Books on your ipod! It makes it sooomuch better! I highly recommend a light, easy title- romance novel or something. Something where you don't really have to concentrate but are entertained. The only bad thing is when it makes me laugh and I almost fall off the trainer, lol.

Also, music works for me. Get some club music on your ipod that makes you want to dance and then channel it.

These are the only things that work for me on the elliptical- when I tried watching tv it took too much concentration away from my workout and my intensity was nil. Doing it with no audio was not an option.

Right now I leave for work at 6:30/7 and get home at 10, so working out isn't really in the cards (I try for an active lunch hour and walk about a mile or two to the train station instead of getting on outside of my office to compensate), but those are things that have saved me in the past.

Oh, I can't workout unless I have my iPod. But after about 10 or 15 min., I feel like I have to do something else. I even made the first 30 min. on my workout playlists reggae/dancehall so I can get my groove on while doing the treadmill but it didn't work.

Try a book- it keeps your focus.

I haven't made it anywhere yet (thought it was going to happen in June), but I am leaving the third weekend in August open. I am not brooking any interruptions or obligations and it's going to be an "all about me" weekend!

Ok, so why am I HOOKED to SP!! Yes, I'm hooked!! LOL
This weekend I'ma jazz up my page and really find out what the site can do!
Thanks again ladies for the information!



ETA: How come SP has better smilies that GC *insert smirk here*

Anyone tried ALLI?

Beware of ALLI
 

I actually have a good friend that tried it. She lost some weight BUT the side effects are REAL! :eek: Have you already read up on them?

I read about that...yeah, gross.

Soooo not worth it! Good old diet and exercise will usually do it. (Though I haven't been but need to do BOTH)

I will continue my dangerous cycle of yo-yo dieting with diet pills and starvation very soon (again). :(

Well as long as you understand the damage you are doing to your body and the fact that at the end of the day near-starvation diets cause you to gain MORE weight, I don't know what to tell you.

I used ephedra in the past, but it was a tool that I used to spur my activity- it helped me work out harder and helped me control my appetite, so I could ease into lifestyle changes that made dropping weight fairly quickly but at a healthy rate a possibility.

What you describe there is just...indefensible to me. The science has proven that it makes you FATTER in the long run, and while you're doing that you can't possibly feel good about yourself and your actions.

You know better.

ETA: I don't mean to sound harsh here, but growing up at an all girls school I saw a lot of eating disorders and body dysmorphia (sp) so I am sensitive to those issues. It's like a whole generation of American women are being taught to punish their bodies into conforming to some physical ideal. I find it disheartening to observe it increasingly in women of color. We have enough to challenge us already, and so many things society tells us to hate about ourselves.

Weighted vest . . . its actually one of the easiest ways to seriously increase activity levels.

My discovery
 

I am fully a gym elitist.

I went to a new gym last night and I think it is love, love, love.

www.equinoxfitness.com

This place is in my work building and costs 50% more than Crunch, but it is GORGEOUS- the facility is impeccably clean, everything is new and up to date and BEST of all- no insane crowds. Plus it is right downstairs, so I can take lunch classes or go there right after work with no commute. No excuses.

I realise that the time when I loved Crunch was when it was an exclusive thing- like working out at that gym was seen as fairly cool. Ditto for NYSC. As their exclusivity (percieved or real) has waned, so has my interest in their facilities. I dunno if this is because of my snobbery, lol, or because of the ridiculous crowding in those gyms, but it's not fun any more.

It's true. I'm a gym snob.

This statement hurts my heart..only because with all the information out there..there is no way you should even think this was a healthy thing to do. I hope you are able to get through this mindset/thinking and realize that at the end...you are only hurting yourself/body!

I to love spinning. I took my first spin class it will be 5 weeks ago tomorrow, and after the first class yup the booty was a little soar, so yup I got a gel seat, and one week I forgot it, but it was all to the good, because yup I learned to balance the weight. I don't know once I get on the treadmill, or sttionary bike or ellipitical and have my iPod on the time just goes. The spinning instructor even makes that 45 mins go by like a snap.