.

Strength Training

For strength training, I plan on adding in a 1-minute plank every day when I do my ab workout. This sounds easy, but it is not! Time yourself so you don't cheat and hold a plank for 1 minute. If you can't do it, work your way up to it. Keep your tummy in to support your core. This will also help strengthen those abs.

I also plan to do a few weight-bearing exercises at the gym. I think it is important to balance your strength training so that when you work one muscle, you work the opposite one as well. So do these in pairs, trying a different one each day:

• Biceps & Triceps
• Quadriceps & Glutes
• Shoulder Press & Lat Pull Down
• Chest Fly & Seated Rows

Water

The last thing I plan to add this week is a more mindful of how much water I drink. I read that you should drink 8 ounces of water for every 10 pounds of body weight. Unfortunately, that means I should be drinking 130 ounces of water every day. Currently, I probably drink 20 ounces per day. So I have a long way to go!