Health and Fitness: Upper Body Exercises

Happy Monday! It's time for another Health and Fitness post!

We all know that no matter what kind of wedding dress you have, your arms are usually going to be the most exposed part of your body. It's important to make sure you're exercising your upper body so you can have gorgeous and toned arms in your gorgeous wedding dress!

Angie Schumacher has recorded another series of exercises! These exercises are focused on the upper body, involving the arms, shoulders, as well as the back. All of these are important areas to focus on for your wedding dress physique!




Good luck and have a great time exercising!

Health and Fitness: No Crunch Ab Workouts

A Health and Fitness post to start your week off with some motivation!

Just wanted to share these ab exercises to try! I'm always getting bored with the same old ab routines- sometimes I just stop doing abs all together (which we know doesn't give the best results!).

Three of these do need a stability ball or a medicine ball, but one doesn't require any extra equipment. They can easily be done at a gym, or at home if you have the equipment.

Let me know how they work for you!


*Via Fat Burning Tips 4 Women

Health and Fitness: Need to Start a Program?

I try to do a health and fitness post at the beginning of the week to get myself and readers motivated for the week!

Here are some tips from WeightLadder on how to get started with a new fitness program. These tips could apply to just general life goals, not just health/fitness goals!


1. Write your goals out. If you're trying to lose some inches before looking for wedding dresses, give yourself a goal. It's recommended to be SMART about the goal. Be SPECIFIC, rather than broad. Have a MEASURABLE goal instead of something open ended. Make sure it is ACTION-based. Having something that is REALISTIC makes it more attainable than a dream. Be sure the goal is TIME ORIENTED so you get it done in a specific amount of time.

2. Ask Questions. Take a look at your lifestyle and figure out what problems may arise that would prevent you from reaching your goal. Determine what needs to be worked around and what can be eliminated all together.

3. Develop a Plan. Have a plan for how you will attain the goal. This could involve having a schedule for going to gym, or having a grocery list filled with healthy items for the week. Know what you are going to be doing before you start on achieving your goal, or else you will get lost along the way.

4. Commit to a Journal. This may or may not work for everyone. It depends on the type of person you are. A good resource would be a food diary. There are some good ones online, some are free and some you have to pay a monthly fee to use. There are even programs that you can get for your phone that will tell you the nutritional information of foods. If you want, you can also keep a written journal of your progress, how you feel, and what you do to take steps towards your goal. It's completely up to you. Basically, just try to stay accountable.

5. Begin Your Goal Now. Start trying to achieve your goal now! No more "Oh well I'll start tomorrow," or "I'll start after this party this weekend." Make the decision and start right away!


I hope these tips will inspire you to get started towards whatever goal it may be that you've chosen! Thanks to Weight Ladder for these tips!

Health and Fitness: At Home Cardio Workout

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I've decided to start off the week with a Health and Fitness Tip! We all know that sometimes we feel guilty after the weekend because we had that appetizer at dinner or the extra drink at a party.

As I said last week, part of my issue with exercising while planning a wedding was finding the time to actually leave my house and get to the gym. And for me, in Florida, the heat is also an excuse for not going outside to walk or run. For those of you who are the same way, I found this great workout from Angie Schumacher that can easily be done at home. All you need is a timer!

Watch the"Burn Fat Without a Machine" video so you know what exercises to do, grab a timer, and find a space to do your workout in! The intervals of different exercises are designed to keep your heart rate up, which is the key to cardio exercise. I tried a couple of the exercises for a few minutes, and my heart was pumping!



Have fun and have a great workout!

For more fitness tips and workouts from Angie, you can go to her blog, Fat Burning Tips 4 Women.

Health & Fitness

In addition to loving weddings and design, I also love working out. I've always tried to stay in shape...not saying that I'm in the "ideal" shape that I'd like to be, but I try. However, sometimes I get out of my routine and have to force myself back into it. That's what happened around the time I got engaged.

A very commonly held belief is that a bride must lose weight before her wedding. Yes, she wants to look smashing in her beautiful wedding dress. At the same time, you don't want to look back at your pictures a few months after the wedding and say, "Gee, I was really skinny then!"
For me, that was exactly the case. I'm very much a picture keepsake person, and I didn't want to look back on photos and wish I could turn back time to be in the same shape that I was on my wedding day.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I was "out of sync" with my workout routine. So, one year and 5 months before my wedding, I started a Fitness Bootcamp. I was determined to get back into what is "normal shape" for me, and I figured if I was paying big bucks for the Bootcamp, I would most definitely force myself to go.


Bootcamp was one of the best things I've ever done. I made friends and found a sort of family and support group in the attendees. There were drawbacks of course, such as the class beginning at 5:30AM, skinned knees, cramps, and of course sore muscles. But the trainers kicked my butt back into shape in a mere 12 weeks. With sessions consisting of runs, ab workouts, sprints, weight training, pushups and kickboxing, I was back to "normal".
I continued doing the Bootcamp for approximately one year. I wish I could have continued going, but I started a new job that required me to be there at 6:30AM, so my morning workouts hit the wayside.
You can find a Bootcamp in your area here!

It was then that I encountered another fitness obstacle. TIME. I couldn't continue exercising in the mornings, and by the time I got home after my 10 hour work day, I was exhausted and it was time to fix dinner! I tried to go to the gym at night, after dinner, and I was getting home way too late for my 11PM bedtime. So I nixed that option.
The wedding was fast approaching, and I started trying all sorts of diets. It didn't help anything that I have always eaten fairly healthy (protein and veggies), so the normal diets of cutting the carbs didn't help me out.

• I took diet pills for about a month. Didn't work.
  
• I tried to eat PROTEIN ONLY for a week (no vegetables, no fruits, only protein). I only lasted 3 days.
• I drank protein shakes for breakfast and lunch as meal replacements. That lasted until one week before the wedding, when I ran out of the mix

Now, I was indeed exercising during this time. I was running just about every afternoon, taking my dog along for her exercise too. Thankfully, it was still decent weather in Florida and I could still breathe when outside (unlike now). I think running regularly combined with dieting helped me be in decent shape for my wedding. And thankfully, I don't look at the pictures now and wish I was as thin as I was then. (But the All Inclusive Honeymoon did put me back where I was 5 months ago! Watch out for those!)

So, on that note, I am going to also be posting "Health and Fitness" tips, articles, and links to help all of you readers, as well as myself, look your best and stay that way! I'm very much a proponent of exercising and eating healthy, but I also believe in enjoying yourself and not overdoing anything. So be on the lookout for the "Health and Fitness" posts every week!

If there are any health and fitness topics that you have questions about or would like me to look into, let me know!