Yoga, Salad, and Cardio, Oh My!

I'm not a perfect yogi, and I don't look all that graceful doing even the most basic of poses, but I like yoga. It makes my muscles feel good and it clears and calms my mind while I do it. Time always seems to pass quickly during yoga when you're meditatively flowing in and out of poses; you're just focusing so much on your movements, there isn't room for any other mental clutter. 

​Try this routine with me to see what I mean. It's just under 30 minutes long.

You hear audio cameos from both my mother and my cat in this one. Totally intended. 

You've got to see how incredible my dinner was last night. Totally unexpectedly delicious. And I have another 5 minute workout for you...

This was kale, romaine, cherry tomatoes, avocado, sunflower seeds, gardein chickn, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I usually eat this without the gardein, but with was next level. Will definitely be having this one again and again. Totally wowed me. The trick with kale is to massage it with lemon juice (just for a minute or 2) until it wilts and shrinks down in size a bit; this makes it much more palatable if you have trouble with its somewhat bitter taste.

Kale is one of the most nutritious vegetables, it's even a great source of calcium, which is incredibly important for all of us to eat enough of daily. We stop building up our body stores of calcium at age 30, so after that, if you still don't eat enough, you begin to leech the calcium from your bones for essential body processes. Once this happens, any calcium you ingest cannot be put back into your body's storage, what you lost is lost forever. To ensure you don't lose any more, you need to eat enough each day for your body to use so you don't have to pull any calcium out of your bones. If you eat enough, your body will just use what you eat to do what it needs to, and (before age 30) will store the excess. 

Why does calcium matter? It's used in an abundance of cellular reactions and is important for muscular contractions. Its most notable function of course is keeping our bones strong, which is pretty important considering they are the structural support for our bodies. To make sure you absorb as much of the calcium you eat (and drink) as possible you need to make sure you're getting enough Vitamin D as well. So play in the sun for 15 minutes a day a few times a week. If you live a bit further north like me and the sun isn't always strong enough to provide the necessary Vitamin D, you may want to eat fortified foods (foods that Vitamin D has been added to) or maybe even supplement, but don't do that unless your doctor says it's ok or necessary. 
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You definitely need some calcium to get your body moving for this workout.
​5 minutes of cardio:
10 jump squats
5 pushups
10 jump lunges
5 burpees

I did nearly 4 rounds in the 5 minutes. Try to keep up with me and let me know how you did. I thought we should start the week off right with some good, energizing cardio. Definitely helped get me going this morning. Try it with me and see if it doesn't perk you up too.