The YAY Blog

When it comes to life, family and adventure, vacations are THE BEST! But when it comes to your “diet” and exercise routine, vacations can sometimes feel like a setback. With a couple small adjustments (that will actually help make your vacation more fun) you can enjoy your vacation completely guilt free AND not reverse all the progress you’ve made towards your health and fitness goals.

WHY you are choosing to move and eat well determines whether you are actually going to do it. Some why’s motivate well and some don’t!

If you’re not a morning person, this might help turn you into one. If you are already a morning person, this will help you enjoy your mornings even more!

We all know that cardio workouts are good for our hearts and necessary to keep our bodies healthy. But if you’re like me, knowing something is good for me doesn’t always translate into me actually doing it.

I’ve found that living a joyful life is less about some magic formula or convergence of perfect circumstances and more about my mindset around the everyday, mundane tasks of life.Cooking is a category where my mindset is one of the main determining factors in the amount of joy (or frustration) I have daily.

In my own experience, one of the simplest and most important factors in building a life full of joy is choosing to own what makes you smile. This sounds like common sense but it isn’t always the easiest thing to do in a world where we so often base our worth on what other people think about us.

A beautifully fit body does not necessarily mean having rock hard abs or the perfect butt. The real beauty of being fit is your body to be able to do what it was created to do—to move!

If you want to live a life that is truly oriented around joy, you HAVE TO quit comparing yourself to anyone or anything else. Comparison SELLS! And it destroys.

The lie that today’s fast-paced culture tells us is that if we slow down enough to really rest, we are going to miss out on something. I’ve found, however, that the exact opposite is true.

Scientifically speaking, working up a good sweat actually floods your body with happy-making hormones. Sometimes it can feel like the circumstances of our lives are pulling us down into hopelessness. Getting our bodies up and moving is taking direct action in the opposite direction. When I’ve had a hard day, sitting and thinking my way out of it usually doesn’t work. Moving changes my focus, changes my body chemistry and helps me move through the hard and into joy.

The definition of happiness is, “the state of being happy.” The definition of joy, however, is, “a deep seated sense of well being.” In what I’ve discovered in my own journey to joy – and what I hope to offer through Playful Fitness – joy and happiness are often friends, but they aren’t synonyms.

“Oh, I’m not fit enough to actually workout.”...

My experience on the track-team taught me an invaluable lesson that, I believe, is a cornerstone in the foundation of the joy I now find in moving my body. That lesson is: if what you are doing is drudgery, draining the life from you, you might need to shake it up a bit!!! “Get off the treadmill!”

Have you ever cut into a red pepper and been totally delighted by how the teeny-tiny seeds make the most beautiful pattern? Or been amazed by the rainbow of colors in the produce department at the grocery store? What about being stopped in your tracks by the colors in your morning breakfast smoothie?