crazy hat lady

lulu's lace dress, forever 21 hat, forever 21 floral platform shoes

Rest of the outfit shots from yesterday. Aren't these shoes so over-the-top? I feel like either you hate them or love them, no in between. I was so sad when these sold out in black and black polka dots a while back that when I saw them in floral on the site, I bought them immediately.
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A few of you asked for my workout routine. Note that I was born to have lots of muscle and body fat, and not born with thin-as-a-rail genes. WARNING: if you're looking for something amazing or intense, you'll be disappointed! This is one that everyone can fit into their busy schedules. I'm not a huge expert on health and fitness but over the years of trying to maintain a decently toned body without much free time led me to this routine of eating/exercising. I'm slightly more knowledgeable in eating right than exercising since this is where my degree in biochemistry helps me in discerning dieting myths versus dieting truths. I'm a bit embarrassed to share this much about my personal health routine on the internet but here it goes...
- do some cardio in small installments of 2-5 minutes at least 3x throughout the day. Morning right after you wake up should be one of these times to kickstart your metabolism. Since working out for even 2 minutes raises your metabolism for up to 3-4 hrs afterwards, doing them in small installments throughout the day keeps your heart pumping and your metabolism high. Buy a jump rope or do jumping jacks if you don't have a home/apartment gym.
-I personally do elliptical machine for my short intervals of cardio because it has lower impact on my joints as opposed to treadmill and I can add a lot of resistance.
- At least 3x a week, do longer periods of cardio for over 15 minutes. I usually do swimming, elliptical, jogging (when I'm out at Tim's place and there's no machines), and I try to go out dancing as much as I can
- I shoot for doing some sort of strength training (lifting light weights for 8-15 repetitions) almost every single day. I don't have much time to do more than 1-2 sets of these exercises, but each for each body region (arm/shoulder/chest, legs/butt, abs) I do at least 4 different strengthening exercises.
-I stretch religiously after working out, I do it briefly at least once a day but I do thorough stretching at least 3x a week as this is just as important to maintaining a healthy body as exercising and eating right. Stretching lengthens the muscles and not only prevents exercise injuries but helps building long, lean muscles as opposed to bulky muscles. I've done so many different forms of dancing over the years and therefore have learned a variety of stretches.
- I eat...all the time (1500-2200 calories a day, depending on if I want to lose or maintain weight and if I worked out much that day). I don't believe in crash dieting, as in dipping below 1000 calories a day. The human body is a remarkably adaptable machine, if it gets used to 1000 cals a day it will lower the metabolism (ie. use fuel more efficiently) and reset your basal metabolism to a lower caloric requirement. Therefore fasting, the 600-cal master cleanse and all that stuff, is good for losing a lot of weight fast but more likely than not, you'll gain it back plus have trouble keeping additional fat from piling on.
-What do I snack on in between meals? I make a "trail mix" of plain cheerios (good source of soluble and nonsoluble fiber), nuts (currently almonds, cashews, walnuts) that are unsalted and with no additional oils added, and dried fruits (currently cranberries). I always try to eat a snack that has healthy fats, proteins, and complex carbohydrates in it. Plus, I love eating everything in this mix (especially cashews!) so it works for me.
-Ideally, I eat a lot more from morning to about mid-afternoon, and then taper off the eating all the way until dinner time, then nothing else before bedtime. Obviously there are some instances of midnight donut runs or a slice of pizza over at Death Metal Pizza on 6th, but it's about overall eating/exercising habits.
-I make sure to eat something substantial within one hour of waking up so my body doesn't think I'm being starved and enter into starvation preparation mode. Eating regularly assures your body that it can lose all of the fat because hard times are not going to come by, whereas extreme dieting warns your body to hold on to every last bit of fat/energy storage it can find.
-I take 5 dietary supplements every day: multivitamin, 2-4 fiber tablets, 2 Tums (calcium supplement w/o additional vitamin D, since vitamin D is fat-soluble and thus taking above the amount supplied via multivitamin is detrimental to your health), 1000 mg vitamin C, and fish oil. Vitamin C and fish oil prevents increase in cortasol that keeps your body from losing fat around your belly during times of stress. Since exercising, dieting and everyday life is very stressful, taking these two ensures exercising has its full benefits. Calcium deficiency also prevents working out from actually having its full impact; a study showed that those who took a calcium supplement lost twice as much weight as the control group when both groups did the same exercises. It has to do with a lot of factors (I'm thinking it's mostly because of C-troponin that controls skeletal muscle movements and is activated by the presence of calcium, but calcium does so much in your body it's hard for me to know).
-other metabolism boosters: drinking tea (especially green tea), eating spicy foods (capsaicin increases metabolism), drinking ice cold water/tea/fluids (burns about 10-25 calories for body to heat up ice water to body temperature), eating grapefruits, sitting up/standing up straight, getting at least 7 hours of sleep every night.
In conclusion, I don't really exercise THAT much (from a lazy 10 minutes one day to a lengthy 1.5 hr including stretching the next) but it's all about doing at least something for 5 minutes every day. If you can't make it to the gym, do some crunches or pushups and a few jumping jacks here and there. Run up and down the stairs a few times, etc. Also, eating right for me isn't really about day to day, but more on an overall weekly basis how many calories (and what quality of calories) did I intake. I loooove eating out but I usually counter mall Chinese food with a workout session.
Anyone have any other helpful advice for losing fat (notice how I said "fat" not "weight"!) and toning up, please share in the comments section.

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