FREE Downloadable Workout Calendar for June

Happy June! I can’t believe that half of the year has already gone by. If you started off the year with the goal of making fitness part of your life, but have yet to implement it, now is the time to do it. I’ll even make it easy for you by providing you with my June workout calendar. The calendar has links to workout videos on YouTube that I’ll be doing this month.  You can download the calendar HERE.

As some of you know I started my fitness journey at the beginning of this year and I really wasn’t sure whether I would stick to it. I am so happy that it’s June and I’m still going at it.

This month I decided to focus more on one of my main problem areas – my abs or lack thereof. Like I said, it’s been six months and I see my obliques peeking out, however my pooch is as stubborn as mule. If you read my very first blog post you know that I didn’t start this journey to look good, but at this point I figure why not try and achieve this benefit while bettering my health?  Therefore, three of my six days of workouts per week will be focused on abs, one day is dedicated to cardio, one day to the bum and one day to total body.

I’m wishing everyone a healthy, active and sweaty June :) What are your fitness goals this month?

FREE Downloadable Workout Calendar for May with Links

Am I the only one who cannot believe that it is really May already? We're almost half way through this year! Whether you've been on your health and fitness journey for years, or just months like me, or if you're just getting started, kudos to you.

Since February I have been creating a workout calendar with the workouts I plan to do each day for the month. In the beginning I wasn't doing this and I'd spend too much time in the mornings deciding what workout I would do. Planning ahead saves me so much time and during those mornings where I don't feel like working out, I just click on the link to my video(s) for the day and my mind doesn't need to be completely turned on.

I like variety so each day of the week is a different workout sometimes targeting certain areas of the body. I usually repeat the same workout on the same day of each week. In some cases the workout carried over from my previous month so I only have it scheduled for two weeks of the current month. I do my workouts in the morning, so this only allows me 30 minutes on the weekdays. I still workout in the morning on the weekends, but am able to put in an hour or more. One Sunday of each month is dedicated to staying in bed and snuggling with my loves. I just started doing this in April because I realized that when I started on this journey I was always waking up before them and I really missed waking up with them.

Please keep in mind that this is my personal workout calendar. I am on month 5 of my journey so these workouts are intermediate level. Many of them will have modifications for beginners, but if you're interested in a purely beginner's workout calendar please let me know and I'd be happy to put together a calendar with the workouts I did at the beginning of this year.

Click here for May's calendar. Each workout listed is linked to its video on YouTube - all you have to do is click on the name of the workout. Note that there are two workouts for Saturday.

I'm happy to answer any questions. Feel free to comment below or email me at sybliss@gmail.com.

Weight Shaming and the No-Excuse Mom Movement

There's been a lot of talk around the internet lately regarding "fat-shaming", especially since Maria Kang came out with her no-excuse mom movement and her infamous photo.

I was reluctant to write about it all but after seeing bashing from both sides I figure why not give my take on it.

If you have been following my blog or Instagram account you know that I just recently started my health and fitness journey at the beginning of 2015. My goal was to become the healthiest me so that I could be around for my family as long as possible.

I was always skinny or "average" size growing up. Weight was never a problem for me. I never gained the freshman 15 in college, I didn't get bigger when I had significant others. However, fast food and eating out were regulars on my menu and in my college and early post college days I drank alcohol like a fish. Was I healthy? Absolutely not! Some people would say I was lucky, but should someone really feel special because they can abuse their bodies and the abuse does not show up on the outside?

I believe that during all of this fat-shaming and skinny-shaming back and forth we have lost sight of what is important. Society has led us to believe that beauty is measured by weight, which is absolutely false. Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder and for me this starts from a person’s character.

The focus truly needs to move from weight and looks to overall health. Is being overweight or underweight unhealthy? I believe in most professional opinions it is but by how much? I'm not a professional so I cannot say - that's something everyone needs to figure out for themselves. On the other hand can you be at the "ideal" weight and still be unhealthy? If you smoke 1 or 2 packs of cigarettes a day or drink like I used to I'm pretty sure you're also unhealthy. Therefore, weight and looks do not always have a direct correlation to health.

I got back to my pre-pregnancy weight pretty quickly after baby boy was born, however as any mother knows your body is never the same after a baby. I tried working out here and there to "get my body back" but those attempts lasted for a couple of weeks at most. I wasn't in love with my body but I was content. I am so fortunate hubby loves me for me so he was also content with my body, or that's what he told me at least :)

Towards the end of last year something clicked for me. My weight was "ideal" however I knew I wasn't healthy.  I didn't care what I ate, I didn't do any physical activity besides chasing baby boy around. The point is, I knew I could do more. I looked at my baby boy and knew that I wanted to be around for him for as long as possible. If something happened to me where my life would end before my family and I were ready, I wanted to know at that moment that I did all that I could to prolong my health.

At the end of the day it's about HEALTH. Without it your to-do lists can go out the window. I read somewhere that most health issues don’t happen overnight – they are the sum of the your actions with your body over a long period of time.

To close, I think one of my favorite women says it best, Suze Orman, financial advisor and expert: “Stand in your truth”. This can apply to every aspect of your life including health and everyone’s truth is different. When I stood in my truth, I knew I could do more and so I did. Maybe your truth is that you’re doing too much and neglecting other parts of your life that are more important, maybe it’s that you’re not doing enough, maybe it’s that you don’t know where to start, but only you can be the judge of that.

I would love to you get your thoughts on this topic!