Yoga for Your Forearms and Hands

I'll admit, I never thought of yoga like this but day 12 of my 30 day yoga challenge was inspiring! Day 12 was all about stretching out your hands and forearms. After 11 days of down dog, I didn't realize how much my forearms really needed this. The best part is this is the kind of yoga I can do when I'm just sitting in the office and need to feel stretched out. If you're the type of person who does projects with your hands, this will be really helpful for you too!

The Claremont Club Online Magazine, also shows some similar stretches but with weights to help strengthen those areas. I'm definitely going to start including this in my routine.

Update on 30 Day Yoga Challenge

I'm currently about 10 days into the 30 day yoga challenge. If you need a refresher on why I'm doing this, check out my earlier post. I feel really good about this challenge! The videos are really short but that helps me when I'm tired and feel like skipping it. I'm sure it would be better to do a full 30 minutes or even an hour but this is something I feel is doable.

The improvements so far include an increase in arm strength. Downward dog has always been my nemesis. It's hard to hold for very long and it's a big part of yoga but I'm getting much better already at maintaining the pose. Maybe I'll be able to do crow again someday! (There is a day that is a prep for crow so I think it's possible). I also am obviously improving my flexibility. I know I'm not that old but I can tell that my flexibility is starting to fade away. I was really tight the first couple of days. I can feel the difference so far.

I also tried to out to help reduce some stress in my life. I'm not sure it's really doing that to be honest. I think I need a full practice with a savasana to really get that benefit. When I was doing hot yoga, savasana was definitely my favorite part. I'd feel so accomplished and relaxed. I used to joke that I needed this shirt:

Find it on Etsy

There was of course more to my 30 day challenge but I haven't noticed much with the lemon water yet to give a good review. 

You may be wondering why I've omitted nutrition. I didn't. I'm working on the fit girl challenge (you may have seen my picture of the sweet potato tacos from this). I will write a full review eventually. So far it's all positive. 

New Year's Resolution Part 2

As I mentioned, I'm doing 30 day challenges for one of my New Year's Resolutions. I was thinking that I should include something extra in the challenges besides just exercise.

I want to try all those thing you hear about but never really know if they help. For instance, apple cider vinegar, oil pulling, himalayan salt baths, lemon water, meditation, and more. I'm sure I'll come up with some extras throughout the year.

For the month of January, I'm starting easy with hot lemon water every morning. I may add in green tea when I need something different. Plus check out all the benefits!

From Natural News

Fitness - 30 Day Challenges

Disclaimer: Fitness is not the same as weight loss. If you find yourself obsessing over your weight, workouts and the food that you eat, please seek medical attention or at least help from a friend. I struggle with this myself and I will always try to focus on how my body feels and how much stronger it gets instead of focusing on a scale. Do not compare your journey to others. You are only in competition with yourself. I only share this information as a way to express my experience and hopefully give people new ideas for their fitness journey. If you ever feel like my words are triggering in anyway, please let me know. It's very important to me that everyone feels empowered by fitness and not demeaned in anyway.

My New Year's Resolution

Like many of you, one of my resolutions is to continue getting healthier. I feel like each year I make some small steps towards this goal and I'm happy to be continuing that. 

I have decided it would be fun to do a different 30 day challenge each month this year. I figure I can do anything for 30 days and if I like it, it only takes 21 days to build a habit. 

January will be my 30 day yoga challenge. I have always loved yoga and actually started this challenge before (can't remember why I stopped). The videos are less than 20 minutes which makes them an ideal place to start. As Chris Powell says, take it slow when you start out so that you can stay motivated. 

I already started (I have the week off and figured starting early will help if I need a break). I'm on day 4 and it just feels really good to stretch out every morning and take a little bit of time for myself. 

If you haven't tried yoga, I recommend it. It may seem easy (because it isn't a big cardio workout) but it has so many benefits. 

(I found this infographic on pinterest but couldn't find the original creator. Just know the original creator is unfortunately not me!)

Since yoga isn't a big cardio workout, I'm thinking of including something else along with this. Most of my 30 day challenges won't be too long of workouts (squat challenge, splits challenge, plank challenge etc.) So, if you didn't guess, I love Chris Powell and want to try out his month-by-month plan that lasts for the whole year. 

It looks like there are three days a week of weight training (that doesn't look too complicated) and two days a week of cardio. I do highland dance once a week so I really just add one more cardio to my week which I plan on mixing up quite a bit (tone it up workouts, cardio kickboxing, cycling, hula hooping, etc.) I'll keep you updated on what I like and what I don't.

The key to this for me is that it doesn't seem overwhelming. I'm not committing myself to hours of working out intensely everyday forever. I'm taking it 30 days at a time and that keeps me sane!