Day 2 of the Pre-Christmas Challenge

Did you join me in starting a pre-Christmas challenge? What did you decide to do?

Recall that my goals were:

1) Start the day off with raw food (trying to have nothing but raw all morning).
2) Do some exercises for my ITBS issues/tone my glutes.
3) Maintain the yoga habit I already have

How'd I do for day 1?

*I drank green smoothie--orange juice, water, banana, baby spinach and frozen blueberries--all morning, so that goal was achieved!

*I did some searching for ITBS exercises. Some people swear by them, others don't. I eventually just picked a routine I found in an October 2011 issue of Fitness magazine. There is an online version here: http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/workout/butt/exercises/butt-shaping-exercises/ 

Because my glutes are so out of shape, I did only one set of each exercise and only 10 reps per set. I know my glutes are going to feel it!

*Followed up with some yoga.

Friday's fitness and food goals achieved! That is not to say that I ate super well later on... I'll have to be careful or I'll sabotage the good I do in the morning. At the same time, I know from past experience that once I get into a habit of morning being pretty much only raw, I turn to the crud less. In any case, it was very easy to achieve. Perhaps too easy, but if I can stick with this easy stuff, it's still a step better than what I've been doing for ages.

One thing I did look up was Egoscue itbs and Pilates itbs. Both methods can apparently help with ITBS. Egoscue is usually best done first thing in the morning. I'm thinking I might use my Pilates book and start doing that, especially the legs sequence, before yoga. If I do a Pilates sequence would then not be getting just a legs/butt routine, but a whole body workout. Sounds good to me! Of course, I can mix it up between the Pilates and the Egoscue and the butt-shaping exercises above.

Now onto:

It's Saturday today, which means, for me, there's no real routine. Every Saturday is different for some reason. I have NaNoWriMo to fit in today, I have to go to the library, stop at the grocery store, avoid all the other stores during the newly founded Canadian "Black Friday weekend sales", get laundry done, all the usual. We have a family birthday party tonight, which means we likely won't be home until late. Fitting in 5-10 minutes of yoga before jumping in bed is doable; adding on actual exercise might not be. I think I need to consider doing Pilates or the sequence shared above during the day rather than in the evening, at least for today. Of course, I also need to make sure to get as much raw as I can this morning!

But right now, I'm going to indulge in a little me-time and play Sims 3. :)

Btw, it's never too late to join me! Why don't you set yourself a pre-Christmas goal and share?