Easy Healthy Snacks

If you're out and about all day you're going to get hungry . Here are a few quick and healthy snacks you can pack to avoid attacking the vending machine or the Starbucks pastry window:) To keep hunger at bay, make sure you eat something with lean protein and healthy fat.

• All natural sugar free individually packaged applesauce.
• Healthy nuts like almonds or walnuts.
• If you have access to a fridge, fat free yogurts are great and so is low fat cheese.
• Carrots or other cut fruits and veggies

How To: Build a Living Room Gym!

In college you're short on cash and short on space, but that doesn't mean you have to skimp on a home gym. All you need to get a great workout at home is a little space and a few inexpensive pieces of fitness equipment. Home gyms are great since they are cheaper than paying gym dues every month and you can save time by just walking to your living room to work out.
Here's what you need:

• Three sets of dumbbells ( light, medium, heavy)
• exercise or yoga mat
• resistance bands
• stability ball

Extra credit

• BOSU ball
• exercise videos
• medicine ball

Cardio Calories

How many calories are you actually burning on those cardio machines in the gym? Can you be sure that when you get off the elliptical machine you can feel elated that you burned off last night's cheeseburger and fries? Well unless you enter in your own age, gender and body weight into your machine your calorie count will automatically be based on a 150 pound man. All you 150 pound men can rest easy (I have a feeling to weigh 150 most of you are still in high school), but unfortunately for everyone else you've probably been over estimating you calorie burn, bummer I know. So make sure you enter in your real weight and age when you get on the cardio machines then you can know last night's cheat meal is no big deal!

But won't I look like a female wrestler?

3 Myths about lifting weights, BUSTED! (My own nod to Adam and Jamie from the fascinating "did they really just recreate the Hindenburg" show Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel )

Myth #1: Lifting weights makes you look like the Hulk, minus the green skin and unfortunate cutoff purple shorts. BUSTED! Unless you do steroids (a la ARod and Barry "my head was always 36 inches around" Bonds) you will not bulk up. Lifting weights makes your muscles stronger but you have to take supplements and do very specific workouts to add bulk.

Myth #2: Cardio is the best way to lose weight. BUSTED! While cardio is an essential part of a well rounded workout plan, combining cardio and weights is the best way to lose weight. Lifting weights increases your muscle mass and muscles burn more calories at rest than fat. Thus, (I love this part!) if you have more muscle mass you burn more calories just hanging out watching TV:)

Myth #3: Lifting weights doesn't burn that many calories. I'm not getting that much out of my gym time if I just lift weights. BUSTED! Lifting weights has the great benefit of a high after burn. After burn is the calories you burn after you are done working out. If you lift weights for an hour, you will burn an extra 100 calories or so over the next 24 hours. That means three weightlifting sessions in a week equals 300 extra calories which is about what you would burn running three miles!

Try This: Running Stairs

Want to burn extra calories and add some awesome butt and thigh work to your workout? Try running some stairs. Make sure that you find long rows of stairs to get the most out of the workout. You can sprint up the stairs, run every other, hop with both feet and run sideways. Mix it up and that lower body will be feeling it the next day!

Workout of the Day! INTERVALS!!

This workout can be done outside either running or walking, or on any cardio equipment in the gym or in your living room with a jump rope. (OK, so jump roping realistically depends on whether or not you have downstairs neighbors and substantial floors. My upstairs neighbors seem to pour large amounts of water and drop bowling balls at 11pm every night. It is very very strange and no one wants their downstairs neighbors wondering why there is thumping upstairs for half an hour:)

All right intervals are awesome! They are calorie blasters and you get more done is less time! Here's the workout.

• 33 minute total workout
• 10 minute warmup
• 1 minute hard followed by 2 minutes easy recovery (repeat 6x)
• 5 minute cool down

Got a Cold? When to start working out again.

I've had a cold for what feels like an eternity which means I haven't worked out in weeks. I'm finally feeling better and it got me thinking, what is the best way to get back into a workout routine after being sick. Once you get sick and you take a few days off, it's easy to fall off the exercise bandwagon especially if you just started working out. Here is how I get started again after being sick.

1. First, I always take time off when I'm sick. My body is working hard to get better so a run might just increase the duration of my cold.


2. Once I feel better, I don't do any exercise for the first day or two.


3. Then for the first week, I cut the duration, intensity and number of workouts that I would do in a week in half. So if I workout for an average of 45 minutes six days a week, I only workout three days for about 20-30 minutes at lower intensity.


4. I find this way I can start working out again and I don't have a cold relapse.

Workout of the Day!

Get MORE Results in LESS Time

Who wants to spend forever in the gym? I'm really into fitness and I'm not a fan of spending more than about an hour in the gym. That is why I'm a huge fan of any workout that gives me more results in less time. One of those workouts is circuit training. Circuit training is when you perform exercises back to back without resting between the exercises and there are also lots of different kinds of circuits but one of my favorites combines both cardio and weights.

1. Cardio 10 minutes: (include 5 min warmup)
2. Weights 10 minutes: repeat 15-20 reps of squats, pushups, shoulder presses, lunges, dips for the full 10 minutes, move from exercise to exercise without resting
3. Cardio 10 minutes
4. Weights 10 minutes: repeat #2 above
5. Cardio 10 minutes
6. 5 minutes of Abs: Crunches, 20 reps of bicycles, basic crunches, reverse crunches followed by one minute of plank
7. YOU'RE DONE!!!

Dorm Room Workout Series

The Wonderful World of Bands!

Check out a cheap and easy way to get a great workout in your living room!

iPod Playlist

In my opinion, great music is an ESSENTIAL part of a workout. In fact, it's actually been proven that you burn more calories when you workout with music. So here are a few songs that are currently on my workout playlist. So head to itunes and improve your workout while you stimulate the ecomony!

1. Shatterd Glass-Britney Spears


2. We Are Alive-Paul Van Dyk


3. Fix Me-Velvet


4. He's a Pirate (Pete n' Red's Jolly Roger Trance Remix)- Klaus Badelt, Redtop & Sneaky Pete Pirates Remixed - EP Dance


5. Disturbia-Rhianna


6. Walking in Memphis-Master Blaster


7. Breathe Me (Mylo Remix)-Sia