It’s important to remember that while several people are just getting back onto the fitness band wagon, many of us never got off. This can be irritating for both sides because those that are returning have exciting, renewed motivation to accomplish their goals and those that never left are suddenly standing in line for the leg press.

Here are a few important reminders to everyone returning to fitness this January.

Basic Gym Etiquette/What Not to Do:

1.     Don’t leave your sweat on the machine. Bring a towel or use the provided cleaner to wipe your sweat off the machine you just used so the next person doesn’t have to touch your sweat.

2.     Don’t hit on people who are sweating – they are clearly there for the workout.

3.    Don’t hang around the water fountain; it makes it hard to fill my bottle.

4.     Don’t take super-long rests while using a weight machine when someone’s waiting. During busy times or busy months, it’s likely someone else is waiting to use it when you’re done. Plus, your muscles will get cold and stiff and you’ll have to go through the warm up routine again. About 1 minute is plenty of rest between sets.

5.     Don’t eat or mix a shake on the gym floor; do this outside the gym or in the café area.

6.     Don’t hog a cardio machine; usually 30 minutes is an appropriate time to use a machine during busy hours.

7.     Don’t leave your dumbbells all over the floor; “re-rack” means “put ‘em back.”

8.    Don’t interrupt a group exercise class after it started; people are already in the zone and you’ll throw them off.

9.    Don’t hover around someone else’s workout space; trainers think you’re stealing their workout and others are just uncomfortable with you watching.

10.   Don’t leave your bag out on the floor. Most gyms designate a cubby or locker for your things – use them.

11.  Don’t leave your personal lock on the locker over night. If you didn’t reserve that space in a formal process, it’s usually frowned upon.

12.  Don’t waste amenities in the locker room; respect that the space is not your own.

13. Don’t chat on the phone on the gym floor. You’ll annoy people with your one-sided conversation that is likely much louder than you think.

14.  Don’t drop the weights on the ground. This is just barbaric and proves you were lifting heavier than you could control. Set them down without making a racket.

What pet-peeves do you have of people at your gym or fitness studio? Share them in the comments below so we know better how to be on our best gym behavior.

Happy New Year and Welcome Back to the Gym!

It’s true: you aren’t. Neither am I.

I’m always thirsty when I wake up in the morning, when I exercise my face turns bright red, I get headaches when I don’t have coffee in the morning and all winter my lips are chapped. These are signs of dehydration – do you experience them, too?

If you’re dehydrated, you aren’t drinking enough water which means your body already is not functioning at full potential.

Our bodies are made up of 60% water, yet most Americans can get through an entire day while drinking less than 3 glasses of water/day.

Let me explain why water is so important to your body. Water…

…controls temperature regulation

…lubricates joints

…aids digestion

…assists in the production of energy

…helps kidneys perform

…metabolizes fat

…helps body recover from workouts

…helps your body select fat to burn over muscle during workouts

If you don’t have adequate amounts of water…

…the kidneys can’t work, so your liver has to detoxify toxins making it less able to metabolism food.

…blood becomes thick, leading to clotting and less delivery of oxygen to the brain and muscles.

…extra glucose remains in the bloodstream until it reaches the liver and is stored as fat.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Drink at least 8 glasses of water/day – the big glasses, not 8 cups. You’ll know you’re doing this if you’re going to the bathroom about once every hour.

2. Replenish lost fluids from coffee at 1:2 ratio. If you dank 1 cup of coffee, drink 2 cups of water to replenish the dehydration that coffee causes.

3. Replenish lost fluids from exercise. For every hour of exercise, have a least 2 glasses (yes, full glasses) of water.

Following this recommendation, people who drink coffee and exercise daily will need to have 12 glasses of water/day. That seems like a lot of water. And it is when you’re used to only drinking 2 glasses/day, which is the amount of water the typical American drinks.

Here are the benefits I’ve noticed when I do drink the recommended amount of water:

- No headaches

- Clearer skin

- Better control of appetite

- No red-face during exercise

- Increased energy

- Lose fat faster

The Challenge: I’m going to challenge myself to drink at least 5 glasses of water/day (still lower than recommended, but a good start) beginning today and ending when I notice it’s not helping (which will be never, of course) or until I turn 30 (January 19, 2014), whichever comes first.

Obviously, if I can keep this up for 400 days, I’ll likely keep it up forever.

Who’s with me?!  If you have a secret to how you drink more water, please share it in the comments below. We could all use a little help with this.

Thanks and Cheers!

This is the back door. If you show up here, go around it to the right to find the entrancclass. Founded by Steve Ross, author of Happy Yoga, this intention of the studio is

In celebration of 12-12-12 (December 12, 2012), Lululemon and Maha Yoga sponsored a free yoga class. Founded by Steve Ross, author of Happy Yoga, this intention of the studio is to bring the

Book by Steve Ross available at Maha Yoga

happiness that’s already within you to the front of your mind and spirit. And last night, it did just that.

When I first entered the rather small greeting space, I was surrounded by a shop full of books, apparel and knick-knacks like the home of someone’s Auntie Jade. The receptionists were full of energy as they hurried to sign 50+ people into the class.

I squeezed into a spot in a small section of the oddly shaped studio on the second floor of the Brentwood Town Center.  The instructor, Tom Morley, had plenty of smiles for each person as he shouted calls to poses over the club-like music with the greatest energy I’ve seen from a yogi.

In fact, he didn’t seem yogi-ish at all. The whole while he was incredibly playful, absolutely non-judgemental, fun and fearless…until the end of the class when in corpse, he mentioned ancient philosophy to remind us that we practice corpse pose now so that “the big on in the end isn’t such a surprise.” That got a good laugh out of most. Tom walked about the class looking into the eyes of each person, though I didn’t notice a single correction he provided. I suppose that reflects the idea of personal happiness and individual practice.

The class seemed to fly by! It certainly was a great time! I loved the music, though it proved to make my practice much less stable and focused. Yet, I enjoyed yoga in a new way.

Thanks, Lululemon!

And, of course, in true Lululemon fashion, upon exiting the studio after class, we were greeted with some delicious tea and muffins from a local bakery. Lulu sure knows how to throw a party.

Maha Yoga studio boasts on their Facebook page to be “the most fun yoga studio in LA and possibly the world.” Well, I haven’t been to every known yoga studio in LA, but so far, I would certainly agree!“Sweat once a day to regenerate your skin.” ~@lululemon

Thanks Tom, Lulu, and Maha Yoga for an incredible evening of happiness and celebration!

Yesterday, I was coming home on Barrington when I finally decided to stop into the new health craze called My Fit Foods. Started by a personal trainer with fitness enthusiasts in mind, this store provides fresh, pre-packaged meals on-the-go or slow. The staff was super friendly when I walked into the overwhelmingly large space. Turns out they are also personal trainers so they shared many of my same fitness values.

Blair handed me the rather large menu and led me to the refrigeration area in the back where the meals were organized by Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snacks, and sizes. Small, medium, and large. The meal is packed in a re-usable Tupperware-esque container labeled with nutrition.  My Fit Foods has a HUGE variety for whatever your tastes – mostly gluten-free!

I scanned through the Americano breakfast and kale & links in the Breakfast section. My eyes went to the huge Lunch section from chicken fettuccini Alfred to turkey pasta. The Dinner section had things like fit nuggets, pear salmon and zesty shrimp and scallops (only $10.25 for medium!).

I selected the Hawaiian Chicken (Lunch) medium-sized meal ($8.75) with chicken (which I hate to cook myself), rice, pineapple, mandarin oranges and pine nuts – all gluten-free. Though there was plenty of space to dine in (or even stay for a while like others were doing like a super-healthy version of Starbucks), I got mine to-go and brought it home so I could do this lil photo shoot and eat from a larger plate.

I scooped only half of the huge meal onto a plate and microwaved it for a quick minute, then dug in…and…

YUMMY!!! I immediately tasted the freshness and cleanliness of the food. I could tell it had no filth of fat and grease that restaurants pump into meats to give them extra-juicy flavor.  Instead, this was infused with gluten-free soy sauce. It tasted clean and healthy. The fruit added enough extra flavor and sweetness for me like dressing on a salad (which I always replace with fruit anyway). The rice was clearly not you’re typical white rice. It was what they call ‘converted rice,’ which is basically yummier-tasting brown rice packed with nutrients.

I think of a warm like the stretching of a rubber band. If you put a rubber band in the freezer, then pull it out and stretch it, it’ll snap. If you gently warm it up and slowly stretch it bit by bit it’ll easy bend without breaking. You want to warm up your muscles so they bend without snapping (obviously painful) in the middle of your workout – that’s how people get hurt.

A good rule is to not pick up a weight until your muscles are loose and you have just started to break a sweat. If you’re in an air-conditioned or cold space, it may take 15-20 minutes to warm your muscles the whole way through. If you’re doing hot yoga, it may take 2 minutes. Either way, don’t push it. Allow yourself the grace to be fully warm before doing something wacky that could cause you to get hurt.

Typical Warm Up: Walking on a treadmill, body squats (no weight), push ups on the knees, undulations of the back, any type of easy movement without resistance nor super-wide range of motion.  It is necessary to do a 5-10 minute warm up before you stretch.

Alycia’s Anytime, Anywhere Warm Up Routine (Video Demo Below)

Warm up (total 3.5 minutes)

30 seconds: March in Place with Shoulder Shrugs

30 seconds: Side-to-side Step, Touches

30 seconds: Body Squats with arm reaches

30 seconds: Side Reaches

30 seconds: Jumping Jacks

30 seconds: High Knees

30 seconds: Burpees

I’ve gone to Circuit Works several times over the last year, and every time I go I’m reminded how freakin’ awesome I feel doing it!

Today I took class from Rachel Bocchino who’s playlist was the best musical mix I’ve heard on the westside of Los Angeles. I kid you not. The girl played non-stop mash-ups of everything from Madonna to Katy Perry with the beats-per-minute matching the entire time.  Talk about motivation!

Circuit Works is a circuit training studio where you get a Personal Trainer in a group setting. It’s an inexpensive way to burn hundreds of calories (I may have burned nearly 500 in my one-hour today and a few more hundred afterward) with the personalized attention of a trainer.

The way it works is there are 10 resistance stations set up for you around the room and 10 cardio machines. You start at a station and use the weights for 2 minutes, then you go straight to a cardio machine for 2 minutes and look to see what your next station is. Today, I started at station #3 for hamstrings, then went to the treadmill, then station #4 for inner thighs, then back to the cardio. Everyone moves around the stations like the numbers on a clock until you get back to where you started.

The whole workout zips by without you even realizing it because the trainer is helping you at every station and encouraging you to do your personal best at each one.

I love that I don’t have to think. I basically just show up and the workout is set for me and I just listen to the trainer tell me where to go and in 60 minutes I just had a full body workout!

Rachel’s style is natural motivational. She encourages you to participate with plenty of “woo’s” and “yeah’s” to go around as she continually reminded us all, “the rep you don’t wanna do is the one that will make you stronger.” That was enough to make me crank out 5 more even during painful lactic acid build up on my 20^th rep before we changed our weights.

I’ve also taken class with Juan, Scott and Raphael who are all kick-ass in their own way. Juan is great at helping me care for my tight lower back by personalizing all the stations that irritate my back. Scott always somehow squeezes like 10 more reps outta me, which has clearly made my stronger.  Raphael is the owner of Circuit Works and a former Marine, though his smile is like a mile long and he’s always crackin’ jokes. Lately he’s started some new class concepts like Super Slow and Rhythm Nation. You can see some of the videos of his workouts on his Facebook page.

Overall = Best. Workout. Ever!

I’m a little bias because I’ve already been to this studio so much, and there’s a reason I keep coming back.

They offer towels, lockers, and water if you check-in on Facebook. You can also purchase water, smoothies, and protein shots before or after class…yummy!!

Circuit Work’s Secret to Fitness Motivation: a new routine every week

My Biggest Praise: Personal Training (individualized attention) in a group setting (community accountability/fun!)

My Biggest Complaint: Studio space can feel small if the class is full (capacity: 20)

My Overall Ratings:

Workout Intensity: 8-10/10 (you go as hard as you’ll let them push you or as easy as you want)

Motivational Intensity: 10/10 (Personal Training!)

Music/Sound System: 9/10 (Not all playlists are as awesome as Rachel’s)

Price: $28/single session

First Time: Free!

Recommended? Yes

Will I return? Yes

The jackhammer provided an outdoor soundtrack that wasn’t exactly naturalistic, but actually provided some motivation to train a little harder. And, despite the fog, plenty of other fitness enthusiasts were out and about the Ocean Park Beach including a group of soccer players who were rather entertained by our display of strength. Despite all these potential distractions, Ashley and Diane guided us through a workout that proved to be a huge success!!

We started with a jump rope warm up, which was made fun by shouting our markers of every 10 jumps, which created plenty of laughs and healthy competition. We then used weights for a tabata-style lower body series followed by a series of at least 8 ab exercises, done twice. Of course it burned, but Ashley reminded us that “What doesn’t challenge you won’t change you.” The wood-chop ab exercise was certainly a challenge! We finished with 2 minutes of burpees and the full workout was about 22 minutes and ended with some much needed stretching.

Ashley is clearly an expert trainer as she knows exactly how to correct form in a few words or gentle touches, plus her athletic body alone inspired me to do a few more squats in hopes of getting tones thighs and legs like that!

Diane is a motivator extraordinaire! I consider myself to be naturally motivated to push hard, but she was able to find some additional strength inside me and gave perfect reminders to “Push, Pop, and Squeeze” just when I needed them.

Bonus: Ashley made gluten-free granola and Diane brought tangerines and coconut water for everyone. It was a perfect healthy snack!

True Fitness Camp will be starting in full force this January. It’s a series of 6 days/week group fitness classes to help you achieve your goals in fitness, nutrition and life with personal coaching and motivation from Ashley and Diane.

Overall, this was an incredible experience and a great combination of all things I love and adore: Fitness, Goals, and Food!!

Thanks Ashley and Diane – that was truly a great way to start the day!

I call this a “Cookie Moment.” A Cookie Moment is the moment you give up your self-control and give into your cravings.

For me, this moment comes when least expected. I’ll be eating perfectly clean and healthy meals for 19 days and then WHAM! – A cookie moment hits. Cookies are one of my biggest weaknesses (Milano being my favorite, yet a rare treat). It takes my entire vault of willpower to look a cookie in the chocolate chip and not take a bite. It can be done, but certainly not for 20 days straight; hence, my 19^th day Cookie Moment.

Cookie Moments don’t always involve actual cookies, though. Last night I had a Cookie Moment that went like this:

The night before I totaled 4 hours tossing and turning that should’ve been ‘sleep’ followed by 8 hours of brain-intensive work, then I came home to a messy room and no spinach in the fridge. I made a crappy replacement dinner, quickly changed into my workout clothes before promptly falling asleep and missing my workout. A Cookie Moment for sure.

I’m not saying this is a good thing, I’m just saying it happens.

Sometimes my Cookie Moments have gotten the best of me (like when one cookie turns into 12). So, I try to create life balance so that Cookie Moments are planned and therefore less devastating.

A piece of documented history to further illustrate my point:

Many wagons migrated along the 2,170-mile Oregon Trail in the early 1800’s. The wagons that rested all day Sunday arrived at a dramatically greater success rate than those that plowed through the weeks without rest during the 5-month journey. Meaning, those who took time to rest had greater success and those who didn’t rest generally didn’t make it to the end.

In the same way, you need to create Cookie Moments in your life that allow you the small rests necessary to keep you heading in the right direction. This may be allowing yourself to have a cheat meal on Saturdays if you’ve eaten clean all week. Maybe if you pack your lunch and carry coffee from home for a week, you allow yourself to have a latte on Sunday. Do you see what I mean? For me, if there’s a cookie around, I’m allowed to try it. If I don’t like it, I don’t eat the rest. If I like it, I savor the flavor, but only eat one. This helps me stay on the path of healthy eating in the long run rather than having a true Cookie Moment and spoiling all my hard work.

The nap I had yesterday when I skipped my workout served as a great Cookie Moment to help me get back on track. I slept awesome last night and woke up with a burst of energy that propelled me to have one of the best workouts of the season!

Cookie Moments, if planned in advance, can have a positive impact on your success rate toward your goal. Remember: those who take time to rest have increased success!

It helps lessen the pain if the intention is constructive rather than destructive, but feedback can still be difficult to hear. The good news is it’s usually easy to come by, and feedback – positive or negative – is the fertilizer for personal growth if you know how to handle it to add value to your life.

When I was competing in pageants, I had to listen to a lot of ‘feedback’ from directors, other contestants, pageant moms, family, friends, and even anonymous cowards who wrote nasty things on message boards – yes, that happened. I heard all kinds of things from, “Her body is perfect” to “She is swimming in that purple dress.”  All of this is difficult, especially for a young woman coming into her own.

I had to find a method of collecting, filtering, and using this feedback to my benefit.

Fortunately, I was supported by many people who continually reminded me of my personal values and helped me to realize my values as a filtration system for feedback and criticism.

I began to filter ALL criticisms through this personal values system to find areas of improvement or motivation for continued action.

My philosophy is: “If it applies, modify. If not, let it fly.”

If creating change based on their criticism (positive or negative) adds value to me, I modify what I do. If it does not, I change nothing and let it fly into the wind.

I put all positive and negative feedback through my values filter in order to recognize the value it may add or the lack of value that allowed me to move on with my life. It seemed to always work!

Early in my career, I forgot to mention a sponsor’s generosity in a public speech (I was young, give me some grace) and was criticized publicly for not being grateful because of my error. It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful, I was just so nervous I couldn’t say the words that I felt in my heart. Since receiving that feedback, I vowed to always over-thank my sponsors and am now the greatest advocate for each of my supporters!

When giving feedback to others, be sure they have a filter in place to hear your comments with a wise ear to understand if it applies to them or not.

And, get your own value filter!

Consider what you value in life (relationships, prestige, faith, money, health) and prioritize these values in order to know what is most important to you. Use this as your filter to ask yourself about the potential value-added of every bit of feedback you receive.

In short, it was miserable (hence my relocation to LA in my adult life), yet I developed some great strategies to motivate my getting out of bed in the morning despite my mental resistance.

During the plateaus of my life (even on warm, sunny days), these strategies have helped me to maintain a forward movement toward success despite my emotional rebellion.

Here are my Top 6 Strategies to Wake Up and
Pull You Outta Bed:

1. Plan a breakfast you look forward to. I eat fiber one cereal with sliced bananas and almond milk. It’s so delicious and filling that I actually look forward to it in the morning. I’ve also enjoyed oatmeal with frozen blueberries and oatmeal-walnut pancakes. If I know I’m going to enjoy breakfast, it gets me up faster.

2. Set your coffee machine the night before. There’s no doubt caffeine is a mood-changer. It quickens your reaction time, sharpens your focus, and brightens your mood. I set up my coffee beans and pour the water before I go to bed so in the morning while I’m brushing my teeth, I can hit start and have coffee within 15 minutes.

3. Vision boards help you to visualize your long term goals to encourages daily action. I have a vision board posted on the wa

ll  visible from my bed. When I wake up, I glance at it and am reminded of what I hope to accomplish in the year. I’ve been doing this for 4 years now with a 88% success rate – the remaining 22% of my goals that go unaccomplished are mostly unsuccessful due to changed-ambitions. It’s worked for me!

4. Set your body clock instead of an alarm. My nephew is 2 and has a bunny in his room that is set to shine a blue light at night while the bunny appears to be sleeping and 10 hours later, the bunny is standing up shining a yellow light. This helps my nephew to learn to sleep through the night. When he visited recently, I noticed how accurate his body clock was even without the bunny to tell him the time. He was ready for bed by 8pm and popped up ready to play at 6:00am. I recommend going to sleep and waking at the same time daily (yes, even weekends) so your body clock wakes you up feeling great to start your day. In this case, you won’t be begging for a few more hours because your body will feel adequately rested and ready for the day.

5. If you do set an alarm, call it something motivating. When I discovered I could name my alarms on my iPhone, I began starting my day with a smile everytime it went off. Here are some of my motivational alarms:

5:00am – “Coffee, Airport, Showtime!”

6:00am – “Warm coffee and almond milk await you….”

7:00am –“Get Up! 244-million Americans are already planning lunch.”

8:00am – “No rush, but the world isn’t waiting for you.”

As you can see, I’m largely motivated by coffee and productivity.

6. Set a deadline for yourself everyday that needs to be done within your first 30 minutes of waking. For me, this is email organization. In my first 30 minutes up, I eat breakfast, pour a mug of coffee and review my emails. I categorize my email by immediate response (if less than 2 minutes), future reading (flagged for later that night before bed), and future response (starred for later that day). I finish this in about 15 minutes and then begin to get ready for my day.  Some people devote their first 30 minutes to daily exercise, making breakfast for the kids, packing their lunch, or reading the paper. It should be a short, yet valuable task.These are some simple ideas and there are likely many more!

I’d like to try it in my own life and report the results. What habits or ideas do you have that motivates you to get up in the morning? Put your ideas in the comments section below. Thanks in advance for sharing!

Now, get outta bed!