Every Gym’s Nightmare

EastBay.com is offering a 15% discount on any order, if you type in the promotional code SIGLER15.

Eastbay.com sponsors famed author Scott Sigler, and is offering this promotion on honor of his new book, CONTAGIOUS. Scott has become an internet maverick (I knew I’d get that in somewhere before the end of the year) by offering the first podcast-only novel, Earthcore, read by him, chapter by chapter.

Caveat: I’m reminded of the Seinfeld where George gets Risk Management on audiobook, only to find the voice sounds exactly like him with a head cold and is too distracted to finish. That would be me, except in my regular voice, because I find myself distracting in general, hence these jags I tend to go on.

To read more on Scott Sigler, visit his site at www.scottsigler.com, and then head to my sister’s blog, for a review of his books and to enter her giveaway for Scott’s book, CONTAGEOUS.

In a side note of seething jealousy, my sister will soon be following him all around the east coast with a video camera to document his goings on.

Look at him.

Who doesn’t love a bald guy weilding shears?

I’m trying to convince her to jam me into her suitcase, but it looks bleak.

She always was selfish.

Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog, Scott Sigler

I’m a gym rat. I love the sweat, metal, dirt, grunts and muscles.

I do not like yoga. Yes, I used to write for a yoga site, and I even practice yoga on occassion, because flexibility is important, but if I had a choice I’d be in the gym, repping til I can’t rep no more.

When Katherine and Kimberly approached me, asking if I would try their website, www.ultimatepilatesworkouts.com, I was skeptical. Aside from one pilates DVD I own, hosted by a woman in a unitard, sporting a killer cameltoe in the middle of the woods, telling me to focus on my pubis, I don’t have any experience with Pilates.

Not being one to turn down something free new, I agreed.

The site itself, is the only one of its kind, offering FREE pilates videos to all members. They stream right onto your computer, so all you do is click and you have a full length pilates workout ready and waiting for you join along.

There are 4 membership levels as follows:

For the Basic Membership (FREE): All mat and mat related workouts are 100% free to view, streaming directly from our website. Basic Members pay to download videos, but viewing is free.

Deluxe Membership ($9.99/month): Basic PLUS all REFORMER workouts are free to view as streaming media. The Deluxe membership also includes THREE free downloads per month.

Premier Membership ($17.99/month): Deluxe PLUS all EQUIPMENT workouts are free to view as streaming media, and you get FIVE free downloads per month.

Ultimate Membership (annual only): Unlimited access to the entire site, including the training videos for each exercise and each piece of equipment. With the Ultimate Membership you all get unlimited downloads.

I will say this again, cause I got tripped up the first time, with Basic (FREE!) membership you can still view full length pilates workouts, for free, right on your computer. How cool is that??

Each video is led by Katherine and Kimberly, who aside from being adorable and great in front of the camera, have hair that is Garnier Fructise commercial material. Jealous.

I started with the beginner video, because I am a beginner at pilates. I know I’m in shape, and am usually prone to jumping into advanced things before I know the basics, but decided to do this properly and learn the fundementals.

The cueing was perfect. Instead of becoming confused trying to figure out on my own if I was doing an exercise properly, I knew exactly where I should be feeling things and what motion I was trying to achieve. I’m a trainer, I know how hard it is to cue for the core, but with Katherine’s direction, I knew exactly what to do.

My imbalances became apparent immediately. All the ab and core exercises were pretty easy for me, but when it came to anything where hamstring flexibility was a factor- I was struggling. But the great thing about it was that I actually felt like I had made an improvement by the end of routine. Normally, its just a “oh, that’s tight, I need to work on my flexibility” feeling, even with yoga, but by the end of the workout I actually felt like my muscles had loosened a bit.

My horrible posture also became apparent (I blame you guys for making me sit at this computer so much) as it because increasingly more diffcult to hold positions without letting my shoulders droop.

Pilates is perfect for focusing on your core, and how to engage, and keep it engaged, throughout all the exercises. Its a full body, low impact, flexibility and strength workout. I’m hooked.

Its the perfect melding between a good sweaty workout and yoga. I get my flexibility and calming effect, while appeasing my gym side with reps and muscle fatigue.

I really recommend this site for all levels: beginners to test the waters for free and see if they like it, and the most advanced Pilatuers (pronounced pi-la-tooooooors) for great downloads of workouts with equipment and the Reformer, which, honestly, I’m scared to go near because it reminds me of the gynocologist’s office.

I was going to write a clinching conclusion that would get you over to their site as fast as possible, when I realized a link would do the trick: www.ultimatepilatesworkouts.com

Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog,

Hey kelly, I know you have to field questions about your past experience with ED all the time….but, I have a question I’d love to have you address (and I know it doesn’t replace the advice of a doctor blah blah). Anyway, I’m only slightly underweight, but I know I’d look a bit better (aka not like a boy!) if I were filled out a lil here and there so I’m now in the mindset that I’d like to gain maybe 5-8 pounds. I want to do this slowly and healthily but where I’m running into problems is that I’ve been advised to up my exercise (not enough to offset the extra calories,but just additional) so that I am gaining/maintaining my lean muscle mass…the problem is that I already exercise at least two hours a day. I am just wondering if you had to decrease your exercise when you were in recovery? thanks thanks!!! Lily

This kind of a two parter.

I am just wondering if you had to decrease your exercise when you were in recovery?

Recovery is what got me started working out. When I was sick with my ED, I didn’t work out at all. This is partially because I didn’t have the energy to (I went to the gym once and promptly passed out) and also because I didn’t think enough of my body to spend any time on it- in a healthy way, of course. I didn’t realize it at the time, though, I just thought, “why work out when I can just starve?” In actuality, I couldn’t put forth the effort to do anything good for my body when I thought so little of it in the first place. Which is funny, now reading that, because all I DID was waste energy on my body. If I worked out as much as I binged/purged/loathed myself, I would have been freaking THIS LADY:

Is the one in black topless? HOT.

I started to work out during recovery to gain an appreciation for myself. I also had to start cooking so I would learn to appreciate food. You are less likely to cramp a meal down your throat and bring it back up again 5 minutes later if you spend a lot of time chopping, preparing and cooking it. I still hate cooking, but I fell in love with working out. Once I got my strength back and food (mostly) under control, I could really start to work out. I learned what it felt like to take care of myself, and that I could feel good about the way I looked without having to be the smallest. When I was at my thinnnest, I still thought I was fat- mostly because my brain was fucked, but also because I was still soft. I had no muscle. I started to gain muscle, and firm up, which as first messed with my head, because I was getting bigger, but I thought I looked better. Eventually, I became to see what everyone else saw: Kelly, with muscles and meat looks less frightening better than stick thin Kelly who could pop an inner tube with her tail bone.

So, long story short, I began to work out in recovery, so I don’t really have anything to base it on. BUT, my counselor never put any restrictions on me as far as how long or how often to work out. It was mainly to teach me to treat my body with respect, by tricking me with promises that working out would take care of all the food I was then eating. He knew I would gain weight anyway, but it worked. Sneaky bastard.

I want to do this slowly and healthily but where I’m running into problems is that I’ve been advised to up my exercise (not enough to offset the extra calories,but just additional) so that I am gaining/maintaining my lean muscle mass…the problem is that I already exercise at least two hours a day

Second part: You don’t have to work out more- you work out plenty. I don’t know when you got your advice, but you just need to focus more on weight training. Whatever your cardio/strength training split, you need to focus more on the strength training to build the muscle. Cardio burns calories, yes, so you don’t want to do TOO much, but cardio is still very important for your heart and lungs. You need atleast 30 minutes, most days of the week (5-6).

Strength training is a great way to build curves. I have 8 year old girl shoulders, so I lift a lot of upper body to make fake lines. It works. The only thing is, be patient- it might take a while to notice a difference. For guidelines of how to properly strength train, read this post.

Good for you for wanting to gain weight healthfully- I know a lot of people (and probably me included, to a degree) that would take this as license to eat whatever, whenever. Kudos.

Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog, youtube.com, gain, video, giveaway, Danskin

How do you judge exercise intensity? Or do you even pay attention?

To check out more videos, see The EGN Exercise Videos Page, and The EGN Feature Videos Page.

Don’t forget to enter this week’s giveaway! It ends Friday!

Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog, giveaway, contest, win, free, Danskin, pants, youtube.com, video, intensity

If Santa gave you the shaft this year, here’s your chance to win some pants from Danskin!

These Women’s X-Training Aerosilver Black Spandex Bootleg Pants are this week’s giveaway from Danskin. They are size small, and black with light purple trim.

You can earn one entry into the giveaway for each of the following:

Good Luck!

Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog, giveaway, contest, win, free, Danskin, pants

Hi Kelly,

Alex

First off, I’m going to tell you right off, Im not going to recommend any specific videos. All videos are safe, or else they wouldn’t be on the market. It all is up to personal preference- and everyone likes different things. I dont like videos with a lot of instruction or fluff, because i dont need that; some people do. Its just what you like.

Good for your mom for doing what she is doing already. It seems to me that she is just trying to stay active and mobile (as opposed to dropping weight, or some other goal) which is important at her age. For women her age, bone denisty should be her primary concern. As women age, their bone denisty decreases, causing issues like osteoperosis.

Bones are special, in that, the more you use them, the stronger they get. Normally, we are used to things getting weaker with use, but bones are different. The more stress you put on them, the stronger they become. This is why strength training is so important for women.

For your mom, I would recommend some light strength training videos, with light weights. She might also enjoy some pilates- not too much impact or speed, but great for muscle definition and flexibility.

I recommend she try a lot of different things and see what she likes- I would just stay away from high impact, if weightloss isnt her main goal. But then again, perhaps that might be something she would like. Anyone can do anything unless they have a medical condition that their doctor has told them to stay away from. Strength training is neccessary, though, so make sure she gets some of that in.

Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog, osteoperosis, women, DVD

The winner of the Bumblekist tuna giveaway is….

AmandaB!

Congrats! Email me your address (kellycturner@hotmail.com) and I’ll get your fish in the mail.

Next giveaway starts Monday, so get your commenting juices flowing.

Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog, giveaway, contest, win, free

Hey guys! I made it to Pennsylvania safe and sound, after a few sprints through the airport, a few word spats with rude flyers and some thrown ‘bows. I’m having a great time, and have decided fully take the week off. Ill be to full posting on Sunday. Im still checking emails so if anyone wants to emailme something to post here, send it over! My email is on the contact me page.

I hope everyone is having a great holiday! Stay safe and go easy on the eggnog!

Love, Kelly

Or Starbee?

I like Bumblekist.

This week’s giveaway is,what else ? 6 packets of tuna!

I’m giving away 3 packets of Bumblebee tuna, and 3 packets of Starkist tuna, 1 Hickory smoked flavor, 2 sweet and spicy.

You can earn one entry into the giveaway for each of the following:

That’s 4 possible entries.

Giveaway ends Friday, December 26th.

Good luck!

Im flying out bright and early tomorrow morning, and won’t get in until early evening. Then I have to do family stuff, so I’m thinking next post will be Tuesday. What, you think all I have time to do is blog? I won’t be posting much about my actual trip until I get back, but you’ll be getting mainly informational stuff- sorry, but even if you are on vacation, you still have to learn and you still have to work out. I will be.

Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog, giveaway, contest, win, free

www.nataliedee.com

I’m going to forget something, I know it.

I was snowed in Thursday and Friday, so it felt like the weekend, and now since I missed work, its Saturday and I had to come in. at 5:00am. Since Im going to be gone all week, I had to prep everything so I get as few phone calls as possible.

There is supposed to be a worse storm than the last one rolling in (I know, right?) later today, which is why I came into work so early- I don’t want to get stuck. I’m going to have to race home and pack for my trip as quickly as possible, which I haven’t even started. My boy’s roomate is going to take me to the airport Monday morning (at 4:00am, bless him) but I have to make sure I can get to his house, so to play it safe with the weather, I’m going to stay with him tonight and Sunday night. Its going to be a doozie, with 90 mph winds. Since when does Seattle actually get a winter? I like big storms as long as they don’t interfere with my plans, so once I’m over there, safe and sound this afternoon, I’ll be set.

So just letting you know posting will be random until Tuesday when Im settled in Pennsylvania.

I’m posting this week’s giveaway tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Every Gym’s Nightmare, fitness, health, yoga, pilates, strength training, personal trainer, cardiovascular, cardio, exercise, wellness, weight loss, blog, blogging, fitness blog, weightloss blog,