Healthy Lifestyle Matters: 7 mistakes I made before BBG with Kayla Itsines 

Hello everyone! Today’s post is about my fitness journey and 7 little things that made a big negative impact on exercising. Few things about me:
– I was a chubby kid until the age of 18;
– I used to skip all kinds of workout: in fact, I couldn’t run even a mile or make a push-up.
– I started exercising 5 years ago with my husband and these are 7 things I was doing wrong for the last 4.5 years, that I learned thanks to“SWEAT with Kayla”:
1) The power of WARM-UP 
The reason was very simple: when I worked out, I just wanted to get it over with. I thought that if I already work out, that means my muscles warm up anyway. Why waste time on that? It’s not like I am about to run a marathon.  My workout app (BBG with Kayla Itsines) would remind me to warm up before I could proceed with my workout.
   So, I started reading about the importance of warm-up.
Now I know that: by warming up the muscles you not only reduce the risk of injury,  you also prime them to do their job more efficiently.
2) Skipping the post-workout  stretch 
My reason may hurt: I was lazy. In the end, I finished the workout. Hooray! I am young, my body will be ok. I couldn’t be more wrong! It all came down to the point when I was so sore, I could barely walk when a friend of mine (who was into the same routine) was like: “Well, didn’t you stretch at all?” That was it! My BBG taught me how to properly stretch, so now I enjoy it! So does my body.
 There are at least 30 benefits of stretching after workout. For me it’s simple – it helps lengthen and reset the muscles.
3) An 80/20 rule: healthy Monday-Friday and eat your troubles away on the weekends.
I went all over the Internet with this 80/20 rule. I know there are so many people that adore it but it just doesn’t work for me: I would eat healthy during the week and consume crazy amount of calories during the weekend.
What works for me? Balance. The same 80/20 rule but every day.
4) Being skinny is the goal. 
When my goal was to be skinny:
– “there is no difference between, let’s say, calories in a donut and an avocado toast. Calories are calories, right?”
– skinny means strong. Well, you should see that “strong” girl turning burgundy red trying to make a pushup with BBG program.
Do I want to be skinny? Sure! But that’s not my goal. Strong is better than skinny. In fact, strong is a new skinny for me! 🙂
5) My body says “I cannot do it”, so I shouldn’t push.  
This was the biggest challenge for me. When you are skinny, you think that no matter what you do – that’s enough. I am currently on week 10 of my BBG with Kayla Itsines. I went from trembling hands while doing one “commando” to 15 confident burpees. Is it magic? Nope. It’s pushing through “that’s it. That pushup is going to kill me”.  6) If I don’t eat sweets, I don’t eat sugar. 
For example, my favorite bowl of fruits with yogurt and granola as a late night snack. Turns out, that’s sugar as well.  What about so-called “hidden sugar” It’s everywhere: in vegan yogurt and pasta sauce, in that cream cheese on the toast we all love, in kombucha that I drink, and even in salad dressing. I was shocked by the amount sugar I consumed daily.
The solution? Read the label. 
Read about “8 delicious treats for healthier YOU”  here
7) The impact of alcohol.  
If you know me, you know that I love my “wine o’clock”. One of the reasons is the fact that my husband is really good at choosing wine. BUT
I noticed that my endurance, as well as overall performance, were affected if I had a glass of wine the night before my workout.
Did I stop with wine? Nope. Not there yet. But now when I am in the mood of wine in the evening, I am aware of the impact on my workout (I don’t even talk about the calories yet) so I can make a choice based on what I really want.  

 

Thanks for stopping by!
XX,
Gena. 

 ***Disclosure: this post is not sponsored. All opinions are mine.