Posts from — August 2009

• Beginners are welcome (and by beginners I mean people like myself who have never even strapped on a pair of boxing gloves in their lives)

• All the equipment you need is provided (gloves, etc.)- That said I would highly recommend buying your own pair of hand wraps.

• If you have never wrapped your hands before ask for some help – trust me you don’t want to not have your hands protected properly

• The 1hour and 15 minute boxing class is an intense workout which will leave you dripping with sweat

• The class includes a lot of skipping rope intervals which may be painful but are definitely a good cardio workout

• Arm and leg strengthening exercises are included in this workout

• You will get to do some bagwork which is great for working out some frustrations

• The classes I have taken have great music

• To get the full Center Ring experience take a class with the owner, Wayne Bourque, who is a former Canadian champion

• It truly is an all round good workout

Boxing classes are offered daily at Centre Ring throughout the week, so check out their website for more details. Cost is around $20 for the class and you go drop-in. I have taken a number of Saturday classes there and each time I go I wish I went more often. Would probably help me get rid of some frustrations!

Free stuff!

Today was my lucky today as I received a special care package from Nike (I’m coaching a 10 km running clinic and its goal race is the 2009 Nike Human Race) . Got some lunar glides, a Sportsband and an outfit. Looking forward to trying out the Nike Sportsband on upcoming runs. Will keep you posted with how it keeps track of my runs. 

Thank you Nike!

Thanks to Booty Camp Fitness I found out about Oh She Glows which is a great blog about one woman’s quest to open up a healthy bakery, as well as her quest for a healthy lifestyle. I particularly like her latest entry, My Fitness Bucket List. It definitely got me thinking about what I’d like to achieve before saying good-bye.

Run Eat Read is a fantastic combination of the author’s running tales, eats and reading picks. Love it and definitely want to make the breakfast pizza she recently wrote about.

The Little Honey Bee is full of some great tips and advice.

And although not technically, a local blog I have to say I am hearting Cranky Fitness these days…maybe because I’ve been a bit cranky myself this week?

Tonight after work I’m going to the Running Room to first take my lovely ladies out on a 4km training ran and after that run do 6/7 hill repeats of my own. As much as I love running and working out there are most definitely times when I wish I could skip the workout and try out things such as the Gladstone Hotel’s Harvest Wednesdays. This totally appeals to my try to eat local as much as possible self (mostly happens on weekends and dinners).

Now in its 4^th year Harvest Wednesday is a chance for Torontonians to sample fresh and local produce. Each week is a different menu and I for one will definitely be skipping a Wednesday run to sample this prior to it ending in mid-October.

Mmm, maybe this would be a good post-workout meal?

Flickr: clevercupcakes

In the last 10 years of my life I have spent at least 5 hours per week working out. By my calculations that puts me at 2,600 hours of aerobics classes, boot camps, running, yoga, spinning and many more activities which would be too painful to list.

After reading the recent Time magazine article “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” I was at first slightly peeved and not for the reason that you may think. You see this article which spread like social media wildfire wasn’t exactly news to me. I had realized a long time ago that exercise alone was not going to make me lose weight.

Why won’t exercise alone make you lose weight?

While I did find the article not to be particularly newsworthy I did enjoy the writing and found myself chuckling throughout especially when the author wrote:

“The basic problem is that while it’s true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger.”

Bingo – The author hit the nail on the head here.

Last year while training for my first marathon I must admit that I thought one of the side effects of the training was going to be weight loss. I was wrong – I was coming home after training runs and stuffing my face with pasta, salt and vinegar chips and anything else I could get my hands on. I thought that the burned calories during training would counteract all the calories I was putting into my body. Wrong again. By the end of the program I had gained weight. That said I was one happy marathoner.

What have I learned?

I think the biggest thing I have learned over the years is that it is a combination of good nutrition and exercise that will make you a happy and healthy person. I believe we should NOT be striving to be ‘thin’ but rather healthy individuals.

Finally, the big question – Why do I exercise?

Simply put because I enjoy it. Life’s to short to do things you don’t love.