Friday, January 7, 2011

Fit Bottomed Girls: Focus Your Fit Intentions with a Vision Board

Repost from Fit Bottomed Girls
By Linda LaRue, RN MEd, ATC

Today’s post at Fit Bottomed Girls is written by core performance guru, Linda LaRue. Linda is the creator of Crunchless Abs and the new, constant resistance, 3-dimensional workout, The CORE TRANSFORMER, which burns nearly 1,000 calories per hour.

Recently, I had dinner with one of my BFFs Stacy Small. We were both yapping about the recession, how it’s been affecting our businesses, and what we’ve been doing to market ourselves. Stacy mentioned that every December for the past few years, she’s been making a vision board. She said her vision board really helped her define, focus and successfully achieve her goals. (You know even Oprah makes a vision board?) I like the dream-board concept because you have words and pictures, thereby creating more sensory stimulation and focused visualization.

A vision board is a collage of images, pictures, and written affirmations of the intentions and desires you wish to achieve. It helps you through visualization, thus activating the Universal Law of Attraction, or “likes attract like.” This means that the more you focus and think about something, the more likely it is to materialize and happen in your life. While mine has focused on business goals in the past, just think of what they can do for your personal, health and weight-loss goals. The sky is the limit!

How to Make Your Healthy Vision Board

1. Hone in on your goals.
Take a couple days to percolate and meditate in a quiet place about what personal and professional goals you’d like to manifest and successfully achieve in the New Year. I usually choose no more than three to four as this keeps me focused and not overwhelmed. Before I go to bed at night, I also ask myself what are my goals?

2. Gather your supplies. After you are clear about your goals, you’ll need a few things, including a poster board, a glue stick, pictures from old magazines (use your old ones, get them from friends, hair salons and doctor’s offices), photographs and/or printed from the internet.

3. Find what speaks to you. Go through the images and begin to cut out photos, words and phrases that intuitively resonate with you and your new goals. Then, lay them out on the board—but do not glue them yet. Leave a space in the middle to place a favorite photo of yourself. (If you have gained weight, and one of your goals is weight-loss, post a photo of yourself when you were at your ideal, comfortable weight.)

4. Be specific. Try to be specific about the photos and words you select. For example, if you want to make more money in your job, use green dollar signs around your job picture. If you want a new car, place a photo of the car in the color you want. If you want to complete a race, find pictures of that specific race.

5. Get to gluing! When you feel comfortable with the photos and words, glue them to your board. Almost done!

6. Look at it daily. Hang your new dream board in a place where you can see it often. You don’t have to stare at it every day by any means, but at least glance at it one or two times a day so that your goals are always top-of-mind!

I hope you have fun while getting clear about your intentions and goals this year—especially losing weight and getting fit! —Linda LaRue

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Top 10 Hardest Workout DVDs by Fit Bottomed Girls: CORE TRANSFORMER


By Jennifer Walters Fit Bottomed Girls article reprint from Opposing Views

So you say you want a workout challenge, eh? Well, we have 10 of them—our top 10 list of the hardest workout DVDs we’ve ever reviewed. Hold on to your fit butts—it’s about to get crazy hawd in here!

1. Jillian Michaels’ No More Trouble Zones: Jillian always brings the good pain. And this workout DVD gives you a mix of strength and cardio that is uber challenging!

2. Bob Harper Inside Out Method: Bob’s Workout: Oh, Bob, how we love yet hate thee, let us count the workout ways. Even after doing this strength-cardio workout DVD regularly for three months, it still kicks my ass.

3. Personal Training with Jackie: Crunch-Free Xtreme Abs: There’s only one word to describe this crunchless abs DVD: Ouch! And, of course, that’s in a good way. With two quick workouts, your abs will definitely feel the burn and the soreness. Oh, the soreness!

4. Exhale Core Fusion Body Sculpt: This Pilates- and dance-based workout DVD is no joke. You may not think it’s that hard with all the stretching and breaks, but trust us. It’ll work you in new fabulously challenging ways.

5. Mindy Mylrea’s Action Packed/Interval Express: Mindy Mylrea is a total bad ass. While you can’t really go wrong with any of her workout DVDs, we found this interval workout DVD to be particularly awe-inspiring (just how does she do it?) and something to aspire to.

6. Fitness by Cathe: Cardio+Weights 4-Day Split: Right up there with Mindy Mylrea in crazy-fit instructor-dom is Cathe Friedrick. With endless variety, this heavy strength DVD challenges and then some.

7. Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred: Jillian makes the list again! We just couldn’t leave this hard-workout DVD standby off the list. With three 25-minute workouts that progress in intensity (read: darn near impossibleness), it’s an oldie but a goodie!

8. The CORE TRANSFORMER: Say goodbye to crunches and hello to full-body three-dimensional core training with this incredibly intense workout DVD that runs you through sports-specific moves and tons of plyometrics!

9. Pure Barre Pershing Square: If you’ve ever wanted the body of a ballerina, now is your chance with this Barre DVD. But let us warn you, getting there is hard, hard, hard! Expect your legs to feel like they’ll fall off. Fun, fun!

10. Jari Love: Get Ripped 1,000: While we’re still not convinced that this hour-long workout DVD will burn 1,000 calories for most women, we still think it’s awesome. And its advanced strength and cardio moves are enough to get the sweat pouring!

Have a workout that kicks your arse? Tell us about it in the comments! And be sure to also check out our top 10 favorite intermediate fitness and beginner workout DVDs! —Jenn