Week 1: A Sweet Change

Week 1: Time for a Sweet Change!

Welcome to the start of a Healthier, Happier & Sweeter You!

If you want to measure your heart rate during exercise over the 6 weeks, and how hard you should be working, Guy Leech’s 6 Step process will help you calculate it.  Otherwise work with ‘exertion’ description in each exercise.

Monday

Set Your Goals!

 

Make an achievable set of goals for where you want to be in 6 weeks time- maybe it’s to be able to keep up with your kids at the park for an hour, or perhaps to complete a fun run, or longer bike route, or maybe it’s to increase energy and toning. Write how you want to feel and why you want a healthier lifestyle. Make sure it is a SMART Goal-Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Time dependent.

It’s always good to have a training buddy, or even the whole family getting involved, so make sure you share your goals with them and encourage them to write some too. This will give you something to motivate each other with, and an exercise adventure you can take together, plus it will make it more fun, social and a great bonding experience.

Go Shopping! 

 

Write a list of healthy recipes you can make for meals- check out the Capilano website for some great healthy and simple recipe suggestions for main meals and nutritional snacks! Honey has many nutritional benefits as part of a healthy everyday lifestyle, including a lower GI and is packed with antioxidants, vitamins & minerals, making it a great option for a natural sweetener.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Start your shopping List and write down the ingredients you need, as well as snacks and healthier reward foods, such as Greek yoghurt with fruit and drizzled honey as your treat, or yoghurt balls or Honey Shotz if you’re at work.

Be sure to include lots of fresh fruit and vegies on your list as well, sometimes buying bottled water helps you drink it more of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday:

Easy Walk/Jog

 

Find somewhere with a few gentle hills, whether it’s your local park or some undulating streets or a beach embankment. Warm up for 5 minutes at warm up heart rate. Walk briskly for 20 minutes at aerobic endurance pace over a flat to undulating terrain. Throughout this period include 4 X 100-150 metre “pick-ups” – jogging, then recover by coming back down to aerobic endurance pace. Cool down as per warm up.

Wednesday:

Huff & Puff Time

 

Why not get a mate, the family involved, or even the dog to motivate you on your first cardio based set. Warm up for 5 minutes, at the end of this period complete 4 X 80-100 metre down hill jogs. Then jog 4 X 75 seconds at huff and puff heart rate. Rest (stand still) for 15 seconds then complete the next 75 second effort. Cool down as per warm up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday:

Set Up your Healthy Home

• Spring clean your fridge and pantry. Remove all of the out of date, highly processed and unhealthy food options and replace them with healthier options.
• Make sure you encourage yourself to drink lots of water by having a jug or two in the fridge and flavour to make it appetising with lime or lemon
• Put a shopping list somewhere noticable in the kitchen so you can write and plan healthy meals, fruits, vegie and snacks as you run out
• Leave your goal book somewhere in view and set up a food diary if you think it will help
• Plan any extra storage containers you may need for any healthy food swaps such as cereals, raw ingredients such as flour, and storing any healthy left overs to take for lunch.
• Leave light weight exercise gear such as dumb bells, pedometers and resistance bands in a prominent place you can see regularly so if you have a spare 10 minutes or are watching television you will be visually prompted to use them
• Leave some positive notes,  or inspirational images in your kitchen and in places you walk past frequently

 

Friday:

Strength Building Ride

This can be on an exercise bike at the gym, a road bike, mountain bike, or even with resistance bands and creating a pedaling motion. Warm up for 5 minutes. Increase the intensity up to huff and puff pace for 6 minutes, then, increase the resistance on your exercise bike complete 4 X 45 second “uphill efforts” (disregard heart rate response) grinding away on the “hill”. Drop the resistance way down for 60 seconds to recover and then go again. Cool down as per warm up.

Saturday:

Easy Recovery Walk

Find somewhere with nice scenery or even a local park or reserve and go for a 20 minute walk at warm up/cool down intensity.

Time to get your core on!

Choose 2 exercises from our Core Strength Video  and do each exercise  3 times for 30 seconds  with a 40 second- 1 minute rest after each 30 seconds of exercise. For example, you might chose to do plank and push ups as your 2 core exercises, so you would do 30 seconds of plank, followed by a 40 second- 1 minute rest depending on how hard you find the exercise, then another 30 seconds of plank until you have done this 3 times, then you would switch and do the same for 3 lots of push ups with a rest in between. Note: as you get fitter you can decrease your rest time.

 

Sunday:

Long Easy Walk or Ride in a New Location!

Try finding somewhere new to exercise outdoors if the weather is good, look up local parks near you or nature reserves.
Warm up for 5 minutes then increase the pace to aerobic endurance intensity for 30 minutes if walking or 45 minutes if cycling over a flat to undulating natural terrain . Cool down as per warm up.