This is an awesome week: to my American friends, Happy Independence Day this week to you and to my fellow Canadians, I hope you have a fabulous Canada Day July 1st. I feel so fortunate that I live in Canada and have opportunity to travel a great deal in the USA, sort of my second home. 
I know that Canadians have a long weekend and July 4th is a big day of celebration too. Let me tell you, that there’s NO shortage of reasons to ‘celebrate’ and fall off the fitness wagon. I hear it all: it’s the 4th of July, it’s BBQ season this summer, I like comfort foods in the winter, it’s Christmas, it’s my summer vacation, it’s my birthday, it’s my anniversary, I’m celebrating my new job, I’m emotional eating cuz I had a bad day…on and on.
There’s always a reason to use food as a reward or as a comfort. I always tried to never use food as a reward with myself or my children. Food is tied in so tightly with culture and celebrations though, that it’s really tough. The best we can do, is be aware of our eating habits and make as good a choices as we can. I’m not saying we should never celebrate, I’m only suggesting that we celebrate in ways that don’t CENTER around food.
How about activity? How about a beach volleyball game today? A hike? A bike ride? In most places in the world, the weather is decent enough to get outdoors and enjoy some thing fun. At the very least, take a 20 minute ‘break’ to get your sweat on…lately I’ve been running hills once or twice a week. Sev (my new rescue dog) makes things exciting as he chases me or I chase him up and down the hill. Here’s a little video of how I tackle the hill close to my house for a great, quick outdoor workout:
Sometimes you just want to lift heavy. If that’s the case, here’s a FUN one. Use as heavy a DB as possible for the weighted movements, ensuring that you have good form.
5 rounds of 40 seconds work with a 8 second transition
- Burpee pull ups (OR do a set of burpees followed by a set of band assisted pull ups or other pull up alternative)
- Renegade rows (with push up optional)
- Front DB 1.5 squat
- Alternate single leg RDL recovery
For more fun and challenging fat loss workouts that you can do in under 20 minutes, head to ChallengeFatLoss.com
Check out the video:
I hope you have a wonderful 4th of July and I hope my Canadian friends can find 20 minutes today to do either the outdoor hill workout or the indoor ‘Hot n Heavy’ workout. If you like jumping rope, stay tuned! I have some fun stuff coming up. In the meantime, you’ll want to grab Challenge Fat Loss since it’s jammed packed with these short, intense M2A workouts that literally melt fat off your body.
All you need to do is invest 20 minutes or less, some sweat and follow up with reasonable healthy eating.